She stepped back, her heart pounding in fear. Grief welled up so sharply for a moment that she couldn’t breathe. Peter. Her first human friend in her entire twenty-three years. Dead because of her.

She regarded the gaunt stranger who had killed him.

Peter’s blood smeared his face and teeth. Obscenely, his tongue came out and licked at the red stains on his lips. His eyes burned at her, taunted her. “I found you first. I knew I would.”

“Why did you kill him?” There was horror in her voice.

He laughed, launched himself into the air, and landed a few feet from her. “You should try it sometime; all that fear floods the bloodstream with adrenaline. There’s nothing like it. I like them looking at me, knowing it’s coming.”

“What do you want?” She never took her eyes or her mind from him, her body remaining still and ready, perfectly balanced.

“I will be your husband. Your lifemate.” There was a threat in his voice. “Your father, the great Mikhail Dubrinsky, will just have to take back the death sentence he pronounced on me. The long arm of his justice doesn’t quite reach San Francisco, does it?”

She tilted her chin. “And if I say no?”

“Then I take you the hard way. It might be fun—a change from all those simpering human women, puppets begging to please me.”

His depravity sickened her. “They don’t beg you. You take their free will. It’s the only way you could have a woman.” She put all the loathing and contempt she was capable of into her voice.

The ugly smile faded from his hollow features, leaving him an ugly caricature of a man, a creature from the very bowels of hell. His breath escaped in a long hiss. “You will pay for that disrespect.” He lunged toward her.

A dark shadow moved out of the night, muscles rippling like steel beneath an elegant silk shirt. The shadow glided in front of Savannah like a shield, forcing her behind him. One large hand brushed her face where her assailant had struck her. The touch was brief yet incredibly tender, and the momentary contact seemed to take the pain with it as the newcomer’s fingers slipped away from her skin. His pale, silvery eyes then slashed at the skeletal creature.

“Good evening, Roberto. I see you have dined well.” The voice was pleasant, cultured, soothing, even hypnotic.

Savannah choked back a sob. Instantly she felt a stirring in her mind, a flood of warmth, the feeling of arms drawing her into their strong shelter.

“ Gregori,”Roberto growled, his eyes glowing with bloodlust. “I have heard whispers of the dangerous Gregori—the Dark One, the bogey man of the Carpathians. But I do not fear you.” It was bravado, and they all knew it; his mind was racing frantically for an escape.

Gregori smiled, a small, humorless quirk of his lips that brought a distinctively cruel gleam to his eyes. “You obviously have never learned table manners. In all your long years, Roberto, what else have you failed to learn?”

Roberto’s breath escaped in a long, slow hiss. His head began to undulate slowly from side to side. His fingernails lengthened, becoming razor-sharp claws.

When he attacks, Savannah, you will leave this place.It was an imperious command in her head.

It wasmy friend he killed,me that he threatened.It was against her principles to allow anyone else to fight her battles and perhaps be injured or killed in her place. She did not stop to think why it was so easy and natural to speak with Gregori, the most feared of the Carpathian ancients, on a mental path that was not the standard path of communication for their kind.

You will do as I tell you,ma petite. The order was spoken in her mind in the same calm tone that carried undeniable authority. Savannah caught her breath, afraid of defying him. Roberto might think he was up to taking on a Carpathian as powerful as Gregori, but she knew she wasn’t. She was young, a novice at her people’s arts.

“You have no right to interfere, Gregori,” Roberto snapped, sounding like a spoiled, petulant boy. “She is unclaimed.”

Gregori’s pale eyes narrowed to a slash of cold silver. “She is mine, Roberto. I claimed her many years ago. She is my lifemate.”

Roberto took a cautious step to the left. “There has been no official acceptance of your union. I will kill you, and she will belong to me.”

“What you have done here is a crime against humanity. What you would do to my woman is crime against our people, our treasured women, and against me personally. Justice hasfollowed you to San Francisco, and the sentence our Prince Mikhail pronounced over you will be carried out. The blow you struck to my lifemate alone would earn you your fate.” Gregori never raised his voice, never lost his faint, taunting smile. Go, Savannah.

I won’t allow him to harm you when it is me he seeks.

Gregori’s soft laughter echoed in her head. There is no chance of that, mapetite. Now do as I say, and go.He wanted her gone before she witnessed his casual destruction of the abomination who dared to strike a woman. His woman. Savannah already feared him enough.

“I am going to kill you,” Roberto said loudly, blustering to pump up his courage.

“Then I can do no other than oblige you by letting you try,” Gregori replied pleasantly. His voice dropped an octave lower, became hypnotic. “You are slow, Roberto, slow and clumsy and far too incompetent to take on someone of my skill.” His smile was cruel and slightly mocking.

It was impossible to avoid listening to the cadence of Gregori’s voice. It worked its way into the brain and clouded the mind. Still, high and powerful from a fresh kill, filled with lust and the need to conquer, Roberto launched himself at Gregori.

Gregori simply was no longer there. He had thrust Savannah as far from them as possible, and with blurring speed he contemptuously marked Roberto’s face with four deep furrows, marked it in exactly the spot that was bruised on Savannah’s face.

Gregori’s soft, taunting laughter sent chills down Savannah’s spine. She could hear the sounds of the battle, the whimpers of pain as Gregori coolly, relentlessly, and mercilessly slashed Roberto to pieces. Loss of blood weakened the lesser creature. Compared to Gregori, he was clumsy and slow.

Savannah jammed her knuckles against her mouth and backed up several paces, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Gregori’s harsh face. It was an implacable mask, with its faint, taunting smile and the pale eyes of death. He never changed expression. His assault was the coldest, most merciless thing she had ever witnessed. Every deliberate slash contributed to Roberto’s weakness until he was literally covered in a thousand cuts. Never once was Roberto able to lay a hand or a claw on Gregori. It was apparent that Roberto had no chance, that Gregori could deliver the killing blow at any time.

She looked at Peter, lifeless on the asphalt. He had been a great friend to her. She had loved him like a brother, and now he lay senselessly dead. Savannah finally fled in horror across the parking lot, taking refuge in the trees alongside it. She sank down to the ground. Oh, Peter. This was her fault. She had thought she had left the world of vampires and Carpathians behind. She bent her head, her stomach heaving in protest at the cold brutality of that world. She was not like these creatures. Tears tangled in her lashes and ran down her face.

Suddenly lightning sizzled and danced, a blue-white whip across the sky. An orange glow soon accompanied a crackle of flames. Savannah covered her face with her hands, knowing that Gregori was destroying Roberto’s body completely. His heart and tainted blood had to be reduced to ashes to ensure that the vampire could not rise again. And no Carpathian, not even one turned vampire, should be exposed to autopsy by a human medical examiner. Physical proof of their existence in human hands would be dangerous to their entire race. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to shut out the smell of burning flesh. Peter, too, would have to be cremated to hide the terrible gaping wound to his throat, evidence of the vampire’s presence.