“Surely I would know that if I were a vampire. I’ve never sweated blood in my life. Let’s see if I have this straight. Vampires stalk not only humans but also each other. The males betray one another to you human butchers because they need females. I thought they could just bite women and turn them into vampires.” Sarcastically she was ticking off each item on her fingers. “You want me to believe I’m one of these fictitious creatures, so powerful that my voice alone can enslave this strong man here.” Deliberately she gestured toward Jeff Smith, flashing him a gentle smile. “Gentlemen, I’m a doctor. I save lives every day. I sleep in a bed, not in a coffin. I am not the least bit strong, and I have never sucked anyone’s blood in my life.” She glanced at Don Wallace. “You, however, admittedly have tortured and mutilated men, even murdered them. And evidently you derive great pleasure from this. I don’t believe you two are cops, or officials of any law-abiding agency. I thinkyou are the monsters.” She turned her emerald eyes back to Jeff Smith, her voice low, seductive. “Do you really thinkI’m a danger to you?“

He seemed to be falling forward into her beckoning gaze. He had never wanted a woman more. He blinked, cleared his throat, and stole a slow, calculating look at Wallace. Smith had never noticed that greedy, cold look on his partner’s face before. “No, no, of course you’re not a danger to me or anyone else.”

“Damn it, Jeff, let’s get her and get the hell out of here,” Wallace snarled, the need to teach her who was in charge riding him hard.

Emerald eyes slid over Smith, fastened on his mesmerized gaze. She could feel his desire, and she fed it, fed his fantasies of her welcoming his attentions. She had learned at a very young age that she could get into people’s minds, manipulate their thoughts. Initially it had terrified her to wield that kind of power, but it was a useful tool in the O.K., and it was useful now, when she was threatened.

“Don, why don’t they just turn human women? That would make sense. And why did the vampire just quit helping us? We left the area in a big hurry, and you never did tell me what went wrong,” Smith said suspiciously.

“Are you trying to say one of these male vampires actually helped you in your campaign to kill others and that’s how you were so successful?” Shea asked, a little sneer of disbelief in her voice.

“He was nasty, vengeful. He hated the kid, but he particularly despised this one here.” Smith tapped the photograph of the man with the long black hair. “He wanted him tortured, burned, to feel it.”

“Shut up,” Wallace snapped. “Let’s get it over. She’s worth a hundred thousand dollars to the society. They want to study her.”

Shea laughed softly. “If I truly was one of your mythical vampires, I should be worth far more than that to your ‘research’ committee. I think your partner is holding out on you, Mr. Smith.”

The truth was there to read on Wallace’s face. When Smith turned to confront him, Shea made her move: she leapt out the window, landed on her feet like a cat, and ran for her life. She had no personal items she was concerned about, no favorite memento. Her one regret was the loss of her books.

When he felt her fear, Jacques experienced the need to protect her. The urge was as strong as his desire to revenge himself. Whatever he had done, and he was the first to admit he couldn’t remember, he couldn’t possibly deserve such a horrendous punishment. Once again sleep overtook him, but it was the first time in months he had not filled her body with his pain or possessed her mind for a few seconds, ensuring that she felt his dark anger and promise of retribution. This time he hadn’t punished her. Only he had the right to put fear into her mind, into her fragile, trembling body. She had looked upon his image with a mixture of puzzlement and regret. Did she think he was dead and it was his damned soul haunting her? What went on in the head of a treacherous woman?

Time continued endlessly. Wake when a creature strayed near. Scratch and claw at the decaying wood. Eventually the cloth over his eyes rotted until it fell away from him. He had no idea how long he had been there. It made no difference to him. Dark was dark. Isolation, isolation. His only companion was the woman in his mind. The woman who had betrayed him, forsaken him. At times he called to her, ordered her to come to him. Threatened her. Pleaded. Perverse as it was, he needed her. He was already deranged; he accepted that. But this total isolation was making him completely mad. Without her touch, he would be lost to the world, not even his will keeping him going.

And he had a need to live: retribution. He needed her as much as he loathed and despised her. As twisted as their relationship was, he needed the moments of companionship.

She was physically closer to him now, not an ocean away. She had been so far away from him, he could barely make it across the distance. But now she was much closer. He renewed his efforts, calling her at all hours, striving to keep her from sleep.

When he could manage to get past the pain and hunger and simply remain quiet, a shadow in her mind, she intrigued him. She was obviously intelligent, brilliant even. Her method of thinking was like that of a machine, processing information at incredible speed. She seemed to be able to push aside all emotion; perhaps she wasn’t capable of feeling emotion. He found himself admiring her brain, her thinking patterns, the way she focused wholly on her work. She was researching a disease, seemed obsessed with finding a cure. Perhaps that was why he often found her in the dimly lit room, covered in blood, her hands buried deep within a body. She was conducting experiments. It didn’t excuse the abomination of what she was, but he could admire her single-minded purpose. She was able to put aside her need for sleep, for sustenance, for long periods. He felt her need, but she concentrated so wholly on what she was doing, she didn’t seem to recognize her body’s cries for normal care.

There seemed to be no laughter in her life, no real closeness to anyone. That was odd to him. Jacques was unsure when that began to bother him, but he found it did. She had no one. She concentrated only on what she was doing. Of course, he would not have tolerated another male’s presence in her life; he would have sought to destroy any other that came near her. He told himself it was because whatever male came near her must be in on the conspiracy to make him suffer. He often resented wanting to talk to her, but she had an interesting mind. And she was everything to him. His Savior. His tormentor. Without her presence, without touching her mind, he would have been completely insane, and he knew it. She unwittingly shared her strange life with him, gave him something to concentrate on, a companionship of sorts. In a way it was ironic. She thought him locked underground. She thought herself safe from his vengeance. But she had created the monster, and now she was keeping him going, his strength growing with his every touch to her mind.

He found her again a month later, perhaps a year later, he didn’t know, didn’t care. Her heart was pounding in fear. So was his. Perhaps the overwhelming intensity of her emotion woke him. The pain was excruciating, the hunger engulfing him, yet his heartbeat was frantically matching hers, and he could not find enough lung power to breathe. She feared for her life. Someone was hunting her. Perhaps the others who had helped betray him had now turned on her. He gathered himself, waited, blocking out pain and hunger as he had learned over the years to do. No one would harm her. She belonged to him. Only he could decide whether she lived or died, no one else. If he could manage to “see” the enemy through her eyes, he could destroy them. He felt his power swelling in him, his rage so intense, so potent at the idea that someone might take her from him that it astonished him.