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held them up high, effectively keeping her from opening her wrist blades. He chuckled darkly when she struggled—amused to bring her to her knees? She wasn’t on her knees yet, damn him.
    When the truck pul ed to a stop, she renewed her struggles, though she felt the uselessness of it.
    Bernard opened her door, and his heavy cologne and familiar onion breath greeted her. The traitor leaned over and removed her wrist blades while the vampire in charge continued to hold her stil .
    “Remove her boots and cell phone,” he commanded.
    Bernard bowed slightly, and she wanted to slap him hard. Break free from his spell, Bernard. You can do it! Don’t let them own you. Her silent prayers could be only that. Her heart felt as if a ton of lead suddenly encased it when he yanked off her other boot, where her last concealed weapon, one of her favorite daggers, remained.
    After Bernard finished disarming her, the other held on tight. To show his absolute power over her? Without her weapons, merely a plaything of a vampire?
    Gloat for now, you bastard, but you’ll get yours , she wanted to scream.
    Bernard removed her cel phone, caught her wrist when the vampire let go and tugged her out of the truck.
    “Here I’d seriously considered marrying you, Bernard. The deal is off,” she growled.
    He stared at her, and she wondered if the message had filtered to his vampire-control ed brain. Hustling her up the walk, he moved her quickly into the house. Once inside, she couldn’t tel how many vampires were in the house, their minds shouting with a mixture of thoughts—confusion, anxiety and anger that the vampire had brought her here.
    Bernard pul ed her down a long, narrow hal and into a dark room. Not a hint of light il uminated the place. She couldn’t see a thing, only felt the vampires lurking in a semicircle around her, watching her like the ones had done while she had crouched at the scene of the dead policeman. Electricity vibrated between them, thick with white-hot heat.
    Were any of these vampires from her previous run-ins, borderline rogues, not bad enough to terminate but definitely standing on the edge between civility and chaos? Tilting her nose up and smel ing, she tried to identify any of them. Masking the vampires’ unique scents, a pungently fragrant shampoo had recently been used to clean the carpeting.

    “You shouldn’t have brought her here,” one of the vampires communicated.
    “Take her to the room I prepared for her ,” the one who had ridden partway in the pickup ordered. “She’s mine, and no one will disobey me in this.”
    Tezra sensed he was the only ancient in the room. For now, he didn’t seem to want her dead, but she figured it was only a matter of time.
    “We have gone along with you thus far, but you have—” The vampire suddenly quit his communication, and every one of them remained silent.
    The one in charge would have no disrespect from his rabble rebels, she figured, though she missed the cue because of the darkness of her surroundings. He must have given a look that silenced them, or conveyed the message privately.
    Bernard led her into another dark room and sat her on a mattress. “Sleep,” he said with tenderness and handed her a blanket.
    The strong scent of vanil a wafted to her. Triggered by the sweet fragrance, she fought the bile that rose to her throat. It was the same smel that had assaulted her in the kitchen where her parents had lain dead, the bottle of vanil a extract shattered in a mil ion glass fragments. Chocolate chips, flour, sugar—al scattered on the tile floor, mixed in a pool of her parents’ blood.
    She shook loose from the painful memories and attempted to determine who stood nearby. Listening for a sign that any of them were with Bernard, she sensed the leader’s presence—darkly contemplative, the heat of his body too close, his scent the same she’d smel ed in her apartment—way too appealing.
    “Go, join the others, Bernard. You have done well