“Alex,” I whispered, dragging at my burner cell, punching in the number. Alex was at the house, still terrified. Drunk on energy drinks. “Take me home! Take me home right now! She knows I took her bracelet.” My voice shuddered in my throat and froze up entirely. Bruiser’s foot hit the floorboard and the heavy vehicle plowed through the standing water. Alex’s number rang. And rang. I texted him. And e-mailed him. Stared at the cell willing it to respond, but the blasted thing did nothing. Edmund was with him. But it was after dawn. Derek’s security team was with him, but Adrianna was a powerful vamp, older than Ed. She might still be active in the daylight, as dim as the storm had left it. Adrianna was a bedbug-crazy vamp.

Bruiser tossed me a towel and I wiped off the windows and the windshield. Condensation gathered right back. The SUV became mired in early-morning traffic, many vehicles detouring around flooded parts of town. I called Alex again. Direct to voice mail. I called Edmund and Gee and left messages. I called Leo and left another one. And Derek. And Eli, the call I had least wanted to make, all going to voice mail. But not one of them called back to say they were on the way. I had to consider the reality that humans were expendable to vamps, even a valuable human like Alex and Derek’s team. And maybe because of the storm, Eli and Derek were out of cell coverage.

I could shift. Run back through the cold to the house. Get inside through Brute’s wolfie door. Shift back. Fight Adrianna bare-assed naked. I would die but it would buy Alex time. I dropped down in the seat and reached for the Gray Between. And reached. And nothing. It was closed to me.

A scream rose in my chest. Frustration and fear. Erupted into the SUV. My right fist came down. Crushed the dashboard. It cracked from the impact site to the floor. The glove box banged open, hitting my knee. My fist was buried in plastic, wedged in place. I yanked it out, tearing skin, too mad to feel the pain that had to be there. “I hate fangheads,” I growled. Wisely, Bruiser said nothing.

Behind the clouds, dawn was a gray smudge in the east, brightening the world just enough to make driving in the rain even worse. The vamp in the back cooked slightly as day dawned, the stink of burned undead tinging the air. Bruiser tore through the streets, his bow wave throwing street water up on every car nearby. Horns blew and we heard cursing in our wake. Neither of us cared.

Bruiser yanked the vehicle hard left and slammed his foot back to the floor as we entered my street. The vehicle was still moving as I ripped open the SUV door and leaped, using the vehicle’s momentum and Beast-strength. Up over the door and the hood, into the air, faster than the vehicle was traveling, and into the street. Pulled two vamp-killers. I drew on Beast-speed and tore for the house. Two bodies were on the small front porch. Derek’s men, nearly dead. The door was cracked open. The stink of gunfire and vamp filtered out. The stink of Adrianna. She was here.

I rammed the door with my shoulder. In an instant I saw Alex on the floor in a puddle of blood. Shotgun beside him, broken open. Shells scattered in his blood. I was too late. This time I was too late. Rage shoved through me like lava, incinerating everything in its path. Two of the security team were on the floor in my bedroom, at Adrianna’s feet.

Her hair was piled up on her head. She was wearing gold jewelry on both upper arms. An indigo dress, wet to the skin. The closet was open. The front door was still moving. It banged into the wall behind it.

Adrianna spun to me. Already vamped out.

In a single leap, I covered the distance to her, swords out to my sides.

She raised her hands. Magics the color of blood coiled around her. Like snakes, I thought.

I was still in the air when I brought the silvered blades down. And cut off her arms. The cuts so hard, so perfectly placed, I scarcely felt the jar as they passed through flesh and bones, just below the elbows.

She screamed. The ululation a piercing wail. The peal of a vamp in mortal danger. Dying. Her magics faltered. I landed behind her. On my bed. Whirled. With a single, perfectly placed swing, I took her head.

Blood gouged high, hitting the ceiling. She collapsed. I caught her head by the luxurious red hair. Blood scattered crimson across the room. Bruiser paused in the doorway, taking in Adrianna. Me. Holding her head by the hair, the head dropping slowly and spinning as her French twist came undone. The elegant hairstyle had never been intended to be worn this way.

Bruiser left the doorway and knelt by Alex. “Breathing,” he said. “Barely.” I nearly fell, the relief was so intense.

“Move, Onorio,” Edmund said, appearing with a soft pop of air and more of the stink of burned vamp-skin. “And close the door if you can remove the knob from the wall in which it is embedded. My mistress does not know her own strength, and I do not choose to walk into the sun this day.” Edmund. Snarky. Stinking of sunburn from a run.

Bruiser stood to the side and Edmund dropped to one knee. I cleaned the vamp-killers on my linens, sheathed them, and stumbled off the bed, the head still dangling. I’d caught her head. I went to work on the knob. Which was really stuck.

“The door!” Edmund roared.

I took a two-hand grip, Adrianna’s head banging on the painted wood, blood splattering, and heaved the knob free. Closed the door. Bruiser rushed outside and brought in the female vamp he had drained. She was smoking hot. Like, literally. Bruiser carried her to the kitchen and dumped her onto the table.

“Where were you?” I whispered to Ed.

“At the Mithran Council Chambers dealing with problems there.” Edmund sliced his wrist and the fingers of the other hand with a small steel blade. He placed the wrist at Alex’s mouth, dripping in enough that Alex coughed weakly before swallowing. At the same time he stuck his fingers into Alex’s neck. Deep into his neck. Where Adrianna had cut him. I looked back at her body. She was wearing a golden knife at her waist, the blade aged, made of many-times-folded steel. Damascene steel, they had once called it. I had such a blade of my own, though mine was curved and delicate, while hers was straight and covered with blood. Alex’s blood.

“You’re dripping,” Edmund said distinctly, “blood and rainwater. Go away. Put that head somewhere. Check the injured humans. Clean up the mess. Make yourself useful.” His tone was commanding, the cutting edge of a master vampire to his minion. In a more conciliatory tone, he added, “Mistress.”

“Uh-huh.” I didn’t need the kind of smarmy obsequiousness that many masters demanded. I didn’t even want it. But the tone reminded me that Edmund had lost his clan and his mastership over it to one less than deserving. He had given up power on purpose and I didn’t know why. And he had attached himself to me, sworn loyalty to me and to my friends when he could have avoided it. He still had secrets, and secrets could be dangerous to me and to mine. Perhaps he was mine under false pretenses. But he had run through the French Quarter at vamp speed after dawn to help Alex. The only other vamp I knew who was capable of that was Leo. I shook my head, my black hair pulling at my wet leathers. We’d have to have a little talk about all this. Alex groaned; his lips, which had looked slightly blue, were pinker.

I looked at the head. I’d caught this one. Laughter burbled up inside me, inappropriate and hysterical. I swallowed it down.

I walked to the side porch and opened the empty cooler, dropped Adrianna’s head into it. It landed in the corner, faceup, fangs down on their little hinges. From the kitchen I brought a five-pound bag of ice and banged it on the porch floor until the cubes were loose. I dumped the cubes over Adrianna’s head, watery blood gathering in the bottom. I latched the chest and dragged it inside and to the laundry room, where I could keep an eye on it. The house hadn’t been cleaned by Leo’s custodial team, which meant there was old blood on the floor and bodies and heads lying where they had landed. I should put the heads together, like a collection of bookends or salt and pepper shakers or something. Instead, I put them all in the cooler and checked the humans. They were all alive and mostly coming around. Group concussion. Adrianna had been an old, powerful, fast-as-blue-blazes vamp to knock them all out before even one could draw and fire.

Bruiser was still in the kitchen with the captured vamp. She was no longer smoking and I figured he had allowed her to drink from his wrist to heal her. For the moment, she was holding his wrist and hand, gazing adoringly into his eyes, speaking with a sweet, feminine voice. She was a knockout: big boobs, tiny waist. Blond. I ground my fangs. I hated her.