She felt Yvette’s warm hand on her back and turned into it. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew. Only vampire males are fertile, and only when they are breeding with a blood-bonded mate. I know, it sucks.”

Maya didn’t understand what Yvette was trying to explain to her. “Breed?”

“Yes, in the end vampire males are just like their human counterparts. All they want is a woman who’ll bear them a child. Only a blood-bonded human woman can take a vampire’s seed. All we vampire females are good for is sex. So you’d do well not to lose your heart to a vampire—it’ll only end in disappointment. I’ve seen it before.”

Maya stared at Yvette with disbelief. This couldn’t be true. Not only would she not have any children, children she hadn’t known until now that she wanted, but no vampire male would want her as a long-term partner because she was sterile? Was this payback for how she’d treated so many men? For the fact that she’d broken if off as soon as she’d realized that the man couldn’t satisfy her needs? For barely giving anyone a chance?

A sob tore from her throat.

A second later, Gabriel burst into the room. “What did you do to her?” he yelled at Yvette and squeezed between the two women, pulling Maya to his chest. She instinctively allowed herself to be cradled by him.

“I didn’t do a thing to her!” Yvette shouted back and stormed out of the tiny bathroom.

Maya let out another sob. It didn’t matter to her what Yvette’s motivation for the blunt revelation was. In fact, she was glad for it, glad that she’d found out now.

***

Maya’s sob went right through Gabriel’s bones. He’d failed again. He’d promised himself earlier that she wouldn’t have to cry anymore, and here she was, tears running down her face. He shouldn’t have asked her to come to her apartment with them. She was still too fragile, still too sensitive to everything.

She pushed against him and pulled free. Did she not want his concern? “I’m fine,” she claimed. He knew she wasn’t.

“Why are you crying?” he probed.

“I’m not crying.” She sniffed. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

He tilted his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Just a cold or something.”

Gabriel shook his head. Maya was avoiding him, and he didn’t like it. “Vampires don’t come down with anything. We don’t get sick.” Before he could get Maya to tell him what was really wrong, he heard a sound.

His head snapped to the small window over the bathtub. He hadn’t noticed until now that it was open.

“Somebody’s watching,” he whispered to Maya and took her arm. He quickly led her back into the living room where Yvette sulked in an armchair.

“He’s out there,” he told Yvette, who instantly jumped up. “I’m going after him. You take Maya home.”

“We have a better chance if we both go after him,” Yvette protested.

Gabriel cut her off with a movement of his hand. “That’s an order.”

Without waiting for an acknowledgment, he stormed out of the apartment and out the front door.

The rogue had been watching them. That meant he now knew Maya had survived, but also that she was under Gabriel’s protection. He might figure out where she was hiding. It was paramount that Gabriel found him before he could mount another attack.

The fact that he’d been watching her apartment—clearly in the hope that she would come back—made it clear to Gabriel that the rogue was obsessed with her. A stalker, just like he’d suspected.  A jilted lover.

He hadn’t seen the man who’d stood outside in the alley and had watched them, but he’d noticed that the alley was a dead end. This meant the man had to have come back to the main street to escape. Therefore Gabriel didn’t bother running down the alley and instead followed the faint scent of vampire the rogue left on his trail.

He zigzagged through Noe Valley. It was obvious to Gabriel that he was trying to get out of the quiet residential area and into a busier area so it would be harder for Gabriel to stay on his tail. Gabriel sped up, trying to gain ground on the rogue, but his relative unfamiliarity with the San Francisco neighborhood didn’t help him. If this was New York, Gabriel would have cut the rogue off long ago, but chasing a man down in his own territory was much harder.

When he heard the sounds of music and partying, Gabriel knew he’d lost. A couple of blocks further and he was in the center of the Castro. There seemed to be two- or three-dozen bars and clubs just on two blocks. And the sidewalks teamed with clubbers. Gabriel looked through the crowd and suddenly noticed the absence of women.