“But she would have been able to help us. She knows what they look like,” Cain insisted. “We should—”

The ringing of the phone interrupted him. Thomas picked up the line. “Yeah?”

Cain heard a familiar voice, then Thomas’s greeting. “Quinn, you’re back? That’s a nice surprise.”

The door flew open and Zane tore into the room, cursing loudly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Cain refrained from saying anything, knowing that Zane was seething over his failure to recognize Ursula’s claim as the truth.

“We have to come up with a strategy,” Zane said, then turned to Thomas. “Get off the phone. This is more important.”

Thomas pursed his lips. “It’s Quinn, and I think you want to hear what he’s got to say . . . Quinn, I’m putting you on speaker. Zane and Cain are here.”

He pressed a button and put the receiver down. “Now tell them what you just told me.”

“Hey guys. I’m a bit out of the loop—just got in a few hours ago—but the girl who says she was imprisoned by vampires, she’s here.”

Zane leaned over the desk. “Oliver didn’t take her to the airport?”

“No, why would he?”

“Because I ordered him to!” Zane thundered.

There was a pause on the other line. “Guess he didn’t like your order.”

“Guess not,” Cain murmured to himself, not a bit surprised at the turn of events. He’d seen the way Oliver had looked at the girl. She’d probably used her big brown eyes to wrap him around her little finger and make him do whatever she wanted to.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Thomas said calmly. “She might still be useful, because we’ve just found out what the deal is with that brothel.”

“Care to share?” Quinn asked.

Thomas shifted closer to the phone. “Apparently all the girls at the brothel have special blood. It acts as a drug to vampires. They go crazy for it, and when they’re not getting any more, they’re showing withdrawal symptoms. Like human drug addicts. It’s not pretty.”

Not pretty didn’t even begin to describe it, Cain thought, remembering the scene in the nightclub.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Absolutely,” Thomas confirmed.

“Then we have a problem,” Quinn said gravely.

Zane put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder, leaning over the speaker phone. “I know, Quinn. I was thinking the same thing.”

Cain stared at Zane, then at Thomas who nodded.

“What?” Cain asked.

Zane sighed. “Oliver was a drug addict when he was human. He’s susceptible to any kind of addiction. If he’s with the girl and bites her, we have to assume the worst.”

Thomas turned toward the phone. “Quinn, has he slept with her?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m suspecting it.”

Zane cursed. “Fuck, then he’s probably already bitten her!”

“No!” came Quinn’s voice as if shot from a pistol. “He made a point to say he wasn’t going to bite her.”

“And you believe him?” Cain asked. “Quinn, I was there, I saw the girl, and I saw how he looked at her. He wanted her, not just her body, but also her blood.”

A sigh came through the line. “Jesus, Rose and I should have never left.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Zane assured him.

“What are you planning?”

“We have to separate them. It’s for his own protection, and for hers too. As soon as the sun sets, here’s what I want you to do . . . ”

25

Oliver felt warm breath blowing against his naked chest. The heartbeat of another person pounded against him, and the scent of a woman teased his nostrils.

He’d fallen asleep with Ursula in his arms, and sometime during the day rid himself of his shirt, because he’d gotten too hot. He should have left her bed then, but she had molded herself to him in such a trusting way that he hadn’t been able to tear himself away.

The sun was setting already, and soon the house would be turning into a beehive. It was best that he went back to his room now before Rose and Quinn noticed him in Ursula’s room.

As he gently removed Ursula’s arm from his chest and rolled her onto her back, trying not to wake her, the door opened. Oliver’s eyes shot to the figure standing in the doorframe: Quinn.

“That’s just great!” Quinn said sarcastically. “You couldn’t leave her alone, could you?”