Ignoring our audience, he pulled me into his arms, and the tremors moving through him told me he was on the verge of losing it. My arms went around his neck, and I pulled his face down to mine. “I love you,” I whispered against his lips before I kissed him.

His body was rigid, and for a moment I thought he wasn’t going to respond. But then his mouth moved over mine and he made a sound deep in his chest as he pulled me closer. At first the kiss was urgent, desperate, but it soon became soft and exploring as the rage drained out of him.

He broke the kiss and let out a ragged breath. “You were supposed to stay with me.”

I smiled at him, barely aware of the rain drenching us. “You didn’t need my help, and someone had to save Chris’s ass. Again.”

He looked like he was about to argue, but he groaned and rested his forehead against mine. “Now I know why Nate’s going gray. At this rate, I’ll be white before him.”

“Well, there’s always Clairol for Men.”

The exasperated look in his eyes made laughter bubble from me. I hugged him tightly, pressing my face into his neck and breathing in the scent that could only be Nikolas.

“Damn, are they always like that?” I heard Abigail ask.

Jordan snickered. “Pretty much.”

Chris chuckled behind me. “Do you two want us to give you some privacy?”

I started to retort until I realized the reason for his comment. Heat flooded my face, as well as a few other places, when I looked down at my legs wrapped around Nikolas’s waist like a monkey. I lifted my eyes to his and caught him smiling like a man who was very pleased with himself. His hands slid down my back to cradle my bottom, their heat seeping through my wet jeans. My body grew so warm despite my wet clothes that I was sure there had to be steam coming off me.

His chest rumbled. “On second thought, this might be worth a few gray hairs.”

I scowled at him as I dropped my legs and let them dangle until he saw fit to lower me to the ground. He kissed the tip of my nose before he released me, making it impossible to keep a smile from creeping across my face.

Nikolas looked over my head at Geoffrey, who had joined us on the lawn. “How many?”

“Fifteen.” Geoffrey ran a hand over his shaved head. “Jesus! If you and your team hadn’t been here, it would have been a massacre.”

“Or maybe they came because we were here,” Chris said meaningfully.

Geoffrey’s gaze fell on me “How did you know? You said fifteen were coming. How could you possibly guess that?”

“I wasn’t guessing.” I broke off as I realized the coldness hadn’t completely disappeared from my chest. “I was wrong. There were sixteen. There’s still one here.”

“The house is clear,” Elijah called from the doorway.

I moved away from them, trying to let my radar do its thing. It was a little out of whack after being hit with so many vampires at one time, and I needed to make sure I wasn’t just being paranoid.

“Chris, can you and Elijah do a sweep out here to be safe?” I heard Nikolas ask as I walked toward the front door. He was right behind me when I stepped into the house.

Water ran off me to pool on the hardwood floor as I stood in the living room, trying to locate the remaining vampire. “There.” I pointed to the basement door.

“There’s no way for anyone to get in down there,” Geoffrey said. “The basement windows are all too small.

“Then one tried to go out that way and got trapped, because there is a vampire in that basement.”

Geoffrey still looked doubtful. “We’ll have to flush him out. Abigail and I will go down, and the rest of you keep an eye on this door in case he comes through it.”

“We need to find out how they found this place and if they knew who was here,” Nikolas said. “Unless you’re in immediate danger, do not kill him.” Everyone nodded, and he turned to me. “I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask you to let the others handle this one.”

“I’ve done enough killing for one night. This one is all yours.” I didn’t add that my shoulder was starting to hurt like hell. I’d covered it with my hair so he wouldn’t get upset, but I had to get it looked at. Something told me there was gunna paste in my immediate future.

I walked to the other side of the living room to stay out of the way while the others faced the door. Geoffrey opened the basement door, and he and Abigail went silently down the stairs. I held my breath along with everyone else in the room as we waited for something to happen.

A girl’s scream cut through the silence, followed by a few thumps and what sounded like a computer monitor hitting the floor. I thought I heard the rattle of chains before a screech of pain came from below. What the hell were they doing down there?

“We have her,” Geoffrey called.

Everyone relaxed and a few warriors looked in my direction. They were wondering how I’d known there was a vampire in the basement, but no one voiced the question.

“What will they do with her?” I asked Nikolas, who had come to stand beside me.

“They’ll confine her and wait until she gets hungry to see if she’ll talk.”

I thought about Nate’s short time as a vampire. Tristan had planned to do the same to him to get him to talk. Other techniques didn’t work on vampires. Hunger drove them insane.

An SUV pulled into the driveway, its lights splashing across the carnage on the lawn. The other Vegas team had gone out on patrol before the attack, and it looked like someone had called them back. The four warriors filed into the house and surveyed the damage to their place.