“Sophie?” Colin said again, his brow creased in concern. “Is something wrong? Did something happen?”

“No,” she dragged herself back to the present, to this place of perpetual rain and towering trees. “I just wanted to talk.”

He studied her for a few minutes, then stood back from the door, inviting her in. She felt a blush heating her face and neck.

“You need to invite me in.”

“What?”

“You need to say the words,” she snapped, embarrassed and angry about it. “I’m a vampire, Colin.”

“That part’s true?” he asked in disbelief. “You really can’t come in without an invitation?”

“It’s true. And it’s cold out here.”

“All right, all right,” he said. “Come on in, Sophie. Or do I have to call you Sophia?”

“Sophie will do,” she muttered and stepped into the warmth of his house.

* * * *

Colin closed the door, watching Sophie—no, Sophia, he reminded himself—scope out his home. She was polite about it—more polite than Leighton had been the other morning—sticking mostly to the front room, poking her head into the kitchen and glancing down the hallway. She lingered there and he could read in her body language that she was dying to explore further. But she didn’t, looking over at him, before walking back into the living room where he stood waiting.

He didn’t sit. Didn’t invite her to sit. It was bad enough that she was here in this house with him, looking pretty much the same as she had when he met her ten years ago. In fact, she looked exactly the same tonight with her hair hanging loose and those tight denims hugging her plump thighs and that fine, high ass of hers that had once made him hard just looking at it and thinking about what they’d do later. He’d dreamt about that ass when he was out in the jungle, had awakened too many times hard and aching, and counting the days until he’d see her again. And damn if he wasn’t getting hard just thinking about it again.

This was the Sophie he’d fallen in love with. He’d stopped kidding himself about that a long time ago. He’d loved her, had never loved anyone since and figured he never would. When she’d died—or when he’d thought she’d died—he’d mourned for a long time. And now he’d discovered it was all a lie. He had to remember that. That he’d wasted all those years mourning a lie.

“So, what is it, Sophie?” he asked impatiently. “Why are you here?”

She looked up at him, her chocolate brown eyes boring into his soul, searching. For what? What did she want from him this time?

“You can’t have her, you know,” she said abruptly.

He scowled at her in confusion. “Who?”

“Raphael’s woman. Cynthia. She’s in love with him, and even if she wasn’t, she belongs to him. He won’t let her go.”

“You’re out of your fucking vampire mind, Soph.”

“I saw you with her at the compound tonight, laughing and talking.”

Colin chuckled bitterly. “Jealous, Sophie? You’re a little late to that game, aren’t you? You’ve been dead for ten years.”

She jerked a little at his words. He felt bad about hurting her and then immediately called himself twenty kinds of fool. She’d torn his heart open and left it bleeding on the jungle floor and he was worried about hurting her?

“We’re working together,” he said finally. “She’s kind of like my partner. We watch each other’s backs. It’s a matter of loyalty. Something I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“What does that mean?” she demanded, bristling.

“It means your idea of loyalty is letting me think you’d been burned to death in a fire instead of just telling me to take a hike,” he snarled. “If you wanted to end it, Sophie, you could have bought me a glass of chicha and just told me.”

“I didn’t want to end it,” she said, still giving him those big eyes. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Sure you did. Everyone has a choice.”

“It wasn’t that simple,” she insisted. “There was a lot going on back then, Colin. More than you know.”

“And clearly more than you’re going to tell me. So why are you here, then? You working for Raphael?”

“I am not working for Raphael and I never will. My master is Lucien. Raphael rules the west, but Lucien rules all of Canada. He’s the one who made me Vampire, which was . . .” She stopped talking suddenly, giving him an almost frightened look.

“What were you going to say?” he asked her intently. “This Lucien guy made you a vampire, which was what?” He was still staring at her, but she’d shifted her gaze away, refusing to meet his eyes any longer. He tilted his head thoughtfully, repeating her words in his head. The thought hit him and he jolted in surprise.

“Not what, but when. Isn’t that right, Sophie?” He put his hand on her arm when she would have moved away. “When did you become a vampire, Soph? How old are you?”

She raised her gaze to his, her pupils so big her eyes were nearly black. “I was born in seventeen thirty three,” she said defiantly. “Lucien made me Vampire just prior to my twenty second birthday.”

Colin stared at her. He’d known what it meant to be Vampire, knew they lived a long time, that they didn’t age, but he’d never . . .

“Christ,” he said in sudden realization. “That means you were—”

“Nearly two hundred sixty-eight years old when you met me.”

Not just when he’d met her, but when he’d fucked her. When he’d fallen in love with her!

“Colin?”

“I need a drink,” he growled and headed around the kitchen counter, grabbing the bottle of whiskey he kept on hand for emergencies. If this didn’t qualify as an emergency, he didn’t know what did.

Three hundred years, give or take a few decades. His Sophie, the sweet girl from the village he’d been so careful with, was a centuries-old vampire who had probably seen and done things he could only imagine. And after twelve years on the teams, he could imagine an awful lot.

He poured a healthy three fingers of whiskey into a glass, then took a long sip, closing his eyes and letting the whiskey roll down his throat, its warmth spreading into every muscle and nerve.

He leaned back toward the living room and called to Sophie, “You want a—”

The words froze in his throat at the sight of Sophia bending over to pull off her boots, her long, dark hair tossed over one shoulder. Her faded jeans stretched lovingly over her pretty ass as she slipped off first one boot and then the next, revealing small, delicate feet with bright red nail polish.

He stifled a groan, his gaze traveling over her curvaceous body. This was a bad idea.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Raphael climbed out of the SUV while it was still rolling. Duncan joined him immediately, giving him an enigmatic look he ignored, while Juro swore softly in rare surprise. Raphael wasn’t worried. There was nothing here that could threaten him.

He gazed around the clearing, noting the battered truck to one side and the untidy pile of wood next to a metal tool shed in the back. The dwelling was more of a cabin than a house, small enough that he suspected it had just one room, the wood in desperate need of refinishing and the windows taped over or painted. He couldn’t tell for certain. Perhaps it was both. The lone door looked like it cost more than the entire cabin around it, which told him the owner didn’t know much about security.

Next to him, Duncan was doing his own survey of the surroundings. “There is a single human male inside the house, my lord. Who is he?”

“Hugh Pulaski.”

Duncan tipped his head curiously.

“A very foolish man,” Raphael added.

Duncan shrugged. “The door appears rather sturdy. The walls on the other hand . . .”

Raphael bared his teeth. “I thought we’d try knocking first. I have a few questions for him.”

Duncan nodded, leapt onto the rickety porch and knocked loudly. Raphael could hear movement inside. Hell, he could hear the man’s racing heart and panting breath. The human might not know it was vampires in his yard, but he certainly knew it wasn’t a friend.

“Hugh Pulaski,” Raphael called. “We know you’re there.”

The door swung open suddenly and a shotgun shoved the screen door open, the man behind it already flexing his finger on the trigger. Juro leapt in front of Raphael, while Duncan used his inhuman speed to grab the gun’s barrel and whip it upward before the human could finish squeezing the trigger. He jerked the shotgun away from Pulaski with enough force that the human stumbled out of the safety of his house. Realizing what he’d done Pulaski screeched frantically and tried to turn around, but Duncan had already closed his fingers around the man’s throat.

“I should kill you for that,” Duncan said intently, throwing the shotgun into the yard.

Raphael strolled closer. “Not yet, Duncan. Questions first.”

“I don’t know who the fuck you people are,” Pulaski tried to yell, “but I don’t have to—”

Duncan bared his fangs, stopping the man’s words. The pungent scent of human sweat on an unwashed body filled his nostrils and Raphael sniffed. “If you would, Duncan.”

Pulaski screamed as he was thrown through the air to land with a grunt at Raphael’s feet.

“What do you want?” he whined shakily. “I don’t know nothin’ more about them murders. I swear.”

Raphael looked down on the sniveling piece of humanity. “You’re lying. And we’ll get to that later. But first—” He crouched down, letting his power rise until the dirt around them was dancing with electricity, until the human worm was cringing beneath the silvery glow of his eyes. “You threatened my mate this afternoon. Tall, beautiful, dark-haired? You remember her?”