Shock made him roll back on his heels and almost lose his balance.

Fuck!

He turned and waved to Cain and Oliver to approach. They followed his command instantly, joining him at the entrance just as Thomas rose to his full height. There was no reason to hide now. He knew the vampires were gone.

When he opened the door wider and stepped inside, Cain and Oliver followed him. The scent intensified, but it wasn’t the scent of books and paper.

“Oh shit!” Oliver exclaimed.

“Bastards,” Cain pressed out.

Thomas pushed the door to the back room open, the scent of human blood assaulting him.

Bound to an overturned chair, a woman lay in a puddle of her own blood. Her pregnant belly was riddled with stab wounds.

Thomas fell to his knees beside her, his hand stroking over her round stomach, his eyes searching his colleagues’ in disbelief. He recognized her. He’d met her once or twice.

“She’s Sergio’s blood-bonded mate.”

“Who would do such a thing?” Oliver cried out.

“There,” Cain responded, and pointed to a spot on the floor a few feet away.

Thomas turned to look, and noticed the fine layer of ash that covered the floor. In its midst lay a few coins, a wedding ring, and keys—things that would remain when a vampire met his end.

“Somebody staked her mate,” Cain guessed.

“And then they killed her and the baby,” Oliver added.

A barely perceivable gurgle came from the woman on the floor. Thomas’s gaze shot to her.

“Quiet!” he ordered his colleagues and listened intently. A heartbeat! It wasn’t too late.

“Get Maya here! Now!”

While Oliver speed-dialed on his cell phone, Thomas bent over the woman and untied her from the chair, then helped her lie flat on the floor. He whispered to her, “We’re here. We’ll take care of you.”

A breath blew against his cheek. “My baby.” She attempted to lift her hand, but it fell back onto the floor.

Thomas laid his hand over the wounds on her belly, trying to stop the bleeding. “We’ll do everything we can. You hear me? Just hold on.” Then he turned toward Oliver who’d finished his phone call. “How long?”

“She’s not far. Five minutes, ten tops.”

“My baby,” the woman groaned again. “Save my baby.”

Thomas lowered his head to the woman’s belly and listened, his hands still on her. All he could hear was the faint, irregular breathing of the injured woman. Nothing else. He closed his eyes, trying to push away the pain that assaulted him. An innocent had died tonight. If only he’d gotten the description of the four guys up earlier, maybe this could have been prevented.

Something bumped against his hand. Thomas’s eyes flew open. There it was again, a tiny movement: a heartbeat. Faint, but it was there.

“The baby’s alive!” He turned to Cain and Oliver. “Put some pressure on her other wounds; we have to try and stop the bleeding or we’ll lose them both.”

Cain and Oliver went into action, each of them pressing their hands onto the gaping wounds on her torso and neck.

“Give her some blood,” Thomas instructed.

Oliver brought his wrist to his mouth and bit into it. Blood instantly dripped from the two puncture wounds his fangs had made. Quickly he held the open wound to the woman’s mouth, but she turned her head away from him.

“Drink!” he urged her.

A tear ran down her cheek. “Sergio.” Her voice broke. “ . . . made him watch.” A gurgle came from her throat. “Made him choose.”

Thomas closed his eyes in horror. The memories of his past rushed back to him: he’d seen a similar scene before, where a vampire had been made to choose between his child and his mate.

And then lost them both. He’d only ever known one person who was so cruel and heartless to do such a thing. A person who was now dead. But his signature was still alive. Alive in his followers. And they were trying to send him a message.

The moments ticked away until he realized that he could have done nothing to prevent this.

They’d planned this all along: to show him the extent of their power and how far they would go to make him understand that their offer to join them wasn’t an offer, but a command: join us or everybody you know will die.

“Make her drink,” he ordered Oliver once more, but as much as his friend tried, the woman refused.

“Do it for your child if not for yourself. If you die before we can get your baby out, it’ll die too,” Thomas begged her. “Please!”