As Gideon watched, she put the broken manacle welded to the bars around the befuddled man's wrist.

She circled his hand just above it, tapping the locking mechanism with her forefinger.

“It gets stuck and won't come loose easily.” Her voice was that velvet fuck-me purr, rankling him like an alarmed, fuzzed-up cat. “In case there's an emergency, that trigger needs to release instantly. I expect one of our ladies put a very strong, determined male in there, and he was able to bend it.” She gave him a dangerous, moist-lipped curve of her lips. “Though I'm sure the reason he was strugglingwasn't to get free. You should be able to straighten this latch back out and then lubricate the mechanism so the pin will slide in and out, the same way you'd—”

“Mistress.” Gideon cut in before the man started foaming at the mouth. Or his fellow crewman in the scaffolding, leaning out to hear what she was saying, fell to his death. “There's a matter over here requiring your attention.”

The maintenance man withdrew, which was a good thing, because he didn't see the expression Anwyn snapped to Gideon. A trace of red in her gaze, the tips of her fangs showing.

Thank God for training. All thoughts of guilt and self-doubt vanished. Body and mind went into pure battle strategy. Deadly calm, centered. Drawing closer, Gideon leaned in, so his throat was close to that bared mouth. Brushing her ear with his lips, he murmured to her, “I can feel your hunger. Use me to appease it. I'm begging you, Mistress.”

Carefully, he slid his arm around her waist, bringing her close to him as he nuzzled that ear, teased the soft neck beneath it. Despite his intent, his cock couldn't help swelling further as her hip brushed it, but that reaction helped. Her fingers closed on his upper arms.

A jerk told him that her self-awareness had kicked in, helping her realize she was in a red zone. “Easy,” he whispered, feeling a flood of relief himself when that curtain between them dropped, though her panic flooded through it. Those bastard gremlins apparently couldn't hold the block indefinitely, not when she was focusing. “What's the closest private place?”

“There.” He had to angle his head to see where she was looking, because her face was turned in toward his sternum. On the opposite side of the dance floor there was a small corridor.

“Okay. We'll move slow. Hold on to it.”

“I can't, Gideon.” Her body had started to shudder. “Oh God, what if I—”

“You won't.” In one movement, he swept her off her feet, cradling her in his arms and moving swiftly toward that hallway. At the surprised look of the waitress he passed, he snapped, “She's fine,” hoping that would do, then shouldered through a curtain of beads into the narrow hall. He saw there were a series of private rooms. Small like dressing rooms, they were probably a temporary place for people who needed a quick moment with one another or alone to relieve sexual tension.

In each space there was little but an elegant chair, a wide mirror and a table. The table held tissues and a pitcher and basin, like an old-fashioned bordello. And of course the fresh, exotic flowers that Anwyn f avored.

He took the room farthest down the hall, shouldered in and slammed the door. When her hands clamped down on his shoulders, he heard that ominous hiss.

Sitting down on the chair abruptly, holding her on his lap, he caught the back of her neck and brought her mouth to his neck. “All yours.” He gave her the urgent encouragement, even knowing she might rip out his throat. When she hesitated, he pulled his knife and made a shallow cut at his carotid, letting the smell of the blood fill her. She knocked the knife out of the way in a flash of response. Latching on like a viper, she went deep and hard enough that the pain nearly overcame him. Instead, forcing back the grunt of agony, he held her with one arm and yanked open her slacks.

Furrowing down into a silky scrap of panties, he found petals of damp flesh that gave way to full, slippery arousal. She growled against him, a sound of lust and need as he sank his fingers into her, working his thumb against her clit. Though his head was spinning, his heart thundering in fight-or-flight demand, he held fiercely to one directive. Expel her energy; focus the violence of that bloodlust. Selfishly, he wished she'd worn a skirt so he could have just thrust her down on his own aching cock, and thereby distracted himself from worrying about whether he was about to be sucked dry in a less pleasant way than a male might imagine, at the mercy of those luscious lips.

But even if she'd worn a skirt, he knew he wouldn't have done it. Something connected to this moment, what he was letting her do, what she'd done to him before they'd come up here, told him that he wouldn't do it. Hell, she'd made it clear he had to wait for that until she was ready for it, and it challenged him to obey her commands, indulge her desires.

He didn't want to think too much about the why of it, and fortunately he didn't have time to do so. She shifted her bite without withdrawing, tearing flesh. He closed his eyes tight as her hand squeezed his shoulder, and he heard the collarbone groan in protest. Another millimeter of pressure and . . .

He muffled his cry against her shoulder as it fractured, and her bloodlust rolled over him.Fuck. Here came the seizure right on the heels of it, but he wasn't in a position now to get her out of there. The shadow creatures screamed in triumphant frenzy as the red haze bathed the walls of her mind. He could almost see the essence of her mind in the middle of them, like the sacrifice at an insane bacchanalia, confused and unable to separate reality from insanity. She didn't even realize what she was doing to him.

Oh, Anwyn.Despite the physical pain he was feeling, seeing that twisted in his gut. She hadn't deserved this. It wasn't going to go away. Those damn shadow things, that blood, had gone beyond her brain, into her heart and soul, just as he thought. It was hard enough to fight the battle in her brain. How could she fight an enemy invading wherever she was vulnerable, where her deepest self resided?

He knew how. He could make it all right. Daegan had known it, still probably knew it, the bastard. The woman on his lap was becoming a bloodthirsty monster, fast moving beyond his grasp. Even with his help, she might go that way. She was a vampire. She was a fucking vampire.

And she was a woman who needed him. Who needed him more than she needed anything, not because she'd told him that, but because he could feel it.

Think through the pain and fear for her. She loses if you lose it.

Anwyn.He reached out to her in her mind, fought his way through those creatures. They weren't real; they weren't her. They didn't belong there. He saw her consciousness find him, see him, desperation swirling through her thoughts.I'm here. He set his jaw.We're here. Give me the third mark. Do it.

Fuck, he'd done it wrong. She was a Mistress, and you didn't command a Mistress to do anything. Not unless you were more Dominant than she was, and Daegan wasn't here. Those creatures rose up shrieking, filling her mind with such an overwhelming cacophony of anger and protest, he could barely hear himself think. She was completely covered up by them.

Anwyn seized his hair, yanked his head back, and punctured the other side, leaving the carotid flowing.

He gave a hoarse cry at the excruciating pain to his collarbone, but fought through it to find the wound, put pressure on it. Then she was straddling him, rubbing herself against him like a cat in heat. Even weakening from blood loss, his body responded.

Anwyn, I'm yours. You don't need to hurt me. I'm yours.

It was how Daegan had centered her. But that brought another thought. He didn't have an avenue to Daegan, but Anwyn did, and Anwyn's mind was wide-open now.

Daegan.He called out to him, praying he'd respond. It was afternoon, and Daegan hadn't gone down until about lunchtime. Without fresh blood, he might be sleeping deep. Otherwise Gideon was sure he would have been here by now, sensing her distress. Hell, he probably would have known they'd headed upstairs an hour ago, but he'd gone under, trusting Gideon to use sound judgment.Double fuck .

It didn't matter. He had to try.

No.Her frenetic rage and lust swirled in a thick cloud around them, but he'd caught her attention.You're betraying us. Trust no one.

That's not you, Gideon returned fiercely.That's Barnabus's blood talking. He's a virus, Anwyn; he's not you. He's a disease you fight.

The fury almost shoved him out of her mind.It was your kind that held me down, that took away everything, that made me lose everything.

No, it wasn't. Look at me, Anwyn. Look at me.His vision was blurring and he realized unconsciousness was close. He had to reach her. “You don't talk . . . in melodramatic . . . movie clichés.”

He'd used humor before to break her away from them, but in the aftermath of a seizure that had already spent itself. She was on the upward curve and she wasn't responding to him at all. He was no longer Gideon, or even a man. He was prey, food, an enemy to be destroyed. She pulled back from him without retracting, and he gave another painful grunt as she came away with more flesh. When she spat it to the side, her expression wasn't her own. He'd lost her.

She was up off the chair, her hands on his shirt. He tried to twist, to stop her, but she heaved him off his feet and threw him into the mirror. The glass shattered, the drywall giving way. But she hadn't let go. She drew back, knocked him back into it again. The mirror had been affixed to a support beam, a steel beam that he now felt make solid, bone-breaking contact with his body. His back, his skull, hammering into it as she shook him like a doll, screaming.

Anwyn.

It was faint, but Gideon realized it was faint only to him, because his brain cells were jittering like a crazed Jell-O mold. In contrast, she jerked as if she'd been slapped. Her eyes were glazed, but her hands spasmed, releasing him. Gideon gave a hoarse, feeble grunt as he fell limply to the ground. He couldn't make his legs move . . . his arms. There was something wet on his face. That spiral into darkness was becoming a spin, like one of those nauseating rides at the fair . . . What had they called it? The Oaken Bucket?

His body might be an odd mixture of pain and paralysis, but his mind could still see into hers, see her turn her mind toward this new looming shadow, a shadow darker and even more intimidating than any of the other shadows. This one didn't whisper. He'd thundered her name, so strong and abrupt it hit the surface of her mind like storm surf, reeling her back. It even rebounded off Gideon's dazed mind, spearing sharp pain through the back of his skull.