Victorian.

He pulled me close, his hands on my elbows; he brought his mouth to my ear. “He is here, love,” he said, his breath brushing my skin. “Please, come with me. I swear to you I’ll get your friend to safety.”

I pulled back and sought Victorian’s eyes.

“You will come with me, Riley. Now,” he said, his voice alluring, pulling at my mind, into some unfamiliar zone. “Hurry.”

My mind was a ball of tangled barbed wire. I’d just had a vision of the day when I’d found my mother’s body, and here before me stood a vampire whom I’d known mostly in my dreams. In my heart, I didn’t want to go with him. Somehow, though, he made me—against my will. My actions were no longer mine. I couldn’t help it; I reached out and grazed his jaw with my fingertips, just to see if he was real. He was real, and this was real—not a dream; not a vision. Confusion made my brain ache. “Nyx.”

“I know,” Victorian urged. “Please. There’s not much time.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“There’s no time,” he insisted.

Everyone started screaming at once.

Several newlings swung from the lights, bounded off the counters, the bar, the stools, and descended upon the clubbers in a rabid feast. I moved away from Victorian. My confusion erased, I shook my head of the intoxicating fog and I kicked into action. I knew what needed to be done, and I wouldn’t leave here without my friend; with all these mortals helplessly falling victim to their bloodsucking prey. I blinked, my hand going beneath my skirt before my brain really registered what was happening.

“Please, Riley,” Victorian begged, moving closer. “Come with me. I promise to get your friend to safety.”

“Fine!” I yelled, “but you’d better get her now!” I ducked and flipped a blade from my thigh. Just as a newling lunged at me, I plunged it into his heart. He began to jerk. “Get her now, Victorian!” I yelled. “In the back!”

Victorian disappeared.

No sooner had he vanished into the melee than Eli, Luc, Phin, Josie, Seth, Zetty, Noah and his guys, stormed through the door.

A second full-scale melee ensued.

Eli made his way toward me, his face livid, etched with terror and fury. He grabbed me by the arm and shook me. Anger and confusion mapped lines into his face. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine!” I shouted.

He didn’t glare at me long. He took off. He trusted me.

He shouldn’t have.

I took as many out as I could. Every once in a while I saw Seth. He was alive and kicking ass. Relief washed over me as he stayed, back-to-back, with Noah.

Just as I flung another blade, hitting my mark and turning another vamp newling to dust, my arm was grabbed again. This time when I turned, it was Nyx. She threw her arms around me. “Oh, Riley!” she yelled, and squeezed me hard. “I was so scared!”

Relief flooded me at the sight of Nyx unharmed. I didn’t have time to revel in it. “Go to Luc!” I said, dragged her by the arm, and gave her a push in his direction. “Luc!” I yelled in my mind. He turned, faced me, saw Nyx, and ran directly toward her. Once his hands were on her, I knew she’d be safe.

I had one undead left to kill. I pushed my way to the back of the melee. I was shoved, pushed, grabbed.

I was abruptly stopped by Victorian, his hands vices on my shoulders.

His gaze bore into mine. “You promised.”

I yanked against him. “I’m not leaving with you! There’s one more that needs to die first,” I yelled. “My life is here! I love Eli, my brother, my family. You know me, Victorian! I can’t let your brother live! He’s a monster!”

“I know, but you must!” he yelled back, and dragged me effortlessly through the horrified mortals. He turned when we were in a thinner crowd. I fought him, pulled, yanked, beat him in the back with my fists. “No,” he pleaded, ducking further swings from my fists. “You cannot, Riley. Please.” He grabbed my hands in his, stilling me. His drugging dark gaze pinned mine. “You will come with me. Now. Away from this.”

My actions were once more no longer under my control. My adrenaline pumped, and my inhuman-like heart slammed slowly, methodically. I didn’t want to go. Victorian left me no choice.

“Come now, Riley,” Victorian said slowly; it became the only sound inside my head. “It’s the only way any of this can be resolved.”

I couldn’t leave. Valerian had to die.

“He can’t die, love,” he said, close to my face. “He cannot.”

I didn’t exactly understand it, but somehow I knew Victorian spoke the truth.

“I’ll tell you on the way,” he said. “I promise—this is the only way to stop him. To stop all of this.”

“This way,” he said, and pulled me effortlessly through the crowd. My mind and body were powerless to stop him; to resist him. We’d muddled through a lot of people, and at the last second, perhaps because Victorian had eased up on his mind power over me, I yanked free and ran.

“Riley!” he yelled after me.

I ignored him and sought Eli. I had to tell him; I had to explain. I ran up behind him, just as he shoved a mortal to safety, yanked him by the arm, and spun him around.

Eli glared at me with opaque eyes and pinpoint red pupils. “Get out of here, Riley,” he threatened. “Go now!”

With that, he shoved me, and with so much force I flew back—far.

I landed at Victorian’s feet. Without another word, he lifted me. “You’ll come now.” Once again I was powerless. He helped me to the back and out the door into Savannah’s sultry, dark night. I knew Eli hadn’t shoved me for any other reason other than he wanted me safe. I knew that in my heart. He was angry because I was in danger, plain and simple. Yet the thought of leaving him, like this, burned a hole in me, made my chest hurt, and made it ache. I didn’t want to go!

Near the back entrance was a stone silver convertible Jag. Victorian opened the driver’s side door. “Get in, Riley.”

Almost as if stuck in the weird, crawlin’-bird-acrossthe-branch dream, I did as the powerful strigoi vampire commanded, and I crawled my ass straight over to the passenger’s side.

He followed me in and jammed the keys into the ignition; the engine roared, and the dual exhaust rumbled. Gravel crunched beneath the tires as he threw the car into gear and slammed on the gas.

As we peeled out of the parking lot, I felt a heavy presence behind me. It was so thick, it nearly choked me. I turned my head, pushed the fuchsia bangs from my eyes, and peered through the wind and darkness.

Two figures stood, side by side.

Eli’s gaze bore straight into me, staring hard after me as I drove away with an enemy vampire. Seemingly, to them, I went willingly. They didn’t know Victorian had me under some sort of mind control.

Noah Miles stood next to him, his mercury gaze glowing. He said nothing. He didn’t have to. Neither of them did.

Eli, though, didn’t hold back.

“Ri-ley!” he yelled, his voice hurt, in deep pain, reverberating inside my chest, inside my bones.

I looked until I saw him no more. We turned onto Martin Luther King Boulevard, then Interstate 16. We were headed north. Where to, I had no idea. I couldn’t think; my mind was a myriad of emotions.

“All will be well soon,” Victorian said, and put his hand on my knee. He wiped a smudge of … something off me, then grasped my chin and forced my stare to meet his. “I promise, Riley Poe. I vow it. I will make this right. You’ll suffer no more, love.”

As we headed out into the night, the ever-familiar brine of Savannah’s salt encased me. I wasn’t in my own body; I was in another’s—or so it felt similar. I laid my head back on the headrest, the hum of Victorian’s Jag and the ever-pressing sadness of leaving my loved ones, making my lids grow heavy. I closed my eyes, only for a second. In that fraction of time, Eli’s voice filled my mind, so much that I reached out, just to see if he was there beside me. It was desperate; it was tormented, filled with so much agony, it hurt for me to hear it. Yet I craved it, as I craved air to breathe, to fill my lungs, to live.

As vampires irrevocably craved human blood.

Neither vampires nor humans could help their cravings. I know that now. Both needed a vital something to remain alive. For vampire’s, that something was more gruesome, and at the cost of human life, but still—it was their sustenance, and they could help it no more than I could help drawing in a lungful of air. I know that now. I understand it a little more.

Eli’s voice sounded in my head. He spoke to me, and only to me.

I’ll cherish the sound, pained as it was, forever.

I will come for you, Riley. I love you, and I know you love me. I’ll find you. Until I do, be strong. Do what you have to to survive. You’re mine. You always have been and you always will be. I will come for you… .