Jenna concentrated on keeping her heartbeat steady, her breath even. Not an easy task. She was nervous as hell.

The vampire leaned down over the bed. His eyes acquired an emerald glow as he drew closer to her. Through her lashes, she saw his lips part, watched his fangs descend. He reached for the covers and drew them down to bare her throat.

Jenna struck. Grabbing the vampire by the throat, she cut off the yelp of surprise he tried to emit, tossed him onto his back on the floor, and held him down.

Eyes wide, he struggled to peel her fingers away and bucked to try to dislodge her as she shoved her knee in his belly and held him down.

Holy crap. It really was easy. The strength and power she wielded was as exhilarating as a drug, eradicating her fear.

Richart stepped up beside her.

The vamp struggled even harder.

Smiling darkly, Richart touched Jenna’s shoulder and took them to a clearing not far from his home.

Jenna released her captive and rose.

The vampire scuttled backward like a crab until several yards separated them. Rising, he rubbed his neck and looked around with wild eyes.

“You’ve just experienced how powerful she is,” Richart warned. “She’ll catch you if you run.”

The vampire blurred as he lunged toward the trees.

Jenna beat him there.

Skidding to a halt, he darted in another direction.

Jenna blocked his way.

“What do you want?” he blurted, expression hostile.

He couldn’t be more than twenty years old, stood about five foot nine or so, and had a lean build.

“The lady has a question for you,” Richart answered. “I, personally, want to draw and quarter you.” He met Jenna’s gaze. “He’s the one who got away the night you were attacked.”

“Bullshit! I didn’t do anything!”

Richart’s face darkened. His eyes shone like spotlights as his lips peeled back in a snarl of rage, displaying his fangs. “You infected her!” he roared.

Jenna’s eyes widened. Richart was pissed!

“You knew her from John’s study group and led your vampire friends to her, knowing they would kill her. When that didn’t pan out, you fed from her while she slept! You preyed upon her when she was most vulnerable after she welcomed you into her home!”

The vampire backed away. “Fuck you!”

Jenna stepped forward. “Is that all you did?”

“What?”

“Is that all you did to me when you crept into my room and fed from me?”

Richart took a step toward him. “Answer the question. Did you touch her while you fed from her? After you fed from her?”

Jenna had been tormented by the knowledge that he might have.

“Fuck no!” the vamp nearly shouted. “She’s old enough to be my mother!”

Well, damn. He made it sound like he was afraid she’d give him the clap or something.

Richart took another menacing step forward.

The vampire skittered to the side, farther away from him. “Wait. You’re the Immortal Guardian who rescued her!” He drew a knife and settled into a crouch.

Jenna drew the pair of daggers Richart had given her earlier.

Richart drew his own. “Express a little remorse and I’ll consider letting you live.”

“Bullshit.”

“Some of your brethren have already joined us. You can, too, if you regret harming her.”

“Eat shit!” Darting to the side, the vampire swept past Richart and attacked Jenna.

Heart stopping, Jenna raised her daggers and fended off his every blow. The vampire seemed as untrained in battle as she was, swinging wildly with the desperate fury of a child taunted too many times by a bully, but hatred soon stole into his twisted features as a mad glint entered his eyes.

She deflected his blade with her own. His fist she blocked and countered with her own, fingers still curled around the hilts of her weapons, until . . .

A miscalculation.

One of her blades slid across his throat.

Warm blood slapped her in the face as the vampire stumbled backward, his gray shirt turning crimson.

Horrified, Jenna took a step toward him.

He sank to the ground.

Richart appeared at her side and took her arm to prevent her from continuing forward.

Sure enough, the vamp swung his blade again and again until he couldn’t anymore.

Jenna looked up at Richart. “It was an accident.”

“It was inevitable,” he said softly. Withdrawing a handkerchief, he wiped her face with care. “You saw it—the madness that entered his eyes as you fought?”

She nodded.

“The brain damage was progressing more swiftly in him. Had we let him live, simply feeding from his victims would not have satisfied him much longer. He would have tortured them, killed them, and seen nothing wrong with it just as he saw nothing wrong with preying upon you or allowing his friends to kill you, as they would have had I not intervened.”

Jenna’s gaze went to the vampire, who stopped breathing and began to shrivel up like a mummy as the virus he housed devoured him from the inside out. “This is what it’s like? This is what you do?”

“Yes. I know it seems brutal, but we save lives, Jenna. You saved lives. And you kept him from becoming a monster. Even good men become fiends once the madness seizes them. Most, when lucid, would much prefer the end you just delivered to harming others.”

Dropping the daggers, she leaned into him. “I don’t know if I can get used to this.”

“I won’t lie. It’s difficult. But once you see what they do to their victims, it will become a little easier.” He cupped her face in his hands, urging her to look up at him. “And I will be with you all the way.” He smoothed his thumbs across her cheeks. “I’ll be with you always, if you’ll let me.”

She summoned a smile. “Always sounds good.”

He lowered his lips to hers for a slow kiss. “Let’s go show John you’re okay. You can tell the study group the vamp has become ill and is still in the bathroom, then send them home.”

When she nodded, Richart wrapped his arms around her and the world dissolved.

HIGH STAKES

HANNAH JAYNE

Some people were meant for big cities.

And fabulousness.

I’m one of those people.

I’m Nina LaShay and one day, my brand will be everywhere.

I stand in front of the mirror every day and say that to my reflection. Well, not so much to my reflection as to the mirrored image of my brand-new, temporary Manhattan digs as I don’t have much of a reflection—or any reflection at all.

Being undead will do that to you.

Call me what you want—vampire. Bloodless one. Nightwalker; lost one; soulless, Godless aboveground hell dweller. Personally, I’m partial to Life-Backward, Fashion-Forward Temple of Awesome. How else do you explain a twenty-one-year-old (give or take 141 years) woman being one of the last three standing in the greatest fashion competition the couture world has ever seen?

I was steaming my latest Drop Dead creation—that’s the name of my fashion line—Drop Dead Clothing (I know, totes adorbs, right?), when the faint scent of two-day-old patchouli oil and sweat snaked into my apartment. The whole super-vamp sense of smell? Makes pastries smell a thousand times more amazing. It also makes the modern street hippie “at one with the Earth” smell like a three-day bus ride through Calcutta in June. I wrinkled my nose and did my best to breathe through my mouth before I snatched open the multi-bolted door and grimaced—then snarled—when I saw where the pungent scent was coming from.

It was her.

Emerson Hawk.

With her beady brown eyes, gaunt cheeks, and head of Supercuts-styled straw-colored locks, she looked far more drowned pigeon than hawk, but what can you do?

She gasped when she saw me, her anemic lips dropping open.

“You’re my competition?”

I wanted to say something scathing and smart but decided to err on the side of breather-approved sportsmanlike conduct. “And I suppose that means that you’re mine.”

Emerson cocked her head and swooshed her ugly hair over one shoulder. “I was being facetious, sweetie. You and your welcome-to-the-dark-side designs are no kind of competition at all.”

I felt myself bristle and although Emerson is shamefully, one-hundred-percent flesh-and-blood human being (“breathers” as they’re known on the undead end), I desperately wanted to stake her through her patchouli-scented heart.

“Please,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “Drop Dead has spanked—what is it? Tweet by Emerson Hawk?”

“Soar,” she corrected with a snarl. “Soar by Emerson Hawk.”

“Oh, right. Either way, Drop Dead has spanked your line often and repeatedly.” I smiled sweetly, my lips pressed together—not so much in an effort to hide my always-there pointed petite incisors, but more in an effort to keep my fangs from digging into her obnoxious sallow flesh.

But I bet she’d taste like stale bread.

Emerson waved at the air like I was some gnat at her ear. “Small-town shit.”