Nice to know even disapproving matrons weren’t immune to vampire wiles. Ava popped to her feet and waved a hand in front of the woman’s face. Distraction was the only thing that helped. “Hey, Mrs. Tremain. Nice to see you again. Long time, huh?”

The glaze faded, replaced by disdain, and the old woman’s chin lifted. “Ava Sans. I should have known.” So much disapproval rested in that tone. “Noelle has always liked bringing home the trash, rather than leaving it at the curb where it belongs.”

McKell strode toward her, bless his heart, as if he meant to defend Ava’s honor. For the first time in Ava’s memory, something managed to intimidate the staunch matron, truly intimidate her, and Mrs. Tremain backed up a step as two hundred and fifty pounds of enraged vampire bore down on her.

“McKell,” Ava said, and he instantly stopped, surprising her. “You can’t kill her. Or believe me, she’d already be dead.”

“Can I hurt her?”

“No,” Ava said at the same time Noelle said, “Yes. Mother, I told you what would happen if you ever insulted my friend again. I’d marry a bum right off the street. I swear to God I was telling the truth.”

The matriarch kept her attention on McKell. “As if you have the courage to—” She squeaked as he started back up.

“Please don’t,” Ava added. For McKell’s benefit. She didn’t want him in trouble with the law.

Again, he stopped. “Very well.”

No question, he was getting a reward when they got home. Home. Their home. Just for a little while, but still theirs. A bolt of awareness traveled through her, lightning to her nerve endings.

Where had her fight gone? Her resistance?

Noelle hurtled a pillow at the woman who had always considered Ava beneath every member of her family. “Mother, I told you I had important business up here. Now get out before I tie you to a chair.”

That chin lifted yet another notch. “Fine.” She turned to leave, throwing over her shoulder, “But you will clean this room when you’re done.”

“We both know that’s not going to happen,” Noelle returned. “And tell Cook to fire up the grill. I’m in the mood for a steak.”

“And maybe butterscotch cookies,” Ava suggested. “Tell her she used too much nutmeg last time, and—”

The door closed with a snap, and there was a moment of charged silence.

“This is the best day of my life,” Noelle said with a grin that lit her entire face. “My mother yelped. Did you guys hear it, or was I just dreaming?”

“I heard,” One said through his tears. “And I’m only speaking to McKell.”

Ava reclaimed her spot on the couch. “Me, too.”

McKell used both hands to wipe his face, as if the motion could also wipe away the memory of Mrs. Tremain’s distraction. He returned to the vampires. “You were just telling me how to survive in the sun.”

“No, we weren’t.” One shook his head violently.

“Not even if you stab us again. But please don’t stab us again.”

McKell lifted his leg and rested his foot on One’s injured thigh. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. But, lucky for you, I’m willing to negotiate. Tell me what I want to know, and the women will kiss. Each other.”

Both men blinked, looked at each other, looked at Ava and Noelle. One lost his glaze of pain, and Two licked his lips.

“They have to kiss first.”

“And then we’ll tell you everything we know. Promise.”

McKell removed his foot and faced Ava, then motioned with his hand. She just blinked at him.

“Well?” he prompted. “Get started. Kiss.”

She planned to reward him, not everyone in the room. “First, this is your interrogation. We’re just here to watch, listen and learn. Remember?”

He pursed his lips. “Ava.”

“Second,” she continued, “you’re caving to their demands? Well, I won’t allow it. Either they spill the secret, or there’s no kissing. And I won’t budge on this.”

“Yeah,” Noelle said with a nod. “We won’t budge on this. No matter how sexy their voices are.” She gave the vampires a pinkie wave. “And no matter how bad I want to get my tongue into my little firecracker’s mouth.”

One nodded in invitation, and Two wiggled his brows.

McKell splayed his arms, as if he were powerless. “You heard the females. Answers first, kiss second.”

One and Two faced each other, whispering, debating. “We shouldn’t tell him, even for that kiss.”

“He’ll find out eventually.”

“Yeah, but he’ll kill us just as soon as we tell him.”

“I think he’ll kill us if we don’t. He said so, remember?”

“But when he knows, he’ll make it painful.”

“Rumor is, he’s been kicked out of the underground. Maybe he won’t care. He hates humans, and didn’t he say that he no longer enforces vampire law?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re stupid? He could be lying. The woman he kissed is a human, so he can’t hate them too badly.”

“You’re the stupid one.”

Did she and Noelle sound that dumb when they argued? Geez! She’d had enough, was getting upset that McKell wasn’t getting what he wanted, and was close to stabbing someone again. “Offer ends in five … four … three …”

“Fine,” One rushed out. “I’ll tell.” Deep breath in, hold … hold, slow release. “If you drain a human to death, once every night, you develop a resistance to the sun’s deathly rays. But you have to kill every night, because the effects only last twelve hours.”

“That’s the only way?” McKell asked.

That’s all he cared about? The guy had just admitted to murdering someone every night. Stab someone? No, she had a target, and a simple stabbing wasn’t violent enough.

“Yes,” was the eager answer. “Now about that kiss …”

“And that’s all you have to do?” McKell asked now.

That’s all?

Another eager, “Yes. So back to the kiss …”

Those bastards! All of them. McKell included.

He twirled the blade he still held. “I’m not done yet. Most other vampires living on the surface world know this?”

“If they don’t, they learn pretty quickly.” One’s gaze swung to Ava and Noelle. “Is that all, because—”

“And they willingly do it?” McKell asked.

“Of course.” Two’s irritation was showing, but he hurried on. “Humans are merely food, after all. And I know, I know. Humans are our food, and we’ve always been forbidden from killing our food because the supply could run out. But listen, we don’t do that. That’s why we were out tonight. We stopped killing. Trying to blend in during the day was a waste of time. We thought to get jobs, you know. Real jobs. Be productive. But why work when you can simply convince people to give you what you want?”

“Thank you for being truthful,” McKell said.

If he told her to kiss Noelle now, Ava really would grab another knife and sink it—

“By the way. I lied. There’ll be no kiss.” With one fluid slash, he cut One’s throat, then Two’s. Both gurgled in pain and shock, bled, color fading, bodies twitching … passed out. “Don’t worry. They’ll recover.” He tossed the knife on the floor. “But for their crimes, they are my gift to AIR. Your people may do whatever they like with them.”

Ava relaxed against the couch. Bless his sweet little heart. He’d just earned himself another reward.

Twenty

McKell wasn’t surprised when Ava and Noelle left him alone with the unconscious vampires. To “ship his property to AIR on his own, as he most likely wanted to do, possessive ass that he was.” What had surprised him? They’d expected a thank-you for their consideration. Aka a back rub, followed by a foot rub, followed by hand-feeding them dinner. Before taking off to “do shit he shouldn’t concern himself with,” they’d been very vocal about their desires.

Females. He’d let them go only because they’d sworn to remain inside the house.

So, alone in the dining room, McKell surveyed his handiwork. The vampires were unmoving—and messy—and there was no way in hell he was going to spend the next hour patching them up for safe travels to their new home, while the girls did God knew what. Only one way to handle this, then. He delegated their care to the two guards waiting outside the door, ordering the men to bind those slashed necks and drive the vampires straight to AIR headquarters, making no stops along the way.

They nodded and jumped into action—after admitting that Ava had already commanded them to do exactly that.

Females, he thought again. Only this time he was grinning. His woman was clever.

Now he surveyed the room itself. Ruined, as he’d first warned Noelle. But she hadn’t seemed to care about the possibility and subsequent reality, so he wouldn’t either. Besides, he well knew how possessive some people could be about their things, cough cough, and he didn’t want to upset Noelle’s harpy of a mother by moping up a single drop of blood and touching what now belonged to her.

So he left the room exactly as it was with a muttered, “You’re welcome.” See how nice he was? He wasn’t even going to demand a thank-you of his own.

He strode down the hall, following Ava’s scent, but stopped midway as a thought struck him. Scent. He was following her scent. Her human scent.

The vampires’ scent … He’d never noticed one.

Frowning, McKell backtracked to the bloody room. In the club, he’d recognized their faces, so had known what they were, but had assumed they were scentless because of the many humans that surrounded them. Plus, he’d been worked into a cold, dark frenzy because one of them had practically embraced Ava.

In the car, he’d been too wrapped up in kissing Ava to care or consider. During the interrogation, he’d been too wrapped up in impressing Ava to care or consider. But now that she’d left, now that their blood was spilled all over the floor, he realized they still didn’t smell like vampires.

They smelled human, and that human scent was stamped inside his nose. A consequence of draining humans to death?

Maybe. But they’d claimed to have stopped. That begged the question: How long ago had they stopped? Yesterday? The day before? A year? And since they smelled human, would they heal like a vampire or die from their wounds?

They deserved the latter, so he still couldn’t regret his actions.

Killing their food supply went against every vampire rule in existence. McKell might view the humans as beneath him—well, most of them—but he would never do such a thing. Not even to walk unfettered in the daylight.

No wonder the vampires he’d hunted and tortured for leaving the underground had taken their secrets to the grave. Like these two, they’d known he would have made their deaths ten thousands times more painful if he’d known.

He left the room a second time, certain there had to be another way to impede the sun’s harmful rays. Equally certain Ava would help him find it. He had only to uncover her whereabouts, take her home, make love, feed, make love again, and put her immense brainpower to use. He picked up his pace.

Like the rest of her world, this home was too open for his tastes. Too spacious. He needed walls at his sides, closing him in. Like his cave. Perhaps one day he’d take Ava there. Make love to her there.

Again he quickened his steps. Left, right, right, left. Up another staircase. Down one. Through a kitchen. Every servant and guard he’d seen on the way in was now gone. Where was Ava? If she’d left … He frowned as a morbid thought occurred to him. Had he frightened her? Had she lied and run from him?

She’d seen him nearly kill two men, yes, but she’d already known he was a killer. A killer who always acted without hesitation. Well, only once had he hesitated, but Bride didn’t count, since they’d already been betrothed and he’d considered her to be his exclusive property.

His head tilted to the side as he pondered his willingness to later let Bride leave with Devyn the Targon. A willingness Ava would not receive. The thought of her walking away from him permanently, and for another man at that, filled him with so much rage he could have clawed every piece of furniture to shreds and returned the walls to plaster and dust. But he wouldn’t hurt her, he thought with conviction. Even then, even lost to the red haze of fury, he would be unable to hurt her. She was … precious.

She made him laugh, something no one had ever done before. She understood him, helped him. Drove him to be better. He hadn’t killed those vampires, and he hadn’t made them beg and suffer for hours. See? An utter improvement.

So, what did she think about him? Now that she’d seen his violent, yet merciful side?

He would ask her, and she would tell him the truth. She always did. No matter how deeply the truth cut. That was something else he liked about her. Her honesty. And after she told him that she still craved him—she hadn’t run, she just hadn’t—they could return home and, what? Make love. His shaft was still hard, still aching.

Where was she? Where was anyone? The servants and guards had probably left with the old crone. Perhaps she’d wanted no witnesses for her daughter’s deeds. That implied caring, though, and the crone hadn’t seemed to care about anything but hating Ava.

He should have killed her, he thought. He’d wanted to. How dare she look at Ava as beneath her? No one was better than Ava. She could rule this planet if she wished. She was the best of the best.