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Ever since he’d been cursed, sex had been a predicable tool that helped him deal with the beast. When he took a female, he’d become stimulated enough to make it to the release he needed, but the arousal never rose to the level where the beast was triggered. Not by a long shot.

With Mary, though, all bets were off. He didn’t think he could control himself enough to enter her, much less make it to orgasm. That damn vibration she called out of him shot his sex drive straight into danger land.

He took a deep breath. The only saving grace appeared to be that he could get himself back under wraps quickly. If he got away from her, if he marshaled his nervous system, he was able to beat the feeling down to a manageable intensity. Thank God.

Rhage used the toilet, then washed his face in the sink and dried off with a hand towel. When he opened the door, he braced himself. He had a feeling that when he saw Mary again, the feeling would return a little.

It did.

She was sitting on the couch dressed in khakis and a fleece. The candlelight amplified the anxiety in her face.

“Hey,” he said.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his jaw. “Sorry about that. Sometimes I need a minute.”

Her eyes widened.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s almost six. You’ve been in there for nearly eight hours.”

Rhage cursed. So much for a quick fix. “I didn’t know I was gone for that long.”

“I, ah, I checked in on you once or twice. I was worried…Anyway, someone called for you. Roth?”

“Wrath?”

“That’s the name. Your phone kept ringing and ringing. Eventually I answered it.” She looked down at her hands. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I am now.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. The exhale did nothing to ease the set of her shoulders.

“Mary, I…” Damn it, what exactly could he tell her that wasn’t going to make things harder for her?

“It’s okay. Whatever happened, it’s okay.”

He came over to the couch and sat down next to her.

“Listen, Mary, I want you to come with me tonight. I want to take you somewhere that I know you’ll be safe. The lessers, those things in the park, are probably gunning for you, and they’ll look here first. You’re a target now because you were with me.”

“Where would we go?”

“I want you to stay with me.” Assuming Wrath let them in the door. “It’s too dangerous for you here, and if the slayers are going to come for you, it’s going to be soon. We’re talking tonight. Come with me for a few days until we figure out what to do.”

Longer-term solutions evaded him at the moment, but he would find them. She’d become his responsibility when he got her mixed up in his world, and he wasn’t going to leave her undefended.

“Trust me on this. Just a couple days.”

Mary packed a bag, thinking she was crazy. Heading to God knew where. With a vampire.

But the thing about Rhage was, she had faith in him. He was too honest to lie and too smart to underestimate the threat. Besides, her appointments with the specialists didn’t start up until Wednesday afternoon. And she’d taken the week off from work as well as been discharged from the hotline. There was nothing she would miss.

When she came back down to the living room, he turned toward her, swinging the duffel over one shoulder. She eyed his black suit jacket, seeing bulges in it she hadn’t thought were significant before.

“Are you armed?’ she asked.

He nodded.

“With what?” When he just looked at her, Mary shook her head. “You’re right. Probably better that I don’t know. Let’s go.”

They drove in silence down Route 22 into the dead zone between Caldwell’s rural edges and the beginnings of the next large town. This was hilly, woodland country with nothing but long stretches of forest between the occasional rotting double-wide at the side of the road. There were no streetlights, few cars, and a lot of deer.

About twenty minutes after they’d left her house, he turned off onto a cramped one-laner that took them on a gradual ascent. She scanned what the headlights revealed, but couldn’t discern where they