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Part of him wanted to tell her that the fate of one lost little girl was not his problem. Not after what that bastard Fabien had just put him through at the containment facility. And not when the Order had its hands full with other, more critical missions. Life and death on a massive scale, true do-or-die, save-the-world kind of shit.

But when he opened his mouth to tell her so, he found he didn’t have the heart to say that out loud to Renata now.

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked her, indicating the wound that had been bleeding a few hours ago in the truck and driving his already weak control nearly to the edge. On the surface, it looked better now, bandaged in clean white gauze and smelling faintly of antiseptic.

‘Jack patched me up,” she said. “He was a medic for the Marines when he served in Vietnam.”

Niko saw the tenderness in her expression when she spoke of the human, and he wondered why he should feel even the slightest twinge of jealousy, particularly when that human male’s military service aged him well into his AARP years. “So, he’s a Marine, eh? How’d he end up working in a Montreal youth shelter?”

Renata smiled a bit sadly. “Jack fell in love with a local girl named Anna. They got married, bought this house together and lived here for more than forty years… until Anna died. She was killed in a robbery. The homeless kid who stabbed her for her purse did it while he was high on heroin. He was looking for money for his next fix, but he only got about five dollars in change.”

‘Jesus,” Niko exhaled. “I hope the piece of shit didn’t get away with it.”

Renata shook her head. “He was arrested and charged, but he hanged himself in jail while awaiting trial. Jack once told me when he heard that news, that’s when he decided to do something to help prevent another death like Anna’s, or another kid from being lost to the streets. He opened his house—Anna’s Place—to anyone who needed shelter, and gave the kids warm meals and a place to belong.”

“Sounds like Jack’s a generous man,” Niko said. “A hell of a lot more forgiving than I could be.”

He had the strongest urge to touch her, to just let his fingers come to rest on her skin. He wanted to know more about her, more about her life before she got mixed up with Sergei Yakut. He had the feeling things didn’t come easy for her. If Jack had helped to smooth her path, then Nikolai had nothing but respect for the man.

And if she could trust the human, so would he. He hoped like hell Jack was all Renata believed him to be. It would be a hell of a thing if he proved otherwise.

“Let me have a look at your shoulder,” he said, happy to change the subject.

When he moved toward her, Renata hesitated. “You sure you can handle that? Because I’m fresh out of tranq rounds, and it hardly seems sporting to mind blast a vampire in your feeble condition.”

A joke? He chuckled, caught off guard by her humor, especially when things were looking more than a little grim for both of them. “Gome here and let me see Jack’s handiwork.”

She leaned forward to give him better access to her shoulder. Niko moved aside the soft cotton blanket she was wrapped in, letting the edge of the fabric slide down her arm. As carefully as he lifted the bandage and inspected the cleaned, sutured wound beneath it, he still felt Renata flinch with discomfort. She held herself perfectly still as he gingerly checked both sides of her shoulder. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle, but even that thin rivulet of scarlet hit him hard. He was out of the woods as far as Bloodlust went, but he was still Breed, and Renata’s sweet sandalwood-and-rain blood scent was intoxicating, especially up close.

“Overall, it looks decent,” he murmured, forcing himself to pull away. He replaced the bandages and sat back on the edge of the bed. “The exit wound is still pretty livid.”

‘Jack says I’m lucky that the bullet went straight through and didn’t hit any bones.”

Niko grunted. She was lucky to have been blood-bonded to a Gen One male. Sergei Yakut may have been a vicious, good-for-nothing bastard, but the presence