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his heels, and froze.
    Definitely not Ana.
    The woman standing in front of him stole his ability to breathe.
    Beautiful. The word formed on his lips, but no sound emerged. Long waves of midnight hair spilled over her shoulders and framed a delicate heart-shaped face. A face that caused his fingers to itch with a desire to caress. She tilted her head slightly, and full red lips lifted at the corners into a semblance of a smile. Except he couldn’t help but notice it failed to reach her eyes. His gaze locked with irises the color of pale-blue tropical waters. So familiar. Guerin’s pulse quickened. Son of a bitch.
    Eve!
    “Looking for me?” Two pearl-white fangs dropped from beneath her upper lip.
    Guerin tensed, surged forward, and slammed into a wall of pain. A roar tore from his throat. His head was going to explode. He stumbled back, dropping the dagger from his hand. Lights swirled around him in a blur of dizzying color. Shit. Guerin grabbed his head and blinked rapidly, trying to bring the night back into focus.
    What the hell was she doing to him?
    His knees buckled. Down. Fuck. He was going down… The lights flickered.
    Then faded to black.

Chapter Three
    A groan vibrated at the back of Guerin’s throat. His shoulders throbbed and his wrists burned. Damn, his head felt as if it had been used in somebody’s perverse version of kickball. He would have laughed at the mental image if his brain didn’t hurt so fucking bad. Guerin dragged his eyelids open, and intense white light stabbed into his retinas. He jerked, slamming his lids shut. Shit.
    “Excellent,” a female voice stated from behind him. “You’re finally awake.”
    Keeping his eyes closed, Guerin tilted his head in her direction. “I haven’t had my coffee yet,” he said, his words hoarse, coming out of his parched throat. “So watch out. I might bite.”
    Guerin shifted the millimeter his restraints allowed and hissed. Manacles laced with silver seared the flesh surrounding his wrists and ankles.
    He parted his eyelids once more and surveyed his situation.
    Though from the all-too-familiar stance, Guerin didn’t need his sight to know the deal. He’d been cuffed to a St. Andrew’s cross, both arms raised and spread wide. His parted legs formed a perfect upside-down vee, and were secured to the lower half of the contraption. Except instead of facing his kidnapper, his cheek and chest were pressed into the wood of the cross, gifting his captor a full view of his naked back. Cool air caressed his skin, and he realized his briefs were the only item left covering his ass.
    “Enjoy your moment of humor, vampire.” His captor’s hand snagged the hair at his nape, wrenching his head back. The tug at his roots sent a sharp twinge down his spine. The combination of the cross and the pain brought his cock roaring to life. Fuck. This was definitely not the time. “For it will most certainly be short-lived if you don’t tell me who sent you looking for Eve.”
    With her body next to his, the warm scent of vanilla spiked with cinnamon tantalized his senses. Mistress Fallon? The same fragrance had invaded his nostrils and teased his dick when he’d spoken with her at the Rose’s Thorn. Not a big surprise, considering she’d been the one to set him up, and he’d walked right into her trap.
    The next obvious questions: where the hell was Eve, and how the fuck was he going to get his ass off this cross?
    “Why don’t you go first?” Guerin yanked his head out of her hold and tried to snag a glance of his kidnapper over his shoulder. But the moment he caught a glimpse of long dark hair, she stepped out of sight. Dark hair? Fallon had been a redhead. Could it be…?
    “Eve,” he continued. “I know it was you who hit me with some kind of pulse last night. So I take it you and Mistress Fallon are one and the same?”
    The crack of leather echoed through the room a split second before the silver-studded tendrils of a flogger seared his back. Guerin