then she pulled back her hand.
She hadn’t fought Ben, either. She should have pushed him; she should have fought to learn all his secrets. But then, like now, she’d been afraid of what she might discover.
It was well past time to face her fears.
“Live, damn you, live,” Ben beseeched the man lying atop the table. Blood gurgled around the stake protruding from Owen Buskirk’s chest.
He understood how Sebastian had talked this man into protecting Paige. Buskirk owed Ben for saving the mortal he’d tried to turn and nearly killed instead. God, he’d been furious with the careless vampire for nearly killing an innocent girl. He’d threatened that if Owen ever needed him that he wouldn’t help.
“Live,” he pleaded with his patient as he worked frantically to repair the damage. Owen was an idiot, but he didn’t deserve what had been done to him. “You have to tell me who did this to you.”
Ben needed to know before the stake was driven into Paige’s heart. After cutting through what was left of the guy’s chest, he reached for the rib-splitter. But his efforts were futile—the heart had been splintered to pieces.
This undead had just become very dead.
“Someone’s trying to open the door,” a feminine voice warned him.
He glanced to Ingrid, the vampiress who occasionally served as his nurse. She hadn’t even bothered helping him with this patient, as if she’d instinctively known what Ben had refused to accept.
He lifted his gaze to the monitor that displayed the images from the surveillance camera hidden in the hall. His breath backed up in his lungs as he realized it was Paige standing at the door, beside the dark-haired detective who was messing with the lock. Fear was stark on her face, which was eerily pale on the black-and-white screen.
“Oh, God,” he murmured. “We need to move him.” But even if they managed to get him through the only other exit and into the sewers, they wouldn’t have time to clean up the blood that overflowed the metal exam table and pooled on the cement floor beneath it.
“There’s no time,” Ingrid said, voicing his thought aloud. “If they get inside, we will have to get rid of them.”
“No! I won’t let you hurt her.”
“You know the rules of the secret society,” Ingrid reminded him. “No mortal can know of us and live.”
“You’ve made an exception to that rule,” he pointed out.
“You’re the only exception,” Ingrid said, “because we need you.”
“And when you don’t?” Would he be expendable, too?
“We’re going to need you,” she said as she glanced from the body on the table back to him, “as long as we can trust you.”
Ben clenched his jaw, holding back a sharp retort. Losing his temper wouldn’t protect Paige.
“You’re going to want us to keep trusting you,” Ingrid warned him as the doorknob rattled. “And that means protecting our secret.”
He focused on the monitor again, on the fear on Paige’s face and the frustration on the detective’s. Please, leave it alone. Just leave it alone…
He had no clue if Paige would hear or heed his telepathic message. But all those other times that he’d seen the questions in her eyes, her need to know where he’d been and what he’d been doing, he’d sent her the same message. And her questions had remained in her eyes, unasked.
And the distance and distrust had grown between them.
He’d done it to protect her, as he had to protect her now.
“We need to get him out of here and leave,” he urged her, “in order to protect the secret.”
Ingrid gestured toward the dead vampire. “This is why mortals can’t learn about our society. This is what happens when they find out about us. They set out to destroy all of us. They feel they must kill what they fear.”
Ben shook his head. “You don’t know that a mortal did this. I have treated more wounds that were a result of vampire violence—either to other vampires or to mortals who were hurt as a result of what a vampire had done to them.”
“You shouldn’t be treating the mortals.”
“I’m a doctor first,” he said. “I’ve taken an oath.” Just as he’d once spoken vows to Paige, vows he would not break. He couldn’t leave the Underground, not with her in danger.
He glanced to the monitor and the two women standing in the hall, then back to the knob as it turned….
“What the hell—” Sebastian’s heart slammed against his ribs as he ran down the hall to where Paige and her friend stood at the door.
“Sebastian,” Paige said, turning toward him. She threw her arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry….”
“Sorry?” Patting her back, he stared over her head at what the detective had done to the lock. Scratches marred the steel surface, but the door remained shut. And locked?
“About your car,” Paige said. She pulled back and lifted her gaze to his, her blue eyes wide with regret. “Did you see it or have the police already taken it away?”
“Oh, yeah, my car,” he said with a brief wince.
“You got my voice mail then?”
He shook his head. “No, I talked to Ben. He told me what happened.”
“Where is Ben?” Kate asked, finally turning her focus away from the door to stare at Sebastian.
“He was with me,” Paige said, her face flushing with color, “when we discovered the damage to your car. But then he had to rush off. He had an emergency.”
“What are you two doing?” He gestured behind them.
“Something strange is going on around here,” Paige said. “And Kate’s going to investigate.”
“Would you open this door for us?” the detective asked. “You’ve been managing Club Underground for a while. You must have a key.”
“There’s a key somewhere in the office,” he admitted. “I could probably dig it out if we had a while.”
“I can wait,” Kate said, folding her arms across her rather impressive chest.
He shrugged. “Fine. I’m pretty tired myself. Haven’t been to bed yet.”
“Really?”
He chuckled. “Well, I haven’t been to sleep yet. I doubt Paige has, either. And don’t you work nights, Detective?”
“So
