Page 71 of Sinner's Secret

“Nope. No bats.” He watched her breathing slow and deepen. She was asleep despite the fact that he was standing just a couple of feet from her. Asleep despite knowing how dangerous he was. Asleep despite knowing he’d killed a whole bunch of people.

She trusted him. She had to.

The last woman who trusted him had died because of him.

For a moment despair took hold and he wished, not for the first time, that dying wasn’t so hard for him to do.

But, if he was gone, who would comfort Nika, protect her, make sure she had what she needed to be happy?

Someone else.

Unacceptable. Just the idea of another man touching her, taking care of her, made him angry. His cousin’s flirting nearly caused him to come unglued.

His cousin...he’d said something...dangerous. That Nika had the potential to become one of them. Yvgeny had always been able to do that—he could detect the genetic quirk that meant the virus had the possibility to change someone into something supercharged rather than dead. Just as Baz had always been able to heal faster than anyone else. Not all vampires had a special something they could do a bit better than most of their kind, but a handful did and all in his direct family line.

Nika having the potential to become one of them didn’t necessarily mean she would. Most people died during the illness faze of the process. There were no guarantees. Authorities never liked the increased death rates that occurred when some idiot decided it was a good idea to make a few new vampires. For every ten people who were infected with the virus that might instigate the change, one might survive. In the last couple of centuries, the success rate had fallen to one in fifteen.

That’s why they had to be so careful to keep their differences hidden from the rest of the world. There weren’t that many of them, and if they were found out, they’d either be rounded up and experimented on or killed outright.

He did not want Nika to die.

So, he would protect her, and the only way to do that, was to bring the human trafficking ring out into the open and destroy it.

Easier said than done.

He shut the light off downstairs, then roamed the whole building, looking for ways in and out. He discovered that there were two fire escapes, but both had secure rope ladders attached at the second-floor window level.

The main floor had been stripped of anything useful.

He took a shower and put on the clothes in the bag that would fit him. He cleaned his dented boots as best he could. Those he refused to get rid of.

He laid down on the bunk right above Nika’s and went through the mental routine that allowed him to enter the half-sleep that was all the rest he’d been able to get for far too long.

He was roused by Nika a few hours later. She’d rolled over, then sat up.

She didn’t move or do anything for almost a half minute.

“Baz?” Her question sounded tired.

“Yeah.”

“Where are you—oh.” She got to her feet and turned so she could see him. The upper bunk put him a foot higher than her head. She studied him for a minute, a deep frown on her face. “I don’t recognize those clothes.”

“They were in the bag you hauled with you from that motel.”

Her eyebrows went up. “The motel...that got blown up?”

“Yeah, I hope Yvgeny’s people got out of there before the artillery barrage.”

“I was hoping I’d dreamt that part.”

“Sorry, no.”

Her gaze went unfocused, and he watched her trying to remember what had happened. He saw the exact moment she recalled Yvgeny’s recovery from getting shot a million times and wanting to drink her blood.

Her eyes went wide and her jaw slack. She took in one...two breaths, then spun, and ran for the stairs.

Baz rolled off the bunk and caught her before she could reach them. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and lifted her off her feet.

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