Mistress of the Underground. Lisa Childs

For now.”

      “What happened?”

      “Those happened,” Sebastian replied, pointing toward a bunch of black roses.

      Ben noticed the stake embedded in the makeshift heart, and he understood the concern wasn’t about the flowers. “What the hell. Someone’s threatening Paige?”

      Sebastian sighed. “After the bar closed down for the night, she found the arrangement in her office.”

      “An office she shouldn’t even have here.” Ben ran a trembling hand over his hair. “But why use the stake to threaten Paige? It makes no sense. She’s not one of the society.”

      “Maybe that’s the threat.”

      “That they’ll make her into one of you? Then what? Kill her? It makes no sense,” Ben said, frustration and fear gnawing at him.

      “Sometimes it doesn’t make sense,” Sebastian reminded him. “Sometimes somebody needs no motive other than madness.”

      Ben shuddered, remembering the destruction he’d seen and tried to treat that had resulted from such madness.

      He glanced at the flowers and the stake again. “There’s a note?” He reached for it, but Sebastian pulled his hand back.

      “It says she’s going to get what she deserves.”

      “I want to see it,” Ben said. “Maybe I’ll recognize the handwriting.”

      “Don’t touch it,” Sebastian advised. “She wants to report this special delivery to Kate, the Zantrax major case detective.”

      Ben groaned. “If Paige reports this to her, it’ll put them both in danger.”

      “I talked her out of calling Kate tonight, but I think that was just because she was too tired to argue with me. And she probably didn’t want to wake up Kate.” Sebastian pushed a hand through his hair. “She cares more about her friends than she does herself.”

      “She’s never done very well taking care of herself,” Ben remarked. “But neither of us did very well taking care of her, either.”

      Sebastian’s face flushed with color and he protested, “Hey, that’s not fair—”

      “We almost lost her once,” Ben reminded him. “Where is she now?”

      “Home.”

      “Alone?” Pressure tightened the muscles in his chest as his fear for her safety conflicted with his fear that she might not be alone. Although they’d been divorced four years, he wanted her with no one but him. Which made him selfish as hell, since he couldn’t give her what she deserved—happiness, security…

      “She thinks she’s alone,” Sebastian said.

      “But you have someone watching her?” Ben asked, the fear rushing back.

      The other man nodded.

      “Someone you can trust?”

      Sebastian flinched. “You’re the only one I really trust—”

      “Damn it, you promised you’d watch over her—that you’d make sure she didn’t get hurt.” And Ben shouldn’t have trusted anyone with that responsibility but himself. But, as Paige had often reminded him—when he’d tried to give her alimony—since he’d signed the divorce papers, she was no longer his responsibility.

      “She’ll be safe,” Sebastian insisted. “The person watching her is too afraid to hurt her or to let her get hurt.”

      “Afraid of you?” Ben asked, arching a brow with skepticism. Sebastian had the reputation of being more of a lover than a fighter.

      “Afraid of you,” the other man clarified.

      “Then I should be the one protecting her,” Ben said. The divorce hadn’t stopped him from caring about her no matter how much Paige wanted to keep things light and impersonal between them. All sex and no emotion. He couldn’t blame her after the way he’d hurt her.

      Now he had to make certain no one else hurt her. He turned toward the door just as a guttural moan echoed down the hall. From all the years he’d been a surgeon, Ben readily recognized the cry of pain. While the cry was familiar, the voice was not. Ben grabbed his bag and hurried out to find his patient collapsed on the floor. Blood spurted between the fingers of the hand that the guy clutched against his throat.

      “Son of a bitch,” Sebastian murmured from behind Ben. “Is he mortal…?”

      “I think we’re about to find out.” Someone could have tried “turning” the guy into a vampire, but that process proved such a risk. Ben had treated many mortals as they turned; he’d lost more of them than he’d been able to save.

      He focused on this patient, refusing to lose another one—even while he worried that he might lose Paige. Again.

      The sun had yet to rise when Paige returned to Club Underground. An outside light illuminated the cement steps leading down to the bar. Trying to sleep had been pointless—with all the thoughts racing through her mind and chasing her back here to reinspect that sinister flower arrangement. She hurried down the stairs, the skin pricking between her shoulder blades as if someone’s gaze bored a hole in her back. Ever since she’d left her condo, she’d had that sensation, the one of being watched.

      Her hand shook as she shoved the keys in the lock and opened the door. As she crossed the dance floor to the hall, her foot slipped and she fell, one leg forward, her other one folded beneath her. She sucked in a breath of pain over her forced splits. “What the hell…?”

      She’d trusted Sebastian to supervise the cleaning crew, but one of the crew must have missed a spilled drink. She ran her hand across the polished floorboards, smearing something sticky across the wood and her skin. To identify the substance in the dim security lighting, she lifted her hand to her face. “Blood?”

      And it wasn’t just on the floor. A streak had spattered across the wall next to the door to the hall leading to her office. Fear clutched at her heart—not for herself but for her brother. Was Sebastian all right? She opened her mouth to scream his name, but then a noise—a bump and a clatter—echoed down the hall. From her office or the locked door?

      She reached for her purse, and the cell phone inside it. But when she’d fallen the contents had spilled out and scattered across the floor. Tears of frustration stung her eyes; she needed to call for help. She scrambled to her feet and ran for the bar, moving behind it to the phone sitting next to the register.

      Another bump and a mumbled curse echoed down the hall. Her hand passed over the phone, and she closed her fingers around the neck of a bottle instead. No matter who she called, they wouldn’t arrive in time to protect her. She had to protect herself.

      Adrenaline pulsing in every nerve ending, she headed around the bar to the hall—the liquor bottle clutched tight in her hand. Her flower sender was about to get his first round free—against the side of his head.

      Paige stepped into the hall, brandishing the bottle as a weapon. But before she could swing at the shadow that stepped out of her office, strong fingers closed around her wrist.

      “Damn it, Paige,” the man remarked, “you almost got me with that. What the hell—”

      “Ben!” She smacked his shoulder with her free hand. “What the hell are you doing here—besides scaring me half to death?”

      “Hey, you’re the one who nearly knocked me out,” Ben said. “I’m here because Sebastian asked me to come down.”

      “Is he all right?” she asked, glancing around her ex to search for her brother. However, the office was empty except for that gruesome flower arrangement.

      “He’s fine,” Ben said. “He’s already taken off.”

      “What about