ed hard. the sound of ernie's neck snapping was loud in the early morning air. colby drew air into her lungs in relief, but to her horror, ernie didn't fall. rafael shoved him backward. the zombielike creature lurched forward, his head twisted at a peculiar angle. he roared, spewing spittle as he attacked.

colby's heart pounded in her chest. her fists gripped the rifle so hard her hands went numb. she'd never felt so helpless in her life.

surprisingly, the vampire's servant was fast, but rafael sidestepped, slamming his fist deep into the man's chest. he stood there, eye to eye with the puppet, his hand buried deep, then he withdrew it. the sound was loud in the still morning air, a sucking sound that made colby sick. rafael stood there with ernie's heart in his hand, blood running down his arm. the body swayed and folded in on itself in slow motion.

colby turned her head away from the sight, her heart slamming in her chest. she didn't belong in a world where men tore the hearts out of chests and bit each other in the neck and turned human beings into cannibals and puppets. she felt faint and dizzy, pressing her hand to her forehead, wiping the beads of sweat away.

i am sorry you had to witness such a destruction of life, meu amor.

rafael's voice brushed along her nerve endings, a sensuous touch of velvet over her skin, in her mind. seducing her senses. she shook her head, wanting to think clearly. needing to think clearly. part of her felt she might be going insane.

a flash of lightning drew her attention. rafael drew from the sky the same orange-red ball of energy that nicolas had manipulated, incinerating the man who had once been a human being. he tossed the heart to the ground and did the same to it, also bathing his hands and arms in the energy.

he took a step toward colby and staggered. gasping, she slammed at the barrier with the rifle butt. "get it down now!" her third swing met with no resistance and she ran to him. "damn you! don't you ever do that again. don't you ever take away my choices like that. i could shoot you myself."

juan and julio were nearly to them. "find ginny," she yelled and caught at rafael. "you take my blood right now. this second."

he shook his head. "it is too dangerous, meu amor. i need too much. hunger claws at me. i could hurt you. i will not take the chance."

colby was so angry adrenaline surged through her blood-stream. she yanked the knife from her belt and slashed her wrist. "damn you, don't say no to me" it hurt like hell, and turned her stomach over so she had to fight against the waves of nausea. she thrust her arm to his mouth. "take the blood before i pass out or get so mad i stab you and finish the job."

the smell of blood hit him hard, and before he could stop himself, rafael grasped her wrist and latched on. the adrenaline-laced blood hit him like a fireball, rushing through his system, giving him a false high instantly. he gulped at the liquid, his cells crying out for sustenance. the red haze spread through his mind and the beast rose up, roaring for more. his ravaged body demanded the means of regeneration and the blood poured into him, hot and sweet and addicting.

she felt the drain, actually felt the blood rushing from her body into his. her wrist burned and throbbed and she could feel the puncture of his teeth. she couldn't prevent the involuntary tug as she tried to get her hand back. his grip tightened painfully, fingers digging into her skin with bruising force. colby closed her eyes and tried not to look or feel anything at all.

stop him. nicolas's voice was so distant and faint colby could barely catch it. force him to stop before it is too late.

"rafael." she yanked at her wrist hard, trying to break loose from his grip. "let go of me. you're hurting me." her legs went out from under her and she sank down.

"don rafael." juan chevez shoved the barrel of his rifle beneath rafael's jaw. "let her go or i will shoot."

there was a moment of silence. colby's heart pounded. inside, she could hear herself screaming a denial. she'd rather be dead herself than lose him, but fear lived in her as rafael stoked his tongue across her wrist and lifted his head to look at juan. there was death in the black eyes and little else.

colby's arm fell free of his grip. before she could think she leapt to her feet and shoved the rifle away from rafael. "no, juan. he doesn't know what he's doing." she tried to touch rafael's mind, but she could only hear a strange roaring and, very distantly, a wrenching cry of sorrow. rafael's fingers wrapped around her throat. time stopped. her heart beat too fast and the air rushed from her lungs.

without warning rafael collapsed, going down hard and taking her with him. he was gone from her mind. colby frantically took his pulse. "is he dead? juan, there's no pulse. he can't be dead." she tried to roll him over to give him cpr.

juan stayed her with a hand on her shoulder. "it is the sun. he is too weak and he must be protected, put in the ground. we have to attend his wounds as best we can and cover him with earth. when don nicolas rises this evening, he will take him somewhere safe."

she lifted rafael's head and to her shock, his black eyes stared at her, filled with intelligence and remorse. he seemed paralyzed, unable to move. his heart and lungs appeared not to be working, but he was alert. "should i pack his wounds like i did last night?" she didn't want to look into rafael's eyes and she didn't want to touch his mind.

while juan dug a place in the cool earth near the pond, she packed the wounds with soil and her own saliva. he never spoke and she felt numb. his wounds were terrible. it didn't seem possible for anyone to recover from such a thing. she hated helping juan roll him into the shallow grave and had to look away when his body was covered.

colby staggered to her feet and began to run through the brush, uncaring that the jagged branches and prickly thorns tore at her skin and clothes. she needed to find paul and ginny. she needed to be with someone sane, someone normal. her mind couldn't accept what rafael could do. he should be dead, yet he had ripped out a heart with his bare hands. he had nearly killed her and might have killed juan. instead of taking him to a doctor, she had packed the gaping holes with dirt and saliva and buried him on her ranch.

paul and ginny sat in the small grove of pine trees, julio standing guard. both looked tired and dirty and so familiar she burst into tears.

rafael couldn't comfort her, locked beneath the earth, his body already leaden and his heart ceasing to beat. he could hear her crying, knew he had nearly killed her and that she knew it as well. juan had obeyed him, putting her protection above all else, and for that he would always be grateful. he was so close, the monster growing in him when the ritual words should have made him safe. had he waited too long? he wanted to reach out to her, hold her, kiss the tears from her face and reassure her he would never harm her, but he no longer knew if that was true. lying beneath the earth, he found his anguish over colby hurt far worse than any of his physical wounds.

aboveground, colby clung to paul and ginny, desperate to get them away from a world she didn't understand. ginny began to tell her all about her frightening experience, following the sound of a hurt animal and being trapped in a deadfall. the sound of her voice did nothing to help the terrible dread that invaded colby's heart.