beth leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms out. her computer screen glowed.

boy, the internet was handy.

according to the title search she'd performed online, 816 wallace avenue was owned by a man named fritz perlmutter. he'd bought the property in 1978 for a little over $200,000. when she'd googled the perlmutter name, she'd found a number of people with f as a first initial, but none of them lived in caldwell. after checking some of the government databases and coming up with nothing worth a damn, she had tony do some hacking.

it turned out fritz was a clean-living, law-abiding kind of guy. his credit report sparkled. he'd never had any trouble with the irs or the police. never been married, either. and he was a member of the private client group of the local bank, which meant he had plenty of money. but that was about all tony could find.

doing the math, she figured the fine and upstanding mr. perlmutter must be in his seventies.

why the hell would someone like him hang out with her midnight marauder?

maybe the address wasn't legit.

now there'd be a shocker. guy dressed in black leather and dripping with weapons giving out false info? you don't say.

still, 816 wallace and fritz perlmutter was all she had to go on.

going through the caldwell courier journal's archives, she'd found a couple of articles on the house. the mansion was on the national register of historic places, as a fantastic example of the federal style, and there were some stories and op-eds about the work that had been done on it immediately after mr. perlmutter had taken possession. evidently the local historical association had been dying to get inside the house for years to see what had changed, but mr. perlmutter had declined all requests. in the letters to the editor, the simmering frustration of the history buffs had been mixed with grudging approval at the accuracy of the exterior restorations.

as she reread an op-ed, beth popped a tums in her mouth and crunched it into a powder that filled the creases in her molars. her stomach was sour again. and she was hungry. great combination.

maybe it was frustration. essentially, she knew nothing more than she had when she started.

and the cell phone number the man had given her? u.n-traceable.

in the information vacuum, she was even more determined to stay away from wallace avenue. and feeling the echo of a need to go to confession.

she checked the time. almost seven o'clock.

given her hunger, she decided to go eat. better to skip our lady and take nourishment of the physical variety.

leaning to one side, she looked around the wall of her cubicle. tony was already gone.

she really didn't want to be alone.

on a crazy impulse she picked up the phone and dialed the station. "ricky? it's beth. is detective o'neal around? okay, thanks. no, no message. no, i?aplease don't page him. it's nothing important."

just as well. hard-ass was not really the uncomplicated company she was looking for.

she stared down at her watch, getting lost in the second hand's crawl around the dial. the evening hours stretched ahead of her like an obstacle course, the hours to be dodged and surmounted.

hopefully with speed.

maybe she'd grab some food and go see a movie afterward. anything to delay going back to her apartment. come to think of it, she should probably stay at a motel somewhere.

in the event that man came looking for her again.

she'd just logged off her computer when her phone rang. she picked it up on the second ring.

"heard you were looking for me."

butch o'neal's voice was a gravel pit, she thought. in a good way.

"um. yeah." she pushed her hair back over her shoulder. "you still free for dinner?"

his laugh was a low rumble. "i'll be in front of the paper in fifteen."

he hung up before she could slide in a properly nonchalant, this-is-just-about-food comment.

after sundown wrath walked into the kitchen, carrying the silver tray with the remnants of his meal on it. typical of darius, everything was the best of the best here, too. industrial stainless-steel appliances. plenty of cupboards and granite counter space. lots of windows.

too many lights.

fritz was at the sink, scrubbing at something. he looked over his shoulder. "master, you didn't need to bring that back."

"yeah, i did." wrath put the tray down on a counter and leaned into his arms.

fritz shut off the water. "was there something you needed?"

well, for starters, he'd like to not be such a dickhead.

"fritz, your job here is solid. just wanted you to know that."

"thank you, master." the butler's voice was very quiet. "i don't know what i would do if i didn't have someone to take care of. and i think of this as my home."

"it is. for as long as you want it to be."

wrath turned and headed for the door. he was almost out of the room when fritz spoke up.

"this is your home, too, master."

he shook his head. "already got a place to sleep. don't need another."

wrath walked into the hall, feeling particularly ferocious. man, beth had better be alive and well. or god help whoever had hurt her.

and if she'd decided to avoid him? that didn't matter. her body was about to need something only he could provide her. so sooner or later she would come around. or she would die.

he thought of the soft skin of her neck. felt the sensation of his tongue stroking over the vein that ran up from her heart.

his fangs elongated as if she were before him. as if he could sink his teeth into her and drink.

wrath closed his eyes as his body began to shake. his stomach, full with food, turned into a bottomless, achy pit.

he tried to remember the last time he'd fed. it had been a while, but surely not that long ago?

he forced himself to calm down. get control. it was like trying to slow down a train with a hand brake, but eventually a cooling stream of sanity replaced the whacked-out, blood-lust spins.

as he came back to reality he felt uneasy, his instincts crying out for airtime.

that female was dangerous to him. if she could affect him like this without even being in the damn room, she might just be his pyrocant.

his detonator, so to speak. the express-lane ez pass to his self-destruction.

wrath dragged a hand through his hair. how goddamned ironic that he wanted her like no other female.

but maybe it wasn't irony. maybe that was precisely how the pyrocant system worked. the urge to cozy up to what could annihilate you ensured the damn thing got a chance to go to work on your ass.

after all, what kind of fun would it be if you could easily avoid your inner hand grenade?

damn him. he needed to get beth off his plate of responsibilities. fast. as soon as she was through her transition, he was going to put her in the hands of an appropriate male. a civilian.

in gory flashback, he pictured that young male's bloody, beaten body.

how the hell would a civilian keep her safe?

he didn't know the answer to that one. but what other option was there? he wasn't going to keep her.

maybe he could give her to one of his brothers.

yeah, and who would he pick out of that bunch? rhage? who'd just add her to his fuck pool, or worse, eat her by mistake? v with all his problems?

zsadist?

and did he really think he could handle knowing one of his warriors was doing her?

not fucking likely.

god, he was tired.

vishous materialized in front of him. the vampire was running without his baseball cap tonight, and wrath could dimly make out the complex markings around his left eye.

"found billy riddle." v lit up one of his hand-rolled cigarettes, his gloved fingers steady. when he exhaled, the fragrance of turkish tobacco perfumed the air. "he was arrested for sexual assault forty-eight hours ago. lives with his daddy, who happens to be a u.s. senator."

"high-profile background."

"hard to get higher. and i took the liberty of doing some research. billy boy's been in and out of trouble as a juvenile. violent stuff. sexual shit. got to imagine daddy's campaign manager loves the fact that the guy's hit eighteen. everything billy pulls now is public record."

"you nail a street address?"

"yeah." vishous grinned. "you gonna put a hurt on the guy?"

"like you read about."

"so let's go."

wrath shook his head. "i'll meet you and the rest of the brothers back here later tonight. i've got to go somewhere first."

he could feel v's eyes sharpen, the vampire's fierce intellect churning over the situation. among the brothers, vishous had the most raw brainpower, but he paid for the privilege.

man, wrath sure had his own demons, and they were no walk in the park, but he wouldn't have wanted vishous's cross to bear. seeing what had yet to come was a terrible burden.

v drew on the hand-rolled and exhaled slowly. "i dreamed of you last night."

wrath stiffened. he'd been kind of waiting for this. "i don't want to know, brother. i really don't."

the vampire nodded. "just remember something, okay?"

"shoot."

"two guards tortured will happily fight each other."