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She’d been hugely disappointed to wake up and find hihtstand took awaythe piece of paper out of the pocket of her fleece track pants as she pushed open her apart into her kitchen in need of coffee, she read Dante’s bold handwriting for about the tenth ti permanently stuck on her face: Didn’t want to wake you but had to leave Have dinner with ht? I want to show you where I live I’ll call you Sleep tight, angel Yours, D

Yours, he’d signed it

Hers

A wave of fierce possessiveness swaht Tess told herself that itinto Dante’s words or to iht be iddy as she set the note down on the counter

She glanced at the little dog as dancing around her feet, waiting for his breakfast "Well, Harvard, what do you think? A for hio she hadn’t known he existed, so how could she even consider that her feelings o that far this fast? But so in love with Dante,by the sharp tu about hier bark snapped her out of the e down into his furry face "Kibble and coffee, not necessarily in that order I’m on it"

She filled her Mr Coffee rounds and cold water fro, then went to retrieve a bowl and the dry dog food from the pantry As she passed her kitchen phone, she saw that the o, baby," she said, pouring a serving of Ia it down on the floor "Bon app?tit"

With ht have been fro, Tess pressed the play button and put the voicein her pass code and listening as the autoe, ti it back to her

"Tess! Jesus Christ, why aren’t you picking up your fucking phone?"

It was Ben, she realized, her disappoint into alarm at the odd tone of his voice She’d never heard hi hard, panting, his words spilling out of him He wasn’t merely afraid He was terrified Worry clutched at her with icy talons as she listened to the rest of his call

"--needed to warn you The guy you’re seeing, he’s not what you think They busted into ht they were going to kill me, Tess! But it’s you I’ ot to stay away from him He’s into souy he ith tonight I don’t think--ah, Jesus, I just have to say it--I don’t think he’s huuy took et the nu so fucking fast He drove me down to the river and he attacked e teeth--they were fangs, I swear to God, and his eyes were lit up like they were on fire! He wasn’t human Tess, they’re not hue played on, Ben’s voice chilling her asher

"Asshole bit me--smashed my head into a car , beatbit et to a hospital or so room, as if the distance from Ben’s voice would so She didn’t kno to make sense of any of it

How could Dante be involved--even peripherally--in an attack on Ben like the one he described? True, after he’d arrived at her place last night loaded doeapons and bleeding fro a drug dealer It certainly could have been Ben he was talking about Tess had to ad of a stretch to i back into his old ways

But he was talking absolute nonsense now Men who could turn into fanged ed in a horror s had no place in real life, not even in the harshest realm of reality It just wasn’t possible

Was it?

Tess found herself standing in front of the shrouded sculpture she’d been working on last night, the one of Dante’s likeness The one she’d botched and would probably end up throwing away She’d gotten his e sort of sneer that didn’t look like hiled as she reached for the scrap of cloth that covered the piece Confusion and an odd, niggling dread sat in her stoe of the fabric and drew it clear of the bust Her breath caught in her throat when she sahat she had done--the iven Dante a wild, alht down to the sharp canines that turned his siven his

"I’m really afraid, Tess For both of us," Ben’s voice said over the speaker of her answering machine "Just whatever you do, stay the hell away frouys"

Dante flipped hisin the fluorescent lights of the co speed and struck hard at the poly twin razor-sharp lacerations several inches into the thick plastic hide With a roar, he pivoted around and went at it again with a further assault

He needed to feel at least the semblance of cooing to kill soent Sterling Chase Ben Sullivan was a damn close runner-up Hell, if he could take both of the ever since he returned to the coent had been a no-shoith their Cri Chase the benefit of the doubt for now, but Dante had a feeling in his gut that Chase, for whatever his reasons, had willfully defied his order to take Ben Sullivan into custody at the compound

Dante meant to find out what had happened, but phone calls, e-one unanswered Unfortunately, an in-person interrogation was going to have to wait until sundown

Which is roughly ten frigging hours away, Dante thought, delivering another savage attack on the target dummy

The as made even worse by the fact that he’d been unable to reach Tess either He called her apart, but she had apparently already left for work He hoped she was so Chase hadn’t killed Ben Sullivan, the huet to Tess Dante didn’t think she was in danger fro to take that risk

He needed to bring her inside, explain to her everything that was happening, including who he truly hat he truly was--and adht her into the middle of this war between the Breed and its eneht He’d already set the stage with the note he’d left at her bedside, but now the sense of urgency was growing He wanted it done and over with already, hated being so far reht to fall

With a roar, he flew at his target again, hands lass doors to the training facility slide open sory frustration to give a da, brutalizing his target until he was panting with the exertion, a sheen of sweat breaking out on his bare chest and brow Finally he paused, astonished at the depth of his fury The polymer dummy was cut to pieces, most of it in shredded chunks around his feet