LITMIR.BIZ

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he began. “The new owner of Club Underground has been receiving threats.”

      “Because she doesn’t belong here,” a feminine voice murmured.

      He glanced to Ingrid, but she sat silently, staring up at him with those dark, crazy eyes. “She owns this club now.”

      “But she’ll never be the mistress of the Underground,” another voice murmured.

      “Sebastian never should have let her buy the club,” Cooper said with regret.

      “Well, if anyone harms Paige—again—I’m out!” Ben said as resentment fueled his rage.

      “What do you mean?” someone asked.

      “You can’t!” A chorus of variations of the protest rang out.

      Cooper shook his blond head. “You’re the only one who can provide us medical treatment now.”

      They’d had another doctor once, but he’d proved unworthy of the trust they’d put in him.

      “Of course, Sebastian has broken more hearts than you’ve mended, Doc,” Cooper observed with a chuckle. Happily settled now, his playboy past behind him, Cooper was just amused and a little mocking that his friend still lived his old lifestyle. “Where is he?”

      “At the hospital…”

      Gasps emanated from the group.

      “…with Paige,” he continued. “Someone attacked her again tonight. There are fang marks on her throat.” He slammed his fist onto the bar. The members of the society flinched, probably not over his anger but over the damage his gesture could have inflicted on one of the instruments of his special power. “This has got to stop! Now!”

      “So you think one of us is threatening her?” someone asked.

      He sighed. “If not one of you personally, then one of you must know who is.”

      “Besides what happened tonight, what were the other threats?” Cooper asked.

      Ben chronicled everything that had happened, then added, “The stakes, the bite tonight…whoever’s doing this is risking her discovering the secret. She’s going to catch on.”

      “Then you know what has to happen to her,” Ingrid said, the madness bright in her dark eyes.

      “If Paige learns the secret, none of you will be harmed,” he promised. “And I will continue to provide medical treatment. Nothing will change—as long as she doesn’t get hurt.”

      “So you’re the one with the threats now,” Ingrid observed. “And you’re not in a position to issue any ultimatums to us.”

      The hair rose on Ben’s nape at the ominous tone of her husky voice. Ingrid, alone, wouldn’t have concerned him, but he noted the nods of agreement from other vampires.

      In calling them together, he’d acted on his rage—not his common sense. Because if he’d been thinking clearly, he would have realized how dangerous it was to be the sole mortal in the secret society.

      He’d seen the atrocities some of them had done—to one another and to hapless mortals. Was he about to experience it personally?

      “Where’s Ben?” Paige asked as she struggled to hold up her lids. Maybe Renae had given her a sedative, or at least something that had numbed Paige from feeling the pain of the stitches that had closed the wound on her neck.

      A muscle twitched along Sebastian’s cheek. “He had to leave. He had to…see a patient,” Sebastian explained. Or lied on Ben’s behalf.

      “Why did he have to leave then?” she asked. “Isn’t his patient here in the hospital?” Ben didn’t keep regular office hours; as a surgeon, he primarily worked out of Zantrax Memorial Hospital. The only office he used, besides the O.R., was a private suite on one of the floors of the hospital.

      Sebastian nodded. “Yeah, he’s probably around here somewhere.”

      “That’s good,” Kate said from where she stood next to the gurney on which Paige lay, a curtain separating her from the other patients in the E.R. “I’ll have him paged, then, since I have some questions for him.”

      “I can answer them,” Sebastian offered. “I was there with him tonight…when we heard Paige’s screams.”

      She flinched, her throat burning as she relived those terrifying moments—crying out in fear and desperation. She’d thought no one would hear her.

      “You both were there?” Kate asked. “He was never out of your sight?”

      “No,” Sebastian claimed. “We were having a drink at the bar.”

      Paige bit her lip so that she wouldn’t call her brother on his lie. While Kate was her friend now, she’d always been a detective first and foremost. It was bad enough that Detective Wever had suspicions about Ben; Sebastian didn’t need to get added to her suspect list.

      “I don’t have questions just about tonight,” Kate clarified. “I want to question him about how he happened to be with Paige the last time…when the vehicle was vandalized. And wasn’t he also at the club the night the flowers were left in her office?”

      Sebastian shook his head. “You’re wrong about Ben.”

      “Oh, I don’t think so,” Kate said.

      “You don’t need to interview him, Kate,” Paige finally said, struggling to clear her vision and her mind. “I know he’d never hurt me.”

      “He wouldn’t?” She arched a dark brow in apparent skepticism. “He hasn’t?”

      “Not intentionally,” Paige insisted.

      Kate shrugged, obviously unconvinced. “I’m going to see about getting him paged.”

      As soon as the detective slipped around the curtain, Sebastian leaned over the steel railing of the gurney. “You believe that, right? That Ben has never meant to hurt you.”

      She nodded. “Of course. But I have been hurt….” She touched her fingers to the gauze taped to her throat, but this was not the wound Ben had inflicted. That wound was on her heart.

      “He regrets that,” Sebastian claimed. “He would do anything to protect you…even risk his own life.”

      “What are you telling me?” The adrenaline that pumped through her veins chased away the effects of whatever drug Renae had given her. “Is Ben in danger?”

      A muscle twitched along Sebastian’s tightly clenched jaw as he nodded. “I’m afraid that he is.”

       Chapter 10

      Ben winced as he eased out of the driver’s seat of his Escalade. Pain radiated from his bruised ribs, echoing the pounding at his temples. He hadn’t been attacked during the meeting, as he’d momentarily feared. Instead, he’d been attacked as Paige had been—in the dark. As he’d been ascending the stairs to the street, someone had stepped out of the predawn gloom and knocked him down the steps.

      By the time he’d made it back to the hospital, Paige had already been checked out. Sebastian had assured Ben that she was home—safe and sound. Since the sun had risen, he believed that she was safe—for the moment. So he could sleep without worrying about Paige. Until the sun went down again…

      He walked across the garage to the service door to the kitchen. After punching in the security code, he stepped into the kitchen with its rich cherry cabinets and white marble countertops. And he saw Paige’s touch. She had decorated it as she’d done pretty much everything during their marriage—alone. Maybe that was why she hadn’t wanted it in the divorce: it held too many memories for her. Or maybe she’d wanted him to have it more than she’d wanted

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