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Ana wondered why but Collette didn’t add anything more.

“Don’t look at me,” Justine said. “I pay my outstanding parking tickets on a quarterly basis.”

Barrett shook her head but she smiled. “My last gig was overseas. Army. Eastern Europe, working with refugee women and children. Pick a conflict. I probably was there.”

Ana took that in. Nothing she’d done compared. She had a new respect for the cool blonde.

Collette’s intelligent gaze rested on Ana.

She fought her natural resistance to talking about herself. To sharing anything that could possibly and probably be used against her. “Ah—I had my own business. A coffee shop in Seattle.”

“Ooo,” Justine said. “Now we’re getting into the rough stuff.”

Ana felt her face grow warm and automatically thrust out her chin. “There’s more to it. But some other time.”

To her credit, Justine let it go at that. There was something to being quiet and patient and letting other people make the mistakes, Ana thought.

Justine set down her empty bottle with a sigh. “Okay. I started my glorious career as a roadhouse hostess and figured out quick that I could make more money as a dancer. Please don’t hate me because I worked in a thong.”

The others murmured to the contrary, but all Ana could think was that Justine working in a thong would probably drive men crazy. Would
her
working in a thong do the same to Ty?

“I’m totally done with that,” Justine continued. “But I met a lot of interesting people and had a lot of fun. Oh, and somewhere in there I learned how to fix cars. You don’t ever want to show up late at Angels from Heaven because your beater threw a rod.”

Barrett blinked as if she was trying to figure out the last sentence. So she didn’t know what a beater was, Ana thought. Well, that wasn’t a crime.

She was cutting the blonde slack, she realized. Cutting them all slack. Had she already started to bond with these women?

Over manure. With aching backs.

It was a start.

Looked like the mysterious Carly had accomplished what she’d wanted.

The other women nodded and Ana automatically did the same.

“I say we reconvene for group mani-pedis in a week,” Justine piped up. “Show of hands?”

Ana looked at her short, uncolored nails. Plain. Simple. Boring.

When she looked up, the other women were watching her with different expressions. Gentleness—Collette. Amusement—Justine. Challenge—Barrett.

The vote was unanimous.

“I know a red that will look fabulous with your coloring,” Justine said as they all left the stable. Feeling slightly dazed, Ana simply nodded.

But when she was alone in her room, she showered and fell into bed with a smile.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Two days after Carly had Ana bond with the other women
over horse shit, Ty stood on the upper story of the Belladonna training facility and looked down at the paddock, watching as Ana got dumped off the gray horse yet again. She cussed first at the horse, then at Barrett, who was teaching Ana to ride. Barrett responded with a cool smile, and gestured for Ana to get back up on the horse. Although she hesitated at first, Ana gathered the reins, and apparently her courage, and launched herself back into the saddle.

When Ty’s cell phone rang, he answered it.

“How’s our ghetto girl doing?” Carly’s sultry voice queried.

“Don’t call her that,” he snapped out even as he kept his gaze on Ana, who’d gamely pressed the horse into a canter. She bounced a bit in her seat, but held on.

“Sticking up for the masses?” Carly taunted. “So magnanimous of you, ignoring class.”

“There is no class system in America,” he responded, hitching in a breath as the horse took the jump.

Carly laughed bitterly. “So goes the lie. So how’s Ana’s training going?”

“Quite well. She’s handled everything we’ve thrown at her. Before today, she’d never ridden a horse, but she’s getting the hang of it.”

“Why the hell does she need to ride a horse?”

“The compound has a few horses, so riding just might come in handy. Plus, the lessons are another teambuilding experience more than anything else,” he said.

“Ty, we need to push forward,” Carly said. “We have less than a week left before the fund-raiser. If Miguel takes the bait, things could move quickly. We need to tell her.”

Ty stiffened. He understood what Carly was getting at.

Tell her what I am. A freak of nature. A monster
.

Instinctively, he resisted. “I don’t want to tell her. Not yet.”

“She’s done everything you’ve asked of her, Ty, and that’s been plenty. She’s proven she’s invested in the mission. Peter and I will be talking to the others. Tell Ana or I will.”

As the line went dead, Ty cast his gaze below, focusing again on Ana. She’d dismounted, and stood next to the horse, stroking its shoulder as she spoke animatedly with Barrett. And smiled.

After Carly’s little bonding exercise, he’d put Ana through hell all over again, but she’d done everything he’d asked without complaining. More than that, she’d started to take pride in her own achievements and the small connections she was making with the rest of the team. She’d been smiling more and more easily. And, God, but Ana smiling was something to look at.

Too bad he had to wipe that smile right off her face.

Fifteen minutes later, Ty leaned against the paddock fence and watched Ana exit the barn. She was still smiling, her expression soft, her chin tipped up so the afternoon sun stroked her cheeks. Happy.

Once again, her visible joy took his breath away.

Then she caught sight of him, leaning against the whitewashed boards, and she frowned.

“So, I pretty much sucked, didn’t I?” she asked, gesturing with a thumb over her shoulder to the barn behind her.

“You looking for a phony compliment?”

She frowned. “No. I was looking for agreement.”

He kicked off from the paddock fence, and with his hands still dug deep into his pockets, came to stand a bare two inches away from her. “Won’t get that from me. You actually have a good seat.”

Now her frown turned to a scowl. “Stop blowing smoke up my ass. That’s the first time I’ve ever been on a horse. Of course I sucked. What you’re doing is patronizing me, and I don’t like it. Don’t want it.”

A smile edged its way across his lips, slow and steady. “As I told you before, I never—”

“Only a liar says they never lie.”

“And only a fool won’t face the truth. Were you perfect on the horse? No. You held your shoulders too high and didn’t dig your heels down deep enough. Were you good? Yes. After getting dumped a few times, you ended up with excellent balance, and you kept control over the horse. Now get that chip off your shoulder and stop acting as if I’m your enemy.”

He expected her to say, “Everyone is the enemy,” but she didn’t. No matter. All of a sudden, he
felt
like her enemy.

Her neck was exposed, her heartbeat thrumming through the visible vein there.

Aching, his fangs reacted along with his cock. The scenery—the red barn and its white trim, the lush willow trees lining the long paved drive, the green grass of the meadow and the golden brown sand of the paddock—grew dull and gray … a roaring in his ears
sounded … hunger ate at his belly, gnawing, clawing, screaming, demanding …

Feed.

Suck.

Drink.

Blood. Punctured skin. Throbbing veins opening up under his fangs.

He jerked backward. Their surroundings slowly swam back into focus. In front of him stood a perplexed Ana.

“Ty? What’s wrong?”

He worked to calm his breathing. To reduce his heart rate. He hadn’t given himself away. She hadn’t seen him for what he really was. Hadn’t seen the beast that lived inside him. The thing he hated.

“There’s quite a few things wrong at the moment, but we need to focus on what’s important.”

“And what’s that?”

“The truth. The full truth,” he said. “There’s more that you need to know, Ana. A lot more.”

“What is it?”

He didn’t want to tell her. He truly didn’t.

But his reasons were selfish.

He wanted her to continue looking at him with desire. He wanted to hold her and kiss her again. But he’d known this day would come.

So he told her the truth. Starting with what he was.

She didn’t believe him, of course. She laughed.

“You’re a vampire. Right,” she said.

She moved to walk past him, and he gently took her arm.

“I’m not joking, Ana.”

“Of course you’re not. And of course I believe you. Did I ever tell you I’m a fairy? At night, I fly around sprinkling fairy sparkle dust over the world.”

Ty shook her, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to get her attention. “I’m a vampire. I wasn’t
born one, but I was turned into one. Six months ago. By born vampires called Rogues.”

“Rogues? As opposed to what? Lawfully abiding vampires?”

“That’s right.”

She threw her arms wide, breaking his grip. “Of course. And does everyone know about vampires—that you are one—but me?”

“No. Hardly anyone does. Just us—”

“Us?”

“Carly. Peter and I. And a select few people in the FBI.”

“Oh, so it’s a government conspiracy. Kind of like UFOs?” Her expression was still mocking. Her tone still laced with disbelief.

“No conspiracy. Not like UFOs. Just … just a discovery the government’s not ready to share yet.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding and backing away. “Well, thanks for telling me. I’m just going to go up now and—”

Ty sighed. Then he proved he wasn’t lying. He opened his mouth and showed Ana his fangs.

An hour later, a pale Ana sat in a chair in the Belladonna library.

She’d seen Ty’s fangs. In her dreams and in real life. As much as she wanted to deny it, she was beginning to believe what he was telling her.

Vampires existed. And the U.S. government knew about them.

So what the hell was Belladonna’s agenda and why were they trying to get into a cult that the FBI was refusing to infiltrate? Was it really to bring a woman and her daughter back home? She knew now that there had to be more to it than that.

Across from her sat Barrett, Justine, and Collette. Peter and Ty stood next to Carly’s intercom.

“Did you—did you all know?” Ana whispered. Because it sure seemed like they had. The rapport they’d managed to form seemed to be a thing of the past. None of the other women would look at her.

Justine appeared bored, staring out the window, tapping her short fingernails against the crystal goblet of red wine she held in her hands. Barrett sat prim and proper, her knees and feet together, hands folded in her lap, staring at a spot of nothing across the room. The epitome of class. As always, Collette looked composed and slightly sympathetic, but she kept her gaze on Carly’s intercom.

Carly spoke first. “Collette has been aware for some time. I just recently spoke with Justine and Barrett. Neither of them knew about real-life vampires until then.”

“And Peter?” she asked, turning to him. But he simply stared back at her, letting Carly answer for him.

“Ty and Peter are both recently turned vampires.”

Of course he was, she thought. And here she’d thought Peter was relatively harmless.

Ana stood suddenly, kicking the antique chair behind her, reveling in the sound of it crashing to the hardwood floor. “And none of you care? None of you are freaked out?”

“Oh, calm down, Ana,” Barrett said. “It’s not like the world is ending. We’ve simply been informed of a separate species living among us.”

“Yeah, one that
sucks human blood
to survive.”

“Personally, I don’t care who or what I’m battling against,” Barrett said. “I simply want what Carly’s promised me. And I’ll do whatever Belladonna needs me to do in order to get what I want.”

“Whatever it takes?” Ana snapped. “Be careful what you say. Or have you forgotten that I’m being asked to
fuck, hurt, or kill someone
to get what I want
. No, to get them what they want,” she said, pointing at Ty and Peter. “They’ve kept things from us up to now. What makes you think they’re not keeping more?”

For the first time since Ana had met her, Barrett looked uncomfortable. When Ana turned her glare on the company around her, Justine and Collette looked affected, too. Peter and Ty, however, did not. She supposed that was their badass superagent training coming out.

Ana turned to Ty. “Exactly how many vampires are there?”

“Many. They live among humans secretly. As far as we know, they always have.”

“You—you said you were turned. Not born. So some are? Born, I mean?”

“Yes.”

“Do all vampires look human?”

“Yes. They disguise their unique external traits. Their silver hair. Their black eyes.”

“Do you have those?”

“I dye my hair. Wear contacts. Same as Peter.”

“What else can you do?” she asked.

A flicker of something flashed across his face, but he answered readily enough. “I can move faster than any human. We thrive off human blood but we can survive off the blood of animals. When we’re done feeding, we lick the puncture site and it heals. We—at least Peter and I—can go out in the sunlight but for a limited time. And we can’t lie.”

“Vampires can’t lie,” she repeated, then quickly asked, “What happened to you? You said you were turned. How?”

“The three of us—Carly, Peter, and I—were all recruited by the FBI around the same time. They, however, had security clearance that I didn’t. Apparently, when the FBI learned about vampires, they immediately
sought to exploit the discovery. They found vampires willing to turn humans for them. I knew none of this. Not until Peter, my sister, Naomi, and another agent and I were attacked. I was turned. So was Peter. My sister didn’t make it. We don’t believe the other agent did, either.”

He said it with no grief in his voice or in his eyes. He could just as easily have been saying
I can’t find the tomatoes I bought at the store
.

But she knew better. His sister’s death bothered him. A lot. He just didn’t feel safe revealing how much it hurt him. Totally understandable. But would he feel the same way if just the two of them were here?