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I froze. Both their gazes swung to me.
“Get back in the bedroom,” Twilight said tightly. “And shut the door.”
My chest seized. I swallowed and lifted my forearm in a lame attempt to pretend nothing was wrong. “I pulled out my IV.”
The man looked like Loki in an I’m-going-to-fuck-you-up mood—chin-length dark hair, deep-set eyes, a sharp chin. spoke in a scarily calm voice. “You shouldn’t have come out here,” he told me calmly. “Now I can’t let you live.”
“No, you can, really,” I said—ridiculously polite, but it was the first thing that came to my head. “Pretend I’m not here.”
I threw an agonized look at Twilight and inched backward. I didn’t want to abandon her, but I had the baby to think about.
The Loki-lookalike flashed a pair of sharp fangs. “Get the fuck over here.”
“Run, Eden!” Twilight slammed an elbow into his side.
He grunted and hung on, dragging the knife across her throat. She gasped but kept struggling as I stared, horrified at the thin red line the knife had left on her creamy skin.
“Don’t move,” he told her, digging the knife point into the base of her throat for emphasis. To me, he said, “Come here—now—or I’ll stab this into her jugular. You know what silver does to a young vampire? She’s already weak.”
He pressed the point deeper into the base of Twilight’s throat. She arched in pain, her hands clawing at the air.
“I bet your veins are burning, aren’t they?” he said. “Traitor. I know what you did.”
“What I did?” she rasped.
“I’m Stygian,” he said.
“Fuck.” Twilight’s eyes widened.
“That’s right,” he told her and jerked his chin at me. “You—get over here. Now.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Twilight mouthed, her eyes pleading.
I moistened my lips, torn between helping her and saving myself and the baby.
“I’ll get you either way,” Stygian said.
He was probably right. Talon’s inner doors weren’t reinforced with silver, except for his sleeping vault, which I hadn’t been cleared to enter, and the intruder was obviously either a dhampir or a vampire. Even if I locked the door, he’d just kick it down.
But that wasn’t the only reason I obeyed him.
If there was a chance to save Twilight, then I’d take it. I couldn’t live with myself otherwise. Twilight was going to have her baby, that baby who would grow up to be best friends with my little guy.
And on a purely personal level, I was sick and tired getting pushed around by vampires, dhampirs or whatever the hell this man was.
Playing the helpless pregnant woman, I shuffled forward, a hand under my sleepshirt, pretending to massage my lower back. My fingers closed around the switchblade’s handle.
Stygian narrowed his eyes. “Put your hands where I can see them.”
Damn. “Okay, okay.”
Releasing the handle, I brought my hands up and kept going.
Feverish color splotched Twilight’s cheeks. Her eyes darted around the room, like she wasn’t sure where she was. “So hot.” She focused on my throat and electric-blue rimmed her irises. “I need…”
My heart thudded against my ribcage, but I kept going. “Snap out of it, Twilight. It’s me, Eden.”
“Eden…” She drew my name out, then blinked and focused on me. “Run. I’ll stop him.”
