Jonny watched her go. He licked the last of her blood off his lips. There was no falter to her stride, no lessening of her focus or tension or any other indication she was affected by the blood loss.

Which left him … intrigued. He'd taken a lot from her, about three days worth if she were human. It was the first time in years he'd felt full. He was disciplined in managing his bloodlust, both for the sake of wanting to remain under the radar and the fact he hadn't yet been able to shake his respect for human life. He had grown less concerned about it for sure, yet he was still gentle with those whose lives he sacrificed to his hunger.

Furious after she stabbed him in the heart, he had wanted to teach her a lesson only to find he was the one learning something. He hadn't thought her anger ran so deep and intense as to truly want him dead. The girl he'd known was gone.

What was left was a little harder for him to categorize. A woman more spirited and interesting than the fragile girl he remembered.

She was obsessed and also far more capable of withstanding his hunger than the humans he normally drank from. Her body had healed as he sucked, but he hadn't thought her capable of replenishing the blood he was taking fast enough to be visibly unaffected.

I won't make that mistake again, she had said. It wasn't an idle threat. He witnessed the determination in her gaze.

"Wrong answer," he said aloud though he began to smile for the first time in weeks. He was starting to think there was a different approach he could take with Ashley. She wasn't about to stop, and he needed his source of food.

His phone buzzed. Eyes on her form trotting down the street, he answered the cell.

"Jonny."

"Ikir, you need to come back now. We found something you need to see," Charles said grimly.

Jonny hung up and Traveled without question. If Charles were alarmed, something was truly wrong. He materialized in the command center, expecting to see Valon and his vamps had raided his home base despite moving it after the rogues broke off.

Charles stood beside the hacker. The other vamps were at their stations, monitoring the Guardians and vamps under their respective regional assignments. On the surface, nothing was wrong.

"What is it?" Jonny asked, approaching Charles.

Charles motioned to the hacker, whose hands were shaking.

"We, uh, found something," Stuart said nervously. "I was analyzing the Guardian database, trying to identify and sort the different designations they use. They have a record of Guardians who were vamped. It was encrypted, and it took me some time to break."




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