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plane in three days.
    Holy Mary. He’d given her the first and second marks, as smooth and easy as she’d ever seen it done, though she’d heard giving more than one mark at once could burn. Maybe it was different when the third mark wasn’t involved. Regardless, he was in her mind now. She should have felt violated, and part of her perhaps did, but another part felt something she’d experienced for only a short time during Danny’s employ. So short that the terrible incident with Victor had made her think everything before that night had been a lie, or something she’d never feel again.
    She felt safe. Despite her mortification, it made her begin to cry again, but she pressed her face into his T-shirt that smelled like animals, grass and man, and let the tears absorb there.
    He didn’t seem to mind.

3
     
    A FTER that dramatic beginning, the next few minutes were decidedly tame and efficient. Mal brought Elisa out of Leonidas’s enclosure, had it resecured and then went to the opening of the cargo bay to wave at the driver of a small forklift. The piece of equipment had been taken off one of the four flatbed trucks that were going to be used to transport the cages. Elisa counted ten men and one woman. Back home in Australia, all the station hands knew Danny was a vampire. She’d second-marked them so she could be in their minds whenever she chose. Elisa wondered if these were the same, and expected they were, because they moved forward to do his bidding with very little obvious conversation. Of course, perhaps it was just familiarity, because Elisa had learned to serve her Mistress without much direction, anticipating her needs.
    Mal escorted Elisa back to Thomas’s side and indicated they would go in a Jeep to their guest quarters, where he would join them later.
    “Mr. Malachi, I can help,” Elisa protested. “I’m not your guest. I’m here to work, same as your people.”
    The vampire gave her a dismissive glance. The reassurance and patience he’d demonstrated when he’d held her against him were no longer evident. In fact, she sensed her very presence was irritating him.
    “Duly noted. If you’re working for me, then follow orders. Go to the house with Thomas.”
    “They don’t know you.”
    “No, they don’t. But they do know you. Which is an additional problem I don’t need during this transfer.” He gave her a look out of those dark eyes that held a clear warning. “Get in the Jeep; go to the house.”
    Danny had told her she could trust him. But he didn’t see what she did. While Leonidas was predictably savage to everyone, the others had known only one kind of male vampire. The kind that tortured and starved them for his own purposes, everything from hunting to simple sadistic entertainment. When Ruskin had made four adult vampires to serve him, he’d also allowed them free use of the children, in whatever manner would entertain them best. When she looked toward Jeremiah, she saw the terrible apprehension in the tense line of his jaw, though he was trying to mask it. Nerida and Miah, the girls, had naked fear in their expressions. William was already on the side of his cage closest to Matthew’s, as close as he could get to reassure him, though they both knew there was no reassurance. There was only getting as close to one another as possible, so that one didn’t feel all alone in the suffering. She knew why that was so important.
    When Victor had taken her down, Willis had been too weak to help her, his chest crushed, but he’d used that last precious spark of energy to drag himself a few inches. She’d fought, until Victor hit her in the face and broke her jaw, pinned her to the floor. After that, she couldn’t fight him any longer. It was then she’d looked left and met Willis’s pain-filled gray eyes, blood coming from a mouth that no longer could speak to her. He was trying, though, the lips working. His blood-soaked hand strained toward her. When she’d reached out,