She swung around, reaching behind her while I barked out a reprimand.

“That’s great if you’re intending to kill her, but I told you to treat this situation like a test run for Ian’s guards. If they’re dead, what hostages am I supposed to bargain with?”

A fleeting look of sheepishness crossed Tate’s face. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Just knee-jerk reaction, I guess.”

Belinda snatched the knife out of her back and flung it at Tate’s feet.

“Asshole,” she growled at him.

Bones gave me a knowing look. “See why I insisted on steel knives instead of silver? I reckoned one of them might panic and go for the kill instead of the capture.”

I knew it was more than nerve-wracking to face a vampire with nothing more than a single weapon, but Tate and the others had to master their emotions. Not only would it be bad for bargaining purposes to be without hostages, but if we slaughtered Ian’s men, I was guessing he’d be even more unreasonable to deal with.

“Your objective is to restrain Belinda with nonlethal means,” I said sharply. “If you can’t manage to do that, then you’re off this mission. Period.”

“And if after an hour you haven’t restrained me,” Belinda purred, “I get to taste one of you. Mmm, fresh blood. I haven’t had that in over a year.”

She licked her lips as she said it, eyeing them with a lustfulness that had nothing to do with sex. Juan swallowed. Tate backed away. Even the normally stoic Cooper looked uneasy. This was news to them.

“For motivation,” I said coolly. “Now, who’s going to be happy in an hour? You guys, or her?”

Belinda bared her fangs and leapt at them again. This time, she picked just one and dove low, knocking Juan’s legs out from under him. Juan scrambled, but Belinda was faster. She had her fangs near his throat before he could push her away.

I tensed, ready to hurl myself into the action, but Bones grasped my arm. At that same moment, Cooper and Tate jumped on Belinda. Cooper yanked her head back by her hair, and Tate gave her a roundhouse kick to the face that would have snapped the neck of a normal person.

Belinda was dazed for a moment. Only a moment. Then she reached behind her and flung Cooper over her head so hard, he landed a dozen feet away.

“Let them handle it,” Bones said low. “You can’t always be there to protect them.”

I set my jaw. Sure, Bones had threatened Belinda with truly horrible punishment if she got out of line and killed one of them, but that wouldn’t make the unlucky one any less dead. Bones didn’t think she was dumb enough to try it. I wasn’t so confident. Still, his logic had been undeniable. Belinda was an average-strength vampire, and if my guys couldn’t handle her, then they couldn’t be counted on with Ian’s men. Nothing like trial by fang, I thought grimly. Come on, guys, make me proud. Take the blond bimbo down.

Tate and Juan circled around Belinda while Cooper got up and shook himself. His forehead was bleeding. Belinda’s nostrils flared with hunger. She glanced at Juan, smiled, and then ripped her top open. Her full, bra-less breasts bounced into view.

Juan stared, faltering for an instant. It was all the time Belinda needed. She lunged, slamming her fist into his head. Juan’s eyes rolled up, and he dropped to the floor. Tate chased her, but she’d already reached Cooper. A hard blow to his abdomen had him instinctively hunching, and her tongue snaked out to lick the red trail dripping from his forehead.

“An appetizer,” she murmured, then lifted Cooper like he was a toy and threw him at Tate, who was almost on them. The two men went sprawling with a jumble of limbs.

I gritted my teeth. Bones reached down and gave my hand a squeeze. I knew what he was thinking. We’d have to come up with a Plan B for capturing Ian’s men, because Betty Boop here was whipping their asses even though the odds were three against one. Well, two against one now, since Juan was solidly passed out. Wait until I got ahold of him, letting a pair of tits distract him like that. Juan would wish he hadn’t woken up.

Fifty minutes later, Tate and Cooper were soaked with sweat, Juan was just coming to, and Belinda hadn’t been successfully restrained. Oh, Tate and Cooper had come close a few times, but they hadn’t managed to hold on to her long enough to hand her back to Bones, which had been their objective. My stomach seemed to drop. If it had just been a matter of taking a kill shot, they would have succeeded several times over. But they couldn’t subdue her without resorting to unacceptable means. Motherfucker. That was going to have two bad consequences, the first of which would start now.

Belinda smiled with her fangs fully extended. “I won, so I want my victory spoils. Unless you’re a liar, Bones.”

Bones crossed his arms, giving her a hard stare. “I said you’d get your prize. I didn’t specify when, however.”

Belinda began to curse him when, amazingly, Tate interrupted her.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said shortly, and walked-or rather limped-up to her.

My gaze widened. “Tate-” I began.

“Save it,” he cut me off. “We failed you, Cat. You think her biting me is gonna hurt more than that?”

The rawness in his tone made me blink and turn away. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that even with the added strength from Bones’s blood, he was still human and Belinda was still not. It was a lot easier to kill than to capture a vampire, even for me, or Don would’ve had more sets of fangs in his undead stable. But I knew my sympathy would only make Tate feel worse, so I didn’t say anything. I pretended to be fascinated by the wall in the opposite direction from where he was.

“Who says you’re the one I want?” Belinda asked dismissively.

“Doesn’t matter; I’m the one you’re gonna get,” Tate replied, his tone hardening. “You understand chain of command, suck head? Out of the three of us, I’m the top of the chain, so you’re getting my vein and no one else’s.”

That made me blink more rapidly. God, how like Tate to insist on taking the bullet, or in this case, the bite. It was what made him such a great leader. He never shirked from his duty to his men.

I felt rather than saw Belinda smile. “I guess you’ll do, then. Come here.”

“Not so fast,” Bones said, even as I composed myself and turned around. “Wrist only, Belinda. Not his neck.”

She gave a pout that was both menacing and sultry at the same time. “But I like the throat better.”

“Too bloody bad,” Bones said coldly. “Argue again and you’ll get nothing.”

I’d been about to insist on the same thing. A ripped-up arm was a damn sight less lethal than a ripped-up jugular, just in case Belinda thought about reneging on her promise to behave. Still, she seemed afraid enough of Bones to believe that he’d make her more than sorry if she did, which I guess stemmed from her knowing his reputation. That’s why Bones picked Belinda versus our other two caged vamps to test the guys, he’d explained. They hadn’t known him, so they didn’t know that he would follow through with exactly what he said. Belinda did know him. Too much of him for my liking, but there was nothing I could do about that.

She smiled as she reached out to Tate. Her shirt was still hanging open, leaving her breasts bare, and she cradled his arm next to her. Tate’s heart rate was way above normal and increasing, but I thought that had to do more with the anxiousness over being bitten versus excitement over Belinda’s tits.

“Don’t worry, gorgeous, you’ll like it,” she purred, giving her fangs a last lick.

Tate grunted. “Not on your afterlife, bitch.”

Belinda just laughed. Low, throaty, and knowing. “Yes you will.” Then she sank her sharp incisors into Tate’s forearm.

I saw the tremor go through him even as his heart began to beat faster. He thinned his lips, but not before a soft sound, almost like surprise, slipped from them. When Belinda swallowed and drew deeper, sucking on his arm, Tate’s eyes fluttered closed for a second before he snapped them open. And stared at me.