I smiled, baring my teeth. "Trust me, Cassandra, I wasn't worried." I glanced at the man in the cell. "But I am concerned for this poor guy. I'm letting him out."

Cassandra blanched, then quickly recovered her composure. "Suit yourself."

She turned and headed down the hall, walking faster than I'd ever seen her move. Fleeing the scene? Hmmm.

I opened the cell door. The man turned and gave me a wary onceover.

"Yes?" he said, polite but cool.

"Hi, I'm Elena." I extended my hand. "Your rescuer for today."

"Oh?" Still cool. Brows arching. No effort to shake my hand.

"You want out?" I asked.

He smiled, a touch of warmth defrosting the chill. "Actually, I was getting quite comfortable here, but if you insist, I suppose I could tear myself away."

"We have an old friend of yours with us. She's eager to see you."

"Friend?"

"Cassandra… I'm not sure of the last name. Auburn hair. Green eyes. Vampire."

"Cassandra?" His eyes narrowed. "Where?"

"Right down that hall."

I leaned out the door. The man brushed past me and marched into the hall.

"Cassandra!" he yelled.

Halfway down the hall, Cassandra turned. Slowly.

"Aaron!" she called. Her lips stretched in a wide smile as she headed back to us. "My God, is that really you? How long has it been? All these years and you know, you haven't changed a bit."

"Very funny," Aaron said. "Now, Cass-"

She gathered his hands in hers and pecked his cheek. "I can't believe this. When did I last see you? Nineteen seventeen, wasn't it? Philadelphia?"

"Nineteen thirty-one, Romania," Aaron growled, disengaging himself from Cassandra's embrace. "Fifth stop on our Grand Tour. We could have gone to Prague, Warsaw, Kiev, but no, you had to stop in some Romanian backwater so you could amuse yourself playing Dracula for the peasants. And I'm sure it would have been very amusing if you'd been the one locked in a church cellar for three days and almost drowned in a vat of holy water."

"It was a mistake," Cassandra murmured.

"Mistake? You left me there! "

"She abandoned you?" I said. "Fancy that."

"Oh, no," Aaron said, his glare boring through Cassandra. "She didn't just abandon me. She gave me to them. Her little prank got out of hand, and when the mob came, she saved herself by handing me over."

"It wasn't like that," Cassandra said.

"I'm sure it wasn't," I said. "Well, I guess you two have a lot of catching up to do. Go ahead, Cassandra. Clay and I can handle Winsloe on our own."

As I walked away, Cassandra tried to follow, but Aaron grabbed her arm. They were still getting reacquainted as Clay and I left the cell block to find Winsloe.

RETALIATION

The dog was in the kennel.

We smelled Winsloe as soon as we got within twenty feet of the outbuilding. We scouted the perimeter as I whispered my plan to Clay. Before I finished, he reached for my arm, stopping me.

"You sure about this, darling?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm sure. Aren't you?"

Clay pulled me closer and tipped my face up to his. "I'm sure I want to do it, and I'm damned sure the bastard deserves it. It's certainly poetic justice. But is it really what you want?"

"It's what I want."

"All right, then. If there's any trouble, though, I'm taking him down."

"No, I will."

Clay hesitated. "Okay, darling. If we have a choice, he's yours. But I won't hold back if you're in danger."

"Agreed."

We headed for the kennel.

Winsloe sat in the rear of the middle dog run. His back was to the wall, knees up, pistol trained on the door. Once we'd determined his position by peering through the dusty windows, we chose a course of action. Obviously, barreling through the door was out of the question. We weren't bulletproof. Since the entrance was to Winsloe's left, I selected the window closest to his right. Clay hoisted me, and I carefully unhooked the latches, pulled the pane free, and handed it down to Clay. The opening was roughly two feet square, too small for Clay, so I had to go it alone. He boosted me higher, and I wriggled through feet first, straining to hear Winsloe below, ready to yank myself out if he so much as moved. He didn't. Once my lower torso cleared the window, I grabbed the upper sill with both hands, swung sideways, and pounced, landing on Winsloe's head and shoulders. He screamed. I grabbed his gun and flung it over the wire fence into the adjoining cage.

"Nice scream, Tyrone," I said as I brushed straw from my jeans. "Very macho."

Clay strolled through the doorway. "Sounded more like a shriek to me, darling."

Winsloe jerked around to stare at Clay.

"Yes, that's Clayton," I said. "Looking pretty good for a dead guy, eh?"

As Winsloe struggled to stand, Clay strode over, grabbed him by the neck, slammed him against the wall, and patted him down.

"Unarmed," he said, dropping Winsloe.

"What?" I said. "No grenade? No nail gun? And you call yourself a hunter."

"How much do you want?" Winsloe said. His voice was steady, edged more with anger than fear. "What's a life worth these days? One million? Two?"

"Money?" I laughed. "We don't need money, Tyrone. Jeremy has plenty and he's more than willing to share."

"A combined net worth of maybe two million bucks?" Winsloe snorted. "That's nothing. Here's the deal. You caught me fair and square. I'm willing to pay a forfeit. Ten million."

Clay frowned. "What's this? You never said nothin' about a deal, darling. You promised me a hunt."

"I'm sorry, Ty," I said. "Clay's right. I promised him a hunt, and if I don't deliver, he'll sulk for days."

"Hunt?" Trepidation flashed through Winsloe's eyes, but he quickly doused it. "You want a hunt? Okay. That's fair. Like I said, you caught me. Here's the deal, then. Let me get my equipment and we'll have a real hunt. If I kill both of you, I win. You corner me and you'll get fifteen million."

"The man has balls, darling," Clay said. "Gotta give him that." He hauled Winsloe up by the shirtfront. "You wanna deal? Here's the deal. We let you go. You run for your fucking life. You make it off the game field and we let you go. We catch you first, we kill you. Okay?"

"That's not fair," Winsloe sputtered.

Clay threw back his head and laughed. "Hear that, darling? It's not fair. Weren't those your rules? The rules you planned to use if you hunted Elena. She'd be released and hunted by a team of trained professionals. If she escaped the game field, she'd live. Otherwise, she'd die. Am I missing something?"

"It's not the same," Winsloe said, glaring. "I'm not a werewolf. A human can't fight without weapons."

"What about those equipment lockers you have out there?" I said.

"They're locked."

"Fine," I sighed. "Let's make it 'fair,' then. We wouldn't want it too easy. No challenge, no fun."

I walked into the adjoining cage and picked up the gun. Upon examining it, I figured out how to open the chamber and dumped the bullets onto the floor. Then I returned to Winsloe and handed him the empty gun.

"What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" he said.

Clay shook his head. "I thought this guy was supposed to be bright. Let's think about this. We need to Change forms to hunt you. That means we'll be occupied for a while. We're not going to leave you with a loaded gun so you can shoot us while we're Changing."

"You could find us and beat us over the head with the empty pistol," I said. "But I wouldn't recommend it. We'll take turns Changing. If you come near us, we'll kill you. While we're busy, you'll have time to do something. How much time? Well, I'm not going to tell you that. What I will tell you is that you have time to do something. You can run for your life. Or you can go back into the compound and find ammo for that gun. Or you can race to the nearest equipment locker and try to spring the lock. Or you can head for the garage and see if you can get one of the disabled vehicles running."