The smell of the earth, deep and true, centered her in the hastily created tunnel. It probably said something about Karma that she preferred darkness, muddy walls, and being underground to any other circumstances. Battery-operated lanterns had been dropped haphazardly along the trail, their artificial light dancing across the packed dirt walls and highlighting minerals she couldn’t name as she descended quickly, the swish of her skirt the only sound.

She bent her head, trying to stay in the moment and not panic at the job to come. One she was no more prepared for than she had been for mating a Kurjan general nearly two centuries ago. Or was it closer to three?

Taking a deep breath, she turned the corner and faced the cell. The cell that had been dug just the day before, in case it was needed.

It was.

She swallowed.

The male sprawled across the ground, so large he could probably spread his arms and reach the cement blocks on one side and the steel bars on the other. If he’d been conscious. Bruises mottled his face and neck, while a wound bled freely beneath his jaw. The red ran past his ear to pool on the dirt beneath him.

She couldn’t breathe.

It really was him. Even with bruises, blood, and dirt covering his face, she recognized him from more than three years ago. He’d tried to pull her into a helicopter with him after he’d attacked the Kurjan stronghold. He was bad, he was the enemy, and yet . . . he’d saved several kidnapped human females from the Kurjans.

Had he thought he was saving her? Or had he hurt those human females? Were they now in worse danger than they’d faced when captives of the Kurjan nation?

She waited patiently, as she’d been taught. The guard would get to her when he had time. The medical supplies in her pack became heavy, so she set them down, stepping closer to the bars to study the male.

Benjamin Horatio Lawrence Reese. He was a vampire-demon hybrid, large even for his kind. At about six-foot-seven, or maybe -eight, he was as tall as many Kurjans. The wideness of his torso tapered down at his waist, then was matched by the length of his legs. His boots had to be a size eighteen, and his hands were big enough to cause colossal damage. Oh, she’d been hit before, but one punch from him and she’d be dead.

He could never know how much she already knew about him. How she’d been training for this day for years—since he’d tried to take her from another Kurjan holding. Her home.