“I’m cold,” she whispered sleepily, and he sat up to help her right herself on the bed. When he pulled the sheets over her, he saw her blood there, and closed his eyes. How had he ever been able to revel in the pain of others like her? How had he taken pleasure from taking life, when now he felt so guilty over a smear of virgin blood?

Those days of callous disregard were over. All that mattered now was the woman at his side, who was real and solid, and who loved him, even if she was afraid of him. Like a fool who repeatedly stuck his hand in the fire and was surprised by the burn, Cyrus once again trusted the feeble hope for happiness that grew in his soul.

This time will be different, he assured himself. It would be different, because it had to be. In his weak, human state, he wouldn’t survive if it weren’t.

But he was kidding himself. If he had the strength of a god, he wouldn’t survive losing her.

Though sunrise loomed pink on the horizon, Max gave Dahlia the benefit of the doubt and decided to check one last cemetery. The first two had turned up only sleeping homeless people and thrill-seeking teenagers. This close to dawn, both types would have moved on.

He pulled the car to a stop at the closed iron gate and ignored the scheduled visiting hours posted beside it as he climbed the stone wall. The early morning dew made the ascent slippery and wet. When he landed, his T-shirt stuck to him and his jeans were uncomfortably chilled against his thighs. “Nathan, if you are here, I’m going to kill you.”

Not that he wanted to see Nathan.

Since the day they’d spared his life, Max had made it a rule never to cross the Movement. Sure, he’d been less than diligent when tracking quarry sometimes, but there was a big difference between missing the opportunity and coming face-to-face with it, only to let it run off scot-free.

No pun intended.

Two paths curved in opposite directions around a hill dotted with leaning, broken monuments. Elaborate mausoleums lined the outside edges of the paths, marble houses that reeked of death so strongly Max couldn’t believe a human couldn’t smell it.

He started up one path, determined to get his patrol over with before he wound up with a terminal case of sunburn. Then he caught the whiff of something sinister on the air.

At first, he’d thought it was merely the smell of another body, probably another of Nathan’s victims. Then he realized the copper scent had a warm, living edge to it, and he tore off in the direction of the blood.