“Not so fully. We only get what Killean gives us…and that isn’t very much. I…I miss being a legitimate vampire.”
“Too bad for you. But here’s your chance to do one last good thing for the vampire people. Take us to him, let us kill him. If you’re lucky and we win the day, maybe we’ll let you go.”
“But I’ll be branded a traitor. I’ll have nowhere to go.”
“Maybe not on the East Coast. But there’s worlds of phants just like you out there. They aren’t long for this world after the treaty is signed, but you might be able to buy a little extra time for yourself.”
“How are we going to do this?” Danton asked.
“Well, they want me. I say we give them what they want. Tie me up, send me in with this guy. We’ll take the opportunity to get Killean talking, maybe we can find out what Draz is really up to. If anyone would know it would be Killean. He’s his major lieutenant.”
“So you want us to send you in there tied up and alone?” Renee asked, aghast. “No way! You cannot be serious!”
“I won’t be alone for long. You’ll all be right behind me. I just need a few minutes to get some information. We can wire me up so you can hear everything that’s happening. If I’m in the slightest danger you guys can come crashing in.”
“I won’t let you go alone,” Renee said. “I’m coming with you. Besides, they’re expecting me to be there. Collateral,” she said. “They were going to use me to coax you into talking. Maybe we can make excuses for why the other kidnappers aren’t there, but we can’t excuse me not being with you.”
“What am I supposed to say about the others?” the phant asked, panicked.
“Tell Killean they were killed in the fight to get us under control. Most of them anyway. Say one of them ran away and left you to deal with us…that you managed to finish subduing us all by yourself.”
“He’ll be furious!”
“At the others, not you. You’ll have listened to him, done what you’re supposed to. Like a good dog. In fact, he’ll be very impressed by you.”
“You’ll think he’ll believe I did it all by myself?”
“Like I said…you finished subduing us. The others helped before dying. Say you got me from behind just as I was killing the last of your compatriots and the other ran away in fear long before that. It’ll be very believable.”
“What’s your name?” Renee asked the phant.
“What does it matter what his name is?” Rafe asked irritably.
“Hush. What’s your name?”
“Joss,” the phant replied.
“Joss, you can do this. You can bring us back and act like everything is normal. If you do that for us, we’ll let you go. We’ll even give you a plane ticket to the West Coast where you can start over.”
“S-she’s right,” Joss offered. “If I come back with only one of you, Killean might know something isn’t right.”
“You’re not coming with me, Renee.”
“Why not? I can take care of myself.”
Rafe clenched his hands into fists. “I won’t be able to concentrate if I have to worry about your safety. There’s a chance Killean could use you to keep us at bay. I don’t want you within touching distance of that warped bastard.”
“Oh, but it’s okay if you’re within reach? It’s okay if you can be used against the strike force?” She scoffed. “We don’t have time for sexist BS, Rafe. I’m going and that’s final.”
“She has a point,” Simone said. “They will be expecting both of you. Killean might accept the rest of his crew missing, but he won’t accept any failure on their part.”
“I won’t lead you to him if you don’t both come. You might as well kill me now. I can’t show up with only half the package and expect him to let me live. At least you people will kill me quick. Killean will make it last.”
“I guess it’s decided then,” Renee said, ignoring Rafe’s glare.
“So we both go in, tied up and wired. I get Killean to talk and then you all come in as the cavalry once I say a code phrase.”
“What phrase?”
“ ‘Simone will come looking for you,’ ” Renee said.
“Come on. Let’s get you two wired up and put a GPS tracker on the van. Just in case Joss gets any ideas. So, Joss, where is he?” Danton asked.
“At the east docks. I’ll have to show you where. It’s a small shipping office. He runs all of his shipments out of it.”
“Give us an address,” Danton said darkly. “It has to have an address.”
“It doesn’t! It’s in the middle of a bunch of warehouses! Please, we have to hurry. There isn’t much more time.”
“Let’s go gear up,” Danton said. “Renee, come with us. Rafe, you too. We’ll wire you.”
The entire group of men and women, all strong and capable looking, filed out of the penthouse and into the elevators. They dropped only two floors before getting off. Danton led the way into a locked room, an armory, Renee realized with awe as she looked at the amount of weaponry available.
“This can’t be legal,” she said softly.
“You gonna tell on us?” one of the men asked. He towered over her, his long black hair braided thickly at the back of his neck and his bright blue eyes raking over her hotly. She had heard someone call him Halo.
“No. I was just observing. You’ve got tear gas and everything! Tasers? Why would you need Tasers? I thought we could only incapacitate by killing.”
“Well, we use them as a sort of adrenaline shot. If we’re injured badly we just shoot it in the leg and bam…instant energy.”
“You shoot yourselves?”
“Makes no sense to shoot electricity into an enemy that feeds on energy,” he said as if he were speaking to a simpleton.
“If you can feed off voltage, why not feed off electricity instead of people?”
“It’s a false high. Like adrenaline, the effect wears off quickly, usually leaving us weak and shaking.”
“What’s quickly?”
“About twenty minutes or so.”
“That isn’t a lot of time at all,” she said. “But can you do it more than once?”
“We can but it’s painful and when we come down from doing it twice the effect is twice as debilitating. I’m Halo,” he said, reaching out a hand. Renee took it, thinking he was about to shake it in greeting. Instead, he used it to yank her close against his body. He pressed a hand to her back and held her in place. “And who might you be, you delicious little morsel of humanity?”
“I’m Renee. And I know a half-dozen ways to incapacitate you—including and not exclusively kneeing you in the balls. So I’d let go if I were you.”
“Ooh, feisty. I love me a feisty woman.” But he did let her go and stepped back with a chuckle. “I’m just messing with you. I can smell Rafe all over you. And by the way he’s glaring at me, I’d say he’s made his claim on you pretty apparent.”
Halo reached back behind him without looking and picked up an assault rifle. He hefted it, slid back the action bolt and peered into it to check it for cleanliness. Then he reached for an ammunition cartridge, slapped it in, and put a round in the chamber.
“You’re gonna have to give that up,” he said, nodding to the gun on her hip.
“I know,” she said. She pulled the holster off her belt and tried not to let her nerves get the best of her as she laid it down on a nearby surface.
“I’ll carry it for you. I’ll give it back as soon as we breech Killean’s.”
Halo took her gun and snapped it one-handedly onto his belt near the small of his back. He could still pull the weapon if necessary, but a moment later he had two Desert Eagles strapped to his thighs that would be much handier for him to draw. Seeing the capable man armed to the teeth settled her nerves a little bit, but not by much. She saw Rafe taking off his watch and replacing it with another and she raised a brow.
“It has a microphone in it. Come here,” he said, crooking a finger at her. She obediently wa
lked over to him and he wrapped an arm around her, hugging her tightly before letting her go. Then he reached into a small case and withdrew a pair of glasses. He put them on her face and adjusted them while looking into a computer screen. She glanced over at it and realized it was showing everything from her perspective. The lenses were fake and there was a camera in the frames. She looked at Rafe and the camera looked at Rafe. She grinned.
“Wow. Ain’t technology great?”
“It’ll do,” he said. “What it won’t do is work if we get separated. I’ll have the mic and you’ll have the video.”
“Maybe I should have a microphone too?”
“We don’t have another mic. And I can’t wear glasses. Killean would know they are fake. Vampires have 20/20 vision.”
“Lucky you. I get to go blind after forty.”
“Blind?”
“Well…sort of. Both my parents and my grandparents became incredibly farsighted in their forties.”
“Well, maybe it’ll skip you,” he said reassuringly.
She laughed. “Maybe. Okay so, let’s do this thing.”
“Are you sure? You don’t have to.”
“I’m sure.”
“You’re not ready,” Halo said. He knelt down in front of her and lifted one side of her jeans up. He strapped on a very thin ankle holster and slid a small .22 into it. “It isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing. And it has a small enough profile that it won’t be visible.”
“I have one too. For all the good it’ll do. We’ll both be tied up,” Rafe said grimly.
“I’ve snapped those ties before.”
“Yes. And I have the strength to do so as well. Strange, why would they depend on zip ties to hold me?”
“Maybe because they expected you to be unconscious the entire time. Just until they got you in front of Killean.”
“Maybe. But why take the risk? Handcuffs would have been the better choice.”
“No one said they were smart,” Renee said dryly.
“This is true,” Rafe agreed. But he didn’t look entirely satisfied. His mistrust of the situation was warranted, given that they were about to stick their necks out.
Halo came up to them. “We’ve got the gear for the follow vehicle. We’ll stay far enough back that we won’t be spotted, using the GPS and the camera and mic to keep on top of you. I don’t entirely trust that little weasel that’ll be driving you, so we’ll stay as close as we can.”
“Sounds good. Let’s get this show on the road before Killean gets suspicious and decides to move,” Rafe said.
As a heavily armed group, they left the armory and headed for the elevators. They stopped on the queen’s floor to fetch the phant driver and then went back down to the sky lobby and then the parking garage. Halo was going to be driving one of the follow vehicles—the one that would be closest to them. Danton would be in the back of the van keeping track of the input from their mic and camera.
Halo grabbed the driver roughly by the arm and physically shoved him into his seat.
“One wrong move and you’ll be an ink blot on the wall. Got it?”
The driver nodded vigorously. “Just promise me I’ll live through this.”
“I won’t make that promise. What you’re about to do is deadly and dangerous. Just try to keep out of the line of fire and maybe you’ll come out alive.”
The driver nodded again. Halo then came around to the side of the van and loosely zip-tied their hands behind their backs.
“No. Tighter. As tight as you can make them. It makes it easier to snap them,” Renee said.
“Looser is better. That way you can slip out of them without the struggle that would draw attention to your actions. Your wrists are small enough for it. Rafe can snap his easy, but your wrists are already damaged from the first time you escaped the ties.” Halo ran a thumb over her wrist where the tie had cut into it. There was an aggressive sound from her right and she realized Rafe was growling in warning. Halo leisurely glanced over at him and chuckled. Without a word he picked up the hood lying on the floor of the van and jerked it down over Rafe’s head. Then he turned to Renee, hood in hand. However, before he put it on her he wrapped an arm around her waist, pulled her close and kissed her soundly. He let her go and jerked the hood down over her head before she could work herself up into a protest. She heard him chuckling as he stepped out of the van and slid the door shut with a clang of metal.
Flushing furiously she sat down on the floor of the van next to Rafe. She took comfort in the warmth of his body and leaned into him.
“When we get there I’ll have to pretend to be unconscious. But I’ll be with you. We’ll make it through this in one piece.”
“You can’t promise that,” she said realistically. “But this is too important. We can’t afford to think only of ourselves. This is for the greater good.”
“I just wish the greater good didn’t have to risk your life as well as mine.”
“We’ll do our best to stay alive. That’s all we can do.”
He fell silent after that and they leaned against each other as the van went into motion. It was several long minutes of driving before he said softly, “You’re an incredible woman.”
“Really? I feel like a pretty dumb one at the moment.”
He chuckled on a soft breath. “True. This isn’t exactly an act of self-preservation.”
“It is for the nation.”
“Ah yes. The bigger picture. How remarkable that you would care enough about us in so little an amount of time.”
She was quiet a moment, her world dark and insular.
“I’m not doing this entirely for them.”
“Oh?” he said.
“I’m doing it for you. You…you’re special to me. I…really like you.”
“I like you too,” he said with another chuckle. “In fact, I would dare to say it goes far beyond liking.”
“After so short an amount of time?” she asked quietly, knowing she was asking herself the question more than she was asking it of him. Her feelings toward him, she realized, were very strong. As they drove toward uncertainty and danger, she was forced to face the idea that he might be killed. That he might be taken out of her life as suddenly as he had entered it. The idea gave her great pain. A pain she didn’t fully understand.
They had only known each other for a few days! How could she feel so strongly after only a few days? It must be an effect of being placed into danger with him. Their relationship being forged in a conflict they had to unite against.
And yet…it seemed like more than that.
“We’ve only known each other a short time,” he said, echoing her thoughts, “but it isn’t the amount of time that matters. It is the quality of it. You’ve burst your way into my heart. You’ve hit me like a powerful wave of energy. I’ve never felt anything like this in all of my long years on this planet.”
Beneath her hood Renee was flushing. She felt incredibly warm. Incredibly good. His words made her feel special. Treasured. It was not a feeling she was used to. She wasn’t normally the type of woman who was swept up by pretty words. But the thing was, she believed him. In fact, she couldn’t imagine doubting him. With the exception of the necessary deceptions at the beginning of their relationship, he had been completely and baldly honest with her. She had no reason to doubt his words and she had no right to laugh off his emotions.
Especially when she was feeling the same way.
“I know the feeling,” she said into the dark of her hood. She leaned her head forward until she connected with him, then she nuzzled him warmly. She could almost hear him smiling when he said, “I couldn’t ask for a better woman in my life.”
“Not even your queen?” she fished.
He chuckled. “Simone and I have a special relationship, more like brother and sister than anything else. She is precious to me, but not in the same way that you are precious.”
“I’m precious?” she asked, her warm feelings increasing until she began
to feel hot and stifled beneath her hood. She wished she could see his face, look into his eyes as he said these things to her. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him; it was just that she wanted that special connection. She wanted to be able to recall his eyes and his expression whenever she thought of his words to her. But instead she was trapped in fabric.
“You are. You are extraordinary and amazing and precious.”
“No. I mean…precious to you.”
“Haven’t I made that clear?” he asked softly, his face nuzzling against her ear through their hoods.
“I like to hear it,” she admitted.
He laughed softly. “Then yes. You are precious to me. And to no one else if I have my say. No one save your family. I’ll allow them to treasure you as I do.”
“Well, thank you for your permission,” she said dryly. She wondered at herself in that moment. That sort of possessiveness would normally send her running for the hills. But with him it made her feel cherished.
“Tell me about them.”
“About who?”
“Your family.”
“I thought I have told you about them.”
“Tell me, would they accept someone like me in your life?”
“Well, since I can’t be a hundred percent honest with them about who you are, they might feel you were hiding something from them.”
“Only if you let it show. I have been lying about who I am quite easily for many decades. The trick is to be as truthful as possible, lying only where necessary. And since ‘Are you a vampire?’ is not a question most people ask, then there is little to lie about.”
“What about your work?”
“Is it a lie to say I am a cultural attaché?”
“Well…no.”
“And that is why I introduce myself as such. I never get specific as to which culture I am attached to. People do what you did. They assume because I am Portuguese I am an attaché with the Portuguese government. I do not correct the assumption.”
“And if someone calls the consulate looking for you?”
“That rarely happens. I provide business cards that encourage them to call me directly. My secretary does the rest. I find that people are willing to believe the easiest answer. I have yet to come across someone who has not.”
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