Marlene separated from the group and hurried to the young pet’s side. She eased him down onto a loveseat and murmured softly to him, though she didn’t seem upset at all. Was nobody else worried about the way Eric was acting?
Elizabet’s mind surrounded mine. Calm yourself, dearling. Eric is merely behaving as one would expect an injured vampire to. We shall not worry as long as he retains a semblance of control. Now, if you please, pay attention to the briefing.
Out in the hallway, low voices spoke quietly, followed by the soft gasps and grunts of two men having sex. I dutifully turned my attention to the plan being hashed out by those with more knowledge of these things than I, though I couldn’t help keeping one ear tuned to the erotic sounds of my husband taking his fill of another pet.
* * *
Eric strolled back in less than twenty minutes after Brian had dragged him out. The bandage was still affixed over his wound, dried blood was spattered over his bare stomach, but his skin held a natural tint and not the pasty white pallor of someone who’d lost too much blood.
He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, then rested his chin on my shoulder. Sweet Gianna. Did I worry you too much?
His presence in my mind was warm and thankfully sane. Enough. Don’t do that again.
Can’t promise that. I didn’t take enough to heal, only enough to replace what I’d lost. He pressed a hard kiss to my throat, nipping the skin with sharp teeth. Don’t begrudge my need for others.
I didn’t, exactly, but I let it go. Some things were too complicated to explain and we both needed to focus on getting Willow back.
Jason crossed his arms over his chest. “So that’s it, then. We go in by the road, Darien comes in through the woods with a select group of his most trusted pack members, and Nathaniel stands by to take Willow to safety. Does anybody else think this plan is too simple to actually work?”
“It’ll work. Might not be that simple and probably won’t go smoothly at all.” Eric rubbed his cheek over my hair. His chest pressed into my back as he sighed. “We need to go now before anybody gets the bright idea to move Willow somewhere else.”
Elizabet nodded once. “Agreed. The sooner we leave, the better our chances of success.”
Darien’s gaze narrowed on her. “It’ll be midnight by the time we get there.”
“We shall have plenty of time to accomplish our business.”
“If it doesn’t go so well, we’ll be stuck away from home while the sun rises.”
All eyes turned to me. I lowered mine, focusing on the antique rug strategically placed underneath the gaming table. What had possessed me to blurt out my fears? Me, the newest member of Elizabet’s crèche. I had nothing to contribute here beyond providing emotional support to Eric and Jason.
Eric’s arms tightened on me. “That’s something we need to plan for.”
“It’s not like sunblock will do us a lot of good,” Jason said.
Gregory barked out a short laugh and hid a smile behind one large palm.
“There’s sixteen of us, not counting Darien, since he’ll need to meet up with his pack,” Eric continued. “Say we take eight cars and leave two at the property’s entrance, another two halfway down, and take four all the way in.”
“Leave the keys in the cars so anybody can drive them in case they get caught out in the open at the wrong time,” Darien said. “No guarantees that’ll be any of us.”
Marco shrugged. “Eight’s overkill. Gives us some wiggle room for theft and sabotage.”
“And some of us don’t need shelter from the sun.” Eric stepped to my side and threaded his fingers through mine. “Darien, his wolves, me.”
I jerked my head sharply around. “What?”
“I can’t stay out for long, but a short exposure won’t kill me the way it would another pet. If worse comes to worst, I can help drag people into the woods.”
Worse comes to worst. That was my biggest fear. The plan they’d hashed out sounded, as Jason put it, too simple. Things were bound to happen, unexpected, bad. The sick knot growing in my gut said the situation might get really bad and I had no reason to disbelieve it. I didn’t care what Darien said about knowing the area and being certain Willow was in there with Zane, about the ways in and out and who else was likely to be hiding in the cabin tucked into the middle of a fifty-acre section of wilderness. It felt like we were going in blind. It felt like we were risking everything, and I’d already lost too much to take that feeling lightly.
Chapter Nine
As soon as the plan was set, Eric bounded up to our room, cleaned up as best he could, and pulled on clean clothes. There was no getting rid of the scent of blood, thanks to that still-open wound, but there was no need to advertise it either. He’d just have to be careful, that was all.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs near the front door, my gaze fixed on the top step. My hands tightened painfully on the newel I was leaning against. The memory of the map sprang into my mind fully formed. I pulled it out and studied the lay of the land, the topography outlined in slender circles and lines, the two creeks cutting through the narrow hollows, the curving sweep of the road as it wound around hills and ridges toward the place where Darien had scented Willow’s presence with his own wolfy nose.
She hadn’t once answered any of us. What were they doing to her that would dampen the bonds she’d developed with Eric and Jason?
Alice slid her hand around my waist and rested her head on my shoulder. “This is going to work out.”
“Optimist.”
“True.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll deal with it, as we always have.”
I propped my chin on my overlapping hands. “What if one of us doesn’t come back?”
“We’ll deal with it,” she repeated. “Death is a part of life, darling girl. Unfortunate, but true, even among the Vampyr. Those seeking our dark kiss believe they can cheat the Reaper, yet few realize what a truly impossible goal that is. We all fall under his scythe.”
“From optimist to fatalist in one conversation. That has to be a record.”
She laughed softly. “I’m merely stating fact. Nothing is forever except the love we pass between us.”
“The earth and sky,” I murmured.
“What?”
“That’s all that lasts forever.”
She squeezed my waist. “Love, too. You’ll see.”
Eric appeared at the top of the stairs and jogged down them, his sweet face set in determined lines. He pressed a hard kiss to my mouth, came in for a second one. My hands crept out and wound their way around his nape, holding him to me a little longer as Alice slipped unobtrusively away.
“We’ll be back soon,” he said.
I shook my head. “I’m going with you.”
“Gigi…”
“No, listen to me. Willow is my daughter. I abandoned her once. I’m not doing it again.”
His hands slid up my arms and cupped my face. “You didn’t abandon her.”
“It feels like it, which makes it the same thing. Besides, you already counted me in.”
“That’s not a logical reason.”
I shrugged. “Not aiming for logical. I’m going whether you want me to or not, even if I have to hitch a ride there with a burly trucker named Herman who has three wives in four different states and twelve felony warrants out for his arrest.”
He laughed and tucked me into the safety of his embrace. “Three wives, huh. I can’t even handle one.”
“You handle me just fine.”
Jason whistled from the other side of the foyer. “Hey, lovebirds. Time for Eric to go.”
“She’s going with us,” Eric said.
“Oh, fuck no.” Jason reached us in four long strides. “I don’t mind chaining her down.”
“I’m going,” I said firmly. “Chain me if you want, but I promise, I’ll get out.”
“And then she’s hitching a ride with Herman of the t
hree wives and twelve felony warrants.”
Jason’s mouth snapped shut. “Huh?”
“Never mind.” I wiggled out of Eric’s hold and clasped one of Jason’s hands. “You asked me to trust him. Now, you need to trust me. She’s my daughter. I’ve missed most of her life so far. I don’t want to miss a single moment more.”
“Fine, you can go,” he said. “But you’re staying in the car.”
Relief flooded through me and my shoulders relaxed. “That I can agree to.”
“Good.” Eric pressed one hand to each of us and pushed gently. “Time to go. Gigi, you’re with me. Jason, go with Nathaniel.”
We all paired off and drifted out the door toward the vehicles parked in the circular driveway and the garage, each of us occupied with what awaited us at the end of our long drive.
* * *
It took two interminable hours to make the drive from Elizabet’s mansion north to the werewolf pack’s reserve. Eric drove. Technically, my driver’s license was no longer valid, hadn’t been since I was declared dead after Selena’s attack.
I didn’t want to drive anyway, didn’t want the responsibility of getting us there in once piece. This way, I could sit sideways in the passenger’s seat and watch Eric.
That never got old.
As soon as we’d cleared Elizabet’s driveway, he’d tuned the radio to a classic rock station and placed his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. He’d set the cruise control to exactly the speed limit the moment we hit the interstate. His eyes occasionally swept from the road in front of him to the side mirrors to the rearview mirror and back again.
I bit my lower lip, stifling a smile. He was so serious, so intent, as if the weight of the entire world rested on his ability to drive us safely from point A to point B.
He glanced at me, then back at the road. “What?”
“I was enjoying watching you drive.” True enough. “I don’t remember you ever driving me anywhere, in the Before.”
Before Selena killed my family, before I became a vampire, before our whole world turned upside down and shattered into a million pieces we were still trying to pick up and glue back together.
“I’m not much for driving.” He shifted his grip on the steering wheel and rested his right hand on my knee. “I’d never even owned a car until after. Jason talked me into it.”
“He’s good at that.”
“Yeah.”
I laid a hand over his, ran my fingers over the fine bones and smooth skin. “How’s your side?”
“Hurts a little. It could’ve been worse, though. Should’ve been.”
“He still loves you.”
Eric’s expression hardened, and when he spoke, his voice held more than a hint of frost. “It’s too late, Gigi. It’s been too late for a while. He was the one who left. He was the one who…”
The words cut off abruptly. The pain of what Devin had done to him lingered in the air between us, filling the cabin of the car.
“You still love him,” I said, and the hard expression melted into dismay.
“How…?” He shook his head. “Never mind. I should’ve known you’d figure it out.”
“It’s in your heart.”
“And my heart is wide open to you.”
I was beginning to suspect everybody’s was to some extent, but I wasn’t ready to admit it yet. Maybe when I got a handle on the whole vampire thing. “Your heart is wide open to me and Jason. Stop hiding things from us.”
“You’re not ready for some of the things I have in me, sweetheart.”
Maybe you never will be.
I ignored his thought. It wasn’t doubt so much as worry, I knew, and there was nothing I could do about it except work hard at mastering the shadows. There, I was going as fast as I could. “How much longer?”
He grinned and squeezed my knee. “Are you gonna spend the entire drive asking if we’re there yet?”
“I could,” I said archly, and we settled into a warm, comfortable silence while the radio played softly in the background.
Chapter Ten
We met up with the others near the juncture of an abandoned Forest Service road and the driveway leading to the cabin where we hoped Willow still was. Jason and Nathaniel slipped into the backseat. Eric eased his car into the driveway behind Marco’s Bentley and Gregory’s ancient BMW. Other cars followed, including two driven by members of Elizabet’s staff. They were there solely on the off chance that Willow’s rescue turned into an all-out war that left no one capable of driving.
Eric had explained that there was a strong possibility we were heading into a fight, but the probability of all of us being taken out was near zero. He’d meant it as a reassurance. It hadn’t worked.
I twisted my wedding rings around on my fingers and stared out the passenger’s side window at the overgrown forest running unevenly along both sides of the road. A prickle of unease slithered down my spine. Something was out there in the night, gliding through the forest’s deep shadows, watching as we rolled slowly by. I shivered and rubbed my hands up and down my arms. It wasn’t afraid of us, whatever it was, and it wanted us to know it wasn’t.
Another stop halfway down the driveway and we were two more vehicles short. The remaining four caravanned to the cabin and pulled into the empty dirt parking lot without a hint of trouble. The cabin turned out to be a two-story Craftsman house with a sturdy rock foundation and artfully tapered columns bracing the porch’s roof. Most of the lights were on when we pulled in. Eric switched the engine off, the other engines died, and slowly, absolute silence fell around the vehicles, broken by nothing I could discern.
One by one, the lights in the cabin turned off, upstairs first, then downstairs, leaving the entire building a hulking silhouette against the moonlit trees surrounding it.
A single figure stepped through the front door onto the porch, his passage marked by the nearly soundless whoosh of doors opening and closing.
Eric’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. “She’s here.”
“How do we get her out?” I asked quietly.
“We try negotiation first.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
Jason leaned forward, a deadly smile stretching his sensual mouth. “We do it my way.”
“Pray it doesn’t come to that.” Eric heaved a sigh. “Right. Me first.”
He eased out of the car and made his way into the small yard in front of the cabin. I held a hand up to the interior light, blocking it more to protect our night vision than out of a concern that we’d be seen. They already knew we were here. If we were really unlucky, Devin had told Zane and his little crew who would probably be with us, what kind of talents we had, and how to counter them.
I hoped Devin hadn’t sunk that far away from Elizabet, but I wasn’t counting on it.
Jason rolled his window down an inch. Outside, Elizabet and Marco joined Eric, bracketing him.
A cultured male voice said, “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the favored son.”
Elizabet stepped forward. “Bring the child out, Zane, and I shall consider allowing you to survive the night.”
Zane laughed, low and long. “As if you have the power to stop me. I’ve been feeding off werewolves for the past year.”
Nathaniel muttered a curse under his breath. I glanced around. Jason’s mouth had thinned into a flat line. He had one hand on the door’s handle and was staring into the darkness surrounding the porch with the intensity of the sun’s rays focused through a magnifying lens. Pointed, scorching hot, ready to inflict the maximum damage possible. I tried to stir the same feelings within myself around the uneasy fear and failed.
“What do you think that’s done to me?” Zane asked.
“Turned you into a petulant child,” Elizabeth said, her voice hard. “Then again, you always were a bit of one.”
“And you think you’ll rein me in now, is that it? Not a chance, Mistress.” That single word held enough contempt for a whole army of words
. “You abandoned me in favor of that whelp at your side.”
“You abandoned your crèche when you assisted Selena in chaos,” Elizabet countered. “Did you truly think I would allow such a misdeed to go unpunished?”
“Do you truly think I care?”
“What I think is obviously of little consequence to you. Return the child now.”
“You can have her, for a price.”
“Name it,” Eric said.
“I want you, Eric.” Zane stepped into the moonlight, a satisfied smile on his too perfect face. When he spoke again, the words were spat out of his mouth in a crescendoing wave of rage and hatred. “I want you dead, your body ripped to shreds and left out in the sunlight, your soul confined to Hell for the rest of eternity. I want your Mulatress wife in my bed so I can fuck her every single night while your ghost weeps over what she’s become. I want your favorite crippled and chained, his tongue cut out, his balls burned off. I want the three of you to suffer a thousand times more than I have since you stole Devin from me. That’s my price, you sorry son of a bitch. That’s what you have to do to get your daughter back.”
“No,” Eric said calmly. “Me, you can have. The rest of my family is off limits.”
“What the hell?” I said.
Jason’s mind shot into mine. Quiet. He knows what he’s doing.
Why does nobody ever tell me?
He shook his head. Are you really interested in his plan or are you just pissed because we think your mind’s too fragile to handle it?
Right. I rested my head against the window, letting its coolness calm me. It’s not that I wasn’t interested, more that I’d decided what went on in Eric’s head was more complex than I had brains to understand at the moment. I was still trying to regain my memories, still struggling to control the shadows. I couldn’t blame them for leaving me out of the loop. I didn’t really like it, though I had no one to blame but myself. I’ll do better, I promise.
He reached between the two front seats and slid a comforting hand down my arm. You just need time. Don’t feel bad for taking it.
Outside, Marco stepped in front of Eric. His voice whipped out of him in a hard staccato that would’ve had me trembling in my boots. “You really think a bunch of pussy werewolves are enough to take me down, you little chicken shit?”
The New Vampire Page 26