Bel tugged off his sweatshirt and shoved his arms into the white sleeves of a lab coat. Even with his silencer screwed on, someone was bound to have heard him fire his weapon. He peered into the hallway, just as two security guards came around the corner.
“Hey, doc! Everything okay?” one asked.
“Copacetic.”
“We had a report of gunshots,” said the other guard.
Bel shook his head. “Damndest thing. Two little boys in hospital robes came racing through here with those plastic cap guns. Playing cops and robbers or the like. Skinny kids, one bald. You suppose they escaped from the cancer ward?”
The guards looked at each other, wide-eyed.
Bel feigned a laugh. “I wouldn’t worry too much. They were having a bloody good time on their adventure.”
The guards both chuckled. “Guess we better look for our escapees then. Thanks for your help, doctor.”
“Glad to help. Seeing those boys play made my day.” Bel waved before slipping back into his lab and locking the door behind him.
He dialed Lexi. She answered on the second ring. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Oh, thank God.” He exhaled.
“What’s the matter?”
“Listen. Don’t come back to the lab, no matter what. It’s not safe. Stay with your friend.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am now that I know you’re all right.”
“And the research?”
“Nothing is lost. I’ll get started on phase two tomorrow. Just go home to Mister Doctor.” Where you’ll be safe.
“Okay.”
Bel ended the call and took a deep breath. He would never forgive himself if Lexi became a casualty of this unending war.
He bent, staring into an unseeing pair of golden eyes. So young.These initiates were just kids, brainwashed into senseless hate. Bel shook off the regret. He had to clean up this mess, and sneak two new John Does into the morgue. Convenient corpse disposal was one unforeseen advantage of having a lab in the basement of a research hospital.
First, he swept the Blood Vine component samples into his knapsack. Then, he knelt at the mini-fridge and gently laid a dozen bags of the hemoaurum on top of the plastic test tubes. Liquid gold, literally. Especially since it had taken two weeks for the bacteria he’d engineered to produce the stuff.
Next he needed gurneys, body bags—the pool of blood around the bodies was growing wider—and a mop. Shite.
Once he’d gotten rid of the stiffs, he would make the ninety-minute drive back to Andre’s and find out about the attacks the Hunters had mentioned. And then he would go back to work, trying to save the vampire world.
Chapter 7
UTA PERCHED ON LOKI’S COUCH and rested her elbows on her knees. Her needles moved so quickly they blurred beyond the focus of even her own super-sharp eyes.
Loki tinkered with the computer screen, preparing for a video conference with Kaštel.
Her needles clicked faster and faster. He cast a look over his shoulder and raised his gnomishly arched eyebrows. “Stressed, dear?”
Stress was an understatement, an emotion on a human scale. She was a hurricane of gusting torments, a downpour of emotions, and also the occasional squall of hope, which dared to taunt her with the idea Bel might forgive her, chose her, love her. Each feeling demanded to be vented somehow, so she would need more yarn. She inhaled, attempting to calm her internal storm. No luck.
She tossed aside her knitting and hopped up to pace while the bells and whistles of connecting via video chat fell into place. Fear jumbled her thoughts. Would Bel even be there, or off fiddling somewhere in his lab with that pretty little Lexi?
“Damned rutting ewe,” she spat.
“Hello to you too, Uta.” Zoey’s head and shoulders appeared on the screen.
Damn it. “I am apologizing, Zoey. I am not speaking of you.”
The other female waved her hand reassuringly before stepping out of view of the video camera. A handful of people came into view—Andre slumped in a chair, flanked by Kos and Bel. The brick walls of the cellar office provided their backdrop.
Side by side, the resemblance between father and youngest son astonished her—same short dark hair, but Bel had let his tight curls grow out longer; same green eyes, both glittering with intensity. She couldn’t work up the nerve to look at him, so she examined her old friend instead.
Andre had lost much when Hunters burned his vineyards, and the doleful set of his mouth worried her. He might finally succumb to the despair that had nearly killed him after Mila’s suicide. Zoey glided to him, and the tension in his jaw eased ever so slightly with the deep comfort of his mate’s touch—a comfort Uta might never know.
She inhaled, summoning the courage to face Bel down before she flicked her gaze to him, like leaping off a cliff, or ripping off a bandage. More than two thousand years since she’d been human, but the memory of that particular sort of anticipation lingered.
At the eye contact, he flinched but regained his poise quickly. His hazel irises clouded with defiance, one of his many admirable traits. She recognized it from the adorably mulish days of his youth—even then he had always known his own mind. And later, she had witnessed from afar the tenacious determination he applied to his research.
But another, indecipherable emotion swirled with the stubbornness in his eyes, and it twisted her stomach.
Alongside Andre, who was dressed in work clothes for laboring in vineyards that no longer existed, Bel occupied his clothes like an invading army. His black T-shirt had a large white logo for something she had never heard of, probably a band. His faded jeans hugged thick, muscular legs. Two nearly identical males, and yet Bel was the one she craved like blood itself. His Roman nose and dark brows dominated raw, masculine features. So much like the bulky Illyrian warriors of her youth, so ill-suited to life in a cramped laboratory, his oversized body taunted her. The lines of his muscles under his fitted clothes revealed he was everything she could admire in a male.
And at the same time he was the boy she had loved from the moment of his birth—not like a son, not like a nephew. The way she loved him was simply the way Uta loved Bel, with every beat of a heart that belonged to him, whether he wanted it to or not.
Since the moment he was born, she had wanted to hold him and promise never to let anything hurt him.
And she’d failed. The desolation in his eyes assured her of that.
One more defeat to add to her list.
He glanced away, his olive skin reddening slightly. And from half a world away she sensed his shame in the heat crawling up her neck.
“What is happening?” she demanded.
“Hunters attacked Bel in his laboratory.”
Uta’s heart raced, as it did every time he put himself in danger.
Loki stepped to her side. “Did they do harm to your research?”
“No. I managed to save everything. However, you should know I have not yet succeeded in curing the test subjects.”
So tenacious. He had not given up hope, even though she had warned him of the futility of his work. She hid the pride she had no right to under an impatient tone. “I am trying to warn you.”
“I believe there is a secondary factor required to make the protein effective. With my research partner I hav—”
“Partner?” Uta croaked.
Bel nodded. “Yes. Dr. Lexi Hall.”
The urge to break something—or someone, rather—took hold of Uta. Short of that, she needed to knit. But before she could reach the needles she spotted another comfortingly sharp object, the fire poker, and tested its weight against one palm before leaning on it like a walking stick. Lexi had left him, and Uta could not bear it if the human woman had won him back. It was highly unlikely he could consummate a rekindled affair with the woman, but the thought of him even attempting it made Uta want to snap that little Lexi in half.
Cursing herself that she had not bothered to practice her English, Uta shrugged one shoulder
as if she thought him a fool for trying. “Lexi is not being able to help. There are evidences you are not knowing about vampire blood. Your science is flaccid sheep dick.”
Zoey snorted.
“My science is the only hope.” He stood straighter. “Especially since your impotent Justicia flounders, unable to end this persecution.”
He was not wrong on that count, which made it damn near impossible to have any hope it all.
“Enough.” Loki nudged her aside and stepped into the center of the video camera’s field. “I trust you all have seen the reports of the attacks?”
“Of course.” Andre crossed his arms, a frown creasing lines in his brow. “It is…”
Andre stared into the camera, seemingly unable to finish the sentence. Uta understood—words failed her as well. Vampires had rejected aggression against the Hunters for millennia. The need to avoid the sun made it difficult to retaliate anyway, but Uta suspected the real reasons ran deeper—a collective trauma they carried in their blood, but only she among vampires knew the reasons in detail.
Now that technology allowed for safe travel in the daytime, some vampires championed aggression. But true to their traditions, Loki held to the official Justicia line hard and fast. They could not fight an enemy set on genocide without resorting to the same tactics—killing women and children and men like Lucas Bennett, caught up in a violent culture they despised. And so vampires must only defend themselves.
The logic was so deeply ingrained in Uta that, in the face of violence committed by her fellow vampires, she could not find a single word to utter in all the languages she knew.
Loki’s world-weary sigh had to suffice. “Indeed.”
“Do you hold the aggressionists responsible?” Andre asked.
“I do not know, but I plan to send my best field operatives to investigate at sundown.”
Giddy relief surged through Uta. The mission was the perfect way to avoid Bel. “Send me. I am being merciless.” She held the poker upright like a spear, the posture she’d assumed when she’d led her men into battle against the Romans, fighting for freedom before even Andre was born.
Loki gently pried the poker from her hands and placed it back in its stand. “You are always merciless, dear, but I need you with me. Oblak is taking command of your unit. Andre, I am convening an emergency meeting of the Justicia. We arrive at your estate tomorrow at sundown. Uta, you will assist Bel and his partner with everything you know about vampire blood. It is essential that he succeeds.”
“No,” Andre and Bel shouted at the same time. They glared at each other until Bel tilted his head, conceding to his father. Andre stood with his hands on his hips. “Not here. Davo. I do not want you lunatics in my home. You will make my household an even more tempting target for Hunters. They have already destroyed—”
Loki held up his palm. “With your shield, and Lobel’s crew of mercenaries providing security, Kaštel is the most secure option.” He might be small, but Loki was the oldest vampire in the world, and he did not take any guff from a youngster like Andre—not even one who was two millennia old.
Under different circumstances, Uta would have enjoyed seeing her old friend put in his place. Even now, she fought a smile from stealing control of her lips.
“What about your chateau?” he barked.
“I live on a glacier. The weather is much better in California.”
Zoey laughed, and Andre scowled at her. She stepped toward the camera. “You are all welcome. Only, I don’t know how this works. Will you bring your own blood?”
“Thank you, and yes, dear. The Justicia always travels BYOB.”
Uta hadn’t considered that part. The last time she was at Kaštel, she’d snacked on a Hunter prisoner. Perhaps someone from her household apartment in Manhattan could meet her.
“Not to worry, Uta,” Loki said, with an uncharacteristic solicitousness that put her on alert. “You can borrow Nils.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder to where the handsome blood slave had entered the room, carrying a stack of wood for the fireplace.
Bel paled, as Loki must have intended him to, and Uta’s pulse tripped over itself.
Her vision narrowed as if the halfling were the only male on the earth. To her, he was. “Bel?” she whispered, but he strode away.
Jaw bulging with tension, Andre glanced between her and his son. “Fine. Tomorrow.” Then he strode toward the video camera with his hand up, blocking the screen. “Turn the damn thing off.” A moment later, the connection ended.
High pitched laughter burst from Loki, giving him the appearance of a jolly little Christmas elf.
With effort, Uta switched her brain from its clumsy English to the rolling vowels of Loki’s preferred tongue. “I hate you. And you have much graver things to worry about than my love life.”
He wagged a finger at her. “You do not hate me, and regardless of having been an impossible pain in my ass for two millennia, I am very fond of you. Tormenting you about your love life gives me a modicum of pleasure in the face of those worries.” He stepped closer and stroked her hair. “And, child, I want you to be happy.”
She leaned into his touch, desperate for the only affection ever bestowed on her. “The bond is not enough. He will not love me, and he will always resent what his mother and I did to him.”
“Always is a very long time, Uta.” Loki pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and reached up to dab at her face. “Now, now. I hate it when my warrior princess cries.”
She couldn’t help it. The only thing in life she feared was the pain Bel’s absence caused her. “Loki, I cannot see him. I won’t survive it. Surely you remember what happened the last time I was near him for too long?”
“I could hardly forget.” He took her hand.
She yanked it back, crossed her arms, and flopped onto the couch, curling into a ball as she remembered.
Four decades ago, Bel had moved into a gloomy, abandoned warehouse, gathered together a handful of vampires, and amassed a notable arsenal. Each night Uta had perched on the slick, rotting tin roof and stared through a metal vent to watch the males train.
Apart from Bel’s longevity, he possessed none of a vampire’s special powers. He appeared extremely fit for a human, as strong as one of his size could be, but when he insisted on sparring with the vampires, Uta was forced to tamp down all her protective instincts and prepare to watch him take a beating. He held his own with surprising strength, though, and she relaxed a little on her rickety spot with newfound respect for her long lost mate. Until the young fool challenged the old one, Omar.
The ensuing match proved the most violent bout yet, and with each blow Bel took, she dug the sharp corrugated metal edging of her spy hole into her fingertips and used the pain to scramble the insistent need to rescue him.
Omar pulled back for what would surely be a knockout strike, but Bel evaded it and landed a solid kick to the vampire’s ribs.
“You pulled that punch,” Bel shouted at the vampire after one particularly violent round.
“You’re bloody right I did.”
“Well, don’t.” Bel squared off and his fingers twitched at his sides. Under a threadbare sweatshirt, his bulky shoulders rose and fell with a menacing shrug.
From where Uta watched above, his sweat-dampened curls glistened in the glaring light of incandescent bulbs he had haphazardly strung from the rafters. Her own fingers twitched, itching to run through his thick hair. It would be so different to touch him now that he was a man—now that he stirred not only affection, but also desire. She shifted on her stiff legs, and the rickety roof creaked loud enough for the other vampires to hear. Omar glanced up, but she ducked out of sight. After only a moment, she dared to peek down at them again.
“I like your courage, halfling.” Omar grazed his knuckles against Bel’s shoulder in a teasing punch. “But don’t forget: the things that make you stronger are the ones that do not kill you.”
Bel’s handsome face split into a smile, and he returned th
e playful blow. “Got me there.”
“Besides, boss. You are the brains in this operation.”
“What does that make me?” called out another male. The gathering devolved into masculine jokes and more sparring and Uta drank it in, recalling the easy company of her long-dead soldiers.
For weeks, she could not grasp the purpose of Bel’s bizarre operation, so she watched and pondered. Finally, they departed one evening in a windowless van with Bel at the wheel. She flew above, following them across the channel into the French countryside. A band of smelly Hunters had surrounded a farmhouse, setting it aflame. Bel’s crew descended upon them, keeping them at bay in order to evacuate the humans and vampires into their van.
An infant wailed inside the house—one of the most heartrending sounds on earth. Bel stormed in. Instinct took control of Uta, and she bent her knees and launched herself into the air to rescue both him and the babe. But before she even reached full speed, he emerged, cradling the child to his muscular chest and shouting orders. Sweaty and smeared with ash, no creature alive had ever looked sexier.
Once the entire household was safe in the vehicle, a member of Bel’s crew drove them away. Bel and the rest of his vampires laid waste to all the hostile humans.
The operation was remarkable. She called Loki and reported the activities. “The Justicia needs a unit like this. Think of the lives we could save.”
“Form one, then, child. You have my support.”
But she would have to leave Bel to do it. If she stayed, perhaps he would sense her, and come to her. “No. Find someone else.”
Uta took up residence across the street. Bel, unaware of her watchful eye, spent days at the university and continued his research. By night he trained with more and more recruits, including a few human women who demonstrated supernatural powers. She envied the ability of the one called Vania to shoot fire from her palms, turning the brick walls of the warehouse black with soot.
The crew clearly regarded Bel with an endearingly irreverent devotion. Uta couldn’t blame them, and as she had always known it would, the old affection inside her transformed into a deep love for the man he had become. Weeks passed and the ache inside her grew as acute as on the day she’d broken with him.
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