“How the bloody hell am I supposed to do that?”
“That’s what I said,” Angelina said, sounding quite smug. “They said that you’ll figure it out. Is Tommy okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. He misses you.”
“I miss him, too.” Angelina’s voice became wistful. “Give him a kiss for me.”
“I will,” Rainer started, but the click told him that Angelina had already hung up. Or was it that the phone had been taken away from her?
He lowered the phone slowly, staring at it. So, he knew two things. One, that Angelina was kidnapped, and two, the person was after burial records. Which was an odd thing to kidnap someone over. Maybe this was a test, to see how good his resources were. In any case, he had to assume that the kidnappers were after more than what they said. Angelina hadn’t said anything about not going to the cops—
His phone rang again. He answered.
“The kidnapper has more they want to say,” Angelina said. He could hear her eyes rolling. “They want the information by tomorrow morning and if you call in the police, then you won’t like what happens next. The information they want is the people buried in the Gravestone cemetery near Psalm’s Haven in England. Was there anything else?”
Click.
Rainer lowered the phone again. That was… strange. Whoever the kidnapper was, they clearly hadn’t been in business for too long. And that was a good thing. It meant that Rainer had more of an opportunity to work out the real plan here and find where the kidnapper was. He pocketed his phone, thinking hard.
“Call judge Valerie Gilson,” he told the security chief. “Tell her I need a little favor. What I want you to do is track down where those calls came from and find out where Angelina is being held. Keep it under the table, and don’t let the police know. And look over those tapes, I want to know how they got her out of this hotel without any of you knowing.”
If Dane Hemmerick and Isaac Fisher weren’t on vacation with their mate and child, he’d have had them here. Unfortunately, Dane refused even his most generous offer. Oh well. In the meantime, he was going to go in search of that information. Why would burial records be sealed in the first place?
“Angel was right, I needed a wedding planner,” he mumbled to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. He had to tell all these guests that the wedding was postponed now? Or could he just leave that for Emma… Which maybe was a tad unfair, but if he was going to England, he needed to leave right away.
“Get that information,” he ordered and then headed out of the room. England it was.
***
With his private jet, he made it to England in half the time a commercial plane would have taken. He brought Tommy with him, not wanting to leave him behind to get kidnapped since he obviously couldn’t trust the security he’d hired. For all Rainer knew, they were in on it somehow.
Psalm’s Haven was tiny. It had been abandoned several years before, and its records had all been transferred to the nearest town, also tiny. They had been sealed, and it was quickly apparent, once Rainer started looking into it, why that was.
“Vampires.” He sat on the floor in the backroom, having broken in after hours (since the workers there refused to be bribed for some reason). He read the reports from approximately four hundred years ago.
Apparently, it had been just a small fishing village. Poor, hit hard by one disaster after another. Then a vampire lord moved in. He was a real tyrant, making all the people afraid of him. When news of the French revolution reached them, though, the village had come up with a plan. First, one young woman went to the vampire lord and offered herself to him. She convinced him, somehow, to turn her into a vampire. Then she went back and spent the night turning all the other villagers into vampires. In their newfound strength, they attacked the lord and killed him.
Then the king sent his armies in and wiped them all out, save for a handful that escaped. They were all buried in Gravestone and never spoken of again as new serfs were moved into the area, so they could pretend like the vampires had never existed at all.
It was a sad tale and a depressing one at that. These humans wanted to protect themselves and for their troubles, they were all killed. Rainer had to wonder if it was more to do with them being vampires or daring to fight against the rich upper-class.
“What do you think about that, boyo?” He turned to Tommy—but Tommy wasn’t there.
The toys Rainer had put on the floor for him were still there. But the boy himself had vanished. Rainer’s heart jumped to his throat. He jumped to his feet and looked over the desk, but there was no Tommy. Then he saw that the door had been left partly open. Rainer rushed out of it. How long ago had Tommy wandered off?
I should have been paying more attention! I should have left him with Emma. I should—
He wasn’t in the records room, or the break room, or in the greeting room. He peered into nooks and crannies, called for Tommy and breathed in deeply. It was only then that he caught the scent of others in the building. Shifters, vampires. Humans. He snarled low in his throat and dropped, listening hard now.
There was no sound around him. He crept forward, heart in his throat. Where was Tommy?
Moments later, he heard footsteps. He waited as they drew nearer, then flung himself around the corner; his fist caught one of them in the face before they realized he was there. That one stumbled back and Rainer rolled to the balls of his feet. Before him were two shifters and a vampire. All looked startled, but they got over it quickly. He’d punched the vampire in the face, and the two shifters jumped forward.
Rainer ducked under the swing of the first shifter, then punched him in the ribs; the second was already on him by then, though, and grabbed both arms and twisted them behind his back. The vampire leapt forward and caught him in a headlock. The first shifted, kicked out his legs. Within moments, he was down.
But not out.
Going limp, he slipped out of the headlock and kicked the vampire’s feet out from under him. He fell, groaning. The two shifters pounced on Rainer again. They pressed his face into the floor and used their weight to hold him there. No matter how he kicked and bucked, he couldn’t free himself. One of the shifters growled.
“We have orders not to hurt you, but we will if you do not cooperate. Understood?”
Rainer snarled but let himself go still. Orders not to hurt him? That meant that they had been sent for him. It meant that this was a ruse—the kidnapper wasn’t after Angelina at all! At least, not only Angelina. The mix-ups, Angelina calling twice, that wasn’t real… They just wanted him to let his guard down.
“And who sent you?” Rainer growled as his hands were bound behind his back using zip ties. “Is it Marcus? He decided that he’s going to kill us after all, did he?”
“I don’t know who that is,” the vampire replied.
Rainer was dragged to his feet and faced the vampire. He would have been a few years younger than Rainer when he was turned. He peered at him with dark eyes with a curious look Rainer couldn’t quite decipher. He stared, and Rainer glared back for some time before the vampire shook himself.
“Well, now that we have you, our work here is done. Let’s get him back to the van.”
The vampire turned to go but stopped when Rainer growled and yanked at the zip ties. “Wait! Where is my son?”
The vampire turned back, blinking owlishly. “Your what now?”
“My son. I know you have him. If you’ve hurt him, I swear I’ll rip your fucking head off!”
The vampire shook his head. His brow furrowed, and he almost looked… concerned. Not at all like a kidnapper should look. “I haven’t seen any kids. We just got in here to look for you. The back door was open…”
Rainer’s heart slammed against his ribs. Had Tommy wandered out into the town? This late at night anything could happen to him! He strained against the shifters, but their grips were too tight. The vampire hesitated only a moment before he stalked to one side and grabbed Rainer’s arm.
/> “Kavan, use that wolf nose of yours and find the kid. You know where to meet us.”
Rainer yanked his arm free, but the zip ties still prevented him from attacking the kidnappers again. As the vampire and second shifter started dragging him away, though, he had to ask, “What do you want from me?”
The vampire laughed. “You won’t believe me if I tell you… So I’m not going to.”
***
Angelina had never flown on the back of a dragon before. And when they touched down in England after several hours of doing just that, she decided that she didn’t like it. Especially when they’d had to drop down onto a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean because their ride was starting to get tired.
Now, she lay in the back of a black, unmarked van which had been stolen as she struggled against the zip ties that held her prisoner. Her kidnappers were a set of three; Kavan, the dragon shifter and a vampire. None of them would say what they were really after, only that she wasn’t going to be harmed.
But what they were saying wasn’t adding up. The vampire was their boss, and he claimed to want burial records. Records which were sealed. But they were also in a building that had less of a security system than McDonalds, and the van waited outside said building when Rainer arrived and broke into it. Then the vampire waited for a couple of hours before saying, “He’s probably found it by now,” and headed in, taking the shifters with him.
Angelina didn’t know what they were after, but she did know one thing. She had seen Tommy with Rainer, and there was a good chance that this could turn violent. She had to get in there and fast. She chewed at the zip ties on her wrists but that wasn’t very useful. As she squirmed this way and that, though, trying to find something that she could use to free herself, she kicked over the vampire’s bag. A pair of scissors fell out.
At first, she wasn’t sure how to take that. It seemed too coincidental, too much like a setup. But it was a chance and so she took it. She wiggled her way around to the scissors and managed to free herself. Then, slipping them into her pocket because she might be able to use them as a weapon, she raced across the road and into the records building.
At once, she found Tommy. He was carrying his diaper in one hand, his pants in his other, with a very proud look on his face. He pointed at a potted plant as soon as he saw her.
“Mommy, I pee-peed in the flower!”
Angelina rushed to him and scooped him into her arms. She kissed his face and he hugged her neck, snuggling into her arms. A lump welled in her throat, but now was not the time for tears. Tommy was here, safe; she could hear no fighting in the building, but what did that mean? Had they already subdued him… or worse? Or was he still in there somewhere, completely absorbed in what he was doing and oblivious of the danger?
If she called out for him, would she be putting Tommy in danger?
Before she had a chance to think more about it, Kavan came trotting into the room. He was in his wolf form, huge and majestic.
He stopped when he saw her, his wolfish eyes widening. Angelina’s breath caught in her throat. She dodged toward the open door, a scream in her throat. Kavan barked, then leapt clean over her head. She ducked, this time screaming for real, as she clutched Tommy closer to herself. Tommy was afraid and started to cry. Kavan blocked the exit, his tail swishing back and forth as he jerked his head toward the back door.
She stood trembling, somehow finding her voice. “Where is Rainer?”
“Angel?”
She whirled to find Rainer being dragged through the door by the dragon and vampire. Relief washed over her. She raced forward, heedless of the fact his arms were tied behind his back. She threw one arm around him and pressed a deep kiss to his mouth. Tears started to slide down her face as all her fears came rushing back.
What did these people want with them?
What was going to happen to them now?
If they were killed, was Tommy going to be safe?
“How did you get out—” the dragon started snarling.
A hand brushed over Angelina’s hip, and when she turned, she saw Kavan holding the scissors she had used to free herself. He glared at the vampire. “What did I tell you about these?”
To her surprise, the vampire blushed. “I thought they’d be okay since they were in my bag. Look, I’ve never kidnapped anybody before. The kid is safe, now let’s get out of here before the cops show up, okay? Okay, let’s go. Oh.” He glanced at Rainer. “And you’d better cooperate, or you’ll get something to fight about.”
Angelina tried to calm Tommy, who was still crying, at the same time as tears were running down her own cheeks. She glared hatefully at the vampire. “Is that the best you can do? You sound like you’re scolding a child.”
The vampire glared at her and jerked his head toward the exit. Kavan took over for him and the two shifters dragged Rainer out. Angelina followed, holding her son tightly.
They were soon in the van, driving away. Kavan sat in the back with her and Rainer; he didn’t cut Rainer free but did allow Angelina to continue holding Tommy. Apparently, he thought that was enough to keep her from fighting back. And he was right. She wasn’t going to do anything that would jeopardize her son.
“Now then.” The vampire’s gaze was focused solely on Rainer. It was almost unnerving. He watched like a snake about to strike… or a rabbit waiting for the strike. Emotion warred on his face, and Angelina studied him, not knowing how to take all these expressions. “I suppose you’re wondering who I am.”
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Rainer snarled back. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me?”
“My name is Roger. Roger Percival Jackson.” The vampire stared at Rainer as though expecting something to click.
Rainer stared back at him, nonplussed.
“Didn’t you read the names of the people who were buried in Gravestone?”
Rainer shook his head. “I was getting the information you wanted. Why would I stop to read a list of names? Speaking of which, if you can kidnap my mate and go from the US to England and set a trap for me, why couldn’t you get it yourself? What are you really after?”
Roger leaned back looking disappointed. “Fine, I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way. This is the record of the people buried there, correct?”
He pulled a paper from the files and slapped it into Rainer’s chest. It fell to the van floor. Rainer leaned over, reading it. Kavan, looking bored, was cleaning his nails. He’d re-dressed from his shift, and Angelina took the opportunity to glare at him. He caught her look quickly enough and rose his eyebrows back at her.
“Did I do something you disapprove of?”
“You just got out of jail and you decide to kidnap someone again?”
Kavan rolled his eyes. “I’m going back to jail, just wait and see. That bullshit about tainted evidence isn’t going to hold. So, if I can make a few bucks before I go back…” He shrugged carelessly.
Angelina still glared at him, but at that moment Rainer gasped. She turned back to him. Tommy had quieted to sniffles, still bare-bottomed. As Angelina tugged his pants back on him, she asked, “What is it?”
It was a long time before Rainer replied. He read over what was on the paper several times. Angelina leaned closer, her curiosity overcoming her fear of the situation. Soon enough, she found what he had gasped at. A name. Roger Weiman. Her brows arched as she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. His father’s name was Roger, wasn’t it? But they hadn’t even lived in England…
“It can’t be,” Rainer hissed. He glared up at the Roger sitting across from them. “My father died from tuberculous in jail—”
“No, he didn’t.” Roger leaned forward. The van went over a bump, making Angelina wince, but neither of the vampires seemed to notice. “He was turned into a vampire. They said he was dead so they wouldn’t have to explain. He was living in France with an English last name during a time of great unrest. And vampires were making a power play.”
Rainer’s breathing
seemed a little shallow and Angelina knew why. She got it; was he meeting a brother he hadn’t known even existed?
“Jackson was my mother’s last name. They never married, because he said he was one day going to return to his wife and son. There was no vampire lord who ruled over Psalm’s Haven. It was just an ordinary human. And they did not turn themselves into vampires… there was just the one. And I should know, because I watched my home burn to the ground while running for our lives. And all these years, I have looked for you. To see who was so important that my father couldn’t even bother to give me his name.”
“I had no idea,” Rainer said quietly “If I had known… But I had no reason to doubt what they told us. We had a funeral. We saw him buried…”
“Do you want a blood test to prove what I’m saying?”
“No… that’s not necessary.”
Roger and Rainer fell silent. Kavan rolled his eyes. Angelina could see that this was shaping up to be a very emotional reunion. However, she still had one major question about this. Patting Tommy’s back gently, she cleared her throat until Roger turned to look at her.
“So what happens now?” She arched a brow at him. Now that her emotions were settling back, she couldn’t deny the rising rage. She didn’t know what this guy wanted—he could very well want to kill them! If this bastard laid one hand on her child, she was going to rip him to pieces! “There has to be something you want out of all this? Are you blaming Rainer for what his father did? Huh? He was only a kid then. Are you going to say that he should have magically known his father was alive and flown across the channel to find him and give him his blessing to marry your mother?”
Roger glared at her, then muttered, “No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I… wanted him to know.”
Angelina rolled her eyes. “Then why not say it? Why did you kidnap me, have him fly halfway around the world and all this pointless drama? Do you have any idea how scared I’ve been?”
“I told you I wasn’t going to hurt you.” Roger frowned. “And I haven’t, have I?”
“Just because you say something doesn’t mean it’s true.”
In Bed with the Vampire Page 18