“Frank, here are some hard truths for you to ponder as you think of ways to defend your old friend Matthias,” Edward said. “First, the Tribunal is divided. I did not ask Russia, China, or Japan because their political organizations are different. Their votes, however, are with us. If the Tribunal falls, there is no leadership and our world will slide further into chaos.
“Second, our people are losing faith in us as their leaders. If we don’t reach some forward-thinking solution to this post-pandemic crisis, the Tribunal will fall.
“Finally, I have heard the charges against Matthias Ludlam, and I have heard the explanations of why our so-called Penton criminals committed their crimes. Let me assure you that you do not want to side with Matthias going forward.”
The implied threat took root. Frank blinked twice. Then his shoulders sagged inside their navy sweater. “Aidan, tell us your side.”
Showtime. Aidan looked at Krys, walked to the center of the circle, and began to talk.
Matthias had commuted Owen Murphy’s death sentence in exchange for killing Aidan, and Aidan was forced to kill his brother in self-defense. During the struggle, Owen had injured his mate, Krys, and he could only save her by turning her vampire.
“It was against vampire law, I now realize, as was keeping her with us in the first place,” he said. “But I swear the only thing I thought at the time was that this amazing woman who’d never hurt anyone had gotten caught in our shit. She didn’t deserve to die for it.”
Krys told her account of being taken by Owen, who’d implied he was brought there to kill Aidan in order to save his own life.
Glory swayed a little when she stood, and Mirren supported her while she told of Matthias kidnapping her from her job at a convenience store in North Atlanta. Of his addicting her to drugs, then giving her to Mirren to feed from. How Mirren saved her, how Will had saved both of them.
She told of how she’d been kidnapped again by Tribunal member Lorenzo Caias, to use her against Matthias. How Mirren had killed Renz in her defense.
Melissa talked about how Matthias had come into Penton with bombs and killed human and vampire alike without discrimination. How he’d ordered her neck broken, then secreted her away and turned her vampire, torturing her for information.
“And he did these things in the name of the Vampire Tribunal,” Aidan said into the room that had become still and alien. None of the vampires were playing human. No fidgeting. No rustle of clothing or coughs or head scratching. Just stillness and, now that he’d finished, silence.
All eyes were on Frank Greisser. He locked his dark-blue eyes onto Aidan’s pale-blue ones, and Aidan thought he was weighing him, measuring the truth of his words, probing at his mind. Aidan opened his will to the older vampire. He had nothing more to hide. He’d made mistakes; he’d made bad choices. But he’d never betrayed the Tribunal or worked against them except in self-defense.
Finally, Frank broke eye contact. “He tells the truth.”
“Then might I suggest that we vote to remove Matthias Ludlam from the Tribunal and bring charges against him for kidnapping, murder for hire, and abuse of office?” Meg rose from her seat. “I’m sure we can add to those charges later. I’d also like to vote that all charges against Aidan Murphy and Mirren Kincaid be dropped. We have the proxy votes of three members who are not here, which gives us the majority, Frank.”
The Austrian nodded. Aidan suspected he’d decided that defending Matthias Ludlam might lead to his own downfall. Thank God politicians were, human and vampire alike, mostly concerned with their own preservation. “Are Krys, Glory, and Melissa willing to testify to Matthias’s actions?”
If Mirren’s eyes had lasers attached, they’d have burned a hole in Frank Greisser’s forehead by now, but he didn’t voice an objection.
“We will,” Krys said.
“But only if Mirren and I are allowed to accompany them and we receive your guarantee of their safety, before these witnesses.” Aidan had finally joined Mirren on the don’t-trust-the-bureaucrats train.
“Agreed.” Frank settled back in his chair. He might as well not get too comfortable. Aidan hadn’t even mentioned the humans yet.
“All right then,” Edward said. “Let’s talk about Omega Force.”
Four hours later, the Tribunal partnership with Colonel Thomas had been approved, pending a meeting between the colonel and key Tribunal members. The meeting would be tomorrow after dusk, at Omega. They just needed word from the colonel that his people were in place.
Mirren had already taken Glory down to one of the two rooms walled off in the basement as lighttight daysleep spaces, and Aidan relaxed with Krys.
“The phone’s not going to ring just because you keep staring at it.” Krys elbowed him in the side and laughed as he trapped her beneath him on the sofa. He could think of a way to get his mind off the damned phone. He kissed her with real hope in his heart that, for the first time in months, they could have a future away from death and fear.
Krys tugged his shirttail out and slid her hands underneath, scraping nails across his bare back. She smiled up at him, dark-brown eyes dancing. “Think Mirren and Glory and Mel can hear us?”
Aidan jerked the shirt over his head and threw it on the floor. “Do I care?”
When the phone finally rang, she’d distracted him enough that it took him two rings to answer. “It’s him.” He pressed the Talk button. “Murphy.”
The colonel’s voice was buoyant. “I’m on my way back to Penton to welcome the new recruits to Omega Force. They’re all in place and a business plan for the blood bank is in progress—we just have some legalities to handle. Do I have the all clear from my new partners?”
Aidan smiled at Krys. “You do.”
“Good. Let’s go back to Penton and break the news to Mr. Matthias Ludlam.”
Cage grinned as Rob Thomas chewed Max Jeffries a new asshole. Max had five or six inches on him, and probably fifty pounds of muscle, but he stood with his eyes on the ground and a lot of “yes, sirs” coming out of his mouth.
Cage climbed to his feet—make that his bare feet, to match his bare chest. He wore combat pants, but nothing more, because he’d wanted to make some points to his new teammates. They’d cleared all the furniture from the big common room except for some chairs around the perimeter so they could teach each other new moves.
Among the onlookers was Melissa, minus Mark. Cage had seen them briefly before and after daysleep, but he hadn’t had a chance to be alone with her since their first night back. No, make that he had avoided any chance to be alone with her. If she and Mark didn’t make it, it would not be because Cage Reynolds had gotten in the way.
He felt the weight of her gaze on him, and they looked at each other briefly as he went to stand next to Max. She almost made him light-headed—she’d lost the haunted, starved look she’d had in the clinic suite. Her cheeks had a little color, and her eyes were bright and clear. God, she was beautiful. And married. And unavailable.
He forced his focus back on the vampire at hand. “Max, look at me.” Jeffries hadn’t taken the news well that vampires were more resilient than humans, so Cage had made himself the guinea pig.
“Do your worst, as long as you stay away from the heart and the brain,” he’d said, standing still as Jeffries punched the hell out of his gut, cracked two ribs with a roundhouse kick from his steel-toed combat boots, and finally fell only after the second stab wound with a nice, shiny steel blade.
He’d told Robbie not to interfere, and he hadn’t.
The stab wounds were scabbed and would take another hour to heal. The ribs were sore but mended. The bruises were lightening.
Max glanced at Cage, then did a double take. His face flushed a dark shade of red as his embarrassment brought blood close to the surface. It made Cage hungry, although Max certainly wasn’t his type. He’d been feeding Hannah, however, which was just strange.
“Shit, those bruises are fading so fast I can see it happening.” Max watche
d, his face a study in both fascination and horror. “I can see what you bring to the team. Now I’m not sure what you need us for, besides blood.”
Cage decided to throw him a bone. Max had had a hard couple of days. “For one thing, we can’t move about in daylight, which limits what kind of interaction we can have in terms of setup. If we need to infiltrate a company or a terrorist cell that meets during daylight hours, the vampires would be useless. If I’m pretending to be a recruit in a cult of religious extremists, how do I explain that I have to be in a room without lights, unconscious, from dawn until dusk?”
Max looked relieved. “Well, yeah, I can see that. And you can’t conduct business over dinner.”
“Well, we can, but often our business partner is dinner.”
Robbie’s laughter filled the room, and Max joined in after a minute. Cage was starting to like these guys.
“The big dogs are back,” Robbie muttered, and Cage turned to see Mirren striding down the hall, followed by—holy shit—Frank Greisser. Talk about an odd couple. And Mirren looked…well, OK, not exactly pleased. But he wasn’t scowling as much as usual.
There was a whole freaking parade of vampires headed for the conference room, and Cage suddenly wished like hell he were wearing clothes.
Edward Simmons broke from the parade and came over to clap him on the shoulder. “Cage, glad to see you looking so”—he looked at his mussed hair, bare feet, and scabbed-over knife cuts—“active.”
Cage found himself uncharacteristically at a loss for words, but Robbie stepped in. “Robert Thomas,” he said, shaking Edward’s hand. “My guys are working with Cage and some of the others to form Omega Force.”
“Excellent.” Edward gestured toward the conference room. “Perhaps both of you will join us? We’re going to discuss your first mission. Oh, but Cage…”
Right. “I’ll get dressed and be right in.”
He shot a dark look at a snickering Max on his way past; a smile from Melissa cheered him. But, oh, it shouldn’t.
By the time Cage returned to the crowded conference room, the colonel had arrived, wearing fatigues. It took him less than thirty seconds to see who wasn’t there.
“Where’s my daughter?” He zeroed in on Rob. “Where’s Randa?”
Damn. Well, Cage owed Robbie a save. “Sir, she slipped out two nights ago, following Will Ludlam. He turned himself over to Matthias to keep him occupied so we could get in and out of Omega as needed.”
The colonel’s glare was as intimidating as Mirren’s, but he shifted it back to his son. “And you let her go?”
Robbie shrugged. “Dad, have you ever been able to talk Randa out of anything once she set her mind to it? The woman is as stubborn as…Well, she’s as stubborn as you are. Plus, she and Will are partners, and partners back each other up.”
The colonel had obviously drilled that lesson into his kids and didn’t appear to enjoy having it thrown back at him. He nodded and turned to the crowd of vampires watching him closely. If it made him nervous, he didn’t show it. Hell, it made Cage nervous, and he knew most of them.
“Gentlemen, and Ms. Lindstrom, I assume, I’m here on behalf of Thomas Securities to officially offer you a partnership. I propose forming a highly skilled military unit to neutralize threats of domestic terrorism in the United States and its territories. You will supply operatives for our missions on a combined vampire-human team to be known as Omega Force. In return, we will pay your operatives a salary comparable to our human team members. Our clients respect our privacy, and your existence would never be compromised.”
A murmur of approval washed around the room, and Cage couldn’t help feeling proud that Edward had taken the lead on this. They’d make Omega Force work, and they’d be able to take it to the UK within six months. He felt certain of it.
“What about the provision of blood?” Meg asked.
The colonel nodded. “As we speak, the wheels are in motion to set up a blood bank of unvaccinated blood to which your people will have access. We will purchase from existing blood banks and begin a recruitment process for donors. As it turns out, a number of humans were allergic to the vaccine and might benefit from unvaccinated blood themselves. It gives us a logical cover.”
Cage spoke up, asking a question he, Robbie, Max, and the rest of the new team had been wondering about. “What type of missions do you foresee?”
The colonel talked about domestic terrorism and how it was on the rise. “Even disturbed high school kids have access to bomb-making instructions,” he said. “We need people to infiltrate online groups, monitor and even infiltrate extremist groups both foreign and domestic, and be ready to act when we receive word from our government clients that a threat has become real.”
Rick Thomas looked at Aidan, who spoke for the first time, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth. “But your first mission will be to take Matthias Ludlam, former head of the Tribunal’s Justice Council, into custody.”
Cage grinned. “That will be a pleasure.”
For the second night—or was it the third?—Will awoke on the cold concrete floor of a storage room off the partially collapsed corridor of the clinic suites.
Good old Dad. Matthias was nothing if not consistent. Starvation, intimidation, and incarceration. His favorite methods of persuasion.
Will struggled to sit up, his hands and ankles wrapped in silver chains. He studied the dozens of tiny bite marks on his bare chest, his legs, even…He stared at his groin in horror. Matthias had released fucking rats into the room just before the second daysleep. Two of the goddamned things had been chewing on his stomach when he awoke and scared them off. He’d heal during his long, solitary night when he could scare them away, and when dawn came again, they’d feast.
Just in case he didn’t have enough Matthias-induced nightmares to relive during his downtime.
Almost as bad as the rats—not quite, but almost—was the isolation. He wondered how Randa and Cage were doing with the new team. Whether the puffed-up peacocks on the Tribunal would see this opportunity for what it was. Whether they’d be willing to band together and move against Matthias.
A key rattled in the lock, and a stream of light blinded Will as it poured through the opening door. The dim fluorescent lantern that had been placed in the otherwise-empty room was no match for the flashlight shining right at his eyeballs.
Two figures were silhouetted in the doorway, one tall, one short. Will inhaled. Both vampire. Both bonded to Matthias. Awesome.
“Put on some clothes. Your father wants to see you upstairs.”
Man, Matthias had picked some winners. “My hands are tied behind my back, and my ankles are chained together. You got special pants for that?”
“Shit.” Mutt handed the flashlight to Jeff and felt in his pockets, finally fishing out a key. He flinched at the sight of a rat running along the far wall, and Will knew how he felt. “Better do a good job, or you too can spend your daysleep naked and being chewed on by rodents. Can’t recommend it highly enough.”
“You’re a major smart-ass, you know that?” The chain on his ankles loosened, and Will shook his legs free, wincing at the stiffness in his left leg from being in the same position for however long he’d been here. That leg would probably never be the same despite Dr. Slayer’s best efforts. On the bright side, he might not live long enough to be bothered by it.
“So I’ve been told. I’m just misunderstood.” Will grunted as Mutt jerked him to his feet and removed the cuffs. Will rubbed his raw wrists and bent over to pick up the pants. Looked like he’d be going commando, but it was an improvement over rat bites down under.
“Where are we going, gentlemen? Dinner? A movie?”
The sound of a cocked pistol sounded incredibly loud in this empty cavern of a room. “Shut the hell up and walk,” Mutt said. “We’re going upstairs.”
Better and better. Will stumbled a couple of times as he tried to remind his feet how to walk. What would these two clowns do if he fought them? He
had no doubt he could take them. Could maybe even roll their minds, although that was questionable since they were bonded to Matthias. He hadn’t been a master vampire long enough to explore his new skill set.
Instead, he walked along like a good boy. No point in making a move until he got topside. The only thing he’d accomplish by acting too soon would be to get himself thrown back in solitary confinement as a rat entree.
Actually, he should thank Matthias for the rats. Instead of being frightened or intimidated or wondering if he deserved nothing better than to be his father’s eternal acolyte, he was simply and righteously pissed.
They crossed the basement level, and Will followed Jeff up the ladder into the clinic office, with Mutt and his pistol following. Matthias sat at Aidan’s big desk, which pissed off Will even more.
But if he’d learned anything in the years he’d spent with Aidan, it was how to bide his time and plan his moves.
“Have a seat, William. You two wait outside.” Will took the chair and faced his father across the desk. Neither of them spoke until the two guards had walked into the hallway and closed the door behind them.
Interesting. Matthias wasn’t afraid to be alone with Will. If he thought his son was the same boy who’d run away in shame all those years ago, he had a surprise coming. A long-overdue surprise.
Before he could take on his father, however, Will needed to know how much time had lapsed since he’d been here. Amazing how fast the hours got muddled when one’s routine was out of whack. If this was the beginning of his second full day, he needed to stall and give Aidan and the colonel time to put things in place. If this was day three, he might as well try to make a move. If negotiations for Omega Force had failed, he was as good as dead anyway.
He would really, really miss his fiery redhead.
“I hope you’re in a frame of mind to cooperate now.” Matthias lit a cigar and leaned back in the chair. It had developed a new squeak. “I’m not buying your insistence that you missed me. However much I’d enjoy your filial devotion, it’s never been the nature of our relationship.”
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