“So where is he?”
“I don’t know.” He gave me a frustrated look. “He seems to have disappeared just outside of Nuuk.”
“Nuuk? Is that even a real place?”
“It’s the capital of Greenland.” He grinned at me. “I promise we’ll visit, and I’ll take you to Kangerlussuaq so you can see the Northern Lights.”
Oh boy. That was a definite on my to-do list. “So you don’t know where Kartel is now?”
Gabriel shook his head, his mane of white hair forming a halo in the moonlight. I found it hard to believe that no one had seen Vampire Smurf. Someone knew where he was; they just weren’t saying, and in a way I couldn’t blame them. The risk of having two Original Vampires pissed off with you wasn’t something I’d want. As long as Kartel stayed down whatever hole he’d crawled into, Gabriel would have no choice but to let sleeping vampires lie. Personally I didn’t think the blue-haired vampire was stupid enough to try crossing paths with Gabriel anytime soon.
“Did you try looking somewhere other than here?” I made a circular motion in the air with my forefinger.
“He’s not in the Dark Realm either. I know. I looked.”
“Ah well, maybe he’s at the North Pole. With that color hair he should fit right in with Santa’s helpers.”
Gabriel laughed and kissed me again. And then deepened it, pressing himself against me so I could feel just how much he’d missed me. It was a balmy night, and I had no problem with getting naked out on the terrace. My hands went for the bottom of his shirt, pulling it out from the waistband of his jeans. I slid my hands over his smooth skin, feeling the muscle move beneath my fingers and hearing his breath quicken. I had more than half the buttons of his shirt undone when the sound of discreet throat-clearing made us both freeze.
“This better be important,” Gabriel murmured in my ear.
“Has Tomas ever interrupted you when it wasn’t?” I murmured back.
With a sigh I re-buttoned his shirt and made sure my own clothing was as it should be before turning to face the sentinel. The remnants of a faint blush stained Tomas’s cheeks.
“My apologies, but Miss Anasztaizia is here, and is most insistent that she speak with you.”
“Which one?” I asked, pointing a finger first at myself then Gabriel.
“She did not specify, but I believe it would be best that she speak with both of you. She seems a wee bit agitated.”
Dressed in a figure-hugging black sheath, with her hair pulled up in an elegant French twist, the lovely Magyar had obviously come here straight from the restaurant. I watched as she paced in front of the fireplace, wringing her hands and then holding herself, then wringing her hands again. Whatever was wrong, she was beyond agitated.
The moment she saw us she launched into Hungarian, speaking so quickly I wasn’t sure if Gabriel caught more than every third word. She was also gesticulating wildly. Taking hold of her hands, more to stop her from accidentally poking herself or him in the eye, Gabriel listened intently as she raced through whatever it was she needed him to hear. From the tone and the number of times she said his name, she was talking about Aleksei.
When she finally stopped to take a breath, Gabriel took advantage of the sudden silence to ask something of Tomas before addressing Anasztaizia. He spoke in a low voice, his tone calm and reassuring. I saw her clutch his hands so hard her knuckles turned white. She nodded her head and then, at a slightly slower rate, she pleaded with him for something. I didn’t need to understand Hungarian to know she was asking for his help, and also that something was wrong. Very wrong.
Tomas came back into the room and took hold of one of Anasztaizia’s hands. He turned it over and pressed something into her palm, and she immediately became calm, relaxed, and more focused. I looked at her hand and saw a small, black rune lying in her palm like an exotic blossom. With his arm around her shoulders, Gabriel led her to a seat. Thankfully, Anasztaizia had not been present for our little tête-à-tête with Kartel, so there were no additional recollections to upset her. Except, of course, the ones from Aleksei’s past.
“Talk to her,” Gabriel said in a low voice to me. “I think she might respond better to a female voice.”
I pushed the coffee table out of the way and knelt on the floor in front of her, reaching for her hand.
“Be careful not to touch it, lass,” Tomas warned as I turned Anasztaizia’s hands over and cradled them in my own. The rune pulsed gently, but I don’t think Anasztaizia was aware of it being pressed into her palm.
“Anasztaizia? What’s happened?”
Hearing English, Anasztaizia answered me in the same language. “He’s gone,” she said, hiccupping back a sob. “Aleksei has gone.”
“Gone?” I repeated, “Gone where?”
“I don’t know.” Her lip began to tremble. “He’s just . . . gone.”
Apparently this was more than the big guy popping out to pick up Thai for a dinner surprise. From her distressed state, it seemed obvious that Anasztaizia didn’t believe Aleksei was coming back. “Has he ever done this before?” I asked and flashed Gabriel a look that said, See what happens when you guys take off for parts unknown without telling us? See how badly we deal with the situation? We can handle you being gone, as long as you tell us where the hell it is you’re going.
Anasztaizia shook her head in reply to my question. “He always tells me if he’s going to be away for more than a night.”
Gabriel had the decency to look apologetic when I glanced at him. “Is it possible he just forgot to tell you?”
“No.” She shook her head so hard I was surprised her hair remained in place. “He didn’t forget . . . he doesn’t want me to know.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because I can’t feel him anymore.” Pulling out of my hold, she tapped her temple with her forefinger. “In here. He’s gone from inside my head.”
I looked up at the two men standing behind her chair. Both of them wore grim expressions, and that, more than anything else, told me this was bad.
“Have you checked the gym?” Gabriel now asked, coming around to kneel at the side of the chair. “The gun range? The stables?”
She nodded yes to every suggestion he made.
“Aleksei rides horses?” It would have to be a Clydesdale or something similar in size, but even so, he didn’t strike me as a horsey kind of guy.
“No, but he owns a horse farm,” Anasztaizia said, taking the handkerchief from Tomas’s outstretched fingers and dabbing her eyes with it. This was a woman who would never use a roll of toilet paper to blow her nose. “He usually goes there in the summer, on campfire night so he can make s’mores with the kids while they tell each other scary stories.”
Don’t they know Aleksei is a scary story?
“It’s in Virginia,” Gabriel explained. “A horse farm where kids with disabilities can go riding. Aleksei discovered a long time ago the therapeutic benefits of riding and of being around animals in general. A lot of kids will respond to animals when they won’t, or can’t, to humans.” Yet another side of the big Russian that I knew nothing about. “But he wasn’t there?” Gabriel asked gently.
Anasztaizia shook her head, tears now flowing. “You don’t understand, Gabriel—he’s gone!”
“Then I’ll find him, and I’ll bring his stubborn ass home.”
She paused and held the square of white linen to her mouth before crumpling it in her hand and saying, “That’s not why I’m here. We both know, even if you do find him, you won’t be able to bring him back.”
“Aw shit—are you sure?”
Anasztaizia nodded, and I watched Gabriel pick up her hand, the one without the rune in the palm, and press his lips to the back of it. Something significant had just gone down, only I had no idea what.
He turned to look at me and said, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, but I have to go. This is important.” And before I could say a yeah, sure or whatever, he got to his feet and left the room.
<
br /> “What the fuck just happened?” I said, looking first at Anasztaizia and then Tomas. Guilt flushed the lovely blonde’s tear-stained face, while Tomas turned completely stoic. If I wanted answers, there was only one place to turn, and I needed to hurry.
Gabriel was completely naked as I burst into the bedroom. Under normal circumstances, indeed even fifteen minutes ago, the sight would have brought me to my knees in a pool of take-me-right-now need. But these weren’t normal circumstances. “What just happened out there?” I said, pointing to the closed door behind me.
“I have to leave.” I followed his magnificent ass as it disappeared into the closet.
“Yeah, I get that, but what does this have to do with Aleksei? And why can’t you bring him back?”
“Because he’s about to do something very stupid,” Gabriel said, pulling on a pair of black jeans.
“He’s going to kill Petrov, isn’t he?” Gabriel’s answer was slightly muffled as he pulled a black T-shirt over his head, but muffled or not, I recognized an affirmative response. “But I thought only you could kill other vampires?”
“Original Vampires are the only ones permitted to do so.”
That was a distinction Aleksei had failed to mention when I’d asked him to tell me how to kill a vampire. “So what are you going to do? Stop him?”
“If it’s not too late.”
“And if it is?”
Gabriel paused, pulling on a leather jacket. I noticed he’d also put on his heavy-duty biker boots. “There’s a reason that only Original Vampires can take the life of another vampire.”
“It’s one of your rules, isn’t it?” He nodded and went to the far end of the closet, stopping just before the entrance to the panic room. I watched as he punched in a code on the keypad that opened the vault containing my jewelry and his watches. What, the Rolex wasn’t good enough for this? “And if Aleksei kills Petrov, he’s breaking those rules, isn’t he?”
I knew the answer without being told. And I also knew the penalty for such a thing was severe. Gabriel pulled out a long, flat box that I didn’t remember ever seeing before. He opened the lid, and the soft recessed light in the ceiling caught whatever was inside, making it glow with an iridescent radiance.
“Oh my God,” I said, unable to hide my shock and awe as Gabriel pulled the single item from its bed of deep blue velvet. It was a sword straight from the pages of King Arthur and the knights of Camelot. “Where d-did you get that?”
Gabriel took in a deep cleansing breath before looking at me, the glow in his eyes matching the lustrous sheen on the blade. “Before I was a vampire, Rowan, I was an angel . . . an avenging angel. The sword was gifted to me. It can only be wielded by my hand.”
Of course it was his. It explained the massive blue jewel embedded in the pommel, and the way he handled it with such grace and ease. I closed my eyes and swallowed down the lump in my throat. “What do you need a sword for?”
His lips pressed against my forehead, and the arm around my shoulders held me tight. “You know why.”
Yeah, I knew, or at least I had a pretty good idea. “Does Anasztaizia only think it’s too late, or does she know?”
It was a moment before he said, “She doesn’t know for certain.”
“But you think he’s already killed Petrov, don’t you?”
“It would explain why Aleksei broke his bond with her.”
“And now, because he broke your rule, you’re going to go kill him.”
“Better I than another,” he said, moving past me, the big sword dangling easily from his fingertips.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Even if Aleksei has killed Petrov, surely you can understand why. That has to count for something!”
“It does. It guarantees him a merciful death at my hand.” He paused in the open doorway and turned to face me. The tip of the sword rested lightly on the toe of his boot. It didn’t look real. “I have no choice in this matter, Rowan. It doesn’t matter what Petrov did to Aleksei or his sister or his family. His life was already forfeit because of what he did to you. And Kartel knew that, just as he knew placing Petrov under his protection tied my hands.”
“He knew Aleksei would go after him.”
“Yes, he knew.”
Clarity came to me like the proverbial bolt from the blue. It was all a lie! Kartel had never planned to protect Petrov; he intended to use him as bait. A sacrificial lamb staked out in the knowledge that Aleksei’s sense of honor would not allow him to pass up the opportunity to right so heinous a wrong. And because Gabriel would have no choice but to enforce a law he was bound to uphold, he would carry the weight of having to behead the only vampire he had ever created. The effect would be devastating.
Don’t forget . . . you were supposed to be dead too.
A double whammy, a huge cut-your-knees-out-from-under-you whammy. I closed the distance between us and put my hand on his arm. “Gabriel . . . did you ever consider that my kidnapping and Aleksei’s disappearance—well, did you ever think that maybe both events are actually about you?”
A puzzled frown pulled his brows together. “What do you mean?”
I walked past him into the huge master bedroom we shared. I like to pace whenever I have a problem I’m trying to solve, and I needed room. More room than the closet, even with its generous dimensions, would give me. Funny thing was, Gabriel liked to pace as well whenever something was bothering him.
“We’ve been assuming my abduction was an accident, but what if it wasn’t?” I recalled how my car had been deliberately blocked in, leaving me no choice but to take Anasztaizia’s. “What if that was the plan all along? What if I really was the target? You’d be devastated by my death, and then, if word got out that it was the same Petrov who had murdered Aleksei’s family, you know what Aleksei’s reaction would be. As your only made vampire, he’d feel duty bound to go after Petrov—”
“As he has.”
“—as he has,” I agreed with a vigorous nod of my head. “And now his life is forfeit because of that. But tell me, Gabriel, how much time would you need to recover if you lost both Aleksei and me so close together?”
Gabriel caught me in mid-stride. “I would never recover from such a loss,” he said, horrified by the very idea. He turned my hand over and kissed the inside of my wrist.
“And I’ll bet not only does Kartel know that, he’s counting on it,” I said softly.
“Except you didn’t die.”
“No, I didn’t.” I stroked his cheek with the fingers of my free hand. “Petrov couldn’t have known, not for sure, that I hadn’t died; he only knew I was missing. Who knows what Rat Boy told him, and I figure one look at Gus had him pissing in his pants.” I paused as Gabriel nodded his head. “But he still didn’t know if I was dead or not,” I finished.
“And he could hardly come here to see for himself—”
“No, but Kartel could.” Gabriel let go of my hand so I could resume pacing. I think he just liked to watch me go back and forth. My movement appealed to the real hunter that lived inside his skin. “It would explain his need to know how you had survived, and why he took such a risk to taste your blood.”
I stopped and pivoted on the ball of one foot. “He did take a hell of a risk, didn’t he? To assault me more or less in front of you—it was absolute lunacy! And then the way he pushed Aleksei’s buttons?” I thought back to how the blue-haired vampire had got up from his seat and positioned himself, as if telling Aleksei to take his best shot. It had all been a reckless move, a totally calculated reckless move.
“But Kartel knows why you survived, and he knows about your demon.” I really could have done without the possessive reference. “So now he can only hope to get rid of Aleksei.”
“Yes, but even so, I’m no threat to him. I never was. And he could certainly take care of Aleksei by himself if he really needed to. He is an Original Vampire, after all.”
“Except if he were the one to kill Aleksei, I might turn vengeful.”<
br />
Might? No doubt in my mind, sister.
“You’d be out for his blood.”
“And that’s the last thing he needs.” Now it was Gabriel’s turn to wear a hole in the rug. “He needs me to be so distraught, I’m of absolutely no use to anyone.”
“How much do you want to bet that Aleksei got some anonymous text message on his phone, telling him exactly where to find Petrov?”
“Pushing him into a decision that would leave me no choice but to take his head.”
“But now you do have a choice, Gabriel. If all of this has been orchestrated by Kartel, if he’s been behind the scenes, making others dance to his tune, then it’s time you found out why. What’s he planning that he needs to go to such lengths to get you out of the picture? Why are you such a threat to him?”
I could see Gabriel’s eyes begin to darken. He was angry, but not with me. He was livid that Aleksei and I might have been used in order to manipulate him. And now Aleksei had been backed into a corner and was a hair’s breadth away from losing his life. If he hadn’t already. Taking me in his arms, Gabriel kissed me hard and fast, and then turned to go.
“Gabriel!” He turned back to look at me. “Are you still intending to cut off Aleksei’s head?” I asked worriedly, pointing at the sword.
“Not anymore.”
“Then . . . who?”
“Kartel,” he said, looking grim.
“So you think he’s wherever Aleksei is?”
“If Kartel believes I have no other choice but to take the life of my progeny, he won’t pass up the opportunity to witness it with his own eyes.”
“But you don’t know where either of them are,” I pointed out.
“I have a good idea where Aleksei would go to stake a vampire,” Gabriel said grimly.
Still reeling from Gabriel’s words, I asked, “Are you saying Aleksei intends to stake Petrov out in the sun?”
He nodded. “Yes, and he’ll make sure it’s a slow burn.”
I shivered. “Where would he go to do such a thing?”
“Death Valley,” Gabriel told me before kissing me quickly as he left.
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