At an easy stroll, Brice Campbell appeared out of nowhere. With four very large vampires at his side, Brice looked relaxed and confident, an easy feat considering he had switched bodies with Tristan, whose age had taught him how to master his emotions.
Brice-Tristan sat in the row in front of her—a comfortable conversational distance away. His entourage was dispersed two on either side of her at the end of the row, and two were on either side of him.
Out of instinct, she reached for a weapon that was not there. They had been checked and loaded on a plane bound for New York City. For the first time since this all started, she felt completely alone.
Chapter 30
“Where’s a shiny, silver dagger when you need it, huh?” Tristan hummed as a grin spread over his rosy lips.
He wanted her off her game—isolated. Manipulating the two young men was easy. Her feeling his mental sting took some effort—another thing he remembered about her. How hard it was to hurt her.
Once he was comfortable, he pulled the Zippo from his pocket. With it balanced on his knee, held steady by his index finger, he smiled at her.
“Do you recognize this?” he said to her.
“No,” she answered dryly.
“Of course you do,” Tristan laughed and flipped the lid up with his thumb. “If you want it back, you’re going to have to ask me nicely.”
“Keep it,” she hissed.
Tristan sat forward on the seat, placed his elbows on his knees, and cradled the lighter in both hands. “Are you sure?” he growled low. “You were very fond of this trinket once.” He frowned at her. “You killed a priest with it, remember?”
Tristan opened his hands then flicked the lighter to life. He raised the flame and his gaze to Alex as he did.
“You can’t smoke inside airports anymore,” she grinned.
He grinned too. “You can’t do a lot of things inside airports anymore.”
Her expression seemed odd to Tristan. She didn’t seem afraid or worried that he’d kill her where she sat if he wanted. She probably knew that anyway. Then he saw a flicker of recognition in her brown eyes. Bloodshot as they were, they still danced the way he remembered.
“Brice is dead, isn’t he?” she said, having realized to whom she was actually speaking.
“In a manner of speaking,” Tristan smiled as he let the flame die.
His eyes traveled around the space. Outside the windows, artificial light illuminated a passenger jet as it taxied to a stop. When the ramp was connected, her phone buzzed.
“You have changed. There was a time when you couldn’t care less about the life of a vampire. Must be the company you’re keeping.”
She eased down in her seat and crossed her legs. As her top leg swung its foot up and down, Alex continued to grin.
“Money’s money, right?” she grinned. “I go where the stacks take me.”
The sharp pain at his temple surprised him. It blurred his vision for half a second before he shut her out. Maybe Giselle was right. This body would need more time to adjust.
“Nice! Very nice,” he chuckled. “Your power has grown so much. And so have you, by the way.”
Being this close to her now, the memories of that night were coming back. He shuffled through the mental deck of memories and reached a startling conclusion. She was more than just a successful female test subject. Alexa Stone was the Dagger and now Tristan could move forward with his plan.
Alex sat forward, arm slung across the top of her thigh. Never to be outdone, Tristan did the same.
“That’s why you took the Seventh Grimoire,” she sighed and shook her head at him. “You needed a spell powerful enough to switch bodies. My father was an idiot to leave that thing anywhere near you.”
“Yes on both counts! He’s perfect, right? I mean, now that I’m in charge.”
“It’s too late to save him.”
“Ever the hero,” Tristan laughed freely. “Yes. It is too late.”
Alex raised her eyes to meet Tristan’s gaze. His delicate features couldn’t hide the monster inside—the one she knew so well. This creature had changed her life. In that cave, in the dimly lit dungeon he called home, he had pushed her over to the other side for a while. And now that she was back, he wanted to do it again.
“What do you want?” she asked. “Why all this drama? You could have a new life anywhere on the planet and no one would even know.”
Tristan’s grin faded; his eyes clouded with anger. “I liked my old life. But since I have this new body, I may as well make the best of it. You can’t imagine what I’m going to do now that I can walk in the light! Darkness can no longer hold me.”
She wouldn’t let him shake her; not this time. Control of the situation would go to the one who controlled themself the best. Alex was determined to be that person. And as the fear slowly lost its bite, she knew she would be. Now it was just a low rumble like hunger. Nothing she couldn’t ignore.
With the lighter bouncing in his palm, the sparkle of his dark eyes wasn’t so scary. That slight tilt of his head? Amusing.
“Oh, was I supposed to react to that?” she grinned. “My bad.”
He placed the lighter on the arm of the chair next to him. He waited to make sure it didn’t fall before he turned his eyes to her again. A look of satisfaction spread over his face.
“How’s your father?” he asked.
“Fine,” she answered with a shrug of her shoulders.
“You seem unsure.”
“That’s because I am.”
“He’s never been much of a father to you, has he?” he sighed.
“I guess that’s a matter of opinion,” she replied.
His pale lips pressed into a thin line as Alex watched.
“Is that all you have to say on the subject?” he quizzed.
When she didn’t answer, he shrugged. To her relief, Sebastian and Xavier appeared. The guards seated on either side of her row jumped to their feet. Tristan remained seated as the ones on his side jumped up as well.
“Welcome, gentlemen!”
Xavier pushed one big guy back as the guard attempted to frisk him, she guessed. Sebastian had to do the same to another.
“Who the fuck is this guy?” Sebastian said as he stared at Tristan.
“Language, young man,” Tristan smiled at him then waved to the empty seats next to her. They remained standing as she and Tristan stayed seated.
“This is Tristan,” Alex replied, “wearing Brice Campbell.”
They looked at her, then Tristan, then back at her with confusion.
Tristan shook his head. “More like a hostile takeover.”
“What?” Xavier frowned at him.
“Long story,” she answered.
“Doesn’t matter,” Sebastian hissed. “He’s responsible for the loss of our friends. Can we kill him now?”
Tristan was up with his hand wrapped around Sebastian’s neck before anyone, even Alex, knew what had happened. Alex jumped to her feet and kicked the vampire that tried to grab her. He slammed into the wall, just under a giant flat-screen.
Xavier was on his stomach with a gun to his head.
“I could snap your neck, little boy,” Tristan growled as he held Sebastian high.
“Not before I put two in your fucking head,” Michael growled as he flipped the safety off his Beretta with a wicked grin on his face. “Let him go—now.”
Michael and his brothers reined in the situation quickly as Conner and his teenage son looked on. Raph pulled Xavier to his feet.
Tristan let Sebastian go then ordered his men to stand down. With Sebastian and Xavier next to her, Alex nodded to Michael. He kept his gun trained on Tristan as his brothers watched the others.
“You care too much for these people,” Tristan said as he stared at Sebastian.
“
Thanks for the update,” Sebastian’s voice rasped.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Tristan replied as he stepped up to Alex. “You can’t trust them and they don’t trust you.”
“Maybe not,” she said as she stepped forward too, “but we have a common enemy.”
Tristan smiled at her. She wasn’t sure why, but she let him place his cold hand to her cheek. Then she felt him inside her mind.
Don’t make me do this, little soldier, his mind said to hers.
Do what? hers replied.
Tristan’s eyes clouded again, but this time he looked sad.
“They’ll create more like you,” he said out loud. She didn’t even feel his mind disconnect from hers, “Or they’ll try.”
“Let them try,” she said.
With his hands in his pockets, he smiled at all of them. A quick jerk of his head sent his men to the almost empty concourse again. They waited, patient and quiet. He took a deep breath.
“It’s already begun,” he sighed. “Erin was just the first. She was expendable. They wanted to see where your weaknesses were. Now they know.”
“Put a face to ‘them,’” Alex said, “and you just might walk away from this.”
Tristan shook his head slowly as he turned to wink at Conner. “I’ve done too much to answer for I’m afraid. The Council won’t turn a blind eye this time.”
“This time,” Sebastian joined the conversation.
“Do you really believe they cared about those people back then?” Tristan grinned at Alex again. “At least I was merciful.”
“What?” Xavier growled. “You bled innocents dry for your own amusement!”
Alex was struck by the honest look of confusion on Tristan’s face. He had no idea what Xavier meant.
“Those people were a failed experiment,” Tristan stated plainly. “An experiment your government was conducting.”
Michael stepped around him, lowered his weapon and took the empty spot between Alex and Xavier.
“What kind of experiment?”
“What were they trying to do?” Sebastian added before Alex could ask.
His dark eyes swept from face to face with more confusion. Then Tristan smiled as they stopped on Alex again.
“The women and children in that village in Africa,” Alex’s dry throat morphed the sound of her voice. It sounded sinister, mean—even to her. “We found you there first. We were told you started with them—trying to expand your clan. But that’s not what you were doing, was it? Those women were surrogates with their offspring?” Tristan didn’t react at all. “You didn’t send those children after their parents, did you?”
“They were programmed to do that,” Tristan answered. “The ones that couldn’t be controlled had to be eliminated. That was my job. And I enjoyed it.”
“No one survived,” Alex barked at him and everyone jumped. “You killed all of them!”
“I had to,” he barked back. “I knew humans couldn’t be trusted.”
“Why capture you?” Michael added. “Why not just kill you too before you blew the whistle on the whole thing?”
“She missed,” Tristan smiled. “That was her mistake.”
“I didn’t miss,” Alex replied. “I would never have left a loathsome creature like you in play if I hadn’t been ordered to.”
Tristan turned his deep brown eyes to Alex. He turned up the wattage on his smile as he slipped his long hands into his pockets. “Loathsome? Well, someone’s been to college.”
One thing about working for a government, any government, is when you’re given orders, you follow them. Good soldiers don’t ask questions. Good soldiers follow orders or people die. She’d heard that in a movie. So they followed orders. Tristan was to be captured and contained, not killed. No one was happy about it, but they were just doing their jobs, right?
“The doctor needed a pure blood to perfect a new supplement anyway,” Tristan continued. “The Council offered me. I guess they figured I wouldn’t survive, so . . .” he shrugged again then turned back to Alex. “By the way, you’re welcome.”
“He needed something else too, didn’t he?” Alex hummed as he stepped into her personal space. “He needed to see if a hybrid was possible. A creature with traits from both species.”
“She,” Tristan replied, “and, yes, she did.”
“She? Who are you talking about?” Alex asked.
“The doctor doing the reproductive experiments,” Tristan replied. “You thought I meant Dr. Carlisle? He had a partner in his crimes.”
Alex felt the room tilt just a bit. She took a deep breath and stepped back.
“Did it work?” Alex ignored her dizziness. She felt her heart pound inside her chest.
“I don’t know,” he said as he moved back, “but she’s still out there somewhere. Find her and you can beat it out of her yourself.”
She stepped back again and bumped into Michael, not because she was afraid of Tristan being so close, but because she couldn’t be sure what she would do if he said yes to her next question.
“What’s her name?” she asked him as he stared at Michael.
He didn’t answer. He just nodded to Michael and walked away. He and Conner passed each other without a glance. Once he was safely surrounded by his guards, he turned to the group again. The Zippo sailed through the air in her direction. She caught it with one hand, closing it in her fist.
At that, a plane disembarked and emptied tired passengers into the seating area all around them. The noise and scents upset her. Then she heard his voice inside her head.
Watch your back, he thought to her. Eventually, all of our secrets will come out. Imagine how the world will change, for you especially.
Chapter 31
Although the luxury of Jason’s 747 was gone, it was still nice not to have to fly commercial. Gale Enterprises owned two G650ERs. The Gulfstream accommodated the group, no problem. She could even grab a nap if she wanted. Alex stretched out on the small two-person couch in the back and read email instead. The others sat at the front.
Sebastian and Xavier, seated on an identical couch, were preoccupied with Drew. His mouth moved a mile a minute as he sat in the narrow aisle in front of them. They nodded and smiled as he seemed to explain something in an animated sort of a way.
Conner and Aiden, across the narrow space from them, sat side by side engaged in casual conversation. Every now and then Alex would glance up and around the plane. Everyone appeared relaxed under the circumstances.
Michael and three of his brothers sat in four leather seats, a table between them. Two worked on tablets. One slept peacefully. Michael’s eyes turned to her suddenly. When his brother pushed a tablet his way, Alex went back to her own work again.
Her inbox was packed with updates and meeting notes from Ivy. At the end of each one, she wrote “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.” But she was worried. And nothing would be fine again. Soon, she’d have to decide what was more important: the company or the world.
In New York, she’d speak to her father and try not to throw him from a window. He was responsible for Tristan’s release; she knew that now. Even if no one else did, it would come out soon enough.
As she stared at yet another note from Ivy, she emptied the water bottle in her hand. She dropped it in the bin next to the couch and decided she needed another. Before she could move, Michael stood over her holding a fresh, cold bottle out to her.
“Thanks,” she said without even a glance at his face.
“May I join you?” he asked.
“Your plane,” she shrugged as her booted feet landed on the floor with a low thud. It was all but drowned by noise of the plane and conversations.
She tried to rise, but Michael pushed her back down as he sat beside her. His cologne had almost completely faded. His navy dress shirt was still tucked in his brown tweed s
lacks. The jacket had been discarded as soon as they boarded the plane. When his long legs crossed toward her, she lost sight of everything else around them.
“You’re being childish,” he said as his hands rested in his lap, one on top of the other.
“Bite me,” she replied, tablet still in her hand as she pretended to be working.
He pulled the device from her fingers and she tried to get it back. With one flick of his wrist, it sailed through the air and landed in the empty seat across from them.
She could have brought it back and scared the shit of everybody, but her head still hurt and that would only cause more pain. Besides, I don’t want to bring the plane down with me in it, she thought with a grin.
“What’s so funny?” Michael inquired, slightly annoyed.
“What do you want?” she returned the tone. “I was working.”
He stretched a long arm over the back of the small couch. His hand hung over the edge at her shoulder. He barely felt her body heat, even being this close to her. It was the materials they used to make the uniforms. They had all been very impressed with the results.
“What did you mean by a hybrid?” he asked. “Is that what your father’s been up to all this time? Trying to create the impossible?”
“Nothing is impossible,” she replied. “The supernatural is proof of that, isn’t it?”
“I guess, but he never mentioned a hybrid program.”
Alex shook her head, but he didn’t think it was in response to his statement. Her body temperature spiked, slightly, then the heat was gone.
“Didn’t you buy Strategic and everything it owned? Maybe you missed that part,” she grinned at her hands as she turned them palms up and wiggled her fingers.
“Apparently we didn’t get everything, as it turns out.”
She didn’t seem to mind his closeness. The way his leg crossed over hers as they sat together. Her closeness, however, had an effect on him—a familiar effect, one he thought he’d felt before.
By Blood Sworn Page 31