Embraced by Blood

by Laurie London

  Alfonso’s physical form began to fade, the wall behind him suddenly visible on the other side.

  What was happening? Oh my God, no.

  She leaped forward, her hands going straight through him as his body disappeared into nothingness.

  All that was left was the lingering smell of warm leather and an empty, ragged hole in her chest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  WHAT A COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME this was. Especially since she had none to spare.

  Lily shoved a sheathed knife into her already-packed weapons bag and prayed it wasn’t too late, that Alfonso was still alive. What a fool she’d been, thinking she could talk Dom into classifying it as a field ops mission with the full support of the office. She should’ve just left straight from the island. Thanks to the cape Rejavik had left in the viewing room, she already had a lock on his scent.

  But no, she’d been foolish enough to listen to Jackson, who’d convinced her that Alfonso had probably gone back to his place first before confronting his blood assassin. Dom had arrived from Australia while they were out on the island and was waiting for them back at the field office. She’d relented and agreed to go to Seattle, hoping to get full Agency support. Little good that had done.

  After Dom’s refusal, she’d threatened to go above his head to discuss the issue with Santiago, even though she was wasting precious time. Thankfully, Jackson and Sadie had stepped in, defying Dom’s orders, and had agreed to accompany Lily.

  Not that that had gone over well with Dom. The guy had slammed the door so hard on his way out, a framed piece of artwork had fallen off the wall and shattered.

  God, she hoped Jackson was correct, that Alfonso had stopped to prepare himself first, but in truth, she had no idea how Alfonso’s teleportation skill worked. Was he able to teleport at will? Would he even be capable of going back to his home to ready himself for battle first? One thing was certain, if she hadn’t actually witnessed him fade out, she never would’ve believed such a thing was possible.

  He wouldn’t have headed straight to Rejavik’s location without making any advanced preparations, would he? It was like a never-ending debate. Did he or didn’t he? If he was foolish enough to go in without a plan or any backup, he could very well be—

  No, she wouldn’t think that way, wouldn’t let the pain of that possibility eat at her resolve. He was alive, she could feel it. She was positive. She’d find him and together they’d kill his assassin. She yanked open a drawer filled with ammunition and refused to let herself think the worst.

  On the harried ride back to the field office, she’d called Roxanne Reynolds to see what she knew about ORS assassins. What the head of the Agency’s Tracker Academy had to say hadn’t exactly put Lily’s mind at ease. In addition to being excellent Trackers who were easily able to pull up even the oldest scent memories, these killers could shadow-move faster than most vampires, and they trained for years in advanced torture techniques.

  “Thing is,” Roxanne had told her, “if he’s got Alfonso already, chances are he hasn’t killed him yet. He’d want to put him through hell first.”

  That was comforting.

  “And, in my experience,” she’d continued, “the assassin will take him to a place he’s been to before. He’ll have made preparations at the site, in anticipation of taking a captive. After all, that’s what they’re trained to do.”

  Lily shivered, but tried to keep the worry from her voice. “Thank you for the information.”

  “I tell you this, Lily, not to panic you, but to give you hope. Because it means that the assassin’s trail, although hard to detect, will be slightly stronger than normal as you get closer, since it’s a route he’ll have taken several times before.”

  Lily snapped on a boot holster, jerking herself back to the present. She rubbed her forehead, trying to dispel the beginning of a massive headache. She sensed Alfonso was still very much alive, but whether or not Rejavik had him, she couldn’t tell. He hadn’t answered any of her calls or texts. She’d need to get closer in order to know for sure.

  The far-off ding of the elevator sounded innocent enough, but as heavy footsteps pounded down the hall, getting progressively louder, a fresh wave of irritation and anger came over her. She white-knuckled the edge of the granite countertop and didn’t look up when Dom stopped in the doorway.

  “You heading out soon?” His voice had lost some of its earlier edge.

  “Yeah, just as soon as I’m finished baking this cake.”

  “Listen, I’m—”

  “Throw me another case of silvies.” She didn’t care to get into it with him again. Whether or not she found Alfonso, she was never coming back. She couldn’t work for someone who wouldn’t support the most important mission of her life. Dom could just go fuck himself and find another Tracker.

  The drawer squeaked open and his fingers quickly skimmed over the ammo boxes until he found the right one.

  “Got your mags loaded or do you want me to do that?” Without looking up, he reached for a pair of rubber gloves.

  Had he come here to play nice now? Was that how it worked? She flexed her fingers, resisting the urge to put on a set of knuckles and punch something. Instead, she grabbed the box from him and jammed it into her duffel.

  “I’m good.”

  Why had she thought she could talk Dom into coming with her to search for his brother? He was stubborn, unforgiving and pigheaded, and he would never change. At least Jackson and Sadie were going with her. She’d do it without Dom’s help.

  Only thing was, it hurt not to have his support. She didn’t care that there was bad blood between the brothers. She’d figured that when she told Dom about her suspicions that she and Alfonso were Enlazado por la Sangre, he’d agree to help—for her sake if not for his brother’s. But no. The guy hadn’t even looked at her after she’d unveiled that little revelation.

  He cleared his throat. “Listen. I came here to tell you I’ve okayed the mission. In addition to Jackson and Sadie, Mitchell will be joining you, and Cordell will provide real-time support here from the command center. If the storm abates, you’ll have helicopter support from Finn.”

  She didn’t look up. “Thank you.”

  Did she have everything? She surveyed the contents of her bag. Knives. Check. Guns. Check. Silver-lined handcuffs. Check. Brass knuckles, a half dozen high-capacity magazines, silver rounds. Check. Out of habit, she flicked her wrist, clicking her butterfly knife open and closed a few times before slipping it into her pocket.

  “Geez, Lil, you could poke an eye out with that thing,” he said.

  She glanced at the brindmal coiled at his hip and gave him a cool smile. “Okay, Indy, thanks for the tip.” He rarely went anywhere without that silver-laced bullwhip, so who was he to talk.

  As she crisscrossed the shoulder strap over her head, her phone rang.

  She looked at the screen. Damn. Not her mom again. Was something wrong?

  “Mom, everything okay? How’s Zoe?”

  “She’s still fine, but I really—”

  “Mom, like I said before, I’m in a big rush. Don’t have time to talk. Just keep Zoe there at the bunker until you get the all clear from—”

  “Lily, stop. Would you just listen?” Her mother sounded frustrated, no doubt from the other two times she’d called only to have Lily cut the conversation short.

  But Lily didn’t have time for this. She could hear the recital details later.

  “Mom, I—”

  “There’s something I need to tell you about Alfonso.”

  As her mother spoke, the ligaments in Lily’s legs turned to rubber and she sank to the ground. She was hardly aware of Dom approaching and stooping at her feet, an obvious look of concern on his face. After she listened to what her mother had to say, she shut the phone, knowing her eyes and nose were probably red from all the sniffling.

  “What’s up, Lil? Is everything okay?”

  She tried to center herself amid the storm of chaos brewing in her
mind. She hardly trusted her voice to work. “Remember I told you that my mother was treating Alfonso’s injuries?”

  “Yeah. Both the new ones and the old ones.”

  “Well, she had to run a bunch of tests on him.” Lily ran her sweaty palms over her fatigues, trying to piece together everything whirling in her mind. “It turns out Alfonso is Zoe’s father, not Steven.”

  Dom rocked backward on his heels as if she’d slapped him, shock and disbelief written all over his face. “But how is that possible? Don’t women know these kinds of things? I mean, you had no idea?”

  God, you’d think so. She shook her head.

  She thought about how Alfonso had treated Zoe compared to Steven, but longing for something wasn’t the same as suspecting that thing to be true. Not only did she remember peeking in on Alfonso patiently helping Zoe with the piano, but she recalled how he’d spoken about her in the cave back on the island. He’d said then that he cared about her. He was talking about his daughter. Their daughter.

  “Because Steven was from an influential family, my father adored him. I found out I was pregnant long after Alfonso had left. I just assumed the baby was Steven’s. A perfect match, everyone said, so I tried to make it work.”

  “You made a gallant effort, that’s for sure.” Dom didn’t say anything for a long moment. “This is unbelievable, Lily. And the tests show he is Zoe’s father,” Dom repeated, almost to himself. He’d always been close to Zoe, to the point that she even called him Uncle. Now it appeared as though that nickname was reality. “And Alfonso knows?”

  God—he did know. There had been something different about the way he’d looked in the cave, the flat determination in his eyes. It wasn’t just the fact that he’d learned he had the ability to teleport—it was that he’d discovered he was Zoe’s father. “Yes, my mother told him, but for some reason, he didn’t see the need to tell me.”

  “He’s not stupid, you know.”

  She snapped her head up. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “If he had told you, would you have let him go?”

  “I didn’t let him go.”

  “He probably figured you’d protest his going alone in the first place, but if you realized that he was Zoe’s real father, you would’ve made it impossible for him to leave.”

  “Well, he did leave.” Ignoring Dom’s outstretched hand, she pushed herself to her feet. “He got his way and I’m left wondering what to do.”

  “If it were me, Lily, I’d have done exactly the same thing. He needed to do this alone in order to save his family.”

  “Stupid, stubborn Serrano brothers. Always thinking you know what’s best for everyone without bothering to get input from those involved.”

  “We do know what’s best when family is concerned.”

  She shook her head, grabbed her bag and hurried out of the weapons room. The thing bounced against her hip as she jogged to the bank of elevators. She punched the up button, and when the door didn’t open immediately, she poked it again, over and over.

  So Alfonso thought he needed to do this on his own in order to protect his family? If she weren’t so pissed off, she would’ve laughed out loud at that Neanderthal attitude. Like hell was she going to sit back and wait for word that the only man she’d ever truly loved, the father of their daughter, the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, was dead. She didn’t care if he thought she wasn’t capable of taking on this fight with him. She was used to doing more than what others expected from her, and she wasn’t about to stop now.

  “We’ll find him, Lil.”

  She spun around. Dom stood behind her, a black leather coat draped over his shoulder, his other arm bulging from the heavy bag he held, stretching the sleeve of his silky blue T-shirt. His eyes were the same color as Alfonso’s, with the same deadly intensity, and yet, with his dark coloring, the two brothers looked very different.

  He was ready for combat. Had he changed his mind?

  He shrugged, juggled the duffel, obviously guessing her thoughts from her expression. “I keep it loaded in case of emergency. Comes in handy sometimes.”

  He was actually coming with her. A swell of gratitude surged in her chest. For Dom to volunteer to help her track down his brother was a huge deal.

  “Thanks,” she managed to say, despite the emotion clogging her throat. “You don’t know how much it means to me to have your support.”

  Suddenly, all the terrible names she’d called him in his office and the things she’d accused him of came crashing down around her. “I’m sorry that I—”

  He held up a hand and shook his head. “Nope. No apology necessary. You were angry. I get that.”

  Fine, but she wasn’t quite ready to just let it go. “Those things I said. That was wrong of me. I know you wanted to spend time with Mackenzie since you haven’t seen her in weeks.”

  He didn’t answer right away, just blew out a long breath and ran a hand over his ponytail. “Yes, well, I do want to see her. But to be honest with you, she was just as angry with me as you were when she found out I didn’t authorize the mission.”

  Clearing his throat, he continued, “Although she didn’t use quite the same argument as you did. And with this latest revelation…” He reached around her and stabbed at the elevator button a few times. “Let’s just say that since I don’t want to piss off a pregnant woman any more than she already is, I’m coming with you.”

  She bit her lip to keep from smiling. Yeah, right. Mackenzie couldn’t make Dom do anything he didn’t want to do.

  That was fine. If he wasn’t ready to admit that he did care about his brother and instead used his pregnant wife as a way to save face, who was she to argue?

  All that really mattered was that she had his full support.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WITH A FIREARM IN ONE HAND, a kunai in the other and a multitude of weapons stashed under his jacket, Alfonso concentrated on the shevala and the ground slipped away.

  It felt as if only a few moments had passed when the air grew suddenly still against his skin, smelling dry and faintly musty. He’d teleported somewhere indoors. Blinking a few times to adjust his eyes to the pitch-black darkness, he stood from a crouch and cranked his head around. Cement-block walls surrounded him on three sides and an open-beam ceiling cleared his head by only a few inches. Directly in front of him stood what looked to be the backs of several large bookcases, but upon further inspection, he realized they were fully stocked wine racks.

  Okay, so he was in someone’s wine cellar.

  He rubbed a thumb along the rope-twined grip as he melded with the shadows and slipped between the shelving. A quick glance left and right. Just a bar-height table and four iron chairs. He was alone. Where the hell was Rejavik? He crept over the uneven floor toward a rustic wooden door on the other side of the table. The bastard had to be close.

  If only he’d had the time to experiment with his newfound ability. He would’ve practiced exactly where his form took shape when he teleported to his target. He could’ve appeared outside somewhere, assessed the situation from a safe distance, then teleported the rest of the way in with a plan in place.

  He heard nothing on the other side of the door. Could he have beamed in somewhere else by mistake? It shouldn’t surprise him if he had, because, in all honesty, he had no idea how it worked. It just did.

  He took a deep breath, concentrated, and without any effort, his senses easily homed in on the shevala again. No, he hadn’t made a mistake. Rejavik was nearby.

  Slowly, carefully, he pulled on the heavy door, hoping the damn thing didn’t have squeaky hinges. It didn’t. It opened effortlessly, without sound, and a faint rush of cool air from the room brushed past him.

  He peered into a luxurious media room, complete with a large projection screen, reclining theater seats with cup holders, and velvet-draped walls. An old-fashioned popcorn machine stood in the back with a stack of red-and-white bags.

  He smelled popcorn and�
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  Something niggled at the back of his mind, and the little hairs on the back of his neck stood up. By the time the movement of air settled around him, the faint smell of rotten meat registered in his brain.

  He tried to spin around, but it was too late.

  Silver-tipped spikes dug into his skin as cuffs snapped around his wrists from behind, immediately leeching the energy from his body. Panic shot through him like a jolt from a stun gun. He tried to focus on the emotion and teleport away, but the silver sapped his strength. He was as immobile and helpless as human prey.

  Weapons slipped from his weakened fingers and clattered to the ground, and he didn’t know how long his legs would continue to support his weight.

  It was then that the vile face he’d been expecting to see became visible in the darkness.

  “So wonderful you could join me, Mr. Serrano. And here I thought I’d have to come to you.”

  “LILY, ARE YOU SURE THIS is right?” Jackson asked as the team slipped through the wrought-iron fence in an exclusive Eastside neighborhood near Cougar Mountain. His breath fogged in front of his face.

  Barely above freezing, the night was at its darkest, most coldest hour, but the damp wind, which found its way under every clothing layer, made the air feel about ten degrees colder. Lily went to zip her jacket further but it was already zipped as high as it’d go.

  “I mean,” he continued, “DBs usually hole up in shitty little houses in neighborhoods where people don’t give a fuck what’s going on next door. This place is like Wisteria Lane on crack. If I didn’t already know where Bill Gates lived, I could easily imagine him living in one of these places.”

  Just to be absolutely sure, she fished out the small piece of fabric cut from Rejavik’s cape and inhaled. Yep. The asshole was definitely nearby. The scent markers were the same. “I’m positive.”

  “How about Alfonso?” Dom put a hand absently on his brindmal as he surveyed what they could see of the houses through the heavy stand of Douglas fir trees. “Can you pick up his scent yet?”