by Viehl, Lynn
“That’s the guy Sam found murdered downtown. She said his safe and shop had been cleaned out.” Chris stepped closer. “Did you have him killed? Do you have the emeralds?”
“No. The office safe was purely for show.” Stryker gasped as Jamys tightened his fingers. “Second safe. Hidden under the rug in the front of the store. I swear.”
As Jamys released him, Stryker fell back into the arms of two shrieking girls, and took them down to the floor with him. He stepped over the writhing bodies to grab the two tresori, slamming their heads together hard enough to knock them unconscious before dropping them.
Chris pulled her dress back in place and zipped up the side. “Come on,” she said to Jamys, “before I let you kill him.”
Chapter 15
Halfway between the station and the stronghold traffic suddenly came to a standstill, and when Sam leaned her head out to look ahead, she smelled smoke and blood, and heard shouts from a block away. Using her emergency flashers, she eased out of her lane and drove on the shoulder until she reached the accident at the intersection.
Crumpled front ends conjoined an SUV and a small pickup, which both had air bags deployed. One man with a nose streaming blood was shouting and pounding on the roof of the truck.
Sam parked to one side and ran out in time to keep the angry motorist from trying to drive his fist through the window. “Sir, you need to come away from here.”
“Sonofabitch ran the red. Come outta there, goddamnit.” He tried to jerk his arm from her grip, and then stared at her. “He ran the red.”
“I can see that. Let me get him out.” Sam shed more scent as she pointed to a nearby bus stop bench. “You go sit over there and be quiet.”
The dazed motorist lurched off, and Sam called it in on her mobile as she pried open the truck’s door. The boy inside lay unmoving against the deflating air bag, half a joint still tucked in the corner of his mouth.
“What happened to ‘just say no’?” Sam muttered as she carefully lifted him out of the seat. She carried him across the glass-strewn road to the opposite curb, where she lowered him onto the grass. The air bag had done a number on his chin and the front of his neck, and blood oozing from the friction wounds wet her scarred palm as she felt for the pulse she didn’t find.
“Shit.” She tipped his head back and cleared his airway, trying at the same time to hold back the images pouring into her mind.
“May I be of assistance?” a low voice asked.
Sam looked up blindly at the blond woman. “You know CPR?” When she nodded, she said, “Take over compressions for me.”
As soon as the woman did, Sam stopped fighting the death vision, which dragged time in reverse, hauling her across the intersection and down the road two miles, dropping her behind the steering wheel of the truck.
Sam saw a rawboned hand thumb a lighter and touch the flame to the end of a freshly rolled joint. She smelled the harsh, sweet scent of the marijuana as puffs of smoke billowed up in front of her eyes. The tip of the joint flared as she inhaled, and a seed inside it popped, blowing off the glowing end. She heard a young voice swearing as a hand swatted the burning sensation on the top of her right thigh.
She couldn’t stop the boy from looking down to search for the burning ember, or warn him that the green light he’d just seen had turned yellow. She could only brace herself as the yellow switched to red and he roared into the intersection and collided with the SUV. The impact threw her forward into an explosion of sound and whiteness.
The sound of coughing brought her back to reality, where the boy lay struggling for breath on his side.
The blond woman kneeling behind him made soothing noises as she held his shoulders and smiled at Sam. “He’s breathing again on his own.”
“Thank you.” Sam staggered to her feet, scrubbing her palm against the side of her trousers. “You saved his life.”
“So did you,” the woman said simply.
It took another a minute before the downtown patrols and paramedics arrived at the scene. Sam used the time to check on the other victim, who was still sitting quietly on the bench. “How are you feeling, sir?”
“That kid almost died, didn’t he?” He gave her a dazed look. “I got a fifteen-year-old, just got his restricted permit.” His eyes shifted to the scene across the street. “That could be him.”
She nodded. “Talk to your boy about this. Let him know how it feels.” She touched his shoulder. “And check his pockets occasionally.”
After she gave the details to the patrolmen, Sam walked back to her car. The smell of the blood made her throat dry and her fangs ache, but the last thing she wanted to do was hunt.
The urge to hurry back to the stronghold had disappeared as well. Although Lucan hadn’t been responsible for what he’d done or said, she still felt bruised inside. She’d never taken his love for granted, but the bond they shared was supposed to guarantee it would last forever. Discovering that someone else could make it and Lucan go away had left her feeling brittle, as if one more knock might smash her to pieces.
“Excuse me.” The blond woman walked up to her, and held out her mobile. “You dropped this on the grass.”
“Thanks.” Sam took it and pocketed it. “You should go and talk to the officer over there; he’s going to need a statement from you.”
“I’ve already done that.” She glanced around. “I was wondering, Detective, if you knew where I might get a glass of wine at this hour. I’m still feeling a bit shaken.”
“You certainly don’t show it, and my name is Samantha.” Sam noted the soft English accent and the pale skin; the woman must have just arrived on vacation. “There’s a decent pub just around the corner, and I’m off duty now, so how about I buy you the drink?”
“That’s very kind of you. I’m Werren.” A smile briefly warmed her cool features. “I don’t want to keep you from going home.”
Home was Lucan, but she didn’t want to go there. Not until she was ready to be his sygkenis instead of a screaming bitch. “It’s okay. Come on.”
Neptune’s Bar and Grill had lost the grill to a kitchen fire some years back, and cut its losses by sticking to the better-selling liquid comforts: beer, wine, and liquor. Sam scanned the faces of the patrons, mostly men, nursing their bottles and glasses as they watched a sportscaster on the big plasma TV in one corner. A few glanced at them as they sat at the end of the bar, and Sam made a mental note to accompany her Good Samaritan every step of the way back to her car or hotel.
A baby-faced bartender came over and greeted them as if they were swans in a desert. “Ladies, what can I do you for?”
“Red wine okay?” Sam asked the other woman, who nodded. “Got something that won’t burn off our tonsils with the first sip?”
“Cases of the stuff,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “Boss’s wife comes here with her girlfriends. They’re all like French or something.”
“Then please do bring us something that you can’t pronounce,” Werren said politely.
Sam held on to her chuckle until the bartender reached the cooler at the other end of the bar. “I love how you Brits make a snappy comeback sound like Shakespeare.”
“While I am ever astounded by the generous nature you Americans possess.” As the bartender delivered two glasses of dark red wine, she returned his silly grin with a regal nod. “You’re always willing to jump in and save someone, whether it be car-crash victims”—she lifted her wineglass—“or a stranger whose insides resemble the Gordian knot.”
“Well, then.” Sam held out her glass. “God save the Queen.”
“And Mr. Obama.”
The wine tasted surprisingly good, and Sam thought she might be able to drink most of hers if she took it slow. Fortunately her companion seemed in no hurry to knock back her glass.
“So what brings you to South Florida?” Sam asked. “Vacation, business, family?”
“Business. My employer sent me to acquire some property, but I have a little time for myself.” Werren lifted a
hand to the high collar of her blouse before she took another sip from her glass. “What is it like to live here, in this beautiful place?”
“As places go it’s usually hot, crowded, and busy, and that’s just in the off-season.” She ran her thumb along the thin stem of her glass. “But there are some wonderful places to explore. The Riverwalk, ballet at the performing arts center, and all the neat shops at Las Olas. There’s a wildlife preserve a little south of here that has nature trails and a walk-through butterfly garden. It’s beautiful and peaceful.”
“Sounds lovely, but I’m more of a night person.” She flinched as two of the men hooted loudly over a touchdown on the television.
Sam glanced sideways and what she saw nearly made her fall on the floor.
“Not terribly fond of loud noises, either.” The other woman frowned at her. “Is something wrong?”
“Tired eyes.” Sam rubbed them before she studied Werren again. Her blond hair gleamed, every strand brushed neatly in place, and her ladylike outfit looked equally immaculate. So why for an instant did I think she was wearing an old potato sack only slightly filthier than the rat’s nest on her head? It couldn’t have been a vision; the woman wasn’t bleeding or dead.
Werren picked up her glass, and then wrinkled her nose and set it down again. “I think this lovely wine is actually giving me a headache. Would you mind terribly if I cut this short?”
“No problem.” Sam dug some bills out of her wallet and tucked them under her half-empty glass for the bartender. “I’ll walk with you. Car or hotel?”
“I’ve a lovely little cottage by the water, about a mile down the road,” Werren said as they left the bar. “But you needn’t walk me there. I won’t get lost.”
“This time of night? You’ll get mugged,” Sam advised her. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”
Traffic was again flowing through the intersection where the collision had occurred, and as Sam reached her car, she looked for the wrecked vehicles, which were gone. The city’s accident-response department must have already towed them away. Even as she thought that, something else about the scene seemed wrong.
“It’s strange,” she said to Werren as she merged into the southbound lane. “That accident caused such a mess, but now it looks like it never even happened.”
“I wish it hadn’t.” Werren sounded distant, as if her thoughts were elsewhere.
Sam saw the way she was rubbing her fingers against her right temple. “Headache getting worse?”
“It’s only just beginning, I’m afraid.” She nodded at the street corner they were approaching. “It’s right there, at the end of that walkway.”
Sam found an empty space at the curb, and looked up at the dark windows of an exceptionally pretty little beach house. “Now this is really strange. I’ve driven past this corner a couple thousand times and I’ve never once noticed this property.” She saw the way the other woman was frowning. “This is the place, right?”
“It is, but I always leave the light on in the front room and now it’s off.” She turned to Sam. “Would it be completely wretched of me to ask you to walk up and have a look?”
“Wretched, no. Smart, yes.”
Sam got out and scanned the surrounding area as she approached the front wraparound porch. The wind played with hanging chimes of pipes, shells, and sea glass, and the sound of the tide retreating added a soft background rush. The front door and windows bore no marks of being forced open, and when Sam climbed up the steps, she couldn’t smell or feel any sign of a mortal who might have done the same.
“I think you’re okay,” Sam said as Werren joined her. “Just keep your doors and windows locked, and if you want to go somewhere at night, you should … call … a cab.” There had been no glass on the road at the accident scene, Sam suddenly recalled. Not a single shard. While county usually did a decent job cleaning up after a collision, they weren’t that meticulous.
“I had no choice, my lady,” the other woman murmured.
She stared at Werren, whose face had lost all expression. “What did you call me?”
“If you fight them, you will be made to suffer.” The cool eyes closed.
The beach house melted into dark water, and the porch began rocking under Sam’s feet. On either side of her the bright lights from the hotels and clubs on the beach receded to the east, while the wooden deck built atop itself an empty cabin with blacked-out windows.
Sam didn’t bother to watch the changes around her anymore; she lunged at Werren. A thin cable wrapped around her neck and burned into her flesh with the hot-acid bite of copper. It shocked her so much she froze.
“Take her weapon,” a rough voice ordered beside her ear.
Werren approached, darting back as Sam lashed out with a vicious kick. “Please. They will hurt you if you resist.”
Sam brought her boot down as hard as she could on the man’s instep, making him howl and shove her away. She dragged the copper garrote from around her neck as she reached for her pistol with her other hand, only to find herself shoved back into the confines of a body-size cage, the door to which was slammed in her face.
“Another illusion? This time I know it’s not real.” She tried to wrench the bars apart. “Goddamn it, let me out of here.”
Werren walked up to the cage, and reached in to take her weapon. When Sam tried to stop her, she found herself manacled by huge metal cuffs attached to the bars of the cage.
“Everything is real, my lady.” She sounded sad as her hair snarled into wads of dirty knots and her pretty outfit sagged into a rotting potato sack. “I am the only illusion.”
*
So now he knows.
Chris wouldn’t let herself look at anything but the scenery as Jamys drove them back to the marina. Since they’d left Stryker’s orgy, he’d been very quiet, and all she could think of to say were a bunch of pathetic excuses and inadequate apologies. She’d just shown him what Stryker had made of her, and forced him to have sex in front of a houseful of perverts; even the most sincere “I’m sorry” wouldn’t redeem her behavior.
It’s better that he knows. At least she wouldn’t have to pretend anymore that the years between her mother’s suicide and the day she met Sam didn’t exist. She had to put this behind her and go on as if nothing had happened, something she was becoming an expert at doing.
To give her hands something to do besides twist her fingers into knots, Chris took out her mobile. “I’m going to try to call Sam. If she can meet us somewhere, away from the stronghold, then we can keep Lucan from finding out that you didn’t go home.”
“I have no home,” Jamys said. “I cannot return to my father’s stronghold, and even if he would permit it, I have no desire to serve another Kyn lord.” He gave her a sideways glance. “Once the high lord learns of my situation, he will have me declared a rogue.”
Chris knew a little about rogues, the loner immortals who were considered outcasts among the Kyn. If they did anything to hurt humans or piss off Tremayne, he had them killed. Sometimes he had them killed simply for turning rogue. Sam had told her how often Lucan had been sent to execute them before Cyprien had made him a suzerain.
“Then you go back to North Carolina,” she told him. “You make up with your dad and take an oath to him or whatever you have to do, but you don’t go rogue. You don’t ever go rogue.”
“By leaving my father’s stronghold without permission, and disobeying Lucan’s orders by remaining in his territory, I have already.” He parked the car in the marina’s lot and shut off the engine. “Finding the emeralds is my only hope of redemption now.”
“Oh. So you’ve decided to give them to the high lord.” Although she understood his motives, her heart sank a little. “Okay. Maybe he won’t use them to decimate the mortal world.”
“He would not use them for that specific purpose.” He got out of the car and came around to open her door. “But I believe he cannot be trusted with them, so no, I would not give them to Richard.”
“Immortality might tempt someone on the council to act like an idiot, too.” She climbed out and walked with him toward the slip. “If we can’t give them to either side, then why are we still looking for these rocks?”
“In the summons, Richard said that the guardian of the emeralds is dead.” He stopped and looked down at her. “I think you and I were fated to become the new guardians.”
“Us?” She frowned. “I could see you doing that, but I’m human. I’m only going to be around for maybe another fifty, sixty years, and that’s not …” She realized what he meant. “No, Jamys.”
“Think about it.” He cradled her face between his hands. “If you were made immortal, Christian, we could be together forever. I could take you as my sygkenis, and neither of us would ever have to be alone again.”
“You’d make me your life companion.” She tried to wrap her head around that. “What are you talking about?”
“I am in love with you.” He drew his knuckles down along the side of her cheek. “I have been these three years.”
She walked away from him and went to the boat, where she turned on the navcom and pulled up the course that would take them back to Fort Lauderdale. She felt him the moment he stepped onto the boat, but kept her back to him.
“Why are you so angry with me?”
“Three years.” She hammered the coordinates into the keypad. “The last three years, do you know how I spent them? Training.”
“I know—”
“You’re Kyn. You don’t know.” She saw the faint reflection of her face on the navcom’s small monitor, and her features were so drawn they resembled a too-tight mask. “Every single day for the last three years, I’ve been training. I learned how to fight with my fists, my feet, my elbows and knees. I practiced how to use knives, clubs, swords, Tasers, and anything else Burke handed me. I spent fourteen months going to the firing range every day to master every pistol, every rifle, every assault weapon in the stronghold armory, until Turner qualified me as expert on all of them. I can outshoot a SWAT team, Jamys, and I don’t even like guns.”