Written in the Ruby

by Ravyn Wilde

  Kneeling down to pet the setter he’d silently called, Zane opened his mind to question the animal. He was quiet for several minutes before speaking. “I’ve found something. Big, mean dogs. Locked in a cage during the day but they’re allowed to roam a fenced area at night. This guy doesn’t like the place and stays away. But he’ll show us where it is.”

  Returning to the car, they followed the dog for several miles. At the top of a small hill, the red setter sat down in the middle of the road. Zane got out and walked to him. What he saw made his heart race.

  There was a small farm, maybe six acres. The land was framed by chain-link fencing. There was a tin building and a dog kennel with five or six German shepherds pacing their small prison.

  He patted the setter’s back and sent him away.

  Nicky?

  I’m here.

  Through their growing bond, he could feel that she was closer to him. This had to be the right place.

  Hold on, love. I think we might have found where they’re holding you. Are you okay?

  Ummm. Tired. Cold. Hurry.

  She hadn’t said she was hurting but he could feel her pain. Caught just a glimpse of Mike hitting her. Zane clenched his fists. Once he got his hands on Mikey, he was going to make the man bleed. I’m coming, baby.

  “Look. The black car parked behind the small shed. It matches the description your guard gave you.” Vlad had come to stand beside him. “I don’t feel anyone outside. There are six humans in the tin building.”

  Zane tilted his head to the side and focused on that area within his mind that allowed him to feel the heartbeats. “Yeah. I count six as well. One would be Nicky’s. With Mike Maloney, the contractor and the two guards Nicky saw before they took her inside, that leaves one more. It could be another guard, a doctor or whoever took her blood or, if we’re lucky, John Jackson.”

  “We’ve got about an hour before dusk. Let’s hide the car and take a look around. The dogs won’t be a problem since you can silence them. But I want to get close enough to verify I can control the guards. I’m rather hoping the human idiots have mental shields. That way, if I can’t make them sleep, I can bust a few heads together.” Vlad sighed. “But that so rarely happens anymore.”

  “I don’t care how you handle the others. Just remember that I get Mikey,” Zane growled.

  “It isn’t you I’m worried about. Veronica doesn’t like me to hurt anyone.” Then Vlad brightened. “But you said these men are trying to expose us? That they want a vampire to drag before America’s government officials?”

  “Yeah. Some Senate committee.”

  “Good. Then they can’t be allowed to live. I won’t expose us to this kind of threat, Zane. The Others are not ready to come out into the open yet.”

  Shaking his head at Vlad’s glee, Zane started back to the car. “I’ll let you explain that to Ronnie.”

  “Something’s wrong with Nicky. I can hear it. Feel it.” Zane, Ronnie and Vlad where just outside the tin building. The dogs had been released a few minutes ago by one of the guards. Zane mentally directed the German shepherds to the opposite end of the compound, where they’d ignore any command to return. Igor was hiding the body of the guard behind one of the other buildings.

  The guard wasn’t dead, just unconscious. He wouldn’t wake up until Vlad had time to assess the threat and adjust his memories.

  Ronnie frowned at him. “I assume you mean something more than being chained to a concrete wall while she’s experiencing separation sickness. What’s going on, Zane?”

  “She’s slurring her words and seems confused. Every time I try to talk to her, it’s like I have to wake her up. Then wait while she throws up. She doesn’t have anything left in her stomach. And her headache is getting worse, not better. I’m close enough that the separation sickness should be easing. It is for me—why isn’t she better?”

  Sucking in a breath, Ronnie urged them forward. “It sounds like she has a concussion. A bad one, if she’s slurring her words and can’t stay awake. Hurry. I need to get to her.”

  Slowly slipping through the door into the building, they came to a stop. Horse stalls lined both sides of the dimly lit space. “Below us.” Zane pointed to the floor. Whatever secrets the building held, they weren’t here. He could feel the heartbeats underneath his feet. But how did they get below?

  A quick search of the hay-strewn stalls and one empty tack room didn’t reveal a staircase. “It has to be here somewhere,” Veronica whispered.

  Zane stepped out of the tack room, back into the long corridor dividing the building in half. “Look. There seems to be a pathway worn into the dirt that leads into the last stall on the right.” He quickly followed the faint path into the small, boxed-in space. Crouching down to study the floor, it didn’t take him long to discover a trap door. Propping it open, he studied the wooden steps leading into the basement. “What do you think the odds are they have security cameras or some sort of electronic warning?”

  Shrugging his shoulders, Vlad glanced around the stall and then back down into the shadowed abyss. “I don’t see anything. Which either means they thought no one would find this place and the dogs and single guard would be enough protection, or they know what they’re doing and the electronic security is well hidden.”

  Veronica peered into the stairway. “Can I vote for the first one? Smug complacency over technological savvy?”

  “I’m with you, Ronnie. I’ll go first. When I get to the bottom of the stairs, close the trap door and follow me.” With studied care, Zane worked his way down the dark staircase until he reached the bottom—and a door. Stretching his vampire senses to feel beyond the door, he didn’t feel anyone close.

  As he waited for Ronnie and Vlad to join him, he tuned the knob and opened the metal slab just far enough to allow him to see a slice of what was on the other side.

  Fluorescent lights on the ceiling cast a harsh glare on stark-white walls. He opened the door a little farther and glanced into a hallway running the length of the building. On the right side of the hall was a long wall of Sheetrock. There were five closed doors interspersed down its length. On the left-hand side there was nothing but smooth concrete.

  Zane whispered under his breath, “Nicky said she was in a concrete cell. It looks like there’s a door set into the concrete at the very end of the hall. It’s about sixty feet away. There’s a slow heartbeat coming from that room and I’m going to guess its Nicky’s.”

  Vlad cocked his head. “I can sense someone in this first room, then two heartbeats in the second room and one in the last room before the end of the hallway. That’s four. Add Nicky and we have five. With the guard we’ve already stashed upstairs, that means everyone is accounted for.”

  “Yeah. Now I just need to get down to the end of the hall without anyone coming out of the other rooms. I want Nicole out of here before we take care of Mike and anyone else.”

  Veronica murmured, “If she has a concussion and it’s very bad, you won’t want to move her right away. I’ll need to help her first.”

  “Our best strategy would be to get down the hall together, check that room for your mate. If it holds Nicole, we go in and close the door. A concrete cell with one entrance will be easy to defend and if we’re with her, they can’t put a gun to her head and use her mortality against us.” Vlad poked him in the back, telling him to move.

  Zane knew the longer they debated, the greater the chance of being discovered. Slipping through the door, he stepped out onto white linoleum. Silently he crept toward the end of the hall with Vlad and Ronnie following close behind.

  Straining to catch any sound that might warn him of imminent discovery, it took him a few minutes to take in the aroma of the place. The smell of old and new blood mingled with sweat, antiseptics and the growing stench of vomit. The last fragrance made him increase his pace.

  By the time he reached the end of the hall, he was sure he would find Nicky behind the metal door. Reaching for the knob, he said a prayer th
at it would be unlocked. It turned freely and Zane slipped inside with Vlad and Ronnie at his heals. One of them closed the door behind them.

  The smell slapped Zane in the face and he gagged. In the few seconds it took for his vision to adjust from the bright fluorescent hallway to total blackness, he strained his hearing. A small moan told him she was to his left. “Nicky?” he whispered.

  And then he saw her. Ronnie’s gasp came at the same time fingers closed over his arm. “You must control your rage!” Vlad hissed.

  Until then, he wasn’t aware of the fierce sounds coming from his throat. Clamping his jaw shut, Zane took the few steps separating him from his mate and knelt beside her.

  “Be careful, Zane. Don’t move her.” Ronnie whispered the warning.

  Nicole lay awkwardly on the floor with her knees drawn up to her stomach. Her hands were stretched up and behind her, chained to the concrete. He heard the door open behind him but didn’t move. The light from the hall made everything worse. He stilled the cries in his throat as he saw the small trickle of blood and bruising on her face. She’d been hit at least once. And she was bare from the waist up. In the faint light coming from the door, he saw dark bruises on her breasts. They looked liked finger marks.

  He was going to kill Mike.

  “Nicky, sweetheart,” he whispered. Heartbroken for what she’d had to endure.

  He gently smoothed the hair back from her face, leaning over to kiss her forehead.

  The room went completely dark just before keys were dangled in front of his eyes. Vlad’s voice was hard as he explained, “Try these. I removed them from a man in a white lab coat. You don’t want to see the room next door. It looks like a modern torture chamber. There are three heartbeats left to silence.”

  Quickly Zane unlocked the shackles around Nicky’s wrists and eased her arms to the floor, carefully avoiding the puddle of vomit at her side. She moaned in pain and he whispered nonsense while he stripped out of his t-shirt and covered her. He knew his scent would soothe any lingering separation sickness. He didn’t move her to put it on, just lay it on top of her. “She’s cold.”

  Before Zane could do it himself, Vlad cleansed the room with a thought. Zane waved his hand to clean Nicky and provide her with a warm blanket to cover her better than his shirt.

  Ronnie rubbed his shoulder. “I’ll take care of her, Zane. Let me do what I can and when she feels a little better, I’ll help her into your shirt. By then, you and Vlad will have taken care of everything else and we can leave this place.” Ronnie turned and placed a hand on her mate’s cheek. “Vlad, honey. Do what you have to do. These people don’t deserve compassion.”

  Vlad’s eyes gleamed. “I dragoste tu, meu dumpling.”

  I love you, my dumpling? Dumpling? Vlad was braver than Zane. He’d never call a woman “dumpling”.

  “Sweetheart, I’ll be back for you. Let Ronnie help you,” Zane murmured. Bending to kiss Nicky’s forehead again, he stood up and headed for the door. Pausing before he left the room, he glanced back at Nicole lying half-naked on the cold floor.

  Waving her hand briefly in the air, Ronnie placed the ice pack she’d summoned at the base of Nicky’s skull. “It will help relieve the pain and swelling in her brain. Go.” She made a shooing motion at the men then placed her hands gently on the top of his mate’s head and closed her eyes. Zane could see a faint, golden halo of healing energy enveloping the two women.

  “She will be healed. My mate has such loving power in her hands.” Vlad’s tone started gentle then changed to angry disdain as he pushed Zane out into the hall and closed the door. “Now, me? I’d like to get my hands around a few necks. It’s a different kind of power I plan on using. Would you like what’s behind door number one or door number two?” Vlad chuckled, pointing first at the door hiding two heartbeats then the door shielding a single human.

  So far Vlad had taken care of one guard and one lab-coated man. That left Mikey, the additional guard and the construction worker. Or Mike and JJ and one guard. Pausing at the first door, he listened for a few minutes. Hearing murmured comments about going up top to check on things, he didn’t recognize either of the voices. “You take these two.”

  Zane moved to the second doorway. Standing in place, he nodded at Vlad. Simultaneously they each placed a hand on their respective doorknobs. Knowing Vlad could take care of two humans without breaking a sweat, Zane turned the handle and silently stepped into the room.

  One look told him he’d chosen correctly. Mikey was sitting in front of a computer, absorbed in what looked like a hardcore S&M porn site.

  “I heard you were looking for me?” Zane drawled.

  Mikey whipped around in the seat, the look of abject terror on his face making Zane smile. Stumbling when he tried to stand, Mike screamed for backup. “Fuck! What the fuck? Security!”

  Zane laughed, moving closer. “Oh, I don’t think anyone’s coming to help you, you piece of shit. It’s just you and me.”

  Watching Mikey’s furious green eyes, Zane knew the exact moment the man decided to attack. The subtle tightening of muscle around the eye socket was a dead giveaway. Before the big blond could reach the long knife in the scabbard on his thigh, Zane balled up his fist and connected with the left side of Mike’s face.

  Flying backward, the man sprawled across the computer console in an uncomfortable-looking heap. “Oh no,” Zane snarled. “You are not going to make this easy!” Grabbing the man’s shirt, he hauled him to his feet.

  For all his size and supposed military training, Mikey fought like a girl. Fingers curled into claws, the man went directly for Zane’s eyes. Using one arm to brush away the assault, Zane curled his lip in disdain. And drove a fist into Mike’s stomach.

  Immediately doubling over, the man gagged.

  “How do you like being the punching bag?” It was a rhetorical question. Zane didn’t give a shit how he liked it. Mike deserved so much more for what he’d done to Nicky. And Zane planned on making the man pay for every scratch, every terrifying moment his mate had been put through.

  The real question was…did Zane beat the man to death, or use him for information and to ensure they captured John Jackson? The slight hesitation meant the blond idiot had a chance to unsheathe his ten-inch knife. Mike’s arm lunged upward in an attempt to bury the blade in Zane’s stomach.

  Jumping out of the man’s reach, Zane felt a slight sting across his naked chest. The burning sensation told him he hadn’t been quick enough to avoid being cut. “Ah, now that just pisses me off.”

  Vlad chose that moment to appear in the doorway. “Quit playing with your food. We need to get Nicky and Ronnie home.”

  Zane laughed as Vlad’s words panicked Mike into doing something stupid. Head lowered, roaring like a sick bull, Mikey held the knife in front of him and charged. Sidestepping the man, Zane added to Mike’s foreword motion with a fierce roundhouse kick to his ass.

  Up to this point, Zane had been holding his preternatural strength in check. When he kicked the idiot in the ass, he used every bit of vampire power he possessed.

  Vlad stepped out of the way as Mike practically flew through the Sheetrock wall. He hit the concrete wall across the hall with a sickening crack. Blood quickly formed a puddle at the man’s feet.

  “What the hell?” Zane strode from the room, intending to pick the man up and beat him again.

  Vlad bent over for a closer look. “When he hit the wall, his head cracked open like a rotten melon.” Cocking his head to one side, Vlad told Zane what he already knew. “His heart has stopped.”

  “Damn. Let’s pull the moron back into the room. I don’t want Nicky to have this vision seared in her memory.”

  “Good idea. Veronica might regret letting me play if she sees this.”

  After throwing Mikey in a corner with his dead eyes focused on the ceiling, Zane left the room to check on Nicole’s progress.

  He came back and quickly updated Vlad. “Ronnie said if she can have about fifteen more minut
es, we could leave. She’ll holler if Nicky regains consciousness.” Zane started to copy the computer files onto a convenient flash drive. It was frustrating, trying to gather the information they needed before he could hold his mate in his arms again. “Hurry, Vlad.”

  “I found boxes in a closet. I’ve gathered every scrap of paper I can find in here. I’ll take them upstairs to the car and then see if there is anything in the lab. You just sanitize that computer and make sure we have everything. You know we’ll have to burn this place to the ground?”

  “Yeah, I got that. Besides the guard upstairs, is anyone else alive?” Zane really didn’t care.

  Without a hint of remorse, Vlad’s answer was short and to the point. “No. There are several tanks of oxygen and other flammable items in the lab. When we have everyone upstairs I’ll start a little fire. The memory of our hostage has already been wiped clean. We’ll just place him away from our planned inferno.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sitting in the backseat of the car with his mate cradled on his lap, Zane gazed at Nicole. He didn’t turn around as an explosion rocked the SUV. Instead, he watched the flickering fire behind him cast a warm glow on her face.

  He was taking her home. Where he would seal her to him for all eternity. Thoughts of that eternity played in his mind over the next hour. Until Vlad’s heavily accented voice cut into his musings.

  “Creating a vampire mate is different than creating another vampire.”

  Frowning, Zane looked up and met Vlad’s brown gaze. “What do you mean?”

  “When Thomas turned you, you became a vampire. Newly made, you had only basic vampire skills and even less strength. It took years for you to become stronger than you had been before the change. Decades for your specific paranormal abilities to kick in and centuries before you were able to walk in the sun. This is not how it is with our mates.”

  Zane looked over at Ronnie. She was sitting beside him in the backseat with a small smile on her lips. He’d never thought about it before. Vampire mates were so rare in the world. Those vampires in a true bond didn’t talk about the connection. He could understand why—the thought of his enemies using knowledge of his bond with Nicole to hurt her sent an icy chill down his back.