“I told you to leave,” he growled. “You said you would.”
“I never said that.” She flipped her hand, brushing away his comment. “And a little gratitude might be in order here.”
Lucifer stared at her a moment longer, and then his anger faded, replaced by a sudden grin. “Even your power smells of peaches and cream, bella.”
Eleanor blushed with pleasure. She felt stupid about it, but she blushed anyway. “Yeah, okay. Let’s get the hell out of here. It’s starting to stink. Besides, there’s no sun down here, like never ever, and people are going to wonder about this mess in the morning. We don’t want to be here for that.” There was no body, but there was plenty of blood and dust. Someone with knowledge of vampires might just be lucky enough to put two and two together.
Lucifer gritted his teeth with effort, but managed to stand mostly on his own. “How’s Murphy?”
“About the same as you. Can you walk?”
“I can do anything I have to.”
Great, Eleanor thought. Now she had two giant, bleeding males who didn’t want to accept her help. She slipped an arm around Lucifer’s waist, and walked him back to where Colin was waiting, looking more exhausted than ever. It was as if now that Kasimir was dead, he could surrender to his wounds and collapse.
“You help him,” Lucifer said, eyeing the semi-conscious human. “I’ll stumble along.”
Eleanor studied him for a moment, but then nodded. Really, what choice did she have? She was hella strong, especially for her size, but even she couldn’t drag both of them down the streets of Montreal.
They made a pathetic group—limping, bleeding, creeping along at a snail’s pace. The mighty vampires of North America crawling down the dark streets of McGill University, beneath a cloud cover so thick that even the nearly full moon couldn’t break through to guide them.
Once they reached the SUV, Eleanor shoved both males into the backseat, where they could bleed all over the leather together, then climbed in and drove like hell to get back to the hotel before sunrise. She could already feel the warning burn against the back of her skull, and she had no desire to die because the sun rose while she was stuck at a red light.
Calling ahead for Cal to meet them, Eleanor reached the hotel with less than an hour to go. The undercarriage of the big vehicle scraped the sidewalk as she raced down the ramp to the underground garage. She screeched to a halt, then jumped down, and yanked the back door open. Colin Murphy was completely out of it, his head resting on Lucifer’s broad shoulder. Lucifer didn’t look much better, but being a powerful vampire had its benefits. He lifted his head and gave her a half-hearted grin. “I told you I could make it.”
“Uh huh. Come on, tough guy.” She reached in and unsnapped the seat belts, which she’d buckled mostly to keep them from falling over on the trip back. “If you can walk—”
“Of course, I can walk.”
“Good. Then start walking. Cal can help me with Colin.”
Lucifer grunted his response, but did as she asked, sliding across the seat and, more leaning than standing, stood next to the vehicle and watched while she climbed in and manhandled Colin out to the waiting Cal.
“He’s completely out of it,” she told the daylight guard captain.
Cal grunted as he took Colin’s weight. “Looks like he’s been through it.”
“And then some,” she agreed, and stepped up to Colin’s other side. Jerking her chin in the direction of the elevator, she ordered Lucifer to go ahead of them.
“So bossy,” he murmured as he walked past her. But she noticed he was leaning against the elevator wall as it raced upward.
Once they hit the penthouse level, she and Cal all but carried Colin into her half of the suite, where he collapsed onto the bed. She had hoped to give Sophia a call before he passed out. The lady was undoubtedly aware of her mate’s freedom, but would want to hear his voice for herself. Eleanor had wanted to make that possible, but it wasn’t going to happen. Colin was down for the count, and Eleanor was only a few minutes behind him. There was no more she could do tonight. It was very nearly morning, and her strength was starting to wane.
“He’ll be hungry when he wakes up,” she told Cal quickly, as she hustled out of her bedroom and across the living area to Lucifer’s half of the suite. She noted in passing that Lucifer must have lowered the shutters while she was dealing with Colin. “And please leave a gun where he’ll see it as soon as he wakes. He needs to feel in control again.”
“Don’t worry,” Cal assured her. “I’ve taken care of plenty of wounded soldiers in my day.”
“And you’ll need to be extra vigilant. We got him back from the kidnappers, but there’s no guarantee their human allies won’t come looking to snatch him back, or to kill him. They don’t strike me as gracious losers.”
“My people can handle whoever comes looking for him,” he said, and there was a hard edge to his voice that she found reassuring.
“Thanks, Cal,” she said sincerely. And then she hurried into Lucifer’s bedroom, closing and locking the door behind her.
Lucifer was already naked, lying on the big bed with his eyes closed, ignoring the blood and sweat rolling off his skin to stain the pristine sheets. Who cared about fucking sheets? He was here, and he was alive. That was good enough for her.
Stripping off her clothes, she tossed them aside and rolled into bed next to the love of her life. She had just enough time to pull the covers over both of them, and then the sun hit and she was out.
Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
SOPHIA LEANED OVER the downed vampire. He was stunned, not dead, not even out of the fight yet. Placing one booted foot on his chest, she gripped both sides of his head and twisted. His neck snapped with an audible crack, but she kept twisting until his head was barely attached to his shoulders, until all of the big veins and arteries in his neck were shredded and spurting blood. The gush of blood became a slow trickle as his heart stopped beating, and the vampire symbiote gave up the ghost. If the vampire had been a lot older, she’d have gone right for the heart. But this was a baby vamp, probably less than a year old, and a little variety kept her in fighting form. The symbiote hadn’t dug deeply enough into his body and blood to enable him to survive near decapitation. Unfortunately, that also meant he wasn’t old enough to turn to dust. He was dead for sure, but they’d have to let the direct sunlight clean him up in the morning.
The unmistakable whoosh of a blade whipping through the air had her dropping low and spinning on one leg, kicking out with the other, as an enemy sword cut through the space where her head had been only seconds earlier. Her kick connected with her attacker’s knee, breaking the leg and knocking him down as he howled in pain. This one was human. She sprang back to her feet, gripped his jaw, and sliced his neck using nothing but the stainless claws on her left hand. The claws were a custom job, a weapon made just for her, fitted to her hand. Curved and wickedly sharp, it was something she only wore when she intended to kill. And today, she’d definitely intended to kill.
She was here because of Berkhard, because he’d launched a brazen attack on this remote enclave of vampires. And she was growing tired of it, tired of his petty incursions into her territory. He was picking nests with as few as ten vampires, living quietly, hurting no one. Some of them had human lovers or mates living in the compound, and some of those humans even had children living with them. These were the people that bastard Berkhard was attacking. None of the enclaves he’d hit so far had held any strategic or economic value to her or the invader, but that didn’t seem to matter to him.
She understood his strategy, understood why he’d chosen such outlying vampire nests. Just as with Colin’s kidnapping, his goal was to distract her. To force her to concentrate on so many different points that her entire defense collapsed. And once that happened, he’d go after his real target
, the biggest prize of all . . . Vancouver. It was far more significant than Montreal or Toronto, if only because she’d made it her headquarters, her home. But there was also economic value to the city. Her private holdings alone were worth billions. Most of those had been inherited from Lucien, but she was a much better financial manager than he’d been, and her portfolio reflected that.
So, she understood why Berkhard wanted the city, and the territory, too. But that didn’t mean she was going to stand by while he picked off her vampires in a bid for her attention. It was time to force the issue, to take the battle to him, instead of jumping here and there at his bidding.
She stepped over the body of the dead human, her mind scanning the building, looking for signs of life. Her vampires and their dependents—the ones who couldn’t fight—had all been evacuated as soon as she and her fighters hit the ground. They’d done it enough times in the last two weeks that they had it down to a science. Clear the civilians and kill the enemy. Sometimes Berkhard’s attack force included a powerful vampire or two, but more often, it was made up of baby vamps and humans. Sacrificial lambs who didn’t have a hope of survival. She would have liked to question one of them, to find out what Berkhard had promised in exchange for their service, what lies he’d told to get them to take on a suicide mission like this. But so far, they’d all been so set on killing her and her people that there’d been no chance to do anything but kill them instead.
A terrified scream had her racing out of the building into the yard in time to see a huge, muscular vampire drag one of the human women out of the stone barn where she’d apparently been hiding. A slender vampire leapt on the attacker’s back, and dug his fangs into the monster’s neck. He was no match for the bigger vampire—not in size, but, more importantly, not in power, either. But it seemed the woman was his, or at least important enough to him that he was willing to die for her.
The big vampire tossed the woman aside, throwing her so hard that she would have died, if Sophia had not put on a burst of speed and caught her before she hit the side of the house.
“Noel,” the woman sobbed, twisting to stare at the clashing vampires. Noel was apparently her vampire defender. She turned a pleading expression on Sophia. “Help him.”
“Stay here,” Sophia said. She stalked slowly toward the two vampires, admiring Noel’s courage, but recognizing the futility of his efforts. He wasn’t a trained fighter, but even if he had been, without the power to back it up, he wouldn’t have had a chance. Berkhard’s vampire was a true monster, a massive male with fangs as thick and long as her thumbs. There could be no subtlety with this one.
“My lady?”
Sophia glanced over to see Tambra emerge from the house, a deep laceration marring the smooth perfection of her cheek. She was smeared with dirt, and someone else’s blood, but was otherwise unscathed.
“I’ve got this,” Sophia told her. “Watch over the civilian.”
Tambra nodded, her gaze returning to the uneven battle. Noel was doing far better than Sophia would have expected, but then love was a powerful motivator. Still, enough was enough.
Sophia gathered her power as she stared at the giant vampire. She formed an image in her mind of his broad chest, mentally peeling aside the skin and muscle to focus on the thick ribs guarding his heart. He screamed as a ball of concentrated energy snapped every rib on the left side of his body, as that same ball smashed into his heart. He spun, with Noel still clinging to his back like a monkey, looking for this new deadly attacker. His eyes glowed crimson when he spied her. He reached over his shoulder and yanked Noel off with one hand, tossing him aside as he headed for Sophia. His chest was a bloody mess, but it didn’t stop him. The ground shook as he thundered toward her, but Sophia held her ground. Physical size was nice, but it didn’t matter for shit when it came to the kind of power she wielded.
She met the monster’s eyes, and smiled. She stretched out her hand, palm open and flat, and then slowly, deliberately closed her fingers into a fist.
The giant vamp grunted in shock, and then crashed to his knees, staring at her in disbelief.
“Size doesn’t matter, after all,” she sneered. And then she stepped back fastidiously to avoid the giant dust cloud. He’d been a very big vampire.
“Tambra,” she said, turning to find her assistant. But before she could continue the thought, her senses were slammed with . . . something wonderful. She paused in mid-step, and it took every ounce of determination she had to remain upright. Because for the first time in what felt like forever, Colin was with her. He’d never left her heart, but now he was in her mind. Weak, unconscious. But there, where he belonged. Her throat thickened with emotion, with the tears she’d been holding back ever since he’d been taken. She swallowed them down one more time. She couldn’t let her enemies see her reaction, good or bad. She didn’t know Colin’s situation. Had Eleanor and Lucifer succeeded in freeing him? Had he somehow escaped on his own? Until she knew for sure, she couldn’t reveal anything that might help her enemies recover him.
“My lady?” Tambra’s voice was filled with concern.
Sophia dug up a convincing smile. “Do a sweep of the building. The usual. Get rid of lingering bad guys, and help the civilians restore order. There’s at least one dead baby vamp in there, and a few humans. It’s bonfire time, I guess.”
Tambra grinned. She appeared so normal, but she had a macabre sense of humor. “I’ll handle it.”
“Good.” Sophia made her way over to Noel, who was alive, but in bad shape. “Noel?” she asked, going to her knees next to him.
“My lady,” he whispered, which was probably all the noise he could make.
Sophia pulled up her sleeve and put a fang to her wrist, tearing a long, jagged wound. “Drink, child,” she murmured. He wasn’t actually her child, but she was his lord, and that made him hers. She felt the tug of those bonds, the ties that bound her to every vampire in the territory, when Noel latched on to her wrist, and began to drink.
“Noel!” The human woman he’d been defending dropped to her knees at his side, though Noel was far too busy sucking down the bounty of a vampire lord’s blood to pay attention to his human lover.
“Give him a minute,” Sophia murmured. “He was badly injured.”
The woman had obviously been with her vampire long enough to understand, because she sat back on her heels with a nod, and watched avidly as her lover drank.
Sophia waited until his tugs on her wrist had slowed, then she stroked his cheek softly, and said, “Enough, Noel.”
He lifted his head instantly, his fangs sliding out of her flesh, his tongue slipping out to lap up the last trails of blood dripping down her arm. “Thank you, my lady.” His voice was slurred, reflecting the intoxicating effect of her blood.
She smiled. “You were brave. Your lady is very lucky.”
He gave her a goofy grin, and then his eyes closed and between one breath and the next, he dropped into a deep, healing sleep.
Sophia transferred him to the eager arms of his mate, who held him close to her heart, and gazed up at Sophia, while tears carved paths through the soot and dirt on her cheeks. “Thank you, my lady,” she whispered fervently. The gratitude Sophia welcomed, but the adoration on the woman’s face was more than she could handle. She’d never wanted to be worshipped. She only wanted to be a good ruler, to keep her people safe. Maybe if she’d done a better job of that, this woman would never have come close to losing her mate. And maybe Colin would never have been taken and tortured. She’d ignored the danger for too long, hoping her fellow vampire lords would take care of the problem within their own borders, and send the Europeans packing before they ever reached her territory.
She stood and looked around. This was her fault, her failure. She could rebuild the homes that had been destroyed, replace the furniture, the cars . . . hell, the toys, too. But she coul
dn’t replace the lives that had been lost.
What she could do, however, was make sure that Berkhard didn’t destroy anything, or anyone, else.
“Tambra.” She waited until she had her assistant’s attention. “I’m returning to Vancouver. Get a team in place to fix all of this, and then join me. We have work to do.”
“Yes, my lady,” Tambra said, and her lips curved in an evil smile that matched Sophia’s own.
They definitely had work to do, the kind that involved blood and violence. The kind that was going to end with one dead German vampire lord.
Chapter Twelve
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
BEFORE HE EVEN opened his eyes, Lucifer was unhappy. First, because he could smell himself, and it wasn’t good. Second, because after two challenge fights in two nights, he was feeling his true age. On the other hand, he reached out and scooped the still-sleeping Eleanor into his arms, holding her warm, curvy body against his and breathing her in. It was her scent that finally opened his eyes, and brought back all the events of the previous night. It also made him aware of the human in the next room.
Right. Colin Murphy was with them. Lucifer could hear him pacing back and forth, crossing the living room between the two bedroom suites. The human had slept in Eleanor’s room, which settled that question, anyway. Eleanor would be sleeping in Lucifer’s bed for the duration. Although that might not be much longer. This hunt was nearly over. They’d rescued Murphy, which had been their main assignment. Lucifer needed to debrief the man before they left Montreal. He needed to know if there were any vamps here who’d betrayed Sophia and needed killing. That wasn’t exactly in the purview of his assignment, but it made no sense to kill Yamanaka and Kasimir, only to leave a rotten core behind.
Once that was done, however, they’d be on a flight to Vancouver to reunite Lady Sophia with her mate. And that should have been it, but Lucifer couldn’t leave.
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