“I won!”
“Give me a little time to practice. I’ll beat you one day.” Laughing, he promised.
“See,” she exclaimed triumphantly, when they had seen Toby on his way home. “Everything went brilliantly. Now, I’ll get the haircut.”
“Fine, but first I need a pint.”
* * *
Jeremy insisted he couldn’t wait until they were home to calm his nerves so they returned to the pub. “It was insane, watching the two of you race.” The exhilarating memory made her grin wide. He nodded towards a table at the corner. “You take a seat, I’ll get us the drinks. Indoors,” he added, when she would have headed back out. “I want you where I can keep an eye on you.”
Rolling her eyes, she went towards the tables at the back. The room was stiflingly hot so she chose the one closest to the open back door that led to the terrace. She was about to sit down when a delighted squeak behind her made her turn around.
“Cora? Is that you?”
“Lisa? What are you doing here?” She leaned to hug her friend, surprised and happy to see her.
“I’m here with my fiancé,” she said, flashing a huge engagement ring. Corynn stared at it, amazed. Lisa hadn’t been dating seriously when they last met, let alone heading to matrimony. She was about to congratulate her when Lisa took her hand and pulled her towards the terrace. “Come say hello.”
Corynn glanced back at Jeremy, who was just paying for the drinks. He would follow instantly, so she allowed Lisa to take her to the terrace. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you or heard from you in ages.”
It had been a little over a month since Corynn was fired and they weren’t the kind of friends who were constantly in touch. But Lisa had always been prone to exaggerations. She thought to brush her off with something vague, but suddenly she didn’t want to hide the truth. She was a vampire now; it was time she truly owned it.
“I was made a vampire.”
Lisa squealed. “Really? My fiancé is a vampire too! How great is that?” Cora could only nod, flabbergasted. The terrace was empty of vampires that Cora could detect, and Lisa looked around too, confirming her notion. “He must have headed to the car. Come.”
“Is he a new vampire or old?”
“Fairly new, ten years or so.”
This would be a chance to talk with someone who had lost the sun only a short time ago, so she didn’t hesitate to follow Lisa through the garden to the front of the pub where the cars were parked. “How is he coping with the sun thing?”
Lisa laughed, delighted. “You don’t believe that old ladies’ tale, do you?”
Corynn was taken aback. “I can assure you it’s not imaginary.” More than once she had blacked out in the middle of something, only to wake up in her own bed.
“Yes, but there are ways around it. My fiancé is perfectly capable of walking in daylight.”
Corynn’s legs went rubbery in shock and dismay. Her Rider began to rise and she stifled it ruthlessly, using her anger as a tool. Jeremy had lied to her, again. He knew how much she loved the sun, yet he had never even mentioned the possibility. His betrayal hurt so much she could barely breathe. “How?”
Lisa waved her hand casually. “Oh, I have no idea. But here he is, so you can ask yourself.”
A man in a fine suit was leaning against a sleek, expensive car. He smiled warmly when he spotted Lisa. There was something familiar about him, but try as she might Corynn couldn’t place it.
“This is Cora, my friend I told you about.”
Her words caused Corynn’s Rider to push up again. It seemed alarmed, but before it could tell her what the matter was, the man turned to her. Foulness, evil and incapacitating, washed over her. Her stomach roiled and she almost threw up. She tried to reach Jeremy with her mind, but she was too distraught to concentrate.
The man took a step towards her. “Well, little waitress, we meet again.” The world went black.
Jeremy’s hands went slack when Cora suddenly disappeared from his mind. The drinks he was carrying crashed on the floor, but he ignored the mess as he dashed onto the terrace where he had seen her go. She wasn’t there. Frantic, he turned to the human women at the closest table.
“Where is she?” They shrieked in fright, unable to answer, so he took one of them by the arm, slipping inside her mind. “Where did my girlfriend go?”
From her mind he got a vague image of two women entering the terrace and leaving it almost immediately, heading towards the car park at the front. He ran there, but the lot was empty of people. He rushed towards the road with the notion of running after them – and hit a huge void that threatened to cut his connection with Might. He staggered to a desperate halt. Renegades had her.
He had lost Cora.
He dropped on his knees on the hard gravel. A bellow of agony rose from deep within him and he didn’t stifle it. The nightlife went quiet around him, and doors were hastily closed and locked in a distance. He was completely incapacitated, the thought of failing to keep her safe too much to bear.
She’s not dead yet. Snap out of it.
Prompted by his Rider, he pushed himself to action and dug out his mobile. “Renegades have Cora. I need men.” He gave the address and hung up, registering only then that it had been Alexander who had answered instead of Gabe. But he didn’t care if Alexander would take his wrath out on him. Life without his mate wouldn’t be worth living.
He returned to the terrace and the humans there cowed in terror at the sight of him. Great. “Do any of you have anything useful to tell me? Names? What did they talk about?”
He had to charm everyone to calm down before one man was brave enough to speak. “How vampires don’t have to fear the sun. Her fiancé was able to stay up during the day, and your girlfriend wanted to learn how.”
His bones turned to liquid in consternation. He had known she mourned the loss of daylight more than anything in her new life. But he had thought she understood that it was only a matter of time before she could see it again. Why would she believe otherwise?
Because he had lied to her when they first met and she believed he would do so again. Her mate didn’t trust him at all.
The thought broke his heart.
Chapter Nineteen
Jas and Pippa were the first to arrive, having been in town for a dinner. Other warriors followed soon thereafter and took charge of the situation, which both frustrated and pleased Jeremy. He wanted to do something proactive himself, but he felt grateful that his fellows cared enough for her to do their best to find her.
They looked at the footage on every CCTV camera in the vicinity, most of it obtained illegally. None of it was useful though, showing only a dark car they could get an approximate model for, but no licence plate number.
“How the fuck did they find her here?”
Pippa shrugged. “If the woman is her friend, Cora may have contacted her herself.”
Jeremy shook his head, his anger rising. “No, she only contacted one person.” Toby. He dug out his mobile again and bellowed into it the moment the bloke answered. “Did you tell anyone where to find Cora?”
He could practically feel the shifter’s confusion. “No. Has something happened?”
“She’s been taken by our enemy. So are you absolutely clear you didn’t tell anyone about the meeting?”
“Yes. No. I ran into her old roommate who was worried about her. But I didn’t tell her where she was, only that I was about to see her.” He paused, and when he spoke again he sounded sick. “Do you think I was followed?”
“That’s the only explanation that prevents me from ripping your head off.”
“Fair enough. What can I do to help?”
“Do you have a name and address for that friend?”
“Lisa Hayes. I’ll text you the address the moment I’ve dug it up.”
Jeremy hung up and rushed in to the car that Jas had already running. “Where are you headed?” He didn’t really care, as long as he was doing something.<
br />
“London. The moment Toby gets us the address we’ll check Lisa’s flat.”
“Brilliant.”
The back seat was too small for Nick, Zach and him, but Pippa was sitting in the front seat and none of them dared suggest they switch. Jas’s hunger wasn’t acting up anymore, but after what had happened, they knew he needed to keep her as close as possible. Her presence was self-evident. She might be a vampire, but she was a DI for the Metropolitan Police first. Lisa was human, and if something had happened to her the police would be needed.
Lisa shared a flat with three other women in Lewisham. At that time of the night, they were all home and asleep. The emergence on their doorstep of four large men and a tiny woman who identified herself as a detective shocked them badly. It took a moment before they were able to say anything coherent.
It turned out that the women weren’t very close with Lisa, on top of which they worked different schedules. The other three had day jobs whereas Lisa worked nights at the club. None of them had met her ‘vampire’ fiancé and they didn’t know his name. The only thing they knew was that she had met him at the Nightingale Club.
“Didn’t we have someone inside the club?” Jeremy demanded furiously when they were back in the car. “And men outside it?”
Zach nodded. “The contact inside reported that there had been renegade activity in the club. But however they got in and out, our guys never managed to trace them.”
“Or maybe they didn’t try hard enough. Perhaps we should give it a try.”
“Or perhaps we should have a proper chat with our prisoners.”
“We still have them?” Jeremy hadn’t paid any attention to the aftermath of the fight.
“One of them self-destructed, but we still have the other two. I say we unleash Dad on them.” The vicious smile on Zach’s face matched Jeremy’s. Alexander would get the truth out of the men.
Zach called his father while the rest of them debated what to do next. “I think we should pay the club a visit and ask Lisa’s co-workers about the man.” Late though the night was, it would be early for the club.
A couple of phone calls later, Zach had arranged the inside man to let them into the club through the back door. They were met by a man in his mid-thirties, about Jeremy’s height, lean and fit. He looked Spanish, and like he knew how to defend himself in a fight; ex-military, special ops, to be precise.
Jeremy’s second impression was that he wasn’t human. He wasn’t even real. Not in a sense natural born humans were. “You’re a conscience.”
The man nodded. “I’m Héctor. My host, Mateo, is upstairs.”
Sentients were unique among the two-natureds in that their second nature was separate from the host and present alongside them. Consciences, so named by the Church when they commissioned sentients’ services against all evil creatures, were beings of pure Might. They looked like humans, were solid like humans, and could think and act independently. The similarity to humans was only surface-deep though. You couldn’t even kill them unless you killed the host first.
The Sentient War had been devastating, and sentients weren’t exactly loved among the other two-natureds. To have one in their service was odd, to say the least.
“I didn’t know Gabe knew any sentients,” Jeremy marked in a low tone to Zach as they followed Héctor.
“I’m not entirely sure he’s a sentient.”
They came face to face with Mateo and Jeremy knew what Zach meant. The other bloke looked like his conscience, the similarity intentional, as consciences could change their appearances at will. The same air of special ops expert clung to him too, and the black tee and trousers that were the staff uniform made him look rather menacing. But that wasn’t what set him apart.
“He’s a bloody tracker.”
Zach nodded, but didn’t answer. Trackers were sentients specially bred to track and kill vampires. What in the world was Gabe doing colluding with one?
Mateo smiled. “Relax, vampires. I’m Mateo Hérnandez, and yes, I’m a tracker. But I’m not here to kill you. In fact, since my own people won’t have anything to do with me, I prefer to think we’re on the same side.” When sentients were banished to the other side of the Atlantic after the Sentient War, they hadn’t allowed trackers to follow them to the exile, judging them to be freaks of nature with their longer lives and natural fighting abilities. Judgemental to the core, were sentients.
“The enemy of my enemy?”
“Something like that. So how can I help?” Zach explained the situation to him, and he nodded. “He’s been here at least twice a week, but I’ll be damned if I know how he comes and goes. One moment he’s there and the next he’s gone. It has to be magic of some sort, but it doesn’t leave any trace.”
“Or the mass of humans milling about mix the trace.” But that didn’t explain why they couldn’t find him outside.
Mateo showed them to the booth the renegade usually occupied. The sense of wrongness was strong there, but the trace disappeared soon outside it.
“It’s as if he vanishes into thin air.” They all looked up at the same time, but the low ceiling didn’t have a trap door or any other means of escape.
“Have you actually witnessed him leave through the front door?” Pippa asked. Jeremy was glad they had her around. She was a seasoned cop; she knew exactly what to ask.
Mateo shook his head. “We’ve both tried to track him, Héctor and I, but he has disappeared every time.”
“At the same place?”
“You’re saying there could be a secret entrance around that place? That’s possible.” He led them downstairs through the staff entrance and out again in the foyer.
It was a smallish, black on black space with a cloakroom at one end and a cashier’s stand by the door. Three humans worked there, a woman in the cloakroom, a male cashier, and another man providing security.
They didn’t have time to play it nice. Jeremy simply charmed the humans before anyone had a chance to protest, while Jas went to secure the front entrance and Nick the one towards the club proper. Pippa shot him annoyed glance. “That’s illegal, you know.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
They spread out to study every inch of the foyer behind the drapes on the walls that hid water pipes and provided atmosphere. They stomped on the floor to find secret trapdoors. Anything was possible for someone who could fool people’s eyes – even a tracker’s.
“Found it.”
Corynn came to in darkness. It was dark for human senses and dark for her vampire senses. It was soundless and curiously odourless too, a sensory cocoon. She had no sense of her body or direction, didn’t know if she was standing up or lying down. Her heart was beating frantically, pushing out of her chest. She was in a panic, but she couldn’t fathom why.
Because I made you to.
Hearing her Rider was oddly comforting, and her panic began to subside. She wasn’t alone.
You’re never alone again. Didn’t we cover this already?
Well, excuse me, but it’s been such a short time that I haven’t exactly gotten used to it yet. So why did you make me panic?
Cause I needed you to wake up. I can do a lot, but I can’t take you over when you’re unconscious.
Good to know. Where are we?
I haven’t got the foggiest. But I do know you were stupid enough to be fooled by a renegade.
The memory rushed back, and with it the nausea the renegade’s foulness had caused. She held her breath, fighting it back, but in the end it simply went away.
Did you do that?
Yes. Don’t get overly excited. It’s in my best interest that you don’t go puking around.
Aww, you care.
Piss off.
The bickering with her Rider was curiously refreshing. It cleared her head too. Not necessarily a good thing as it made her realise the hopelessness of her situation.
Jeremy said the renegades capture women with promise, who then end up dead.
; Well, your promise has been fulfilled already so you should have nothing to worry about.
That’s what he said too, yet here I am. Had he lied about that too?
You can’t exactly blame him for this. You’re the idiot who followed a stranger to a dark car park.
She wasn’t a stranger. It miffed her that her Rider would side with Jeremy. Didn’t they just agree they were in this together?
She might as well have been. You didn’t even know she was into vampires, did you?
Her Rider had her there. What should I call you?
What? What kind of stupid question is that?
I can’t just go yelling ‘hey you’ if I want your attention, can I?
You always have my attention. But fine, you can call me Chad.
No way am I calling you that. It’s a prick’s name. How about Betty?
Only if I can call you Al.
It took her a moment to get the reference and then she almost laughed aloud. Funny. I didn’t know you had a sense of humour.
There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Would Fitz do?
Does it have to be a man’s name?
Yes. That’s the identity I’ve settled with.
You can choose?
Yes.
Ok, then how about Ben?
That’s a little boy’s name. I will be Adam.
Adam it is, then.
Their conversation was cut short when the lights came on in the room, and she blinked her eyes in the sudden glare. With eyesight returned other sensory input too. She was tied down on a sturdy metal-framed bed she wouldn’t be able to break easily. She couldn’t move at all, the binds that held her magical. The mattress was thin, and the strings of the bed poked her uncomfortably. The room was small, with bare concrete walls and no window. It smelled of the fear of many women.
Shit.
You can say that again.
A key rattled in the lock and the door opened. A man entered. “Hello, Cora.”
Fear unlike anything she had experienced washed over her.
Her Warrior for Eternity Page 14