Ilaria wriggled off his lap and picked up his hand. Her face was grave, while her eyes glowed. “You’ll want to sleep, once I’m done with you.”
Marcus let her pull him along the corridor, back toward their room. His reluctance was pure pretense.
* * * * *
When Nial woke, Winter was stretching out the kinks that came from sleeping on the sofa. It was an uncomfortable place to sleep, although she wasn’t going to leave Nial alone, to come back to consciousness and wonder what had happened. Vampires weren’t used to waking.
Nial sat up abruptly. There was no transition period of sleepy blinking and stirring. One moment he was motionless. Then, he sat up and opened his eyes, looking around for threats, trying to instantaneously orient himself.
Winter sat next to him. “How do you feel?”
Nial swung his feet to the floor. He straightened his back, stretching it. Then he held out his hand. “How do I feel?”
Winter took his hand, her heart soaring. The offer to let her look inside him told her that Nial was himself again. He had not let her touch him for days, to hide the turmoil and uneasiness that had been driving him.
Now she could dip inside and see the peculiar stuffy deadness that was a characteristic of vampire physiology. There was life there of a sort and she was deeply relieved to touch the spark with her senses. She leaned against Nial, weak with gratitude. “You’re you again.”
He held up his hand, examining it. “I feel light. As though there’s nothing inside. I remember that from when I was human.”
Winter’s gaze was drawn to the door as Azarel hurried into the room. She sat up, moving away from Nial. It wasn’t that Nial didn’t like public demonstrations of affection, although he was reserved if anyone was near enough to see. It was Azarel’s expression. He looked perplexed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Azarel frowned, the furrow marring his perfect forehead. “Have you seen Francesca? She didn’t come to the pool house this morning as she normally does.”
Winter cast back through the last twelve hours. “I remember seeing her last night. She and Dominic were going for a walk outside. Just on the estate, inside the perimeter,” she added hastily as Nial gave small sound in reaction. “No one felt like hunting last night, so Patrick cancelled it. I fell asleep here around ten.” She didn’t add that the hunt had been cancelled because everyone was upset about Nial’s enforced rest and the reasons for it.
Nial got to his feet. “Have you asked Dominic?” he said to Azarel.
“I was just coming to find him,” Azarel said. He glanced up at the big curve of the stairs. “Ah…”
Winter looked. Both Patrick and Blythe were hurrying down the stairs in almost silent unison. Blythe was human, yet she still could move as silently as vampires. Her face was taut, her mouth a firm, flat line.
Nial faced them. “Dominic isn’t with you?” It was barely a question.
“Did you see him last night?” Patrick demanded of Azarel.
The Serene One shook his head.
“They headed out past the barn,” Winter said.
Everyone looked at her.
“I saw them go,” she added. “Together.”
“What time was that?” Blythe asked.
“Around nine thirty. Dominic looked upset. I didn’t talk to them.”
“He was upset,” Blythe said quietly, her gaze shifting to Patrick. “He wouldn’t leave…his problem alone.”
The shift in phrasing was awkward. Winter wondered what Blythe was not saying.
Azarel turned and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Nial demanded.
“To look for them,” Azarel said sharply.
“Wait. I’ll come with you,” Patrick said. He rested his hand on Blythe’s shoulder.
She nodded, as if Patrick had spoken to her. “I’ll take the west side of the property.”
“Take it where?” Roman asked, from behind Winter.
Winter glanced over her shoulder at him. He had his arm around Kate’s waist. The blonde woman looked exhausted and Winter realized that she had worked the night through. Roman must have pulled her away from the editing table just now, for they had come from the front of the house, not down the stairs from where their bedroom suite was located.
“Did you hear anything last night?” Nial asked Kate.
“I was too busy concentrating,” Kate admitted. “Why?”
“Dominic is missing,” Patrick said, his voice even.
“So is Francesca,” Azarel added.
“We were just about to go and look for them,” Winter said.
“Start inside the boundaries,” Nial added. “It’s still barely dawn. The Summanus might still be abroad.”
“I’ll help,” Roman said. “Kate is going to bed, though.”
“I need to prepare breakfast for Lini,” Kate protested.
“Garrett can do that,” Roman told her. “No arguments,” he added.
Her shoulders slumped and she nodded.
Roman looked at Nial. “What do you want me to do?”
Nial frowned, his gaze growing distant as his mind worked, setting out directions and strategies. The consummate leader was back on the job.
Winter sighed silently. The world was not going to leave Nial alone at all. Everyone needed him too much.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The search for Dominic and Francesca started inside the guarded and patrolled boundaries of Patrick’s huge Beverley Hills property, with almost every adult in the house turning out to help quarter the acres systematically.
It was because there were so many of them raking over the land in tight formation, only a few feet apart, that Francesca’s necklace was found.
Azarel clutched the sea shell in his hand, his knuckles white. His eyes were haunted. “They took her?” he asked Nial, his tone beseeching. He wanted answers.
Nial had no answers to give him. “We’ll figure out what happened.”
Azarel shook his fist. “The closure is wrenched open. They tore it from her neck!”
Winter touched his arm, trying to comfort him. “She might have pulled it from her neck herself. This could be a good thing.”
Through the touch of her fingers against his forearm, Winter received a snapshot of Azarel’s internal misery. He was hurting, far more than he was showing.
He wrenched his arm from her grip. “We have to find her.”
Patrick and Blythe’s faces were just as strained as Azarel’s, yet they said nothing. Blythe looked at Nial. “We have to look farther afield,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t matter whether she left the necklace herself or it was dropped. Either way, it means something has happened to them.”
Nial let out a breath. “Pairs, then. Along the boundary. We’re looking for any sign of Summanus close by.”
Winter pulled out her cellphone. “I’ll tell everyone else.”
The search continued along the outer rim of the boundaries, which meant they were trespassing upon adjoining properties. No one came to protest or demand to know what they were doing.
Seventy five minutes later, Roman texted everyone at once.
Summanus were here. North west corner.
Patrick’s response was bleak.
That’s where the trail into the hills starts.
Winter and Nial hurried to the corner that Roman had indicated. The others had reached him before them and were gathered around the ground, bent over to examine it. They parted as Nial arrived, to give him access, all of them looking at him expectantly.
The silent acknowledgement of his leadership made Winter’s gut tighten. She glanced at Sebastian, who had paired up with Roman. Sebastian didn’t look any happier than she felt.
Nial bent to look at the tracks and markings on the ground. It hadn’t rained recently although the night had been damp enough to moisten the top layer of dirt. The tracks of the big back feet of the Summanus were perfectly clear.
“Thr
ee of them at least,” Nial said.
“Five,” Marcus said shortly, bending over to look at the ground a few feet away. “Two stayed back. At least three went over the fence.”
Blythe sighed.
“We have to follow the trail,” Patrick said.
“We will,” Nial assured him. “You and Blythe need to go back to the house, though. You’ve got kids to take care of and they’ll be awake soon.”
Patrick looked as if he wanted to protest.
“Marcus is good at tracking,” Winter pointed out. “So is Nial. We’ll find them.”
Patrick’s shoulders relaxed and he picked up Blythe’s hand. “Very well.” He tugged her away, toward the house.
Blythe leaned into him as they walked and he tucked her up against him.
Winter’s chest ached at the sight.
The next three hours were bleak and fruitless. The Summanus trail petered out at the top of the hill, two miles away. No amount of casting about farther down the hill bore any results, for the tree canopy that carpeted that undeveloped side of the hill had stopped the damp from reaching the soil. The dirt was bare and unrevealing.
Azarel stood with his hands fisted, Francesca’s chain still tangled in his fingers, glaring at the ground and the bushes around them. “If only I was not in this body. I would destroy them all!”
Winter glanced at Nial. Steadily, over the last three hours, he had grown silent. He had withdrawn into himself. Now, he made no response to Azarel’s declaration.
“You can’t destroy them,” Winter told Azarel.
He held up his hands, the fingers spread, the chain stretched between them. “Not like this, I cannot.”
“Even if you were not in the human body you have now, you could not,” Winter told him.
“Why not?” His mouth was white with fury.
“Because they are just being themselves,” Winter said tiredly. No one was stepping in to help her explain it. They were going to let her do it all by herself. Even Nial was silent. “This is what the Summanus do,” she added. “This is their function. You would commit genocide because they were obeying their nature?”
Azarel’s jaw worked. He curled his hands into fists again, the tendons on his wrists straining.
“This is not natural,” Nial said. “They’ve never shown this sort of creativity before.”
“It’s proactive,” Rory said, her tone one of agreement. She looked just as thoughtful as Nial.
“It doesn’t matter what it is!” Azarel cried. “They took Francesca! How are we to get her back?”
“It’s not just Francesca they took,” Winter reminded him.
“Someone has to tell Patrick and Blythe,” Roman said softly.
“I will,” Nial said shortly. His eyes were glittering with the same terrifying focus they had held only yesterday. He turned and strode back toward the house, leaving everyone to follow him as best they could.
Winter had to jog to catch up with him. “Nial.”
He glanced at her. It was a response. That was something.
“Break the news gently, okay?”
“You are accusing me of insensitivity?” Nial demanded. “You, Winter? I thought you knew me better than that.”
“Right now, I don’t know you at all,” she said honestly.
His jaw flexed. He kept his gaze straight ahead. “Clearly, you do not.”
It hurt. But then, he had intended it to.
Winter dropped back, letting him drive her away. Oh, how she yearned for this war to end, in one way or another. She just wanted it over. She wanted Nial and Sebastian back in her life, properly and completely.
* * * * *
Ilaria reached for Marcus’ arm, pulling him aside, out of the way of the others as they moved through the bushes toward the big house.
“I must go,” she said urgently.
“You need to feed?” Marcus asked, his eyes narrowing as he studied her. “You do look strained,” he added.
“I should have left to hunt two hours ago. I didn’t want everyone to have to search without me.”
Marcus cupped her cheek. “I’ll come with you.”
“You?” she said blankly.
“Why not? Rick used to hunt with you.”
“You’ll…you can’t keep up,” she said weakly, her thoughts scrambled by more than the building need to feed, which blanketed the internal keening she always felt when Rick’s name was mentioned.
“Not in a million years could I do that,” Marcus agreed. “I can follow you, though. I’m good at tracking and you’re clumsy right now. You’ll leave a trail a baby could spot. Go on.” He gave her a little push toward the trees.
Despite her hunger and the chaotic thoughts it created, Ilaria’s heart lifted with a simple joy. “I love you.”
“You’ll eat me if you don’t go and hunt now.”
She turned and ran, her hunger giving her speed. So did her happiness.
* * * * *
By the time night fell, far more than the adults in the big house had turned out to search for Dominic and Francesca, which Rory found interesting.
Patrick reached out to Lucas Ford for help, which galvanized every northern hunting unit, while Nial contacted the cross-coordination committee, which stirred up national troop units and local authorities, including the police, who tended to turn into quasi-hunters after nightfall, anyway.
In the months that Rory had been studying the Summanus, she had never once seen them work together the way humans and their allies could. Even Koca had called up Elah reinforcements to help comb the hills and the city fringes, using a perfectly normal cellphone to do it.
If anything could win the war for them, it would be this ability to cooperate and work together. The numbers just weren’t on their side, though.
Rory suppressed the grim statistics. She had spent far too long staring at them, hoping she had made a mistake, so she knew them far too well and their bleakness rubbed her soul raw if she let them.
Instead, she considered the search they were conducting. Dante was on her right, powering through the thick undergrowth in an almost perfect straight line. Sasha was on her left. His path was not quite as straight, yet he was dogged and didn’t fall behind.
The return of the night meant that the Summanus would be abroad. If the Summanus really had taken the pair they were searching for, then that was something she would need to consider. She had not allowed for the possibility that the Summanus would demonstrate a capacity for planning and strategy. Nothing they had done until this day said they were driven by anything other than relentless hunger.
It was another uncomfortable thought that she pushed aside impatiently.
Her preoccupation with strategies and counter moves distracted her, so it was Sasha who first gave out the alarm.
“Ahead! Three meters!”
Far, far too close. Rory pulled out her long knife and pushed through the disguising bushes directly in front of her.
“Rory, no!” Dante cried. She heard his heavy steps as he leapt to help her. Sasha was crashing through the bushes with human clumsiness, too.
The bushes parted, letting her through and Rory lunged into the space beyond them. There were three Summanus there, huddled with their heads together. A conference. It was rare for three of them to be together at all. They hunted solo and sometimes in pairs, yet never in greater numbers. She had settled on the theory that two was the maximum they would allow to move together because more would startle their prey and make them fatter targets.
Now here was three of them, not hunting. Instead, they were talking in their psychic way.
Dante and Sasha arrived at the same moment and they fell upon the trio with hoarse exhalations and grunts of effort, their blades swinging as they jumped up to slice at the vulnerable thorax area. Even Sasha had compromised and now used a knife instead of his gun.
The Summanus fell silently. They were always silent.
That left the three of them standing over the bodie
s, all of them breathing hard.
“Is there anything else around us?” Dante asked her.
Rory stretched out her hearing, to the finest and furthest point of detection. “There’s nothing moving around here but humans.” The vampires and Elah moved almost silently, yet even the sounds they did let through were distinctively human-style gaits.
Sasha lowered his blade and let out a soft curse in Russian. “Were they the ones that took Dominic and Francesca, or were they just looking for food as usual?”
“They were talking,” Rory said, cleaning her knife off and putting it away.
“Talking,” Dante said flatly, staring at the bodies. He looked up at the two of them. “Have you ever heard of them stopping and talking? Ever?”
Rory shook her head.
Sasha looked down at his feet, a troubled expression in his eyes. “They’re learning. They’re sharing what they learn.”
Dante rested his hand on Sasha’s shoulder. There was a look in his eyes that Rory had never seen before. There was a warmth there. Heat, really.
Sasha looked up at him and the corners of his mouth lifted in a small smile. “That just makes it more interesting.”
Rory almost gasped aloud her shock. Dante loved Sasha. It was plain on his face and in his eyes. Every line of his body spoke of it. He might not know it himself, yet, but it was true. Dante had found someone to love. Finally.
And she didn’t mind.
Rory had always known that one day Dante would move on. It was inevitable and it was only fair. She could not give him what he wanted, so he would naturally look elsewhere for the kind of love he needed. It was a pattern she had seen repeated over and over. Each time it happened, her heart hardened just a little bit more and she grew more determined to never be beholden to another man. Not ever.
Dante was in love and it wasn’t her he loved and she didn’t mind because…because….
She whirled away. It was impossible. She couldn’t love both of them. She wasn’t human anymore and hadn’t been for a long time. The best sex she had ever experienced in her long life wasn’t enough to turn her head the way a simple human woman’s might have been. Two men were twice the trouble one man would be.
Rory strode down the hill, angling across the face of it, aiming in the direction of Patrick’s house. All the hunting tonight was centered on the house and the two missing humans so they were within walking distance.
Blood Ascendant (Blood Stone Book 5) Page 29