by Stormy Glenn
A loud roaring noise filled Beau’s head. One glance told him it wasn’t simply the blood rushing to his head. Dario had effectively dispatched the threat the guard had been.
Actually, it was kind of disgusting.
“We need to go, my darling,” Dario said as he pulled Beau to his feet.
“Wait, the ba—” The words died on Beau’s lips as he stared down at the woman and infant. It was obvious from their blank stares, as well as the overwhelming amount of bullet holes and blood, that both were dead.
He had failed.
Beau pressed a hand to his chest. His heart felt heavy at the loss of life. The child hadn’t had a chance to live. No matter how odd the infant might have looked or how he had been created, he still deserved a life.
“I am sorry, my darling,” Dario said is a soft voice. “We will grieve for them when the time is right, but now we must go. I can hear others coming.”
Beau lifted his head. Dario was right on both accounts. There were others coming. Beau could hear the heavy pounding of feet growing louder as people ran in their direction. Escaping before they could be caught was more important than grieving right now. They could better honor the woman and her child by escaping to fight another day than if they stayed and got caught.
“Wait.” Beau raced over to the metal counter and grabbed the paperwork he had seen the doctor and the woman going over. He folded it up as he walked back across the room and slid it into one of the hidden pockets on his outfit. He didn’t know what the papers said and he didn’t have time to look at them right now, but they seemed important enough to take with him. Basil could take a look at them later. “Okay, let’s go.”
Chapter Three
Dario watched with a sense of utter fascination as Beau stepped out into the hallway and faded into the pristine white surroundings. To the untrained eye, he simply disappeared. Dario was pretty sure the only reason he even knew where the man stood was due to his hyper awareness of his mate. He was also pretty sure he would be able to find Beau on the moon.
Following close on Beau’s heels, Dario watched as his mate traversed the long hallways back toward their entry point. Beau passed right by armed guards as if he hadn’t even been there. It was a little harder for Dario. Only his supernatural speed kept him from being seen.
As the exit door came into view, Dario started to feel like they might actually make it. When Beau stopped and stood stock-still, that feeling zipped away faster than a strike of lightening.
Beau was holding his breath.
Dario moved up to stand with Beau, ready to protect his mate at all costs. He didn’t know who this woman was coming down the hallway toward them. He just knew the waves of fear and anger coming from his mate were not acceptable.
Not wanting to catch the woman’s attention, Dario moved slowly as he lifted his hand and placed it on Beau’s shoulder. He wanted to reassure his mate that he was there and that he would protect him. The swift inhale that came from Beau reminded Dario that this was the first time they had truly touched. Saving Beau by ripping him away from the mad scientist didn’t count.
Beau stiffened under his hand when the woman paused and glanced around, a small frown marring her features. Dario knew that some humans were more aware of the world around them than others. Some could feel the supernatural, even if they didn’t quite understand what they were feeling. Dario prayed this woman was clueless.
Dario held perfectly still when the woman shook her head, as if trying to rid herself of her suspicious thoughts, and then continued walking. He didn’t even follow her progression down the corridor with his eyes. He refused to do anything that might put his darling in danger.
When Beau released a breath and started moving again, Dario kept a hand on the man’s shoulder and followed after him. The sound of the front door clicking closed behind them after they hurried through it was a balm to Dario’s ragged nerves.
“How did she not see you?” Beau asked in an almost silent whisper.
Dario glanced down at Beau at the man’s question. The frown on his face was adorable. “I am unsure, my darling.” The woman had practically stared right at him. “I know most humans do not see me when I move. Their minds simply cannot process the quickness of my movements, something all vampires are able to do. Standing still, she should have seen me.”
He had fully expected to have to protect Beau. He was stumped as to why the woman had moved on as if they had not been standing right in front of her. She should have been screaming in alarm and then running for her life, not shaking her head and walking away as if nothing had happened.
What concerned Dario even more was the lack of alarm in the human female. He knew some sort of silent alarm had been sounded simply because of the guards who had hurried in their direction. How the woman hadn’t known about them was a mystery, but not one Dario planned to stop and question. The sooner he could get Beau to safety, the better.
Dario kept a firm but gentle hand on Beau’s shoulder as they carefully and quickly headed for the van a couple of blocks away. “Is this what you do, my darling?” Dario asked, curious as to why Beau put his life in danger so easily. “Break into human laboratories?”
Beau’s shoulder moved under his hand as the man shrugged. “We have a duty to help those that have been taken and held captive by these sick freaks.”
“Even though it endangers your life?” Dario could barely keep from growling those words. For the man who held his soul to place his life in danger angered Dario as much as it filled him with pride.
“I spent too many years needing rescuing myself,” Beau whispered in a barely audible voice. “To allow others to suffer the same fate goes against everything I believe in.”
His mate was a man of honor. Dario didn’t know how he felt about that. While he held his own honor close to his chest, his past was not pristine. Life was not always black and white, and he had bent the rules more than once.
“A lofty goal, indeed,” Dario said, “but you do realize that there will always be humans that seek to use our kind for their own nefarious purposes, do you not?”
“Yes.” There was a wealth of sadness in that one word. “But I know what they are going through and I can’t sit around and let it happen if I can do something about it. I might not be able to save them all, but I can save some of them.”
“Can I not dissuade you from this course of action?”
Beau turned and glanced up. “Huh?”
Dario chuckled at Beau’s confusion. “Is there something I can do to convince you not to put your life in danger?”
“It’s not like I do it on purpose,” Beau bristled.
Dario was elated by the indignation in his mate’s voice. From what he had observed, Beau was the quiet bunny. He didn’t speak up or make waves, just simply blended into the background. To hear Beau speak with such conviction delighted Dario to no end.
He had the sudden urge to hug Beau to him. When he went to give into his urge, Beau’s stiff posture made him pause. “Beaumont?”
“Sshhh.”
Dario stiffened just as quickly as Beau had. He sent out his senses, scanning their immediate surroundings. It was quiet…too quiet. It was almost as if the air had stilled. Something was seriously wrong, and considering what they had already been through, that said a lot.
A gut feeling made Dario wrap an arm around Beau’s waist and take him to the ground, narrowly missing the bullet that shot past where their heads had been a mere moment before.
Dario was up and dragging Beau with him just as quickly as he had taken them down. He started toward the van when every instinct he had screamed danger lay in that direction. It took him less than a heartbeat to realize that was where the shooter was located.
He spun and raced in the other direction, away from the van and away from the lab. He had no real idea where he was going, and frankly, he didn’t care. Getting Beau to safety was the only thing on his mind.
Though their telepathic link, Beau scream
ed at his brothers, “There’s a sniper at the van. Don’t go near the van. Stay undercover.”
Stark horror radiated back through the link, as well as crippling pain. It was faint and Beau almost missed it, but terror seized his being when he heard, “Captured.”
Lashing-out anger gave way to volatile rage before manifesting into icy cold wrath. Beau grabbed onto to Dario’s wide shoulders. “Stop! You have to stop.” Dario’s pace slowed. Beau looked up into the man’s frowning face and tried to explain, “We have to go back. My brothers have been captured.”
The regal prince looked down his slim, Roman nose. “No.”
“If you won’t help me, then put me down.” The mixed-up, crazy feelings Beau had toward Dario cooled. Beau regained his footing, but the overbearing man kept a tight hold of his waist. His first inclination was to knock the man’s arms away and take off. He needed to free his family. And yet the thought of causing Dario pain left a sour taste in his mouth.
“Going back there is suicide,” Dario pointed out.
He hated that he noticed that the prince hadn’t called him my darling. It made him snap, “Family comes first. I will not leave them there. Let me go.”
“I will not allow any harm to come near you,” Dario stated.
Beau saw red. The pompous, too-big-for-his-shoes vampire had just made Beau’s shit list. “Listen to me, princey.” Beau jammed his index finger into the middle of Dario’s chest. “You can either let me go or take me back to the lab. That’s it. Those are your only choices. Now decide.”
Dario’s black eyes widened as if no one had ever spoken to him in anger before. Beau ignored the fact that he found the man’s dark eyes so attractive. At the moment there was nothing attractive about the man. Yep, he would keep telling himself that. Maybe soon it would be true, really.
Without a word, Dario picked Beau up and headed back the way they’d came. Beau’s stomach lurched with the way the scenery flashed by. His gut clenched when he realized he was the one flashing by, not the scenery.
The next moment, they were outside the labs. The place was buzzing with guards. Beau broke free from Dario and started creeping closer while staying close to the cover provided by the bushes surrounding the place.
Beau froze. Up ahead, a guard stepped out between shrubbery. With a hand resting on his holstered gun, the man looked around. Beau watched as the guy’s gaze swept over his location, stopped, and came back. He didn’t have time to be confused that the guard could see him. The man was reaching for his gun.
Hands grabbed onto Beau.
The guard stilled and frowned. He took a couple of steps closer while peering intently where Beau was crouched. The man blinked hard and murmured, “What the hell? I could swear there was somebody there. Man, I must be losing my mind.”
Beau had a feeling he knew what was going on, and he didn’t like it one bit. Covering Dario’s hand with his, he walked around the guard, who by this time had his gun out and was checking out the bushes as he moved toward where Beau had been. The man didn’t see them.
Damn.
“Oh, no, not all of them.” Clay’s words sent shards of ice through Beau’s soul.
“I’m coming, brother. Hold on a little longer,” Beau sent the desperate plea through the mind link. “Where are you?”
“First-floor laboratory. Ahhh—!”
Clay’s pain-filled scream drove Beau into action. Not questioning the whats and whys, he kept his hand clasped with Dario’s and marched up to the facility’s wide glass doors. He found it tricky, anticipating the movements of the guards patrolling the front of the building. He also had to wait until someone came out of the door before he and his tagalong could slip inside.
Guards ran up and down the halls, reminding Beau of busy ants in their flurry. Beau followed a group down a hall and to the left. The laboratory was easy to find. Three guards stood in a line guarding the swinging double doors. Two men were dressed similarly to the guards, but the gold braiding above their left shirt pocket told Beau these men were in charge of security. Their air of self-importance backed up his suspicions and made his lip curl.
“We can expect huge bonuses for this catch.” The blond with the mustache smiled at the bald man.
“That new camera the tech geeks created came through.” Baldy nodded to one corner of the hall. “The moment someone not wearing a micro-chipped card passes under it, our phones go off and we can see who’s there. It’s ingenious.”
“Yeah, but it still has a few glitches,” the blond responded. “Mine went off and nothing showed up on my screen.”
The mic attached to the bald man’s shoulder beeped. He reached up and pressed a button. A woman’s voice spoke, “The big boss is on his way. He wants to observe the specimens personally.”
“Roger, we are taking extra special care of them,” the bald man answered. His laugh sent a shiver up Beau’s spine.
“He wants you to activate the door’s alarms,” the woman’s voice stated.
The bald guy frowned and glanced at the blond. “I have my best men guarding the doors. Hugh and I are going into the lab to personally watch the fuzzy rats.”
“I suggest you do as you are ordered.” Every word the woman spoke was crisp and cool.
“Roger,” the man snapped. “Once we are in there, I will activate the alarms.” After the man let go of the button, he murmured, “Bitch.”
Turning to the blond, he said, “Let’s go in and have a little fun, before the big guy gets here.”
The blond rubbed his hands together. “Sounds good to me.”
Once the two men disappeared behind the thick, heavy-duty swinging doors, Beau sprang into action. In an instant, a fighting star shattered the camera in the corner. Before the guards could react, three more stars were embedded in their eyeballs, slicing through membrane, liquid, and bone until they reached the goal of the guards’ brains. The dead men never knew what hit them.
Beau turned and faced Dario. Lifting onto his toes, he placed his lips next to the prince’s ear and whispered, “I don’t know why, but when we touch, we are invisible. Keep touching my back. We have to hurry before they turn on the alarms.”
“I think I should go first, my darling.” Dario’s lips brushed across the skin below Beau’s ear, leaving goose bumps in their wake.
Beau moved his hand a sliver. “Yes, that’s a knife,” he whispered when the vampire prince gasped. “Follow me or lose your balls.”
The prince had the audacity to nip Beau’s ear. “I love how feisty you are with me, my darling.”
Beau jerked away. Stepping over the bodies, he silently crept to the doors. Relief flooded through him when he felt the warm hand on the small of his back. Maybe the old princey could be taught a few new tricks.
Dario wasn’t sure if he should turn his mate over his knee and paddle his ass or strip him bare and fuck that gorgeous ass into the floor. The man was an undercover imp. Dario would never admit it out loud, but he liked it.
With a hand on Beau’s back, he followed the small man into the laboratory. The first thing he heard was low, gut-wrenching moans. Anger surged to the surface and Dario almost took his hand off Beau’s back. The blond man was jabbing a Taser stick through the bars of a cage and into Clay’s twitching body. Beau’s brothers lay dazed in the other cages.
A knife flew through the air and the blond went down, dead before he even hit the floor. The bald man was quicker, though. He pulled his gun and had it aimed before Dario could get to him. Dario drove his razor-sharp claws into the man’s stomach and ripped up, gutting the guard.
It was unfortunate that the guard pulled the trigger as he went down. Dario felt the impact in his shoulder. The pain remained dull simply because Dario was so enraged. His one and only had come far too close to being shot.
When this was all over, he was going to have a serious talk with his mate about throwing himself into danger. It simply wasn’t acceptable. Now that he had discovered his soul in a living, breathing perso
n, Dario needed the man to continue existing.
Maybe that was what Beau didn’t understand. As of the moment they met and Dario realized he was looking into the eyes of his one and only, Beau had become Dario’s sole reason for living. Nothing else mattered.
“Help me,” Beau whispered harshly. “Please.”
Dario glanced away from the gaping hole in his shoulder to his mate. He winced, partly because his shoulder was starting to throb and partly because of the desperation on his mate’s face as he tried to get the cages open.
Dario grabbed the door of Clay’s cage and yanked. The metal bars groaned before the lock snapped and the door swung open. Beau pushed past him into the cage, dropping to his knees next to his brother.
Dario went to the next cage and did the same, and then again and again until all of the brothers were free. “Where are Alberto and Salvador?” Not to mention Dominic and Vey. They should have all been here. “Where are the others?”
Bailey’s hoarse, weak whisper broke through the building tension. “Above you.”
Shock had Dario pausing. He looked over at Beau, whose wide, dark eyes were looking back at him.
In unison, Dario and Beau raised their gazes to the ceiling made up of white squares. One moved. A crack appeared. The square slid to the side, opening up a shadowed, dark hole. The next moment, Vey’s angry face appeared.
“Beloved, I am coming for you.” Vey disappeared.
Seconds later, very large boots appeared and Vey slid through the opening and landed on the tiled floor next to the guard’s decapitated head. Vey glanced at it, sniffed in distaste, and hurried over to the cage where Bailey was lying. Once Vey gathered Bailey into his arms, Dario could see no one was getting near the gargoyle’s mate in the near future.