by M. J. Scott
Esme gaped at me, blank disbelief on her face breaking through the feline cool. “What are you talking about?”
“Rio called me. He said they had Dan.”
Esme snapped back into agent mode. “What did he say, exactly?”
“That they had Dan and I had to come or they’d kill him.” Someone in the crowd muttered “Fuck,” but I kept looking at Esme.
She looked down at the cell. “This phone?”
I nodded and she handed it to another agent. “See if you can trace the last incoming call. And get the number transferred to a secure phone.”
“How long will that take?” I asked.
“Not long. Why?”
Seriously? What the hell did she think I was going to do? Wait around for Tate to kill Dan? Not a chance. Another wild surge of anger flared. “I need to get out of here.”
“Ashley, you can’t go anywhere. This is a trap.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “We need to find Dan and I can’t wait around for the Taskforce to figure out where he is.”
Jase. I needed to get to Jase. Maybe he’d be able to work whatever mojo it was that had helped him find me—not that I was even certain that it had been him because I’d never quite gotten around to having that discussion with him.
“You can’t go.” Esme repeated. “It’s not safe.”
“Screw safe. This is Dan.” My voice was loud enough to carry through the hallway, causing Ani to come running.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
“I got a call. Tate has Dan.”
The color drained from Ani’s face. “Where?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But I need to find him and Esme here is being difficult.”
Ani frowned then her face cleared. “It’s okay,” she said to Esme. “I’ll calm her down. You do what you need to do.”
“Calm me down?” I practically shrieked as Ani took my arm and began frog marching me up the stairs. “What are you talking about?”
“Shut up,” Ani hissed low in my ear. “Play along.”
Play along? What the hell was going on?
We reached the room I’d been using and Ani hustled me inside and closed the door.
I stood where I was, glaring.
“Stop pouting and tell me what’s happening,” she snapped as she took a seat on the bed.
“They have Dan.”
“I got that bit. What’s the bee in Esme’s bonnet?”
“I have to go. It’ll take the Taskforce forever to track him down. We don’t have forever.”
Ani winced then straightened her back. “What makes you think you can find Tate any faster?”
I hesitated, not wanting to reveal Jase’s secret. “I think Jase can help. Or maybe Lord Marco.”
“Marco? Is that a good idea?”
I made a frustrated noise. If one more person tried to stop me doing whatever I needed to do, there was going to be blood. “I don’t care if it’s a good idea. I just want to find Dan.” The snarl in my voice surprised me.
Ani blinked then smiled. “At least you’ve finally come to your senses.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. “Excuse me?”
“About Dan. Took you long enough.”
“For what?”
She looked at me like I was being dense. “To admit how you feel about him.”
Uh-oh. Not ready for this conversation. I didn’t have time to try and analyze my feelings. Besides, if we didn’t find Dan, there’d be no point. “He’s my friend.”
“Yeah, well, you two don’t smell like friends.”
I blushed, knowing I’d probably smelled like sex when I first arrived. “So we slept together. That’s closure.”
“You always go into a panic over closure?”
The question earned her another glare. “I told you, he’s my friend. And I’d do the same for anyone Tate had.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know, the two of you aren’t fooling anyone.”
“Ani, I don’t have time for this. There won’t be any chance of a two of anything if we don’t get Dan back.”
She rubbed a hand across her forehead and I felt like a jerk for making her feel any worse than she must already.
“You’re right,” she said. “Sorry. Okay. You need to get back to the city. Without Esme knowing.”
“I need my phone back too,” I added. “They might call again.”
“We can get the phone back. But I’m sure the Taskforce will be listening in to all the calls, so you’d better be careful if you make any plans you don’t want them to know about.”
I nodded. “I can handle that. Jase can get me another cell. But I need to get to Jase.”
“A couple more wolves are arriving soon.” Ani pushed off the bed, scrunching her forehead like she was trying to think. “We should be able to sneak you into their car on the way back. If you don’t mind riding in the trunk until they’re clear of the roadblocks.”
I didn’t care what I had to do. “That’s fine. What about Esme?”
“I’ll tell her I put some alpha whammy on you.”
“Can you do that?”
Ani smiled smugly. “Sometimes. Esme’s some sort of cat, right? So she doesn’t really know for sure. In fact, why don’t you get into bed, I’ll tell her I knocked you out, she can check on you and then once the wolves get here, I’ll come get you.”
I wasn’t sure I could pull off fake-sleeping well enough to fool Esme but I was willing to give it a try. And, to tell the truth, my body thought the idea of lying down was a pretty good one.
So I climbed under the covers and shut my eyes. Ani pulled the blinds down and switched off the computer. As she left I said, “You wouldn’t really put a whammy on me, would you?”
She grinned. “Depends how much you’d pissed me off. Now, sleep.”
She used her alpha voice and I actually found myself starting to drift off before I managed to snap out of it. Obviously she didn’t even need a full whammy when the subject was sleep deprived. But my fear for Dan was too strong to let my mind give in completely, so I lay dozing and turning over a thousand plans in my mind.
Only problem was all of them depended on me knowing where Dan was.
***
I called Jase as soon as I was safely out of the Retreat and filled him in on what was happening.
“What can I do?” he asked.
“See if you can find anything out.” I didn’t specify how. Not in front of the wolves.
“Are you coming here?”
“Sure,” I lied. “But I’ll be awhile. I want to get my car.” I wasn’t going to the office. I was going to beg yet another favor from Marco. Which Jase would never let me do. So now I was lying to almost everybody I cared about. Something else to worry about.
“Call me when you’re closer.”
***
Define closer, I thought as I finally reached Marco’s house. My fingers itched to pick up the phone and ask Jase to come with me, but then he’d only try and talk me out of this. He’d be right to do so. I had no idea what I could offer Marco this time. I was already over my head owing him a debt.
This time I wasn’t taken to the cozy sofa room. This time, I was led upstairs to an office and left waiting in a highly uncomfortable minimalist chair that poked at my back and tilted my legs at a weird angle.
The whole room made me nervous. Unlike the downstairs, it was all stark white and black and glass. About as cozy as an operating theatre.
“Signorina Keenan, what a surprise.” Marco walked into the room, holding out his hand. When I rose to shake it, he grasped mine and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. His lips were cool and my skin tingled.
Confused, I pulled my hand away as soon as possible. “Lord Marco, thank you for seeing me again.”
He waved a hand at me to sit. “I look forward to your visits.”
I doubted it. He was just laying on the charm for practice. And right now I didn’t have time for the social nic
eties. “I’m sorry to be abrupt but Tate has taken Daniel.”
Marco’s smile disappeared. “Special Agent Gibson? Your wolf?”
I almost said ‘not my wolf’ automatically but wasn’t sure if that would help or hinder my case. “Yes, Agent Gibson. You may have heard that one of the wolves was killed?”
He nodded, eyes somber. “Yes. It is unfortunate.”
“I’m pretty sure Tate is behind this.”
“He wants you back, Cara. You are unfinished business.”
More like I was a loose end to be tied up. Tate had obviously found out that he hadn’t turned me into one of his super vamps. “Perhaps. I need to find him.”
Marco sat on the edge of the glass desk, regarding me with a serious expression. “It would not be wise to put yourself back in his hands, Ashley.”
I nodded. “I know that.” Knew it down to the bone. The thought of going anywhere near Tate terrified me. “But I can’t let him kill Dan.”
A dimple twitched in his cheek. “Ah. So perhaps Daniel Gibson is your wolf, after all?”
I hitched a shoulder. “He’s someone I don’t want dead.”
“So you have come to me for another favor? You wish to know if I know where Tate is?”
I nodded again, licking lips gone suddenly dry. “I know there’s a price—”
The phone on the glass desk shrilled into life and Marco held up a hand. “Excuse me.” He picked up the phone. “Pronto?”
I tried to look patient as he spoke rapid fire Italian. My Italian is pretty much limited to Campari and spaghetti so I had no idea what he was discussing but when his eyes suddenly focused on me, I got the feeling I might not like it.
“It seems your friend is here,” Marco said as he hung up the phone.
Friend? My heart leapt. “Dan?”
He shook his head. “No. Young Jason.” He looked at me, arching an eyebrow.
What the hell? “I have no idea what he’s doing here,” I said in response to the silent question.
“Then we shall find out together. He is being brought up.”
Sure enough, the door opened about a minute later and Jase stormed through. He nodded perfunctorily at Marco. “Lord Marco.” Then he turned to me. “You want to explain what you’re doing here?” Extreme pissed-off-vampire vibes rolled off him. The hairs on my arms stood on end as I gripped the arms of my chair.
“Speaking to Lord Marco,” I said, managing to keep my voice steady. Just. “How about you?”
“Stopping you from doing something idiotic,” he snapped. He turned back to Marco, bowed slightly. “I apologize, my lord. But she shouldn’t have come to you again.”
Marco’s eyes went a deeper shade of green. “Ashley and I were just starting to come to an agreement. But perhaps the two of you need to talk first?”
Jase nodded. “Thank you, my lord. I would appreciate that.”
“Well, I wouldn’t” I said, loosening my grip on the chair as the tension radiating from Jase eased. “This is none of your business.”
“I shall leave you,” Marco said. He was out the door before I had time to protest any further, leaving Jase and I staring each other down.
Jase broke the deadlock. “Are you insane?”
“Unless you mean insanely angry with you, no.” I stood so he didn’t have quite so much the height advantage as he loomed over me. “But I’d like to know what you think you’re doing.”
“You can’t get into more debt with Marco. You don’t know what he might ask you for.”
“Do you have a better idea for finding Tate?”
Frustration clouded his eyes. “No.”
“So you’ve got nothing on Dan? I mean—” it was time to stop dancing around the subject “—you can find people sometimes, can’t you? You helped them find me, right?”
“You’re different.”
“You did find me.” I stared at him in awe. “How?”
“I just thought I heard you calling. I could tell where from. It’s not a big deal.”
I didn’t know whether to smack him or hug him. “You probably saved my life and it’s not a big deal?”
“No. But getting yourself into a bigger obligation with Marco is. Don’t do it, Ash. I’ll tell him about my . . . abilities. He’ll trade for that.”
“Why would you do that? For me, I mean.”
He looked down at the floor. “Because you never treated me differently. After. You stuck by me. You’re the only one who did.”
Tears rose in my eyes and I brushed them away. This wasn’t the time or place for a Kodak moment. “That doesn’t mean you owe me anything. Telling Marco would be—”
“Unnecessary.” The accented voice came from the door and we both froze. Shit. We’d forgotten about vampire hearing.
Marco was looking at Jase with an expression that was way too smug for my liking.
“Jason was just leaving,” I said quickly. “Then you and I can finish our—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jase retorted.
“In that, you are correct, young one,” Marco said. “I believe you and I have things to discuss. However, you cannot make this bargain on Ashley’s behalf. She wants the information, she must trade for it.”
“Does that mean you have it?” I asked, ignoring the price issue for now.
His eyes fastened on me and I suddenly found the green less intriguing and more disconcerting. “We shall discuss this matter after Jason leaves.” He nodded toward the door.
Jase looked wretched. He couldn’t disobey a direct order from the head of his lineage. Not if he wanted to keep his head attached to his shoulders. He shot a guilt stricken look at me and then left.
Marco waited until the door was closed and Jase’s footsteps had faded.
“You shouldn’t be mad at him,” I said. “He didn’t mean to—”
“That is for me to decide. And you and I have something else to talk about, do we not? Time is of the essence?”
Reluctantly, I bit my tongue on the subject of Jase. I had to focus on one problem at a time. Right now I had to make a deal. “What do you want?”
“You already owe me a debt, cara. What else do you have to offer? Information? Has the Taskforce uncovered something fascinating?”
Nothing that I could think of. And if he wouldn’t take another debt, that left only one option. I fingered my neck uneasily, feeling the tiny scars that were all the evidence that remained of Tate’s bites.
“No. Maybe I’m wasting your time. Perhaps Lord Esteban might know more.”
Marco bristled. “I do not think you would want to pay Esteban’s price. He does not believe in courtesy like I do.”
Bile rose in my throat. Okay, so a threat to go to Esteban was the very definition of empty. Plus, I’d managed to freak myself out into the bargain.
Which kind of left me between a rock and a hard place. And back to the option I didn’t want to take.
Quite frankly, the thought of letting another vampire bite me was horrifying. But not as horrifying as the thought of Dan turning up in pieces like Ben. At least, I hoped I could convince myself of that.
I swallowed hard. “Blood. I offer you blood. With limits.”
“Limits? Are you in the position to put limits on me?”
His eyes had turned predatory, and I tried to convince myself he wasn’t looking at my neck. “You allowed limits before. That should apply again.” I had no idea what I was talking about. “You can’t kill me or hurt me or thrall me.”
“The last two are contradictory, cara. I cannot bite you and not hurt you if I do not take your mind.”
“I meant hurt me beyond the bite. I won’t be thralled.”
“Just one bite? You put a high price on yourself.”
His eyes hadn’t left me and I knew I had him. “You said yourself that drinking from a wolf is rare. So just one.” I tilted my head back, closing my eyes. “Go on.”
Laughter rang round the room and I jumped.
“Not so
quickly. This is something to savor.”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want him to savor me. I wanted him to get things the hell over with.
“Plus, it is not wise for you to go after Tate with blood loss. Let us call this an IOU. After all this is settled, you will come to me and we will do this properly.”
I nodded, cursing vampires in my head. He’d want me to dress pretty and smile, just like Tate had. And Dan would hate me for doing what I’d just agreed to.
But at least he’d be alive to hate me. “All right,” I said. “We have a deal.”
“Good,” Marco said. “Now tell me exactly what you know.”
I explained what I could. Marco made me go over the phone call several times.
“You’re sure he said comforts of home?”
I nodded. “Yes. Why, does that mean something?”
Marco frowned. “Perhaps. We are territorial creatures, vampires. We default to familiar ground.”
“I haven’t found any new property in Tate’s name.”
“No, you wouldn’t, he’s not so careless. But I have been digging into his life. The vampire who created him was wealthy. Her estate was substantial. We’ve been looking into who controls those assets now.”
“And?” I held my breath, wondering if Marco had found a lead, kicking myself for not having thought of this angle previously.
“There are some properties we are yet to trace to new owners.”
“Anything that they could get to from the Retreat in an hour or two?” Unless Rio had called me from the road, it didn’t seem likely that they could have taken Dan further. Esme would already be checking local airstrips to see if anyone had used one but planes didn’t seem to be Tate’s style. Besides, he wanted me. Which meant he couldn’t take Dan too far.
Unless he was just playing another of his sadistic games, and had no intention of me ever finding Dan alive.
I buried that thought deep. I couldn’t afford to give up now.
Marco was still frowning. “Give me a little time and I will get that information.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
I didn’t want to wait while Marco went to work so I drove back to my house, hoping against hope that this was all a horrible dream, or that someone would hand me the keys to a time machine and I could go back to when my life didn’t seem full of blood and vampires.