by Karen Lynch
“Did it help?” I asked, releasing her.
“Yes. I almost feel like my old self again.” She reached up to place her hand on my chest, her touch soothing. “I’m sorry if you were worried,” she said softly.
“You don’t have to apologize.” My fingers brushed her face, and her eyes made me forget everything but her and the kiss we’d been denied earlier.
She moistened her lips and leaned toward me in invitation. My other hand lifted, intending to pull her to me. Nothing would come between us this time.
Khristu! I swore inwardly as my cell rang loudly in my pocket. This better be a goddamn emergency.
I recognized Raoul’s number and sighed. There was no way I couldn’t answer it with all that was going on out there. Smiling at Sara, I put the phone to my ear.
“Here.”
“Nikolas, it’s Raoul. Anders called in from Seattle. They just got back from searching two houses for that missing girl.”
“What did they find?”
“No sign of the girl, but a vampire had definitely been nesting in one of the houses,” Raoul said. “I told Anders you’d call him back, but if you’re busy, I can debrief his team.”
“No, I want to talk to them. We’ll be there shortly.”
Raoul was thorough, but I had more experience tracking down vampires. The smallest detail might lead us to this one and the missing girl. Three days had passed from when the first girl went missing and when her body was found. Time was running out for this one.
I hung up and looked at Sara. “It’s still early. Do you want to come see the command center?”
Jordan appeared out of nowhere. “Hell yes, we do.”
Sara grinned. “What she said.”
I smiled at her as I pocketed my phone. “Grab your coats and we’ll head over.”
The four of us walked over together, and several warriors nodded to us as they walked by on patrol. Eldeorin’s house might be hidden behind faerie glamours and protections, but this one was open to attack.
“How many warriors do you have here?” Sara asked as we entered the house through the main door.
“We have three units working out of this place, plus Chris and me. Half the warriors are out on jobs now.”
We walked into the main control room, and Raoul waved me over. Excusing ourselves from the girls, Chris and I went over to the other warrior.
“New recruits?” Raoul joked.
I followed his gaze to Sara and Jordan, who had stopped at one of the computer stations to talk to Dominic. The blond warrior was showing them something on one of his monitors, and the two girls looked fascinated.
“Not unless we have really good hazard insurance,” Chris said. He chuckled at Raoul’s puzzled look. “Let’s just say Sara and Jordan have a unique talent for finding trouble.”
Raoul smiled. “I’ll make sure to lock up the big weapons.”
“Probably a good idea,” I said then got down to business. “Is Anders calling back, or am I calling him?”
Raoul handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it. “He asked that you call him.”
The three of us left the control room and closed ourselves in the den to call Seattle. We were five minutes into our call with Anders when a knock came on the door. Chris opened it to admit Hamid and Ammon.
Raoul and I stood to greet the warriors. I was six-two, and Hamid Safar made me feel short next to his six-six height. His shoulders almost spanned the doorway when he entered, and his dark eyes regarded me for several seconds before he nodded.
“Nikolas, it has been a while,” he said in accented English.
“I haven’t seen you since we hunted that Master together in Spain twelve years ago.”
His eyes gleamed. “Ah yes, my first Master kill.”
“Which would have been my kill if you hadn’t stolen my bike,” I retorted good-naturedly.
At the time, I hadn’t been as amused. The two of us had tracked the Master to Valencia. While we were talking to a human informant, a truck ran over Hamid’s bike, which was parked beside mine. He’d made off with mine before I knew what had happened.
The only reason I hadn’t been furious was that Hamid had a personal stake in finding the Master. The vampire had killed Hamid’s cousin’s mate in Cairo, and nothing was more important to the big Egyptian warrior than his family.
“You guys want to continue this later?” asked a voice from the phone.
“No,” Hamid answered brusquely. “Continue, please.”
“As I was telling the others, we raided two houses today. One was a bust, but a vampire’s been nesting in the second one. We found the body of a transient in the basement, drained.”
“Do you have more leads?” I asked him.
“None yet. We caught a young vampire last night, and it didn’t take him long to talk. He said he’d heard there was an older vampire grabbing the teenagers.” Anders exhaled slowly. “It’s getting crazy up here with the press involved and everyone calling this a serial killer.”
Hamid walked over to stand by the desk. “Ammon and I will be there tomorrow to assist.”
I almost laughed because Hamid didn’t assist, and he didn’t play well with others. But he was a damn good hunter. If anyone could find this bastard, it was him.
“I thought you wanted to help out in LA,” Chris said to him. “Too boring for you?”
Hamid scowled and crossed his arms. “We go where the need is greatest. Children are more important than what is happening in Los Angeles.”
“I agree,” Chris and I said together.
Chris, Raoul, and I left Hamid and Ammon talking to Anders, and headed back to the control room. I looked for Sara, and I found her and Jordan sitting on a couch that had been pushed against the fireplace. Her eyes met mine, and I smiled at the happiness on her face.
Raoul called me over to discuss the job he and Raj were doing tomorrow. Ever since Sara told me about Adele’s friendship with Madeline, we’d been trying to plant surveillance equipment at her house and club. But Adele was no fool, and she used warlock spells to render our devices useless. Raj was working on a way around it, and he and Raoul were going to do a field test.
A burst of feminine laughter filled the room, and I looked over at Sara and Jordan who were clinging to each other and laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes. I raised an eyebrow at Sara, and that just made her laugh more. I shook my head and smiled as I went back to work.
* * *
I walked into the control room, two weeks later, and as usual, my eyes immediately searched for Sara. Since the night of our date, she’d come here almost every evening. Sometimes she read or used her laptop, and other times she got the warriors to teach her about the equipment and share stories about their adventures. I wasn’t the only one who liked having her here. It wasn’t hard to see the smiles every time she walked in the door.
I didn’t see her, which meant she was probably in the kitchen fixing a snack. She never left on her own, always waiting for me to walk her back to the house.
I’d been worried about her walking between the two houses until Eldeorin offered to place a glamour over our rented house and the short strip of road to protect her and Jordan.
“Nikolas, have you heard?” Chris called. He was standing with Raoul and Brock by one of the tracking stations, and the three of them wore puzzled expressions.
I walked over to stand with them. “Heard what?”
“Someone bagged that vampire in Seattle.”
“Hamid?”
Since the Egyptian warrior and his brother went to Seattle, two more teenagers had gone missing and Hamid had been like a man obsessed. But this vampire had proven to be adept at hiding their tracks, which meant he or she was older and experienced. Hamid was one of our best hunters, however, and every day I’d expected to hear he had finally caught the vampire.
A week ago, two of the missing teenagers had shown up at Northwest with no memory of where they’d been or who had brought
them to the hospital. No vampire would release his victims, so we figured we’d been wrong in thinking they’d been taken by the one who had killed the first girl.
Chris shook his head. “No, it wasn’t one of ours. Hamid just found the house the vampire was holed up in. He said someone really did a job on the vampire, and his chest was half burnt, probably from a flamethrower. He also found the body of the girl who went missing two weeks ago.”
“Did Hamid have any ideas about who killed the vampire?”
Chris shook his head. “He’s still looking around. I didn’t want to push him because he was not happy he didn’t find the vampire sooner. And you know what he’s like when he’s not happy.”
The four of us laughed as Sara entered the room, carrying a soda. She smiled at us and walked over to sit in her usual spot on the couch. She set the soda down and picked up her laptop, looking engrossed in whatever was on the screen.
I joined her once we finished our discussion about Seattle. “Ready to head home?”
She closed the laptop and smiled up at me. “Sure.”
We walked the short distance to Eldeorin’s in companionable silence. Jordan was in the living room on her laptop when we got there, and she gleefully informed us she was about to kick Roland’s ass in World of Warcraft. Sara rolled her eyes. She didn’t share her friends’ love of games.
Sara motioned for me to followed her into the kitchen where Heb was cleaning the stove. She greeted the dwarf and went to pull a bottle of water from the fridge. She took a long drink and turned to me.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. Do you have time?”
I smiled and led her over to the small breakfast table. “I always have time for you. What’s on your mind.”
“Remember when I told you I had some friends helping me look for Madeline?”
I frowned. “You mean the ones you refused to tell me anything about?”
I’d tried several times to get her to reveal the names of the people who had not only helped her look for Madeline, but had also blocked us from tracing her when she called. But if there was one thing about Sara, it was her loyalty to those she considered her friends.
She smiled. “Yeah, them. We’ve been talking, and we’re going to start looking for Madeline again.”
“You’re what?” I didn’t know if I was more shocked she was still in contact with those people, or that she thought I’d be okay with her going out there and endangering herself like that again.
She shook her head. “Okay, that came out wrong. Before you blow a gasket, listen to what I have to say.”
“Go ahead.”
She tapped her fingers on the table. “First off, I’m not talking about me chasing after Madeline like I did before, so you can stop scowling at me like that.”
I unfolded my arms and rested them on the table. “You can’t blame me for thinking that after what happened in December.”
Her face softened and she reached over to take my hand, her touch sending warmth through me. “I promised not to run again, and I meant it. I’m sorry for putting you through that.”
“I know.” I closed my fingers around hers. “Tell me your idea, and I promise to try to keep all my gaskets in place.”
She smiled again. “It was David’s idea, actually.”
“David?” The name sounded vaguely familiar.
“I guess I should start by telling you about David and Kelvan. They said it was okay, and if you knew Kelvan, you’d know what a big deal it is. He’s kind of paranoid, and he doesn’t like many people.”
She stroked my palm with her finger, distracting me, and I had to make myself pay attention to what she was saying. I could have pulled away, but I craved her touch so much now it would be like giving up air.
“David is the guy I used to talk to online back in Maine. He’s the one who told me about Madeline and the Master. We stayed in touch when I moved to Westhorne, and he helped me when I left to look for Madeline. He sent me to his friend Kelvan in Salt Lake City to get a laptop. David and Kelvan are hackers, and they’re really good. The best. Kelvan wrote the software I used to call you from my laptop. He’s the reason you couldn’t trace me.”
“Dax tried everything to break that guy’s encryption,” I told her. “I think his ego was a little bruised.”
Her brows drew together. “Dax?”
“He’s the head of security at Westhorne. Wears dreadlocks and always carries a laptop.”
“Oh, I remember seeing him there.” Amusement lit her eyes. “Tell Dax not to be so hard on himself. Kelvan is a vrell demon, and apparently they’re known for their technical skills. Plus, all he does is stay at home and work on his software.”
The news that Kelvan was a demon surprised me, and then I remembered Jordan mentioning him at Christmas. He had to be a genius to out-code Dax.
“You have some interesting friends,” I said wryly.
“You have no idea. David and Kelvan have been tracking Madeline since November. Don’t ask me how they’re doing it. They found her in Albuquerque, and Kelvan found out through the demon community that Madeline was going to see Orias.”
She gave me an odd look. “Did you know there was a demon community?”
“Yes. Not that they would willingly talk to the Mohiri, or go out of their way to help us.”
She made a face. “That’s because they’re all scared of you guys. You’re like the boogeyman and Van Helsing rolled into one.”
I quirked an eyebrow at her description of me. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but never a boogeyman.”
“Not to your face,” she teased. “Do you know how frustrating it is to try to talk to people who are afraid of you for no reason?”
I gave her a pointed look. “Yes.”
“Ha! As if I was afraid of you. You just aggravated me because you wouldn’t leave me alone.”
I lifted her hand to my lips. “Aren’t you glad I’m so persistent?”
A small tremor went through her at my kiss. “Sometimes.”
“Tell me about your plan to look for Madeline,” I said, releasing her hand. The taste of her skin made me think of things I couldn’t have yet.
Her smile was radiant. “It’s simple, really. David and Kelvan will keep working their magic, and I’ll share what they find with you. If you hear something, you let me know and I’ll tell them.”
I nodded thoughtfully. The plan was straightforward and didn’t involve her leaving the safety of this place.
“Wouldn’t it be better if your friends worked directly with Dax?”
Her smile dimmed. “I guess so. They don’t trust many people, but I think if I explained it to them…”
“No, forget that,” I said, trying to repair my blunder. “You know David and Kelvan, and as you said before, the three of you came closer to Madeline than anyone else. It makes no sense to mess with that.”
“You mean that?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yes.”
She let out a happy cry, launching herself out of her chair and into my arms. “Thank you,” she murmured against my throat before she lifted her head and pressed her lips to mine.
The kiss started out playful, but it quickly became hungry and searching as the feel of her soft curves and the taste of her lips set my already heated body on fire. My arms tightened around her, afraid she’d shift on my lap and feel the evidence of my desire. This wasn’t the time or place for her to make that discovery, as much as my body objected to my reasoning.
“You’re welcome,” I said roughly when she ended the kiss. “Maybe you should go and tell David and Kelvan the good news.”
“You’re right.” She released me and stood, grabbing her laptop off the table. “I can’t wait to get started.”
I didn’t stand. “Keep me posted.”
“I will.”
I remained seated for a good five minutes before it was safe to get up. Jordan was still in the living room when I passed by, and she called good night t
o me as I jogged up the stairs.
I entered my room and headed for the bathroom, pulling off clothes as I went. Walking into the shower, I shut the door and turned the water on blast.
“Khristu!” I braced my hands against the tile as the cold water flowed over me. This was becoming a nightly routine for me, and every time I stood here, I wondered how much longer I could go on like this. It wasn’t just my unfulfilled desire for Sara; it was nature demanding we finish what it had started and complete the bond.
I groaned and turned my face up to the frigid spray, feeling it run down my body in rivulets. Had any bonded male ever gone this long without mating?
I knew the answer to that already. You could delay completing the bond for a period, but only if you maintained a distance between you and your mate, meaning no touching, no kissing, and definitely no sleeping in the same bed with them. I’d passed the point of no return with Sara the moment I’d kissed her back in the medical ward at Westhorne.
But I would wait. Whether or not she felt the bond as I did, I knew she cared deeply for me, and she was affected by my touch too. I’d wait for her to be ready to take the final step, for her to come to me and tell me she loved me.
I loved her too much not to.
Chapter 36
“You guys hear about that warehouse in Minneapolis?” Raoul called as Chris and I walked toward the control room a week later.
“No, what about it?”
“Last week, a truckload of people showed up at a hospital in Minneapolis, going on about giant lizard people stealing them from their beds and keeping them in cages. The humans were all young – late teens to early twenties – and at first the hospital thought they were a bunch of college kids on drugs. They called in the police to try to make sense of the victims’ stories. No one could tell the police exactly where the warehouse was, but they all said someone showed up out of the blue, killed the lizard people, and helped them escape.
“The Minneapolis unit found the warehouse before the police did. Inside, were two dead gulaks and a dead ranc demon. One of them was a gulak master – a big one – and he had a hole burnt through his chest.”