Finally, Roman stirred and sat on the sofa next to her. He picked up her hand. “You want him back, don’t you?” he asked softly.
“Don’t you?” she breathed, as more hot tears spilled down her cheeks.
His face shifted. A haunted, hurt expression crossed his eyes, almost too fast for her to catch. “It doesn’t matter—”
“It does matter, Roman!” She shook his hand, the one that held hers. “Damn it, this is what drove Michael away!”
Roman blinked.
She wiped away her tears again. “Do you love him?”
He swallowed. “You have to understand the culture and the times we moved in, Kate. We weren’t supposed to meet in groups larger than—”
“It’s a simple question and a very simple answer,” she said, lifting her voice to over-ride him. “Do you love him?”
Roman let go of her hand and pushed his fingers through his already damp and slicked-back hair. “It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s not,” she said flatly. “Do. You. Love. Him. Yes or no?”
He stood up with an impatient thrust of his thighs. “You have no idea about most of my history—”
She scrambled to her feet, grabbed his arm and turned him to face her. “Yes or no,” she demanded.
“Stop this.”
“Yes or no!”
“Fuck! Yes!”
“Yes, what?”
“I love him, okay?” Roman threw himself onto the sofa and buried his face in his hands. “I fucking love him.” His voice was muffled.
Kate sat next to him. “What was so hard about saying it?” she asked softly.
He lifted his head to look at her, anger in his eyes. “People I love go away on me. Everyone I’ve ever cared about has died, or been executed or just…gone.”
Kate stared at him in horror as she put it together. “And you love Michael so much, you don’t want the same thing to happen to him.”
Roman sighed and sat back, letting his head fall back on the cushion of the sofa. “It sounds so bloody pathetic when it’s said out loud like that. He’s one of the most powerful vampires and most powerful humans on the planet combined. And I’m so terrified something will happen to him.”
“You drove him away because of it,” Kate finished.
Roman sat up again and faced her. He picked up her hand. “You call him Micheil. Why?”
“He’s not a dove. And he’s my personal angel, especially after you two saved me from my ex.”
Roman grinned. “I never did like Calum much, either. Especially the way the clan used it. It was more like a dog tag than an endearment. You love him, Kate?”
She nodded.
“You want him back. Yes or no?”
She pursed her lips.
Roman shook her hand a little. “I’m not asking you to pick. You want him back with us. The three of us.”
She drew in a quick startled breath, her heart leaping. “Yes,” she breathed, answering without pausing to think. Then she realized: It was the truth.
Roman smiled a little. “So do I. Last night taught me a few profound lessons and that was one of them. I want you both in my life for as long as I can make it so.” He stood up and tugged her to her feet. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“To get him back, of course.” He pushed a wallet into his jeans pocket and keys into the other.
“But shouldn’t you…?”
He shook his head. “We do it, Kate.” He pulled her toward the door. “Besides, you can help stop me from making a complete idiot of myself when I see him and completely fucking this up.”
“Roman, I should change,” she pointed out, lifting the hem of his silk robe from around her ankles.
He opened the front door. “You’re decently covered. And there’s nothing in my closet that will fit you anyway. You really want to wander around L.A. in your ball gown at ten on a Saturday morning?”
She bit her lip.
“Didn’t think so,” he said and stepped out.
“You’re not wearing a shirt!”
“Nope,” he replied and shut the door behind her. “Let’s find Calum. Micheil.” He grinned. “Micheil,” he decided.
* * * * *
They stopped off at Kate’s trailer first. Kate thankfully changed into jeans, boots and a tee-shirt and arranged for the return of the jewellery to the security people, while Roman found a clean shirt of his own. Then they did a large circle around the stacks of unused props, moving along the unpopulated edges of the hangar, heading for Garrett’s trailer at the quiet far end of the cavernous hall. There were very few people wandering around on a Saturday morning, especially after all the Emmy Award parties last night, but by unspoken and mutual agreement, they avoided anyone who might be in the hangar and the endless gossipy conversations that would ensue if they were spotted.
Garrett’s trailer sat as it always had. Roman thumped on the door and got no answer.
“He’s not going to answer if he knows it’s you,” Kate pointed out.
Roman growled under his breath.
“Just go in,” she said. “He never locks it.”
“If he’s in that sort of mood, he just might lock it if he knows it’s me.”
“You’re both three year olds,” Kate muttered.
“What?” Roman said.
“You heard.” She stared at him. “You have super hearing.”
He grinned and caught her face in his hands and kissed her. “Ah, the two of you are going to drive me crazy, I can tell.”
“Then open the stupid door and stop pretending you resent the fact,” she told him.
He pulled the door open and stepped aside for her. Kate climbed the steps and looked around as Roman followed her inside. The trailer was empty, with the utter stillness that told her Garrett wasn’t here, not even in the bedroom.
Her innards tightened hard and it was then she realized how much she had been counting on finding Garrett brooding in his trailer.
“Where else could he be?” she asked, her voice emerging very close to a whisper.
“You’ve probably got better information than I do,” Roman replied. “We’ve been deliberately keeping our public details separate from each other here and now.”
“To help keep your personas legitimate?” she asked.
Roman frowned, as he lifted the small handful of papers on the antique desk and thumbed through them. “I’d give anything to say yes, but that sort of expertise we acquired a long time ago. It’s second nature now. Fact is we were too pissed with each other to even talk.” He glanced at her and grimaced. “You weren’t the only one that wanted a piece of his hide and a pound of his flesh.”
Kate put a hand on her hip. “So by encouraging me to pay him back, you were really settling your own score?”
“Something like that.” He glanced at her again. “He left me,” he said abruptly.
“The way I heard it, you shoved a musket against his chest and told him to fuck off forever.”
His jaw rippled, but he didn’t answer.
“Two year olds,” Kate breathed. “Girls would have pulled each other’s hair, screamed and rolled in the mud and been best friends ever since. You have to learn to talk, Roman.”
He rubbed at the back of his head, his gaze somewhere between her waist and her knees. “There was a bit more to it than that.”
“No, there wasn’t. You had a tantrum. And Micheil is just as stubborn and just as…male as you. So he walked away with his nose in the air, just like you. And you both out-stubborned each other for two hundred fucking years.”
Roman took a deep breath. “Well. Yeah.”
Kate shook her head. “Yeah.”
Roman’s mouth lifted in a half smile. “Good thing you came along, huh?”
She relented. “I should shoot both of you now and save myself a ton of misery.”
“Waste of lead,” Roman told her. “Shooting doesn’t kill us.”
She sighed. “So where else woul
d he be? Has he got a hotel room stashed somewhere in the city?”
“He’s a frugal Scot. He’s not going to run up a hotel charge while he’s renting this monster as well.”
“True.” She looked around. “He’s sulking, Roman. Where does Micheil tend to go when he wants to pout?”
Roman grinned. “Don’t let him hear you accuse him of pouting. He’ll just pout harder.” His grin faded. “Open spaces, like the glens in the highlands. Especially if there’s running water nearby.”
“In L.A.?” She rolled her eyes.
Roman lifted his hand. “Wait,” he said, moving his head like he was tracking noise.
“What?”
“Someone’s coming.”
Kate listened, but could hear nothing. She realized that Roman was picking up something at the edge of his range of hearing, that she couldn’t possible hear, yet. So she waited and listened.
Then she heard it. Footsteps, light and quick, sounded on the concrete outside the trailer.
The door opened without any sort of attempt at a knock, or even a try at the handle to see if it was locked. It was wrenched open and flung aside. The two men that Kate knew as David and Terry climbed up into the trailer, looking around. They were Annette’s husbands, Kate realized. She reached for the names. Nathanial and Sebastian. Nial. She wasn’t sure which was which, but the one she knew as Terry had short hair now and it was a lot closer to blond than the dirty brown she was used to.
David was no different in appearance, except that he wore what she would classify as tailored, custom-made trousers and a button-through shirt, both slim-fitting so the width of his shoulders were evident. The clothes were fairly ordinary, but he wasn’t. He drew the eye in a way that Kate couldn’t quantify. Not yet.
Terry glanced at Roman and Kate, then hurried through into the bedroom. David stood with his hands at his sides, waiting.
“Garrett’s not here, Nial,” Roman said to David. That meant that David was Nial, and Terry, in the other room, had to be Sebastian.
“We’re not here for him,” Nial said, not moving from his spot.
Sebastian hurried back into the main room and shook his head.
Nial let out a heavy breath.
Kate glanced from one to the other, feeling a low grade alarm trying to develop in her belly. It was planted there by something that wasn’t in their faces. They were controlling their expressions and their actions with iron mastery. Both of them.
“Has something happened to …Winter?” she asked, just barely remembering in time the real name of the woman who was their wife.
Roman shot a glance at Nial.
“She didn’t arrive back from the after-show party last night,” Nial said. His voice was even. Expressionless.
Roman’s face hardened just like Nial’s as he looked at Kate. Fear bloomed in her chest.
Roman spoke. “Garrett has disappeared. He left my apartment ninety minutes ago and he didn’t make it back here.”
Sebastian swore softly. “what are you going to do about it?”
“Me?” Roman asked.
“They’re your people who have taken them.”
Nial put his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder as Roman turned on him, fury building in his face and posture. “We don’t know anything for certain, Bastian,” Nial said. “Tamp down your worry until we have a target to vent it upon.”
Sebastian drew in an audible breath, then nodded.
Nial looked at Roman. “Know this, though. If you are with the Pro Libertatis, if they have taken Winter, if so much as a hair on her head has been damaged when we find her, I will hold you personally responsible for this and I will take great personal delight in settling the debt that will then lie between us. Are we perfectly clear?”
Kate wrapped her arms around her middle, suddenly cold. The menace radiating from the man was unmistakeable. And now she understood why he had drawn her attention when he had stepped into the trailer. He wasn’t trying to blend into a crowd as just another anonymous security guy or babysitter for a misbehaving star. He was being himself…and Nial as himself was a powerful man. Nial angry was almost more than the trailer could contain.
Roman stared back at Nial with a cool expression. “I’m not with them, Nathaniel. No one tells me what to do. Not you and especially not those assholes, so take a fucking pill and get off my back.”
Kate bit her lip to stop herself from smiling. It was exactly what Roman would feel about being given marching orders of any sort.
Nial didn’t smile at all. His expression didn’t change in the slightest.
“Of course, you would have to deny it,” Sebastian said gently, moving to standing so that he was a third point in a rough triangle between Nial and Roman.
Kate stepped over so that she made up a fourth point, on the other side of Nial and Roman, dividing their attention. This was not good.
Roman glanced from Sebastian to Nial. “You want me to break down and confess? Cry? Beat my chest? I told you once. I’m not saying it again. Time’s wasting. You might not feel the urgency, but I would rather find Garrett before they start slicing into him.”
Kate gasped. “Torture? Why? What could Micheil possibly know?”
Roman grimaced. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have led up to that so directly.”
“You figure?” Sebastian asked dryly.
“Aren’t they just using them as hostages?” Kate asked. “And who are the Pro Libertatis, anyway? I’ve heard you use the name a few times, but I haven’t had an opportunity to get an explanation from anyone.”
“What do Winter and Garrett have in common?” Nial asked Roman. “That’s what the Pro Libertatis wants.”
Kate looked from Nial to Sebastian, surprised curling through her. “Hey!” she said loudly.
Sebastian glanced at her. Nial didn’t.
“Just because I’m not vampire doesn’t mean you to get to ignore me,” she told Sebastian.
He shook his head a little. “We’re not. Well we’re not ignoring you because you’re human. We’re focusing on the real issue. Roman’s allegiance.”
“Roman’s allegiance is to me and Garrett. Anything else is peripheral and irrelevant. Do you have any more questions?” Kate snapped.
She had everyone’s attention now. Nial’s gaze flickered to Roman before settling on her again. “You’re together? All three of you?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes,” Kate said coolly.
Sebastian smiled.
“What?” she demanded.
“I just lost five thousand dollars.”
“And you’re smiling?”
Sebastian’s smile broadened. “Winter always makes losing a pleasure.”
Nial glanced at him and Sebastian’s smile broadened even more. “Like Roman said, take a pill, Nial. This puts a different spin on it.”
Nial crossed his arms. “And meanwhile, they still have Winter.”
Sebastian’s smile faded. He looked at Roman.
Roman sighed. “We’re back to this again?”
“It’s not that we don’t believe you,” Sebastian began.
“Yes, it’s exactly that,” Nial countered. “A year ago, I got a taste of their methods. The Pro Libertatis don’t ask you to work for them. They demand. And when you don’t bend to their demands, their methods become a lot more persuasive.”
Roman scowled. “So?”
“So, no offense, Byzantine, but I’ve walked this earth a few more years than you. I’ve learned a handful more tricks, you would agree?”
Kate frowned as she stared at Nial. He was older than Roman? How old was he, exactly? How much history was he personally acquainted with? Come to that, how much history did each of them carry around in their minds, these walking encyclopaedias of lived experiences? Roman had known Murad. Who had Nial been friends with in his lifetime?
Roman’s scowl deepened. “Agreed,” he growled.
Nial nodded. “If I, with all my tricks, was unable to shake free of t
hem for more than a year, I find it hard to believe you’re still walking free of their noose.”
“Perhaps I don’t have the vulnerabilities you did,” Roman said, glancing at Sebastian.
Kate put it together with an almost audible click in her mind. These Pro Libertatis, whoever they were, had obviously used Sebastian as leverage to force Nial to do whatever it was they had wanted him to do for them, a year ago. She would have to get details later, from someone who knew them.
She felt a little sickened as she realized what this implied about the Pro Libertatis. They used whatever means necessary to achieve their goals, including extortion, emotional blackmail and the threat of physical violence against their own kind.
“They have that same leverage to use against you, Roman,” she said. “Why didn’t they use it?”
Nial glanced at her. It was a mere flicker of his eyes, before they settled on Roman once more. “It’s a good question. You can understand my concern. Everything says they should have used Garrett against you. You say they didn’t. It’s hard to believe.”
Roman’s brows were almost meeting in the middle. Kate could see his temper was roused. But the very still posture of both Nial and Sebastian couldn’t be underestimated, either. They were alert, ready to spring at the slightest provocation. The tension in the room was pressing against her chest and making her heart work harder than she had ever felt it strive before.
“They tried, okay?” Roman said, at last.
“And you just said ‘no’?” Sebastian asked, his tone dry.
Roman’s lips curled. “I told them to fuck off. You think I can’t spot a bureaucracy coming at me, even if it isn’t wearing a suit?”
“They’re not an official organization,” Sebastian pointed out.
“They smell like one,” Roman replied shortly.
“They may as well be one,” Nial agreed. “They believe in all the same values that a large government organization believes in, and they’re fighting to maintain those values and standards. They’re using the resources of large government to try and defeat us.”
“They’re using government resources?” Kate asked. “That’s…that’s stealing!”
“I think you’ll find, when we finally uncover who the Pro Libertatis really are,” Nial told her coolly, “That most of their members are the power holders of this and other countries. Government officials, statesmen and military. And they don’t want their very comfortable status quo disturbed. Of course they’re using the power they already hold to keep us in line. Why wouldn’t they? They want us stopped. Permanently.”
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