by K. A. Linde
Her hand went to her throat where the handcuffs had dug into the skin. “I had assurances for you. Now if you don’t tell me, they’ll kill you. And I’ll let them.”
Everett couldn’t deny it. She had shown him what she was capable of. “I was spying on a new mark. Rowland Batiste.”
Reyna wrinkled her nose at the name. Rowland had been her stalker and sexual predator for the time that she had lived with Beckham. Death would be too kind for him.
“I was supposed to be doing the same thing that I did to Beckham. But I found out sensitive information about the company that I shouldn’t know. I don’t think anyone else is aware yet. But in all my snooping, I found it.”
“Found what?” she snapped anxiously.
“They bought a huge tract of land and are building facilities on it.”
“We already know that.”
“Do you know what they’re for?”
She didn’t respond.
“Camps,” he whispered in horror. “Human feeding camps.”
Chapter 28
“I would have heard about this,” Beckham snarled later that night back at headquarters.
Reyna paced agitatedly. Beckham, Gabe, and Tony had recounted what had happened to Sydney and Washington. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Couldn’t fathom how it was possible. How Harrington could get away with it. How he thought that everyone would just allow this to happen.
“You’re on the out,” Gabe said. He almost sounded satisfied at the insinuation.
“Which means we’re blind,” Sydney snapped at Gabe. “Without Beckham in the know within Harrington’s inner circle, we’re blind.”
“I don’t think Everett’s lying,” Reyna spoke up. “He was shaken. I saw all of his acts in that room. This wasn’t one.”
“And you’re an expert on spy tactics, are you?” Sydney asked dryly.
“It sounds like William,” Washington said. “It falls in line with his basic philosophy in life.”
“Philosophy again, Roger?” Sydney asked with a sigh. She massaged her temples and sank into a seat at the head of the conference room.
“We know that William works within a certain set of core beliefs. Human subjugation is fundamental among those. The blood type cure only facilitated that goal. A means to an end. It would make sense then that he would want to push forward with his own agenda when he is in power. A conqueror claiming more territory.”
“Will he overextend himself then? Will Rome fall?” Reyna mused.
“Wishful thinking,” Gabe said.
“Let’s say that this is Harrington’s endgame,” Sydney said. “How is he going to structure it? He’s not going to come out to the public and say that he’s starting feeding farms. He’s going to cache it with something that the people find permissible.”
Everyone was silent as they thought about the million scenarios that Harrington could possibly use to make these camps work.
“It could be anything,” Gabe said. “He’s just as likely to commandeer the military and march people into the camps as he is to kidnap them or offer them a job in some new factory he owns. Who knows what’s going on in his twisted mind?”
“That’s precisely why we have people here who know him,” Sydney snarled.
“He’ll do it out in the open,” Beckham finally said. “If he can make Visage seem like a savior, then he can make people want this too.”
“I agree,” Washington said. “Easiest way to hide is out in the open.”
Sydney sighed. “Perhaps Penelope has some inside information. She might know if something is coming up that we need to direct our attention to.”
Reyna couldn’t suppress her cringe. She’d forgotten about Penelope. The argument they’d had this afternoon felt like a lifetime ago rather than a matter of hours.
“I’ll get in touch with her,” Beckham said.
“Good. Let me know immediately if she has any idea what might be coming,” Sydney said, standing. “Otherwise, I’m going to have to reach out to Tye to organize a group to scout the camps. I need someone on the inside to verify Everett’s information. I won’t act until I know for sure what we’re up against.”
Sydney strode out of the room, dismissing everyone. Reyna felt a wave of exhaustion hit her at Sydney’s abrupt exit. She’d thought that today would be a fun day of wedding dress shopping. But nothing could be that simple. It never was.
Beckham tilted his head toward the door and she followed him out into the empty hallway. The idea of feeding farms was so outrageous that all she could feel was disbelief. She wanted them to come back and find out that Everett had lied to them. That it wasn’t even possible for Harrington to stoop that low. But she had firsthand experience with how low Harrington would stoop.
She and Beckham returned wordlessly to her room. She flopped back on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Are you going to Penny’s?”
“Yes. Our conversation needs to be had in person.”
“She’s going to love that.”
Beckham crossed to the bed and hovered over her. She could feel his dark shadow looming over her, but she didn’t look at him.
“Why didn’t you pick me up?” Reyna asked quietly instead of talking about Penny.
Beckham tensed. “Why?”
“Because you were supposed to get me and then you weren’t there. Penny didn’t know where you were either. I was just curious.”
“There are some things best left unsaid.”
That drew her attention. Her eyes darted to his. “What does that mean?”
“I must eat.”
“You were eating?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Oh.”
Beckham reached for her, tugged her off the bed, and deposited her on her feet. “I must eat and eat regularly. It is a necessity. Before I could go a week sometimes two where I didn’t need to eat anything unless I wanted to regain strength. Now I must eat.”
“Why?” she asked in confusion.
He clenched his jaw and then released it. “If I do not, then I could not be around you as I am. There would be nothing but blood lust. Even eating as I do, I want you. To taste your blood and drain your life force and take from you all you will give me and then more that you won’t.”
She trembled at the dark words and the force with which he delivered them. This was her predator. The one who could destroy her with the flick of his hand. And yet he had spent so much time actively trying to keep her fragile body alive.
“I don’t believe you would do it,” she told him with her chin tilted up.
“Believe me. I would.” His fangs flashed. “I desire you even as we stand here. I can feel your blood pumping through your veins. I can scent you. I want nothing more than a taste. But I won’t stop at a taste. Especially not after I saw you take down Everett.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Oh yeah? You liked that I was able to hold my own?”
He pulled all of her hair off her face and knotted it in his hand. He tugged her head gently to the side and trailed his lips down her throat. “I enjoyed watching you stand your ground. You are not quite the delicate flower I first met.” Then he moved. Infinitely faster than a human. Before she could even blink, he had her body laid out on the bed, her neck bared, and he was straddling her hips. Then he came down on her as if he was about to devour her. “Do not think that the same moves would work on a vampire. It is best to allow me to protect you instead of constantly putting yourself in the face of danger.”
Her core heated despite his harsh words. She knew that getting turned on probably wasn’t the right reaction, but her body didn’t seem to care. Nor did she. He was on top of her. So close to biting her. She ground her hips in circles against him, begging for whatever he had to offer.
“Little One, look what you do to me,” he groane
d, releasing her gently.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded.
“I threatened to kill you and you beg for more. What manner of creature are you?”
“One who is not afraid of the monster lurking under the surface. One who desires the monster and the man equally. I’m not ashamed to admit it,” she said huskily.
“This monster chose to work with Harrington. I chose to work with him. For nearly fifteen years.”
Reyna swallowed. “So? You changed your mind.”
“He kidnapped and tortured you. Do you think that’s the worst I’ve done?”
“I don’t care what you’ve done.”
Though she was curious. How could she not be? Especially when Penelope had thrown out the epithet about all the other women and how she would be dead soon.
“I can see it in your eyes.” He rolled off of her and stood in front of the bed. He seemed to need the space to think.
“What you see in my eyes is the unknown,” she told him, following him off of the bed. She refused to give him that space. “It’s you telling me that you’re this horrible monster, other people saying that you’re a scary motherfucker, and even Penelope saying that I’m just like all the other girls and will be dead soon. It’s hearing over and over again that I should fear you, but I don’t.”
They met stubborn stare for an even more stubborn stare. Beckham would not win this. She wanted answers. And she’d wait however long it took. He must have seen it in her face. He released a breath and looked away.
“I was what was called a lord when I met Harrington,” Beckham said.
“Washington used that term. Sounds antiquated.”
“Yes. Well, the name has been passed down for many generations. Vampires are kind of stuck in our ways,” he said wryly. “The term lord is reserved for the most powerful vampire rulers. They traditionally have a court. Though by the time I was a lord, it had evolved into an army.” He gauged her reaction as if to see if he should continue. “There are only two ways to become a lord—rise up in the ranks and eventually unseat the ruler or raise an army big enough and lethal enough to take down the current lord’s ruling and all of their minions.”
“Which did you do?” she breathed.
“Rising up from within is easier. Unseating a ruler can be done if you can assess their weaknesses and then gain the support of the other vampires already within the organization. Building something big enough to contend with the lord’s army and then slaughtering hundreds of well-trained vampires is nearly impossible.” He paused and met her eyes. “I did the latter.”
She shivered. “Wow.”
“And I did it in five years. Here. In this city. In territory that had been ruled by a lord for three centuries longer than I’d been alive. I was the youngest lord to ever rule a territory of this magnitude. I was thirty when I was turned and had only been turned twelve years prior to becoming a lord. I ruled on a high like that for a solid decade before it all fell apart fifteen years ago.”
She did some quick math in her head. Thirty when he was turned. A dozen years as a vampire before becoming a lord. Ten years as a lord. Fifteen years since being a lord. Beckham was…sixty-seven. And people considered that young? Holy fuck!
“You’re sixty-seven?” she gasped out.
He nodded resolutely. “Thirty-seven years since I was turned. Relatively young for a successful vampire. I was extremely young for a lord.”
“How did you do it, then?”
“I was a ruthless murderer. And I gained the loyalty and respect of every single person who worked under me, from my second all the way down to the lowest dreg. No one was ever going to turn on me. Not in my organization. Not the way I worked.”
Reyna saw suddenly how he had gotten where he was. How he was such an incredible businessman. He had been running a different sort of business for much longer.
“How did you end up going from a lord to working with Harrington?”
His face was carved out of marble. His onyx eyes were dark gems cut into the hard surface. A deep sorrow suffused him all at once. It enveloped the room, sweeping everything into its orbit.
“My second was killed.”
The way he said it made it perfectly clear that his second in command had been incredibly important to him. So much so that he still couldn’t discuss what had happened.
“When my second was gone, I simultaneously wanted to walk away from everything I’d earned and to burn the city to the ground. William showed up a couple months later as I tracked down and killed every person who had been related to the death. He offered an alternative. He offered me the blood type cure.”
“And you accepted it just like that?”
Beckham laughed harshly. “No. I told him to go fuck himself. He said that he knew who had killed my second and that he was able to think more clearly because of this cure. More clearly than I ever had before. If we brought the vampires out of the darkness together, he would help me hunt down the person who had done it and kill them.”
“Did you find out who did it?” she whispered.
“Yes. And he paid dearly for what he had done.” His eyes returned to what had happened that day.
“So, Harrington offered you a new life and you accepted it.”
“Yes. We orchestrated the financial collapse. Between the four of us, we had enough resources tied up to cripple most countries relatively easily.”
“Four?”
“Harrington recruited two other lords—Rowland and Cassandra.”
“Ah,” she said. Rowland’s name made her stomach turn. “Cassandra wasn’t a lady?”
“Ask her that and she’ll tear your throat out.”
Reyna tried not to think about the fact that he’d been a part of the financial collapse. Of all the things, that was the one that hit her strongest. If the economy hadn’t collapsed, her uncle wouldn’t have turned her and her brothers onto the streets. They might never have ended up in the warehouses. She never would have joined Visage.
“What about the girls?” she asked, forcing the words out. “Penelope said something about…about her being a test?”
“Harrington thought I’d kill her. He thought that if I did it would keep her father in line. He was trying to revitalize the slums and doing too good of a job.”
Reyna froze. “You were preventing him from helping people?”
“The crash keeps people desperate enough to work for us,” he said without emotion. “It did for you.”
Fuck. She felt sick. It was worse knowing that all her fears were a reality. If the world knew this, they’d hate the vampires so much more than they already did.
“Yes. I helped ruin your life. Only to have you show up at my door and let me ruin it a second time.”
“You might have been a part of it the first time. But you saved me the second time.”
He shook his head. “You still don’t understand.”
“No, I think you don’t understand. You can throw anything at me, Becks. You could kill mothers and children and puppies.” She paused and grinned slightly. “Okay, maybe not puppies. But whatever it is you did that you thought was so terrible isn’t going to be enough to turn me away. I see you. I know you.”
“I hunted beautiful brunettes,” he spat. He fingered her dark hair with emphasis. “That’s what I liked. You and Penelope and many, many others. I looked for them. I fucked them. And then I killed them.”
She swallowed hard. “You’re not going to kill me.”
He stared at her blank-faced.
“And you didn’t kill Penelope. Why?”
“I picked up photography again,” he admitted. “I’d done it as a child long before I was turned. And everything changed when I looked through the lens.”
“That’s why you gave me a camera.”
“Yes.”
/> “You saw a different perspective. You saw the light.”
“Penelope wasn’t any different than the other girls. She was never different. I simply opened my eyes. And when I did, she happened to be there.” He slowly reached out and touched her face. “It was another year before I found what I was looking for.”
“What’s that?” she whispered.
“Hope.”
Reyna reached up onto her tiptoes and pressed their lips together. He hesitated. His mouth frozen in shock that she’d still want to kiss him after those revelations.
“Becks,” she said softly against his lips. Coaxing him to relax. She didn’t like his past or the things he’d had to endure. But he had been a different person when he had gone through those things. He was a different man when he was with her. He’d told her his deep dark secrets and she still wanted him. She still wanted this.
“Little One,” he said. “I did want to tell you that I could get away for your brother’s wedding.”
She reared back and a broad smile lit up her face. “Really?”
“If you’ll have me.”
She smiled and fell into him, wanting nothing more than this moment. She pushed all of her emotions into one blissful kiss. And finally, slowly, he relaxed and kissed her back.
Chapter 29
Four days later, all she could think about was the wedding. And her impending date with Beckham.
She knew that the mission to scout the camps was happening before the new year. She knew that her brothers were on the mission. She knew there were a million other things that should fill her head.
But today she would be happy.
She stretched and mewled like a kitten as she opened her eyes to the new day.
Christmas.
She had forgotten about it in the midst of the festivities, but now here it was. It had never been a big holiday with her brothers. They’d never had much. But still they usually managed something. And Meghan had helped her pick out things for them this year.