by Liza Street
“I’ll try,” he said. “I promise.”
They hung up. He said he’d try, but Brigitte knew it wasn’t likely he’d make any changes at all. Back when Lance was alive, both men had wanted to marry her. If she’d agreed to marry Marcellus, and she had become his wife, maybe now she’d be in more control over his recovery.
It wouldn’t have been anything like the life she’d expected or hoped for.
This morning with Rafe had been the beginning of piecing together a new life. Brigitte really was over the past—she needed to move forward into something positive.
Find something good, Marcellus, and embrace it.
It was time for Brigitte to take her own advice.
Eighteen
Rafe sent a puzzled look to Laura when he reached the deli, because it wasn’t Chase at her side, it was Nina. He pulled up to the curb and waited while they climbed in. Nina rode shotgun, and Laura climbed in back.
“Where’s Chase?” Rafe asked.
Nina thrust a coffee cup at him. “He refused to get up this morning. Hung over. Marlana’s pissed.”
From the back seat, Laura said, “We ran out of caverns to check, but I found an old copper mine not too far from where the survivors were found.”
“How far?” Rafe asked. His hunch about houses was just a hunch.
“Forty miles.”
“Forty miles? There’s no way they walked that far.” Rafe drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Maybe I should ask Brigitte if she’d try hypnotism again.”
“Who the hell is Brigitte?” Nina asked.
“We know they need somewhere dark,” Laura said.
“A house or cave, or an old mining shaft, can be dark,” Nina said.
“They could be hiding in plain fucking sight,” Rafe said. “Fuck!”
The women winced.
“Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t yell. I’m discouraged, and I don’t see the point in looking when the possibilities are infinite.”
“For what it’s worth,” Laura said, “I think we’re on the right track. We have to keep at it, though. I know you feel some weird pressure to figure this out, Rafe, but the vampires aren’t going anywhere, and we’re going to find them eventually.”
“But in the meantime, they’re free to grab more people,” Rafe said, trying to keep his voice calm. “We’ve checked all the caves and mining shafts within walking distance. What if they’re in a house?”
“They wouldn’t be in a neighborhood,” Laura mused. “Too populated. They’d want to be somewhere in the woods. Like a cabin.”
“Something abandoned,” Rafe said. “What would cause your face to have moving black splotches?”
Nina turned in her seat to face him. “Black splotches? What are you talking about?”
“I spoke to one of the people we found. She said she saw herself in a vision and her face had black splotches.”
“Could it be bugs?” Nina asked, shuddering.
“Necrotic flesh?” Laura asked.
Rafe drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “She said the splotches moved when she moved.”
“Could still be bugs,” Nina said.
“I don’t think it was bugs—I think she’d have said so,” Rafe said.
“How was she looking at herself?” Laura asked. “If she was up above, out of her body in the vision, like floating, it could be anything. But if it was a reflection, maybe she was looking at an old mirror.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some of the vintage mirrors at the Corona Lodge have dark spots from the silver coming off the back. I wanted to fix them up, but Gloria asked me not to because she liked the antique look. The dark spots don’t move, but if you’re looking at your reflection and move your face, it looks like they’re moving on you.”
“What sort of old houses are around?” Rafe asked. “She talked about flickering red in the background.”
In the rear view mirror, he could see Laura bent over her phone. “Already looking.”
“You guys,” Nina said, “you don’t have to look. I know the place she was talking about.”
Rafe slammed on the brakes. “Where?”
“Laura, you know the place, too. It’s the old Argothan Lodge, up Crown Trail Road.”
“You’re right!” Laura pounded on the back of Rafe’s seat in excitement. “We went there on a dare, my senior year. It was all locked up, but Gary Sullivan had watched all these lock-picking videos on YouTube and he got it open. The entryway was this faded blood red color and it freaked us all the fuck out. I’ve gotta text Marlana to let her know.”
“Wait,” Rafe said. “She’s not going to let us go—”
Laura was already texting. “Rafe, I’m a Guardian. I obey Marlana first.”
Except when that interferes with your mate…and this is about my mate, Rafe shot back in his mind.
His mate? Of course. It felt right. It felt true. Brigitte was his mate. If he said it aloud, nobody would have any doubts about his honesty.
Laura’s phone buzzed, and Laura sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry, Rafe.”
“What,” he said, gritting his teeth.
“She…she wants us to meet her at the manor.”
Rafe shook his head. “Let’s pretend we didn’t see that. I want to go check out Argothan Lodge.”
Nina looked uncomfortable in the seat next to him.
Laura said, “She said we have to return, Rafe, and I pledged obedience.”
He wanted to rip the steering wheel from the car and yell, but that wouldn’t solve anything. “Did she say why?”
Making a scoffing sound, Laura said, “You know her. She’ll explain when she feels like it.”
Rafe was tired of being contrite and easygoing, but he had a feeling Laura would fight him if he tried to disobey Marlana’s order. Feeling like he wanted to punch something, he turned the car around and drove to Marlana’s place.
Nina and Laura were quiet the entire drive, undoubtedly picking up on his tension. As soon as he parked the car, he shoved open his door and stalked to the house. His heart thundered angrily in his chest, and he could see only one thing when he entered—his alpha. Sitting on a love seat, sipping coffee, and smiling at Jeff, her mate.
She looked up at Rafe, and her eyes widened. “What’s the matter?”
“You send me searching for the vamp hideout, but as soon as we find it, you call us back?”
Nina and Laura hung back in the wide entryway. Obviously they thought this was Rafe’s argument, not theirs.
Marlana’s light blue eyes narrowed for a second, and then her face went carefully blank. “Yes. That’s exactly what happened.”
“Okay,” Rafe said slowly, trying to contain his irritation. “Have you called the other Guardians in? We can all leave now and reach the place by noon. It’ll be torched long before sundown.”
“I have other plans.” Marlana’s phone was face up on the coffee table in front of her, and she tapped the screen. “I’ve been talking to a court in Europe.”
“A court?”
“A vampire court. That’s what they call their groupings. It’s like a pack or a pride.”
Rafe tried to keep his voice quiet, calm, although he felt anything but. “And you’ve been…talking…to this court?”
“Yes.”
Vampires had kidnapped his mate, and Marlana was here, talking to them? Talking? He clenched his fists, released them. “Why?”
“Because that’s the best way to find out about them, and I’ve discovered that a treaty is possible. Vampires are nothing if not willing to discuss problems. Apparently shifters have developed a reputation for busting into every situation hoping for a war. Instead, we will talk to the vampire court here.”
Rafe breathed in and out. If he spoke, Marlana would not like what he had to say.
“Laura, I’d like you to stay here and tell me what you know,” Marlana said. “Rafe, Nina, you’re dismissed. Under no circumstances are you to approach the
vampires.”
*
“Do you want to talk?” Nina asked once Rafe had gotten on the road.
“No.”
She pulled her e-reader out of her bag and turned it on. Rafe had no idea how she could possibly read on these twisty mountain roads, but that was fine because her silence gave him more time to think.
They didn’t know, for certain, that the vampires were really holed up in Argothan Lodge. They hadn’t visited the place, they hadn’t gotten any confirmation from Brigitte or the other people who had escaped.
After twenty minutes of driving, Nina looked up from her book. “This isn’t the way to Dristan’s Deli.”
“No, it’s not.”
“My car is parked there.”
He glanced over at her. “Do you have anything important to do today?”
“Well, I—”
“More important than making sure we know where the vampires are?”
She sighed. In a small voice, she said, “No. But Marlana told us not to go there.”
“She told us not to approach the vampires. I just want to look around outside the lodge. That’s hardly approaching vampires. Hell, we don’t even know they’re in there.”
Nina shook her head, but she’d gotten a mischievous look on her face. “If we get in trouble, this was all your fault. I am not agreeing to this.”
He held back a smirk of his own. “Understood.”
Thirty minutes passed, Nina’s eyes glued to her e-reader. Rafe thought of Brigitte, and wondered what she was doing today. He wondered if she’d been okay after he left, or if she needed comforting. What if she didn’t want his comfort? It wouldn’t feel right to let her hurt alone—he felt like his greater purpose in life was ensuring her happiness.
When they reached Crown Trail Road, the pavement switched to dirt, and the climb got steep. “Tell me about this place,” Rafe said.
“I don’t know if anything I’ve heard is true,” she said. “The whole dare at school was because the place was supposedly haunted. The legend was that some railroad tycoon had a mistress so he constructed this lodge to keep her and hide away some of his riches. A group of bandits robbed the place, though. The mistress went insane, seduced a local sheriff to get him to kill the bandits, and then the railroad tycoon had them both murdered.”
Rafe whistled. “That is some legend. I meant the place itself, though. What’s the building like? If there were vampires here, where would they hide?”
“Oh. Sorry. I get carried away with the stories.”
Rafe waited.
Nina cleared her throat. “Anyway, so it’s two floors, takes up a lot of area. There’s a basement, too. It would be perfect for vampires to hide in. The building is a wreck. Parts of the west half were collapsed when I went there, but the front entryway with all the red wallpaper and rug, this massive old mirror, that was all intact. It’s up this way.”
Rafe turned onto an overgrown drive. “No trees or brush blocking the way,” he said.
“No, and you’d think there would be. Maybe vampires drive. Maybe they drive something like the Batmobile.”
“If vampires are here,” he said, hiding a smile, “they might drive the Batmobile. But we’re not approaching vampires.”
“Of course not,” Nina said cheerfully.
Rafe rounded a curve in the drive, and then the old house was before him. The bright light of the April afternoon couldn’t do shit to make the place look cheerful or inviting.
Nina climbed out of the truck. “Well, that’s a quintessential vampire lair if I ever saw one.”
“Yeah.” Rafe peered at the windows. Some were boarded up, including a large one on the right upper story that gave the house an appearance of a pirate with an eye patch. Other windows weren’t boarded, and the glass had broken. Pock-marked, one-eyed pirate, Rafe decided. Full of disease and evil. “You guys actually came here? At night?”
“It was a dare,” Nina said simply.
“So if I dared you to do something, you’d do it? What about my laundry? I dare you to do that.”
“Don’t make me kick your ass,” she said. But she was looking at him in a strange way again.
Suddenly he was reminded of Brigitte, her open, trusting gaze last night. The way she’d shuddered when she came, gripping him more tightly with her thighs.
Rafe gave Nina a playful shove to dispel the weird vibe between them. Nina had always been like this—looking at him a little longer than everyone else did, standing closer.
“Should we walk around a little?” she asked.
“Sounds good.” Rafe started to circle around back when he noticed something gray on the ground. Too shiny to be a rock. He trotted over to it. It was a shoe—one he recognized. Dark gray, with a little black ribbon bow on the front. He’d seen the other one on Brigitte’s foot when he’d found her.
“What is it?” Nina asked, coming up next to him. “A shoe?”
“Yeah. I saw the other one on one of the victims.” He sniffed it. The scent was faint, but it should have been stronger. Actually, it shouldn’t have been there at all. “The vampires made it so we couldn’t smell anything at all, didn’t they?”
“That’s right,” Nina said. “We could smell each other when we were searching, but when we got close, we couldn’t smell much of anything.”
“Their magic or whatever isn’t working as well, or they aren’t here,” Rafe said.
He smelled the shoe again. Even after a few days outside, Brigitte’s scent should have been strong. “They’re here. They just aren’t as powerful. We should take them down now, while we can.”
Nina shook her head. “Marlana said no. She wants to talk. You’ve gotta obey her, Rafe. Remember what happened when you didn’t?”
Yes, he remembered. He nodded and immediately shuttered his expression, making his face blank so the old shame wouldn’t be evident. He’d been asked, by the alpha, whether or not Mickey was up to something. Rafe had been terrified for Mickey, and he’d stuttered, “No, I don’t think so.” A lie. He’d gotten it past Marlana. Likely she’d misinterpreted his signals as fear instead of dishonesty. If he’d told the truth, though, Mickey would have been stopped. He would’ve been banished from the Coronas, sure, but he wouldn’t have died.
Nina was the only one who knew about the lie, but she didn’t realize the extent of Rafe’s shame. Rafe could have gone back to Marlana at any point during the next few days, told her that yes, Mickey had been acting strange and meeting with Dristan and Fraze’s parents. He could have, but he was afraid of the lie, and he was afraid of what would happen to Mickey.
“You’re right,” he said shortly. “Let’s go.”
Nina touched his arm. “Rafe, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, you’re right.” He took long, careful strides back to his Nissan and climbed in. He was still holding Brigitte’s shoe.
Nina climbed into the passenger’s seat. “What are you going to do with that?” she asked, pointing at the shoe.
“Return it.”
Sensing he didn’t want to talk, or maybe too interested in her book, Nina kept her eyes glued to her e-reader for the entire drive back down to Belnedge. Rafe dropped her off at the deli.
Then he drove straight to Brigitte’s. His mind was a mess, his heart felt shredded, and he knew the only place he’d feel whole and well was in her arms.
Nineteen
All of Brigitte’s accounts looked intact, but she’d spent the better part of the afternoon on the phone and at the bank, heightening her security, changing her passwords. Identity theft wasn’t something to mess with, and she refused to take any chances.
Finally at home again, she fixed herself some tea. She didn’t know if Rafe would be back again today, but she wanted to see him. She wanted to embrace him as her “something good,” like she’d told Marcellus.
Taking out her phone, she sent Rafe a text. Come over. Please.
No response. She’d treated him terribly this morning, practically kicki
ng him to the curb. It had been too hard to face what they’d done with thoughts of Marcellus and Lance so close in her mind. But she was ready to be over that—she’d been holding onto it for months. The anniversary of Lance’s death had brought everything close again, but hearing how Marcellus had betrayed her—for drugs—reinforced her belief that she should put it all behind her, for good.
She no longer wanted to live half a life closed in on herself. She wanted to move forward and embrace the positive.
She looked at her phone again. Nothing from Rafe.
Darkness was falling. She grabbed her giant flashlight and set it on the coffee table in front of her.
Someone knocked on the door at the same time her phone buzzed on the edge of the sofa. The text was from Rafe, and she smiled. Knock knock, the text read.
Shaking her head, she walked to the door with the flashlight. She was on edge tonight. Her accounts had been safe, but she still felt exposed. Combine that with her kidnapping just a week ago, and she decided to give herself a break—it was okay to be suspicious and anxious under the circumstances and carry the flashlight with her. “Is that you, Rafe?”
His laughter came in response. “Yes, it’s me.”
She opened the door partway, holding it in place with her heel. Only once she saw his grinning face did she set down her flashlight and allow the door to open the rest of the way. She held her arms out and slammed her body against his in a violent hug. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.” His arms wrapped around her, smoothing up and down her back. He rested his head on the top of hers. “I wasn’t sure, after this morning. Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” she said, nuzzling against his chest. “It was me. We’ll talk about it later. Right now I just want to be with you. I don’t want to hold back anymore. I don’t want to fight this.”
Lifting up her face, she closed the distance between them and put her lips tentatively against his.
He took control of the kiss immediately, tightening his hold around her waist, cupping her ass in his palm. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, twining with hers. It was hard to think with him surrounding her like this, and she was glad for the chance to get out of her own head for a bit, let someone else take control.