She laughed. “Well, actually, the bones were both human and vampire, so you’re only partially correct.”
Vampires? His people charcoaled when they were killed by silver. What was she talking about? He heard the sound of fine metal being pulled from a scabbard. Misery? He tried squinting his eyes but it was too bright.
“Why do you think I’m wasting my time killing you slowly like this? I want to preserve your bones. I have a lot of sculptures to replace. Based on my experience and the amount of UV light today, you’ll last maybe a few more hours.”
Something pierced his thigh. He felt the pressure first, then searing pain. It was Misery.
“You know, I could press right here—” she wiggled the blade and he screamed as white-hot pain shot everywhere “—give it a little whack—I love your weapon, by the way—and sever your femur.” She twisted it again and he could feel Misery’s point scrape along the bone. “But I need it intact.” She withdrew the blade, but the burning sensation remained. “However, I have no need to keep the flesh undamaged.”
“They’ll find you, you know.” His voice was a hoarse whisper.
“How will they do that without a tracker?”
“A tracker?”
“You think I don’t know? Your tracker, Lily, is out of the country. By the time your people bring in someone from another area, it will be too late for you, I’m afraid. I’ll close up this den and move to another. I’ll be long gone with your bones before they find it.”
She didn’t know about Roxy, then. Thank God they’d kept the reason for her being in Seattle a secret from almost everyone.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Other than to add to my collection? Let me tell you.” Another rustle of fabric and a chair squeaked as she sat down. “You and your people are done making me look bad. I’ve worked many years to get into the position I’m in now and I’m not going to let you take that away from me. I earned this.”
“Earned this?”
“It’s time that I made you look like a fool to your superiors. Why do you think I was so bold back there, snatching you right under everyone’s noses? Take the leader out and the group will falter. Do it boldly, and their faith in the system will be shattered.”
“You don’t know my people then. Taking me out will make little difference. If anything, they’ll come after you with a vengeance.”
“Will they, or will they simply say good riddance to an ineffectual manager? That sword presentation you did tonight—” Shit. She was there? How did they miss that a Darkblood was in their midst? “—won’t be done for you when you’re gone, you know. You’re too much of a disgrace. Mission after mission foiled, some of your agents almost killed, now you, their leader, taken and killed. No, Santiago, even if they had this fine weapon of yours, they would not be doing that presentation for you.”
That wasn’t true. He had support from the Council. “The weapon is just a formality. The ceremony can be done just as easily without it.”
“It can be, but will they choose to do so in your case? I know a few people on the inside who told me a track record of poor performance would make such a posthumous honor questionable.”
It felt as if he’d been punched. “What people on the inside?”
She laughed. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy and that means I won’t even tell a dying man.” He heard the rattle of ice in a glass. Oh, God, he was so parched. What he wouldn’t give for just one sip.
“You know, I’m surprised you did a presentation for that particular sword—what did you call it? Grim? Because the Guardian I took it from wasn’t exactly a model citizen. He was a Sweet addict.”
“And where did you hear that? From the person you bought the blade from?”
“I didn’t buy it. He gave it to me in payment for some Sweet right before I killed him.”
Despite the evidence, he still didn’t want to believe it. “Ian was killed down in Key West. He wasn’t addicted to Sweet.”
She spat out a bitter laugh. “Don’t believe me? I got my start with the Alliance down there. Ian used to buy from me. Quite regularly, in fact. Addicts have a way of lying and bending the truth in order to keep their problem a secret.” Using the tip of Misery’s blade, she picked at a silver spike embedded in his calf, causing him to shout. “You Guardians think you’re so high and mighty, that you’re able to resist temptation. But when it comes down to it, you’re just as weak as the rest of us. Ian simply decided to stop fighting it.”
He was glad Roxy would never know the truth. She had loved Ian once with all her heart. Her memories were all she had of him now and this knowledge would destroy even those.
“I watched his mother all night. Laughed my ass off at the proceedings. If only everyone knew that the man you were honoring was an addict. God, I came so close to yelling it out. I’d have loved seeing the expressions on everyone’s faces.”
How had she slipped in without anyone knowing a Darkblood was present? Their odor was unmistakable and neither he, nor any of his people had noticed it. Not even Roxy. “How did you avoid detection?”
She groaned and rolled her eyes. “I ate nothing but human food for the past several weeks and didn’t once drink human blood. It was awful. After we got what we came for, I drained the first human I saw.”
That guy near the elevator.
“Why you do that is beyond me,” she continued. “Vampires were meant to feed from humans. It’s in our DNA. Why fight it?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that argument, he thought as he lost consciousness.
* * *
ROXY LOOKED OUT over the ravine, the Tolt River over two hundred feet below them. “He’s on the other side.”
They’d followed the scent trail all night, but it was clear that Darkbloods had known they would be doing this as there were many dead ends, switchbacks and circular trails. She’d gotten them as far as she could before they had to stop at a safehouse for the day. As soon as the sun dipped below the treetops, they headed out again. It was the longest damn day of her life.
“Holy shit, that’s way the hell down there. How did they get across?” Jackson asked, coming up behind her. “Is there a bridge I’m missing?”
She pointed to a small gondola nestled in the trees on the other side of the divide. “They took that.”
Gibson stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head. “We’re so fucked.” He turned around, a defeatist expression plastered to his face as if he was ready to give up and go home. God, she hated negative people.
“Let’s see if there’s a control panel or a rope to pull it back across,” Tambra said. “Maybe it’s as simple as pressing a return button.”
“And you’re sure he’s…still alive?” Mitch asked, worry reflected in his eyes. Roxy knew he felt responsible because the hidden app that fed information to Darkbloods was on his phone. As they were mobilizing the teams at the hotel to track Santiago, he’d asked if he should go.
Jackson had insisted Mitch was part of the team, that the incident hadn’t changed anything. “You had no way of knowing that the young woman in the bar was a Darkblood pawn,” he’d told his friend. “Besides, what available guy with a johnson wouldn’t have taken her up on an offer like that?”
“Yes, I’m certain.” Roxy hoped the confidence in her tone would help settle Mitch’s guilty conscience. “I tracked the latent scent to get here, but we’re close enough to where he’s being held and the wind is with us. The scent I’m picking up is a live one.”
Hang on, baby. We’re almost there.
Something jolted her. A sudden awareness. As if she’d been sleeping and suddenly heard a strange noise at the window or the front door creak open. Her heart cranked from zero to sixty like a horse out of the starting gate.
“Shh,” she told herself. Calm. Relax.
Using her meditation techniques, she concentrated inward, shutting out other stimuli for a moment. A warm, content sensation rushed through her body, similar
to the one she felt after making love to Santiago when she rested her head on his chest and listened to his heart beating. They completed each other, settled into each other’s cracks and crevices, making the other better and stronger than they’d been on their own. She realized now just how much she loved him. He was close and he was alive. She was sure of it.
But before she could rejoice in that fact, she knew he wasn’t okay. She could almost picture him, prone on a hard surface, unable to move.
Was he restrained? Was he sleeping? She reached further inside. He was tired. Bone-tired. And in terrible pain. His lips were dry and cracked, his skin red. Good trackers could pick up emotions in the scents they were following, but to get an actual vision of the subject was something she’d never experienced before.
However, she couldn’t be sure that this was an accurate assessment or just her overactive imagination at work because she was so worried about him. She’d never been emotionally attached to someone she had tracked before. The scent, his scent, had virtually no energy signature as if it had been sucked right out of him, reminding her of when she’d found him under the UV lights, only worse. Much worse. She was glad she’d thought to bring a few vials of blood along just in case.
Tambra jogged back up the path, a smudge of dirt on her cheek. “No go. It’s attached to the other side.”
“Shit,” Jackson said. “We’ll have to find another way around.”
“That could be miles away before we can get across,” Gibson said.
“I did find these, however.” Tambra held up two harnesses, some length of rope and several heavy-duty carabineer clips.
“You don’t mean…” Jackson stared wide-eyed as if she were holding a couple of cobras.
“Yep. If someone can get over to the gondola and release it, we’ll be in business. Anyone game for a little adrenaline rush?”
Roxy grabbed one and slipped her arms through the straps before Jackson pulled her aside.
“Are you crazy?” he hissed. “What about…you know what?”
Her blood pressure cranked up as she glanced around to make sure no one had heard him. Figured Arianna had told him about the baby. Roxy had confided in her friend, who’d been thrilled, telling her not to say anything until she’d had a chance to tell Santiago.
“Can I at least mention it to Jackson?” Arianna had said.
“Only if he can keep a secret,” Roxy told her.
“Listen,” she whispered to him now, “I don’t plan on dying. And just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I’m an invalid. If this is the only way to get to Santiago, I’m doing it.”
“What’s going on?” Sadie said, emerging from the forest as if she’d just jogged up a flight of stairs, not run three miles through the woods. As a changeling, she couldn’t shadow move through the darkness like the rest of them could, so she was just getting here. Tambra explained what was going on. “Sweet. I’ll go.” Sadie grabbed the other harness and put it on as if she’d done it a thousand times.
Roxy didn’t know much about the woman, but she’d seen her a few times in the field-office gym. A petite thing who stood no more than five foot four, she took her workouts as seriously as a military bootcamp, logging hours on stair machines and lifting barbells the size of her head. Roxy rarely saw her just hanging out with the other agents. Maybe being a changeling made her feel as if she had something to prove, that she had to fight to demonstrate she was just as capable as the rest of the team.
“You?” Gibson asked, looking the woman up and down.
“Jesus. Do you ever get tired of being a pig?” Tambra asked.
“There’s nothing to it.” Sadie examined the clips she’d gotten from Tambra then put on a pair of gloves she’d pulled from somewhere. The woman was like a female MacGyver. Or a boy scout—always prepared. “I’ll zip line it over to the other side and either send or bring the gondola back for the rest of you. From the looks of it, only two at a time will fit, so you’ll need to pair up.”
“There,” Jackson whispered. “She can go. Not you.”
But it would take time to get the whole crew to the other side and who knew how much time Santiago
had left.
“Do I have this on right?” Roxy asked Sadie.
The young woman brightened. “You’re game, too?”
Game as in this was fun? An adventure? More like this was an obstacle on the way to her goal and nothing was going to get in her way. “You can deal with the gondola and I’ll get a jump start on Santiago’s location.”
Jackson started to argue again, but Roxy held up a hand, silencing him as Sadie checked everything. She didn’t need to hear his “voice of reason,” his millions of excuses why she shouldn’t go.
“Yep,” Sadie said, stepping back and tucking her hair behind an ear. “I’d say you’ve got it.”
Within minutes the two women were at the edge of the ravine. Sadie made sure Roxy was clipped in properly to the overhead cable before she fearlessly climbed to the edge.
“Watch what I do then do the same thing. Wait till I get to the middle, then you can go.” She pushed off and zipped along the line.
Although her heart was in her throat, making it hard to swallow, Roxy concentrated on her end goal—getting to Santiago—not the river far below.
“It’s not too late to wait,” Jackson said, but when Roxy gave him a death stare, he stepped back and said, “Ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” She shoved off instantly and was hanging on a thin wire, soaring hundreds of feet above the raging river. The wind, laced with icy rain, whipped her hair around and hit her face like tiny needles. At the center of the line where it dipped the lowest, she came to a halt, the momentum unable to carry her upward to the other side. Panic shot through her and her mind froze for a moment.
“Hand over hand,” Sadie called from the other side. “That’s what I had to do.” Roxy must’ve been so focused on getting herself in gear that she hadn’t paid attention to what Sadie was doing.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
A warm feeling came over her then, as if Santiago had wrapped his arms around her, showing how much he believed in her. Okay, she thought, huffing out a steamy breath of air. I can do this thing. Thank God someone had given her a set of gloves to wear because she advanced hand over hand all the way to the far side and didn’t look down once. No use freaking herself out more. Sometimes the truth, no matter how real it was, didn’t need to be acknowledged.
“Great job,” Sadie said, pulling her up, a huge grin plastered to her face. “What a freaking trip that was, huh? I haven’t done that in ages.”
“Yeah,” she said mindlessly, high-fiving Sadie’s raised hand. All she wanted to think about now that she was back on solid ground was getting to Santiago, not how her life had flashed before her eyes while being suspended zillions of feet above a river. She fumbled with the harness and double-checked Grim.
You with me, buddy? You’re charcoaling Darkblood tonight.
She eyed the contraption Sadie was messing with. The term gondola was somewhat of a misnomer. It was basically just a metal cage with moss growing on the top, held to the cables by a few rusty pulleys. It didn’t look promising. “Is that going to work?”
“We had something similar on our property growing up, so I’m familiar with them. Besides, it’s been used recently. Someone oiled a few of the moving parts.”
She peered back over the chasm. Jackson paced back and forth. Tambra and Mitch watched with their arms crossed. Gibson was busy tossing sticks over the side. “Think you can handle it from here?”
“Go on ahead,” Sadie said, her fingers covered with grease from the pulley. “I’ll send this thing over for the rest of them and the gang will be right behind you.”
“You’re a good egg, Sadie.” The moment she said it, she laughed at herself. Jesus, was she getting old or what? That was something Mary Alice had said about her not long ago. She cast a grateful look over her shoulder before sh
e melded with the shadows and moved through the forest.
Santiago’s scent was strong now—she could almost feel his energy thrumming in her veins. Blood bonds, while not common, could happen when compatible couples shared blood and sometimes one’s latent abilities became heightened. Or at least, that was what she’d taught her beginning tracker classes. Vampire physiology and history was a required course. Although Lily was the only individual she knew who’d actually experienced this. Before her friend had confided in her, Roxy didn’t know that such a thing was really possible, that it was real and not just the stuff of legends. Not only did Lily and Alfonso share their thoughts, but Lily had told her how her tracker senses had intensified since sharing that bond with him.
Roxy recalled what had happened at the coffee shop with Arianna and George. Being able to detect a lie wasn’t something she’d been expecting. Maybe her intuitive abilities had increased because Santiago’s blood awakened something inside of her. They certainly had shared a lot of blood. More than she had with Ian or anyone since. Maybe that explained the ease with which she got pregnant.
“I’ve been blessed with a good union,” she’d heard her father say to her mother when they celebrated the last wedding anniversary before he died. “I’m a lucky man.”
“Even with only two youthlings?” Roxy’s mother had dreamed of having a large family and had been disappointed when no more children came.
With an exasperated sigh, her father set down his glass and pulled her mother in close. “Having one for each hand is about as perfect as it gets. A man should want no more children than he can look after.”
Roxy and her brother, Noah, had been hiding under the dining room table and giggled when their parents kissed. Her father’s laugh sounded somewhat like a sonic boom as he reached down and pulled the kids onto his lap. He let them each have a bite of the dessert their mother had made for the occasion. Even though the memory was almost a century old, it was still so vivid that Roxy could almost taste the berries and sugared pastry now as she shadow moved through the trees.
Her mother and father had an incredible love for each other and their union was definitely a good one, but could a union still be considered good if the love was one-sided? Their society said it was, but she didn’t think that was enough for her. She wanted more. She wanted what her parents had and she didn’t want to settle for less.
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