This was a shock. But then again, they’d captured both her and Beck, too. “What? The parents?”
“That would explain why they grabbed both of us.”
“But I thought they wanted us to tell them how to find Dani.”
“They did. But they wanted us, too.”
“I don’t understand. Why?”
“Not sure.” His expression made it plain he didn’t like what he had to tell her next. “The senator seemed to think…maybe for breeding purposes.”
Breeding purposes. As if she could ever replicate Dani. Not in a thousand years. She shook her head.
“But this was a fluke, wasn’t it? A onetime thing. If you and I had stayed together and if, miraculously, we’d had more children, would they all have been little…griffons?”
This time when Beck looked at her, something intense blazed in his amber eyes. “I don’t know. It’s possible. The senator said something about your safety.”
“My safety?” She brushed off that concern. “I’m a Huntress. I can take care of myself.”
“You’ve been captured once.”
“You had to point that out, didn’t you?” She smiled wryly. “I was in danger. So were you. But we escaped. I don’t think they’ll bother us again.”
“They won’t, but there are others. We don’t know how many are involved.”
Again he’d managed to shock her. “You think more than one group wanted Dani?”
“I don’t know. There are shifters involved here and vampires. Normally, the two groups don’t work together.”
“Again, why? Why my little girl?”
“This griffon ability apparently changes things.”
“How?”
“You’re a witch, you tell me. Use your magic.”
Her inelegant snort showed him what she thought of that. “I already told you, my magic is limited and extremely unreliable.”
“Listen to me. They grabbed the other parents. It’s reasonable to think they want you, too, to make more little griffons.” Again he touched her arm. She bit the side of her cheek to keep from curling into his hand.
She managed a laugh, short and completely without humor. “Why just me? You’re part of this equation, too. And then, assuming they succeed and breed more little…griffons. Then what? They’d do what with them?
Seriously, so Dani becomes a flying wolf? So what? She’s different, not an ordinary shifter, but still. She has no superpowers.”
Raising a brow, he also lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know. She’s young. You have no idea what else she might be able to do when she gets older.”
“True, but neither do they. She’s two and the boy is three. Why grab them now? Why not wait until they’re older?”
“So they can train them. It’s like in the Protectors. They take us when we’re four years old. We’re raised up living with them, being fed a steady diet of doctrine.”
“You sound bitter.”
He shrugged. “Maybe a little.”
“Some of what you said makes sense. But there are only two children. Not enough to make an army, surely.”
“Unless there were others.” He cleared his throat. “Other children, older than Dani, who’d already been captured years ago and are growing up there.”
“Oh, no.” His words brought an almost physical pain. But the idea, so shocking at first, made a sort of twisted sense the more she considered it. “Their poor parents. But if that’s the case, why haven’t the children been reported missing? Surely we would have heard.”
“Unless,” he said slowly, “the parents were captured, too.”
“And what, killed?”
“Maybe.” From the grim set of his mouth, she guessed he definitely believed this possibility.
“Why would they do that? Why would anyone do that?”
He sighed. “We don’t know how they think. They might have killed the parents to keep them quiet about the kids. Or they could be using the parents for breeding purposes, as I mentioned earlier. One male could service numerous women.”
She was old enough that most things didn’t shock her. But this was personal and appalling. “Like a puppy mill, only with children?”
“Exactly.” He frowned. “Though I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t tried that already. There’d be more griffons. We’d have heard something.”
“Good luck to them with that idea.” She made her voice flat. “Of course it won’t work. There’s more involved than just breeding. Also, if they tried to use me that way, or any vampire for that matter, they’d die trying.”
The quick flash of his smile told her he could relate. “Still, they drugged you once. They could do so again. You need to be careful.”
“Me, careful?” She laughed. “Actually, I’d rather they do capture me. At least that way I could be with my baby girl.”
He didn’t reply, instead tightening his hands on the wheel until his knuckles showed white.
A fleeting urge, a bit of temporary insanity came over her. She wanted to lean over and touch him, to smooth the frown lines from his forehead, to use her fingertips to ease the tightness of his mouth. Crazy.
She sighed. “This senator, what did he want us to do?”
“He wanted us to wait. He said we’d receive instructions later, when we were briefed. Right now, the most powerful of both of our kinds are meeting. Your Brigid is involved again—that woman has her fingers in every piece of pie. He wants us to give them a chance to work something out.”
“Wait?” She couldn’t believe him. “Is he insane?”
He shot her a look. “I don’t know, but I’ve never been much for waiting, myself. How about you?”
“We have no information, not even a hint. What can we do?” Despite her skepticism, she couldn’t keep the hope from her voice.
“We’ll get information. Go to the source.”
“Now you’re talking.” Finally. She sat up straight, invigorated at the thought of finally doing something. “What did you have in mind?”
His savage grin made him look devilishly handsome. “I’m tired of doing nothing. They won’t come to us, so we’ll go to them.”
“Got to who?”
“Where does Brigid hang out?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only met her at school. I’ve never been to her home. If Renee and the others were still here, they might know.”
Pulling over to the side of the road, he turned in his seat to face her. As usual, his rugged, masculine beauty took her breath away. And, as usual, she had to struggle to pretend to be unaffected.
“How about we try to find her? You said these mountains are a virtual vampire enclave, right?”
She blinked, then gave him a slow smile. “Yes, but there are a lot of miles to cover. I can use my senses to detect the power of the vampire inside, but if we have to talk to anyone, you’ll have to let me do the talking. The vampires won’t appreciate your presence.”
“They’ll get used to the idea. Are you sure you’re up for that?”
“What else do we have to do?” She managed a resolute smile, wondering how he could still affect her so strongly. “I don’t know about you, but if I do nothing but sit around and wait for them to contact us, I’ll go crazy. I want Dani.”
His return smile did nothing to help her equilibrium.
“This will be a beginning. And, if we seek her out, we can show Brigid we don’t want to be pushed around.”
“True.” She knew she didn’t sound convinced. “But we need to be careful. For as long as I’ve been a vampire, Brigid has been High Priestess. No one goes against her and survives. No one.”
Grim-faced, he nodded. “Then we’ll be the first.”
She couldn’t help but like his attitude. “Give me the phone. Please.”
Slowly, he handed it over. “You’re calling Brigid?”
“Yes. If she’s so all-knowing, then she’s already aware we’re trying to find her. Maybe she’d be willing to give us directions.” She punched in a number
and hit send.
After listening for a moment, she closed the cell and handed it back. “No answer. She’s choosing not to answer. That pisses me off. I feel like I’m running in place.”
Slanting her a sideways look, he laughed. “Like a hamster on a wheel. I know the feeling. I had it a lot when I worked for the Protectors. That’s one of the reasons I quit.”
She didn’t have a retort for that and fell silent.
Beck drove with the same intense concentration he brought to everything. They traveled up one winding gravel road and down another, stopping for gas once. Onto dead-end streets, mini-ranchettes, more houses perched on cliffs, none yielding what they wanted to find. Though he slowed at each one, letting Marika use her extra senses, she shook her head so many times her neck hurt.
As the sun began to set, he finally pulled the truck over. When he looked at her, his mouth twisted ruefully. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to rest. I can sleep while you drive, or we can stop somewhere for the night.”
She thought about that for a moment. “The vampires come out more at night. I don’t want to be driving around to their houses while they’re traveling. We’ll stop. Do you mind sleeping outdoors?”
Grinning, he rolled his eyes. “I’m a wolf, remember? Where did you have in mind?”
“Down there.” Pointing in the opposite direction, toward the flat desert, she remembered how hard he’d slept full-out, the way he did everything. She’d used to love to hold him while he was asleep and burn his features into her memory. Now, all she could think about was her daughter, about to face the night without her mother or Addie.
He frowned in puzzlement. “Why down there?”
It took her a moment to retrace the conversation.
“We need to get out of the mountains if we’re stopping. It’s safer down there, out of vampire territory.”
“Don’t you think we should check with Brigid, see if she has further instructions?”
“No.” Her flat reply came quickly. “She said she’d contact me if she learned anything new.”
“Okay then.” He turned the truck around, following her directions down from the mountains. Once they’d reached level ground, they left the main road, taking a gravel one that appeared to go on forever and lead to nowhere, the desert way ahead.
After a few minutes of bouncing along, she pointed to another dirt track, nearly hidden by towering grass. “There. In about a hundred feet, there’s a perfect copse of trees.”
He pulled off, parking under a crooked tree. When he turned to look at her, his face was in shadow. “I can catch a few z’s in the pickup bed. What about you?”
She tried not to think about how badly she wanted to curl up next to him. “I’ll stand guard. I don’t need to sleep,” she told him, effectively quashing that fantasy. Her longing for her daughter intensified. She wanted Dani so badly it hurt to breathe.
She swallowed, almost afraid to ask. “Will you try again to hear her?”
He blinked. “There’s no wind.”
“Still, please listen.” Though she hated sounding as if she was begging, for Dani she’d do anything. “Just try.”
Rolling his shoulders back, he took a deep breath and lifted his face to the sky. Cocking his head, he closed his eyes.
While she clutched her hands together and waited.
Finally, he opened his eyes. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”
The ring of despair in his voice echoed the one inside of her. She tried to summon a smile and failed. “Hey, at least you tried. Now you’d better get some rest.”
Yawning, he nodded, found an old blanket to wrap around himself and crawled into the back of the pickup to sleep.
To save her soul, Marika couldn’t help but envy him. Sleeping brought forgetfulness, a peace she hadn’t had in centuries. Maybe if she listened hard enough, she’d hear her daughter in the stillness of the night.
Hoping that would be the case, she climbed up on the hood of the pickup and perched there to stand guard.
Beck slept deeply, waking to a still-black sky with stars sparkling like a thousand tiny flashlights. Though he usually had vivid dreams, what dreams he could remember had been erotic, fragmented flashes of silky skin and willing mouths. But as he struggled back to consciousness, fully aroused and aching for Marika, he knew he’d have to will his body back to normal before facing her.
Grateful both for the night and for the fact that he’d kept his jeans on, he rolled onto his side to discover her lying next to him, fully clothed and wide awake.
“Hey,” he rasped, wishing he had a blanket to cover his lower body.
Her devilish smile told him she’d already noticed. “Good morning. The sun will rise soon.”
Looking where she pointed, he saw that the eastern horizon glowed a dusky rose, the exact color of her lips. Hellhounds. He struggled to find something to say, anything that would take his mind off the flashes of erotic images he could still see in his head.
He gave her a sideways glance. She appeared comfortable and serene, bathed in rosy dawn light and looking so lovely he wanted to kiss her. And more.
Damn it.
Biting back a groan, he knew he needed to distract himself. “We need to get going.”
“True.” With a fluid motion, she rose. “I’m ready if you are.”
Just like that. He envied her that she didn’t need sleep, appreciating that she hadn’t begrudged them stopping so he could rest. Stretching, he smothered a yawn. “I’d kill for some coffee.”
“We’ll get some at the first place we come to.”
With that promise, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and climbed out of the pickup bed, sliding into the driver’s seat and struggling to focus on the road.
Starting the truck, he moved restlessly, then shifted into Drive and pulled out onto the road. “Talk to me. Help me wake up.”
He’d barely finished his sentence when his cell phone rang. Checking the caller ID, he grimaced. “Brigid,” he told Marika before answering.
“I dreamed of a grave,” Brigid said. “Someone close to you both. Who?”
“My sister.” Throat closed, he swallowed back a curse.
“I see. And did she know about the child?”
“No.” Then, despite his denial, he couldn’t help but glance at Marika.
“Then what is the connection?”
“You’re the seer,” he retorted. “You tell me.”
“Talk to the Huntress. Perhaps if the two of you can search your memories, you might find the answer, the tie.” And she ended the call.
“Well?” Eyes narrowed, Marika studied him. “What did she say?”
“That we should talk about Juliet. Something about there being a connection. She didn’t know about Dani, of course.”
“No.” Marika frowned. “I don’t see how Jules had anything to do with this.”
“Me, either.” Glancing at her, he shrugged. “But we’ve never talked about it. Maybe we should.”
“If Brigid thinks this will help…”
“Then we will.”
He took a deep breath. Talking about such a painful subject definitely helped him wake up. “Juliet and I grew up with only each other to rely on. As you know, we were both trained as Protectors, taken away from our parents at the tender age of four. This made us closer than most other siblings. We had no secrets from each other. None whatsoever. Or I believed.”
“What happened?” she asked softly, though she was sure she already knew.
Lost in memories, he didn’t respond immediately. For the first time in months, his inner wolf had been growing restless. Now, awakened by the sharp stab of Beck’s desire, the wolf wanted out. “We were so close. So when Juliet announced she was leaving the Society, I was stunned and, then later, furious. Not so much at her choice, but at the realization that she’d obviously been struggling with this decision for months. In secret.”
“That must have been difficult.”
Though he heard no mockery i
n her silky smooth voice, he found himself searching her expression anyway. Eyes still closed, she sat motionless, like a sleeping beauty waiting for a kiss to wake her. His kiss.
Renewed heat shot through him at the idea. Again, he knew he had to continue talking or he’d be in deep trouble. And if there really was a clue here somewhere, he didn’t want to miss it.
“That wasn’t even the worst of it. When I asked, Jules went on the defensive. She attacked me, every vulnerable insecurity I had. And she knew them all.”
Remembering this, what he’d tried so hard to forget, still hurt like a festering sore deep inside, even after all these years. He hadn’t understood what had driven Jules then. One of his biggest regrets, other than failing to prevent her death, had been not knowing about or being able to help her with her crisis of faith.
Taking a deep breath, he gripped the steering wheel and forced himself to go on. “Then when Juliet finished with me, she began denigrating the Protectors, the very organization we’d both dedicated our lives to serving.”
He glanced at Marika. Her eyes were open. Staring at him, she sat up straight, her expression soft and puzzled. “That doesn’t sound like the Jules I knew.”
“She wasn’t herself that day. I was hurt. Furious, too.” He gave her a sideways glance, glad there was no traffic on the road.
Marika nodded, but he sensed she didn’t understand. How could she? Not only had he chosen his job over searching for her and making things right between them, she’d never had to come to terms with the knowledge that every ideal he’d held dear, every belief he’d felt certain about, had been based on lies.
The Protectors had let him down, just as he’d let her down.
Still, he felt he had to admit all this to her, maybe as a form of penance. “When she stormed out of there that day, I thought my baby sister hated me. Later, I learned she’d been ordered and forced to exterminate a Feral against her better judgment. Now, I can actually relate, but then I was still besotted with the Protectors’ organization.”
She touched his hand again, and for a moment, he barely remembered to breathe. If circumstances had been different, he would have kissed her then.
“Juliet never told me about that,” she said, her voice soft and hurt. “And I still don’t see how this has anything to do with my daughter.”
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