Over the next few minutes, Jade placed presents on her lap and they all watched as Neri opened them. She slid her finger underneath the tape and with ease and pried the flaps of the wrapping paper open. She flattened out the paper and laid it on the now empty dining room table before she looked at her gift.
“While we have all night, if you open every present like that, we’ll be here all night and most of tomorrow,” Drew grumbled.
Neri met Drew’s eyes and reached for another present without looking at the one she first opened. And with a smile, unwrapped the present with slow, deliberate movements without moving her gaze from Drew’s.
After several minutes, Drew huffed and walked away.
“Neri, queen of sass,” Aubrey laughed.
She winked and looked around. “Where’s Silas?”
I’m here.
“Do you want to help me with the wrapping?”
Instead of answering her, Silas giggled and leapt onto her lap, snuggling to get into a comfortable position.
“Let’s see what we have here?” Neri held up a pearl white parka. “Wow, it’s so beautiful. Thanks Jade and Noah.”
“Oh, honey, there’s more. Several chipped in, but I picked everything out.”
Over the next half an hour, Silas ripped open the wrapping paper with glee and Neri thanked everyone for their gifts. She laughed at Silas’s glee whenever he tore through the paper, scattering it everywhere, before he awed over her gifts. Soon, Silas blinked as his body sagged with sleep and Xander lifted him from Neri’s arms.
Wait.
Xander glanced at his son and nodded. He lowered Silas to face Neri.
Happy birthday, Neri. Thanks for letting me open your presents. Silas gave Neri a kiss on the cheek.
I’m glad your parents let you stay up past bedtime. Love you, little man.
Love you, too.
As Xander lifted him to his shoulder, Silas breaths were deep and even. He eased up the stairs, taking care not to jostle a tired Silas, before everyone turned back to the birthday girl.
“A few more to go.” Thalia said.
Kai sidled over to him. What did you get?
Hunter took a deep breath, needing his advice. Can we go outside?
The older vampire nodded and Hunter followed him through the kitchen and onto the back balcony. He leaned against the railing, his gaze moving over the Snowfall city skyline.
“How did you know you wanted to marry Liv?”
“The same way I knew the first time I spotted her she was my mate. And yet despite every instinct screaming at me to claim her, I lied to myself, and then her, and almost lost her. Watching her in the hospital, her frail human body failing her, I felt selfish for wanting to turn her and guilty for putting her in that bed. But I wanted her as mine, forever.
“Marriage, while we never talked about it, seemed a logical step because I wanted to show her my commitment. She forgave me… after she awoke as a vampire. I needed to prove to her I wanted her. As my wife, my mate, and my life partner. I regretted nothing since I decided Liv was mine and I was hers.”
They grew silent as they both remembered the good days and the bad of the last four years. The knowledge he felt the same way about Neri as Kai about Liv, solidified his plans. His hand slid into his pocket and he fingered the box.
“I plan on asking Neri to marry me.”
“And you already bought the ring?”
Hunter nodded.
Kai slapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t make my mistake. You know Neri is the one woman destined for you and although we have all the time in the world, some things shouldn’t wait.”
And with those parting words, Kai walked back inside.
Hunter stayed outside a few minutes longer, preparing himself for walking back inside, getting down on one knee and proposing in front of their family. He chastised himself for not asking Thalia for Neri’s hand, but his instincts told him he had to propose tonight.
As he turned back toward the door, he sucked in a breath as Damian teleported in front of him, blocking the door. There is an evil smile on the asshole’s face and Hunter shifted his feet, ready for a fight.
“What do you want?”
His smile grew wider, but he didn’t say a word.
“Does Zahava command you not to?”
Again, no words but he tilted his head to the right and continued to stare at Hunter as though he were a specimen in a jar. Taking his time, he then moved his head to the other side and stared.
He clenched his hands into fists, ready to beat this man to death, when he felt the first pinch in his neck. Jerking his hand up, he ran his fingers over the dart sticking out of his neck.
“What the fuck?”
Hunter yanked it out and pushed down the panic when the area around the dart had already numbed.
Help!
“If you’re trying to call for the other’s you can’t,” Zahava said.
His eyes turned toward the steps leading down to the back of the property and growled at the woman smiling at him with glee.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I created something like a force field that jams cell and electronic signals and mutes the mind link, so no one will hear you.”
“What do you want?”
Another smile. “Why, to dissect you and figure out why you are so much stronger than my own shifters. But don’t worry, it will take several weeks before I kill you off, so you’ll have plenty of time to think about all those days, months, years, and decades you could have had with Neri before you die.”
Hunter forced himself to concentrate on Kai’s living room, but his brain grew fuzzy and he another pinch, this time in his shoulder, made his thoughts scatter.
Fine, I’ll fight.
Hunter lunged for Damian, who flashed away before he reached him. It brought him closer to the back door, and he ran for it when another fucking dart hit him in the chest, right above his heart. Damian flashed in front of him and Hunter wrapped his hand around his throat. With great effort, Hunter crushed his throat and smiled when Damian’s mouth gaped open and closed several times.
Zahava pulled Damian away from Hunter and with three animal tranquilizers running through his system, Hunter dropped to the ground.
Hunter patted his pocket, the one that held the ring, and found it missing. He surged to his feet and glanced around, his brain fuzzy and his vision blurred. He heard Zahava and Damian, but he spotted the ring and made a dash for it and scooped it up. His free hand wrapped around the doorknob and as he turned it, a hard blow from somewhere behind and he dropped to his knees. The ring box dropped to the ground, and he whimpered at the sight.
Neri, I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a future. I love you, angel.
A hard strike hit him in the head and he felt nothing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NERI
I love you, angel.
Neri froze on the way to the kitchen, her hands full of torn and colorful wrapping paper. Hunter spoke to her. Axel ran into the back of her and laughed, but when he walked around her and glanced at her face, his smile turned into a frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“Hunter’s in trouble.”
Kai shut off the water in the sink and turned toward her with a hand towel, wiping his hands dry. “I left him on the back porch about ten minutes ago. He was fine.”
Neri didn’t wait for the end of his statement. She shoved the armful of paper in the trashcan and ran to the back door, too shocked to teleport there. When she tried to open the door, something on the other side prevented the door from being opened from the inside. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
The wind blew, bringing the cold wind from the late fall evening and a sense of dread. She forced open her eyes, she whipped her head around the area. There was no Hunter.
She tilted her head to the side as her eye caught something near the door. As she walked closer, she spotted the twisted and mangled black box blocking the
door from opening. With a shaky hand, she reached for it and yanked it loose from being wedged, flinching it when it splintered wood at the bottom of the door.
I’ll replace that.
With a gentle touch, she cupped the box in her hands as tears welled in her eyes. Without opening it, her instincts told her what lay inside and it broke her heart.
Hunter! Hunter, are you near? Answer me!
In her own mind, she sounded panicked. No matter how she tried to clear her head and figure out her next step, her mind kept repeating the same pleas again and again.
The door swung open from the inside and she got out of the way in time so it missed her by inches. People poured onto the porch and the moment they spotted the look her face, they became all business and searched. Gunnar, Jade, and Noah hopped off the tall balcony and searched for footprints in a sweeping motion until they disappeared through the trees.
“Did anyone alert to something in the last ten minutes?” Ghost asked.
The assassins who weren’t tracking shook their heads.
“Murmurs from the living room when Kai and Hunter spoke on the porch, but after Kai shut the door, there was nothing. If there was a confrontation, how did we miss it?” Axel asked.
Liv darted from her place at the door toward the corner of the balcony and bent down to examine something she found. When she reached for it, Kai bristled and Xander let out a huff.
“What it is?”
She held it with her thumb and forefinger, Liv examined it for a moment before she sniffed it. “A powerful horse or bear tranquilizer, by the smell and the size of the dart. It’s familiar to the one that struck Frost before the fight with Anzû.”
“Would…” Neri’s voice broke, and she cleared her throat before she continued, “is that enough to knock out Hunter?”
The tiny vampire shook her head. “No. Because of his size and Hunter’s enhanced healing, it would have taken at least three, maybe more.”
“Damian and Zahava. They didn’t set off the perimeter alarms, and they start at one hundred feet from the house. Also, there are sensors on the bottom of the steps of the deck. So Damian must have teleported onto the balcony after some long-distance surveillance and brought Zahava with him,” Kai said.
Dread flowed through her body with numbing ease as she realized the danger Hunter was in. Zahava’s capable of many things; torture and murder, but after their confrontation at Thalia’s house, she understood what Hunter meant to her and the evil woman wouldn’t hesitate to use the information to her advantage.
Images flashed in her head as different scenarios played out in her mind. Hunter injected with whatever new concoction Zahava’s doctors and scientist had come up with in the four years since Liv destroyed the bioweapon. Then she wondered why physical pain she would put him through if he refused to cooperate and give her whatever she demanded. Which Neri couldn’t even fathom what that might be.
Why didn’t they take her?
If they killed her, at least Hunter would live.
Neri focused on the situation.
“How do we find him?” Her voice wavered.
“We first have to figure out the silence behind the successful kidnapping.”
“She… must have something that blocks a mind link or all sound in a certain radius,” Gunnar said.
The news stunned them, not believing it possible.
“If they have cell phone jammers and wifi jammers, it’s possible. I’ve hard about a company developing a noise-blocking sound field by placing a device on a flat surface, such as a window, and the vibrations eliminate all sound in a certain area. It’s possible they’ve constructed something similar,” Xander said.
“For argument’s sake, let’s say they have a noise-blocking jammer and Damian passed our alarms, why didn’t Hunter run or alert us?” Ghost asked.
Liv held up the dart. “If they injected him before they confronted him, waited for the tranquilizer to take effect, or shot him with multiple darts, they would have to stall for only a few minutes, incapacitating Hunter.”
“What do they want with him?” Neri asked, her voice small.
No one answered the question, at least not right away. They exchanged looks and by their pained expressions, the answers were horrific. There were scenarios they had witnessed over the years and decades they have been government assassins. Hunter never shared those stories with her.
Time with Hunter. I need time with him. I want forever.
Hunter needed her. She would not sit back and watch as that psychopath tortured and killed him. They would find Zahava and kill her. She placed the damaged box in her back pocket and turned to face everyone.
“We need to find him. Xander, have you found anything about Nightfall’s corporate offices?”
He shook his head. “No, the address given on the business license is one in Denver, but when you map the address online, it’s an abandoned brick building scheduled for demolition in a month. First contact goes to secure email address on a spoofing IP found on an indistinct website. It stores no data on the site. No names or phone numbers listed. After their investigation, the client signs a detailed non-disclosure agreement and contract, only then they establish a secure email address and in person communication is severed.”
Something about Xander’s findings triggered something in her brain. Brick building.
“Oh, fuck. That building on Treetop Drive, did you find out anything about it?” Neri asked.
Xander’s brow drew down as he thought about her request. He snapped his fingers and went to his laptop.
“Yeah, I did. It’s not a business. It’s listed as a residential apartment building but there are no tenants listed. They’ve never had a paying tenant and as far as the inspector states on his notes for the building, they are fixing the building floor-by-floor but have no plans to rent out the units. The listed owner… Well fuck!”
Neri waited for the answer, despite fear shivering down her spine.
“Z. and A. Wolfe.”
She thought back to the place drew her during their search for Zahava’s scent. The building was less than a mile from Standard. Around the area, there were a lot of small startup business renting out the ground floors to professionals, such as lawyers and dentists, and rented the upper floors of the building to people who wanted to live in a prime location in Downtown Snowfall.
While the place hadn’t looked decrepit, it looked worn. It wasn’t new enough to warrant scrutiny from business owners looking to rent out space and not downtrodden enough for the city to get involved in a cleanup effort. And with the cracks in the sidewalk and the front door and all the visible windows blacked out, it didn’t shout welcome. It was the perfect building for someone who ran a secretive organization and since there was so much going on around the building; it was hiding in plain sight.
“She runs her operation out of that building. We lost Zahava’s scent there and something drew me back to the building, although I couldn’t sense anything from inside. The sound field surrounds the building.”
Kane cleared his throat. “If they have modern tech not even on the market and can hide an entire building from prying eyes and ears, how are we supposed to get in? They barricaded the building and by the time we get through, if we get through, they’ll kill Hunter and leave.”
She flinched at Kane’s scenario, but focused on the plan instead of her fears.
“Neri can get us in,” Axel said.
Shocked, she stiffened her spine and glared at Axel. “I can’t. I have to picture the place in my mind before I can teleport there.”
Liv gasped. “What if you can teleport to a person, by thinking of them?”
“It’s what I was thinking. You didn’t have to picture Silas’s room, he pushed the image into your head and you went on faith. I think if you concentrate on Hunter, you can find him.” Kai said.
“I need to be sure.”
“Aubrey, honey. Can you go home and we’ll see if Neri can find you there?”
With determination, the young vampire ran out the front door, the click of it closing behind her loud to Neri’s ears.
Seth walked over and squeezed her hand. “You can do this. You’ll get Hunter back.”
Neri blinked back the tears and squeezed back. “Thank you, Seth.”
For several silent minutes, they waited for word from Aubrey. Neri closed her eyes and concentrated on the beautiful woman; her reddish-brown locks down to the pretty freckles on her smooth pale skin and kept her image in the forefront of her mind.
“Okay, Neri. Aubrey is ready for you,” Seth said.
Instead of answering, she nodded and with the image on the forefront of her mind as she closed her eyes; she teleported out.
“You did it!” Aubrey excitement at Neri’s success made her lips tip up.
She accepted Aubrey’s hug and without closing her eyes and holding onto Aubrey; she teleported them both back to Kai’s house to round up the group and invade Zahava’s secret building.
“Ready?” Ghost asked.
Neri glanced around and almost all of them had changed from their casual clothes to the black tactical gear typical of raids. Strapped with knives, pistols, and automatic weapons, they had enough ammunition to decimate every shifter in that building.
Reaper walked up to her, and she smiled as he gave her a knife, the same one she used two other times whenever she needed to fight.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“We’ll get him back and we’ll kill them all. It’s the least they deserve.” And Reaper gave her a rare smile and squeezed her shoulder.
Ghost cleared his throat and the entire room fell deadly silent and turned to the boss.
“This is a rescue and kill mission. They have come after us time and time again, always with the element of surprise. But now we have the advantage. The shifters are not as strong or as fast as we are, but they know the lay of the land and we don’t. So, don’t leave your partner’s sight. If you need to chase after them, do so with your partner. Reaper is with Ara, Kai and Gunnar, Axel and Kane, Jade and Noah, Thomas and Isaac, and Xander and Neri are with me. Questions?”
Hunter (A Dark Assassins Novel Book Five) Page 18