On the other hand, maybe we were being paranoid about the whole thing. If it was going to be a nice evening, I wanted her by my side. And if anything happened, I was sure my brothers and I could protect her.
"Of course you can go," Torrie cut in before I could answer. "If anything goes wrong, I'll save you."
I had to laugh. Clearly, Torrie was looking forward to the possibility of a brawl where she emerged the hero. And I didn't want to ruin her fun. So I rubbed a hand over my mouth to hide my smile. "And I could probably pitch in if Torrie needs help," I added.
"That would be…gallant of you," Samantha said on a warm burst of laughter.
"Way gallant," Torrie agreed as the girls broke into giggles.
"Who's gallant?" Walker asked, stepping into the room with a brown paper bag in one arm.
"Victor," the sisters answered together.
"What did he do this time?" he asked, and slid the bag onto the counter.
"Oh you know. Same old same old," Sam answered. "It doesn't take much for Victor to look gallant. What did you pick up at the store?"
He glanced at Samantha's hand locked in mine and smiled. "Sand paper. Finish nails. Paint brushes."
"Did you bring home a tie?" Torrie demanded.
"Why would I need a tie?" he countered.
"For the open house tomorrow night. MacKenzie and the others can't make it so you need to be there to keep us company."
"Sounds good," he agreed. "I'll rustle up a tie and join you."
And on Friday night, Ms. Olander sent a limo to pick us up which was entirely unexpected. Inside the long vehicle, there was room for a small army. But we sent only Chaos and Torrie off in it, along with Walker, and the rest of us followed in Samantha's Toyota. Maybe we were being overly cautious, but we didn't want to be stuck out on the north side of Boulder without a getaway car.
When we reached Olander Scientific's facility, we stepped out of the cars and checked out the building. There was a lot of gray concrete and steel columns going on. And it seemed to be lacking windows, at least on the front side.
"It's…very nondescript," I said, glancing at Reason.
"Aye," he agreed and tilted his head as he surveyed the place.
"It's ugly," Elaina proclaimed bluntly. "And it's so nondescript it looks like it's wearing industrial camo. Like it's trying to hide from something."
"Maybe it's nicer on the inside," Sam suggested.
The two men who stood guarding the entrance gave off a distinctly unpleasant vibe. How unpleasant? Well let me put it this way. I've met men before who killed for a living. And the men at the doors definitely fell into that category. But it was more than that. These were the kind of men who enjoyed their jobs.
"Why do you suppose they need guards?" Elaina muttered.
"Maybe Olander's doing research that's top secret," Samantha suggested as we headed through the big glass doors.
"Okay, I'm not gonna panic until someone tells me the guards are there for my protection," Torrie snickered. "Then I'm gonna panic."
"That's a good plan," Samantha agreed, laughing.
Our footsteps echoed on the tile in the lobby as we were directed to a large cafeteria decorated in what I'm sure Elaina would call minimalist style. My gaze swept over acres of white and black and stainless steel and stopped at a long counter that swept out an arc in the middle of the big room. Behind the counters, several chefs wearing tall white hats stood at attention, looking like military leaders of the culinary world. I think Havoc would have loved it. I think Havoc would have hit someone up for a job!
I smiled as I watched Torrie drag her sister over to a selection of hors d'oeuvres sizzling beneath a heat lamp. Chaos quickly followed the two girls while Reason and Elaina sauntered over a little more slowly in the same direction.
"Man, you're really whipped aren't you?" Walker asked, elbowing me.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Yeah," he answered then got distracted as his gaze clamped onto something over my left shoulder. "Here she comes," he murmured.
"Who?" I asked.
"Olivia Olander," he answered in a hushed tone of awe. "The most glamorous and most eligible female billionaire in the world. Check her out."
But a wall of pure evil crashed over me as I turned and narrowed my eyes on an incredibly ugly young woman with a long fall of straight white hair that reached her waist. Her pale, heart shaped face reminded me of a skull framing night black eyes that seemed to hide dark, unspeakable secrets. An involuntary shudder slipped down my spine as the hairs lifted on the back of my neck.
"What did I tell you?" Walker said beneath his breath. "Isn't she something?"
"Aye, she's something, alright," I agreed in a bare whisper of sound.
Now I just had to figure out exactly what she was.
The billionaire heiress wore what looked like an incredibly expensive black wool suit with a high collar that touched her chin. Her skirt fell to her knees but was slit from the bottom of her hem to the top of her thigh. And as we watched, the tall woman stalked toward us on flat heels, holding a fluted champagne glass in fingers with long lacquered nails. When she reached us, her gaze slid down my frame then back up to my face. "Well, aren't you delicious?" she murmured.
"I'm also taken," I told her, not wanting her to get any ideas.
"I can take care of that," she answered on low laugh. "Give me the lucky girl's name and I'll make her an unlucky girl."
"Excuse me?" I responded coldly.
"Give me her name and I'll have her killed."
Obviously, she was joking. But there was a glint of malice in her laughing eyes and there was no doubt in my mind that she was entirely capable of the crime.
She offered me her hand. "I'm Olivia Olander, by the way. And so pleased to meet you. Your name wouldn't happen to be Reason Greystone, would it?"
"Nay," I answered, clasping her hand as briefly as I could. I tilted my head toward the rest of the pack over by the long white counter. "I'm Victor. Reason's my brother."
She turned and gave the rest of the pack an appraising look. "Which one?"
"The blond one," I answered. "The one with the dark hair is my other brother, Chaos. And this is Walker Campbell," I said, motioning to Walker who she'd totally ignored up until that point.
Suddenly, she turned her attention from me and latched onto Walker's arm with her long clawed fingernails. "Are you taken too?"
"N-No," he stuttered, a wave a color rising up his neck and burning across his cheekbones.
She looped her arm in his and pulled him against her side. "Then I hereby declare you to be the second most divine creature on earth." She threw a narrow look back at me as she led Walker across the room toward the cafeteria doors. And as I watched him smile down at her, I couldn't shake the feeling that MacKenzie's brother was like a lamb being led to slaughter.
I let out a long breath, and immediately searched for Samantha, wanting to get her the hell out of there, wanting my entire family out of there. But I didn't want to do anything that would alert Olivia to what my senses revealed about her.
"What is she?" Reason asked, sidling up beside me and watching Olivia with an intense look of distaste.
"I don't know," I murmured. "But whatever she is, she's a bad one."
Across the room, Chaos threw a look at Olivia before he joined us with Torrie at his side. "What's going on?"
"What is that thing?" Torrie asked. Along with increased strength, Torrie had also inherited Chaos's gargoyle ability to sense a person's nature.
"I'm not sure," I answered, shaking my head. "Who's the worst person you guys have ever met?"
"Here in Colorado?" Reason questioned. "MacKenzie's old neighbor, David Blocker. By a landslide."
"And back home?"
"The blacksmith," my brothers answered together.
"He was an dark soul," Chaos added beneath his breath. "But not as dark as her."
Reason looked around uneasily. "If this really is an open house, ther
e should be more people here."
Torrie nodded slowly. "Even though it wasn't announced at your school, there should be some other people here, like company executives or business associates or community leaders."
"I'm guessing we're the only ones who were invited," Reason muttered. "I don't know what's going on, but I want to get the girls out of here."
I glanced overhead at a set of large skylights. "If things get bad, we can always pick up the girls and go out through the windows."
"What about Walker?" Torrie pointed out. "We can't leave him behind."
I thought about this for a while and finally said, "Follow my lead. And whatever happens, do what I say. If I tell you to leave, and you leave. Understand?"
Chaos gave me a startled look. "We're not leaving without you."
"If it comes down to a fight, three of us will be more effective than one," Reason muttered.
"Four of us," Torrie corrected him swiftly.
"I think we can avoid a fight," I told the little warrior as Elaina and Samantha joined us. "But let's try to collect Walker and get going."
"What's wrong?" Samantha asked.
"Probably nothing," I answered. "Just follow my lead."
Torrie looked over her shoulder. "Where is Walker?"
A quick glance around the room told me he'd disappeared. So I gestured across the room at our hostess. "Let's talk to Olivia."
"What happened to our friend, Walker?" Reason asked when we reached the owner of Olander Scientific.
She waved a hand dismissively. "I sent him on a tour of the lab with one of my assistants," she claimed even though we hadn't seen anyone who looked like an assistant—only a couple of guards at the door and the army of chefs. "He's a science student so naturally he was interested. He won't be gone long."
"When do you expect the rest of the guests?" Reason asked next.
"Before I answer that question, I'd like to show you the conference room where your artwork will be hung," she answered and stepped from the room, motioning us to follow her. "We can close the doors and talk privately."
That wasn't exactly what we wanted to hear, or what we wanted to do. But we couldn't leave without Walker. So it looked like we were going to be her guests for at least a while longer.
She led the way down the carpeted corridor and stopped at a set of open doors where two more guards stood. "Go ahead and dismiss the chefs," she told one of the men then waited until he strode away. Turning on us again, she targeted the girls with her sharp gaze. "If you girls don't mind, I have some private business to discuss with Reason and his family. Why don't you wait in the library across the hall?"
I tightened my hold on Samantha's hand. There was no way I was going to let her be separated from me, and I knew my brothers felt the same way about Torrie and Elaina. Leaning through the conference room doors, I checked out the large, floor-to-ceiling windows on one wall and decided we'd be safe in the room. "Whatever you have to discuss can be shared with our lasses," I said easily.
"Okay," Olivia answered doubtfully. "I hope you're sure about that."
"We're sure," Reason answered, almost growling.
"Oh yeah," Elaina added and caught Torrie's eye. "We're very sure, aren't we girls?"
"Way sure," Torrie answered.
"Quite sure," Samantha chimed in, playing along.
"Suit yourselves," Olivia finally granted, stepping through the doors. "Gentlemen, take a seat," she said, and closed the big doors behind us while we found places in the dark blue leather chairs at the conference table.
But Olivia didn't sit down with us. Instead, she picked up a marker and went to work on the big whiteboard hanging on the wall, scrawling off a long string of letters and numbers. I slanted a questioning look at Samantha.
"Chemical formulas," she murmured.
Finally, Olivia turned to face us. "Gentlemen, I'd like to make you the offer of a lifetime."
"So…this isn't about my art," Reason suggested, growling again.
"No," she answered with a low murmur of laughter that might have been charming to anyone other than a gargoyle. She braced her hands on the table. "It's not about your art even though you are a very promising young artist and your work will hang in these offices. But I don't think you'll be disappointed because this is about a billion dollar opportunity."
The way everything was going down was making me skeptical as well as suspicious, and my brothers must have been thinking the same thing. But when we didn't jump at Olivia's bait, Elaina stepped in for us. "A billion dollars sounds good," she spoke up, her tone reasonable but her eyes glinting with mischief.
"Okay," Olivia answered, obviously disappointed that my brothers and I weren't buying what she was selling. "Then let me ask you this. What's the one thing people want most…besides eternal life?"
"Money?" Elaina suggested right away.
Olivia laughed softly. "That's a good guess, but you're wrong. The answer is beauty. Everyone wants to be beautiful."
"That was going to be my next guess," Elaina shot back and shared a grin with the rest of us.
Olivia lifted her hand in a dramatic gesture. "And up here on this board, I have the formula for the perfect beauty product."
"That's been done before," Elaina snickered, slumping down in her chair like she was disappointed with Olivia's grand billionaire plan.
"Not like this," Olivia answered, her icy gaze narrowing on Reason's girlfriend. "As of next week when the doors of this facility open, Olander Scientific is going into the cosmetics business."
Chaos rubbed a hand over his chin while he studied the whiteboard. "What does this have to do with us?" he asked, cutting to the chase.
Ms. Olander stepped back over to the board and pointed at a clump of letters with numbers dangling beneath them. "In order to complete this formula, I need this compound right here. I know it exists in nature but haven't been able to recreate it in our labs. No matter what we do, we can't make the molecules connect."
"Again, what does that have to do with us?" Chaos pressed her with a drawl.
Olivia tapped her finger beneath the group of letters. "This is the scientific notation for gargoyle venom."
Chapter Seventeen
If a bomb had gone off next door, our reaction wouldn't have been more profound. It felt like all the air had been sucked from the room as all of us stopped breathing and stared at the monster in front of us. She knew. Olivia knew what we were. But how did she know? And how had she found us?
A slow smile crossed Olivia's face. "So your girlfriends know what you are. That…makes everything so much more convenient."
"Why do you say that?" Samantha asked quietly, thankfully filling the stunned silence while I watched Olivia's face and my mind raced. If I was going to figure out how much danger we were in, there were several important things I needed to know and Samantha's question gave me the time to organize my thoughts.
"What do you know about gargoyles?" I asked before Olivia could respond to Sam.
"I know they're a ancient breed that once shared the earth with humans," she answered. "I know there are very few left. I know they have wings and can fly. I know they can turn to stone and don't age during the time they spend in their stone forms."
Her nostrils flared as her tongue flicked quickly across her lips, and I caught a glimpse of a dark, pointed tip that looked disturbingly out of place on a human face. "I also know about this stuff here." She tapped on the board. "The blue stuff," she said almost reverently.
"And how did you find us?" I asked calmly.
She blinked like I'd jerked her out of some private fantasy. Then her expression cleared and she turned her smile on me again. "We can cover that later. What I want to know right now is, are you in?"
The rest of my pack waited for my reply.
"Why do you need gargoyle venom for your beauty product?" I asked, wondering if our girls had been right all along and the venom did make them prettier to other humans.
"It's the most power
ful beauty potion on earth," she answered.
"What makes you think that?"
"First hand experience," she answered, which didn't explain much. "But what I want to know is, are you in for a billion dollars?"
"We're…definitely interested," I answered. "Of course we'll want to discuss it privately among ourselves. Then I'm sure we'll have more questions."
"Well, I can't exactly take no for an answer," she said in a silky voice. "I've redesigned this entire facility for the development of a very exclusive, high-end beauty product. We go into production next week."
Her words sounded alarming like a threat and—knowing what the men who guarded the doors were like—my main focus was getting Sam and my pack safely out of there. It was time to turn on the charm. But it wouldn't be easy, and not only because I found Olivia utterly repellant. There were also Sam's feelings at stake. Because Sam wouldn't know what was going on. She'd just see me "coming on" to a beautiful woman. She'd never trust me—or any other guy—again for a long, long time.
I stood and locked my gaze on Olivia's black soulless eyes. "I can definitely appreciate where you're coming from," I told her, flashing her a reassuring smile as I sauntered toward her. "Why don't you and I talk about it some more…in private."
Her lips parted and her nostrils flared again, so I moved closer and leaned down to her ear. "I make all the decisions for the pack, anyhow," I said.
She smiled suddenly and looped her arm through mine, saying, "That's a wonderful idea."
And it was tragic—not to mention damn ironic—that I was back in the position of romancing a woman I didn't care about after finally escaping my history in the thirteenth century. A woman I loathed. But without removing my gaze from her face, I told my pack, "I'll be staying on with Olivia. You guys can get Samantha home for me."
I winced when I heard Samantha's gasp, knowing that my words would be like a slap in the face, knowing that after everything she'd been through with Nils she'd never trust me again. I hated to think of the pain I was putting her through, especially after the intimate moments we'd shared the day before. She didn't deserve this to happen to her. But I had to get her out of there. Even if it meant hurting her. And I had to protect my pack.
Victor Page 16