The second he killed the engine, she pushed off the bike. “You are such a complete dickhead of an asshole,” she muttered.
“I told you to hold on,” Jared said calmly, swinging off the bike and turning on Chalton. “Miss Temper here didn’t want to come, so I had to convince her.”
Ronni rounded on him, both hands on her too slender hips. “This is kidnapping, and you better believe I’m going to press charges on your ass.”
Theo grinned. “What in the world did I miss?”
“You’re an accessory, asshole,” Ronni snarled, her Columbian accent sharpening the words.
For a feisty brunette, she really was cute. Long hair, deep brown eyes, curvy figure. Not Chalton’s type, but if he remembered right, Jared had a thing for women from romantic countries. Spunky women.
Though by the thunderclouds gathering in his deep eyes, he didn’t have a thing for this one.
Chalton cleared his throat. “Ronni? Olivia is through that door taking a quick shower. I’m sure she’d like to see for herself that you’re all right.”
Ronni gave him one of the most scalding looks he’d ever received before lifting her head high and stomping through the room and out of sight. The apartment door slammed behind her hard enough to rattle the outside door.
“She’s ill,” Jared said, eyebrows raised.
“Yes. Heart problems,” Chalton said.
“I could smell it on her, but she sure as shit doesn’t let it slow her down,” Jared muttered, rubbing his jaw. “The girl knows how to hit.” Now he sounded impressed.
“Well, at least she’s a fighter. I’ve offered to mate her to save her life,” Chalton said, his gut aching.
Jared rocked back on size sixteen boots. “You smell of another female, brother. Planning a harem?”
“No.” He frowned. “Things have gotten a little out of hand.”
“Fuck. I leave you alone for one little century, and now you’ve got two women to mate. You know you can only mate one, right?” Jared drawled.
“Asshole,” Chalton said without heat. “Did you find the people who hired you to track down Olivia?”
Jared growled. “No. They seem to have disappeared, but don’t worry, I will find the bastards.” He turned toward Theo, who was watching the exchange with barely contained amusement. “Where the hell is our mother?”
Theo sobered. “No clue. She doesn’t check in with me any more than you, and she gets irritated if any of us get too overbearing.”
“I called her, but she hasn’t responded,” Chalton muttered.
“Me too,” Jared said.
Theo glanced at his phone. “She hasn’t called me back, either.” Then his phone buzzed, and he grinned. “There she is. She called me first.” Triumph lightened his hard face as he answered the phone. “Hi, Mom.” His smile disappeared, and he cut a look at his brothers. “Who the fuck is this?”
Chalton stopped breathing, his body settling into battle mode. “Record it,” he mouthed, charging closer to his brother as Jared did the same.
Theo nodded and hit a button on his phone. “Let me see her.” He glanced down at the phone, holding it out so they could all see their mother tied up, furious, in a chair.
Petey Libscombe came into view. The years hadn’t been good to him. His hair had thinned, very rare for a shifter. “You had to know I’d be coming.”
Chalton shrugged. “We figured you’d be out trying human balding cures.”
Theo snorted.
Petey growled low and stepped behind their mother. “As you can see, I’ve taken good care of your mommy. She’s at her little hidey-hole in the city, perfectly unharmed. Be here in an hour or I cut off her fucking head.” The picture went dark.
Theo turned and ran toward the apartment, stopping in the small living room and connecting the phone to the huge plasma television to bring up the recording for a wider view. Their mom slowly took form on the massive screen. “Where is her hidey-hole in the city?”
Chalton shook his head.
“No clue,” Jared said, his voice sounding like death on a promise.
Chalton growled. “I don’t understand. How can she have a place in the city we don’t know about? What does she do there?” He spoke with her several times a week, and not once had she mentioned a getaway place.
Theo ran through the video frame by frame. “Nothing here shows us where she is.” He froze the screen. Their mom sat, tied and gagged, on a purple office chair. A bookshelf lined the wall behind her, stacked high with tons and tons of books. Her brownish hair curled around her shoulders, and her dark eyes shot furious sparks.
Rage threatened to cut off Chalton’s ability to think, so he took several deep breaths to regain control. It was unthinkable, even in times of war, to go after females, and especially somebody’s mother.
“I’m going to cut off his nuts and feed them to his brother,” Jared said, his fingers curled into fists.
“His brother is in Morocco right now and probably not a part of this,” Theo muttered.
“Don’t care,” Jared responded.
Olivia walked out of the bedroom wearing a cute black yoga outfit that showed off her curves to perfection, leading a bewildered looking Ronni. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s all true. There are actually people who turn into animals, although I haven’t seen that happen yet. For now, it’s just vampires and the weird white-faced dudes.” She glanced up at the screen and stopped cold, her face going white. “What did you do?” she whispered.
Chalton frowned. “We didn’t do that.”
“I don’t understand.” She walked closer to the screen. “Why would anybody hurt Helen? Where is she? What’s going on?”
Shock clipped through Chalton. He grasped Olivia’s arm and flipped her around. “How do you know my mother’s name?”
Olivia’s mouth dropped open and then closed with a snap. “Your mother?”
“Yes.” Oh, he so did not like where this was going. “Again, how do you know her?”
Olivia pressed a hand to her stomach. “She’s my source for the story. I mean, everything I know about immortal species came from her.”
Olivia caught sight of Ronni’s too pale face and drew her forward to sit on the lone leather sofa in the barren room. Telling her about immortals had been more difficult than she’d thought. Maybe the innocuous living space would help calm her friend. The television took up one wall, the bedroom entry the other, pictures of airplanes the third, and behind them was a utilitarian kitchen.
Ronni sat, her hands trembling. “Those are not vampires. Vampires don’t exist.”
“Chalton?” Olivia called.
He eyed them, let his fangs drop, and then growled.
Ronni gasped.
Chalton rolled his eyes and let his fangs retract. “We have bigger issues right now to deal with. Why the hell did my mother give you proprietary information?”
Olivia shrugged, her mind spinning. “I don’t know. She called me up out of the blue, said she had read my articles about the North Platt labs using animals for testing, and that she had a great story for me. When we met, she gave me the first few documents about missing information.”
Chalton rocked back on his heels, thoughts scattering across his face. Dark-looking thoughts. He glared at Jared. “Any ideas?”
“None I like having,” Jared retorted, crossing arms that looked firmer than steel and twice as strong. “Theo?”
“Dunno.” Theo shrugged.
“Considering our mother basically committed treason against, well, everybody…maybe we should figure this out,” Chalton snapped.
Jared shook his head. “If the Realm finds out about this, they’ll cut off her head.”
“No, they won’t,” Chalton returned.
“Oh yeah? Why the hell not?” Jared hissed.
Chalton rose to his full height. “Because Dage Kayrs is my friend, and you don’t cut off the head of your friend’s mother.” By the time he finished the sentence, he was yelling
.
“Bullshit,” Jared yelled back, stepping within punching distance.
“You have always had a hard-on for the Realm, and it’s time you fucking made peace,” Chalton bellowed.
Jared grabbed him by the lapels and leaned in. “I don’t give a shit about the Realm and never have. So long as they stay out of my way, I’m fine.”
“They’ve never been in your way,” Chalton yelled into his brother’s face, arms shooting up to break the hold. Every inch of his body wanted a brawl, and he braced to take the punch that was no doubt coming.
“Stop it right now,” Olivia yelled, her voice much higher than theirs.
They both stopped, their heads swinging to look at her.
She stood and planted her hands on her hips. “Far as I can tell, the last time you got into it, you didn’t speak for a hundred fucking years. So how about this time you work together, get your mom back, and act like brothers?” Her voice rose high enough at the last that Chalton winced.
“Your woman is loud,” Jared said, backing up to sit next to Ronni on the sofa.
“I am not his woman,” Olivia screamed, her face turning red.
Ronni cleared her throat. “It kind of seems like you are.” When Olivia swung an irritated look back at her, she shrugged. “Well, it does.”
“I can’t be,” Olivia whispered.
Ronni smiled at her and turned that smile on Chalton. “Hey, so I appreciate the offer of mating and all of that, even though I think you’re all certifiable. But I am so not mating the guy my best friend loves. Sorry.”
“I don’t love him,” Olivia snapped.
“Yes, you do,” Chalton bit out. It was one thing to play hard to get or to take time to figure out feelings, but no way was she going to lie out loud to him. “It happens fast with vampires, so deal with it.”
“What about Ronni?” she asked, pain slicing through her. “She’ll die.”
Ronni reached up and tugged Olivia down to sit. “We all die.” Then she glanced around the room. “Okay, maybe not. But most of us do.” She frowned and glanced sideways at Jared. “Is this possibly a trick? The whole vampire thing?”
He lifted an eyebrow and let his fangs slide out. “Feel.”
She gingerly reached out and ran a finger down the wicked canine. “Feels real.”
It retracted.
She leaned away from him. “You’re sure you won’t suck all my blood out and turn me into the undead?”
Jared rolled his eyes. “Jesus.”
Chalton glanced at their helpless mother on the screen. “We have got to find her place in the city.”
Olivia cleared her throat. “Um. I know where that is. It’s actually my private office in the city. I gave Helen a key because she wanted a quiet place to go, and we arranged for her to leave me information there for the story. It’s where my laptop and all my notes are hidden.”
More tension roared through the room, and Olivia fought the very real urge to run like hell. “I can, uh, draw a diagram of the building and outlying area, if you’d like.”
Chalton nodded, his eyes black orbs of pure fury. “Is there any chance our mother told you why she decided to betray the immortal world?”
Olivia cleared her throat, trying to remain calm. “Um, no. She didn’t mention she was immortal.”
“No reason at all for giving up the information?” Jared asked, tension cutting lines in the side of his mouth.
“She just said that she had information that had to get out there, and that the researchers behind the studies had all disappeared. She felt that the medical advancements being hidden could be an impressive help with human illnesses.” Olivia smoothed her hands down the thick yoga pants.
“So she knew about Ronni,” Jared drawled. “She used your motivation against you.”
“I think she really wanted to help,” Olivia countered.
“Did she mention us?” Theo asked, rubbing his jaw.
Olivia shook her head. “Your mom looks about forty years old, so if she’d mentioned three grown sons, it would’ve been a red flag, don’t you think?”
“Good point,” Chalton said grimly. “All right. I’ll contact the Realm and get satellite imaging going for the building, while you start diagraming.”
Jared pushed to his feet. “You know this is a trap, right?”
“Right.” Chalton nodded. “Definite trap.”
Olivia stood and then faltered. “If it’s a trap, how can you go in?”
“It’s our mom,” Chalton said. “No choice. So let’s get as prepared as possible.”
Well, that was just fantastic. What could go wrong?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Olivia ignored her extremely pissed off lover and kept flush against the building, adrenaline shooting through her veins faster than a motorcycle at full throttle. A gun lay heavy at her back beneath a buttery-soft leather jacket, and a knife scratched against her calf inside a badass leather boot.
Chalton’s mom knew how to dress apparently.
Ronni, similarly armed, nudged her. “I’m thinking we’re idiots for coming,” she whispered.
Olivia swallowed down bile. “I know.” Yet she was a journalist, and stories sometimes became dangerous. She started this one, and she’d by damn finish it.
Chalton cut her a look from across the doorway of the older brick building. He’d ordered her to stay at the warehouse, but both she and Ronni had insisted on coming. When he’d decided just to tie them up, Theo had intervened, saying that they had a right to finish this out, too.
Jared had agreed with tying them up, his gaze remaining pretty hot on Ronni.
But the satellite pictures with heat signatures illustrated that Petey was long gone from the office. The pictures showed a lot of people in the vicinity but no guns. Well, no visible guns. They could be hidden, and Petey might be nearby ready to strike.
Chalton was a different man in battle. Hard, cold, and meticulous…completely banishing the lover who’d rocked her world last night. For the first time, she could see the assassin he used to be.
No doubt he’d kill to protect his mother, but Olivia said a quick prayer that he wouldn’t have to do so. What would that do to him?
He gave some weird hand signal. Jared nodded and yanked open the quiet green door, while Theo tensed behind Ronni.
Chalton went in first, Jared second, then Olivia hustled after him, trusting Theo to protect Ronni. Even now, her breathing was labored behind Olivia.
There had to be some way to save her.
Jared lifted some cool-looking scope down the hallway and gave a quick nod. Several doorways lined the way, all to small offices, all seemingly quiet since it was Sunday.
They reached the third office on the left, and Jared pointed the scope at the door. Olivia stood up on her tiptoes to see the readout, which showed the heat signature of one person tied up on a chair. A smaller person. It had to be Helen.
Jared meticulously ran the scope around to see the entire office. No heat signatures…no other people.
Olivia breathed a sigh of relief. Okay. So the trap wasn’t inside.
“They’ll be waiting when we leave,” Chalton whispered.
Jared nodded. “I have men closing in on the area. If there’s a threat, they’ll find it.”
“The shifters are still an hour out, but they’ll be here as soon as possible,” Chalton said, having called for more backup the second they’d formed a plan.
“If Petey is around here, waiting to take a shot, he’s mine,” Jared said.
Chalton shook his head. “Whoever has the shot can take it.”
“It won’t be a shot, and you’ve come too far to return to darkness,” Jared said.
Chalton studied him but didn’t answer. “Ready for go?”
Jared’s face hardened even more and he nodded.
“Ready,” Theo said, his voice strong and determined.
Olivia tensed, ready to jump inside and do something. Anything. Okay. Duck and cover.
Chalton kicked the door in and went in low, while Jared went in high. Theo covered Olivia and Ronni in the hall.
“Clear,” Chalton called out.
Olivia ran inside just as he was gingerly removing the gag from Helen’s mouth.
“Get out,” Helen screamed, struggling furiously with her bindings, tears streaming down her face. “Now. Go.”
The door slammed shut behind Theo, and he turned to pound on the heavy oak. An explosion rippled through the hallway outside, and ceiling tiles rained down in the office.
Chalton drew a knife from his boot to cut his mother’s bindings.
Jared rushed for the window.
“Stop. It’s wired,” Helen hissed.
Jared slowed down and peered up and then surveyed the windowsill. “Yep. Wired from the outside.”
Ronni hitched to his side and bent down to survey the outside sill. “Mercury lever. If we lift the window or even try to break the glass, the vibrations will make it blow.”
Jared glanced down at her.
Ronni shrugged. “I haven’t always been dying, you know.”
“You work with a bomb squad?” Jared asked.
Ronni scoffed. “No. I’m a police shrink. But the job gives me access to tons of different classes, and bombs are interesting.”
“Can you diffuse one?” Jared asked.
“No.” Ronni blanched. “Sorry.”
Helen stood and was instantly enfolded by Chalton. She shoved him. “What are you three doing here? It’s a trap. You had to know it’s a trap.”
“Of course it’s a trap,” Chalton said, gingerly touching a bruise at her hairline. “Are you all right?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m fine. I’m just bait, you know.” Irritation wrinkled her forehead. Then she caught sight of Olivia. “Oh no. What in the world are you doing here?” Rushing forward, she gathered Olivia in a lilac-scented hug.
“I came to help save you.” Olivia returned the hug and then levered back to study the shorter woman. Since Olivia’s parents had died when she’d been young, she’d enjoyed the maternal comfort provided by Helen. “So. There’s quite a bit you didn’t tell me.”
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