Bound by Danger (The Alliance, Book 6)

by Brenda K. Davies

  And he was continuing to tear it apart, he realized with a sick sensation in his stomach. He was ordering her about, locking her way, and keeping her from doing the only thing she’d asked of him since arriving here. All he wanted was to keep her safe, but he was breaking her in the process.

  Rising, he crossed over to sit beside her. When she didn’t stop him or tell him to get away, he hugged her against his chest. Lowering his head to hers, he rested his cheek on top of her hair.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. When he got the chance, he’d find this Carter and tear his spine out through his mouth, but he kept that to himself. “It never should have happened.”

  Callie didn’t say anything as she curled into him. In his arms, she could almost forget the nightmare Carter unleashed on her life.

  He kissed the top of her head and inhaled her sweet scent. “We’ll go get your things tomorrow. I’ll see if some of the others can join us, and we’ll cordon off an area to keep an eye out for Savages. If we go in the day, we should be safe.”

  It had been long enough; if the Savages had ever watched her place, they’d most likely given up by now. He was being overprotective, but he couldn’t stand the idea of losing her like he lost Coralie. If he could change her….

  He shut the thought down; he was losing it, but after what she revealed, he wouldn’t push her to join him. She’d been pushed around enough by Carter without him doing it too; she had to decide in her own time and way.

  He could and would control himself until then. Even as he considered it, the demon part of him stirred. It didn’t want to be denied what it craved so badly, but it didn’t have a choice. He would wait until she was ready.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Anything for you,” he said as he kissed the tip of her nose.

  Warmth and love flooded her as she hugged him.

  CHAPTER 34

  They went to her apartment the next day but didn’t go inside. Instead, they set up a perimeter around the three-story, blue building and watched for any sign of Savages from four different SUVs. Declan and Willow were in one vehicle on the other side of the block. Saber, Logan, and Asher were in another SUV.

  Killean and Simone were on the other side of the block, but they were soon leaving to return to the motel and rest before coming back to relieve someone else from their watch. Callie stared at the building four houses down and diagonally across the street. With its fresh coat of blue paint and white shutters, it was cheery.

  She clearly remembered the day she moved in. She’d stared up at the building with a box in hand while she welcomed the fresh start it offered.

  That fresh start was over, but as she reached across the console to rest her hand on Lucien’s thigh, she realized she had a new fresh start ahead of her. “When this is over, I want you to change me.”

  Lucien tore his attention away from the quiet, suburban street to focus on her. His heart hammered with excitement as his fangs tingled, but he maintained control. “Are you sure?”

  She smiled. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. I want this, Lucien, and I want you for eternity.”

  He still hadn’t spoken of love, but she knew he loved her. Some people, or vampires, had a tougher time with the words, and given his history, she understood why. His actions spoke of his love, and that was enough for her.

  His hand clasped hers, and their fingers entwined as he squeezed it before bringing it to his mouth and kissing her knuckles. He suddenly wanted to charge into that building, throw all her things in boxes, and get out of here. The sooner they were home, the sooner she would be his.

  The phone rang, and Lucien hit a button on the screen in the center of the dashboard. “Hello,” he said.

  “We’re going back to the hotel,” Killean said gruffly. “We’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “We’ll see you then.”

  Lucien disconnected and settled back in his seat. At first, they didn’t speak, but after a while, they passed the time by telling stories of their childhoods. Then they played a trivia game on her phone, and finally, Callie fell asleep with her head on his lap.

  He stroked her silken hair as he studied the building and searched for any sign of Savages or their cronies lurking nearby. He didn’t see any sign of them.

  Killean relieved them a few hours later, and they returned to the hotel where they slept, made love, and showered before returning to relieve Saber, Logan, and Asher. The night and the next day progressed in the same way. They rotated a few more times before all agreeing they believed it was safe to enter the apartment.

  At nine o’clock the following morning, when the sun was high in the sky, Lucien pulled the SUV into her parking spot. The others remained spread out around the block, keeping an eye on the apartment.

  He and Callie would go inside to pack her things. When they finished, the others would help them remove her boxes, and they would leave. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.

  They planned to take a few days to return home, but this would soon be over, and she would soon be his forever. Lucien could barely contain his excitement over that as he turned off the vehicle. He glanced over at Callie as she craned her neck to look up toward her floor.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “Yes. This won’t take long. I’m only getting the things that are important to me.”

  She didn’t plan to take any furniture. There was no need for it at the mansion, and it would only slow them down.

  She opened her door and climbed out. It was still morning, but the heat of the July day and the thick, muggy air made breathing difficult. She was still staring at the building when Lucien walked around the vehicle and took her hand.

  Her fingers entwined with his as she led the way to the front door; she couldn’t wait for this to be over so they could go home and she could join him. She was excited to start this new journey in her life.

  When they arrived at the steps, she released his hand and lifted a rock from the bed beside the stairs. She examined the fake stone and pulled free the key her neighbor hid inside. At first, she hated the idea of that key being there when the woman showed it to her. Now, she was glad her neighbor hid it there.

  She used the key to unlock the front door before returning it and leading Lucien into the building. A set of stairs rose before them and turned a corner before disappearing. The stairs were too narrow to walk side by side, so he led the way up them.

  There was one apartment on each floor, and they climbed to the second before continuing onto the third. The stairs ended with her door only a few feet away from them. She didn’t have a key for this door; she lost it in the chaos of her abduction and flight for her life, but Lucien pressed his shoulder against the wood, grasped the knob, and shoved the door open.

  The wood splintered and cracked before the frame gave way and the door swung open. The stale air hit her immediately. She hadn’t been home in almost a month, and the place had been locked up the entire time. Maybe the police or some of her friends had searched it, but she saw no evidence of that as she peered inside.

  Though it was mid-June when she left, she’d closed all the windows before going out to the bar. It had been raining when she left, and she didn’t want to return to wet floors. However, June had given way to July, which had brought a stifling heat and oppressive air to the apartment.

  Sweat was already beading on her forehead when Callie stepped into her living room. She made it a few feet before Lucien cleared his throat, and she turned back to him.

  “You have to invite me in,” he told her.

  “Oh,” she said and gave a nervous laugh. “I forgot about that. Come on in and enjoy the sauna.”

  He smiled as he crossed the threshold and closed the broken door the best he could. Callie strode over to open one of the two windows facing the street. She pushed aside her sheer blue curtains, undid the latch, and shoved at the window. It took some effort to get the swollen wood to budge, but she finally got it
to slide open.

  While she worked on that, Lucien opened the other window. The muggy air coming through the windows did nothing to cool the place off, but it alleviated some of the staleness choking the apartment.

  Lucien studied the living room with its gray sofa and matching armchair. A fluffy, cream-colored carpet covered the floor, and across from the sofa sat an entertainment center with a TV on top. Next to the sofa was an end table with a nearly empty glass of water on it.

  Photos of horses, a farm, and a man hugging a child, who on closer inspection turned out to be Callie, hung on the beige walls. Another photo of a group of women hugging each other was on the entertainment center.

  Callie was one of the women, and he assumed they were at an outdoor concert as a crowd surrounded them and there was a stage in the background. Different colors of paint splashed their bodies and faces. The glow-in-the-dark necklaces they wore illuminated their grins as dusk settled in behind them.

  This is the life she’s lost, he realized with a sad pang in his chest. He was so glad he’d found her, she was the best thing to ever happen to his life, but whereas she’d only made his life better, she was losing so much.

  He lifted his head as she walked over to the end table. She was so incredibly beautiful and though she’d lost so much, she didn’t complain about it or cry and rail against the unfairness of it all. His heart swelled with love, and the words rose in his throat but died on his lips. He’d never uttered the words before, and he didn’t know how to do so now.

  Callie lifted the water glass from the end table and carried it into the kitchen. Remodeled in the early two thousands, the house retained some of its oldness in the kitchen cabinets. Because of their quaintness, she’d painted the wood around them a darker green while making the doors a paler green.

  The contrasting tones helped emphasize the country feel of the kitchen, as did her fluffy, yellow curtains. She hated giving up her rented home for an apartment, so she’d done everything to make this place feel like home when she moved in, and she loved it.

  She set the glass in the sink and opened the window above it before crossing the yellow, tiled floor to the back door. She checked the lock before peering out at the stairs winding down to the backyard.

  There were three sheds down there; hers was the one to the right. She’d only lived here for a couple of months, and she’d stored all her containers inside the shed when she finished unpacking them. They would come in handy now.

  She turned to find Lucien studying the built-in shelves in the kitchen. A delicate, old tea set with a red rose pattern decorated the shelves.

  “That was my grandmother’s,” she said. “It was one of the few things my father kept after they passed. Apparently, it belonged to her mom.”

  And it’s one of the reasons she was so insistent upon coming back here, Lucien realized.

  Next to the shelves was a small table with chairs surrounding it. Only one chair wasn’t pushed neatly into the table. Everywhere he looked, he saw Callie in this place. It was warm and inviting, like her.

  He followed her through the doorway off the kitchen and into a small room with a desk. A computer sat on the desk, and a printer was tucked under it. Wooden shelves lined the room. Books on animal anatomy with a focus on horses filled the shelves, but others were for fun.

  He followed her through another doorway and into her bedroom. There, he discovered a queen-sized bed with a yellow bedspread pulled neatly over the top of it and some fluffy pillows on top of it. Hanging over the bed was a painting of a horse running toward them. Across from the bed was another entertainment center with a small TV on top.

  The walls were pale yellow, and the curtains an emerald green. Callie walked around, opening the windows while he studied the shelves. One of them held an assortment of mystery books while the other was dedicated solely to various carved, wooden horses.

  He crossed the room and lifted one of the horses to inspect it more closely. His fingers ran over the smooth lines of the statue as he traced the mane and tail flying behind it as if the horse were racing across an open plain.

  The one he held was painted black, but the others were an assortment of colors and in a different array of positions. Some were rearing, others were bucking, some were lying down, and one was a mother with its foal tucked against her side as they lay together.

  “My father made those for me,” Callie said as she came to stand beside him.

  Lucien turned his attention to her as she lifted another horse from the shelf. The one she held had its chin tucked into its chest and its front legs high as if it were prancing across the ground. It was brown with a black mane, tail, and legs. She turned it over and pointed to a small, red stain on its belly.

  “This is the first one he ever made me, and he cut his finger while doing it. The cut required six stitches. I didn’t know he was making it until he gave it to me for my eighth birthday. I remember asking him how he injured his hand and him telling me that he cut it on a piece of glass. I figured it out after he gave it to me and I discovered his blood had seeped through the paint.” She set it carefully back on the shelf. “It’s priceless to me.”

  Her expression was stoic, but the love in her words was palpable. He should have brought her here sooner. “You should have told me about these.”

  “Was I supposed to say that I want to risk my life for my horse statues?”

  “Yes, because they’re more than that to you.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d understand.”

  He rested his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. “I do. But you have to understand that you are priceless to me.”

  Callie couldn’t stop her lower lip from trembling, and a single tear slid free. She hadn’t considered it possible, but she fell more in love with him. When Lucien hugged her, she clung to him while she regained control of her emotions.

  Lucien rested his chin on her head and held her close as he studied the room. There were more pictures of her with her father, along with photos of her riding horses and her friends at concerts and the beach. There was one of them dressed in matching, yellow dresses while holding bouquets and standing beside a pretty woman in her wedding dress.

  There was also one of her sitting on the lap of a woman who could only be her mother as the resemblance was striking. He suspected it might be the only photo she had of her mother. Yes, she definitely needed to come back here to get her things, but he had to keep her protected.

  “We should get moving,” he said.

  Callie reluctantly released him, and stepping back, she wiped away the tears still filling her eyes. Nodding, she glanced around the room. It wouldn’t take her long to pack.

  CHAPTER 35

  “I have some containers in my shed out back,” she said.

  “I’ll go get them.”

  “It’s shed number three. The key to the padlock is in the kitchen.”

  She left the bedroom through the door to the living room and walked into the kitchen, where she opened a drawer and removed the key. She handed the key to him, and he kissed her forehead before slipping out the back door and descending the stairs to the backyard.

  Callie watched him stride across the grass toward her shed. She turned away when he slid the key into the lock and entered the bathroom connected to her kitchen. Pushing open the door, she examined the small room. It was exactly as she’d left it, right down to her toothbrush sitting in its cup.

  She used the bathroom before returning to her bedroom. Standing in the doorway, she examined her things and the room with a lump in her throat. She loved Lucien, and she was excited about the next journey in her life, but she’d been happy here even if her landlord was a bit of an ass.

  With a sigh, she wiped the tears from her eyes. She would be happy at the compound too.

  She strode over to the closet, opened the doors, and removed the clothes hanging. She set them neatly on the bed. Next, she opened her drawers and emptied the contents. Lucien returned as she was using o
ne of her sweaters to wrap a horse.

  She took one of the rugged, black containers from his hands and set it on the bed to remove the yellow lid. He placed the other two on the floor. As if she were handling a newborn baby, she tucked the wrapped horse carefully inside.

  She used more of her clothes to wrap the horses and as padding between each of them. When she finished, the containers he’d brought her were full.

  “I’ll get you some more,” he offered as he set the last picture he’d removed from the wall on her bed.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She started enveloping the pictures in her clothes while he left the apartment. When she got to the photo of her and her mother, she lifted it to study it. She only had a few memories of her mom, but they were of a vibrant woman whose laughter was full of life.

  Her most vivid memory of her mother was from the day this photo was taken. It was one of the rare times her mother was sober, and she’d arranged to visit Callie after months of being away. They went school shopping, got manicures, and had their hair cut and styled. Then they got their picture taken at this studio in the mall before going for ice cream.

  Callie remembered her eyes crossing when the woman behind the counter handed her the biggest strawberry sundae she’d ever seen. The whipped cream oozing off the side of it covered her hands by the time they walked to one of the picnic benches next to the building.

  Her father would never let her eat the entire sundae, but her mother handed her a spoon and told her to enjoy it. Excited by the idea of all that sugar, she managed to polish off every last drop. Her mother laughed when Callie sat back, put her hand on her belly, and burped up ice cream and strawberries.

  It was one of the best days of her life. She laughed so much, and she felt free and happy as she rode beside her mother in a red Mustang convertible her mom borrowed from a friend.

  The wind had whipped through her hair as they rode with the top down. With the radio blasting, they sang together at the top of their lungs. When they went up and down hills, Callie threw her hands in the air and yelled like she was riding a roller coaster.