by Paige Tyler
Jake had been close to losing his mind while Zane had been on the verge of throwing up for the past few hours. Neither of them would say it out loud, but the idea that the people they cared about might already be dead was more than they could handle. Zane tried to convince himself he’d know if Alyssa was hurt—or worse. That the bond they had between them would tell him something like that. But the truth was, he didn’t know that for sure. After the way he and Alyssa had left things at the club, he wasn’t even sure they still had a bond.
That was why he, Rachel, Diego, and Jake had come up with this crazy plan. He’d walk right in and hope security would take him downstairs, where he could find Alyssa and the others, all while keeping things from getting out of hand before backup arrived. As plans went, it was so far beyond dangerous it wasn’t even in the same zip code, but it was better than waiting around and hoping for the best.
As he came to a stop in front of the security desk, he wondered if any of the people visiting Black Swan Enterprises ever noticed how many heavily armed security guards were employed there. Certainly way more than one would normally expect to see at an international finance-and-investing conglomerate.
“I’m here to talk to Dario Casteel and Stefan Curtis,” Zane said casually.
“Nobody sees either of those gentlemen without an appointment,” the man said, not bothering to look up from his computer. “And you don’t have one.”
Zane put his hands on the counter with a growl and leaned closer. “Oh, I’m sure they’re going to want to see me. Tell them I’m waiting at the front desk.”
That got the man’s attention. He looked up quickly, face pale. Zane bared his fangs, letting his eyes flash gold.
The guard shoved back his chair and got to his feet so fast the thing almost toppled over. He reached for the gun at his hip with one hand, grabbing the two-way radio off his belt with the other. His movements drew the attention of the other guards in the lobby, and they converged on Zane, weapons drawn.
Behind him, Zane heard gasps followed by a flurry of movement as the other people in the lobby gave them some space. That was probably a smart move. They couldn’t see his extended fangs or glowing eyes, but they sure as hell could tell something serious was about to go down.
Zane pinned the guard behind the desk with a look. “You might want to get Dario on that radio. Now.”
The man stared at him, sweat beading on his brow and migrating all the way up to his receding hairline. Clipping his radio on his belt, he took a mobile phone out of his suit jacket and dialed with a trembling hand.
“Mr. Casteel, it’s Edwin at the front desk,” he said nervously, his voice low. “Sir, there’s a werewolf in the lobby asking to see you and Mr. Curtis.”
The security guard on Zane’s left thumbed his radio, urgently requesting all available security personnel to come to the lobby. Two other guards hurriedly cleared the lobby, rushing people outside. Apparently, no one trusted Zane not to attack Dario and his human sidekick. He couldn’t help but smile at that.
While killing both assholes in the middle of the lobby of Black Swan Enterprises sounded like fun, he was more thrilled about the security guards focusing all their attention in his direction. That would give Jake a better chance to slip in a back door and hopefully give him a chance to find out where Alyssa and the twins were being held without anyone seeing him. If they were really lucky, it might even give the other werewolf time to grab Alyssa and the girls and get them the hell out of there.
Zane smelled the stench of dirt and death even before the doors of the middle elevator opened and Dario stepped out, Stefan at his heels. Dario had a fresh silk shirt that was minus the bullet holes, but other than that, the vampire still looked as pale and cold as he had last night.
As the vampire walked toward Zane, he stepped into a band of bright sunlight streaming through one of the windows. Unfortunately, Dario didn’t burst into flames, and Zane had to grudgingly admit Davina had been right. Sunlight wouldn’t burn these things to a crisp.
“How’re those ribs, chap?” Zane asked, giving Dario a smile. “I know for a fact I heard a few of them crack when I kicked the shit out of you during our little scrum.”
“I’m in one piece, as you can see. Which is more than anyone will be able to say about you soon.” Mouth curving, the vampire lifted a hand and wiped a thumb across his lips. “By the way, I have to compliment you on your taste in mates. I had a little sip before coming up here and she was exquisite.”
Zane moved before he even realized what he was doing. Snarling, he closed the distance between him and Dario in two strides, white-hot rage burning through his veins. Reaching out, he wrapped his right hand around the vampire’s neck and squeezed until he heard vertebrae crack. His back bunched up, the wolf inside struggling so hard to get free he thought he might drop to the floor on all fours.
Every security guard in the lobby moved in close, their weapons trained on Zane. He ignored them, lifting Dario off his feet and tightening his grip around the vampire’s throat. The only thought in his head was killing this fucking monster.
But Dario simply reached up and put one hand around Zane’s wrist, prying Zane’s fingers away from his neck with his other hand until he dropped to the floor with an amused expression on his face.
“You can’t choke a vampire to death,” he said calmly, waving the trigger-happy guards back, then making a show of popping his neck. “We don’t need to breathe that often. Side effect of not be able to produce our own blood cells, which is an advantage when you live in a city that has as much smog as LA.”
Bloody hell. He hadn’t thought of that.
“You might not breathe much, but something tells me it would hurt like hell if I kept crushing until your head popped off,” Zane said. “I know from personal experience that vampires don’t function well with nothing but a stump above their shoulders. Like those two vampires in the club last night. Hope they weren’t friends of yours.”
Dario bared his teeth, his lifeless eyes going completely black as he took a step forward, but Stefan chose that moment to interrupt, as if he was bored with all the monster testosterone he and Dario were dumping into the air.
“I’m not sure who the fuck you are or what you’re doing in this town, but you’re trespassing on private property,” Stefan said. “I could have you shot right now, and no one would care. I have a hundred witnesses that will back me up when I say you were threatening us. And before you make some stupid comment about being hard to kill, I’m sure there’s enough firepower here to do the job.”
Zane growled. “Maybe, but by then I would have taken out a dozen people in here, starting with you.”
It might have been an exaggeration, especially if they went for a head shot, but Stefan didn’t need to know that.
Apparently, he wasn’t aware of it being an exaggeration because he went white as a ghost.
Dario, on the other hand, chuckled. “I have to wonder if the death toll would be as high if they shot you with those wolfsbane bullets my coven spent so much money developing.”
Zane resisted the urge to laugh. Those wolfsbane bullets sucked for sure, but the Pack’s doctor had come up with an antidote for it months ago, then created a vaccine to protect Zane and every other werewolf in Dallas.
But again, the bad guys didn’t need to know that.
“I guess you’re just going to have to shoot me and find out,” Zane said, baring his fangs and growling again, making the guards closest to him back up. He smirked. “I didn’t think so. Now, where is Alyssa? And if you did more than ‘take a sip,’ as you put it, I will kill you.”
Dario thoughtfully regarded Zane for a moment before giving him a nod. “If you’ll follow us, we’ll take you to see her. I assure you that your mate is perfectly fine.”
Stefan looked surprised at that but didn’t say anything.
Every instinct Zane had warned him that this was a suicide mission. But he hadn’t expected anything less. Going anywhere with
Dario was foolish, and while he didn’t believe for a minute that the vampire would take him to Alyssa, if there was even a chance, he’d take it.
Zane motioned toward the elevators. “After you.”
“Of course,” Dario said. “As long as you agree to handcuffs. I can’t have anyone so dangerous roaming free in the building.”
Mouth twitching, Zane let his fangs retract and put his hands behind his back, ignoring the twinge of pain in his left arm at the movement. “I’d expect nothing less.”
He was a werewolf. It wasn’t like he was concerned about something as flimsy as handcuffs.
* * *
Zane tried to pick up Alyssa’s or the twins’ scents the moment they stepped off the elevator onto the fourth sublevel, but the vampire stench was so overwhelming down there he couldn’t smell a damn thing—not even himself.
As they led him down the long, dimly lit stone corridors of the coven nest, he wondered who the hell did the decorating for these vampires. Whoever it was obviously didn’t believe in light bulbs. They also seemed to have a fetish for antique tapestries. Every frigging wall he’d passed so far was covered floor to ceiling with the heavy textiles, most of them so faded he couldn’t even make out any of the details. The only thing missing were torches on the walls. Then again, open flames would probably be dangerous with all the material around.
Dario was just ahead of him, Stefan was slightly to the left, and an army of nervous security guards followed behind them. Zane didn’t make it obvious, but he moved slower than he usually did, trying to avoid putting any stress on his left arm. Normally, handcuffs wouldn’t bother him—not that he wore them very often—but these weren’t normal cuffs. Since werewolves were significantly stronger than normal people, Dario had ended up having his men slap what felt like two-inch-thick manacles on him. The damn things were tight as hell and weighed a ton, biting into his wrists and dragging his arms down like an anchor. His injured arm was throbbing like a son of a bitch.
Zane was still trying to hide his discomfort when they walked through a set of huge double doors leading into a theater, complete with more of those damn wall hangings. There were maybe seventy-five vampires there, male and female, ranging in age from young to very, very old, all dressed up like they were going to the opera. Many glanced his way, curiosity in their lifeless, black eyes. At least a dozen men stood guard around the theater perimeter, all of them carrying weapons. Mingling in the crowd were young, attractive men and women in service garb, expressionless and glassy eyed as they carried trays of food and drink.
But everything faded into the background when Zane spotted Alyssa perched uncomfortably on a chair on the dais at the front of the theater. Relief coursed through him when he saw that she wasn’t injured. Dario hadn’t lied about that at least. Zoe and Chloe were up there, too, as well as three other women he recognized as the missing people Alyssa had been looking for. Even his former boss, Randy Curtis, was there.
He barely paid attention to anyone else as Alyssa caught sight of him and jumped to her feet. The guard closest to her grabbed her arm, refusing to let her go anywhere.
Zane’s heart pumped faster, his fangs and claws extending, his hands clenching and unclenching with the desire to tear apart the man holding her. Then he caught sight of the two small puncture wounds on the inside of her left wrist. The muscles of his back began to twist again at the urge to throw himself onto all fours and race across the room to reach her side.
He strode forward, uncaring that Dario was in front of him, but the guards that had been behind him quickly moved to block his path, shoving the barrels of their guns in his face. He knew trying to charge forward was stupid, but with Alyssa in danger, he simply couldn’t think straight.
Zane kicked out with his right leg, sending two of the guards flying. The crowd of vampires hurriedly backed away, no longer curious but fearful as they realized there was a hated werewolf in their midst. Throughout the theater, he heard weapons being locked and loaded, red laser dots appearing all over his chest as the security guards around the room sighted in on him.
He heard Alyssa’s breath hitch in terror. Zane looked up to see her staring at him, panic-stricken, two guards holding her back now. He growled long and low, prepared to do whatever he had to do to get to her.
But just when it looked like he was about to get shot, Dario strode up behind the cluster of antsy guards blocking his way, waving them aside. “Let the mongrel go to his mate. I did promise him I’d let him see her after all. We have time before the ritual begins.”
The human guards didn’t seem to like it, especially the two he’d kicked to the floor, but they obediently stepped aside and let Zane continue on his way to the stage. The men holding Alyssa reluctantly let her go and she jumped down from the dais and ran to meet him. Behind her, Zoe and Chloe made a move to join them, but the two men who’d been holding Alyssa grabbed them. Before Zane could wonder too much about what the hell Alyssa and the other women were doing up there and what this ritual Dario had mentioned was about, she was in front of him, fear and anxiety pouring off her in waves.
“How did they capture you?” she asked softly.
She scanned him up and down like she was checking for injuries before she looked around him to take in the heavy cuffs biting into his wrists. But then her attention quickly moved on, one hand gliding up his injured left arm to caress the scar through the material of his jacket, like she somehow knew it was bothering him. He almost sighed in relief as the pain he’d been experiencing faded immediately. How the hell was she able to do that?
“It’s not like I made it difficult for them,” he said quietly, resisting the urge to lean forward and bury his face in the curve of her neck so he could breathe her all in. “I walked in the front door of the lobby upstairs and gave myself up. I really don’t think they trust me, though. Hence the cuffs.”
For a moment, he thought Alyssa was going to berate him for doing something so damn stupid, but then she sighed, continuing to massage the scar tissue that largely composed his left bicep.
“That was foolish,” she murmured, leaning close to him as if trying to keep the words from being overheard by all the vampires around them. He didn’t know how keen their hearing was, so he wasn’t sure if it mattered or not. “They’re going to use the other women and me in a ritual to turn Stefan into a vampire.”
Fear shot through him. He’d kill every last one of the bloody creatures. “Like hell they are.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “Why didn’t you stay away, Zane? I wouldn’t have cared what happened to me as long as I knew you were safe.”
His heart pounded at her words even if his head couldn’t make sense of them. “When you walked out of the club, I thought it was because you didn’t want to be The One for me. That you couldn’t deal with the fact that I’m a monster.”
“You aren’t a monster.” Alyssa gently cupped his jaw with her free hand, her eyes pleading. “Zane, we’re standing in a room full of creatures that kidnap innocent humans and feed on their blood while men are pointing weapons at us, ready to let the other women and me die so Stefan can become a vampire. They’re the monsters, not you. Don’t you see? What you are doesn’t make you a monster. It’s what you do. And all you’ve ever done is protect the people you care about.” Tears streaming down her cheeks, she wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face against his chest. “When I look at you, I see the man I love, not a monster.”
Zane buried his face in her beautiful hair, damn close to tears himself. How the hell had fate found him someone so incredibly perfect? She was more than he deserved. He opened his mouth to tell her he loved her, too—more than he’d ever thought possible—but Dario interrupted him.
“While this is all very romantic,” he said dryly, “we have a ritual to perform. I promised you a chance to see your mate. You’ve done so. Time for her to take her place among the anointed.”
As much as he didn’t want to pull away from Alyssa, Zane forced hi
mself to take a step back. Then he turned to face Dario, moving in front of Alyssa as he did so. “Did you really think I was going to let you use Alyssa or any of these women for your bloody damn ritual?”
Dario smirked. “Not really. Fortunately, that doesn’t matter, since the only reason I brought you down here was to see if the coven’s investment in those wolfsbane bullets was worth it.”
Zane charged forward, making sure he kept his body between Alyssa and the vampire when Dario’s hand came out from behind his back with a Sig Sauer .40 caliber.
Zane would have darted to the side so he could avoid the bullets, but he couldn’t do that and protect Alyssa at the same time. So, he ended up taking an entire magazine of large-caliber rounds point-blank in the gut and chest. He only thanked God they were expanding hollow points or some of them would have punched right through him and hit her anyway.
The poison stung, but thanks to the vaccine he’d been inoculated with, it felt nothing like the burning acid he’d experienced when the hunters shot him all those months ago. He went down hard because getting hit with twelve rounds of anything still hurt like a son of a bitch.
Alyssa screamed and dropped to her knees beside him, but he couldn’t pay her as much attention as he would have liked. He was concentrating too hard on not passing out. He barely had enough awareness left to see Dario drag Alyssa away from him, across the room, and up onto the dais to join the other women they intended to sacrifice.
Alyssa fought Dario like crazy, punching, scratching, and kicking the vampire the whole way, but it was no use. Dario was too strong.
Zane strained against the cuffs, but between his useless arm and the multiple bullet holes in his chest and stomach, he couldn’t generate enough force to snap the metal shackles holding him bound no matter how hard he tried.
