She flipped the arm separating their seats up and laced her hands into his hair, pulling his ear to her mouth. Her deft, slender tongue traced a wet line around the shell before she nibbled on the lobe with blunt teeth. Tingles crawled from his scalp down his shoulders and arms, and he pulled her onto his lap.
She whispered. “I have done many things in my life. But I am not yet a member of this club for people who have had sex on airplanes.”
She was already fumbling between them for his belt, her tongue pressed between her lips in determination.
He pressed his forehead into hers and chuckled. “Yes.”
He ached to be with her again like this, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake as last time. This would change nothing. He glided his hands up under her shirt, and reveled at the feel of two hard nipples straining against his palms.
“Hell yes,” he said, as her fangs grazed his neck.
“No!” Pedro stood, banging his head on the baggage compartment. “I can’t turn this music up any louder, and I do not want to hear you two go at it again. Leo and I were traumatized enough the first time. I still have plaster in my hair.”
Uta planted a kiss on Bel’s neck before she slid across his lap, her pert ass rubbing friction between his cock and fly. He needed more, and he clutched at her hips, ignoring Pedro. But she slipped from his grasp and stepped up to the vampire, who stood a few inches shorter. She peered down at him, and lifted his chin to examine his face more closely. His golden eyes narrowed.
“I know you fear for Lucas. But I can see from looking at you he is all right. If he were worse, your eyes would be blood shot, your lips blue.” Then she pulled him into a hug. Pedro’s fists relaxed, and after a moment his hands came around her back. He surrendered to the embrace.
Bel adjusted his hard-on in his jeans. He wouldn’t be joining the mile high club on this flight. No matter. He liked her priorities—taking care of Pedro was more important than a shag on an airplane.
The question was, would there ever be another chance, or was it all over once they got back?
Chapter 46
IT SEEMED LIKE HOURS, but Gwen had no idea how much time she’d actually spent wedged into the cabinet. All around her stood bottles of liquor and glassware. If she moved inches in the wrong direction, the stowaway in the bar cabinet would become the proverbial bull in a china shop.
She rehearsed scenarios in her mind. Would she jump out and lunge at Trys? Creep out of the cabinet and surprise her? She imagined unlikely headlines: History Professor Slays Witch with Bare Hands. Her eyelids grew heavy and as she slid into stage-one sleep, her plans grew into fantastical hallucinations.
She came awake with a start, to the sound of voices in the dining room.
She released a controlled breath, thanking the ancient Hunter deity Dela-Malkh that she hadn’t betrayed her location with a snore or by kicking over a wineglass.
The witch gossiped with another woman about Andre’s sons.
Finally, the woman said goodbye. “I’ll leave you to your chocolates.”
Trys mumbled a garbled farewell, presumably with her mouth full.
Gwen curled her hand around the neck of a bottle—a fifth of some unidentified liquor—and burst from the cabinet, banking everything on the advantage of surprise. The witch started, standing and backing away, arms forward and knees bent. Gwen brought the bottle down on her head with all her strength, and then crouched to break her fall before she crashed to the floor, bringing the whole household upon them.
After carefully lowering her, Gwen dragged her by the ankles until they were out of sight of the door where Gwen unsheathed the box cutter from her sock and held it to the witch’s neck.
Her eyes fluttered. No time to hesitate.
Gwen sliced the blade deep across the woman’s taut flesh. The blood gushed. He eyes flew open, her pupils narrowing in focus.
“Why?” she gargled, her throat full of the life draining out of her.
Gwen smiled down at her. “For love.”
The woman’s arms jerked. If she could touch the gash in her neck, she might be able to heal herself the way she’d stopped Lucas’s bleeding. Gwen couldn’t risk it. She held Trys’s arms to the floor as the fight oozed from her in a stream of deep crimson liquid.
Another thing Gwen didn’t know—were vampires like sharks? Would they smell all this blood and come in a hurry? She’d best not chance it. She closed Trys’s eyelids the way people always did in the movies, and sprinted across the entryway to the front door. Across the highway, trucks were gathering in the grassy sloping field.
The Hunters had arrived.
She left the house, leaving the door open behind her, walked up the hill, and found the initiates bustling around efficiently, just as they did in the office. They all wore FBI caps and windbreakers. Ethan alone wore a dress shirt and a tie under a bulletproof vest emblazoned with the same yellow FBI letters. He stood under a tent, talking with a group of men in suits, and when he saw her his broad smile radiated pleasure. Her stomach flew up into her throat as he turned back to the men.
Behind their sunglasses and ball caps, Gwen struggled to recognize the initiates she knew. Finally, she found Ethan’s assistant.
“Who are those men?”
“Sheriff and fire chief. Their officers are on the way.”
Gwen leaned in, whispering. “They think we’re the FBI?”
Justine nodded, casting an admiring look at Ethan. “He’s been putting this in place for weeks, impersonating an agent who has traced a human trafficking ring to the Kaštel Estate. Now the local authorities will provide no resistance.”
Lucas would have preferred to walk. But he lost the argument, and so he determined to enjoy being cradled to Andre’s chest like a child. It wasn’t every day that a scrawny Hunter like himself got to cuddle up with such a fine specimen of raw vampire masculinity.
Andre smelled like soap and soil, as if he’d been out planting seedling grapevines minutes earlier. Lucas inhaled, reveling in the intimate knowledge of his strange new friend.
The vampire set him gingerly on the bed and patted his shoulder. “I am afraid it will be hours still until Pedro arrives. I will stay with you.”
“There’s no need for that.” Lucas sat up.
“Do not bother arguing. Pedro demanded it.”
“And what else?”
Andre’s wry smile pulled up one corner of his mouth. “Ah yes, of course you guessed. In the event I think you are failing, I am to proceed without him.”
Lucas’s lips mimicked Andre’s expression of their own accord. “He has you wrapped around his finger.”
Andre chuckled. “He does have a way of getting precisely what he wants, but in this case, I required no persuasion. I take care of my own.”
He did, it was why they all loved him, but it always had a cost. Last time it had been his vineyards. “I’m sorry. This is damned inconvenient of me.”
“Yes. Next time would you mind scheduling your health crisis when we are not at war?”
Lucas sucked in a breath, chastised by the barb despite the affection behind it. Andre did have the liveliest green eyes, sparkling with amusement when they weren’t shadowed with worry.
“But, davo, son. How long have you known you were sick? Things do not get this far without symptoms.”
“Honestly, I thought it was stress, maybe an ulcer. Nothing like this.” He settled his head onto the pillow, attending to the dull ache in his gut. After Trys had done her healing thing, the pain had all but vanished.
Andre glared, tipping his forehead toward Lucas. “What symptoms did you have?”
“Okay. There was some vomiting.”
The vampire’s gorgeous dark head came another hair closer to Lucas.
“Bloody vomit. But I figured I had time, or that I wouldn’t need it.”
“Once he turns you, Pedro is quite possibly going to kill you for keeping that from him.”
Andre was probably right. Lucas clos
ed his eyes, wriggling to get comfortable on the bed.
“Humans are so frivolous with their lives.”
Lucas cracked open one eyelid. “No more frivolous than your sacrifice to save Lena. We agree—there are things at stake greater than our own well-being.”
“Indeed.” Andre rubbed the bridge of his nose.
A chill caressed Lucas’s skin like icy feathers blowing across his face. It left him uneasy. He’d felt it before, but couldn’t place the memory, only the foreboding. Andre shivered, though he seemed otherwise unaware.
“Where is Gwen?” Lucas asked.
“Gwen?”
Lucas’s cancer riddled stomach sank. “Ethan’s girlfriend. Whose cell I collapsed in.”
“Davo. I know who she is. But I do not know where she is.”
“Shit.”
“Stay here.”
“Yeah, right.”
Andre’s jaw bulged with tension, but he nodded. Then he bellowed at the top of his great big lungs. “Find Gwen!”
They took off down the servants’ wing toward the central stairs. Instantly, the house buzzed with activity. Doors slammed, feet pounded, voices called out. The search was on. In no time, a shrieking scream sounded, reverberating off the high ceiling of the foyer. Lena appeared in the door to the dining room, just as Andre and Lucas stepped onto the balcony one floor above.
“Trys!” she cried. “She’s dead. Oh my God! Trys is dead.”
Lucas’s dull mind raced to process the news. If she was dead, then the shield was down, they had to evacuate immediately. He opened his mouth to issue instructions, but Andre’s came first and loudly.
“Into the cellar! The shield is down. Into the cellar.”
Omar swooped into the dining room and emerged with Trys limp in his arms, his features wracked with grief. Dead—the witch was really dead.
How much time did they have? Lucas glanced out the window. Fire trucks and FBI vans lined the highway. The front drive crawled with Hunters. One knelt and hefted his cannon to his shoulder.
“Here they come!” Lucas cringed as the rocket flew toward the front of the house. “Run!” He took off down the stairs, but Andre gathered him up—this time flinging him over his shoulder.
Lucas barely had time to feel humiliated before the house shook with a thundering explosion. It wouldn’t stand for long.
Kos stood at the door to the cellar counting everyone off.
“Zoey?” Andre said, setting Lucas upright on his feet.
“First in, she’s comforting Lena.”
“The humans?”
“All accounted for—I grabbed Ally and Susan as soon as you called for the search. Lexi, Vania, Ani, and Arden just went down.” Just then two more vampires from Bel’s crew arrived at the door.
“Where’s Henry?” Kos asked.
“Below,” the bigger one replied. “He’s guarding the tunnel door.”
Once they all stepped into the cellar, Kos shepherded them down the stairs. Andre reached up to pull down a huge steel trap door. Lucas had never noticed the thing. Andre spun the retro wheel, like he was sealing off a submarine, or a radiation-proof bunker.
“Wow. I’m coming to stay with you in the event of the apocalypse.” Lucas snorted at his own joke.
Everyone stared at him.
“Let us hope it does not come to that,” Andre finally said.
More explosions sounded as they descended the stairs. Lucas pushed images of the beautiful house’s destruction from his mind. Homes could be rebuilt, Andre had already done so once, but first they had to survive.
The entire household had gathered in his office, crammed into the brown leather armchairs, or propped against the wall. Omar bent over Trys where she lay on the oversized desk, and the rest of Bel’s crew circled behind him. Lexi and Zoey tended to Lena, who shook with what looked like the first symptoms of shock.
“Is it too late to turn her?” Henry asked, wringing the hem of his denim work-shirt.
Omar caressed her face. “Yes.”
“She had a do-not-turn form on file, and you know it,” Vania scolded.
A few days ago, Lucas might have filed one of those himself.
“Stubborn witch,” Henry muttered, not without affection.
Omar seethed. “I am going to kill that Hunter bitch when I get my hands on her.” His anger hung thick in the air, and no one challenged his right to it. In the chaos of Lucas’s collapse, they’d forgotten to mind her—a fatal mistake, which made his illness worse than just inconvenient.
“Will we be safe down here?” Zoey asked.
Andre reached a hand back to scratch his head, frowning. “The doors are Cold War-era. Henry, did you seal the one at this end of the tunnel?”
“Aye, aye captain. Locked up tight.”
“They are by no means indestructible, but they were designed to withstand fire and radioactive fall-out. We have a high probability of surviving the day in here, and we can attempt an escape by night.”
Kos looked to Lena. “I don’t like the idea of fleeing—the humans will be too vulnerable.”
Lena rubbed her belly, and the room fell silent.
Oh shit.
She must have realized everyone was staring. She glanced around the room, offering a heartbreaking smile. “Um. This wasn’t how I planned to announce our good news.” She choked back a sob.
“Oh my God!” Zoey said, embracing her. “But I thought—”
“I was wrong. Apparently, the regular schedule doesn’t hold for halfling babies.”
Andre’s weak smile seemed just as forced. “That is true, as I recall. Bel arrived two months early, just shy of ten pounds.”
“So you can understand why I prefer to hunker down,” Kos said.
Vania stepped from Trys’s side. “But surely the police will arrive, if they attack the house or set fire to it.”
The words jostled Lucas’s memory. “I’m afraid not. Across the street, they’ve set up camp. There are FBI vans, fire engines.”
“What?” Andre snapped.
Lucas shook his head in agreement. “Goddamn Ethan. He must have infiltrated them.”
“Davo. Hunters do not collaborate with human authorities. It goes against—”
“So does Ethan.”
Kos encircled his wife’s shoulders. “Lena and I stowed food stores down here, for the humans, just in case. And with the Blood Vine—”
“There is another possibility.” Omar stood to his full height of nearly seven feet, the anger rolling off him like heat from desert sand. “I heard what Pedro told you, about Uta and the Hunter blood.”
“What?” Lucas asked.
“Uta…” Andre rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “She tested our hypothesis.”
Even a human could have heard a flea hop in the silence, a thousand times more still than the one moments earlier. Then another explosion sounded above.
“She’s alive?” Kos asked, finally, as if he hadn’t heard the blast.
“She is. Unharmed. She fed from Derek Williams weeks ago and only that amount of blood saw her safe when she tried to sun walk.”
Kos shifted on his feet. “I have fed from Leo.”
“As have I,” Omar said.
Lucas jerked his gaze to the giant, curious over that unexpected announcement.
In the meantime, it seemed everyone else had decided to stare at Lucas. Oh great. Here he was, the lone Hunter locked in the cellar—the secret weapon.
“No.” Zoey stood, her hands on her hips. “Lucas is too weak, and Kos is going to be a father. We will not go on the offensive.”
“I agree.” Andre extended his hand toward her, and she crossed to him, reaching for it before he pulled her against him. “But if they breach the cellar…”
“We can fight in the sun,” Vania said, turning up her palms to send up a harmless shower of sparks. “Arden, Ani, and I are not useless.”
“Good. And if it comes to that, only I will feed from Lucas so I can joi
n the fight.” Andre raised his dark brows in a question.
Lucas consented with a nod.
Another, louder blast shook the ground, and it was followed by a series of crashes. Lucas imagined the walls of the house collapsing.
“Zoey, love, you will take the humans into the tunnel.”
“I’m not leaving you—”
“Not if we can help it,” Andre said. “Now, who will sit guard at the doors for the first shift?”
Chapter 47
GWEN WAITED, LEANING AGAINST A CAR where Ethan would see her when he finished speaking to the officials. Finally, he shook their hands and strolled away, leaving behind two brawny looking Hunters in FBI hats. Presumably they would keep an eye on their new allies. He gestured for her to follow him behind another truck. He kissed her, pressing her against the door of the vehicle, hot enough to burn her skin from the blaze of the afternoon sun.
She surrendered to his mouth—no one had ever kissed her with such passion—his fingers digging into her hips, his tongue in her throat. She knew the kiss was her reward, a token of his pleasure in her success. He didn’t even ask her about Zoey.
“I am glad you are safe,” he mumbled into her hair.
“Me too. What happens now?”
He stepped back and cast a look over his shoulder at the men in the tent. His eyelid twitched and a bead of sweat trickled down his temple.
Like that, her moment of paradise vanished. “What’s wrong?”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Derek Williams claims to have proof I arranged the murder of Hunters and framed the vampires. He is amassing followers.”
“As your rival?” A brick seemed to materialize in Gwen’s belly, its sharp corners pressing into her stomach.
“As soon as I eliminate Marasović, I’ll skin Williams alive in front of every Hunter I can gather.”
Gwen’s intestines clenched around the imaginary brick. Ethan did not make idle threats, although this one was not accompanied by the flush of his cheeks his sadistic propositions usually aroused.
“I have worked far too long to let one man destroy my plans,” he growled, his eyes flicking away.
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