The asshole addressed none of these comments to Lily. It was as if she were just eye candy to him. An empty vessel. Alfonso ground his teeth together. He should just drop it, but an attitude like that just pissed him off. “So, no rules for her?”
The guy flashed him a pathetically confused look. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Alfonso didn’t know what was worse: an idiot who had no idea he was condescending or a sexist fucker who didn’t give a shit.
“She heard what I said, didn’t you, darling? All I care about is that she spreads her legs. You can do that, can’t you?”
Fucker. Alfonso flexed his fist. Guys like him had more brain matter in their dicks than between their ears, and he seriously wanted to do some rearranging. But before he could lunge forward, Lily’s hand tightened around his biceps and she made a low shushing noise to calm him down. It’s okay, love, he imagined her saying, and his body relaxed just a touch.
“Do you want a room or not?” If Robert’s attitude wasn’t enough to thoroughly piss him off, his nasally voice was.
“Yes, we do,” Lily said quickly. Her eyes told him to chill out. They needed to find Kip, and this loser was not important in the whole scheme of things.
She threaded her fingers through his hair, pulling his head down. When he saw how her lips parted just before she kissed him, his cock swelled impossibly harder beneath his jeans. “All I care about is you,” she mumbled against his mouth.
Oh God, if he wasn’t careful, he would totally get used to being with her again. Everything about her was perfect, and still so permanently etched into his psyche. When his hands had slid over her curves, they’d done so automatically. When he’d dipped his head to kiss her, first at the bar and then in the hallway, she’d lifted her chin to him, tilted her head just so, in order for him to easily fit his mouth over hers. Like practiced lovers used to the nuances of each other’s bodies. But he had to remember that she couldn’t be a part of his world, just as he couldn’t be a part of hers.
“No biting either,” the guy said. “Keep your fangs to yourself and save it for later. Most of ’em watching are humans and now’s not the time or place for a horror show. You’re in room number four. At the top of the stairs, take a left.”
Alfonso guided Lily up the narrow passageway. Okay, they could do this. Although he couldn’t get a lock on Kip, Lily was fairly certain he was up here. They’d rescue him, then get the hell out of here. Being around her was hard enough, but being in a sex club with her was sheer torture. He wouldn’t be able to stand much more of this before he did something both of them would regret later.
“Wait,” the guy said behind them, and Alfonso hesitated, every muscle on high alert. He slid a hand into an interior pocket, where his fingers touched the handle of one of his kunai. He cast his best nonchalant look over his shoulder.
Robert’s lascivious gaze lingered on Lily. Even wearing that ugly fake-fur vest and ridiculous hat, she was hot. It shouldn’t surprise him, because she often had that giddy effect on men—humans and vampires alike—but Alfonso gritted his teeth and wanted to wipe the grin off the dude’s face with a blow to the head.
“Make it good,” the fucktard said. “I’ll be watching.”
“I…I CAN’T TELL IF KIP’S still up here or not.” Lily struggled to keep the quaver out of her voice as they made their way around the corner at the top of the stairs.
Oh for godsake. What a blubbering fool she was. She needed to snap out of this asinine display of weakness and fake her way through until she came up with a scrap of something. Clenching her fists, she dug her nails into her palms, and hoped the pain would help her narrow her focus.
“He was definitely here at some point. All the scent markers are present.”
Alfonso was looking at her way too intently. “But…”
Damn. He knew something wasn’t right.
“But I can’t get a lock on him. At this moment. But I will.”
Wordlessly, Alfonso slipped a hand under her hair and cupped the back of her neck. She leaned into him as she had near the freeway, her eyelids flickering involuntarily as warm, soothing energy filtered through her skin. With just his touch, he’d always had an uncanny ability to dissipate her tension, infuse her with confidence, making her feel as if she could accomplish anything. Her shoulder blades relaxed from their pinched position.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Normally, this should be a piece of cake, especially in an enclosed space. But now—” Admitting her failings to herself was one thing, but saying it aloud to someone who’d once had a lot of respect for her abilities was even worse.
Then her concern for Kip trumped her ego, wore down the tight restraint on her control. She couldn’t go on like this, pretending, when Kip’s life was at stake.
Alfonso brought his face close to hers until his forehead rested against the brim of her hat. In this light, his eyes were a soft, pale gray. Strong, concerned and at the same time strangely empowering. As he breathed out, she breathed him in and imagined she was gaining his strength.
“You can do it, babe. We’ll be methodical, just like we were earlier, okay? We’ll go room by room. Open up every closet, cubbyhole and storage area, if we have to.”
God, he had such confidence in her and her ability. It made her stand a little taller.
And then he kissed her.
Not long and slow, as she would’ve wanted had they been anywhere else and the circumstances different, but quick, as if to emphasize his point, and she managed a weak smile. Although Alfonso’s unwavering faith in her ability did boost her spirits somewhat, she still had plenty of doubt. A problem like hers wasn’t fixed overnight, if it ever was.
“We don’t have much time. They’re going to expect us to be in that viewing room in the next few minutes.”
Alfonso glanced at the TAG Heuer he wore on the inside of his wrist. “We’ll either locate him now, or, if we need more time, we’ll comply with their rules and then find him.”
Comply with their rules? What a clinical way to describe having sex. But then again, he always was practical, never forgetting the purpose of a mission.
“There’s no time for that,” she said. “We need to find him now.”
“Believe me. If it comes down to it, I’ll be quick.” She could’ve sworn she saw the crease of his dimple as he turned away from her.
Rooms one through three were occupied. A quick check at the doors revealed the thick scent of sexual activity behind each one, along with the noises to prove it. She continued past room four, stopping at the last door in this part of the club. Kip’s scent was strongest there.
“Is this it?” Alfonso reached for his weapons. “Is he inside?”
“Um, not quite sure,” Lily whispered. “He was at one time.”
With his weapons drawn, Alfonso tried the handle. The fact that it wasn’t locked could only mean one thing. Kip definitely wasn’t here. Disappointment carved a hollow pit in her stomach as they slipped inside.
Crap was piled everywhere, making the windowless room seem smaller than it was, almost a closet or a cage. Stacks of plastic lawn chairs stood next to pallets of glasses. Half-empty liquor boxes were piled next to a rack of costumes. Alfonso headed toward a desk in the far corner scattered with papers, ledgers and magazines. Lily slid her hand over the back of a folding metal chair in the center of the room and squatted down next to it. A roll of duct tape sat on the seat. She leaned close and inhaled. Finally—finally—the muddiness had cleared enough for her to detect Kip’s strong scent. A rush of relief buoyed her spirits.
“He was definitely in here. The scent is strongest in this part of the room—” she grabbed the tape and brought it to her nose “—and especially on this.”
“That’s where they restrained him.”
“With what? The duct tape? The guy may be new to the Tracker program, but he’s no ten-pound weakling.”
“Normally, you’d be right. But if he was tired and weak,
a few meters of tape would be enough to keep him strapped in one place.”
“But he shouldn’t be weak. He and I fed from a couple of humans just a few nights ago and last night, I saw him take energy from at least three different individuals.”
“This chair is from that house.”
She hadn’t really noticed. It looked like a flimsy metal folding chair to her. What did that have to do with anything? “I don’t follow you.”
“I’m guessing they duct-taped him to this chair and exposed him to sunlight all day back at that house, as well as touching or cutting his skin with silver.” Lily cringed and he continued. “They weakened him at that secluded location, away from the temptations of blood, then they brought him here.”
He did have a point. Even with fresh blood and energies, a day exposed to ultraviolet light would make even the strongest vampire as weak as a human.
“But for what purpose? Why not take him back to one of their dens?”
“This was probably the drop point. Where they handed him over to the sector mistress.”
Lily almost choked as she tried to quell her rising panic. “When they find out he’s just a trainee, they’ll kill him.”
“I doubt they’ll figure that out for a while. From what Jackson tells me, Kip is very capable. Even if they discover he’s not a fully certified Tracker, they might still find him useful.”
“Why do you think it could take a while? Aren’t they desperate?”
“Kip went through standard Guardian training before being accepted into Tracker Academy, didn’t he?” She nodded.
“Then he’s been taught to resist the enemy. Breaking an Agent takes time, Lily. Usually more than just one day in the sun. They wear you down and eventually, you’ll be so weakened, they’ll get you to go against everything you believe in.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth and spoke through her fingers. “Are you talking…?”
“Unfortunately, yes. They’ll torture him, until he’s too tired to continue resisting, then they’ll either ply him with Sweet from a vial or—” He turned away from her.
“Or what?” She had to hear him say it.
He didn’t answer right away, just sifted through the papers on the desk before he finally spoke again. “Or bring him a live donor. A live sweetblood donor. In that weakened, worn-down condition, a sweetblood is impossible to resist.”
Without thinking, she silently approached him and slipped her arms around his waist. Although he didn’t move away from her, his arms stayed stiffly at his sides.
“That’s what they did to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” His voice was piano-string tight. “And I killed her.”
His pain hacked through her heart like a jagged-edged knife. “You can’t blame yourself, Alfonso. You’d have never done such a thing if you’d been stronger.”
“The suffering she—”
“I’m sure it was quick. That it was over before she knew what was happening.”
He stiffened and tried to push away, but she held on tight. His chest expanded as he took a breath, then he blew it out slowly.
“No, you’re wrong. She knew exactly what was coming and what I was capable of doing. They drank from her first, sparing none of the gory details of feeding, not bothering to blur her memory. She was terrified, of course, but even more so when she saw my face. Even as I drained her, I knew I was killing her. Felt her life energy slipping away. But I couldn’t stop, no matter how much I told myself I had to. The dark nature of our kind had a powerful hold over me and I was powerless to resist the call of her blood.”
Lily couldn’t trust herself to speak. Her heart felt like it would shatter into a billion pieces if she uttered so much as one word.
The pull of a sweetblood was strong—she knew that firsthand, having dated one for a while herself. She’d taken his blood once, but because she hadn’t wanted to risk the temptation to take too much, she’d never tried it again and had broken up with him soon afterward. Most of the time vampires were able to resist the blood’s potent allure, as diabetics avoided candy, but mistakes were made, especially when a vampire’s willpower was at its lowest point. As Alfonso’s had been.
He loosened himself from her grasp and walked to the far side of the room. Not wanting to force herself on him, she stayed put, and gave him his space.
Taking a deep breath, she opened her mouth to speak, to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that she didn’t think he was awful or a monster, but the fog in her head cleared even more, and her scent memory of Kip reactivated.
“Alfonso, I got it,” she said as she mentally cataloged what she detected. “The scent here is slightly stale. Several hours old. I can track it now—I’ve got a lock.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
In a flash, they were back in the hallway, the air thick with the smell of many vices, sexual activity the most potent one. She hesitated outside room four. A male in a neighboring room grunted out what was obviously an orgasm. Almost instantly, a muted sound of applause filtered up the stairway.
Alfonso cursed under his breath.
Room four might be next. “Wait. They’ll know something’s wrong if we never go in there.”
A strange expression crossed Alfonso’s face, then was gone. “What does it matter now? We got what we came for. This little charade of ours is over.”
“We can’t afford to arouse any suspicions, otherwise they could alert Kip’s captors that we’re onto them. They can’t know that two Guardians have been here. So far, they think they’ve got the only Agency Tracker in the Seattle field area and that’s probably what’s keeping him alive. Come on. They’re probably getting ready to open the curtains now, or at least they’re checking in on us to see if what we’re doing is worth watching.”
His brow furrowed at that last comment and when he spoke, his tone was hard and callous. “I’m not going into that room, Lily, and having sex with you. It’s not happening. Period.”
Her skin prickled instantly beneath that stupid vest, eroding any lingering sympathetic feelings she had for him. At first, he’d talked as if sex with her would be clinical, just part of the job. But if that weren’t bad enough, now he spoke as if the thought wasn’t even mildly interesting.
Of course, they had no time for sex or even a little foreplay, but she thought they’d shared an emotional connection back there. She flexed her hands, longing to punch something.
Chill out. Consider who you’re dealing with. Why should anything he did or said surprise her after all he’d put her through? It really shouldn’t.
Fine. Two could easily play this game.
“Let’s get the hell out of here then,” she said.
Without waiting for his reaction or to see if he followed, she took the stairs two at a time and barged out the door. Robert jumped up from his post, his clipboard and cell phone clattering to the floor.
“What the hell is going on? You two haven’t been on yet. You were supposed to—”
“Ask him,” Lily indicated with a thumb over her shoulder, not slowing. “Apparently he’s not into the exhibitionist scene after all.”
Robert looked confused as he stooped to pick up the stuff he’d dropped.
“Performance anxiety,” Lily explained. “Things didn’t quite work out.”
She marched down the corridor and didn’t look back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY DROVE NORTH ON THE FREEWAY in relative silence, Lily only barely nodding when Alfonso asked if they were still heading in the right direction. A few times they stopped for her to double-check the scent trail, but it never deviated away from the interstate.
His insides churned with a thousand tiny knives when he considered how pissed off she was. He hated knowing that he’d hurt her. Teasing and irritating her was one thing, but this was different. He’d hoped she would have cooled down by now, but she’d not said two words to him since they left the club.
She stared out the windshield into the
night; he doubted she was seeing anything but the twin beams of light cutting through the darkness. What was going on with her abilities anyway? He’d never seen her as unsure of herself as she’d been tonight, and it gnawed at him. He’d always admired her self-confidence. She had a strong sense of who she was and what she was capable of. Normally, a task like this should’ve been a piece of cake for her. They would’ve headed straight along the scent trail, having plenty of time to locate the particular Darkblood den where her trainee had been taken. But instead, he’d driven the speed limit and pulled over a few times for her to reestablish scent contact, putting them way behind.
He recalled the first time she’d wowed him with her scent-tracking skills. They’d been together down in San Diego when Lily had received the call that Darkbloods had kidnapped a sweetblood child and taken the girl into the desert. None of the other field agents could pick up the scent and time was running out. Lily’s tracking ability was so acute, so finely tuned, that they’d driven straight to the hideout without needing directions or a map. If she hadn’t been working out of the San Diego office on a temporary assignment, the field team wouldn’t have been able to locate the child in time. Alfonso had disposed of the Darkbloods, while Lily whisked the sobbing child from their filthy den.
Alfonso would never forget the drive back to the girl’s home. It had changed him profoundly. Through the rear-view mirror, he watched as Lily held the child, gently rocking her, stroking her hair, whispering reassuring words into her ear, until eventually the girl’s whimpering cries faded and she fell asleep in Lily’s arms.
Their gazes had met through the mirror. Her tear-stained lashes had made her eyes even bigger. God, she was beautiful. She’d smiled at him and mouthed the words thank you.
It was then that he realized that even the toughest, most capable people could be tender and emotional inside without compromising anything. For the first time, he had wondered if he could be like that too.
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