by Sophia North
Gabe's head dropped in frustration. "Shut. Up. I swear, I didn't believe it possible to meet anyone as annoying as Lash and his motor-mouth - but you, you rival even him. And he has long learned not to test me. I wish he was here, rather than Lowerton, rallying the troops."
"Hey, mate. No skin off my nose. If we are talking preferences, I wish Dante could walk in the sun and was here instead of you. As it stands, I reckon if he has half a brain, he's dealt with his father and is now balls deep in his wife. And I don't blame him. They must be blue after all these months apart."
Gabriel tuned Vlad out and placed his hand on the pavement. Concentrating, he moved through time, reading the scene as it had unfolded. Praetors had an ability to tap into highly emotional vibrations in order to see images of what had created them.
In his mind's eye, a picture began to form. Two women struggling before being tossed into a white van and driven off. Snapping open his eyes, he looked up at Vlad who had come to stand next to him.
"Are you fucking praying?" he asked, incredulous.
"Hardly," Gabe snapped, rising. "I was reading the energy imprint of the abduction. Hannah and Penny were taken from here in a white van."
Vlad took a moment to compute what he'd said. "Always knew those fuckers were up to no good," he murmured referring to what the British liked to term as 'the White van man', before commenting on Gabe's bizarre behaviour. "You were doing what now? Reading energy imprints sounds dangerously close to being a bit mumbo jumbo to me."
Gabe sighed. "As I said, you need to start your training. Being Praetor is not like being a Watcher. Your powers are infinitely greater and more sophisticated."
Opening up his Praetor senses, Gabriel scanned the area to see what else he might glean and that was when he heard it. Muffled sounds coming from inside Hannah's house. Without a second thought, he shimmered away.
Entering the house, he found the source of the disturbance in the main hall. The missing Lawrence had been located, and was currently seated firmly atop of what appeared to be an intruder.
"Mr. Rosetti! Did you...did you...just appear from thin air?" Lawrence screeched in a most unmanly way.
Fuck, Gabe thought. He'd forgotten to be a bit more circumspect. Before he could cobble together some sort of a reply, another sound jarred his senses. They were not alone.
Holding a finger to his lips, Gabe sent Lawrence a meaningful look. The assistant nodded and clamped a hand over his prisoner's mouth.
In a flash, the presence attacked. It was his Guard, Hadrian.
The Praetor flew from the top of the stairs to land on the marble floor of the hall. Lawrence's eyes were as big as saucers. He had no idea what the hell was going on.
Gabe and Hadrian rounded on each other, still no word exchanged between them. They were too busy anticipating the other's next move. Gabe’s wasn’t long in coming. He ripped the vamp's throat out in a matter of seconds, and his head soon followed.
Another body dropped to the floor from above. Vlad stood at the top looking down. "Jesus, took you long enough," he remarked, tossing the head and heart he'd ripped out down as well. "In an effort to not annoy you with my endless chatter, let me phrase it like this: WTF?"
Lawrence, who looked close to fainting, could no longer hold his tongue. "What are you?! Good god, you're a vampyre, right? But how can that be? It's daytime!"
The prisoner he sat on, didn't want to be left out.
"Will you kindly get off me! I tried to tell you not to invite those two 'hunks' in, but you were having none of it and thought me mad when I told you why you shouldn't. Not so mad now, am I?" Melinda remarked with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
Gabriel rounded on her. "And who might you be?" he asked, but already knew. He'd read her mind the moment he'd had the chance. The OO had decided to take an active role? Interesting, it was not their usual MO. But then, Melinda was not the usual OO operative.
"Hold on. Before we get all cosy...I'd like an answer to my question," Lawrence demanded.
"Sleep," Gabe commanded. Lawrence immediately slumped over.
Melinda extracted herself from beneath his inert body and stood up. Dusting down her trousers, she looked up through her thick honey blonde hair that hung over her eyes. "Impressive," she commented.
Gabriel noticed the young woman sported one hell of a shiner. "What happened to your eye? Don't tell me Lawrence actually struck you?"
Tenderly touching her bruised left eye, Melinda smiled. "No, this was courtesy of Hannah. I am Melinda Rowan, Mr. Rosetti - pleased to make your acquaintance." She held out her hand.
Gabe scoffed at the gesture. Their meeting was hardly a business-as-usual sort of affair requiring such formality. He was much more interested in finding out why Hannah had decked her. And more specifically, what role the OO played in Hannah's abduction. For her sake, Gabriel hoped the woman standing before him had a good story in her. Otherwise she may end up as dinner.
Uninterested in listening to Melinda's inevitable lies, Gabe grasped her outstretched hand and focused. Images of Hannah's visit to the Motherhouse began to flash through his mind. His first thought: why the hell had she gone there? Then the image of her opening a door gave him the answer. The key! She'd taken the key from his suite at Claridge's and gone to the OO Motherhouse. Concentrating, he dragged a more detailed replaying of what Melinda had observed.
Hannah removed his cylinder and the bowl stolen from Christie's and slipped them into her pockets. The OO were behind the thefts!
Gabriel's eye's snapped open, glowing green. "The OO are behind Hannah's abduction?" he growled.
Melinda stood defiant in the face of his accusation. "Think that through, Consul Rosetti," she stated defiantly, clearly unimpressed with his conclusion.
Vlad came striding down the stairs. "Sleep," he ordered, shimmering to catch the woman before she fell to the floor.
About to unleash his fury at Vlad, Gabe barked, "I was not finished with her yet. And when the fuck did you learn to do that?"
"I’m a fast learner, Consul cunt. Now, why don't we take things in order of priority and start with these two decapitated Praetors. Care to explain why your personal Guard wanted you dead?"
Gabe had to concede the vamp was right. Logic not emotion needed to drive his next moves. Considering how much he wanted to reveal to Vlad about his growing suspicions about what was happening with his Guard, Gabriel decided to keep his more outlandish theories to himself...for now. "Have you learned much about us...the Praetorian Guards?"
Vlad rubbed his chin, unsurprised by the question. Any vamp with half a brain would have done some research on the subject, doubly so for one who'd just been 'made' a Praetor. He may loathe old dusty books and scrolls, but only an idiot would not fact check his situation and embark on a thorough search of the Great Archives for any hint of their existence. He'd not found much and for a fleeting moment wished Godfrey had been around to help out with the quest.
The Monk bastard may be high on Vlad's 'to fuck up' list, but he had his uses. And knowing every nook and cranny of the Great Archives would have come in handy when trying to track down information on an unknown race of vampyres.
"As you can imagine, not much. I did find one strange entry for 1666 that seemed to imply the cause of the Great Fire of London had nothing to do with pies."
Gabe smirked at the reference. Humans did like their drama. And blaming a spark from a baker's oven as the reason for the 1666 inferno was up there with Old Lady Leary and her cow in Chicago.
"It was not. The destruction of the Praetorian Guard set the blaze alight. The entire Legion ignited and were destroyed that very night."
"Delightful. Is there a point to this story, other than to hint our next move with these two bastards is to torch them? Which is not a problem by the way, I know a guy." Vlad whipped out his phone and sent a text. "Done. Do continue, but for fuck's sake, hurry it along."
Gabe scowled at Vlad's demanding attitude. It wasn't easy constructing a good lie hidden in
the truth. "I have come to learn, it was also the night the Dragon Curse was cast."
"Shite. You think your Guard have joined the Serpent Brotherhood in order to avenge their fallen brethren? And will probably stop at nothing, even taking you out, in order to see it done."
That sounded as good as anything Gabe could have come up with. He had another theory, but wanted to keep it under wraps for the time being. Dante's story about his mysterious jailor had set off a chain of thoughts in Gabe that ended in an alarming possibility. What if the Praetors defection to the Brotherhood had been encouraged by another? One who also held a degree of power over his legion of Praetors. There was only one position that garnered such loyalty...the Prefect of a legion.
If this was true, it would mean some serious shit was happening. Hadrian and Brutus were once commanded by Aiden, Gabriel's third Prefect who was believed to have perished in the mayhem of the attack on the World Trade Centre.
Thankful Lash was not around to contradict what he was going to say, Gabe went with Vlad's version for the defection. He needed more proof before making the outlandish claim that Aiden may be still alive and in league with the Serpent Brotherhood.
"Yes, I think you may have hit the nail on the head there," he agreed readily.
Vlad nodded. "I suppose we need to figure out what to do with these two." The two in question were Lawrence and Melinda. "I say, tie 'em up until reinforcements arrive."
"Well, well, well. The rumour is true, you were human but have now turned Praetor." Marcus Lang strode into the hall, his brother Ethan at his side.
"Took your fucking time getting here, Lang," Vlad snapped, not acknowledging the Alpha's comment about his recent transformation. Damn the Lang intel web, they knew more than they ought about vamp business.
"If we could be our true selves, it would have been sooner. But wolves running through Central London would, as I am sure you will agree, not go unnoticed."
Ethan scanned the hall, his gaze stopping on the beautiful woman propped in a gilded Louis XIVth chair. Her rich honey blonde hair tumbled down around her face, revealing her delicate profile, along with her black eye.
"What have you done?" he demanded, rushing to her side, fearful she'd come to harm by the vamps.
"Careful, pup. That one's a bit nippy and also an OO agent."
Ethan stopped. He had a low opinion of the OO. They meddled in affairs they had no business in. There were countless unsolved cases on his desk that had their meddling ways written all over them.
"Great, just what we need. The OO poking their noses in again," he growled.
Gabe ignored the wolf completely, not trusting himself to refrain from punching his pearly whites down his throat. "The women were taken by a white van, license VG19 HTD. Make yourself useful Inspector and run the plate," he demanded imperiously.
"I'll send a few of my pack over to see if they can pick up their scent," Marcus offered generously. "The search would be greatly enhanced if you could provide something with their scent...the more intimate the better," he opined with a growing smirk, looking to rile them. He hadn't appreciated Gabe's high-handed treatment of his brother. He may be Mr. Straight & Narrow, but Ethan was his Mr. Straight & Narrow to mock.
"Fuck you, Lang," Vlad snarled.
Gabe didn't deign to reply. He had the wolf by the throat and dangling a foot off the floor by the next breath. "Don't push your luck," he eventually said.
Vlad restrained Ethan, a huge smile on his face. There were moments when he really did like Gabe.
"You've forgotten my value already?" Marcus wheezed. "Inside pocket."
Gabe reached in and pulled out the envelope from earlier. The one Lang claimed contained the name of the Warlock responsible for causing all the havoc. Releasing the werewolf, Gabe tore it open and read it.
Pierce Nelson-Aldrich III
"I told you it was an interesting read." Marcus smirked.
Chapter Forty
HANNAH WAITED UNTIL the door closed before removing the black hood placed over her head. Pushing the hair from her eyes, she looked around at the 'cell' she'd been unceremoniously thrown into.
Not too shabby for a prison, she mused. If one was into modern architectural abominations.
Cold white and black were everywhere in what appeared to be a well appointed office. At the far end, in front of a wall of window, a large glass desk dominated the room. An imposing, deep claret leather chair was positioned in the middle of the imposing desk, flanked by two American flags on golden poles topped by eagles.
Good gracious, how had she ended up in the United States? She could have sworn they'd only be in the van for a matter of minutes. Had she passed out and somehow been flown over an ocean?
Sweeping her gaze around the room, her eyes stopped on a framed portrait of the Queen and the current President. The Americans may be fascinated by the Royal family, but unless she'd been taken to a secret Crown loyalist in the States, which seemed highly doubtful, the likelihood she'd not left Old Blighty for Kansas was highly probable.
The door to the office swung open and in walked Pierce, grinning from ear to ear. "Hannah, darling. I hope the ride over wasn't too rough for you...I did leave clear instructions not to harm the merchandise, but who knows how well these Praetors listen. Can't understand half of 'em with their thick fucking British accents."
Hannah gaped at the identity of her captor. "What is the meaning of this, Pierce? I cannot believe you would go to such lengths as to kidnap me," she snapped, glossing over his casual remarks about his knowledge about Praetors. She could only handle one crazy-ass revelation at a time. "It's over between us. Accept it. I'm leaving here immediately."
Determined to walk past him to the door, he grabbed her by the arm. His once gentle face now contorted in rage. "It will never be over between us. You are mine, Hannah. And by God, I will have you."
Hannah froze. You are mine. How those words shook her. They were a carbon copy of her mysterious dream stalker's rant as he searched for her.
Pulling away from his grip, she was alarmed to find he would not release her. Time to go nuclear. "I will never be yours. I belong to another," she announced grandly, notching her chin in a challenging pose. He may be scaring her to death, but she was not going to let him know how much he was frightening her.
"Ah yes, the precious Gabriel Rosetti. Tell me, did you writhe under the esteemed Legatus like the whore you always are for him?" His grip on her arm tightened as he dragged her over to the large glass desk. With her bottom pressed firmly against the hard surface, he eased her up to sit on top of it.
Hannah had no choice but to allow it to happen. He was too strong for her to break free. The feel of the cold glass on the back of her thighs alarmed her. That, and the fact, Pierce had wedged himself between her legs, forcing her skirt to ride up, exposing her long legs.
"You and your daemon lover will not thwart me this time! I will see him dead, as I have every other who has ever touched you," he continued, enjoying the fear he saw in her amber eyes. "Do you have any idea what I do for you, my precious. My Seer...my Sibyl."
His breath against her neck made Hannah want to retch. His touch revolted her. She said nothing though, praying what was happening was just a bad dream she would wake up from any minute now.
Sadly, for her, the truth of it was all too real.
"First it was that boy Richard at Cambridge, then it was onto your older lover, Simon. Did you like fucking a man who could have fathered you? You disgust me. God, it makes me want you all the more because of it."
Hannah's mind reeled. What was he talking about?
"Wh-what did you do to them?" she asked in a hushed whisper.
"Why, I took my time cutting them up, after they repented for the sin of touching you...tasting you. Fucking you."
The man had to be evil incarnate.
“Young Richard didn't put up much of a fight, but that Simon fella, he took some time. In the end he told me all kinds of things. Did you know he was
the reason the OO came a'calling?" Pierce continued. "He was one of their best recruiters. Fucked his way through a dozen or so possible candidates before you landed in his lap. Ripe for the taking. And to think he was such a close friend of your parents. I wonder if they ever had a clue about the influence their old pal had on their daughter."
Hannah had heard Simon was killed in an accident a few years after their summer together. She'd been devastated by the news, but had long moved on from having any feelings for him.
"You are sick...demented."
Pierce found her accusations amusing. "You fuck an old man in some sort of reverse Oedipal urge, and I have the problem?"
As he'd been ranting, his hand had slipped down to start massaging Hannah through her underwear.
"Stop it," Hannah demanded, squirming uncomfortably. Surely to God, he wasn't such a monster as to try and defile her.
"Stop what? I haven't even started. I've waited years to fuck you properly...don't know how to put this delicately love, but you are a bore in bed. Nigh on virginal. You have no idea how much I had to restrain myself from taking you the way I wanted. It wasn't easy."
Hannah choked back her tears, as his fingers dug deeper into her.
"I was going to propose that night at Claridge's, did you know that?" he whispered in her ear. "Oh wait, how silly of me, of course you did - you read my intention the moment you grasped my hand. Have to give you credit for your ingenuity in calling Rebeka to run interference."
Nuzzling her neck, he delighted in feeling her struggle under him. "But then...then there was Gabriel, your one true love, to also contend with. I should have ripped his heart out the moment we met, but wasn't sure if he was the Legatus I've been waiting for... turns out he was."
The man was insane. There was no reasoning with him, so Hannah changed tactics and feigned concern. "Pierce, darling, I think you are unwell," she said in a warm comforting tone. "You are ranting about Praetors, Sibyls and all sorts of strange things I know nothing about."
Pierce stilled his 'tender' ministrations to stare at her. "Don't be coy and play dumb, my sweet. It really doesn't work for you."
