Another Day (The Firsts Book 12)

by C. L. Quinn

  “Gone,” Xavier answered, his voice coldly unemotional. “Can ya walk?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  But Tamesine took his arm to help him.

  “Let’s go then.” Xavier looked at Koen. “Ye’ll fix everything with these guys, okay? Then, we wait for Claude’s call.”

  “Yes, brother, whatever we need to do.”

  “All right, let’s get movin’.”

  David paused. “What about him?”

  Koen looked back at the man who had abducted and hurt these people, had killed one (he could smell the body somewhere in the room), and would have killed these three as well. “Wipe him. Send him to northern Alaska to work on a fishing boat. Destroy any sexual interest. Make him meek. Just, get rid of him, David, any way you can. But take away all of his sexual desire.”

  “Fittin’.” Bryn nodded an exuberant agreement.

  “It’s a timeworn penance. The punishment must fit the crime. He’ll never harm another person in his miserable life. Thank you guys. When you’re finished, join us back at the bar.”

  In the car, Xavier held Cheeky in the roomy backseat.

  Robert, beside him, was still trying to work out what the fuck had happened tonight.

  Tamesine turned to Xavier. “We’re taking her to our hotel room. I’ll give her some blood, which will heal her wounds, and let her sleep, compelled, so she doesn’t wake. When she’s feeling better, I’ll give her something to eat, clean her up, and make sure she has proper clothing.”

  Xavier nodded. He didn’t feel like words right now.

  Moving his eyes between the beautiful woman in the front seat, the big-ass guy in the driver’s seat he did not know, and the big-ass one next to him that he sort of did, Robert used all of his skills to not freak out.

  Then the beautiful woman turned her blue eyes on him. “Robert, do you feel well enough to go to your home? You can come with us, if you’d like. Plenty of room, and I promise we’ll take really good care of you.”

  He still felt dizzy, even though he didn’t think that he was badly hurt. They’d beaten him, but he didn’t seem to hurt anywhere but his side. Looking at Cheeky, he nodded. “Yeah, I’ll come with you. With her. I don’t want to leave her, I feel responsible for her.”

  “I’m sure you do. Okay, we’ll take care of the hu...Um, Robert and Cheeky, and then we’ll go back to the bar.”

  “As soon as we get to the hotel, I’ll head back.”

  Koen looked at Tamesine after Xavier said that. Hell, no, he wasn’t letting his brother go to the bar alone. No fucking way he would let him go to Claude alone!

  Tamesine nodded. “Okay,” she said, well aware that Koen would be with him all the way. She would take care of the people they’d rescued and then join them.

  “Xavier, we’re in this together, you know that.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but it isn’t true. I’m in this alone, a circumstance of me own design. I didn’t take ya serious enough to understand the danger and its urgency and now he has Margot. I’ll go to him, he won’t have a reason to hurt her then, and ye can get her out of there.”

  “Take the girl,” Koen said suddenly to Robert.

  Shocked, Robert reached for her as Koen pulled the car over and slammed on the brakes. He pushed the door open, got out, and pulled Xavier from the backseat. With his full vampire strength, he shoved his brother up against the car, Xavier crashing into the frame so hard, he lost his breath.

  Koen faced Xavier. “If he does this true to form, she won’t be anywhere near the place he’ll send you. He’ll claim he doesn’t know where she’s being held, and he probably won’t. Then, you’ll show up, he’ll kill you, and Margot will die trapped in whatever rat-hole he stashed her in. That’s how this will go if you rush to him when he calls.”

  “I’ve no choice, brother! What would ya have me do?”

  “Think, man. We’re here to help you. We’ll find another way.”

  “Like ye’ve been so successful so far! If I don’t concede to his demands, he will certainly kill her. At least if I show up, she has a chance.”

  “She doesn’t. Tamesine, tell him!”

  “He’s right. These kind of men are clever, far more so than we are because they’re trained to deceive, they’re willing to kill indiscriminately, and we aren’t. He can’t be trusted, Xavier.”

  “I’m goin’ when he calls. Ye can do what ya want!”

  Xavier disappeared down the street. Turning, Koen punched the hood of the car with so much power, it sounded like an explosion. Tamesine lifted up to look at the hood, now caved in just behind the driver’s side window.

  “Go get him,” she sighed, and Koen disappeared too.

  Standing beside her now, Robert spoke. “What they did, that isn’t possible.”

  “I know. Come on, I’ll get you two settled, then I need to get to those two before they kill each other.”

  Twelve

  She woke abruptly, as if someone had called her name. Her head hurt, and she couldn’t remember exactly where she was. Her eyelids felt like concrete blocks, but when she forced them open, it took a few moments to focus. Moving the eyes back and forth hurt, too, but she wanted to know what was going on.

  Margot had no idea. She couldn’t move her arms or legs, and when she looked down at her body, she saw that she was attached to a rack with multiple chains and ties. The entire length of her body, legs, arms, torso, neck, were all bound to the rack. Only her head was free to move.

  Memory returned suddenly when she noticed a man standing just inside the one door she could see across a large white room. Something familiar, someone she knew…who was it?

  Oh, God…it was Claude, Xavier’s enemy he’d warned her about.

  Every second with him raced back to her. Claude had stolen her from Michael Lipnicki. He’d brought her here and forced her to sit and listen to him tell her how he was superior to nearly everyone who had ever existed on this planet. And whine about how no one gave him respect for that.

  The man was beyond salvageable, certifiably insane, and was also one hundred percent responsible for her fate. She was terrified.

  He’d told her to remove the rest of her clothing, and for some reason, without a fight, she’d done it instantly. Standing naked before him, she’d wondered why the fuck she wasn’t trying to protect herself.

  Sometime later, he’d wrapped a white sheet around her from her breasts to her ankles and told her to step up to the rack that she was now attached to, put her arms out to her side and just stand still. And she’d done it!

  This went way beyond the Stockholm syndrome. After he’d tied her onto the rack, he’d said something to her and that was the last thing she knew until she woke up seconds ago.

  “Just get this over with,” she yelled to the shadow in the doorway. Yelling tore open the wounds on her face, blood seeping again. Pain shot through her head, but she tried desperately to control her reaction to it.

  She kept her eyes on him as he walked forward, dressed in a tuxedo, his long hair pulled back into a ponytail, a filled champagne glass in his hand.

  “Not yet, love. Our guest of honor hasn’t arrived. When he does, yes, of course, there will be fun and fireworks.”

  Claude grinned as he moved close, licked Margot’s neck where some of her blood had dried.

  “Lots of fireworks.”

  Xavier pushed past Lucky, who had too many questions. The swinging door opened and Lucky followed him into the kitchen.

  “Scottie, where the hell…”

  “Stop.” Xavier caught his eyes. “Lucky, go back out and take care of your customers. Don’t send any orders back tonight. Go now. Wait. If someone asks for me, send them in.”

  Silently, Lucky walked back through the door.

  “Now I feel like shit!” Xavier said out loud. The last thing he ever wanted to do was use the dreadful compulsion skill to betray those he cared about. Lucky didn’t deserve that but tonight, with everything at stake, the woman he l
oved in very real danger of dying soon, and his own life on the line, he couldn’t deal with anything else. It looked like he might never get to go home, likely would never really know who he was.

  “Stop brooding. One way or the other, this will work out and I’ll take you back to France.”

  Koen stood in the doorway, barely out of breath from the long run. Xavier looked up at this man that he realized he really would like to get to know. Brothers, one of the most sacred relationships in the world, brought into this world to travel the length of days together. Connected by blood and history. He was sorry that he would probably never know the feeling of family again.

  “I can’t let him hurt her.”

  “I know, brother. He won’t.”

  “He will. Don’t be kind, it’s cruel. You and Tamesine made it clear what a dedicated, effective killer this man is. If he can’t get me, he’ll delight in taking the life of this woman he thinks I care about.”

  Quiet for a few moments, Koen picked up a carving knife and played with it, then caught Xavier’s gaze.

  “He would be right, yeah?”

  “He would be right. I’ve known her so few days and yet I find all I want to do is be with her. And the blood thing, it’s outrageous. I know that I need it, and yet I want to take it only from her. That’s all kinds of fucked up.”

  Koen pitched the knife back onto the counter and sighed. “No, it isn’t. It’s what a vampire feels for a mate. We’ll get Margot back, safely, because we have to.”

  “Aye,” Xavier responded, no more assured that they would. “I’ve no hand yet to play.”

  “It doesn’t seem like it, but, just to let you know, we usually win in the end. It’s in the middle of it all that seems to suck for us.”

  “When the call comes, I’m goin’. Alone.”

  “Sure.” Like fucking hell he was! Koen would let his brother walk into a barrage of bullets that would end with his head severed, and his life ended for always. Not! Happening! Ever! “Tamesine will be here soon, and that woman seems to have an in with Karma and Destiny and all the weird-ass shit that controls all of this. Have faith.”

  “Sure.” Xavier didn’t.

  “So, we just wait I guess.”

  “This is the only place that Claude knows to contact me, so yeah, he’ll call here, or somethin’. This is where I’ll find out what he wants of me.”

  “So we wait.”

  “We wait.”

  Koen paced outside The Blind Spot, on the phone with Tamesine, who was on her way to meet them.

  “What can we say? He’s hurting,” she said.

  “I know. He’ll do whatever he has to do to save her. He’s truly in danger now because he still doesn’t understand his abilities. He thinks he’ll have to sacrifice himself for her. And he’s willing to do it.” Koen paused, his hand so tight on the phone, he was surprised that he hadn’t already shattered it. “I can’t let him do it.”

  “We can’t stop him from going to Claude. We just have to protect him when he does.”

  “Fuck!” Sighing, he said, “Aye.”

  Lucky kept looking back into the kitchen. He needed Xavier’s help, he needed to place orders for food, but he couldn’t go in there or call him. Why, he couldn’t fathom, but each time he thought about it, the idea went out of his head.

  “Excuse me,” a slender man with a buzz cut said.

  “Yeah?” Lucky asked.

  “I need to speak to the big Scottish man. Can you tell me where to find him?”

  The man looked nervous. Lucky almost refused, but he had no choice. All he knew was that Scottie had told him to send anyone who asked for him to him. “He’s right through there.”

  For a second, the man didn’t move. He jumped suddenly, almost as if someone had hit him with a jolt of electricity, and then walked to the entrance to the kitchen and pushed the door in.

  David and Bryn had arrived back at the bar and had joined Xavier in the kitchen.

  “We sent him to Alaska, as requested,” Bryn commented. “Koen’s quite brilliant and mad. The man’ll be diggin’ fish guts out of his fingernails every day. It’s frigid there, man. A rightful fate for the bastard.”

  Xavier nodded. “Good. Now if we can just get this Claude.”

  Bryn slapped Xavier on the shoulder. “He nearly killed my mate, Xavier. Och, he’s nearly killed a lot of people that we care about and has definitely killed many more. I agree, we need to put him in the ground forever.”

  “We’re waiting to hear from him, aren’t we?” David asked.

  “We are. I don’t know when…”

  A squeak brought all three vampire’s attention to the front of the room. A man came through the door, his eyes wary, his gaze bouncing between them. “Who’s Xavier?”

  Fuck, this was it. The summons. Xavier stepped forward.

  “That’ll be me.”

  “Um, here’s the address. He says meet him there. He says come alone or he’ll kill her.” The guy hesitated before he handed the paper to Xavier. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Go back into the bar,” Xavier commanded, and took the paper before the man turned and left.

  Unfolding it quickly, he noted the address and lifted his head to face David and Bryn. “I’m goin’. Please don’t follow me, he’ll kill her if you do.”

  “He’ll kill you if we don’t.”

  “She matters more. I don’t know what else to do, guys. I have to take this chance. Tell Koen that, if I don’t see him again, that we won’t get a chance to be brothers again, I will regret that most of all. If he lets her go, please, you guys have to take care of her. Take away her memories of me and this entire event. Give her peace of mind.”

  Xavier disappeared.

  David turned to Bryn. “Tell Koen. I’ll call you and let you know where we are.”

  He disappeared too.

  Bryn headed out to find Koen.

  Tamesine pulled the car up in front of the bar and got out to say hi to Koen when Bryn came through the door.

  “Claude sent a human compel to let Xavier know where to go. He took off, and David followed him, against orders. He doesn’t want any of us to risk her. David said he’d call with the location.”

  “If Claude does what he usually does, she isn’t there. He’ll just shoot Xavier, kill him forever, and leave.” Tamesine walked back to the car. “Get in. When David calls, we’ll be there.”

  Everything below her neck was numb. She hadn’t been able to move anything but her fingers, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was the fact that the monster who put her here lay in wait to kill Xavier. Worse, she was helpless to stop it. If everything went down exactly as this Claude expected it to, Xavier would be dead soon, and if he didn’t kill her, he would just leave her tied to this rack to eventually die as well.

  How did her simple, well-ordered, fully guided life get to this point? Her mind raced over all of her experiences with Xavier, but she kept landing on the part where he told her that he was a vampire and that he had inhuman abilities. What the fuck was that? Impossible, is what it was.

  And yet, was it?

  This man who had taken her had done things he couldn’t possibly have done. He’d made her do things she never would have done. In addition, she was capable of fighting, of protecting herself, and yet, even when she stood in front of this man, with no restraints, she’d just stood quietly, and done nothing. So, yes, something bizarre was happening.

  But vampires? No, hell no!

  In the end, all that mattered was that the kind, wonderful, sexy man she was falling in love with was in danger. In the end, it was Xavier. And in the end, she was helpless.

  “Stay away,” she whispered. And knew he wouldn’t.

  The shrill squelch of a loudspeaker stung her ears, then she heard Claude’s voice radiate from several points on the high walls above.

  “Hello, lovely girl. Your boy is here to rescue his damsel in distress. Let the games begin.”

  God, oh, God,
oh, God…this couldn’t turn out well.

  Xavier arrived outside yet another building in Hunts Point, right on the water, its dark face just twenty feet from the docks. The entire area was deserted, but he thought it probably wasn’t natural. Claude had cleared it.

  “Hate when a date leaves me behind,” David said behind him.

  Slowing turning, he smiled. “There isn’t any reason anyone else need get hurt here, David. Let me go in alone. He’s promised he’ll kill her if I don’t. If I can get her clear…”

  “She’s not in there. He’ll have compelled humans hold her somewhere else, and when he kills you, they’ll kill her. It’s how he works, Xavier. You just don’t remember this.”

  “Maybe. But I still don’t have a choice.”

  “Yeah, I know that. But you’re not going in alone.”

  Hell, no. He stayed just behind Xavier as he sent a quick text to Bryn.

  David followed Xavier into the dark. A tiny bit of light filtered through the expansive space from somewhere distant, towards the back, and after standing still to suss out the surroundings, David, using his first blood talents to reach for Claude’s life signal, found it, faint, but it was there.

  “He’s close,” David said.

  Xavier shook his head. “I still can’t use most of my skills. I’m sorry, David, we’ve only one vampire here to protect us.”

  “If I do it right, that’s all we need. This asshole knows how to hurt us. He knows you won’t risk your lady.”

  “Aye. He’s right, then.”

  “Into the lion’s mouth,” David commented and continued behind Xavier, his eyes moving back and forth, his first blood antenna to the air, ready to do whatever he had to do to defend Xavier and Margot. If he saw Claude first, his ability to freeze even a made vampire should work on him. Should. But it was not absolutely certain, because the man was made from Tamesine’s blood which, they were quite aware, was different.