“Bennett told you that?”
“Well, psychotic is my word.” Kos seemed to be waiting for her to continue. “He told me that the Hunters…is that what they’re called?”
“Yes, in English they call themselves Hunters.”
“He told me the Hunters want to kill all vampires. I’m not saying you don’t freak me out, Kos. I’m freaked. But exterminating a whole race, or species, or whatever. That’s genocide. That’s about hate, not about helping humanity.”
She couldn’t read his reaction from his neutral expression. After a moment, he asked, “Did you tell Bennett you feel that way?”
“I pushed back at first, but he just got more zealous. So I shut up. Honestly, I was a little scared of what he’d do with me if he knew I was sympathetic to you all.”
“That was wise. How did you get away?”
“I slipped out when he went to get breakfast.”
“You spent the night with him?”
“In separate beds.” Why did Kos looked relieved? Oh. “Did Andre tell you about me and him?”
“Zoey, this will sound weird. We could smell it on you when you arrived.”
“Smell what?”
“That you’d had sex with a Hunter. We assumed it was Ethan Bennett because we know Lucas is gay. Hunters reek.”
Zoey rubbed her arms. It made her feel dirty that they smelled him on her. Even worse, he had made her stink.
“Kos, I didn’t know anything about this when I came here. They were using me.”
“We knew that.”
“Then why did Andre tell me about the wine?”
“Hell, I think he’d tell you anything you asked him.”
What did that mean? She wanted to ask, but Kos needed her to focus on Ethan instead. “I’m sorry, Kos. I didn’t know.”
The dumbwaiter squeaked to a stop. She stood to get some coffee while she asked, “Do you all have a plan to defend yourselves or will you have to run again?”
“We desperately hope not to run, but it’s nearly impossible to fight them off. They will keep coming from all over the world to kill us, now that our location is known.”
Her coffee turned bitter in her mouth. They might have to abandon everything they’d built. What would happen to Ally and Susan if Andre and Kos had to flee?
Should she ask Kos about Andre’s rude dismissal? No, she’d already done what she came to do and might as well leave. She didn’t need to get more involved in their situation, and Andre clearly wanted her gone. She would go home, send Ethan her resignation, and start looking for a new job.
“Kos, I wish you the best of luck. I hope you’re able to stay.” She set down her mug, ready to leave. “I wish I could have finished the project for you. That would have been a great fuck-you to Ethan, and I was enjoying the work. But clearly it’s time to go.”
“You’re a real spitfire, huh? Maybe that’s why Andre likes you.”
“Yeah. He likes me a lot.” She brushed her perfectly clean hands off on her thighs. It was time to put Andre behind her.
“Well, do you want the bad news or the worse news, then?”
She froze. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s start with the bad. What Andre didn’t realize when he ordered you to go home is that you are no longer safe there. Hunters are undoubtedly watching this place, and there’s a good chance Ethan will know you came here. To them, you are now a part of this household and you must be killed. You’re stuck here for a while.”
Her jaw went slack with the shock. Shit. She had placed herself in the middle of a battle that would not end, only to relay useless information to Andre. She would have to go on the run.
Wait. Kos had said there was more bad news to come. She looked up.
“Ready for the worse news?”
“No.”
“Too bad. My father was angry to see you because he is at least halfway in love with you.”
Did she hear that right? “No, he’s not.”
“Yes, he is. And, Zoey, he’d rather die than be married again.”
“Who the hell says I want to get married?”
“You don’t understand, Zoey. He wants you, but he won’t let himself get close to you.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“No, Zoey, you don’t.” Kos bunched up his shoulders and then released them.
“Then tell me.”
“It’s because of my mother, Mila, that Andre won’t get close to a woman again.”
She was hooked. In spite of herself, she did want to know about Andre’s past. Only because she had revealed her own past to him and it was fair she also know his. Not because she was impossibly curious.
“Was she a vampire?” Zoey picked up her mug again and took another sip.
“She was not. She refused to let Andre turn her. When they married, she promised him she would go through with it, but then refused year after year. She was aging, and Andre feared for her health. I believe she loved him, but in the end she couldn’t choose to become like him.”
“So she grew old and died?”
“No.” Kos looked away from Zoey, gazing out the window.
Was that all she was going to get?
He turned back to her suddenly, opened his mouth and closed it once, then spoke. “Zoey, he found her dead in the bath. She’d slit her wrists.”
Stunned, Zoey couldn’t lift a finger, couldn’t take a breath. Her mind raced. So that was it—the spark, the connection between them. How disappointing. If only it could have been cataclysmic sexual chemistry or some kinky vampire thing. Instead, they were the walking wounded, two people totally damaged.
The look on his face was expectant.
“I take it Andre told you my husband also committed suicide?”
He nodded.
“I understand this is a very strange coincidence, but it hardly makes us soul mates. In fact, it makes it clear why neither of us wants a relationship. I decided a long time ago that it was best for me to be alone.”
“But, Zoey, it’s not that simple.”
“Why not? It sounds like we’re on the same page. When he saw me at the door, he thought I was getting clingy, right? Don’t worry, I’m not the kind of girl that thinks a good fuck is a marriage proposal.”
“Zoey, you don’t understand. You can’t leave, but he can’t be around you. He can’t control himself. Your being here is a train wreck.”
“What do you mean he can’t control himself? He’s certainly not going to force himself on me. He’s a little domineering, but he wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Of course not. But, Zoey, I’m not talking about sex. He—”
“Enough, Kos.” Andre was in the door. Kos didn’t look particularly surprised he was there.
Again she took in his beauty. Broad forehead, dark brow, and high cheekbones. His cheeks were hollow, his face purely masculine. He still wore the white shirt he’d had on yesterday, now rumpled. Zoey remembered a flash of sadness in the shower when she’d washed him off her. Was that why he hadn’t bathed?
“Listen boys, I’m leaving. I’ll figure out how to walk away from my life. I’m sure I can find instructions on the Internet. Train wreck averted.”
He was next to her inhumanly fast. “While I admire your courage, Zoey, I can’t let you leave.”
“Andre, you just told me to go home, and not nicely.”
“Kos is right. I wasn’t thinking clearly when you arrived. I can’t guarantee your safety if you leave, even if you don’t go home. You came back here to protect me and I owe you protection in return.”
She wasn’t feeling all that brave about walking away from her home and identity. She had a lonely but comfortable existence. She would probably pull over a safe distance from Kaštel and melt down in the car where no one would see. But she was ready to start doing whatever she would have to—better to act than to think about it.
“What do you mean? You don’t think I’d be safe in hiding?”
“I mean, they may
tail you from here and get you the first place you stop. I don’t know how sophisticated the Hunters have become. Perhaps they can even track your credit cards. You have to stay here for the time being. You’ll be safe from them, and I promise you’ll be safe from me.”
Why was he a threat to her?
All at once, the floor started to shake underneath them. Her pulse skyrocketed, but surely it was just a little tremor. They happened all the time in wine country.
Then something exploded.
Chapter 25
ETHAN RETURNED TO AN EMPTY HOTEL ROOM to find Zoey’s note. She must have been more spooked than he thought if she left without waiting for him to bring breakfast and say goodbye. His cell phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Your Zoey just pulled back into Kaštel Estate and went inside.” It was one of the Hunters on surveillance.
“Are you sure?”
“Silver Audi, dark hair, nice ass.”
So she’d gone back. That was disappointing. “Yes, that’s her.”
“We’re preparing to firebomb the house.”
What was this cold feeling in his chest?
“Do it.”
As he hung up his phone, the feeling spread into his bones. Was he grieving Zoey? She was rather special. Something inside her was broken, a mirror of the iciness he hid within himself.
Still, the feeling itself was astonishing. Had he ever been so attached to another person? Perhaps if she hadn’t run away, she would have seen him for what he was; perhaps she would have wanted him, darkness and all.
Another feeling seized him, spiking his pulse and making his cell phone creak under the pressure of his grip. Call back, call off the attack. Get her.
No. That was not an option. He hated to lose her, but if she went back there, she was already lost. And this hysteria did not suit him.
Ethan gathered what few items he had in the room and sped back to Hunter headquarters. Mick was leading the mission at Kaštel, but his father and Lucas were in the back room. The crumbling plaster walls and sloppy table made the label “command center” a touch too ironic. It probably pained his father to be there instead of at Kaštel, but they couldn’t trust Lucas alone with Pedro, in spite of the punishment he had dealt out to the winemaker.
Lucas was surprised to see Ethan. He must have heard that Zoey went back to Kaštel and so came straight to HQ.
“I want a go at Pedro. Let’s see if we can get anything of value to use against Maras.”
Lucas had no choice but to agree. He walked with Stephen to the shed as Ethan went to his car, and pulled out a small black leather bag. It looked like the kind doctors used to carry for house calls.
Lucas eyed it warily. “What’s in there?”
“Just some tools I brought along in case Pedro needed persuading.”
At the door to the shed, Ethan ordered the initiates standing guard to restrain Pedro on the worktable inside. Even in his battered state, he resisted the young men, but together they managed to pin him down. Then one of them wrapped duct tape around his wrists, ankles, and hips, securing him firmly to the table.
Ethan barked at the initiates. “Get out.”
He squatted down and laid out his tools on a cloth he had inside the leather kit, pulling out razor blades, pliers, a vise, and his sun dagger before Lucas turned his head away, struck with fear for Pedro.
Pedro seemed to realize this was his last chance, and he didn’t want to go out quietly. He cursed them in Spanish, which only Lucas understood. Damn, Pedro knew some nasty expressions.
In English he said, “You think they are evil predators. Look in the mirror, you dogs, you’re the animals—filthy, sick animals. He’s only ever been kind to me. He takes good care of the women. You make your children kill innocents and you call the vampires cruel.” He spat on Lucas, who stood closest to him.
“Whom do you mean, Pedro? Do you mean the vampires that don’t exist?” Ethan’s voice was so cold that he no longer sounded familiar. He barely sounded human.
Pedro’s face fell for a moment when he realized he’d given up his strategy of denial. Then he shored himself up. “I don’t know anything. Just kill me; send one of your yellow-eyed little boys in here to do me off.”
“But how can we trust you, Pedro? After all, you lied to us about knowing what Maras was. I think we will have to extract information from you in a different way. Take off his shoes.” Again he barked the order, that time to Lucas.
Ethan took the pliers in hand. “I am going to pull out your toenails one by one. You can stop this any time by telling me what you know.”
“Fuck you!”
“You must be confusing me with my brother.”
Lucas’s head jerked toward Ethan in astonishment. But he clicked his teeth together before he was caught, mouth agape. Ethan had just shown one more card—this brutality was all about Lucas, which meant he was to blame for dragging Pedro into it.
As Ethan started in on Pedro’s first toe, Pedro began sobbing and cursing, but he never lost his will to fight. After a while, he was only crying out in Spanish. Lucas wanted to ignore him, wanted to stop his brain from translating into English. But he owed it to Pedro to listen. Eventually, his cries became pleas for Lucas to help.
He had to think carefully about some of the words. He wasn’t fluent, but he could make out the message. “Friend, just kill me, please. Don’t let him do this to me…” Pedro was careful. As he spoke to Lucas, he didn’t change his tone from the cursing and exclamations of pain. “Just get them out of here for a minute and get me free. I’ll hang myself from the rafter with my belt.”
Lucas wished he could let Pedro know his plans, but the foreign words wouldn’t come to him. Every second of Pedro’s agony was seared into his soul, but he had to wait for the best opportunity.
Ethan had removed three of Pedro’s toenails. His feet were a bloody mess, the toes swollen beyond recognition. He removed the duct tape at Pedro’s ankles as he explained that next he would peel the skin off his legs, beginning at the ankle and moving up.
Lucas was sick and panicked inside. Perhaps saving Pedro was no longer possible. Would it be most merciful to create a distraction and kill him somehow?
At the sound of the explosion, Zoey asked, “What is that?”
Andre and Kos sped out of the room. Were they running? They moved so fast she couldn’t make out the action of their bodies. Zoey followed them to the door and saw them in the entryway.
A swarm of people Zoey hadn’t known were in the house began to appear: six huge men that Zoey somehow knew were vampires, Andre’s other son Bel, a dark-skinned woman, a red-headed girl, and four other people she couldn’t see clearly were behind them on the stairs.
“It’s the Hunters,” Bel said. “We’re under attack.”
There was no damage visible, but Zoey smelled smoke.
Someone called out. “What happened?”
As Bel opened the door, Andre, Kos, and Zoey all shouted, “No!”
The pretty woman with dark hair said, “It’s all right.”
“The shield is holding,” Bel said when he looked outside. He held the door open wide enough that Zoey could see. There were men advancing on the house, throwing bottles with flaming wicks. The bottles were breaking against some kind of invisible barrier, creating walls of fire as the fuel in them spread against the barrier and ignited. The fuel ran down the invisible wall forming a ring of fire that burned out quickly on the cement drive of the house. Zoey’s mind couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing.
Kos stood in the doorway to the parlor, looking out through the wall of French doors. “They’ve surrounded us, but the shield is holding on this side too. The flames are catching the lawn on fire back here.” The dark-haired woman ran past him into the parlor and Kos followed.
“What exploded?” Andre asked Bel.
He looked to the right out of the door. “I think it was Zoey’s car. Sorry, Zoey, you arrived after she shielded the house, or Try
s would have protected your car.”
Now she was really stuck. She glanced at Andre only to find him watching her. “I guess I’m staying.”
Suddenly he was next to her, and he said into her ear, “It’s for the best—they attacked now because they knew you were here. You wouldn’t be safe anywhere else.” Concern rumbled in his voice; his offer of protection wasn’t simply a repayment for her attempt to protect him. Damn it if it didn’t melt her. He might want her gone, but he also wanted her safe.
“I still don’t understand what caused that earthquake,” the redhead said in accented English.
The huge black-skinned guy answered her from where he looked out a window. “There is someone on that hill with a rocket launcher—they must have tried to rip a hole in the front of the house to get their Molotov cocktails inside. But the rocket bounced off the shield. Damn, Trys. This is the best one you’ve made. Remember that time in Finland when my thigh was torn open by the RPG that got through your barrier?”
“How could I forget, with you constantly reminding me, Omar?” said a twiggy blonde with something smudged on her face—it looked like chocolate. The woman continued. “But you always leave out the part where my spell stopped your bleeding and we got you out before the place went up in smoke.”
The smack talk was clearly a familiar script between them.
“Who are they?” she whispered to Andre.
“They’re Bel’s crew. Vampire mercenaries he brought to protect us from the Hunters.”
“We’re not all vampires!” the redhead said. “I’m going to check the police scanner.”
“Wow. You have a police scanner now?” Kos asked.
“I never leave home without it,” she replied.
“Not since Vania and I spent the night in jail in Mumbai,” Bel said, stepping into the center of the entryway. He took charge. “They’re retreating now. Arden, Vania, come with me. We’ll tail the Hunters. Trys, brilliant work with the shield. Do whatever it takes to keep that up. Kos, be ready to handle the police if they show up. Say it was an engine backfire.”
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