Allegiance (The Penton Vampire Legacy)

by Susannah Sandlin

  In Mirren’s opinion, Aidan was naive if he thought becoming a member of the Tribunal would solve their problems. On the other hand, at least it offered some hope, which had been in short supply around there.

  “Where’d the flyer come from?” Robin asked.

  “I hoped maybe Nik could tell us.” Mirren handed the flyer to Nik, who took it reluctantly and walked over to a corner of the room where he could get away from everyone. Except the damned shifter, who followed him.

  “Glory found the flyer tacked to an electrical pole outside the clinic,” Mirren said. “She tore it down and was on her way to bring it to me when she started seeing them all over town—on every surface that was still standing. Too many people had seen it.”

  Aidan nodded. “The damage was done. The ones who left called me not five minutes after I talked to Will. Even after they found out it was fake, they still wanted to leave. I can’t blame them.”

  “Whoever did this is a fucking coward.” Mirren kicked at one of the mats, sending it sliding across the floor in a flurry of dust. “How do we fight it?”

  He’d engaged in every kind of battle imaginable, or so he thought. He’d met men armed with battle-axes and swords; he’d fought wearing chain mail of his own construction. He’d used fangs and his own brute strength to tear opponents’ limbs from their bodies. He’d beheaded, stabbed, shot, burned, poisoned. But he couldn’t fight what he couldn’t see—and that just pissed him off.

  “It’s classic psychological warfare,” Cage said, sitting on one of the mats. “The Germans used it a lot in World War II, and so did the Brits and the Yanks. It’s effective from a victim standpoint because there’s no way to fight it except to let people know what’s happening and hope they have the courage and patience to stick it out. It’s effective from the enemy’s standpoint because there’s little risk. Well, normally.”

  Aidan had been nodding while Cage talked. “Suggestions?”

  Cage shrugged. “I’d say we call a meeting of everyone in town, tell them exactly what’s going on, and warn them not to believe what they hear or see unless it’s coming from one of us.”

  “I agree.” Aidan looked at Mark. “Do you feel up to organizing the meeting for tomorrow just after daysleep? It’ll take us that long to get the word out. We can have it here.”

  “Will do.” Mark looked up at Melissa, who nodded. “There’s something else you need to know.”

  Mirren walked to the nearest wall and leaned against it, arms crossed. He so didn’t want to hear one more piece of fucking bad news.

  In halting speech, Mark laid out the scenario: finding the drugs, being tempted by the drugs, deciding he could do without the drugs. While he talked, Melissa stood behind him with a hand on his shoulder.

  “So whoever did this knows your background well enough to know your particular poison.” Mirren didn’t like this one bit. “Whoever did it also has access to controlled drugs. And, most serious of all, whoever did it has access to Aidan’s house.”

  “Britta.” Aidan’s voice was flat. “I have a key, as do Mark, Krys, Hannah, and Britta. Cage got one tonight. That’s it.” He jumped off the spool and started pacing. “My instincts about people are usually good, and I would’ve sworn she was with us.”

  “She’s history.” Mirren pushed off the wall. “And don’t defend her, A. There’s no one else it could be.”

  “Yeah, there is.” Nik had returned from communing with the spirits, but the man looked like the spirits had beaten the hell out of him. His nose was even bleeding.

  “I’m gonna call Krys—I don’t like the looks of that.” Aidan dug out his cell phone.

  “She’s not the only doctor in town.” Robin looked at Cage. “Don’t psychiatrists have to go to medical school?”

  Cage was already getting to his feet. “It’s been a right long while, but we’ve already treated the nosebleed once today. I’d suggest you not use those skills of yours for a bit.”

  “Tell me about it.” Nik held the hem of his sweater up to his nose with one hand and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other.

  “What could you tell?” Mirren returned to his spot against the wall, hoping like hell Zorba had learned something helpful and not more confusing.

  “I couldn’t get anything from the flyer—sorry.” He tossed it back on the mat with the other copies. “Just Glory, pulling it down. A few faces looking at it with enough agony for me to know they didn’t put the damned thing up.”

  “So what did you mean about Britta not being the only one who could’ve done it?”

  Nik sat on one of the mats and lay on his back, his voice muffled and strained through the pinched nose and sweater. “Just that unless you’ve looked at all the access points—doors, windows, attic—there’s no way to be sure someone came in with a key. Also, we have two unaccounted-for shifters in Penton.”

  Aidan had been pacing while Nik talked, but he stopped so fast his own momentum almost toppled him over. “Two? Not just the jaguar?”

  “Robin can tell you.”

  Cage had found a first-aid kit in the corner and handed Nik a portable bag of dry ice, which Nik applied to his nose while Robin talked. Mirren had to admit, the Ranger and the shifter—this shifter, anyway—were proving useful. They’d be more useful if Robin weren’t a pain in the ass—but then, from what Mirren knew of eagles, they weren’t exactly possessed of warm, fuzzy personalities, either.

  “So we have a coyote shifter who walks right into the house where Hannah’s hanging out with Barnabas, sets a fire, and nobody sees him.” Mirren shook his head. “How is that possible? How can two shifters be here without us knowing?”

  “Easy.” Robin sat on the mat next to Nik, pulled the ice pack from his nose, and leaned over to look. “It’s stopped bleeding and you’re getting frostbite. What I mean is, these woods around here are full of animals, so how hard would it be for this guy to shift, fill a bottle with accelerant, then slip in as a coyote? He shifts back, sets the fire, then shifts again to leave. He’d use up a lot of energy and be weak afterward from shifting that many times, but it’s doable.”

  “Or.” Cage took Aidan’s former seat atop the wooden spool. “They’re both among our remaining humans. I think we need to isolate and question all of them.”

  “Then even more of them will leave.” Aidan resumed his pacing. “But we keep watch on them, all of them. And this doesn’t let Britta off the hook. I want to go through the comm-house and find out if there’s any sign of forced entry. Nik, you up to helping with that?”

  Zorba had sat up and climbed to his feet. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “Okay, we’re going back to the house.” Mark stood up and tried to stretch his back. “Britta’s supposed to drop by before midnight to feed. What’s the plan with her?”

  Mirren would like to plan her death, and if they found out she’d planted those drugs, nothing Aidan could say would change his mind. “Don’t mention the drugs. See if she asks any questions. Call me when she leaves. I want to know every word she says.”

  “She’ll know he hasn’t taken any from feeding.” Melissa followed Mark toward the door. “It’s how I knew he was clean.”

  Mirren exchanged a raised eyebrow with Aidan as the door closed behind them. Guess they were back together. Another sliver of good news among the bad. True love will win out, and all that shit.

  “Nik and Robin—find a schedule you can live with, especially for the next week.” Aidan filled them in on the Tribunal’s upcoming vote as he gathered his own stuff to leave. “When I take Meg’s seat, I’ll be in a position to really pull together allies without sneaking around behind Frank Greisser’s back. But in the meantime, I need you on day duty and also available part of the evening to meet with us. Mark tries to sleep about midnight until sunrise, and I suggest you make yourself get in that habit.”

  Speaking of treacherous a
ssholes, Mirren had his own theories. “This flyer business sounds more like Frank Greisser than Matthias.”

  “Absolutely.” Aidan nodded. “A war of attrition is exactly Frank’s style. Matthias wouldn’t have the patience for it. I also think Frank has Matthias hidden, and probably has plans to use him if he hasn’t already. But if he’s counting on Matthias for loyalty, he’s looking in the wrong direction.

  “The question is not whether Frank is working with Matthias.” Aidan paused in the doorway on his way out. “The bigger question is: how long before he loses control of Matthias?”

  CHAPTER 21

  First, Robin thought Mirren would never leave. Then Cage got up as if to follow him out.

  Not happening. She had other plans.

  Cage Reynolds was going to be hers tonight. Just tonight. She wanted him, and that itch had to be scratched so she could move on and forget about it.

  The obstacles had been cleared. Curvy old Melissa had returned to her husband, where she should’ve been all along. Fen Patrick was off patrolling. Cage had no pressing business of which she was aware.

  Besides, if she waited until Cage stopped worrying about Penton long enough to focus on her, she’d be old and her feathers bedraggled.

  Robin didn’t like to wait. Never had. Our eagle cousins might be predators, but we’re not. That had been her parents’ mantra, nice old hippy-dippy shifters that they were. And where had it gotten them? Where had being the passive and gentle women they’d raised their daughters to be ever gotten her and Wren? Wren was ruined, and Robin had to live the life of a rover.

  No, if she’d learned anything in life, it was that sometimes, only predatory behavior got you what you needed. Getting Cage off his Superman cape–wearing, heroic ass called for predatory skills. And she knew just how to get him moving.

  “Let’s spar.”

  Cage squatted in the corner, dumping all the first-aid supplies back in the kit where he’d found the cold pack. He swiveled to look at her. “Tonight? Tempting though it might be, love, I’m patrolling.”

  Or so he thought. “Have fun, then.”

  She waited, muscles taut, nerves alive with possibility. He set the first-aid kit aside and grabbed a jacket—distressed brown leather. Sweet. Where had he gotten clothes? She’d been so caught up in the drama of tonight’s revelations, and in arguing with her favorite fanged Scotsman, that she hadn’t noticed how damned good he looked. Jeans worn light in all the right places, his normal old boots, a dark golden-brown sweater almost the same color as that silky hair. The ponytail had to go. She wanted her hands in that hair.

  And those boots had a strap around the ankle that would suit her needs.

  He looked down at her and smiled. “Right, then. I’m off. You’re staying here?”

  “Yeah, just gonna hang out awhile.” Said the spider to the fly.

  As soon as the fly got within reach, she shot out a hand, slipped her fingers in the strap of his left boot, and jerked it toward her.

  Oof. “Bloody hell.”

  A less experienced fighter would have hit the concrete floor with all his weight on his right shoulder, but Cage knew how to land. He’d broken the fall with his hands and pushed himself immediately into a seated position. His eyes grew to the size of moss-green quarters as they looked at her, then down at her hand and the fingers still looped through the strap on his boot. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Getting your attention.”

  His eyes grew a shade lighter as he raised his gaze to hers. A smile lifted one side of his mouth. “You have my attention. Question is, what are you going to do with it?” His voice had morphed from outrage to purr, and a shiver ran down her spine. She hadn’t expected him to play so quickly and didn’t want to just have a quickie on the concrete floor. This needed to play out slowly. She wanted to savor it.

  She released his boot and climbed to her feet. “I want to spar. Come on. Bet you can’t throw me. I took down Mirren, so you’re gonna be easy-peasy.”

  Cage gave her a slow smile and began to stand. The pendant lighting they’d had installed in the work space arced golden gleams off his hair. Slowly, he snaked out a hand and wrapped his fingers all the way around her ankle. And stopped.

  She tugged, but his grip might as well have been a vise. His eyes had lightened another shade, and their gazes met. His expression was downright . . . predatory.

  Robin’s heart sped up, and he felt it, judging by the widening smile.

  Maybe, just maybe, she’d met her match. And she wasn’t ready for that to hap—

  He jerked her leg toward him, and she went down hard on her back; only the padded mat saved her. He still had hold of her ankle and used it to pull her toward him. “I think there are many ways to spar, love, so let’s try a bit of mattress wrestling. You’ve wanted this from the beginning, admit it.”

  Only on her terms, not his. She relaxed her right leg and Cage’s grasp loosened; when she shot out her left leg and slammed her foot into his shoulder, he had to release her to break his own backward momentum. Advantage: eagle. “So sorry. Did you hit your head on the concrete?”

  He wiped his hand across his temple, and the fingers came away bloody. Which reminded her . . .

  Robin slipped the tiny pocketknife from her pocket and flicked it open, waving it in the air to make sure he saw it.

  “Robin.” His voice held a warning. “Don’t test me.”

  She drew the knife across the base of her throat, just an inch-long cut where her clavicle met her sternum. It wasn’t a silver blade, nor was it very sharp, nor was the cut deep. But it made a little trickle of blood she’d barely registered before Cage lunged, pinning her to the mat, his heavy weight on top of her.

  “Taste me, Cage.”

  He wanted to; she could see it. His eyes had lightened even more, as silvery as they were green. His breathing had turned ragged, and he’d fixated on her neck. The blood tickled as it seeped out and ran toward her shoulder. She whispered, “Do it.”

  “Damn you, little bird.” He dropped his mouth to the edge of her shirt, nearest her shoulder, and the swipe of his tongue was pure silk as it traced the line of blood back to the cut. He groaned as he took a light pull on the cut, or at least Robin thought he did. The sensation when Mirren had bonded her felt nothing like this. That had been a burst of power, where this was power and sex and thunder and lightning all rolled into one, coming in waves and settling into her core.

  “Touch me.”

  Cage raised his head, his lips stained from her blood, eyes unfocused, breath ragged. “What?”

  She ran her fingers down his arm until she reached his hand, then pulled it to rest between her thighs. “Touch me. Please.”

  “We can’t do this.” Cage sat up, jerked the cord out of his hair to let it spill free, and threw it across the floor.

  Robin took a deep breath, her brain finally engaging again. “What just happened?” Had she begged him to touch her? She didn’t beg. Ever.

  He looked up at her with his silvery eyes, running the edge of his tongue along the edge of his bloodstained lips, and she knew she could lose herself in him and it would be okay. Because he’d always bring her back to herself in the end. She could lose herself but not be lost.

  It was the scariest fucking thought she’d ever had.

  “Have you ever heard about the mating of Mirren and Glory?”

  Robin thumped herself in the head, because he couldn’t really have asked that question. “We just backed away from the edge of the best-sex-of-our-lives cliff because you want to talk about Mirren Kincaid?” No wonder the Americans had kicked the Brits’ asses in the Revolution; those people had serious emotional issues.

  Cage grinned. “We haven’t backed so far off that cliff we can’t return to it, sweetheart.”

  He got up, walked to the door of the mill, and flipped both dead
bolts. When he got to the edge of her mat, he dropped on all fours again and crawled toward her, looking sexy and predatory and hungry, and by God that was her role. She flipped him on his back with a hard shove and sat on his stomach, digging her knees into the mat on either side of his waist to hold him in place.

  “Well, isn’t this an interesting position? I rather like it.” He molded a big hand around each of her thighs and shoved her back until she could feel the hard ridge of him pressed against her. As badly as she wanted not to let him know it got to her, she had to move against him. Just a few times, rocking back and forth, the friction of their clothing adding to the heat until she—

  He flipped her again, and she let out a long, shuddering breath. Damn it. So close. “Asshole.”

  He continued as if nothing had interrupted. “So Mirren and Glory had this incredible chemistry, or so the story goes, and she was his familiar. But one day, they got rather carried away and fed and fucked all at the same time, and a funny thing happens to vampires in such a situation.”

  Okay, maybe he did have a point in his rambling. “What kind of funny thing?” Because it sounded pretty damn sexy—or it would if it were she and Cage and not the big old hulking Scotsman.

  “It’s called a bond-mating ritual in the vampire world.” He wedged a knee between her legs and rolled on top of her again, lowering his mouth to her neck, creating the most delicious scrape of fang against her skin but not biting. He stopped with his mouth just above her ear and whispered, “It’s a lifelong bond. Literally until death you do part.”

  “What?” Robin shoved him away, and he fell back on the mat, laughing.

  “I thought that would get your attention, since you’re all about getting attention tonight.” He had a silly laugh, almost a giggle. It was the first time she’d heard it; she would’ve remembered. Yeah, it was sexy coming from him.

  “So did that qualify as feeding? I mean there has to be more to it than that.”

  He smiled up at her, and there was nothing silly about his chuckle or the dark undercurrent of need in his eyes. “No, that wasn’t a true feeding. Actually, creating a mating bond requires a blood exchange, so you’d have to taste me as well as the feeding and fucking.”