by Laura Wright
Sara forced out a solid, “Yes.” But honestly, she wasn’t sure of anything at the moment.
“That little scumbag will not stop until you’re dead,” Alexander said. “And while he’s trying, your officers will be pushing papers around their desks.”
“You need to stop trying to scare me, Alexander,” she said tightly.
“No, I don’t think so. Sometimes fear is necessary to bring clarity to the mind.”
“Where’d you get that? Oprah?”
He nodded to the wall of books behind her. “Psychology in Today’s Modern World.”
Turning around, Sara glanced at the bookshelf, then faced him again, confused. “What?”
“Third shelf, halfway in, gold binding, page sixteen, middle paragraph.”
She stared at him. “You’ve read that book?”
“Just now. The line jumped out at me. Seemed appropriate.”
It took her a moment to process what he was saying, but when she did, she shook her head and said slowly, “No way.”
His eyes held a bitter edge. “It’s new to me as well.” He reached out to her. “Come with me.”
Sara’s pulse kicked. “What? No!”
“I need to show you something.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to walk out of here with you to God knows where.”
“All I wish to do is protect you.”
“Protect me, kill me . . . potato, patato.”
He was around the desk and in front of her in seconds, his voice low, menacing. “If I wanted you dead I could have done it back at my house, or at yours. And it would’ve taken an instant.” He lifted his hand, touched her face. His palm felt warm against her skin. “I want you alive, Sara. And safe. I cannot allow that human to get close enough to hurt you again.” His hand dropped to her chest, his palm resting just above her breast. “Just breathe now. Slow your heart. You have nothing to fear from me.”
Sara wanted to hate herself in that moment, hate the feminine lust that ran through her blood and made her want to arch her back and touch her mouth to his, but instead she felt her heart slowing with each beat and warm desire filling her veins. If she tilted her chin an inch she could do it—feel his lips, maybe even the tips of his fangs. As she stared into his eyes, her breath slid into synch with his and her mind played back the events of that morning—how he’d protected her, how easily he’d lifted and carried her, how his fearsome manner only erupted when he spoke of the ex-patient who wished her harm.
She brought her hand to his cheek, let her thumb brush over the key-shaped brand. The surface of his skin was hot, rough, complicated—like him.
Alexander closed his eyes, sucked in air through his teeth, a low growl escaping his throat on the exhale. Sara couldn’t stop staring at him, at his mouth, the one thing that was remotely soft about him. Would his kiss be harsh, demanding? Would his fangs cut her, scrape her bottom lip, draw blood? Would he grab the back of her skull, his fingers threading her hair, fisting her scalp as his passion grew?
“Come with me,” he said in a husky whisper. “Now. Before I answer the question on both our minds.”
Oh God. Her cheeks flushed and the quiver in her belly inched perilously lower. “I don’t do this,” she whispered in a pained voice. “Whatever it is we’re doing here.”
“I know,” he returned just as softly, his breath a sweet, tantalizing breeze against her mouth. “Neither do I.” He took her hand in his, opened the flap of his coat, and curled her body next to his.
As they left the office, walked down the hall toward the exit, Sara waited for the staff to notice her and the huge man with the brands on his face beside her, but they didn’t. It was as if they were either invisible or shielded from view.
“Your doing?” she whispered to Alexander as they left the ward behind a visitor and passed by the nurse’s station, again completely unnoticed.
“Nothing to explain this way,” he said, guiding her into a waiting elevator.
Sara was silent as the elevator groaned and took off. Her entire adult life was built on rational answers to complicated questions, and right now she had nothing. Magic, invisibility, vampires—none of these things existed. And yet here it was . . . here he was . . .
The elevators opened abruptly, and through a blast of freezing night air, Sara saw that they were on the roof, the helipad and dark chopper waiting on the raised dais for an emergency call.
Alexander pulled her closer. “Come, Sara. It is very cold tonight.”
But Sara eased away from him, stepped out of the elevator on her own, and embraced the cold air, desperate to clear her head—if only for a moment. She didn’t like this—being out of control, allowing someone to lead her into the unknown and the potentially dangerous—even him. She turned. “Why are we up here?”
“I need to show you something,” he said, walking calmly toward her, toward the edge of the roofline, “at your house.”
“Cabs are down there,” she said, backing up, backing away from him.
His eyes flashed. “This will be faster.”
Sara barely had time to register the sudden, powerful strength of his arms around her or the comfort of his warmth. One moment they were at the edge of the roofline, the next they were airborne.
11
It took only seconds. From beginning to end, from what felt like stepping into the eye of a tornado, then being thrust out again.
Breathing heavy in the cold air, legs shaking, Sara stared at the front door of her apartment. “What was that?” she asked, unable to believe the reality of what she’d just experienced. “How did you do that?”
Beside her, Alexander released her and reached for the doorknob. “A simple mind request.”
“As in, ‘see my apartment door in your head and off we go’?”
He chuckled softly. “Something like that.” He used no key, but the door swung wide for them anyway. “Shall we?”
As the wind whipped her hair about her face, wariness and fear gripped hold of every muscle in her body. She didn’t want to go in there again. “Why are we here?”
“You need to see who and what you’re dealing with.” He gently nudged her forward. “Come, Sara.”
Reluctantly, she stepped across the threshold and into the apartment, knowing that she had left the comfort of a rational existence somewhere back at the hospital. No matter how much she wished she could, it had become impossible to pretend that the man beside her was human or that she wasn’t caught up in something impossible to understand and potentially life threatening. And the latter was proven the moment she caught sight of the interior of her apartment. She stared, open-mouthed. The place was completely trashed and the smell of death was fresh. The living area had been turned into some kind of antivampire shrine with red paint slashed across walls, chairs, and on the couch. Crucifixes and garlic hung from light fixtures and picture frames, but most disturbing of all were the dozen or so mutilated bats positioned in a perfect circle on the floor with Tom Trainer’s calling card—a small dead bird—in the center.
Unable to pull her gaze from the scene before her, Sara asked Alexander, “Do you know when this happened?”
“My guess is a few hours after we left.”
“You’ve been here, seen this already.”
“Right before I came to you.”
She glanced up at him then. “I have to call the police, Alexander.”
“They can do nothing for you. My brother Nicholas is a top-notch tracker. He will find Trainer. In the meantime, you need a place to stay. Somewhere safe.”
She knew what he meant—where he believed that safe place to be—and she wasn’t having it. “I’ll stay with friends,” she said quickly.
His brow lifted. “You want to bring this man to your friends?”
Sara’s eyes narrowed. “You’re playing dirty, vampire.”
Alexander smiled. “It is how I play, woman.”
The husky timbre of his voice, the predatory way he watched her
made her insides quiver. “I don’t get it. Why do you care so much?”
“What?”
Her voice dropped. “What is it you want from me? I’m not looking to be rescued.”
In the silence that followed, an expression crossed Alexander’s features, dimmed the fierce strength in his eyes; it was something achingly close to emptiness, and it made the residual fear that still remained in Sara’s heart dissolve.
“You saved my life,” he said softly, simply.
Sara’s gaze locked with his then, a mutual understanding passing between them. He wished to do the same for her . . .
“But you will fight me,” he said. “Why is that? Why are you so stubborn, Sara Donohue? Have you never let anyone care for you?”
His words made her throat ache, but she pushed the quick emotion away. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
Alexander reached out then, brushed his fingertips over the quick pulse at the base of her throat. “Maybe not, but you will stay with me until this man is caught.”
Sara fought for control over herself, but the heat of his touch mocked her resolve. Goddammit! For years—forever it seemed—she’d given her life over to one purpose, one goal, one person—and it had been a worthy path, still was. But Tom Trainer had forced his way into her world and she had to deal with him. After he was off the streets and no longer a threat, she could return to that state of normal, but for now, she needed to think about her own self-preservation. This man—this vampire who stood so close and touched her so tenderly—would keep her safe. She knew it. She knew it like she knew her own name.
Her gaze held his. “There’ll have to be some rules.”
“What rules are those?”
“I have a life, work, patients who need and depend on me.”
Without another word, he left her and strode over to the door, which opened before he even reached the panel of wood. Once there, he turned to face her, his tone and expression grave. “Your work is your own,” he said. “I swear I will not keep you from any of it.”
She didn’t move. “But you’ll be watching me?”
The hard, possessive flash in his merlot eyes said it all.
As if forcing her to make a move, the stench of death inside her apartment grew suddenly worse. “All right, vampire,” she said, walking past him and out into the frigid New York City night. “Let’s fly.”
12
Nicholas walked into the library, his stoic exterior masking the raging hard-on he had to rip out the jugular of the first beating heart he saw. Unfortunately, the only thing in the room happened to be not only pulseless, but family.
Seated in a huge leather armchair, legs splayed, eyes trained on his laptop, Lucian didn’t even look up. “Is Trainer dead?”
“No,” Nicholas said.
“Good, I don’t want the Order up our asses any further than they already are. Is he at least scrubbed and put away for safekeeping?”
Nicholas paced the floor, pausing every few seconds to speak. “I couldn’t find him.”
“Well”—Lucian’s gaze lifted—“that’s unfortunate.”
It was more than that, Nicholas thought. It was a first. In his hundred and fifty years, he’d never lost prey. “His scent is so weak to me now. He must be deeply hidden. But I will find him.”
“I have no doubt.”
“And when I do, he’ll be begging me to end his life. The Order cannot detect torture within the Eternal Breed, only death.”
Lucian grinned, impressed. “This human is bringing out a side of you I haven’t seen since we were on the front lines. Up until now, you’ve quelled the animal buried within.” Suddenly, his almond gaze changed from pride to unease. “Should I be concerned about this new development? Is there more? Has your hunger grown?”
“No. Nothing like that.” But, Nicholas mused, he had felt a shift in himself as of late. Not hunger, but aggression and a burn for gravo, the poisoned vampire blood his mother had abused when he was just a balas , the drug he had gone to great and painful lengths to purchase for her before her death—the drug he had consumed in impressive quantities for several years afterward. He plunged his hands through his hair, attempting to rid his brain of the thoughts and images running through it. He caught Lucian staring at him, a suspicious frown playing about his mouth. He would do well to keep this new and slow burn inside of him a secret; no doubt it would pass in time.
He came around his desk and opened his own laptop. “Where are you with the Hollow of the Shadows?”
Lucian’s frown deepened. “There’s so little on the location of the Order. When I lived in the third credenti , I heard nothing of their whereabouts. From what I’ve been able to find—which isn’t much—they seem to live between worlds. Finding them won’t be easy.” He looked up, his eyes filled with disgust. “Alexander may indeed have to visit his old credenti and question his ... family to get the information.”
Nicholas stilled, his fingers twitching over the keyboard. It was a life, a reality they had sworn never to return to, and now the Order had forced them back in. “Don’t text him, Luca. Let him come home and we will go together, find it together—stand together.”
“He won’t allow us to help.”
Looking up from his screen, Nicholas raised one black eyebrow. “I don’t care if he allows it. Do you?”
A slash of smile hit Lucian’s full mouth. “Blood brothers we are, Nicky.”
There was a knock on the library door and Evans entered the room. The servant looked from one brother to the other and said formally, “I am sorry to disturb.”
“Not a problem,” Nicholas said. “What is it, Evans?”
“A note has been delivered, sir.”
“From Alexander?” Nicholas asked.
“No.”
Nicholas stilled, glanced at Lucian, whose gaze was narrowed and fixed on the ancient Impure. Notes were never delivered to the house, not once in the sixty years they’d lived there. Business mail went to a box at the post office, and from time to time they would receive junk mail at the SoHo address, but nothing personal.
“From your human, Nicky?” Lucian quipped darkly. “Perhaps he’s come out of hiding and is turning himself in.”
Nicholas made a signal for Evans to hand him the letter, and when the butler placed the gray formal envelope with the gold seal in his hands, Nicholas’s blood froze in his veins. Kettler. One of the highest-ranking families in the Eternal Breed, model citizens, purest of pure, and residing in the Boston credenti. His eyes found his brother’s. “Kettler seal.”
“What?” Tossing his laptop to the rug, Lucian jumped to his feet, his pale almond eyes now a blazing fire of gold. A growl . . . “No.”
“From a Bronwyn Kettler.”
“Fuck me.”
Nicholas opened the envelope.
“It begins,” Lucian said vehemently as Evans backed up to the door. “The Order has leaked our whereabouts. If one can find us so easily, the rest will follow.”
Nicholas read the note once, then again. “She has called for a handfasting.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me!”
“A traditional Eternal Breed handfasting. She wishes to live here, remain here all three weeks, in preparation for mating.”
“With who?” Lucian demanded, coming to stand beside Nicholas, so he too could see the letter.
“Alexander.”
“Well, thank Christ for small favors.”
Nicholas shoved the letter in his brother ’s hand and returned to his laptop. He needed to feed. Soon. Something to calm himself and whatever was scratching on the inside of his brain, desperate to get out and pounce.
“She says she’ll be here tomorrow.” Lucian snarled, then turned to the butler still hovering near the library door. “Evans, send a return note; tell the veana to stop packing her bags. She will not be living here in preparation for mating with Alexander or anyone else. Tell her we are no longer part of the credenti—we don’t play by their rules
.”
“No,” Nicholas said quickly, his tone implacable and resolute. “Ready the sage room, Evans.”
Lucian whirled on him, his fangs dropping a centimeter as he roared, “Are you insane?”
“Perhaps,” Nicholas said calmly, “but no Pureblood paven, not even one who has cast off his species, can decline the call of a handfasting. It is a blood vow with our Pureblood females; it goes back centuries, even before the Order took power.” He eased the envelope from Lucian. “Not to mention, it’s really fucking rude.”
“When have you ever given a shit about being rude?”
“Our blood dictates that we at least see her.”
“Your blood, maybe,” Lucian shot back, his fangs descending another inch. “My blood can go fuck itself.”
“You can put those things back in your head now, Little Brother.”
“We also made a vow, Nicholas. To each other—no humans, no credenti.”
Nicholas’s frown deepened. Yes, and it had been so for a hundred years. The three of them living a life of solitude, living and building businesses in cities that allowed such reclusiveness, a life away from the abusive bonds of the credenti and the intrusive eyes of the Order.
Nicholas took a deep breath. “Times are changing, it seems.”
Fangs fully extended now, eyes blistering with a hunger that had nothing to do with blood, Lucian snatched up his laptop and headed up the stairs to the second level. “Do what you will, Brother, but I am going to find this Hollow of Shadows before the Order seeps deeper into our lives and your etiquette-loving ass goes morpho too.”
Deep in the clouds of his mind, Alexander willed himself to land. Sara was coiled in his arms, her hands gripping his waist, her nails digging into the flesh of his back. For a brief moment he wished he could stay in flight, have her tight against his body, her nails digging deeper into his flesh until she drew blood.
