That icy cold prickling pinched every inch of my skin, my instincts flickering in and out as each heartbeat slowed my power, my responses, my everything. I’d tried and failed to call Alek through the bond too many times to count. Something about the way this facility was built, or perhaps just the loss of blood, had weakened me so damn much.
Kyle laughed, using his free hand to push back the sweat-mangled hair from my face. “I would’ve fucked you when you were human,” he whispered, his lips at the shell of my ear. “But now? Now I’m just going to take you. Prove to you fangers that you’re nothing but a void to fill.” He shifted, plunging his hand between us, right between my thighs.
I screamed again, thrashing with what little strength I had left—
“Enough.” The masculine voice cut through my screams, and Kyle leaped off of me like he’d been burned.
My head lolled to the left, toward the entrance to my cell. I didn’t even have enough strength to stand, but with Kyle off of me, I could feel the power in my blood doing its damndest to piece me back together. A cool, tingling sensation rapidly pooled over the wounds in my arm, above my eyebrow, but still…the weakness in my limbs kept me still.
“Father,” Kyle said, arms crossed behind his back as he dipped his head in submission.
A shiver ran through me at the sight of the man—brown suit, fit for an older man, and the same pale green eyes as Kyle and Valor.
Fucking hell, Val.
Had our friendship been a lie?
No, that didn’t make any sense. She had no idea what happened to me. I’d only seen her twice since my world changed. What we had was real.
Would it still be? When she found out? If she found out? Or did her family play the old boy’s club card and not allow women in? That would be a tragic yet totally appreciated mercy. I wouldn’t want any of this sticky hate and malice touching Valor. Valor, who was so kind and fiery and fierce of her protection over me.
“Leave, Kyle,” he said, not needing to raise his voice. “Before you embarrass the family.”
Red stained Kyle’s cheeks, but he didn’t argue. He tucked his tail and practically ran out of my cell.
“So, the creep listens to his daddy,” I sighed, my voice barely above a whisper. Kyle halted at the door, but a warning look from his father kept him moving. I would’ve laughed at how pathetic it was, if I wasn’t fighting for my strength to return while I laid absolutely still on the floor.
Something hot and angry and terrifying shot through my blood, and it had nothing to do with the way Kyle’s father was staring me down through the bars of my cell. No, it had everything to do with that bond flickering deep inside my soul. The one that was currently pumping strength into my body, refueling me with each second Alek grew closer. I don’t know how he found me, and I didn’t care. I silently thanked the vampire gods for whatever mercy was leading him closer.
“Kyle’s approach has always been a bit archaic,” he said, slowly pacing the length before my cell. “I take blame in it. I raised him to be aware of all things and his hate grew from a young age.” He paused to face me.
“As opposed to what?” I hissed. “You’re obviously at the head of this. You tried to kill Avi. You killed those wolves.”
“Necessary. I’m protecting the world.”
He didn’t even try to deny it. The hate in these people—God, it was endless. And they’d attacked innocent people, whether supernatural or not.
“Please,” he continued. “I don’t want any more blood to be spilled. Tell us where the stronghold is and we’ll let you go.”
My lips spread into a wide grin, a laugh ripping past them. “I’ve seen this movie before,” I said through my laughter. I rolled through my blood on the floor, pushing myself up to a sitting position as I held his gaze. “Bad cop, good cop?” I tilted my head, my vision flickering from normal and fuzzy to red and throbbing. I could see the vein in his neck pulsing, ripe for plucking, and God, did I need a drink. I wrapped my fingers around the bars, curling one for him to come closer. “I’ll tell you,” I whispered, so soft he leaned down closer to hear.
My heart hammered in my chest, that bond writhing with Alek’s fury. God, I could taste it on my tongue, his anger. My mate. He was close.
“Closer,” I whispered, and he leaned down—
I snatched through the bars.
He jolted just out of reach, stumbling back as his eyes flared wide.
I laughed, pure madness and bloodlust.
“Sir,” another male voice sounded as two guards ran through the exterior door. He grabbed Kyle’s dad’s shoulders, hauling him to his feet. He fought off the guard, smoothing his suit where it had wrinkled from his sudden retreat.
I grinned up at him, the bond practically a glowing beacon blazing in my soul now. I had no sympathy for him, for his wretched son. They’d tried to kill me, kill Ransom. They wanted to wipe us from existence.
“Bad form, fanger,” he said with cool hatred.
I bared my fangs. “You’re screwed,” I hissed, internally grabbing hold of that bond and tugging. “My mate’s here.”
His eyes narrowed, but I scented the bitter fear as it crashed through the room.
“That’s not possible—”
An alarm blared throughout the building, incessant and beautiful at the same damn time.
And I laughed.
Laughed as I retreated to the back of my cell, waiting.
19
Alek
“You’re sure this is the place?” Lachlan asked from the back seat as we pulled up to a hilltop overlooking a fenced-off concrete bunker. The inconvenient thing about wending was that you could only materialize somewhere you’d already been or seen, and seeing that we were deep within Witch territory, I hadn’t spent much time exploring the area.
“Lyric is in there. I can feel her.” My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, and I fought to keep my temper on a leash.
The engine of the Escalade was quiet as a church mouse thanks to Benedict’s obsession with all things vehicular, and we’d killed the headlights as soon as we’d pulled off the interstate. It wasn’t like I needed them to see where I was going, anyway.
“It’s one of the Moorehouse facilities,” Valor said quietly from the passenger seat. The woman had grit, and her sense of loyalty to Lyric helped soothe a little of the rage simmering in my veins, but not entirely.
My mate’s best friend was part of the family that held my wife, and I hadn’t known. Whatever tracks they’d had were covered over so well that even Ransom hadn’t picked up on anything during the background check. Think about it once Lyric is safe, I reminded myself. Right now, that was all that mattered.
I turned my focus to the compound itself. My bond with Lyric had grown stronger the closer we’d driven, but it was still…off, even being only a hundred yards away. That meant wherever they were holding her had to be lined with iron and steel, or they’d dosed her with Night Thistle. Either way, her newfound vampire strength wouldn’t mean shit. She’d be as weak as a human in there, and anything could happen to her. The pounding, relentless drive to save my mate was as constant as my heartbeat, and the desperation was almost enough to overcome the common sense that told me we needed a plan. I’d be no good to her dead.
I killed the engine, got out of the Escalade, and opened the back hatch.
“One of the Moorehouse facilities?” Benedict questioned, coming around the back end of the car as I slid the Kevlar over my chest.
“How many fucking facilities do you have?” Lachlan growled, grabbing vests and throwing them at Benedict and Hawke.
“We’re a billion-dollar company, so do you mean for production, distribution, or sales?” Valor spat back, pinning him with a glare.
“That’s my queen in there, human,” Lachlan said, low and slow, the threat obvious as he leaned closer.
“She might be your queen, but she was my best friend first,” she countered, narrowing her eyes. “And if I had any idea this wa
s going to happen, I would have stepped in. I should have stepped in the second she disappeared for a month and showed up married, but I had no clue that her Alek was Alekxander Markov!”
“And if you had known?” I strapped my holster over my shoulders.
“I would have kept her as far from you as possible,” she admitted, meeting my eyes. “Look what’s happened to her.”
Every one of my Assassins went still.
In that moment, I couldn’t blame her for speaking the truth, so I holstered my weapons and put another at my thigh. “How many men are inside?”
“Probably three dozen,” she answered. “Usually only a couple at this hour, but they know she’s your queen.”
I checked my extra clips as the others strapped up. “Hopefully no one you love is on duty because they’ll be dead in the next five minutes.”
Her breath left in a puff of steam, as if she hadn’t thought this through to its logical conclusion. “I’m coming with you.”
“Like hell you are,” Lachlan growled.
“You’ll need my codes to get through the door. That building is lined with steel, iron, ruby dust and silver. It’s not like you can just poof yourself inside.” She folded her arms across her chest.
Benedict muttered a curse.
The hairs rose on the back of my neck. They weren’t just vampire-hating assholes. They were educated assholes who knew far more than they should.
“Prepared for vampires, werewolves, and witches, are you?” Lachlan shoved a vest over her head and tugged the straps across the Velcro to fasten it. “Strong cage you've built over there.”
“My father and brother said it was to protect us—to keep you out.” She looked over her shoulder, down at the well-lit compound.
“More like keep us in,” Hawke accused, cracking his neck like a pregame ritual.
“I can see two armed guards patrolling the perimeter inside the fence.”
“Do they know we’re coming?” Lachlan asked Valor, tipping her chin toward him when she didn’t look away from the building. “Did you warn them?”
She shook her head and swallowed, then shuddered slightly and took a deep breath. “Of course not. I just want Lyric safe.”
Lachlan’s gaze narrowed. “We’ll see about that, lass. You’re right. We’ll need your codes, so you get to tag along, but you’ll be at my side. You run, I kill you. You warn them, I kill you. You betray us—”
“You kill me. Got it.” She lifted her hair free from the Kevlar. “Do I at least get a weapon?”
Lachlan scoffed. “No, and if you so much as take more than three steps away from me, I’ll put a fucking leash around your waist. You understand?”
She nodded.
We walked to the front of the Escalade, and my heart lunged forward like it was willing to break out of my chest to be closer to Lyric. “Benedict, take the guard at the north. Hawke, the south. Where is the easiest entry point?” I aimed that last question at Valor.
“There.” She pointed to the door at the south end. “Hold on.” She turned to the car, Lachlan on her heels every step of the way, and returned with her coat, zipping it up over the vest. “You’ll have to keep out of the camera while I put in the code, or they’ll kill her before we can even get inside.”
I nodded once, the killing rage already taking over, honing my senses and stripping away any ounce of civility I’d cultivated over the last four hundred years and leaving only the lethal predator our kind was designed to be.
“Go now.”
Both Benedict and Hawke disappeared and materialized a hundred yards away, both soundlessly snapping the necks of their prey. A second later, we wended with our weapons drawn, Lachlan releasing his grip on the back of Valor’s neck as we arrived in the shadows to the side of the south door.
Valor stepped into the doorway and punched in the code. A beep later, the door opened.
“See?” she said without looking over her shoulder. “If I’d warned them, the code wouldn’t work.”
With supernatural speed, we raced into the building, nothing but four blurs to any camera that might be watching. Not that we needed to worry about setting off any alarms when there were already four guards in tactical gear leaning against the walls in various locations down the wide hallway.
They were dead before any of them could lift a radio or call out.
“Four,” Benedict whispered, his silencer-equipped nine-mil still raised.
“We’re not keeping score,” Hawk muttered, scanning the rest of the hallway as we moved slowly.
“Because you’re afraid you’ll lose,” Benedict answered, peeking into the first room and clearing it. “Nothing.”
“I can feel her, but it’s not clear,” I said quietly as Hawke cleared the next two rooms. The air felt thick and heavy, dulling not only my senses but my speed. Steel. That was okay. We didn’t need supernatural speed to pick off the humans. Besides, there was only enough metal in these walls to annoy an ancient like me.
But it would cripple an immortal as young as Lyric.
“They might have her in the containment area,” Valor noted quietly. “It’s around the corner.”
Containment. The word alone was enough to turn my vision red. We cleared the four small rooms in the hallway, our footsteps silent on the quickly reddening linoleum, and headed for what looked to be a reception desk.
A man in a lab coat came around the corner and managed to scream before Hawke put a bullet between his eyes.
An alarm sounded through the speakers that lined the ceiling, and four rotating lights flashed red.
“Shit,” Benedict cursed as we picked up the pace.
“It’s about to get sporty,” Hawke said with a sinister grin, gripping a Glock in each hand.
Guns raised, we turned the corner into another fluorescently lit hallway as humans ran from rooms on either side. We took out the ones in tactical gear first.
“We need some alive for questioning,” I growled.
“Fine,” Hawke grumbled, winging a guy in a lab coat.
A bullet whizzed past us with a hiss. Lachlan shoved Valor behind him with one arm and shot the guard with the gun in his left hand.
“She’ll be at the end of the hallway,” Valor said, trying to push away from Lachlan’s back and failing. “For fuck’s sake, get out of my way.”
“No.” He didn’t even bother giving a reason.
The door at the end of the hall was steel everywhere but the glass panel, and even that had metal lattice-work running through it.
“Please don’t kill me,” the lab-coat guy begged, shoving himself into a sitting position against the wall as Benedict stepped over his legs.
“Where is she?” I asked, leveling my aim at his one healthy shoulder.
His hand shook as he pointed toward the door.
“We’re missing a dozen men if Valor’s estimates are right,” Lachlan stated.
Right on cue, the door opened, and bullets whizzed past as men poured out of the small space. My chest expanded as the bond flared bright without the steel barrier between us. Lyric was back there somewhere, but where?
“Only shoot if the shot is clear!” I didn’t need to explain why. With both clips empty, I stepped into a side room to reload, just as Hawke had a second earlier. New clips in place, I lunged back into the fray just in time to hear Benedict curse.
“That was close, you asshole.” Another shot. Another body dropped.
Bullet holes peppered the walls of the hallway, but so far, none of us had been hit, to include Lachlan who was managing the whole thing one-handed.
“Stop or I’ll shoot her!” a man called out from just beyond that door.
The sound of Lyric’s cry paused every trigger finger on my team, and six new guards stepped out of the room, guns raised, but not shooting. Fuck, they even all looked the same. Medium builds with identical tactical uniforms and caps.
My stomach twisted as a man pushed his way forward, his elbow locked around Lyric’s t
hroat as he used her like a shield, a gun at her temple. Holy shit.
She was covered in blood, her pink sweater stained with crimson at the side of her stomach and down her forearm where blood dripped freely down her fingers. There was another gash above her eyebrow, but the scab there didn’t ease the wrath that took hold of my body. It only served to tell me they’d been at her for hours. There was a bruise along her jawline, her lip was split, and her heartbeat sluggish in a situation that clearly called for a racing pulse.
And underneath all that smattered blood, she was pale. Drained.
I kept my eyes off hers, knowing if I saw one ounce of fear in those emerald eyes, my control would vanish. Logic would cease to exist. I would become every ounce the animal I was capable of being, and it would put her life at even more risk.
Even I couldn’t stop a bullet at that range if he decided to pull the trigger.
“Put it down,” the man warned, his beady eyes narrowing over Lyric’s head as he pushed the gun harder against her head. His eyes were the same color as Valor’s. Her father.
“Let her go.” I lowered my weapon slightly, knowing I’d have it up faster than any of his guards could pull their triggers. The steel lining may have dulled my powers, but I wasn’t that slow.
“Tell all your little fanger friends to drop their weapons, and we’ll talk,” the older man suggested like he was ready to hand over insurance information at an accident instead of holding a gun to Lyric’s head.
I nodded my head slightly, and the guys lowered their aims.
Lachlan was almost as old as I was, and could get his Glock back up just as fast, but Benedict and Hawke were a couple hundred years younger. It would take them at least half a second. But I couldn’t gamble with Lyric’s life.
“That’s better.” He shuffled Lyric forward slightly. “It would be a shame to lose the queen, wouldn’t it? From what I’ve seen, you mated her, which means you’re physically unable to sire offspring with anyone else, right?”
Crimson Covenant Page 22
