The pain had stopped and a dull ache was crawling up her side toward her neck. Her feet were cold. Was it from the water?
Carlos had dropped the girl and raised his hands. “You know what? Kill me. I’ve killed your woman anyway. I deserve it. I’m sorry, Baojia. You were always honest with me. I don’t want to be a part of this anymore anyway. It was too much.”
Baojia snarled and looked her direction. His eyes widened in alarm just as Carmen sat up and reached for the Taser. She raised it toward Carlos, who was still holding the hair of one of the girls.
Oops. Guess Ben had skipped that part of the lesson.
“Carmen, no!”
“¡Pinche cabrón!” she screamed a second before she fired.
Carlos arched back and dropped the girl when the shock hit him. There was a second that time seemed to stand still as Baojia leapt toward her, then the earth around her exploded and everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“No!” Baojia screamed into the night as Carwyn carried Natalie’s body out of the cave. They were still digging up Carmen and the other girls. “No. You promised, Natalie. You can’t die. Tenzin!”
Carwyn laid her gently on the ground. Her pculse was weak and irregular, her face pale. A root had pierced her side and hot blood spilled onto the ground. Tenzin knelt beside her and pressed a cloth to her side.
“She can be saved,” the wind immortal said, looking at Baojia. “I can get her to the healers, and they can save her life.”
“Are you sure?” He bared his fangs as he spoke.
“Nothing is sure.”
“Then change her. Turn her now.”
Tenzin shook her head. “She does not want this. I know she doesn’t.”
“I tried to give her time, but she doesn’t have it. Turn her.” He felt Carwyn put a hand on his shoulder. “Do it, Tenzin!”
“Baojia,” the priest said quietly, “she does not want this. Let Tenzin take her to a hospital. Let the doctors save her mortal life.”
“She is not your woman!” he roared, punching Carwyn back as he knelt beside Natalie and took her hand. His eyes met Tenzin’s over the limp form of the human woman who had become the center of his world. He bit his lip and made the bargain that had been teasing the back of his mind. The deal he knew the other vampire would never pass up.
“Take her to the hospital, Tenzin. As fast as you can. And let them heal her.” Tenzin moved to go, but he grabbed her wrist. “But if they cannot…”
Tenzin raised one eyebrow in curiosity. “What?”
“I will not live without her. You and your friends face something far larger than any of this. If she lives—however she lives—I am yours in any fight. I give you my word. You will call on me, and I will answer you. But know this.” His voice dropped to a low growl. “I will not live without her.”
He saw Tenzin’s mouth quirk up and the dark satisfaction gleam in her eyes. Then she lifted Natalie from the ground and disappeared into the night.
A cold resolve filled Baojia’s chest as he stood and walked toward the tunnel where he had kissed Natalie the last time. Where she had lain in his arms. Where she had been safe. For a little while, he had made her safe.
“Where are you going?” Carwyn ran after him.
“The keys to the car are in my backpack. Get out of here and get all of them to safety. Use your amnis to get across the border, but leave Mexico as quickly as you can. The cartel cannot know we were here. The bodies will burn up in the morning, so don’t worry about that. They can think what they like about the cars. Take the girls to Tulio’s. Beatrice will know how to find him.”
“Baojia!”
He stopped for a moment, but did not turn. The rain poured over his skin, but it brought no comfort. “Or destroy my car. Sink it in the desert if you want and tunnel north. But leave quickly.”
“Where are you going? She’s going to live. I’ve seen many injuries of that kind, and I know—”
“I really can’t talk, Carwyn.” He wiped the mud from his face, enjoying the scrape of grit as it raised blood along his cheek. It made him feel—just for a second—not quite as dead inside. “I need to go kill my brother now.”
The rain might have been pouring, but the casino was still busy, even at two in the morning. Baojia left the tunnel Tulio had dug and walked across the parking lot, past the tour buses and pickup trucks. He walked into the entry, not pausing when the human security guards came toward him. He saw them speaking into their headsets in mild panic, but they did not try to stop him. He did not . He didstop at the odd looks the patrons gave the shirtless man, dripping with mud and traces of blood painted across his chest. They backed away but said nothing. Baojia looked up at each and every security camera he passed, willing the machines he had installed to transmit his image to the vampire he had come to kill. Willing the cold terror to enter his brother’s heart.
He walked past the slot machines. Past the bar. Past each and every human, not caring what they thought. Were his fangs visible?
He didn’t care about that, either. That, he decided, was Rory’s mess. Not that Rory was going to be alive to clean it up.
The electronic door lock shorted out as soon as he touched it, then patrons finally began screaming and running for the exits when he reared back and punched it in.
One punch. One kick. Another punch and a roar as the humans scrambled for the doors, then he was in.
The hallway was dead already, deserted except for the flickering fluorescent lights that guided him toward his brother’s office.
“You comin’ to kill me, brother?” The voice came from the speakers above.
Baojia looked into the nearest camera and said, “Yes.” He kept walking.
“Gonna kill your sister, you know? To lose her mate. Sure you want to do that?”
Baojia paused. Thought. “Yes, I am.” He turned right and a girl in a casino uniform darted into a room. He heard the lock turn behind her.
“Does Paula know what’s going on?” Baojia called out, not caring who heard.
“I’m trying to make things better for us. That’s all. You know how hard she works for that old man?”
“Yes, I do.” He turned left and lifted his eyes to the round camera mounted to the ceiling. “I used to work just as hard for him. And I did it gladly. She does it gladly.”
“She shouldn’t have to!”
He shook his head. “She knew about none of this, did she?”
“She’ll forgive me when she’s the one in power.”
“No, she won’t, you stupid man. Rory, Rory…” He turned right again, slowly getting closer to the security room where he was fairly certain Rory was holed up. “Always looking for the jackpot. Never the one willing to do the heavy lifting. Paula’s too good for you. She always was.”
“She should be running that city. She does run that city. He’s just a figurehead.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know. Not that I care. You’re going to be dead soon.”
“You don’t even work for him anymore. What difference does it make?”
He paused and closed his eyes at the rush of pain. “Your actions, Rory. You took something of mine. Not my job. Something far more precious.”
His brother’s voice was harsh when it came over the line. “So you finally fell for a girl, huh? That human? Ivan get her? I… I didn’t want that to happen, Baojia.”
“It doesn’t matter what you wanted. Results matter, not intentions. Not that your intentions were any good to begin with. I’m going to kill you. But I won’t torture you. I’ll give my sister that.”
“It’s a big casino.” The sadness was gone from Rory’s voice. “Figure you can find me in here? I’m not in my office.”
Baojia looked up into the nearest camera. “I can find you.” Then he ducked into a closet.
He was in the original section of the casino. The original bie originngo hall the tribe had put up before Ernesto’s millions made them all rich. The dropped
ceilings had always been a problem from a security standpoint, but there was no way of getting around them as Ernesto didn’t want to waste the money on a low-priority, low-risk venture like an Indian casino. None of the money was kept anywhere near the old section. Who would try to break in?
Baojia braced his hands on the walls and climbed up, silently lifting the panel from above and reaching into the blackness to the old pipes that were just strong enough to hold his weight. He shimmied into the void, reaching back to put the panel into place, removing evidence of his passage. Then he silently moved toward the security office. As he reached the air-conditioning vents, he paused to listen. He could hear Rory somewhere, talking over a radio to guards, no doubt wondering where he had disappeared to. The echo of the guard’s reply told him that his brother was exactly where Baojia thought he’d be—the fortified guard room with one reinforced door. It was light-tight. A panic room, in a sense. Rory could hole up in there for days if he wanted. Only, it was primarily used for guards, and human guards wanted air-conditioning when they worked in the desert.
He swung from the old pipes and into the ductwork, still listening for Rory’s voice, for any indication that his brother suspected he was being stalked.
It was almost too easy.
Baojia slid through the ducts, navigating the byzantine network until he was staring at the back of his brother’s head, listening to him yell at the guards, who still couldn’t find the intruder. The panel was screwed on. It would have been hard for someone who was trying to avoid detection. But at that point, Baojia knew it was only a matter of seconds before his brother sensed him. They did, after all, share a bloodline. But Rory was no longer his family, and Baojia’s mission was very clear.
He kicked open the vent and slid into the room in one movement, drawing his sword as he did. Rory spun, the knowledge already clouding his features. Then Baojia reached up and grabbed Rory’s face in his hand, crushing it between his fingers as his sword relieved the old cowboy of his head.
Rory’s body crumbled to the ground, his head still clasped in his brother’s hand, mouth gaping open in shock.
Baojia had found a shirt by the time he made it back to his house in Coronado. He didn’t know where else to go, and the car he’d stolen from the casino parking lot didn’t look like it would make it far. Logic said that Tenzin would take Natalie somewhere in San Diego, but he had no idea where. Nor did he have any idea whether Natalie still lived at all. He thought Tenzin would hold up her end of the bargain, but he couldn’t be certain. The low, gnawing pain in his belly wouldn’t go away until he saw her alive. Human. Vampire. He didn’t care.
The house in Coronado was just as he’d left it, including Luis sleeping on the couch downstairs as if he’d been waiting for him. At the sound of the slamming door, the human woke.
“Boss?” he rubbed his eyes. “That crazy vampire was right. And you look like shit.”
“Which crazy vampire?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t give me her name. Just called the club, yelling into the phone, asking for your human.”
“That would be Tenzin.”
“Anyway. She said to get back here and wait for you. Gave me a number to call when you got here. Why the hell are you here? Are you supposed to be?”
He tried not to scream. “The number, Luis.”
“Holy shit, this night is crazy. What time is it?”
He didn’t even know. Baojia glanced at the wall. “It’s four a.m. The number.”
The human handed him a slip of paper, which he took to the office, punching the number into the phone. He pressed the button for speaker mode and began to pace.
It was Dez Kirby who picked up. “Baojia?”
“Dez.” He hated that his voice broke, but he couldn’t seem to control it. “Where is she?”
“She’s at UC Medical Center. Matt and I are here with her. They have her stable. Both her legs were broken, and she lost a lot of blood, but they’re worried about head trauma right now. They induced a coma until the swelling goes down.”
“Is she going to live?” There was enough of a pause that he punched a wall. “Dez!”
“They think so, okay! There’s no way of knowing if she has any brain damage right now. We just have to wait. They think, if everything happens like they’re hoping, that she’ll be significantly better by tomorrow.”
“I’m coming to the hospital.”
“She’s just sleeping. And you’ll have to leave in like an hour.”
“I don’t care.” He was already pulling on a new shirt. “I’ll be there.”
She wasn’t awake, but she wasn’t dead, either. And Baojia sat there, holding her limp hand until he was forced to leave before dawn. Carwyn had explained to the doctors about the horrible rockslide while they were hiking, and a brush of Tenzin’s amnis made any lingering questions go away. Dez and Matt would stay during the day while Baojia could not. He returned to Coronado.
He had no place else to go.
The next night, he was holding Natalie’s hand, trying to keep his distance from the hospital equipment, when his sire slid into the room.
Ernesto pulled up a chair and sat across from Baojia, cocking his head to the side as he looked down on the sick woman. “Will she live?”
Baojia ignored the leap in his chest and tried to make his voice as calm as possible. “They are optimistic. The swelling has gone down the way the doctors were hoping for. They were very pleased when I arrived tonight.”
They both fell silent, the only sound was the beeping from the monitors, which filled the room.
“You killed your brother last night,” Ernesto finally said under his breath.
“I did.”
“Because of this?”
“Because he was conspiring with Ivan to hold human hunts and implicate you in the deaths of the victims. Because he was dumping human bodies in your territory in an attempt to make you look weak. And yes, because his actions led to the injury of my mate.”
“She is not your mate.” Ernesto smiled indulgently. “She is not a vampire.”
“That makes her no less my mate. Not to me.”
Ernesto’s eyes never left Baojia’s face. The vivid green took on an eerie quality in the fluorescent lights of the hospital. “You are in love with her.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t one of your friends turn her after she was injured?” Ernesto looked over his shoulder toward the hall where Carwyn and Beatrice waited with Dez and Matt. “Perhaps they are not friends at all, but those who want to use you?”
He clenched his teeth. “Like you did?”
“I am your sire. I gave you this life. Without me, you would have never met your lovely human. You would be dead in an unmarked grave, or buried in a mine that caved in. Perhaps part of the railroad you helped to build, stuffed under the tracks like garbage.”
Baojia looked away from him and began to count the freckles on the back of Natalie’s hand. “I know you are my sire.”
“I am your family.”
“No,” he said firmly. “You are not.”
Ernesto frowned. “You sister is devastated.”
His chest ached for Paula. “I am devastated for her.”
“Did she have any knowledge of Rory’s actions?”
“No.”
“How can I be sure?” Ernesto shrugged. “Unless you come back to my aegis, how can I be sure who to trust, Baojia?”
He blinked. Ernesto wanted him back? Impossible. Unless…
“Who has been inquiring after me? You must have heard some rumor. Someone else has be
en showing interest in me, or you would not want me back.”
He knew it was true the moment he said it. Ernesto’s gaze narrowed, but he didn’t speak.
“Is it Katya?” As soon as the name of his old rival was spoken, Ernesto’s amnis spiked. The monitors near Natalie began to go wild and the nurses rushed in. Baojia stood and backed against the wall, smiling at his sire as the nurses
ushered Ernesto out. “I see.”
“You see nothing, my son.”
“I am not your son,” he said quietly, glancing at the sleeping woman with wild red hair and everything he needed. “I know who my family is. Goodbye, Ernesto. Don’t bother us. You may question my friends, but I do not. Nor do I question Natalie’s.” Beatrice was already at the door, along with Carwyn, waiting with worried eyes to see what the commotion was.
Ernesto looked away from Baojia and toward Beatrice, smiling kindly before he patted his granddaughter’s cheek and murmured, “I wish the best for your friend, cariña. I’m sure she’ll be fine. The doctors here are unparalleled.”
“Thank you, Grandfather.” Beatrice’s voice was carefully neutral. “I’m just so glad she has such a fervent protector.” She glanced toward Baojia with a smile. “She’s in very good hands.”
“So she is.” The old vampire’s smile was tight when he turned to Baojia and said, “Good luck.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sound was muffled, almost as if she was listening from the bottom of a pool. Gradually, Natalie began to sift through her murky senses.
Beeping—a low, steady beeping. Her eyes were closed, and flashes of memory darted through her mind. A rumbling sound and the taste of blood in her mouth. Dark eyes turning toward hers in horrified surprise. Panic. He was shouting her name.
Natalie!
Hurt. She ached all over; her body was stiff with pain, and she somehow knew she had not moved in days. At the very edge of her senses, there he was. A cool hand stroking along her fingers, running up and down each one before he traced her palm. She could feel the brush of his hair along her arm as he lifted her hand to kiss the knuckles. And more, his buzzing energy, his amnis. Spreading over her skin and warming her, coaxing her toward consciousness.
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