by Talyn Scott
“If she ran — ”
“Don’t tell me to go easy on her, Bane. When any female is under my protection, Pack is responsible for her care and safety. And on this night for mates and lovers, we’re all worried to the marrow of our bones over her.”
“You’re right.”
Jayce smiled at his Beta. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Answer something I don’t know,” Bane countered.
“Go ahead.”
“Are you sure that you shouldn’t tell Archer and his co-mates about Jenny? She’s family and Kalen has a right to know. In fact, Mason will attack me for withholding this intel since she’s also his patient.”
“I realize all of this,” Jayce said. Never let it be said that Alpha decisions were easy. “By sun up, hopefully, Jenny will be found. If not, I’ll tell Archer and his family personally. I will also explain to Mason that you were under direct orders to allow him to enjoy his wedding night in peace.”
“Fine,” Bane said, nodding at Tatum and Ardan. “Go do what you need to do.” Bren and Mike had joined them. “Dru and Arian are taking care of Renee, so I’ve got the newlyweds’ backs tonight.”
“We think alike,” Jayce said with a laugh. Both of them wanted to ensure nothing unsavory happened during their baby brothers’ mating, and also to stay in the midst of Jenny’s hunt in case they were needed. “But I’m not going anywhere. Tatum has Bren and Mike, she’ll be just fine without me.”
“Then stretch your legs, Alpha.” Bane transformed fully into the Beta Beast. “See if you can keep up,” he growled and jumped high into the trees.
“You fucking show off,” Jayce mumbled under his breath before releasing his Alpha Beast into full transformation. Tatum caught his eye from across the lawn. He pointed at her. “I’m coming for you later,” he grated in the Alpha’s voice. Her lip curled in anticipation.
When he met the edge of the marsh, he shredded his clothes with his claws and moved in the blurring blue speed he preferred. The wind hit his face as he bolted across the marsh, circling the wetlands surrounding the main compound of his Pack and opening his mouth to release an earth-shattering, warning roar.
He was Alpha.
And if any creature great or small held Jenny in its captivity, then that creature had sealed its death.
When he spun to mist high over the Sanibel Causeway, Eagan Ruyter shot by him like a meteor. Jayce whipped around, discerning Eagan’s direction. The male hadn’t been at his own brother’s wedding, though Jayce had given all Ruyters time off from duties to attend. And he wasn’t headed anywhere near the marsh to take a female.
He held out a hand and froze Eagan in his tracks. Zooming over the ocean to hit South Fort Myers, he materialized in a half mist and faced Eagan. “You know something.”
“Not enough to put it all together, Alpha.”
Jayce released his hold on the male. “Tell me everything.”
“First off, Searlas has risen.”
This wasn’t what Jayce expected. “You’re kidding.”
“No.”
With all the punishments lined up for Jayce to dole out, he would never get back to any other Pack related duties, or to his family. “Care to expound on that?”
“When we found out Azure was expecting, we kept the news of Searlas’ rising to ourselves, so Gage wouldn’t feel compelled to leave his mate in order to help Searlas.”
“When you say we?”
Eagan worked his canines with his tongue, a nervous gesture considering he was a Beta Beast. “Searlas and I,” he admitted.
“So you’ve not included any of your superiors in on this, not even Bane?”
“No, Sire.”
Jayce laughed wearily. “Your family sets an example before Pack, a code of conduct all other Pack mates should aspire to, and you’re telling me Bane doesn’t even know.”
“Yes.”
“You realize that I’m going to have to punish you, Eagan. Pack can never think I would play favorites because your brother is my Beta.”
“I understand, Sire,” Eagan said grimly.
“Gage is leading Trackers this way to find Jenny. I suggest you let me tell him what you’ve done.” He shifted to head to Marco Island. “I want to see Searlas for myself. I need to know how stable he is, and since you’ve been covering for him, I suspect he isn’t exactly right.”
If it were possible, Eagan appeared uneasier. “Searlas has his bloodlust under control.”
This was encouraging, Jayce thought. “And?”
“He finally started walking, then strengthened considerably thereafter.”
“On you blood, no doubt,” Jayce said. If they’d kept Searlas’ rising a secret, Eagan would have needed a secretive donor. “So he’s pumped on high-octane Beta blood.”
“He was — the last time I saw him.”
Jayce put his hands on Eagan’s shoulders, tightening. “The last time you saw him?”
“When Jenny went missing, Searlas wasn’t far behind her.” Eagan swallowed roughly. “He thinks she’s his, his mate.”
“Gage thought they’d had sex the night of the attack, and also Jenny knows something about Searlas’ transformation. But you can’t locate Searlas, even with your blood in his veins?”
“No, he’s too far away,” Eagan admitted. “I’ve tried for a week.”
Jayce swore. “Searlas has been gone a whole week, and you’re just now telling me?” Then, he took his hands from Eagan, doing the math. “Jenny just disappeared, yet you said Searlas followed after her.”
“Alpha, Jenny has been gone for a week.”
Pack didn't know this, and Mason had been away from the Joint Faction Facility to deal with Kalen’s situation and then subsequent wedding. “You’re sure?”
“Positive, Searlas lost his mind over it a week ago.”
And Tatum hadn’t spent time with Jenny the past week either. Jayce had kept his mate and Youngling on lockdown due to rising disturbances with wraiths. “Then someone’s been forging her daily reports, allowing Pack to think she’s still receiving treatment at the facility.”
Eagan nodded. “And there’s only two other factions there besides ours: Habalines and Vampires. Care to bet on who’s covering up her disappearance?”
Jayce shifted his gaze to Captiva Island, smelling the telltale stench of vampiric deceit. “Go to Marco Island. Get me every piece of security footage you have for all medical corridors, within the hour.”
“I’ve already gone over that footage personally, Alpha.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t.”
Chapter 12
Still damp from her shower, Jenny reached for a bottle of unscented lotion positioned atop a mirrored dressing table. Not to her surprise, all of the products afforded her were unscented, right down to the shampoo. Unlike humans, vampires hated the smell of perfume, were aroused by certain natural scents that stoked their inherent instincts to feed and mate. She slathered the lotion over the jagged scars. On most days, like today, they still ached.
A daily reminder of immortal fire…
Of Jed’s death…
And losing Searlas…
“What’s happening to you even now, Searlas?” Jenny whispered as she put back the lotion, slipped on her special bra and a fresh pair of panties.
Yawning, she wondered if she needed another sweep of concealer, the dark rings beneath her eyes pronounced. Because she found it hard to sleep with both eyes shut last night, particularly after Maxim - a Gryph - had claimed her as his subjugate.
On the upside, her investigation was moving along nicely. In a couple of hours, Jenny was due in the ballroom to meet Maxim’s clients from Russia. Hopefully, she would win one of them over, and gather some much-needed information. As it stood, any intel was to be passed over to the operative posing as the third floor housekeeper, which is why she’d handed over her DNA evidence of Maxim early this morning, to be sent to Syon.
She spotted a tray of food placed on a mosaic-tiled
balcony table while she’d showered. Wrapping her body in a black silk robe, Jenny took in the night as she stepped onto the balcony. Lifting the first gilded dome, she found grilled sea scallops and rosemary mashed potatoes. Going to the next dome, she popped the cover and surveyed the fruit and cheese offering, complete with sliced boiled eggs and walnuts on the side. She popped a walnut in her mouth, chewing in thought.
Where exactly was she?
Although she’d been told her destination was, in fact, North Fort Myers, Jenny knew she was anywhere but. Behind a shroud of thick miasma, she stood in a rambling manse built of limestone and pale stucco, the structure several stories tall. Below, way below, waves crashed upon gray rocks sharp enough to deliver final death if a fall occurred.
Clenching her hands on the balustrade, she murmured, “I hate this vulnerability, crammed inside with nowhere to run.”
“Then why come here in the first place?” A male voice seethed.
Staying calm though her heart thundered a pounding staccato against her ribs, Jenny glanced sideways at the reflection on the open door. Ebony, nothing but ebony filled her vision. Followed by a sound she could only equate with nightmares. Nightmares that involved blood, fire, and pain. So much pain she shuddered even now at its memory.
Not another Gryph…
Had Syon sent her into a flock’s midst?
She swallowed down the dryness in her throat and slowly inched for the weapon inside her bra. One arm wrapped around her, yanking the blade free of her body. She bit back a scream of frustration, then fought back a scream of utter terror as his heavy wings encircled her, suffocating her within an embrace darker than the night. Choking on the sounds trying to leave her throat, Jenny fisted her hands on his silken feathers, kicking out her legs to break free. His biceps tightened as he effortlessly spun her within his wings to face him. He was so close Jenny had to tip her head to meet his eyes. Yeah, this one had a good six inches on Maxim.
“Stop touching me!”
Purposefully, he dragged a finger across the line of her jaw. “Imagine finding you without the protection of Syon’s minions.” His fingertip traveled down the column throat, the way vampires seduced their prey. “Or beyond your Alpha or Beta’s reach?”
Her mouth wouldn’t work right as wall after wall of fear slammed inside her mind. In her silence, he moved impossibly closer, the screaming heat from his body scalding Jenny to the bone.
“Scream.” He mocked her, tightening his wings until she felt the muscle and sinew beneath the black down. “Draw attention from your host.”
“Release me,” Jenny demanded, jerking back to head-butt him, but he easily caught the movement by fisting his hand in the back of her hair.
Black eyes bore into hers. “So blue, so uncannily blue… What will you fetch in this current market?” They dropped to her lips, when she gasped in outrage. “What, you never asked Maxim how many zeros would grace your final contract?”
Wings, they were too close, shouldn’t be petting her skin. At least, Maxim’s wings hadn't quite touched her. “Whatever it is,” she finally demanded, finding the steely voice of which the Alpha would expect of her, “say it or do it.” She slid her fists across his wings to land on his chest, shoved to no avail. “Then, leave.”
“Say it or do it, hmmm?” A wicked flick of his tongue, and then, “Why would you risk your life by working undercover? All for Searlas MacGelton?”
Whatever Searlas was, is, or will be, one thing was for certain: He didn’t ask for his life sentence as an Undead. But Jenny had.
Fangs flashed when she stayed quiet. “I know you bargained with Syon to pay the halfling’s Blood Debt.”
This wasn’t happening! If a Gryph knew of her commitment to Commander Syon’s task force, then it was all over. She would never be able to pay what a Gryph, a royal subject of Volos’ court, would demand in hush money or blood. “Why are you here?”
“You.”
Games? “Go on.”
“Don’t I look familiar?” In a simple T-shirt and military pants tucked into combat boots, he dressed in dull black, matching his hair and eyes. The gleam of his bronzed skin the only contrast Jenny could note while pressed this closely to his body.
“No.” She shifted to put some distance between them, feeling the press of weapons beneath his clothes, the coolness of his golden arm bands denoting his status of royalty.
“Don’t I feel familiar?”
Within his wings, power surged between them, pulsating with her heartbeat. And there it was, Jenny thought as she clenched her fists tighter against her fear, a thread of familiarity.
Impossible!
She whispered, “Why should you feel familiar?”
His mouth shaped a cruel curve. “I am Niall Donn.”
Through a tightening throat, Jenny glared up at him. “Related to… Jed?”
“Yes,” Niall murmured as he cupped her throat with a possessive hand.
“But Jed was a shapeshifter.” She swallowed against his palm as he moistened his plush lips with the tip of his tongue. Almost as though he wanted to seduce her, but Jenny reminded herself of the way of vampires. They used everything in their arsenal to beguile prey, which meant they used looks above strength whenever possible.
“No, he was not.” His voice dropped a dangerous octave, coating her sweat-slicked skin with its lethalness. “Nor was he a werewolf.” Niall slid the tip of his tongue beneath her bottom lip, speaking against her mouth. “Neither was he an Undead.”
“It doesn’t matter what Jed was,” she hissed. “I grieved two males for the past six and a half months, knowing one of them would live in a sense, but neither of them was ever coming back to me.”
“It does matter because you took Jed with your virginal body.” A pause when he scraped her chin with his fangs — a mark of ownership she couldn’t begin to understand. “And he was vampire.”
A long, long silence stilled the air between Jenny and Niall, his words a significant claim. If proven true, Jenny Wulfstan would be, in fact, Jennifer Donn, Bride to a vampire. “You’d have to prove it.”
“Witnesses.”
“Pack males who heard us in the hotel room?” She shook her head. “I didn’t go through with it that night. Jed stroked me to orgasm and I… left afterwards. So, there’s no real witnesses.”
He silenced her with a fingertip. “I have the box.”
She went still, deathly still. The box Niall referred to must hold a cloth smeared with her virginal blood, something Jed would have taken with him. The exchange between a virgin and a vampire created a blood oath that could never be broken, apart from death. The evidence kept in a place of honor within a vampire’s home, in a sacred box. According to Niall, in vampire terms, Jenny was married to Jed for life. But beneath the shock of Niall’s claim, her heart clenched when she uttered the words, “He’s dead.”
Niall whispered so softly the implication was a razor whip across her scars, “Are you sure?”
“Syon said… ” No, Niall was right. She wasn’t sure. According to Syon, there had been only two dead Gryphs and Searlas remaining inside that bunker, because Jenny had wanted the commander to save them both. But there was no point in telling Niall this. He wasn’t listening, his rage a tangible monster waiting to devour her.
“As his Bride, he would have fallen instantly in love with you, from the moment he’d breached you.” His wings shivered, the filaments absorbing moonbeams. “And if he were alive, you would have been away from him all these months, an incomprehensible agony for one of our kind, being separated from a Bride.”
“While I writhed in pain for months, there wasn’t a day I didn’t grieve for every Pack loss those rogue Gryphs caused, but especially for Jed and Searlas,” Jenny shot back. “So don’t tell me about agony, when I know it firsthand.”
“I could almost believe you.” He leaned down and plundered her mouth, sweeping his tongue inside when she opened on a sudden gasp. When Jenny tried to pull back, he tighten
ed his grip and caught her lower lip between his fangs.
His power, she could never begin to fight. Therefore, she had to work up a distraction and make it to the door. So she turned her fists outward, flattening her palms underneath his T-shirt, and extended her tiny claws. Standing on her tiptoes she ripped her lip free at the same time she dug in her claws and shredded his stomach. He hissed a violent sound of shock as he licked her blood from his lips, his wings rippling and closing behind his back.
Allowed a window of freedom, Jenny spun over the table, crashing it to the floor, and bolted through the doors. Niall had her on her back and atop the bed before Jenny’s next breath.
Chapter 13
Clenching Jenny’s wrists with one hand, Niall pinned her arms over her head. Then cupped her throat with his opposite hand, the same hold of possession he'd exhibited moments ago. His fangs draping his chin, he hissed another violent warning as dark irises bled into the whites, leaving them soulless.
When he lowered his hand from her throat and leaned down to hover his lips over her throbbing pulse, a rough growl left him. “You taste delicious, Jenny, but our crimson kiss was entirely one-sided.”
Niall bit down on his lower lip, erupting two rivulets of blood. Then captured her mouth with his, threading his tongue through his fangs to feed Jenny a sample of his life’s essence. She tasted the red haze of his anger when Niall pushed into her mouth, then his passion as the copper tanginess of blood entered their kiss.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, heading their way.
His hand tightened on her wrists as Niall lifted his head a fraction, licking his lip wounds closed while staring down at her.
Her shocked breaths sawed in and out of her body as Jenny glanced to the doorway and back to him - Niall’s small donation zinged down her throat, moving through her, as though he’d given her new life. Or made a connection she couldn’t quite understand. Either way, he’d strengthened her from only droplets of his blood. But why had he given her this gift?
