But since Lucas hadn’t bothered to call, she now had to decide whether to try the club without him. She had no guarantee he would still hold to their agreement, even if he showed up. And now that she knew about Carmichael, he might decide to send her off on a wild goose chase while he covered his vampire buddy’s ass.
That decided it for her. She wasn’t waiting for Lucas or anyone else. This was America, and she was, by God, a sworn federal officer. She was going to that club tonight, and she was going to get the answers she needed, or she’d arrest everyone and shut the whole damn thing down.
“Damn right!” she shouted, pumping her arm once in an act of defiance. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and started laughing. Okay, so maybe she couldn’t shut the club down, but she could and would go there and ask some questions. And she definitely wouldn’t be waiting for that snake Lucas to do it.
* * * *
Lucas stormed into his office, still wearing the bloody leathers from last night’s battle. He’d been forced to sleep through the day at the Minneapolis house, along with the survivors from Minnetonka. The enclave had been too badly damaged for the vampires’ safety, and the humans had been too shattered by the violence to stay there anyway. The enclave would be rebuilt, maybe even in that location. But it would take time, and Thad and his people would need that time to heal themselves. Lives had been lost last night. Granted the enemy had lost far more, but that was little comfort to the dead or those who’d loved them.
The attack had taught Lucas a hard lesson. No one was safe in this war, not when Klemens was willing to reduce himself to the brutality of human warfare, not when innocent civilians were targets, and rape was an acceptable weapon.
Lucas hadn’t wanted to remain in Minneapolis after the battle, but it had taken several hours to clean up the scene in Minnetonka sufficiently to avoid scrutiny by the human authorities. The compound hadn’t had any close neighbors, but it had been necessary to repair the worst of the damage to the wall and, especially, to remove the human bodies. The vampire bodies had taken care of themselves, but there was no concealing the destruction of the buildings. Klemens’s people had done Lucas a favor by torching everything. It made the damage easier to explain and provided an excuse for the sudden absence of people living there. But the fire had also drawn a crowd. Fortunately, the relatively remote location meant it was a small crowd, but Lucas had been forced to manipulate their memories to support his preferred version of the events.
Between that and getting everyone to safety in Minneapolis, then meeting with Thad and several of Lucas’s people, there’d been no time to return to the ranch before dawn. His only other choice would have been flying home with a human pilot at the controls, traveling through the daylight hours and sleeping at the airport until sunset. He hated that idea on two fronts. One was his personal paranoia, inherited from his Sire, Raphael, about putting a human solely in charge of his safety. And the other was his aversion to sleeping on the plane at all.
He had a penthouse in St. Paul where he usually stayed when visiting the Twin Cities, but time had been so short this morning that he hadn’t bothered with that, either. He’d ended up spending the daylight hours in one of the bedrooms of the Minneapolis HQ vault, and flown back to the ranch this evening. It hadn’t been that simple, of course. He’d had to meet with Thad again before leaving, and he’d made a series of phone calls to the leaders of his other regional nests, advising them of Klemens’s new and dangerous tactic. He’d ordered them to get the word out to the civilians in their areas.
On any other night, Lucas would have lingered in Minneapolis even longer, but he had a nagging feeling that his favorite FBI agent wouldn’t hang around waiting for him to escort her to the club. After his abrupt departure the previous night, she’d probably spent all day today chomping at the bit, cursing vampires in general and him specifically. But despite all of that, he still had one more call to make before he called Kathryn.
He circled his desk and lifted the receiver of an ordinary-looking phone sitting on the elegant credenza behind his desk. It was a landline, and in lighter moments, Lucas jokingly referred to it as the bat phone. It had only seven numbers stored in its memory, the numbers of his seven fellow vampire lords, and it was rarely used. Vampire lords tended to be hostile toward one another, which meant there were no chatty catch-up phone calls on this line. On the occasions when Lucas wanted to catch up with Raphael or Duncan, he used their personal cell phones. The landline was for emergencies and warnings. Like the one he was about to give Klemens.
Lucas waited until he heard Klemens’s hated voice, then snarled, “Rape, you son of a bitch? That’s what you’ve come to?”
Klemens laughed. “War is war, my dear Lucas, no matter the venue. But then you micks always worry too much about protecting the ladies.”
Lucas ground his teeth. “Those women were mated to vampires,” he snarled. “My vampires.”
“Really? I thought they were simply whores brought in to amuse,” Klemens drawled, not even pretending he hadn’t ordered the atrocity.
“Well, know this, asshole. There is no mercy for rapists. You’re officially thirteen vampires shorter tonight. Your army is shrinking, Klemens, and that means I’m one step closer to you. It’s time to start saying your farewells to anyone foolish enough to care for you.”
Lucas slammed the phone down so hard it cracked the base. “Fuck!” he spat and swept the damn thing to the floor in frustrated rage, spinning with a snarl when his office door opened.
Nicholas took one look and froze in place.
“I want a fucking target,” Lucas ordered. “Klemens is staging his people somewhere along the border. I want it found, damn it. No civilians, but it has to hurt. I’m tired of reacting and letting that bastard set the pace.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Nick was still in the doorway, eyeing Lucas as if waiting for the other foot to come crashing down on him. Lucas rubbed a weary hand over his face and waved him inside. Nick looked even worse than Lucas felt. Like Lucas, he’d changed his shirt, but still wore the torn and bloody leathers from the previous night. Unlike Lucas, he’d also been severely wounded. One of Klemens’s vamps had gotten lucky and ripped Nick’s jaw open to his teeth. The deep, raw-looking laceration traveled from the outside corner of his eye down to the curve of his jaw bone. The fact that it wasn’t healed more than twelve hours after the injury spoke to how serious it had been. Still, one more day, and it would be a healing pink scar. A day or so after that, and Nick’s cheek would once again be without blemish. The healing would have gone even faster, if Lucas had been able to give Nick some of his blood to drink. But in times like this, when an attack could come from anywhere at any time, it wasn’t wise to weaken himself even the slightest bit unless the need was critical.
“Fucking Klemens doesn’t even pretend to apologize for his rapists,” Lucas said quietly.
“At least it proves what we already suspected, my lord. That he gave the specific orders.”
“Oh, he gave them all right. Bastard bragged about it.” Lucas collapsed onto his desk chair, falling hard enough that it skidded back a few inches. “Sit, Nick. And stop with the my lord bullshit. I’m not gonna hurt anyone, especially not you.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Magda drawled as she strolled into his office. She crossed to the desk and propped a hip on the edge, her narrow skirt sliding up to reveal an expanse of toned thigh as she turned to look at him. “Agent Hunter called this evening. Several times.”
Lucas swore softly. He probably should have called her from the plane, but he didn’t want the FBI to know his business and figured it was at least possible she’d have known he was in the air. Grabbing his cell phone, he pulled up her number, checking the time as he did so. Just past eleven. Damn it, he was late. Kathryn’s phone was ringing for the third time. Surely, she wouldn’t have—
“Kathryn Hunter,” she answered in a cool voice. Lucas rolled his eyes. She had to know it was him calling, since his number would have come up on her Caller ID.
“Yeah, Kathryn. It’s Lucas,” he said, identifying himself needlessly, and playing along with her little game. “Look, something fairly serious came up. We’ll have to do the club tomorrow night, instead.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’m already here.”
Lucas pulled the phone away and stared at it, wondering if he’d heard correctly. He brought it back to his ear. “Excuse me?”
“I’m at the club,” she said loudly, enunciating each word, as if she honestly believed he hadn’t been able to hear her. “In fact, I’m just about to go inside.”
“Bad idea, Kathryn,” he said, striving for calm, although his brain was screaming at her to get the fuck out of there. His warriors were about to descend on that club. They were fresh from the battlefield, high on the defeat of their enemies, looking for the blood and sex release they hadn’t had time to get last night . . . and there she’d be—one righteous, blond FBI agent directly in their path.
“Excuse me?” she mimicked archly.
“Bad. Idea,” he repeated, trying not to snarl, knowing intuitively that if he got angry or demanding, it would have the opposite effect he wanted.
But she only laughed. “I’m sure I’ll manage, Lucas. This isn’t exactly my first rodeo.”
Lucas said a quick prayer for patience. “Kathryn,” he began, then stopped in disbelief. She’d hung up on him! Lucas shouted wordlessly and threw the phone across the room, raging. No one fucking hung up on him. Ever!
Even worse, now he’d have to drag his ass to that stupid club, or Kathryn was going to end up as someone’s dinner. He had a sudden image of her pressed up against a wall, legs spread, her arms around some hulking vampire’s back while that vampire bent his head to her neck and— Oh, hell, no!
“Nick, we’re leaving in five.”