“Is that how you always knew when I was in trouble? My energy signals changed?”
“No.” She blushed. “I’m not sure why I always know that. I think it may be tied to the way I feel about you.”
“Damn!” Chris exclaimed.
Marcus scowled at him. “What?”
“I lost the pool.”
“What pool?”
He looked uncomfortable for a moment. “There’s sort of been a long-standing wager over whether or not you would ever fall in love again. You love Ami, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Outrage swelled. “Are you telling me people have been betting on my love life?”
“For centuries. And now I’m out a thousand freakin’ bucks.”
Marcus couldn’t believe it. He turned to Seth.
A sly smile slid over Seth’s features.
“Don’t tell me you bet, too!” Marcus demanded.
“Neither David nor I ever engage in wagers because we inevitably end up being accused of cheating or divining the outcome. But Darnell did. And just won big.”
Marcus could think of no response. It was bad enough that everyone gossiped about him, but to place bets?
Chris leaned forward. “Ami isn’t going to continue being your Second, is she, now that you guys are together?”
“Of course she is,” Marcus said. He had already made the mistake of asking (ordering) her to step down once. He wouldn’t do it again.
Chris threw up his hands. “Damn it! I just can’t win!”
“There was a wager over that, too?” Marcus snarled.
“Yeah. Pretty much everybody expected you to take the Roland route and scare her off.”
“Darnell didn’t,” Seth put in smugly.
“Well,” Chris grumbled, “I think some of your paranormal whozeewhatzit is starting to rub off on him.”
Ami stifled a laugh, which went a long way toward relieving Marcus of his irritation.
“Sorry for the interruption,” Chris told her. “Go ahead.”
“Since I was in close contact with the vampire king,” she told them, “I learned his energy signature and can use it to lead you to him. If we wait until daylight, he should be in his lair with whatever is left of his army when I find him. So you could do as you did with Bastien and his army.”
A sound plan, Marcus thought. But Ami didn’t fare well when fighting in close quarters, and he really didn’t want her anywhere near the vampire king.
Seth gave a slow nod. “You can lead us to the king and his lair tomorrow afternoon, Ami. We’ll take Roland and Sarah with us.”
Marcus opened his mouth to object.
Seth held up a finger. “But I don’t want this to go down like the destruction of Bastien’s lair. I won’t have a handful of us fighting dozens of vampires in cramped quarters with this drug floating around. It’s too risky. Instead, we’ll see if we can’t sneak in, snag the king, and blow the place.” He met Chris’s gaze. “Can you get us some napalm-B?”
“Anything you need. Bombs, flamethrowers. Just let me know how much, and you’ll have it by tomorrow morning.”
“You know the plan. I’ll let you estimate it.”
Chris turned a page on his notebook and began to write. “I’ll also have network emergency response crews ready to sweep in and divert the authorities, say it was a gas main explosion or maybe a meth lab.”
That last one always seemed to work.
“Once we have the king in custody,” Seth finished, “I’ll find out what he knows about the drug’s origins. I seriously doubt he would allow Montrose to keep secrets.”
Chris finished writing. “That about cover it?”
Everyone nodded.
Marcus rose, his eyes on Seth. “When was the last time you had something to eat?”
Seth thought for a moment. “Before our meeting last night.”
“I’ll heat you up some vegetarian lasagna.”
“Is there enough for me to take some to David before we get started?”
“More than enough. I’ll get it.”
“I’ll help,” Ami offered, rising.
Smiling, Marcus took her hand and headed for the kitchen.
Chapter 17
Bzzzzz.
Groaning, Seth rolled over and grabbed the cell phone that vibrated on the bedside table. He peeled an eyelid open, saw the time, and swore.
Bzzzzz.
Only an hour had passed since he had returned from Montrose Keegan’s house and Ami and Marcus had talked him into lying down to get some much-needed rest. If he looked out the window, no doubt the sun would have barely crested the horizon.
Bzzzzz.
Sitting up, he swung his longs legs over the side of the bed and let his senses seek Ami and Marcus.
Downstairs. Sound asleep. Good.
Bzzzzz.
“What?”
“Hey,” Chris Reordon said. “I have something you need to read.”
Which was Chris’s code for Someone might be listening, so read my thoughts if you can.
“All right.”
I’m still with the cleaning crew at Keegan’s house. We’re well on the way to removing everything. But I keep feeling that crawling sensation on the back of my neck that tells me someone is watching us. It started about half an hour after you left.
Have you found any surveillance equipment inside? Seth asked him.
No. We did a careful sweep before we started tackling the interior. Whoever is watching us is doing it from outside in the surrounding trees.
Vampire or human?
I don’t know. The sun’s up, but there’s enough dense shade to shelter a vampire. I could call in reinforcements, have them set up a perimeter, and gradually tighten the circle until we find whoever it is. But I would have to give my men shoot to kill orders for their own protection in case it’s a vamp.
And they couldn’t afford to lose any possible leads.
Give me five minutes, Seth said with a sigh. Even powerful immortals such as himself could feel tired as hell at times. I’ll meet you in Keegan’s laundry room.
Great. See you then.
Seth returned the cell phone to the bedside table, then rose and crossed to the adjoining bathroom. Splashing cold water on his face did little to revive him, but felt good nonetheless.
He rubbed a towel briskly over his features.
A sensation of fear poked at the edges of his consciousness. Slowly lowering the towel, he strode back into the bedroom and paused to seek its origins.
Ami was slipping into a nightmare. He recognized the pattern.
Seth reached for the too-short sweatpants Marcus had loaned him and made a mental note to pop over to David’s for a change of clothes on the way back from Keegan’s.
Pants on, borrowed shirt in hand, Seth headed down to the basement at immortal speed. He slowed and drew the shirt on as he approached Marcus’s closed bedroom door.
The well-oiled hinges made no sound as he opened it.
Marcus lay in bed beside Ami, propped up on one elbow.
Ami lay on her back, limbs stiff, arms at her sides as though held down by manacles. Every once in a while she would jerk minutely, small twitches that broke Seth’s heart because he knew well what caused them. No screams erupted from her lips. But her breathing occasionally hitched with silent sobs.
“What is it?” Marcus asked him, preternaturally quiet, as he stared down at her with concern.
Seth strode to the bed. “She dreams of her captivity.” Placing the tips of his fingers to her forehead, he guided the dream away from the pain and toward happier times.
The stiffness left her. Sighing, she curled onto her side and rubbed her cheek against her pillow. Her breathing grew slow and even as she slipped deeper into sleep.
Withdrawing his hand, Seth met Marcus’s gaze. “She had such nightmares often in the months after we found her, but they gradually stopped. I had hoped they wouldn’t return.”
“What did they do to her, Seth?” Marcus asked bluntly. Dread and anger battled for dominance in his brown eyes.
“That isn’t for me to tell.” Seth left the room on silent feet and returned upstairs to fetch his boots. Opening one of the guest bedroom’s dresser drawers, he found a clean pair of socks. They, at least, should fit.
“I need to know,” Marcus insisted, striding through the doorway in a pair of hastily donned sweatpants as Seth sat on the edge of the bed.
“You’ll know once you read the files,” he replied and drew on a sock.
“If smelling the sedative revived her nightmares, what the hell do you think seeing those files will do?” He paused, brow furrowing. “Wait. Do you think telling me what she is did it?”
“No. It was the sedative.”
Marcus began to pace. “I need to know what happened to her, what they did.” When Seth opened his mouth to refuse, Marcus stopped him. “I can’t read those files in front of her, and I can’t leave her alone until this is all resolved. Seth, if you loved her the way I do, if she were your woman, wouldn’t you need to know?”
Hell yes. Seth had needed to know without the intimate connection to her. Which was why this wasn’t the first time he had looked into her dreams without her knowledge.
He drew on the other sock. “I’ll tell you how we found her. Nothing more.”
Marcus nodded and sat in the chair across the room, visibly bracing himself.
“Ami didn’t scream aloud when they tortured her or experimented on her. She screamed in her mind,” he began, shoving a foot into a dirt-encrusted boot. “David and I traced her cries telepathically until we located the facility in which they kept her, then broke in. We found her in a lab that was a bit like a hospital operating room. She was naked, uncovered, splayed out on a sturdy metal table that was bolted to the floor.”
Marcus clutched the arms of his chair.
Seth pulled on the other boot. “Her arms and legs were restrained by steel manacles. Her head was strapped down, leaving her completely immobile. Men in surgical scrubs and lab coats surrounded her. Her body was emaciated and littered with small burns, puncture wounds, cuts, and contusions. Two of her fingers had been removed. Two of her toes as well. No wounds were bandaged.”