She began the long walk back to the cave entrance, feeling unsettled in a way she hadn’t in…forever. Elijah was going to help her find the lycans she sought. As adversarial as their “association” was, she trusted that he’d follow through, if only to get his revenge at the end. That should make her feel good about working with him. Instead, she felt twitchy.
She was now dependent on the trustworthiness of a creature whose breed she’d long reviled for its treachery. The lycans had once been Watchers. Instead of taking the same punishment as the rest of their brethren and becoming vampires, they’d begged the Sentinels for leniency. Adrian had given it in the form of indentured servitude as lycans. With transfused werewolf blood sliding through their veins, they’d lost their wings but retained their souls…and their mortality. They lived, they whelped, and they died as slaves, which is the least of what they deserved.
But now they’d betrayed the Sentinels—just as they had the Fallen—by switching allegiances again.
She’d be damned if the dogs would have the opportunity to be faithless to the Fallen a second time. Whatever she had to do, she’d make sure that if someone was going to get a knife in the back, it would be a lycan.
“I
have the right to kill her,” Rachel snapped, her eyes lit with a roiling fury. “You can’t take that from me.”
Elijah stood with his palms flat on his desktop. He kept his gaze on the schematics in front of him, following the red lines that showed where electrical cables would transfer power from generators into various caverns. “I can delay that right and I am.”
Because they weren’t the only two people who had a claim to a piece of Vashti’s luscious hide. Lindsay, too, had lost a loved one to the vampress.
“Micah would have avenged you, El. Don’t forget he died protecting you. Vashti killed him trying to find out where you were.”
To avenge Nikki’s death, because his blood had been planted to frame him for the crime. It didn’t matter that he was innocent of Nikki’s abduction. He was nevertheless guilty of being the reason Micah died. “Micah
didn’t have thousands of lycans depending on him, Rach. We need this alliance to keep us all alive.”
“Damn you. You want her.”
He lifted his head and looked at her.
“Don’t try to deny it.” She held his gaze. “It’s obvious.”
“He’s still going to kill me,” Vashti interjected as she joined them.
All eyes turned toward the arched entrance and the vampress who strode through it. In direct opposition to her appearance the day before, Vash had returned armed to the teeth. Katana scabbard straps crisscrossed between her lush tits, and two knife sheaths hugged her lithe thighs. She carried a small navy duffel in her hand. Her stride was long and sure, her chin lifted high and proud. As usual, she wore black from head to toe, this time sporting skintight cotton pants topped with a leather vest that was secured with brass snaps down the front. Her hair was twisted atop her head into a bun that was secured with what he suspected were slender throwing knives.
Like the first time he’d seen her in a parking lot in Anaheim, the look of her hit Elijah like a fist to the gut. His visceral response to her was so strong he sucked in a breath to push through it, then forced himself to exhale slowly.
Rachel growled, and he glanced her way. He took her sneer as his due, knowing how he would feel if their positions were reversed.
“Vashti.” He straightened. “This is Rachel, the mate of the lycan you killed. Rach, this is Vash, Syre’s second.”
He watched the two women carefully, painfully aware of how difficult it must be for Rachel to face her mate’s killer and be forbidden to seek revenge by the very man who’d contributed to Micah’s death. His hand lifted to his chest, rubbing at the ache that shortened his breathing.
Vash dropped her duffel on the floor in front of his desk. “It won’t comfort you to hear that I know how you feel, Rachel, but I do. My mate was killed by lycans.”
“Was he mortally wounded and left to die over the space of several days?” Rachel asked bitterly.
“No. He was disemboweled and had his vitals eaten while he was still alive.”
“You lie,” Rachel spat. “Lycans don’t hunt that way.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
Elijah gestured at his Beta, who worked on a laptop at an adjacent desk. “That’s Stephan over there.”
“Hi, Beta,” she greeted him. Then she smiled at his upraised brows. “Takes one to know one.”
Stephan acknowledged her with a brisk nod.
Vashti kicked at a rock on the floor. “I love what you’ve done with the place, El. You take rustic charm to a whole ’nother level.”
The look he shot her said everything he needed to say about her sarcasm.
She stepped closer, looking down at the schematics with a wry twist to her mouth. “Cute. But you can put those away. We’re not staying here.”
He sank into his chair and reclined, waiting for her to get to her point.
She half sat on his desk. “I’m not sticking my guys on cave-watching duty. They’re not going to be happy about this alliance as it is. Besides, we need more power than generators are going to provide. No way you’ve got Internet or cell reception in this hole in the ground, and you’ll need both to have the information and communication necessary to pull the packs together. And I need the same to keep track of my men and my agenda.”
“Which is?” Elijah glanced at Rachel, and his voice softened. “Let the others know we’ll be vacating shortly.”
“Just like that?” she asked, wide-eyed. “She says jump and you do?”
“Look at it however you want.” As much as he regretted the position he was forced to put her in, he wasn’t going to argue his point with anyone. His word had to be law if they were going to survive. “You can stay here, if you prefer. Tell the others they can stay with you or come with me—their choice.”
Stephan rose to his feet as Rachel stomped out. “I’ll see to it, Alpha.”
“I’ll have you follow up. For now, I’d like your input here.”
Vash shook her head. “I hope you can keep a lid on the drama. We have enough on our plates.”
“Such as? The time for showing your hand is now.”
She hesitated a moment, her lips pursing slightly as she considered whatever it was she had on her mind. “We have a situation.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“I need to run some background checks, and I need
bodies pounding the pavement during daylight hours. I don’t have enough of the Fallen to cover the ground necessary in the time we’ve got to work with.” Her fingertips drummed on the desktop, betraying her restlessness. “I’ll cover your ass and provide safe passage for the lycans fleeing the other outposts. In return, you put those lycans to work helping me dig for information.”
Elijah waited for her to elaborate. In the interim, he took her in, noting the fine texture of her creamy skin and the darkness of her thick lashes. The amber of her eyes, a trait universal among all vampires, was striking against the brazenly bold hue of her hair. He wondered what she’d looked like with the flame-blue eyes of a seraph angel. Like a china doll, he imagined. There was an elegant fragility to her that wasn’t immediately apparent and totally lost at a distance. Her penchant for black leather and Lycra distracted one from noticing how softly feminine she really was.
With a sigh, she capitulated and withdrew a flash drive from her cleavage. “This will explain everything better than I can.”
Stephan retrieved his laptop from the other desk and set it up in front of Elijah, who plugged the drive in. Shortly, a video began to play. It was clearly surveillance video of a cell in which a vampire with foam at the mouth and bloodshot eyes bashed his head against a brick wall until it burst.
“I’ve seen an infected vamp like this before,” Elijah said.
“You have?” Vash stood and faced him, her focus razor sharp. “When? Where?”
He leaned back again. “The first time was in Phoenix, about a month ago. I believe she was the friend you wanted to avenge—brunette, petite, a pilot.”
“Nikki.” Vash took a deep breath. “Jesus. I thought Adrian was full of shit when he said she was fucked up.”
“We cleaned out a nest in Hurricane, Utah, two days later. Half the occupants were foaming at the mouth like that.”
Bending down, she dug in her duffel and pulled out an iPad. She typed as she spoke. “We don’t know what the hell this sickness is, how quickly it’s spreading, or where it started. That’s what we need to determine and what we need you for—we have to work night and day. We can work in shifts.”
“Maybe this is population control.”
Her head lifted. “Don’t play me. I don’t play nice.”
“Have any of the Fallen been infected?”
“No.” She set the tablet in front of him, revealing a map of North America dotted with multicolored spots. “The red spots are the first reports. You can see Nikki’s appearance in Phoenix was part of the first wave. Orange is second. Yellow is the most recent.”
Stephan leaned closer. “They’re all over the map.”
“Right. You’d expect to see an outward spread from one point, but it looks like there were four, as if they were deliberately spaced to speed the rate and area of infection. We know Sentinels raided a nest outside of Seattle, and you can see that’s one of the first known cases.”
Elijah shook his head, knowing where this was going. “Adrian’s clean on this.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Doesn’t mean a Sentinel isn’t responsible, but Adrian is in the clear.”
“Shit.” Vash began to pace, briefly distracting him with her graceful and agile stride. “And the Sentinels won’t act without his orders, so that leaves us with what? Demons? A lycan?”
“Don’t rule out the Sentinels.”
Stilling, she looked at him. “Why not?”
“A woman was taken from Angels’ Point while under Sentinel guard.”
“Then they allowed it to happen.”
“Not to this woman. Adrian would kick off Armageddon first.”
“Would he? Hmm…” She spun on her stiletto heel and left the cavern.
Elijah was right behind her, following in her cherry-scented wake. He was damn near dizzy by the time he reached the surface, his chest expanding on a deep breath that cleansed his lust-addled brain. He watched Vash pull an iPhone out from under a crimson bra strap and hit a speed-dial button. A moment later, the vampire leader appeared on her screen via a video feed.
“Vashti.” Syre greeted his second-in-command with warm familiarity. “Are you well?”
Elijah interjected. “You didn’t care about that when you sent her to me alone and unarmed.”
“Let me see him,” Syre said, prompting Vash to
angle the screen in Elijah’s direction. “Ah. The lycan Alpha. You’re precisely what I expected.”
“I expected you to be smarter.” Elijah crossed his arms.
“You’d be an idiot to harm my lieutenant. I would hunt you down and spread your hide in front of my fireplace as a rug.”
“My hide is worth the same as hers?” He glanced at Vash, irritated that he gave a shit about the respect—or lack of—that she was shown by her commander.
“If you’d been able to take her down, yes. She’s a damned fine warrior, armed or not.”
Vash flipped the phone back around to face her. “How did you get your hands on Lindsay?”
The hair on Elijah’s arms and nape rose with his sudden fury. He’d pinned the vampress to a tree by the throat before she knew what’d hit her.
Vash found herself flattened into the coarse bark of a tree trunk by over six feet and two hundred twenty pounds of bristling, growling lycan. Her fury over being caught unawares was exacerbated by her prickling dislike of Elijah’s proprietary feelings toward Lindsay Gibson.
“What?” she taunted, catching the wrists of his hands presently wrapped around her neck. His heavily muscled thigh was shoved between hers and his lean hips pressed against her pelvis in a way that set her heart racing. “Got a hard-on for Adrian’s woman?”
“Where is she?”
Her smile was mocking. “Why do you care?”
“Lindsay saved my life.”
“I knew I hated that bitch for a reason.”
“She’s with Adrian.”
Elijah’s head turned toward the iPhone on the ground and Syre’s steely-eyed visage. “Is she unharmed?”
“If she’s still alive, she’s healthier than she’s ever been.”
A chill slid down Elijah’s spine. He looked at Vashti, whose eyes were bright with challenge. While a mortal would have lost consciousness by now from lack of air, the vampress was merely flushed, which made her even more beautiful. “What did you do to her?”
“What she wanted done,” Syre answered. “Release my second, Alpha, before I decide you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
“Not yet.” Maybe not ever, if his growing suspicions were realized. His gut knotted as the fear deepened.
Vash smiled. “How did you get her, Syre?”
“She was brought to me by members of the Anaheim cabal.”
Elijah growled. “There’s a vampire nest in Southern California?”
“We prefer to call them cabals or covens,” she corrected, “depending on the size.” She turned her gaze to Syre. “Did they tell you how they got her out of Angels’ Point?”
It was no secret that Angels’ Point, Adrian’s compound in Anaheim Hills, was a fortress. Set high above the city, it was guarded by Sentinels and lycans—before
the revolt—as well as the finest electronic surveillance millions could buy.
“No.” The turning wheels in Syre’s mind were evident in his contemplative tone. “I assumed they’d acquired her somewhere between her work and the Point.”
“We need to talk to them. They have a winged contact they’re not sharing.”
“I’ll see to it. And I’ve sent the Alpha’s blood sample from the scene of Nikki’s abduction out to be analyzed for anticoagulants, as you requested. I’ll let you know the results when I have them.” There was a pause. “Are you all right there, Vashti?”
The circle of her fingers released Elijah’s wrists, freeing her hands to slide up his arms like a lover. Teasing him. Goading him. “Of course.”
“Check in regularly, so I can be certain.”