“I won’t hide.”
“But you love Shadoe, and you want to see her again. I can’t imagine it’ll be more than a couple weeks before that happens.”
Syre looked out the window at the moon, a sight he’d seen too many times to count. Too many times without Shadoe. Grieving parents didn’t get opportunities to be reunited with the children that were lost to them, but his curse was also his blessing. He’d fallen from grace for siring Torque and Shadoe. Nephalim, they were called. Angel halflings. Yet it was that specialized hybridization that had spared her soul when he’d begun the Change to save her life. All of the nephalim vampires were unique in that way. Their souls survived the Change because they were as strong as an angel’s, without the vulnerability of wings.
“Take as long as you need, son,” he said quietly, stepping farther away from the bed as one of the two women occupying it rolled to the side with a disgruntled sigh. “It does me no good to lose one child while trying to recover the other. I need both of you.”
“Dad.” Torque laughed softly. “I didn’t reach this age by making stupid mistakes. Don’t worry. Just make arrangements for Shadoe’s return. Before you know it, we’ll all be together again.”
“Micah says Vash had a rag or cloth . . . some bit of material with my blood on it.”
From Adrian’s elevated position on the stairs leading down into the sunken living room, he studied Elijah, who looked unusually agitated. “And she claims it came from the scene of an abduction in Shreveport?”
The lycan nodded. His arms were crossed and his stance was wide, as if anchoring himself for an expected blow. “The airport there. But I was with you in Phoenix then. The vamp was snatched a couple days before the chopper crash.”
“How is that possible?” Jason asked from his position by the fireplace. “How would your blood end up states away from where you were?”
“Hell if I know,” the lycan said. “In order to have been that readily identifiable, it couldn’t have been more than a month old. Prior to hitting the nest in Utah, I haven’t lost enough blood on any hunt in the last thirty days to leave some behind for someone to jack.”
“Excuse me . . .” Lindsay began, drawing Adrian’s attention. She sat on one of the sofas, looking petite and fragile in the massive room.
She’d been silent since she emerged from his bedroom, fresh from a shower and smelling like his soap and shampoo. Neither did anything to disguise the scent of sex with him, which was skin deep. Still, she’d been so embarrassed by the thought of everyone being able to smell his lust on her that he’d tried to comfort her the only way he could think of—he’d told her it would make perfect sense to smell like him if she used his toiletries.
“Yes,
neshama
?” he coaxed. Power was thrumming through him, his soul recharged by its growing attachment to hers. Added to the more primitive rush he felt from having made love to her for hours, he felt ready to take on anything. The Sentinels thought his love for a mortal made him weak, when the opposite was true. Lindsay gave him strength in ways he couldn’t explain to anyone else.
“I’m sure figuring out
how
is important,” she began. “But I’m curious as to
why
. Why would anyone want to set up Elijah? What do they get out of it?”
She looked at the lycan and offered him a brief, supportive smile. She seemed to have a fondness for him, which made Adrian determined to keep the beast close and safe for her sake. Whatever stability and grounding he could offer her in their present tenuous circumstances, he would.
“Maybe it’s not him in particular,” Jason suggested. “Maybe
any
lycan would have served the purpose. Anything they do reflects on Adrian.”
Her lips twisted thoughtfully. “So someone sets it up to look like the vamp was snatched by Adrian . . . ? Why is that news? That’s what he does. It’s what you all do, lycans and angels alike.”
Adrian relished an inner smile, pleased with her participation and clever mind. She enhanced him. Lindsay was a warrior, just like he was. Just as Shadoe had been. But Lindsay was cerebral about it, analytical, while Shadoe had used her sexuality as a weapon.
“Vash wouldn’t retaliate for just anyone,” he said. “Did she say who was abducted?”
A shadow passed over Elijah’s face. “No name. Just that the vamp was a woman. A pilot and a friend of Vash’s.”
“A female pilot.” Adrian looked at Jason, wondering if his second was reaching the same conclusion he was.
Jason whistled. “Can’t say for sure, Captain. I didn’t get a good look at her.”
“She was diseased and unrecognizable. Sick like the vamp we caught in Hurricane.”
Aaron entered the room. The recently returned Sentinel had already made his desire for retribution clear. In addition to Micah’s deteriorating health, he’d lost his other lycan guard in Vash’s attack. “Vash had Salem and Raze with her. They hit us in full daylight.”
Three Fallen on the hunt together. Not unheard of, but rare. They didn’t have many occasions to exert that much force at once.
Adrian remembered his conversation with Syre.
Nikki had one of the kindest hearts among us . . .
Shit
. He looked at Damien, who stood behind the sofa Lindsay was occupying. “Torque’s wife. Nicole, right?”
The Sentinel nodded. “That sounds right. And she’s a former Army pilot.”
“Who’s Torque?” Lindsay asked, her gaze darting from one face to another.
Your brother. Your twin.
Adrian looked at Jason, whose brows were raised in a look that asked,
How much are you going to tell her?
Elijah replied. “Syre’s son.”
“And Syre is . . . ?” she prodded.
“The leader of the vampires,” Adrian said, with an evenness that belied the twisting of his gut. She wasn’t ready to hear everything yet. He would prefer that she never hear it. If the Creator was kind, Adrian would succeed in killing Syre. Then Lindsay would be freed from Shadoe’s naphil gifts, Shadoe’s soul would be freed from purgatory, and Adrian would be recalled for disobeying the standing order to keep the Fallen alive. It was the closest he could come to rectifying his mistake.
“The Watcher whose fall got you those crimson tips on your wings?” Lindsay asked.
He gave a brisk nod.
“All right. Before we move on . . . What’s up with the superhero names? Syre, Torque, Vash, Raze . . .”
“Most of the Fallen gave up their angelic names when they fell. Syre was once known as Samyaza. Raze was once Ertael. As vampires, they have a proliferation of legal names they switch out every now and then as time passes, so they’ve established a culture in which there’s almost a competition for the most outrageous handles.”
“O-
kay
. . . To be clear,Vash—an important vampire—is involved because the gal who was abducted was important, because she’s related by marriage to the leader of the vampires. Am I following so far?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t they just call you and ask what the ransom terms are? It’s not like they can’t find you.”
“They did.”
“And they didn’t believe you’re innocent?”
“I killed her. I told Syre that.” Adrian met her gaze unflinchingly, knowing she would understand such a brutal admission of murder.
Lindsay blinked in surprise. “When?”
He descended into the living room. “When did I tell him? In Phoenix. In the airport, right after I met you.”
“So Vash knows this isn’t a rescue mission. She’s out for blood in retaliation for a death. She managed to corner Aaron and his two lycans. But instead of holding Aaron for ransom or targeting him because he’s higher up the food chain than the lycans, she lets him go. I’m confused as to why a vamp who usually only hunts big fish would toss the biggest fish back.” She looked at Elijah. “No offense to your friend.”
The lycan met her gaze. “None taken.”
Jason crossed his arms. “Killing a Sentinel would escalate the situation beyond what Syre would condone.”
“His son’s wife is dead, thanks to Adrian, but he balks at taking out one of the Sentinels?”
Damien looked at Adrian. “Go on, Lindsay. This is getting interesting.”
Lindsay twisted on the sofa, bringing him more fully into the conversation. “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on here. The vampire head honcho’s daughter-in-law gets nabbed by Elijah.
Allegedly
,” she qualified when Elijah opened his mouth. “Vamp dude calls Adrian to ask for her return and Adrian says he killed her. Yet Vash remains focused on the lycan involved and not the Sentinels. How come?”
Adrian’s wings unfurled. “I accused Syre of sending Nikki to attack me. He didn’t respond to the accusation as I would’ve expected, nor to my mention of Phineas, which led to me wondering whether he was losing control of his vamps.”
“Is it possible that he thinks you’re losing control of the lycans? I mean, the reverse is true. You probably didn’t respond the way he expected. He called you because he was worried about his daughter-in-law, and you didn’t even know who she was. You didn’t recognize her. But the lycans who took her knew her identity—assuming she wasn’t sick then. He’s got to be thinking that the lycans made a pretty bold move taking someone so valuable to him without you knowing about it.”
“Told you,” Jason said, looking at Adrian.
“Where are you all going with this?” Aaron asked.
Jason’s brow arched. “It’s possible the lycans are working on their own.”
“But,” Lindsay interjected, shooting a glance at Elijah, who gave nothing away on his face, “why implicate one of their own by leaving Elijah’s blood at the scene?”
Aaron exhaled harshly. “Which resulted in the death of Luke—my other lycan—on sight. There was no attempt made to capture or speak to him. And Micah is as good as dead.”
“They captured him, then let him go.”
“They left him for dead,” Aaron said. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” she challenged. “The whole leaving-someone-for-dead business is beyond me. Either something is dead or it’s not, and if it isn’t and you want it dead, you don’t leave it to chance. Why would Vash—?”
A silence fell over the room as Lindsay abruptly stopped speaking. All eyes rested on her until she shrugged blithely and said, “Never mind. Too complicated for me. My brain hurts.”
She stood and walked toward the windows, stepping through when one large pane of glass slid automatically to the side.
Resisting the urge to flex his wings, Adrian dismissed Jason and Aaron with an accompanying order to report to his office in the morning. He feigned nonchalance, but inside he was weighing the myriad possible reasons for why Elijah—the first Alpha to make an appearance in many years—had been set up to take the fall for Nikki’s abduction. He knew Lindsay’s mind had followed the same train of thought and she’d ceased her speculations the moment she realized how dangerous they were to Elijah.
Adrian studied the lycan as the living room cleared, noting how Elijah followed Lindsay as far as the window, guarding her still, yet making a pointed effort to stay within boundaries that wouldn’t incite Adrian’s fierce possessiveness. The lycan and Lindsay clearly had a friendship of sorts, which was why Adrian entrusted him with her protection, but that didn’t mitigate the danger Elijah presented as an Alpha. Whether he had any culpability in the abduction or not, it appeared someone had gone to great lengths to bring the Alpha lycan to the attention of the vampires, and the vamps were taking the steps necessary to formalize that introduction.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Collusion between the lycans and vampires would lead to the annihilation of the Sentinels. The numbers against them would be far too great to withstand.
Gauging Elijah’s loyalty was more important than ever. Adrian expected that fidelity would be strongest with other lycans, but it just might be strong enough with Lindsay to make defection difficult.
Elijah met his gaze as he moved to follow Lindsay outside.
Adrian paused on the threshold. “What do you think, Elijah?”
“Vash was empty-handed after speaking to Micah. She was left with the choice of interrogating another lycan before my blood sample deteriorated or following Micah back to me. I think that’s why she let him live.”
“And what will you do should she come here?”
“Eviscerate the bitch.” He growled, his eyes glowing with green fire. “Micah is my friend. He’s like a brother to me, as Phineas was to you. And she killed him. I could’ve lived with that if she’d fought him for it. But to die like this, sick and broken in a bed—no lycan should have to die like that.”
Adrian set his hand on Elijah’s shoulder and swiftly searched the lycan’s mind. A red haze of fury and grief washed over every sifting thought, none of which dealt with mutiny or treachery. Momentarily reassured, Adrian murmured, “May we all go down fighting.”
He released the lycan and stepped outside, finding Lindsay standing a safe distance away from the railing while staring at the cityscape in the distance. He embraced her from behind, wrapping her within his arms and wings.