All Hell Breaks Loose (10 page)

Once Irene left, Gabi called to check on Trish’s condition.  She relayed the news to Derek that Trish was stable and then sent him to get some rest.  He was adamant that he couldn’t sleep, but gave in to Gabi’s nagging and went to lie on the bed.  When she checked on him a half hour later, he was dead to the world.  After checking on and feeding Roman, she retreated to her office to catch up on some emails and sort out long-neglected filing that her accountant had been begging for.

It was late afternoon when Derek came into the office, carrying two cups of coffee.  She smiled at the heavenly scent as he set one cup down in front of her and settled himself in one of her guest chairs, nursing the other.  Razor roused himself from a patch of afternoon sun to growl half-heartedly at the coffee-bearer.

“You look a little better,” she commented, taking in the healthier colour of Derek’s skin and the slightly less haggard look to his features.

He nodded a little, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.  “That’s the first bit of real rest I’ve had in days, it’s helped,” he said.  “Truth be told, physically I’ve never felt better in my life.”

“I told you it’s not all bad,” she reminded him.  “Once you have more control, life won’t seem so bleak either.  Kyle should be able to spend some time with you tomorrow, and if you can keep yourself from shifting, he’ll be able to answer a lot of your questions.”

“So are you going to tell me what you are yet?” he asked, his silver eyes locking with hers.  “And why you have more security around here than the White House?”

“I have some overbearingly overprotective males in my life,” she groused.

He cocked an eyebrow.  “You don’t strike me as the type of woman who would allow any overbearing males to overprotect you without a very good reason.  Are you in some kind of danger?”

She growled in annoyance.  “Not anymore.  And I intend on having most of the security measures disabled in the very near future.”

He pursed his lips stubbornly.  “You were off work for nearly six weeks recently.  You’ve never been off for more than two weeks that I know of.  Something serious happened.”  He leaned forward in his chair.  “Tell me,” he said simply.

Gabi realised that finally she didn’t need to protect him from the truth; he was a part of her world now.  And that changed things.

Chapter 5

When she finally stopped talking, the office was in semi-darkness.  Derek had hardly said a word, but the expression on his face told her that he knew she was skimming over certain details of her kidnapping on purpose.  She had the feeling he would keep digging until she gave him all the details, but he had enough to chew on for a few hours.  She pushed back from her desk and stretched.  The movement made her grimace as her bruises gave a painful twinge.

“What’s wrong?” Derek asked, frowning.

“Don’t you start,” she warned him.  “Let’s go see what Rose left us for dinner.  Then I need to check in with HQ.  If they don’t need me tonight, we can go and see Trish.”

Their arrival at Julius’s Estate was mercifully trouble-free.  The guards at the gate were usually
Werewolves
.  Julius employed most of the Black River Pack, one of the largest Packs in the City, either as security for himself and his Clan or in one of his numerous businesses.  It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.  However, it didn’t seem like a good time to be pushing Derek’s limits, so Gabi had called ahead and made sure they were waved directly through the gates without the usual security checks.

Gabi hadn’t been back since she was discharged from Jonathon’s care several weeks ago.  She noticed Derek’s eyes widen as he took in the extent and opulence of the property, as she drove along the discreetly lit lane
s.

Trish wasn’t
staying
in the medical wing Gabi had spent so long recovering in.  She was in a room in a housing block called Hawthorn House set off to one side of the Estate.  There were a number of shared accommodation blocks on the Estate as well as a few small private residences for staff and Clan members with partners.  They all boasted names associated with trees, though Gabi had no idea who’d named them.  The Estate also boasted a fully equipped gym, tennis courts, a running track, swimming pool and communal entertainment areas.

Trish was in a specially equipped ‘Secure Room’. 
Werewolves
were notoriously unpredictable when injured or highly stressed and occasionally needed somewhere to simmer down or recover.  The windows had bars on them, and the door had been noticeably reinforced.  Gabi knew there would be silver embedded into the bars on the windows and the door; the walls would be solid steel beneath the plastered
façade
.  It wasn’t unheard of for newly infected
Werewolves
to shift before their first full moon.  Hence the extra
caution with Trish.  There were a few humans wandering around Julius’s Estate—Gabi shied away from thinking about what their purpose here was.  They didn’t need any new cases of lycanthropy.

Despite its purpose, Trish’s
room was set up with a warm, homey feel.  A small table and chairs, a couple of wing-back chairs and a fold-out single bed were placed neatly around the room, and a hospital bed stood to one side against one wall.  Some basic monitoring equipment stood near the bed as well as a water bottle and towels.  There were cornflower blue curtains at the windows, and some books and a small vase of wildflowers rested on the table.

They’d met Jonathon in the corridor on their way in.  Derek’s eyes had been wide with anxiety, but he’d relaxed after a few minutes in Jonathon’s company.  Gabi realised Jonathon had been the perfect Vampire for Derek to meet first.  The Vamp doctor had a calm, competent, reassuring air about him that Gabi hadn’t really noticed before.  Possibly because usually when she saw him she was either badly injured or trying to talk him into letting her out of her hospital bed.  He confirmed what Kyle had told her earlier; Trish was doing as well as could be expected, her body seemed to be coping with the strain of the fever, and they were monitoring her closely.  She hadn’t been lucid yet, but he didn’t expect her to be for at least another day, after which the fever should begin to break and her wounds to heal.  He told them he was working in the communal living area so that he was nearby if her condition changed at all.

Once Gabi was sure that Derek was calm enough to keep from shifting, she left him sitting with Trish, gave a heads-up to Jonathon, and stalked off in search of Julius.  She wasn’t taking no for an answer this time, he was going to talk to her.  She knew he was at the Estate, she could feel it.  It was the first time she’d had a sense of him and his emotions since he’d walked out of her hospital room the night after her rescue.  His emotions were in turmoil, she could feel them in her mind, like a band of tension across her forehead and into her temples.  His distress called to her on a level she couldn’t ignore.

As she reached the front door of his private quarters – a triple-story manor house with all the bells and whistles – Julius’s new Chief Steward pulled the door open to stand in the light spilling from the hallway beyond.  He was the replacement for the unfortunate Gregory, who had chosen the wrong side in the recent war between the powerful Vampire brothers.  His defection and betrayal was part of what was causing Julius’s withdrawal from everyone.  Gabi figured it was a good thing that
Danté
had killed the steward before Julius and the SMV had launched their attack on his stronghold.  If
Danté
hadn’t killed the traitor, then Julius would’ve had to, and that would’ve been another weight on his shoulders.  Vampires had very strong ties to their Clan members; betrayal was a very bitter pill to swallow.

The new Chief Steward was a tall, thin, pretentious ass by the name of Maximilian.  He’d apparently been a night manager at one of Julius’s boarding houses that catered to guests of the non-human variety.  Gabi disliked the man on first sight, and nothing had happened to change her opinion of him yet.  She wished Julius had just promoted Claudia, the quietly competent female Vampire who’d been Gregory’s assistant.

“Miss Bradford,” the man said with a condescending sneer.  Gabi’s sword hand began itching.  “I’m afraid the Master is currently unavailable.  Would you like me to let him know that you called?”  He was nearly a foot taller than she was and made a point of looking down his nose at her as though she was a mildly repulsive bug.

“What I would like,” she ground out, holding on to her temper by a single thread, “is for you to get the fuck out of my way.”

“Now, now, Miss Bradford, such language from a lady is hardly…”  His sentence was abruptly cut off as he stared at the tip of the curved metal blade lodged an inch deep in his chest.

“I don’t call myself a lady, asshole,” she snarled, pressing
Nex
another fraction of an inch closer to his heart.  “Now get the hell out of my way before I’m forced to carve out your heart and take it home for my cat to eat.”

She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a Vampire swallow convulsively, but this one did.  As he backed slowly away from the door, she followed him, allowing the blade to pull free of his flesh but keeping it trained on him.  He was a Vampire, after all, and she was only partly Vampire.  She was almost as quick as most Vampires, but almost wasn’t always good enough.  She did have one advantage, though.  As indifferent as Julius seemed to be towards her at the moment, she doubted he’d changed the order that she was absolutely not to be harmed by any of his Clan or staff.  There weren’t too many who would (or in this case, could) defy a Master Vampire, especially one as powerful as Julius—a Master Vampire with the gift to control other Vampires just as she could control animals and, apparently,
Werewolves
.

“Be it on your own head, then,” Maximilian spat, as she slipped past him into the house.  She kept a watchful eye on him, alert for any sudden movements, but instead, a malicious grin spread over his face.  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Angeli Morte!”  The cruel vindictiveness in that look nearly made her backtrack. 
Nearly, but not quite.
  The steward gathered himself, slammed the front door closed, and strode away without another word.  He hadn’t even touched the wound where
Nex
had cut him.

A feeling of cold dread settled in her stomach, but she brushed away the man’s odd behaviour and allowed her senses to flow through the house, searching.  Then she turned and swept up the wide, wooden staircase in search of her quarry.

He wasn’t in his office, as she’d expected.  He was still in his bedroom.  She doubted he was still ‘asleep’, he usually rose long before his Clan members and often even before the sun had set.  She was so distracted by what she was going to say to him that she didn’t even notice the steady, human heartbeat in the room before she flung open the door and walked in proclaiming, “Sorry, Julius, no more hiding from…”

It was then that she noticed the human
heartbeat,
and the human it belonged to—the very petite, very pretty, female human sitting on Julius’s lap as his face nuzzled into the side of her neck.  Julius was naked from the waist up, his glorious, muscle-sculpted shoulders and chest gleaming with a pale luminescence in the dim lighting.  The shock on his beautiful face mirrored the shock on her own as his head whipped up to find her standing in his doorway.  She realised what she’d walked in on when she took in his elongated canines, the smear of red at his lip and the girl’s passive, vacant expression.  She took a quick breath as she tried to figure out if this was better or worse than her first assumption.  The streak of jealousy that had flashed through her like a
firebolt
at her first glimpse of the scene had nearly sent her to her knees.  She whirled back towards the door, but his voice caught her before she could leave.

“Gabrielle.”  It was hardly a whisper.

She heard him move, a little moan of protest coming from the blonde woman, but she didn’t look back at him.

“Gabrielle, I’m sorry.”

His voice did all kinds of unfair things to her.  She bit her lip and forced herself to continue her path to the door, her back to him.  “No, the fault is mine.  Finish your…breakfast.  I’ll wait for you in the office,” she said, leaving the room and closing the door behind her.

She would’ve collapsed against the wall outside if it wasn’t for the fact that he’d hear her.  She couldn’t show any weakness.  Not now.  Instead, she strode down the corridor to his recently refurbished office, praying she didn’t meet Maximilian again; she wasn’t sure she could stop herself from putting the gloating bastard down like the rabid dog he was.  Julius’s office had been wrecked twice since he’d met her, once by Gabi herself, and the second time when Gregory killed another Clan member who’d uncovered his treachery.  It was a wonder Julius hadn’t decided to move it to a secret location.  For all that, it hadn’t changed much from the first time she’d seen it. 
Though the glass case containing his collection of rare knives and swords hadn’t been in its usual spot when he’d brought her here the first time.
  That was the time he’d drugged and kidnapped her in order to convince her to speak on his behalf to the SMV about
Danté
.