“It can’t be as easy as that,” she said, but she handed him the keys readily enough and watched as he put one of the dead guards on each of their cots, then covered them in blankets.
“It’s less than nothing as a ruse, but maybe it will buy us a minute or two,” Brennan said, locking the cell doors.
She ran over to the bank of computers. “There are monitors here, of the corridors and the lab.” A grimace crossed her face. “That damn chair. I’d like to come back here with dynamite and blow that thing out of existence.”
“We will,” he promised her. “We will come back and make sure Litton never, ever harms anyone again.”
“We can head down this corridor, it might be an exit.” She pointed to the one in the opposite direction from the lab. “I doubt there are guards everywhere, this late at night. After all, they believe we’re safely locked in our cages.”
She clenched her fists on the console, and her ripped sleeve hung free of her shoulder. “They will never get me in that cage again. I’d rather they just shoot me.”
“Never again,” Brennan agreed. “Now we run, before Litton gets back with more of his thugs. Or Smitty, which would be worse.”
She nodded, then touched his face so briefly he barely felt it. “Oh, Brennan. I thought you were lost.”
“Never,” he swore. “You will never, ever lose me.”
She nodded, but there was still no belief in her eyes. “Now we run,” she said, and headed for the door.
Chapter 34
The central salon of Mr. Jones, deep underneath Yellowstone National Park
Litton, at that very moment, was wishing to be somewhere, anywhere, else. These vampires were monsters, torturing one another indiscriminately. What kind of creature did that for no reason other than some perverse pleasure?
Although, if he had to watch anyone being tortured, it wasn’t that much of a hardship when it was Devon and that snotty bitch female vampire who went everywhere with him.
The pair of them hung by their arms from silver chains. Litton could tell the chains were silver by the way smoke curled up from the vamps’ skin. That must be incredibly painful. He’d wondered in the past if vampires could even feel pain, since they were, of course, dead, but from the look of Devon and Deirdre, they definitely could.
It was Litton’s first time in Jones’s quarters, and he tried not to stare around him like an ignorant yokel on a trip to the big city. Velvet and silk hangings covered the walls of what was, basically, a cave. Paintings stood up against walls, or on shelves, everywhere. Litton was no art connoisseur, but some of those looked real. As in originals, should-be-in-museums, worth-millions-of-dollars real.
Why did they need Brennan’s money so bad when these guys had this kind of wealth?
“Vampires keep what is theirs, human,” a voice hissed in his ear. Litton jumped almost a foot in the air, and the vampire who’d spoken, Mr. Smith, laughed, displaying very sharp fangs.
Jones dropped the pincers he’d been using on Devon’s ear and whirled around so fast that Litton almost didn’t see him move at all. “Why are you here?” he snarled at Smith.
Litton backed away, getting clear of the path between the two.
“I’m here for him,” Smith said, inclining his head toward Devon, who raised his head and looked up.
Litton gasped at the vampire’s appearance. Devon’s skin was shrunken to the bones of his skull, and he looked as though he’d aged more than a hundred years in a few days. Litton couldn’t believe he was even conscious or still alive. Well, alive in his undead way. He’d been tortured, and not just with pincers, either. Gashes and bruises and blood covered his face, body, and what was left of the rags of his clothes. But he was still alive, and conscious, and directing a stare of such burning hate at Jones that Litton wondered the vampire didn’t spontaneously combust.
Deirdre had not fared so well. She hung limply in her chains, either unconscious or dead, the front of her dress ripped and her chest and belly covered with similar bruising, wounds, and blood.
Devon licked his lips, then met Smith’s gaze. “Release me so I can kill him and his territory is yours.”
Smith nodded. “Good enough for me.” He raised a hand and a swarm of vampires flew through the doorway into the room, all attacking Jones en masse. Litton scrambled under a table and pulled a tapestry around and in front of him, praying that they would forget he was there. He sat, huddled in on himself, shaking with terror, trying not to think what so many vampires would do to a human they found in their midst when they were in the middle of a blood frenzy like these obviously were.
Jones put up a hell of a fight, for being so outnumbered, but once one of the vamps ripped the silver chains off of Devon, it was all over. Emaciated and weak from hunger and torture—it made no difference. Devon went after Jones, and the next thing Litton saw was Jones’s head rolling down the middle of the floor toward him, stopping only when it hit his feet.
“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” he stammered, knowing it was the end for him.
Devon, who had immediately ripped the chains off Deirdre and now stood cradling her in his arms, stared across the room at Litton. “You were here to report, Dr. Litton. So report.”
Litton blinked, afraid to answer. Afraid to breathe. Also afraid he’d pissed in his pants. He froze, not moving or speaking.
Smith’s face appeared as he bent down, grabbed Litton’s ankle, and yanked him out of his hiding place.
“I said, report,” Devon repeated, and there was something in his tone that told Litton he would not repeat himself again.
Litton scrambled to his feet, cursing all vampires in his mind, and himself for ever getting involved with them. “Brennan is ours, sir. He took so long, and Smitty thinks he’s some kind of creature, not quite human, but the scans say human, and anyway, three days of treatments at max was long enough. He’s docile enough, and he’ll sign anything we want. We can begin transferring his funds to the institute’s accounts.”
Devon nodded. “Good. Make sure he is unharmed. No more treatments until I can evaluate him. We may want to use him as the public face of our research, along with yourself, of course, and if he’s a drooling idiot, it would defeat our purposes.”
Litton nodded and bobbed his head, practically bowing, anything to get out of there alive.
“Mr. Smith, would you be kind enough to ensure Dr. Litton makes it back to his lab safely?” Devon shifted his grip on Deirdre, but did not put her down. “I worry that a hungry vampire might . . . detain him.”
Smith laughed. “How do you know I won’t detain him?”
Devon’s smile was less than reassuring to Litton, who already hated him. “All in good time, Mr. Smith. All will come to those who stand by my side.”
Smith cast a cool, assessing glance around the room and then down at Jones’s head, still lying on the floor but slowly dissolving into slime. Litton felt his belly lurch at the sight of it.
“I like to back the winning horse,” Smith said.
“Don’t we all?” Devon replied. “Now go.”
They went.
Chapter 35
Yellowstone National Park, Pack Headquarters
Alaric materialized from the mist in the shadows under a tree, hidden from the sunrise. He wanted—no, needed—a moment of peace before they saw him. A moment to prepare himself to see her again.
Quinn.
After so many long years of celibacy, of Alaric sacrificing his needs to those of his people, the human archaeologist and object reader Keely had discovered a bitter truth: Poseidon had never decreed celibacy for his priests. Not even his high priests, of whom so much was demanded.
No, the call for chastity had instead been the desperate attempt by a group of elders to prevent Atlantis from being destroyed. So far, that was all they knew. Not how or why. They knew the when, approximately eight thousand years ago. Nereus had been high priest and Zelia had been his wife.
Wife.
The word knocked the air from Alaric’s lungs. He immediately thought of Quinn’s reaction to such a term, and couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. Rebel leader, yes. Warrior, certainly. Brilliant strategist, without question.
But wife?
The leaves near him rustled slightly and he tensed, knowing that enthralled shifters roamed the woods. He called power and stood ready. However, it was not an enthralled wolf shifter that leapt out of the trees to land lightly, in spite of its enormous size, in front of him. It was Jack.
Humor gleamed in the tiger’s slanted eyes, and he made a deep, rumbling sound that a fool might have mistaken for a purr. The fool would have lost a hand shortly thereafter.
Alaric inclined his head. “Jack. Always . . . interesting to see you.”
The tiger bared its teeth, but Alaric merely raised an eyebrow.
“Now, boys, play nice,” she said, appearing from the woods on the opposite side from where Jack had been. Alaric turned to look at her, and the rest of the world disappeared.
“Hello, Quinn. It has been too long.” He was proud of himself for managing the calm tone. He was even more proud of himself for not snatching her up and abducting her to somewhere no one would ever, ever find them.
Someplace with no demands on either of them. No responsibilities.
A place, then, that existed only in fantasy.
“Hello, Alaric,” she said, and the husky sound of her voice resonated in every nerve ending in his body. His power flared hot and bright, and he wanted to call a waterfall, a thunderstorm, a tsunami, and lay them all at her feet.
Jack snarled and swiped a paw against a young tree, taking half of its bark off.
“I think Lucas will not appreciate that,” Quinn told him. “Will you please wait in the headquarters for us?”
Jack snarled again, but Quinn just aimed that steady, weighing gaze at him, the one nobody ever wanted to have find them wanting. No wonder she was such a good leader. Men and women would die for her.
Had
died for her.
She carried them all in her soul.
Jack turned around, swishing his tail hard so that it smacked into Alaric’s legs, and then bounded off toward Lucas’s giant log-cabin headquarters. As he crossed the clearing between the trees and the house, he shifted shape between one bound and the next, so that the tiger seamlessly became the man, fully clothed, in the space of seconds.
“He’s very good at that,” Alaric observed, hearing the inane stupidity of his words even as he spoke them.
But Quinn only nodded. “He dislikes you,” she said, in her blunt way. She confronted most problems head-on. “He thinks I’m pining away for you, and he thinks I should be his mate.”
Alaric went deadly still. “What do you think?” he asked, when he was able to speak.
She shrugged. “He’s right, and he’s wrong. I am pining away for you, and I’m not his mate. His human soul cares about me, but his cat is indifferent. Friendly enough, but definitely not in a mating way. The dual-natured must find the mate that both halves of their soul desire for true happiness.”
“Do you believe in that?” he asked her. “True happiness?”
She looked into his eyes, and he fell into hers, drowning in the deep, liquid dark. “I used to,” she said. “Once, long ago.”
“Your sister Riley is happy with Conlan,” he challenged her. “Soon they will rule Atlantis together, with their son beside them.”
A shadow of pain crossed her face. “I still haven’t met my nephew. Tell me about him. Aidan. Is he well?”
He nodded. “He is a healthy, well-formed boy with a fierce spirit. He is definitely his parents’ son.”
She smiled. “I was hoping for that. For her. She deserves to be happy. But with Atlantis on the verge of war, how happy can the ruling family be?”
He frowned. “War. You think it will come to that?”
“What else? We are on the verge of world domination, if these scientists succeed in their experiments. The entire planet will become a feeding ground for vampires if somebody doesn’t stop it.”
He touched her face, and a bolt of pure desire raced through him, just from the feel of her cheek under his fingers. “Why does it always have to be you?”
She leaned into his touch, shivering like a frightened doe. But this was Quinn, and if she’d ever been truly frightened, he’d never seen it. Shivering with pleasure at his touch, perhaps. The idea warmed him, but she had not answered his question.
“Why you?” he repeated, knowing the answer, not wanting to hear it, but compelled to ask.
She closed her eyes and turned her face, then pressed the gentlest of kisses on his palm. “Who else?” she whispered. “Answer me that, Alaric. If not me, if not you, then who else? Do we stand by while our world is destroyed?”
“You could return to Atlantis with me. The vampires will never reach us there,” he said, knowing it was futile. Knowing it wasn’t even something he would want for her, and it could never be what he would do. Trapped, knowing they sat idly by while the world ended.
Never.
She knew it, too, because she moved away a little, but she smiled. “And Alaric fiddled while Rome burned,” she said. “Somehow I can’t see it.”
“Wishes have voices sometimes.”
“Do they?” She stared off into the distance, and he wondered what she saw there in the dark corners of her mind. “Mine do not. They have gone silent and still.”
“The dictate of celibacy,” Alaric blurted out. “It was a lie.”
She slowly raised her head, sudden passion mixed with hope burning in her eyes so brightly he wanted to cry out. But then her eyes dimmed, and she turned away. “Even so. My reasons are unchanged. We have no time to discuss this now, while your friend is in danger.”
She started walking away, following Jack’s path, but Alaric couldn’t bear it. He caught her arm and pulled her back. “And after? Will you at least hear me out?”