Chapter Twenty-One
Juliana studied her mate. She was already his. They were United. Mates for an eternity. There was no reason for them to get married as well, unless they just wanted to. And evidently, he wanted to. The thought made her strangely sentimental. He wanted her in every way possible. And despite his earlier words, she couldn’t think of even one reason to say no. The only reason she would have had he’d eliminated when he’d told everyone they were United. As secrecy was no longer an issue, she could do as she pleased. “Yes, Thomas. I’ll marry you.”
He breathed a sigh of relief and she laughed as he slipped the ring on her finger. A gorgeous solitaire diamond with a white-gold filigreed band. “Were you actually nervous?” she teased.
“You have no idea.” He kissed her, pushing her back until she was lying on the bed. “I suppose,” he said between kisses, “that as much as I would like to keep you to myself, we should inform everyone else that you are alive as well.”
She froze. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea.”
He pulled back and looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been thinking about this. Whoever attacked my house thinks I’m dead. If they were trying to kill me, wouldn’t it make sense to let them continue to think that so they don’t try again? At least until we know for sure who it was.”
Thomas sat up on the bed next to her. “You don’t think it was Raoul?”
“It could have been, but it just as easily could have been the ghoul. Or someone else entirely.”
“Shit.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
He sat there a moment more and then nodded. “You’re right. There’s no telling who we can trust.” He stood and held a hand out to her. “Get dressed. We’ve got work to do.”
Michael’s home sat smack-dab in the middle of the end. Why he’d chosen that particular location she’d never know but his presence had certainly scared off some of the seedier element. No one wanted to mess with a master vampire. And they guarded their territory well.
A nondescript door in an alley led to his abode. The only indicator that it was different was the double-armed cross emblazoned above it, Michael’s personal symbol. Thomas wrapped her hand in his and knocked a rapid staccato on the door with the other. The Neanderthal-looking vampire Juliana had seen last time she was here opened the door again. His unibrow arched and he took a step back to let them in. “Boss. Dead lady.”
Juliana coughed a laugh.
“Her name is Juliana,” Thomas corrected. “Where is Michael?”
The vampire grunted. “Upstairs. Angry. Reckon he’ll be better now she ain’t dead.”
Thomas started up the stairs, but she tugged on his hand to pull him back. He gestured for the Neanderthal to go ahead. “What is it?” he asked.
She glanced up the stairs to make sure the other vampire was out of earshot. “There’s something you should know. I should have told you before.”
He tilted his head, waiting.
“Michael and I never slept together.”
“Juliana, you don’t need to—”
“No. Listen. He paid Eric to tell you that.”
“Yes, I know. He already told me.”
He couldn’t stop the smile as her jaw dropped open. He felt her disbelief that he’d known and hadn’t told her. “
Calm down
, Joya
.
He only told me last night.
And I’ve been occupied in other ways since you reappeared.
It didn’t occur to me to mention it.
”
Her face flared red, and he chuckled before leaning over and giving her a kiss.
Their moment was interrupted by a bellow from the top of the stairs. “Hey Boss, the big boss and the dead lady are here to see you, but they won’t come up.”
Juliana’s lips twitched and Thomas resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Barely. He pulled her up the stairs. Michael appeared at the top before they were halfway up. “By all the gods, it is her.”
“Who is here?” Thomas asked.
Michael just continued to stare at Juliana. Thomas sympathized but they had things they needed to do, plans to put into motion. “Michael?” He waited for the man to look at him. “Who is present?”
“See for yourself,” he said with a shrug and indicated the room at the top of the stairs.
Thomas led his mate the rest of the way up, releasing her only when his second ensnared her in a crushing embrace. A look around them showed eight foot soldiers awaiting orders. None of those present was particularly talented in any way, but they were all loyal as far as he knew. He met Michael’s eye over Juliana’s shoulder. The man had been planning something.
His friend smiled. “Didn’t think I was just going to let her get killed and do nothing about it did you?”
Thomas scowled, annoyed the man hadn’t contacted him.
Michael stepped back. “I was going to call. I was giving you time. And you’ll both have to explain to me how it is that she’s not dead. For now though, why are you here other than to deliver the news?”
“Juliana thinks it’s better if she remain dead for the time being,” Thomas said.
Juliana moved over and dropped into one of the chairs in front of Michael’s desk. “At least until we have a better idea of who it was. Did you two see anything when you got there?”
“Nothing.” Michael scratched his chin. “Which, now that you mention it, is rather odd. We got there just before the house collapsed. Whoever it was couldn’t have gone that far.”
She shrugged. “Well, I guess we can try to narrow down the suspect pool and see what happens.”
They should have looked for the perpetrator but Thomas had been too lost in grief at the time. It was a failure they couldn’t fix now. Now he just needed to see to her safety. “I’ve publically announced our Union and she has consented to be my wife,” Thomas said and took the seat next to her. Michael perched on the edge of his desk. “She’s my mate in every sense of the word.”
There were murmurings from some of the others in the room but he ignored them. What they thought was of no consequence. “I will not allow harm to come to her. The coven is to protect her with their lives.”
She sat up straight at that. “Now, hold on just a minute here.” She looked over her shoulder at the others. “You do not have to sacrifice yourselves for me. In fact, I’d very much prefer that you didn’t.”
Thomas sighed. “Yes, they do.”
She blinked at him. “Why would you think that?”
“
Why would you think otherwise?
”
She didn’t answer, just continued to look at him with wide eyes.
“Firstly, they will because I command it so. Secondly, you are my mate. That means you are also their ruler. They die to protect their rulers. It is the way it has always been.” Not that he expected those beneath him to sacrifice themselves for him, but there had been others who left a bloody path in their wake, littered with their loyal retainers.
* * *
She looked at Michael. “Is there someplace I could talk to him for a minute?”
“My room.”
Standing, she grabbed Thomas by the hand and pulled him down the hallway to Michael’s bedroom. He stopped in the doorway and leaned against the frame when she turned to look at him. “What?” she asked.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I just find it interesting that you came straight here with no hesitation and no direction.”
“Seriously?” The man couldn’t be serious. She shook her head and chose to ignore him. “Listen, you can’t just command people to die for me.”
“Yes, I can.”
“No. You can’t.” She gestured toward the other room. “I don’t even know those people. I am not okay with them putting their lives on the line for me. You and Michael I get. You know me. You both love me in different ways.”
He sauntered forward until he was close enough that she had to look up at him. “This is part of being my mate,
Joya
. They will die to protect you because I will kill them if they don’t. Your desires have no part in it.”
They both turned at the sound of footsteps hurrying down the hallway. Michael appeared in the open doorway. “We just picked up a call on the scanner. It’s your sister’s address.”
Her heart stuttered. Not Sara. Not Rachel. They needed to get there now. She headed for the door. Thomas put a hand on her shoulder stopping her. “You should stay here.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not staying here when something’s happened to my best friend or my niece.”
“We don’t know that yet,” Thomas argued, but his worry came across the bond betraying the calm confidence of his words. “And if you show up there, everyone is going to know you’re alive. Including whoever tried to kill you the first time.”
“Then they’re just going to have to know, Thomas. I’m going with you.”
* * *
They took a portal to Sara’s house, emerging just outside the crime-scene tape. Thomas had tried several more times to dissuade her from coming, but it was an impossible task. Michael and Thomas kept her hidden between them until they crossed under the tape and into Clayton’s spell. Thomas had called ahead to make sure he was on the scene with the spell at the ready. The man himself met them just inside the perimeter. He smiled down at her. “Walker. Glad you aren’t dead.”
Juliana blinked at his bluntness. Not knowing what to say to that, she chose to ignore it. “Warden. Do you know what’s going on?”
He shook his head. “Got here right in front of you. Barely had time to set the spell before you walked through it.”
She didn’t even give him time to finish the sentence before she started toward the house. She had to know what happened to her family. Jeremiah stepped in front of her long before she got to the open door. He just stared down at her at without saying anything for a long moment and then wrapped her in his arms. “Thank the gods. Thank all the gods.”
She returned the embrace then took a step back. He released her but kept one arm looped around her shoulders. “How is this even possible?” he asked.
“I promise I’ll explain it all to you very soon. Right now I need you to tell me what’s going on.”
He looked down at her in surprise and then over her head at Thomas. “You mean you don’t know? Then why are you here?”
“We intercepted the call over the radio.”
His eyes moved between her and Thomas. “Rachel’s missing.”
Air vacated Juliana’s lungs. Not her little girl. Not Rachel. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe.
Thomas grasped her hand to tug her out from under Jeremiah’s arm and against his side.
Jeremiah kept talking. “Whatever happened, Sara evidently interrupted the abduction.” Juliana jerked her head up. “I’m sorry,” Jeremiah said.
No. Juliana shoved away from Thomas and took off at a run across the lawn. She ignored the people who called her name, Thomas and Jeremiah included. It couldn’t be true. She had to see for herself. She paused inside the door, listening for the sound of the techs working. Nothing but silence. Seeing nothing on the main level, she took the stairs two at a time.
Sara lay facedown in the hallway in front of Rachel’s room. A sob escaped Juliana’s throat. She dropped to her knees next to her dearest friend, her sister in all but blood. Why had they left her here alone? She heard a footstep behind her and reached out with her mind. Thomas. As devastated as she was, he’d be doubly so. Sara was his only sibling. She kept her face turned from him, embarrassed to show him her tears.
A warm hand rested on her back and he crouched beside her. “She hasn’t aged.”
Juliana flipped on her gift, relieved when it came without effort. Either enough time had passed that she’d healed on her own or her father’s concoction had seen to that as well. The familiar brown signature of the wild magic lay atop her sister-in-law in a stasis spell. Her hands clenched. She didn’t want his foulness anywhere near Sara, but Juliana also didn’t want to remove the magic until she was sure the body was no longer needed.
“Why did they just leave her here?” she asked.
“The wards are still active,” Jeremiah said from the top of the stairs and she looked back at him in surprise. That meant only people who had been in the house before could get in. It also left the question of how the hell the Thief had gotten in without setting the wards off.
“Where’s James?” Thomas asked the obvious question. If James was here, he could remove the warding and let the techs in to do their work. He also wouldn’t have left Sara lying alone in the middle of the hallway.
Jeremiah ran a hand down his face. “He wasn’t here when it happened. He’d run to the Apocryphan for just a minute, he said. When we got here he was covered in blood and performing a tracking spell. We let him do it in the hopes we could find Rachel. That’s when things went bad.”
“Went bad how?”
“James insisted that the tracking spell said Rachel was still within fifty yards of the house, but she wasn’t inside. It was easy to see she wasn’t anywhere around there. When we told him as much, he started yelling that one of us was involved, that we were keeping her from him. We subdued him and took him in before he could start shooting spells.”
She exchanged a look with Thomas. Granted, James could be overwrought with grief, but she was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t on to something. Whoever tried to kill her knew where she lived and knew she was home. If it wasn’t Raoul, it made sense that it might be someone connected to the case. Then there was the matter of the wards. How had the bastard gotten past them? James was the director of the Gathering. You didn’t just break into his house. “Go get him, bring him back.”
“You should come with me.”
She shook her head. “I want to figure out how the son of a bitch got past the wards. Maybe his wild magic punched a hole in them. I’ll be all right. Just hurry back.”
He dropped a kiss on her head and hurried to retrieve his brother-in-law. “Watch her,” he said to Jeremiah as he jogged past.
“What’s going on?” Jeremiah asked.
“What do you mean?” She stood, gave one last look at Sara and stepped into Rachel’s room. A top spun by itself in the middle of the floor as if she’d just set it into motion. She shook off the chill that ran up her spine. The sheen of the wards still covered both windows. Jeremiah was waiting for her when she stepped out of the room.