Esti stopped the recording and leaned back. “Someone took him. Someone from Wilkinson’s organization.”
Cerys choked and clapped her hand to her mouth. Kai reached out to steady her. “That means we have to work a lot faster. But he could be anywhere. Or he could be—”
“Dead,” Cerys finished for him. “He could be dead.” She caught her breath, swallowed back the tears that threatened to choke her.
Esti shook her head. “Not yet. They wanted him for something. Probably the laboratories. Someone made him as a vampire and came for him. Or recognized him as Rhodri Tryfanwy. Either way, they took him.”
“Which means Cerys is in danger.”
“I need to examine her.” Esti turned away from the laptop. “Plug this thing in and watch the films, Kai. I need to study her.”
“What?” Still reeling from what she’d just seen on the screen, she watched Esti get to her feet and Kai take her place. Numbly she indicated the plug. Esti glanced around and found a scrap of paper, which she fixed over the lens.
At least nobody could spy on her anymore. She shuddered. “Do you think this guy sent these recordings anywhere?”
“Honestly?” Kai swiveled in the chair and fixed her with a hard stare. “I don’t know. But all these recordings are unencrypted and open. I think he did it because he had the opportunity. Those cameras are remotely controlled, and the battery will last a long time. And they’re too fucking easy to get hold of. Besides, if he could get in, he could replace the battery while you’re out. Easy to install, easy to operate. I’ll look through this crap. Then I’ll send it to one of our experts.” He glanced up and frowned. “They’ll all be destroyed, I promise.”
A pang went through her when she realized this might be all she had of Rhodri. “Can I have them back?”
He seemed to understand. He jerked his head in a tight nod.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“Do you want to prosecute?” He turned back to the laptop, but he tilted it so she couldn’t see from her seat on the bed.
“I-I guess I should. I hate to think of all this coming out in court.”
“Then let us deal with it. The Department. I can promise you he’ll never do anything like this again.”
Cerys exchanged a glance with Esti, who had dragged up one of her two hard chairs to sit opposite her. Esti smiled, but the cold, frosty expression had no warmth in it. It was her attempt to be sympathetic, and Cerys appreciated it.
“I can promise that,” Esti said.
Cerys nodded. “Then we’ll do it. He’d probably only get a fine or something, anyway.”
“One thing’s for sure,” Kai said. “You can’t continue to live here. Do you have anywhere else to go?”
“I have Rhodri’s house. He wanted to give it to me, but I said no. He gave me a key anyway and offered to rent it to me at the same rate I pay for this place. But when he left, I didn’t want to be reminded anymore, so I moved back here.”
“I’ll send the shots of the two men who took Rhodri straight to the Department. The Internet connection is still working, so I’ll make use of it.”
“Make sure there’s nobody leeching off it,” Esti said.
Kai’s only reply was, “Duh.”
He got to work, leaving Cerys with Esti. “I want to read you, Cerys. I’d hoped to do this gently, but I need to get inside your head now and fast. I’ve thrown a ring of protection around this place, but before we leave, I want to do this. I need to know more, and it’s probable that you know more than you think.”
“Okay.”
“Lean back. Better still, lie down. You need to brace yourself, but when you feel me enter your head, when you feel my presence, try to relax all your safeguards. When I leave, I’ll strengthen the safeguards you have, and I’ll ensure you only let your outmost thoughts go. You need that defense. We won’t leave you unprotected when we leave.”
She nodded, kicked off her shoes, and did as she was told, shifting back on the bed and then lying full length. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine Rhodri was lying next to her, just out of reach. All she had to do was stretch out her hand and he’d be there.
A sharp pain lanced her skull. The worst kind of migraine, a stiletto dagger to the brain, slicing through. She cried out, but the pain didn’t stop, and she felt the presence behind it. Frighteningly powerful. She knew this person could destroy her from the inside out, take her brain and shred it into little pieces or excise the parts she wanted to destroy.
Terrifying. And she had to trust her, had no choice. Because she might hold something that would lead them to Rhodri. The man she—oh why try to hide it? This Sorcerer could see everything she was or had been. Esti would know her desires as well as she did herself. She loved Rhodri.
At that admission, something inside her relaxed. The pain eased, and now she could feel the other presence moving inside her. She opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on a spot on the ceiling. The paper was that rough kind that had become popular in the seventies. God knew how many coats of paint it held. The gleaming white surface had patterns she could hardly see, and the bare, central bulb she’d covered with a white shade swayed slightly. She’d draft proofed the window, but it still let in the sea breezes.
Esti moved, worked, and all Cerys could do was take it and wait.
She had no idea how long Esti worked on her, but eventually she felt the pressure on her brain ease, and slowly she knew she was alone in her head again. She tested her barriers, felt some differences. Fuck, the woman had tidied her up, or that was what it felt like. She’d cleaned, put the deepest thoughts way down, and the memories she didn’t immediately need were packaged away. She blinked.
“A little untidy,” Esti said calmly, an edge in her voice that Cerys hadn’t heard in their short acquaintance before. Esti was tired—for all Cerys knew, exhausted. She sensed enormous control in the woman, so it was likely this slip meant she was hurting badly, whereas Cerys felt weirdly refreshed, like a plant after rain. Esti had strengthened her and probably depleted herself.
Kai closed the laptop. “We’ll hear back from the Department soon. They’ll call us.”
Cerys sat up. Leaning on her hands, resting on the bed, but she felt less vulnerable sitting. “So that’s it?”
“You’ll have to move out of this place,” Kai said. “We’ll help you.” He pushed back a strand of his glorious hair. While it usually hung in a sheet down his back, now it looked disturbed, as if he’d been running his fingers through it. “You’re not safe here.”
She sighed. “I know.” And she’d moved out of Rhodri’s house because she thought he’d abandoned her.
“More than that,” Esti said. “She must come with us. She and Rhodri bonded.”
Staring at Kai’s face, Cerys realized for the first time how serious a step Rhodri had taken by bonding with her. “It was one blood exchange, once,” she hurried to explain. “It was so he could assure himself I was safe, he said. He was worried about me, but he knew he’d have to leave to find this Wilkinson man.”
Kai sighed. “Bonding is bonding. Further blood exchanges deepen the bond, but you will always be able to reach him at a deeper level than anyone else. And separation hurts. He must have planned to take all that burden himself and ease it for you.”
Again, to protect her. Everything for her. Rhodri humbled her, made her realize how much she didn’t know.
“It seems they wanted him, not you.” Kai glanced at Esti. “We don’t know if your security has been compromised. It’s likely that they were after Rhodri all the time. The camera here was a lucky fluke.”
Cerys snorted. “That pervert wanking over my pictures? You call that lucky?”
“We wouldn’t have known about Rhodri without them. But I’m taking personal control of this machine and I’ll do a search of his room. When I get to the Department, I’m sending his electronics to one specific tech. When he’s done with it, it will be destroyed. I promise you that with everything I am.”
She believed him.
“And I want to stay at the house with you tonight. I’ll see you to work tomorrow, and I’ll stay close, though not in the bar. Esti will keep a channel open to you.” He glanced at Esti, who nodded.
He wasn’t giving kind requests anymore. He was giving orders.
So she had guests that night at the house, and she wasn’t living at the flat. She’d held on to that with everything she had, taken the first opportunity to move back in. One day, she’d promised herself, she’d buy it back. Make it hers again. Her parents should never have sold it.
She’d buy it back, and when she did, she’d fumigate it.
* * *
The next day, Cerys found her charming guest had made her breakfast. She hadn’t realized there was any fresh food, had planned to pick some up later, but Kai had already done it. She was on the four until ten shift, this being Tuesday, not one of the late nights at the bar. Tonight she’d be off at eleven, after cleanup. That suited her fine.
They had been busy, but they hadn’t discovered who had taken Rhodri yet.
“I want to learn more about being a Talent. My parents taught me what they knew, but I need more now, don’t I?”
“You might not have had to know. If you hadn’t met a member of the Department, that is.” Kai rubbed his jaw. “You could have lived quietly here for a long time. You know how to change lives, don’t you?”
She raised a brow.
“Aging and dying,” he explained helpfully.
“Oh, oh that.” Yes, she knew. “I’ll age a little, let people say I look young for my age, then I’ll disappear, be in a ‘car accident.’ I know how to do that. Then I’ll come back as my own cousin. I have the identity set up already. They did that for me years ago.”
Kai grimaced. “It’s easier than it sounds, but it’s usually better if you move away.”
“I might want to by then.”
She probably would. She loved her life here, but she was well aware she couldn’t live here forever. And she understood why her parents had preferred to move on and leave their belongings behind. It was so much hassle, all the legal concerns. Otherwise they could neatly package one life away and move on to the next. Papers were fairly easy to come by on the black market, or they could create their own.
With a melancholy certainty, she knew that the day she’d met Rhodri, her life had taken a new turn. She could never go back. Not now.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to. And that, more than a lot of the other things, put her on edge.
Chapter Ten
But they wanted her to behave normally, to go to work and ask Dave about taking time off. She was owed some vacation time anyway, so this might be a good time to take it. Before the season got into full swing, when Dave might be more reluctant to give her the time.
Kai escorted her to work, but he did it discreetly. He employed a technique Cerys had never heard of before, something he called “fuzzing.” She guessed it was akin to the technique she used to distract people when she was feeding so they wouldn’t remember. She didn’t realize it had a name. It confused the mind, made people see what they expected to see rather than what was actually there. So they didn’t see a tall man with eerie light blue eyes and long, silver hair—they’d all see someone slightly different. Anyone watching her would describe the man she was with differently. She guessed that meant he was in secret agent mode. Because call it what they liked, that was what he was. Some kind of Talented Bond.
She had to unlock the doors, which was unusual, although Dave had given her a key. Kai, about to fade away, as much as a six-feet-four man ever could fade away, halted. “What is it?”
She shrugged. “Dave usually sees me and comes to the door. He’s probably in the cellar or something. Maybe one of the pumps needs a new barrel.” She hated the cellar. So cold.
“I’ll come in with you.”
She didn’t argue. It was daytime, and while that meant she was mortal, it didn’t mean the same thing for Kai, who had informed her that he was an anthro, not a shape-shifter. Apparently that meant only part of his form underwent a change. So fucking what? she thought, but she didn’t say it. She still wanted to see him in his merman form. She’d bet his tail was enormous.
Having got the main lock undone, she entered the building. It felt dark and cold. The other staff would be arriving soon; it was only a fluke that she’d arrived first. That, and she’d wanted to sound Dave out about taking time off without anyone else there to wreck her pitch. Dave didn’t like giving anyone time off, but if she got in first, she had a better chance.
“Strange.” Her voice sounded hollow in the darkness. She went behind the long bar and snapped on the lights, all of them, going down the bank of switches methodically. She didn’t bother with the atmospheric, evening lights. She wanted full illumination.
A flash of red on the buff tiles attracted her attention. A pool of red, glimmering in the lights.
Kai cursed and pushed past her. “Stay back.”
But she took a few steps, enough to show her that Dave wasn’t going to give her any time off work anymore. Dave lay in a pool of blood, his head, battered and bloodstained, turned toward them. He’d been beaten up, then killed. She didn’t know how, but she couldn’t see any gaping holes that might, in her limited experience, show bullet wounds.
Kai took charge. “We do this the right way,” he said. “But we also call in our own.” He used his mobile phone to alert Esti. Then he used the bar’s phone to call the police. Esti would contact Grady, and for the rest, Kai would stay with her. “I’m your cousin,” he told her. “You’re coming to London to attend my wedding, which is why you wanted time off. That sound okay to you?”
She nodded. “Okay.” An easy story, easy to remember. She even remembered the female part of Kai’s relationship. Zoe. So if they wanted to know more, she could tell them that. “Better make it long-lost cousins because people around here are used to me saying I don’t have any living relatives.”
“Good thinking.” Kai put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll make an agent of you yet.”
Fuck, she hoped not.
By the time the numbness in her soul had evaporated, the police had arrived. Kai had let in the staff, four of them, and sat them down, told them to wait. After all, if it had been a robbery gone wrong, they could be involved.