“You've always been a protector, Daria. I wish you'd let someone protect you once in a while.”
She gave him an irritated glance. “I don't need counseling right now, Alejandro, but thanks for trying to help.”
Daria pulled off her soaked T-shirt and pulled a gray jersey from a drawer. “Anyway, I just stopped in for a minute. I'm leaving again to head back to Sante's house. Ari wants to have lunch with me.” She pulled the sweatshirt over her head. “What are you doing today?”
“I'm with Carlos.”
She stilled and looked at him. “Really?”
He nodded. “Sante put me on security detail.”
“Shit.”
“I tried to get Brandon an
in
, but it didn't work. I was shut down right away.”
“Did you tell Brandon?”
Alejandro nodded. “He wasn't too happy, but he's got his hands full as it is. There's been more movement over by the honey fields. The supervisors there won't let him stray anywhere close, though.”
She shook her head. “I think the best move for us is simply to get closer and closer to Ari, Sante, and Carlos. The rest will reveal itself eventually, once they truly begin to trust us. Brandon is just upset because he's out of the loop on this. He's a control freak, that guy. He doesn't like that we've taken the lead here.”
Alejandro grit his teeth. “I don't like being that passive.”
“It's either we wait for Sante to let us in on the true goings-on here, or we risk getting caught and blowing the whole operation. There have been full moons every night, extra guards over by the honey fields.” She gestured impatiently. “I don't see a better option at this time.”
“I'm not arguing. I just don't like it. Don't pick a fight with me, Daria. I'm not in the mood.”
Her jaw locked. “Lookâ”
The door slammed open, and Brandon stood there, panting and soaked from the rain. “Sante's house was just bombed.”
23
DARIA stood stricken for a moment, and then ran past Brandon and out the door.
Alejandro and Brandon stared at each other for a moment. “Is he dead?”
“Don't know, but it's pretty bad.”
Alejandro rushed after Daria and Brandon followed. Outside he saw that Daria had taken off on a dune bike, rushing across the surface of the ground at top speed toward Sante's house. He grabbed another and was off, leaving Brandon to fend for his own transportation.
By the time he reached the house a crowd had already gathered. Half the place was on fire, smoke billowing up in a heavy plume. Not even the steady rain seemed to be having an effect on the raging inferno that seemed as though it would engulf the rest of the house in no time.
In horror, he watched Daria jump from her bike before it had even stopped and go running past the guard gate, toward the burning house. The bike crashed into the heavy steel fence surrounding the house and whined to a halt.
Alejandro gunned the engine on his bike and sped after Daria. Coming up alongside her, he grabbed her around the middle and slung her over his lap.
Daria slammed her fist into his gut.
Hard.
“Let me down.”
He grunted. “
Mierda
, Daria! No way in hell.”
As they approached the house, he began to believe they actually were in hell. Heat warred with the downpour, the flames licking dangerously close to them.
He veered the bike away from the house, but Daria was having none of that. She punched him in the gut again and at the same time bit his leg, fangs extended. It was not a love bite, and there was no veil. It was just pain, pure and simple. Blood gushed from his thigh and he loosened his hold on her just for a moment.
It was all she needed.
Daria yanked herself backward, using her foot on the edge of the bike to get leverage to propel herself away from him. She fell five feet to the ground and rolled.
“Fuck!” Alejandro pulled a hard right, just in time to see Daria hauling ass into the burning house. He pulled up and jumped off the bike himself. Alejandro hit the ground running, ignoring the pain in his leg where she'd bitten him.
Heat burned his face and exposed arms. He was grateful he was soaked, or it would have been worse. He had a split second to notice that near the house no rain fell; the heat of the fire made it evaporate before it even hit the ground.
Brandon came up behind him, but Alejandro pushed him back. “Get out of here! All three of us don't need to commit suicide.”
“I can help!” He pushed past Alejandro.
Alejandro grabbed his shirt and flung him violently backward. Brandon ended up on his ass. They needed one agent still alive and kicking after today.
Smoke billowed around Alejandro as he entered the kitchen and he covered his mouth with his forearm.
“Ari?” Daria's voice coming from the living room. “Ari? Where are you?”
He ran after her. “Get your ass out of here. This place is going up.”
Daria coughed and turned toward him. She shook her head. “I was supposed to meet her here. She's in this house somewhere and I have to find her.”
He took her by the shoulders and shook her. “
No, Daria!
We have to get out of here,” he yelled over the roar within the house.
“I won't let her die!”
Tears ran down her soot-covered face.
He stared down at her for a moment, his lungs burning. Somewhere above them, timber cracked ominously. “Goddamn it.” He released her.
Daria pushed past him, going for the stairs. Alejandro followed.
When they reached the top, they caught sight of a white bit of fabric on the floor just at the beginning of the upstairs hallway.
Ari Templeton.
Daria knelt and pulled her up, but the woman was out cold, maybe dead already. The Chosen were immortal, but that only meant they didn't age and had above average immune systems. Smoke inhalation could do them in the same as a human.
Daria struggled to get her down the stairs. Alejandro stepped in and slung Ari over his shoulder. Together they made their way out of the burning building as pieces of the floor above them began to rain down.
They both stumbled outside, coughing, and made their way down the path and past the gates. Behind them, the house collapsed in the middle. If they'd stayed in there just a minute longer, they'd be fried, flat Chosen pancakes.
Then Sante was there, pulling Ari from Alejandro's arms. Sante laid her on the ground while he and Daria collapsed to the grass, both wheezing in an effort to get air into their scorched lungs. Beside them, Sante performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on his lover.
Daria sat up and watched Ari with a desperately pained expression on her face.
Ari wasn't moving.
Alejandro reached out and pulled Daria into his arms. She came willingly, gratefully, snuggling against his chest as they watched Sante try to breathe life back into Ari Templeton. A crowd had formed around them, all keeping a respectful distance.
“Live,” Sante murmured against her lips. Then louder, “Live!” He kept up the resuscitation, but Ari remained limp, lifeless.
Carlos broke past the circle of onlookers and came to stand near his boss. Alejandro was struck for a moment at the expression of utter horror on Carlos's face. It was as though he actually
cared
about Ari.
Carlos hesitated a moment, then stepped forward and touched Sante's shoulder. It was clear to everyone that Ari wasn't coming back.
“Leave me alone!” Sante snarled. Then he rested his forehead on Ari's, closed his eyes, and whispered, “Please, Ari. I can't do this without you.
Please live.
”
In that one unguarded moment, all doubts Alejandro had about whether or not Sante truly loved Ari Templeton vanished.
Sante sealed his mouth over Ari's once more and pumped her chest. Nothing. He leaned back, rain beating down, and looked at his dead lover.
All was silent but for the crack and burn of the house behind them.
Then Ari's chest heaved. She coughed and gasped. A look of absolute, pure happiness transformed Sante's face and he caught her up against his chest and held her. Ari grabbed his shoulders as he rocked her back and forth, murmuring things into her soot-streaked hair.
Daria turned her face into Alejandro's chest and breathed deeply, shuddering in relief against him.
Brandon stood near them, looking a little bruised from Alejandro's emphatic denial of his aid. A smile played on his lips. Maybe he wasn't such a womanizing bastard after all.
After several moments, Carlos drew Ari away to the dome doctors who had rushed to the scene. There was no way to put out the fire, though it did seem the rain was coming down even harder now in this area, perhaps engineered to do so.
Once Ari had been handed over for medical attention, Sante stalked over and pulled Daria from Alejandro's arms and into his. “Thank you,” he said as he embraced her. The sincerity of those words rang through the air.
Daria went visibly stiff in Sante's armsâprobably shockedâand pushed away from him almost immediately. “I didn't go in to save Ari
for you
.” It was a hostile comment, something that
Valerie
wouldn't say. It was the first time Alejandro had seen Daria's mask slip.
However, Sante didn't seem to notice it. He answered smoothly, “I don't care, Valerie. You saved her. That's all that matters.”
Alejandro drew her back against him. Emotions were running high, and they'd just risked their lives. He worried Daria might slip even more.
“Who did this?” Alejandro asked, his voice rough from coughing and smoke inhalation.
Sante's lips pursed in thought. Around them Carlos had begun to shoo the onlookers away. “I have enemies. Many of them. We'll investigate, but it sounds like it was a bomb.”
Alejandro stated the obvious. “You have someone in this dome who means you harm.” Besides himself, Daria, and Brandon, that was.
“Wouldn't be the first time.” Sante made a fist. “When I find them, and I will, they're dead for this.”
“You were at your headquarters,” Daria broke in. “It was public knowledge. Either the bomber wanted to threaten you and didn't know Ari was in the house, or they
did
know she was there and their intent was murder.”
Sante's smile was cold and the look in his eyes brutal. Here was the Christopher Sante who had killed Julia and the guards and who'd taken pleasure in slowly torturing their witness to death.
Here
was the Sante who had slept with and romanced Daria for years under a pretense. “Either way, he's dead . . . slowly.”
“Keep Ari safe.” Daria's voice was hard. “Keep her guarded.”
Sante cocked his head to the side a little and gave a curious half smile. “Why do you care so much, Valerie? You barely know her.”
Daria hesitated a moment before answering. “She reminds me of someone I knew once, a friend.”
His smile faded. “I'll take good care of Ari, don't worry.”
Â
CHRISTOPHER lay in the dark, in an apartment on the other side of the compound. Above him was a skylight, one of two large ones in this residence. Through it he could see the slit in the dome they'd opened to release some of the smoke from the destruction of his house. The dark, gaping opening looked like a crack in the illusion of their reality.
Daria/Valerie, who never missed a thing, asked how they maintained security when the dome was opened. He'd told her about the invisible energy barrier that covered the slit and about the quirk in the barrier's operation. The security mechanism shut down while the dome opened and closed, which took a little over a minute.
During that minute he'd set guards to watch for anyone who tried to get out of the Shining Way. It was bait. If they caught the person who'd almost killed Ari, he or she was slated for death in the most horrifying way he could imagine.
Sante had enjoyed planning that death, but he'd enjoy the actual killing even more. He imagined blood and flesh filling his mouth, and pure white-hot bliss filled him.
He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting the rising bloodlust within him, the leading edge of age insanity that ate at the fringes of his mind. He could control it. He had to control it for Ari's sake.
She lay next to him in the bed, her breathing finally deep and even. She was still a new succubare and her enhanced healing abilities hadn't fully developed, but she was doing much better than anyone had expected after her near brush with death.
Now she slept, and that was good. However, sleep remained elusive for him. His mind turned over the possibilities endlessly.
Who would want Ari dead? Who would dare threaten him?
The obvious answer was that someone under the dome was gunning for Ari and they were affiliated somehow with her father. Someone paid to be here. It could be anyone.
Alejandro and Daria were here at the behest of Richard Templeton and therefore were a threat to Ari. That's why he kept them so close. They would have been top on his list were it not for the fact they'd risked their lives to save her. He dismissed the notion. No, they were just good agents working under the notion they were doing good things.
There were some other possible suspects. Tomorrow he would set to work analyzing all the recent members once more, even closer, in an effort to discover who had done this.
He put his arm over his eyes and blew out a sharp breath. Ari reminded Daria of Julia. He couldn't get it out of his mind. There were parallels. Julia had been tougher than Ari physically, but they'd both possessed the same touching vulnerability, a quality that made you like them right away and made you want to draw them under your wing.