O’Bannen flicked a grateful look in her direction.
“All right, I’ll allow this,” McQueen said. “You two will stick together, and you will report your progress back to me every thirty minutes. If you think you’ve located the hostiles, do not engage without additional backup. We’ve seen how deadly they are.”
“Understood,” Brynn said. She resisted the urge to pinch herself, just to make certain he’d said yes.
“I’ll have us a place to start in a few more minutes,” O’Bannen said.
“Good, thank you.”
She was glad to be going out and doing this. Even if she didn’t bring Rook home, she had to try. He’d just come into her life, and he was already under her skin. Despite the differences in their species and status, she wasn’t going to let him go without a fight.
Chapter Twelve
Knight decided to break the rules.
For the last two hours, he’d ignored eighteen phone calls and various text messages. He didn’t even check the texts for fear of what the mystery woman would do to Rook if she decided that counted as cheating. He’d been missed at home, that much was obvious—most of the calls were from his father.
The only calls he’d answered were from Rook’s phone, and each one came with a new direction. He was somewhere in northern Maryland, just over the state line, waiting at the appointed gas station for his next phone call and second-guessing his decision to come alone. He eyeballed the pay phone next to the small convenience store. One call . . .
His cell rang. ROOK.
“I’m here,” he said.
“Good, you’re close. Get back on that road heading east. Ten miles down, make a left. It’s the only road. Come to the trailer marked thirty-two.”
“Okay.”
“No more calls after this, Knight. Turn off your phone. I expect to see you in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll be there.”
She hung up. He turned off his phone, then dropped it onto the passenger seat. He slammed his palm down on the steering wheel and barely felt the sting. Talking to anyone about this was cheating. Using his cell for anything except her calls was cheating. She never, however, mentioned a hang-up. Father would follow every single lead to recover his lost sons, even a missed call from an unknown Maryland phone number.
He dug change out of the car’s ashtray, then ran over to the pay phone. Dialed Father’s cell. Let it ring once, just enough to put the number on the cell’s screen, then hung up. Call incomplete, the money tumbled down. He fished out the coins, used his sleeve to wipe any possible fingerprints, then bolted back to the car.
The pay phone rang as he was pulling out of the parking lot, its shrill tone a haunting sound he had to leave behind.
Ten miles never seemed to take so long to travel. He finally found the road, a track of dirt that was probably impassable after a hard rain, and turned onto it. Half a mile down, a decaying trailer park sprung up. Many of the old trailers had once been mobile, but sat on blocks or permanent foundations. The majority seemed abandoned. A few showed signs of life. He trundled past slowly, searching for number thirty-two.
His destination was a horrid white and turquoise combination that hadn’t been new in about fifty years. No cars outside, but the lights were on behind drawn blinds. He parked in a weedy space next to a cracked cement patio and turned off the engine. The sudden silence made his pounding heart seem so loud he was sure they could hear it inside the trailer. Anxiety and hate pulsed in his blood.
No one came for him, so he grabbed his phone and got out. Sniffed the air. Under the fragrance of pine and earth, he caught the faintest hint of bitter orange and vampire. Further below was Rook’s unique, damp leaves scent. He went to the door and banged his knuckles against the frosted window.
A shadow appeared. He stepped back as the door swung open, blasting him with the eye-watering stench of bleach and lemon. His nose stung, and his head began to pound.
A teenage girl with straight black hair cut just below her chin smiled at him, showing off a pair of thin, needlelike fangs. Maybe sixteen years old, she had a narrow, pale face, her cheekbones high and sharp. She looked unremarkable, and yet somehow familiar. “Look who joined the party,” she said. Not the woman from the phone. She eyeballed him up and down. “Come on in, sweetie.”
She backed up. Knight inhaled a bracing breath, then ascended the three stone steps. As soon as he crossed the threshold, she slipped behind him and shut the door. Turned a lock. He froze, shock turning into a fresh bout of rage when he spotted Rook. Silver chains on his throat and wrists had opened weeping blisters on the exposed skin. His left hand was bleeding from two fingers. The scrapes on his face had shaded in with blue and purple bruises. He looked at Knight with rage in his eyes.
Knight straightened his spine and channeled his anger away. He needed to stay clear-headed. He needed to be strong for his little brother and get them out of this alive.
The camper was long and narrow, and past the kitchen area where he stood was a hallway that ended in a closed door. Other doors along the hall might be other bedrooms. One had to be a bathroom. The door at the end of the hall opened, and a second woman walked toward him. Familiarity struck him, but he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t know her, had never met her that he could recall. She had the same black hair as the vampire, but her long hair was as shiny and dimensional as the vampire’s had been flat, dull. She was also slightly older, her face rounder, less angular, pretty in a homicidal kind of way.
“Your timing is impeccable,” said his phone tormentor.
“I had motivation.”
“Phone?”
He handed over his cell. While she turned it on and checked, he looked around. The place wasn’t very clean for all of the stink. They were probably using it to mask their own scents from anyone prowling around. It was certainly doing a number on his nose, and Rook had been breathing it for hours with no relief. He also didn’t see any obvious weapons, except for the women themselves. He couldn’t take them on himself. Vampires were incredibly fast, and these were close quarters. The stink and his own churning emotions prevented his empathy from sensing anything specific from his brother, and he hated that.
“I’m impressed,” the older girl said. “You seem to have actually followed instructions.”
Knight glared. “Like I said, I had motivation.”
“Yes, you did, and now that you’re here, let me introduce myself. I’m Fiona, and behind you is Victoria.”
“Delighted to meet you,” he said flatly. “I’d tell you my name, but you already seem to know me.”
“I do, yes, and I know what makes you special, Knight.”
“That I’m loup garou? Old news at this point, isn’t it?”
“Not that. In fact, I find the majority of your kind disgusting, filthy dogs who should be put down.”
Rook growled. Knight shot him a quelling look, but Rook was too busy glaring at Fiona to notice.
“So it’s my charming good looks?” Knight asked.
“Those are definitely a bonus, considering why you’re here.” Her gaze traveled up and down the length of his body, a leering appraisal that made him sick. “I’m willing to let your brother go if you agree to stay here in his place.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Fiona inched closer until she was in his personal space. He caught a faint whiff of bitter orange and shivered. The Magus. He also caught something else below that, something very distinct and unmistakable that made his insides squirm—female arousal. His entire body went cold, and he fought the urge to shove her away. To get as far from her as possible. Warmth came up behind him—Victoria. Neither woman was touching him, but their proximity made his skin crawl.
“Someone’s catching on, I think,” Victoria said.
Oh yes, he was catching on all right.
Besides their empathic natures and power to calm other loup garou, White Wolves had another unique ability that Gray and Black Wolves did not. While Blacks and Grays could only procreate with loup and humans, Whites could conceive children with otherwise barren half-breeds, as well as with vampires. In the long histories of both loup and vampires, only a scant handful of successful half-breed children were known to have existed, and none in the last fifty years. In his own relatively short twenty-five years, Knight had been pursued by a handful of half-breed females intent on making babies. When he was sixteen one had even gone so far as to drug him, but Bishop had intervened before anything irreversible happened.
Now Bishop wasn’t here to save the day, and these crazy bitches were threatening to kill Rook if Knight didn’t comply. Not for the first time, he cursed his luck at being a White Wolf. He also resisted the urge to lunge for their throats. Giving in to his beast’s need to punish them for hurting Rook would only get them both killed.
Rook made a loud sound that was probably a “No!” Rook was hurt and in pain, and he probably couldn’t fight a five-year-old child, but he was still trying to protect Knight. Black Wolves could do nothing less.
And White Wolves could do nothing less than ease the suffering of their kind—especially when the one suffering was his brother. “Let Rook go, with no additional harm, and I’ll stay,” Knight said.
Fiona smiled like a child who’d been given the world’s largest lollipop. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and withdrew a length of thin, silver chain. “I think I’d rather have you secured first.”
He eyed the chain with disgust. He abhorred being bound, and he had no way to ensure she held up her end of the deal if he was tied with silver. “I told you I’d stay willingly.”
She shrugged. “I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t trust you, either.”
“Not even for your baby brother’s sake? You might change your mind about staying once Rook is safely far away. Now hold out your wrists.”
He looked at Rook, who was begging with his eyes for him to not do this. But Knight couldn’t
not
do this. As soon as Knight was secured, Fiona could double-cross him and decide to keep them both, but Rook was slowly dying under the weight of those silver chains and needed to be free of them. Knight had to risk it, or Rook
would
die. And as long as Rook was alive and could identify the enemy, Knight knew he would always be searched for. His family wouldn’t give up.
A loup garou protected his family, by any means necessary.
Knight held out his wrists.
***
Rook screamed inside of his own head in a single endless note, since screaming against the duct tape had proven fruitless. He’d hoped that Knight wouldn’t actually show, or that he’d come with some sort of trick to get them both out safely. But no, this was happening. The crazy bitches who’d kidnapped him (who finally had names) were going to take Knight and do God-knows-what with him.
Actually, he knew exactly what Fiona had planned for Knight. He was just having trouble getting his throbbing head and panicked brain to admit it. He’d spent the last few conscious hours playing music in his head so the pain didn’t drive him crazy, and even that was lost to him right now.
His entire body was on fire from the silver he’d been exposed to for hours, his hand ached where his fingernails were gone, and he was desperate for a drink of water. None of that hurt as much, though, as seeing Knight hold out his hands and allow Fiona to wrap that damned silver chain around his wrists.
“Now,” Fiona said, “let’s go into the back so we can discuss your new role in life.”
“Let Rook go first,” Knight said.
“You’re in no position to make demands or give orders.”
“But—”
Victoria plastered herself to him from behind. Knight couldn’t even blink before she sank her fangs into his neck. Rook shouted against the tape and lunged. His ravaged wrists and neck shrieked with fresh agony. Color fled Knight’s face as blood fled his body, and his resistance went with it. His knees buckled. Victoria executed a quick move that ended with Knight over her shoulder in a perfect fireman’s carry. He had six inches and forty pounds on her, but she lifted him without effort.
The two women disappeared into the back of the camper with his brother.
Rook screamed his throat raw, even though there was no one to hear his horrified song.
***
“We used a reverse directory on the number.” McQueen’s voice was tinny on the cell phone’s speaker, made worse by the rumble of the car engine. “It belongs to a pay phone located at a Qwik-Mart outside Leitersburg, Maryland.”
Brynn’s heart jumped at the news. Leitersburg was near one of the locations on their list of thirteen potential places in northern Maryland, where they’d begin their search. O’Bannen had cobbled the list together through lease agreements and records of sale involving vintage Airfloat trailers—a talent she couldn’t hope to understand, so she was simply grateful for his abilities. She and O’Bannen had been on the road for over an hour, driving south, and narrowing down the list this quickly was a blessing she hadn’t expected.
Avesta, my thanks.
“It could be a trap,” O’Bannen said. “Or a legitimate wrong number.”
“You’re right,” McQueen replied. “But it’s also possible someone left us an intentional breadcrumb.”
His emphasis on “someone” clearly meant he hoped it was Knight. No one had heard from him since he disappeared from the auction house office more than two hours ago. They were operating on the hope that Knight had found some sort of clue and gone off in search of Rook. The alternative was that he’d been taken, too, so she understood McQueen’s need to believe in the best possible outcome for his sons.
“We’ll be extra careful heading into Leitersburg,” Brynn said.
“Let me know what you find at the gas station.”
“I will.”
She put O’Bannen’s cell on the seat between them, then typed the new town into the GPS. They were about fifty minutes away. A white and turquoise Airfloat, built circa 1957, with the lot number thirty-two, existed in a half-abandoned trailer park ten miles away from Leitersburg. It fit.
She and O’Bannen had spoken very little since his assignment as her bodyguard, and even less during the past hour, stuck together inside a moving vehicle. She knew nothing about the big, burly loup. “The way you created our list of locations so quickly was impressive,” she said.