The darkly tinted passenger-side window slid down silently. “Get in.”
Alexander grinned at the faces of his brothers and jumped in the backseat. “Perfect timing,
duros
.”
Nicholas sped off, while Lucian
went
off. “What the fuck, Alex? Do you have a death wish or something? It’s nearly dawn!”
“I had them, both of them.” He eyed Nicholas in the mirror. “Dare and Trainer.”
Nicholas’s dark brows lifted. “Bodies on their way to the Order already?”
“They pulled the disappearing act again, but I did manage to take out a few of his recruits.”
Nicholas drove with the speed and precision of a race-car driver, utterly focused. “All you get is a few recruits and I get blood all over my backseat.”
Lucian chuckled.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Alexander said dryly, shifting his focus to the street they were racing down. Again, he felt the end of night nearing. “Let me out here,” he commanded.
“What?” Nicholas barked.
“Right here! Stop the car.”
“No way.”
“There’s access to the tunnels here, through the subway.”
Nicholas cursed, but slammed on the breaks. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll stay belowground,” Alexander said, exiting the car.
“No more hunting solo,
Duro
,” Nicholas called after him. “We wait until dusk and go together.”
Alexander clipped him a nod. “Agreed.”
Lucian glared at him. “You look different, your blood too. Have you
fed
?” He said the last word as though it were an accusation all its own.
“Drained the cow dry.” His face as controlled as his words, Alexander lifted a hand in farewell. “Thanks for the save.”
The sun was just rising as he rushed down into the subway and toward the secret passage that led to the tunnels. Bronwyn Kettler was certainly no cow, but he’d sworn not to reveal her generous gift to anyone. If the
credenti
found out, they would not accept her back in the fold, for she had fed a
paven
who was not her true mate.
Once in the tunnels, Alexander rejected the path that led him home, taking instead the one that would lead him to Sara. As he ran, his thighs bled and ached to be healed, but his heart was in far more pain. He needed to see her and hear her voice, even if she refused him. He snaked through a tunnel that had clearly been unused for a long time, then entered the hospital basement.
He palmed his cell phone and dialed.
The
veana
answered on the first ring. “You better be in the shade.”
“I’m directly below you.”
Dillon released an irritated sigh. “You’re here? In the hospital?”
“What floor is she on?”
Dillon cursed. “Four. But she’ll be heading your way in a few hours.”
“For what?”
“Tests on the brother.”
“Good.” He was no longer surprised at the palpable relief that spread through his system at hearing he would see her soon. “Can you meet me down here?”
“For what?”
“I need a blow job.”
She was silent, then ground her words out like crushing glass. “I know I didn’t hear you right.”
Alexander laughed, his gaze running the length of the gashes in his thighs, the blood oozing from them. “Just get down here,
veana.
” Without waiting for a reply, he stabbed the off button and hunkered down in the black corner to wait.
30
T
he man wasn’t tall, but broad in the shoulders and undeniably handsome. His long, blond surfer hair, dimples, and pale blue eyes were a stark contrast to his manner, which was closed off and just plain shady.
Sara didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.
Standing toe to toe with him inside Pearl’s room on the juvenile ward, Sara once again explained the reason she was kicking him out. “Unauthorized visits are not allowed, Mr. Barnes.”
“Alistair. Please.” He gave her a tight-lipped smile. “The child needs her parent, don’t you think?”
“Yes, unfortunately that
legal
parent is not here.”
“Doctor—”
“I’ve tried several times to reach her, as has the social worker.” Sara’s gaze shifted to Pearl, who sat on the edge of her bed, looking flushed and worried. “Pearl, do you know where your mother might be? How I can get ahold of her?”
Pearl didn’t even open her mouth before Alistair jumped in. “Unfortunately, her mother can’t handle the stress of this situation. She’s asked that I watch over Pearl, and”—he lowered his chin—“of your care of her.”
What was it? Sara thought, studying him. There was something almost familiar in his tone and the expression in his eyes. For a second, she wondered if he’d been a patient.
Keeping his back to Pearl, he continued. “And may I say that you are taking fine care of our girl?”
“I’m doing my best,” Sara assured him.
“I’m sure you are.” He seemed to grow a few inches as he stared down at her.
Sara didn’t so much as blink. “And I won’t stop caring for her until she is . . . well, herself again.”
His eyes narrowed. “Good to know.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and Sara wondered if the man felt some type of connection to her as well. What the hell was it? As if hearing her thoughts, Alistair’s eyes darkened from baby blue to sapphire, and his nostrils flared as though he scented something unpleasant.
“I should be going,” he uttered.
Sara heard Pearl mumble irritably under her breath, but she nodded at the man. “I’ll walk you out.”
After Alistair said good-bye to Pearl, Sara followed him out of the room and down the hall. Her beeper went off and she glanced down to read the text. The tests she’d ordered for Gray were ready to go, while the bloods she’d been waiting for on Pearl couldn’t be located.
What the hell?
The shift in her focus had been ten seconds max, but when she looked up again, Alistair Barnes had disappeared.
Alexander moved soundlessly down the hall, past the morgue, and into an alcove where he would be obscured yet could freely watch Sara through a small square of glass.
“You trying to blow my cover?” Dillon whispered beside him, deep sarcasm threading her tone. “Because you know how much I enjoy that.”
“I needed to see her.”
“Well, there she is. You saw her. Now fuck off back to the basement.”
“You’d better watch yourself, Dillon,” he warned softly.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, you’re starting to sound a little like a possessive lover.”
She turned and punched him in the very leg she’d healed an hour ago. “Shut up.”
He grinned in the darkness. “Don’t think I don’t see it.”
“See what? You’re talking in circles.”
“You like her.” Alexander watched as Sara spoke to her brother, who was lying on his back, eyes closed. “I see the way you look at her.”
“Morpho has screwed with your wiring, you know that?” Dillon uttered.
Alexander shrugged. “Can’t say I blame you. She’s something to see.”
“Are we done here?”
“Your secret shame is your own, Dillon.
Paven
,
veana
, whatever you choose to lust over this week makes no difference to me, never has. Sara, however, is mine.”
Dillon cursed. “You want to take over this assignment?”
“You know I cannot.”
“Then shut it before I walk away and declare my debt paid in full.”
Alexander chuckled softly, though his attention remained in a room he could barely see and in it, the woman he ached to touch. “So that’s the brother.”
“His name is Gray.”
“They look alike.”
“They’re siblings, genius.”
“What’s she doing with the movie projector?”
“She has a theory about bringing back an old fear to his mind, then using temporary amnesia to place a new, gentle memory in its place. I heard her talking about it with the boss man this morning.”
It happened in an instant. One moment Alexander felt nothing, the next every inch of his skin crawled with life. Eyes widening, he stared through the window, directly at Sara. “She wants to get rid of memory?”
“That
is
why the brother’s here,” Dillon said sardonically, as though she assumed he knew this information and was just trying to annoy her with questions. “Has been for years. Erasing traumatic memory from the brain is her life’s work. You know, the fire she accidentally started when she was—” Dillon stopped talking. She turned, shook her head. “No, Alexander.”
Alexander didn’t respond, his gaze still trained on the woman who refused to come home, the woman he refused to let walk out of his life.
Dillon shook her head. “You can’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“Oh, please.”
“Chill out, Dillon.”
“You’re one selfish prick, you know that?”
He turned on her, growled his response, “It would be a gift to do this for her.”
“A gift?” She snorted.
“Yes.”
“No strings attached, right?” she said with obvious sarcasm.
“I have to go.”
“Good.”
“I have training.”
“Maybe you should feed first, clear your head.”
“Already done.” He pushed away from the wall and without another word, headed for the tunnels.
Standing brazenly on the lawn outside of Dare’s town house, Nicholas breathed in his two favorite scents: sex and drugs. His body screamed for both, pushed him to go inside and find both.
But that was an urge he kept hidden, an urge he was forced to quell.
He took out his phone, dialed.
Lucian answered before the first ring died. “Dare on the move again?”
“Long-term this time,” Nicholas told him. “He’s gone. They’re all gone. Including Trainer, who I thought would’ve been easier to kill than a fly once upon a time.”
“Shit. You checked the entire house? Every bedroom?”
Damn right he had, stayed a moment too long in each one, in fact. “Bet they’ve gone into hiding. After Alexander’s minimassacre they know we mean business. Dare must truly fear us now.”
“I would say so.” Lucian was quiet for a moment, then, “You know we’re running out of time—you’re running out of time.”
“We’ll find him.”
“I say we contact the ‘eyes.’ ”
Nicholas shrank inside of himself, and the scent of sex and drugs from the town house interiors searched out his nostrils again. “We’ll never be able to fully trust them.”
“Doesn’t matter at this point. We need the help, and they see everything.” He could almost hear Lucian shrug. “But it’s up to you. Those street rats were your past. If contacting them will bring back your need for
gravo
or—”
“No,” Nicholas interrupted brusquely. “They’ll have no effect on me now. I’ll do it.”
After ending the call, Nicholas pocketed his cell and turned from the town house, headed toward his car. The thought of
gravo
made his mouth water. The dried, poisoned blood was a fucking menace to vampire society. It had killed his mother, not to mention his years as a
balas
, but there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think about it, or a night he didn’t crave the complete silence of emotion and the utter deadening of pain it provided.
31
S
ara stared, completely disinterested, at the beautiful plate of roasted mussels in a tomato and basil broth.
“Are you going to eat that?”
She glanced up, smiled into the curious, ravenous eyes of her boss, Dr. Pete Albert. “No.”
“May I?”
“Of course.” She inched the plate toward him. She loved the East Village, and Lavagna had been a wet dream on her culinary brain for more than a year. Now she couldn’t conjure up an appetite no matter how hard she tried. She refused to use her emotional state as an excuse, so work-related frustration would have to do. Good thing she had plenty of that. She sat back in her chair, focused on her boss over the easy candlelight.
“Listen, Pete,” she began as he poured her plate of mussels over his rigatoni with sweet fennel. “I need to know what I can get away with legally in the McClean case. I want to go to the house, talk to Mommy.”
He shook his head as though he’d heard it all before. “I think you should leave it alone. Let the police and social services handle it.”
“You mean wait six months?” she said dryly.
He paused, his fork in the air. “I admire your commitment to your patients, you know that.”
“Thank you.”
His eyes warmed. “I admire many things about you.”
“I appreciate that—”
“But,” he jumped in, “breaking rules and breaking laws is one helluva career-ending move.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know any other way. Things don’t get done; problems don’t get solved—people remain broken unless you’re willing to go out on a limb ...”
“Are we still talking about Pearl?”
The cozy one-room restaurant seemed to go silent, as if all the guests were leaning toward Sara and Pete’s table, listening to their conversation, waiting for Sara’s response. Total imaginary bullshit, but it felt that way for a moment.
Pete continued eating. “Just because Gray hasn’t responded to the treatment yet—”
“I can’t even get to the treatment,” she interrupted. “I’m still working on the hypnosis.”
“—Doesn’t mean he won’t respond.”
Above her, the tin ceiling felt as though it were closing in. She understood that perseverance was the only way to get results. Odds were good that at some point Gray would give in and go under, and then changing the image in his memory would be cake. It was just that her morale was slipping, and she couldn’t seem to stop it.
“Let’s get back to talking about Pearl, okay?” she said.
He reached across the table and touched her hand. “Sure.”