sanguineangels (25 page)

“A man hates being told they are weak,
cara
,” he informed her in a disgusted, manly tone. Then he ruined it by stumbling when he tried to stand straight.

She eased one of his arms across her shoulders, staying pressed into his side to give him something to lean into as he needed. “Point me toward home,” she told him. He turned, though his steps were slow and sluggish. She studied the worst of his gashes and found that several had stopped bleeding.

Titania frowned when they reached the stream. “Great. How am I supposed to get us across this?” It wasn’t very deep, but was at least a couple yards wide.

“I can manage.”

Big blue eyes shot up to his. “Diego. I can’t let you.”

“Too bad,” was all he said, sweeping her up against his chest. “I am not dead,
cara
. Only a little sore.”

“A little sore?” she cried, floating across the water again when he refused to listen to reason. “You are covered from chin to hip in cuts and gashes.” She pressed her hands to several on his chest.

“And I will rest as soon as we are home. I promise, honey,” he said. He brushed a kiss to her temple. “You scared me,
cara
. Let me hold you.”

Every nerve burned with his intensity. “I scared you? You fight, I sing, and
I
scared you?”

“You purposely drew his attention. What made you think of such a thing?”

She touched his cheek with a tender palm. “I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you.”

“
Cara
.” He stopped on the bank and claimed her mouth. Fire surged, consuming her. Every fear he had experienced flooded her through his kiss. Fear of losing her, of Brakka being faster. She found in his thoughts he had learned to never underestimate the other vampire.

“Never put yourself in such a position again,
cara
.” Her fingers dug into the thickness of his hair. He dropped little kisses to her face.

“Stop being macho all the time, and I’ll think about it.”

He groaned. “I was right to pity Houston.” When he held her closer, she didn’t protest.

When they arrived, the house was silent. “They have gone to bed,” Diego informed her.

“Are they all right?”

“They are safe here.” She still kept his arm braced around her shoulders. He was walking steadier, but she knew he was drained.

He searched and found the niche in the paneling that opened the concealed door in the wall. When they reached the bed chamber, he fell onto the bed with a deep grumble. “Just lay with me,
cara
. Let me feel you next to me.”

She curled into his body easily. Light hands stroked the lines from his face. He rolled to his side and buried his face in her neck.

“You know he was not the man you grew up with. That man died the night he lost his soul to the change.” Her voice was soothing, a caring hand running up and down his arm. There had been no choice in Brakka’s destruction, but she could feel the loss tearing through him. “He would have killed you had he been given the chance.”

“He would have killed you had he beaten me.” A hard tremor shook his body. “That terrified me more than the pain of his loss.” He was silent for several long moments, her hand traveling over his body in slow, easy strokes. “Never leave me,
cara
.”

The entreaty was so quiet, so torn, she had to blink to keep the tears from falling. Never in her life had she expected someone to need her so desperately, so completely.

She held him for hours, his arms wrapped around her, until the weight of the morning sun sank her into oblivion.

“Tenorio made the first move,” Houston advised them when they rose the following evening. At Diego and Titania’s questioning looks, he informed them, “David is missing.”

Titania jerked on her feet like she’d been struck. “No!”

“He arrived home, but no one has seen him since.” Houston’s expression was grim, and Laney’s eyes were red.

“Is anyone else suspect?” Diego asked.

Houston shook his head. “There’s no proof of anything. He’s just gone. But I know him. David doesn’t take off.”

“Where’s Justin? And the main crew?” Titania immediately needed to know.

“Justin was warned. He left for his aunt’s in Mississippi. I didn’t contact everybody. It would have been mass hysteria.”

“He is right,
cara
. Only those who could be directly used against you will be threatened. Trying to warn everybody would not be wise.”

She slid onto a barstool. “Do vampires get headaches?” she asked, rubbing her temples. Diego began to knead her shoulders. “When did he disappear?”

“We think late last night.”

She looked at the others. “We have to find him. I will not let Tenorio do this to us. He almost killed me. I refuse to let him hurt my friends.”

“Any ideas on where he might be?” Houston looked at her, then at Diego. “Because I don’t have a one.”

“He’s probably still in San Francisco,” Laney said. “He has connections all over town. The night he took Tani, he was at the Senator’s mansion for an evening garden party. That party and the guests were all over the papers.”

Titania looked over a shoulder. Diego was pale. Last night had drained him, and he needed to feed. She returned her attention to her two best friends.

Diego told them, “Meet us in Chinatown by tomorrow night. We will leave tonight. We may find something before morning. He will be found.”

“All right. What about Brakka?”

Diego’s hands never left her shoulders, his fingers a warm weight on her. He barely winced at the question, but she felt the grip, the flinch through his touch.

“This could get messy,” Houston added.

“It already is,” she told him, her lips tightening into a thin line when she slipped from the stool. “Brakka is dead. Chinatown. Tomorrow night.”

Laney’s gaze sharpened, flew up to Diego. His expression was implacable, harsh. The truth of the battle and its price was in the cold slash of his mouth.

“We’ll be there,” Houston said, his arm wrapping protectively around Laney.

Titania followed Diego into the inky darkness, her hand firmly in his.

“Keep yourself linked with me,
cara
.”

“How are we going to get there?”

“Do you think you can bamf?” he asked her, using her own description.

“Are you serious?” Her fingers tightened on his automatically.

“It is not as hard as you may think. Picture where you want to be.”

“Which is?”

“We need to investigate the lab.”

“But I never saw any of it,” she told him. “Just the little I saw before I was incoherent again.”

His hand weaved through her hair. “Link with me, follow my lead. I will not lose you.”

“You better not,” she warned him. She closed her eyes and merged with him, seeing the house before the fire. The white of the walls, the large trees surrounding it. The tall, solid rockwork fence.

She followed his lead, focusing on a group of trees out of range of the house itself. The sensation was wrenching, shocking. Almost as if she was being pulled from her body.

One moment her feet were on his front porch, the next she stood on a graveled road shoulder with pebbles under her feet and the smell of the mountains and woods gone. The stench of old smoke, sodden wood, and charred everything hung like a heavy pall in the air.

The darkness surrounding them was still. Even the insects were silent. He lifted a hand and stroked a thumb across her skin. “You do not have to come. I will not make you enter the lab again if you do not wish it.”

“I’m fine. I really don’t remember much.”

He nodded and began to change his shape. She followed suit, taking the owl’s form once more. She stayed close without a single complaint as he headed toward the blackened ruins.

The lab had been underground in the original home structure, and now a gaping hole provided the opening. The two birds coasted into the interior, Diego taking shape when he told her it was safe to do so. She neared him automatically.

The lab was a disaster. The metal shards that had protruded from the wall had been pushed out of the way, but that was the only restorative measure that had been taken. Not much had survived the fire. Cabinets were overturned, strewn files and paperwork sat forgotten in small puddles of water, with shattered beaker glass scattered throughout. The stench of old blood was still on the air, fading.

She watched as Diego began to sift through the surviving papers, dropping file after file. He went to toss one, then paused.

“What is it?” She stood by his shoulder, peering at the picture on top of the paperwork. She was blonde with a winsome smile. She looked all of nineteen.

“This woman. I saw her in the thoughts of the men.” His mouth pulled down. “I do not think we can do anything for her now.”

She settled a hand on his shoulder. “She was like me, wasn’t she?”

He flipped a couple of pages. “It says she had a pyrotechnic ability.”

“A fire starter?” She stared at the pile of files, scorched and water ruined. She crouched, laid a hand on several. “Are all of these test subjects?” She pushed them around, seeing names on the folders as she did so. She wanted to cry for all the women and men who had died or been hurt because of Tenorio’s plans.

“I would have to say so.” They both looked at the pile. There were more than a dozen and several more that he had not retrieved.

“How did he find so many? Are any of them still even alive?” Her voice cracked as she began to open file after file. Most were women in their twenties, plus a couple of men. All of them had backgrounds that covered years, thorough research that gave credence to their supposed abilities. Pictures, eyewitness accounts, little snippets of information that only someone who had seen could detail so well. Her stomach began to hurt as she continued to read the names. “Where is my file?”

Diego sorted through what was there. “It is not here. He could have it with him.”

“I need to take these with us,” she said, scooping the remaining files together. “Even if they aren’t alive, do you have any idea what this kind of information could do to those who are alive? Who have to live with what they can do?”

He halted her hurried movements with a gentle touch, brushing an understanding kiss to her lips. “I know,
cara
.”

“Maybe some of them are alive,” she said hopefully.

“It is possible. This is not his main study lab.” He reached forward and pulled a thick envelope from the back of the cabinet. His grim expression turned triumphant when he opened it and found the letterhead and notes inside. “And now we know right where it is.”

He froze the same instant she tilted her head.
“
Did you hear that?”

“I did.”

“Is it coming this way?”

Diego frowned.
“
Whoever it is stopped at the entrance.”
He handed her the file to add to the stack and vanished.

She tried to listen for him, but couldn’t hear anything. When she merged with him, there was nothing to see. She withdrew immediately when she feared she could distract him. He reappeared only moments later.

“I did not find anyone, but I found his scent. I will know him if we see him.”

“Isn’t that weird? Was it a guard or something?”

“He was one of the Brethren.”

“Oh.” Her stomach shrank a little. She wasn’t ready to face another just yet, not after Brakka. She stacked the files into her arms. “Ready when you are.”

He wrapped his arms around her, and with her mind grasping his image, they vanished.

* * * *

Files were spread around her on the picnic table, her head held in a steady palm to her temple. The little wildlife park was quiet, the sounds of San Francisco far away. Crickets and cicadas sang in the trees, and the occasional wolf song reached her on the breeze. But it wouldn’t have mattered if she had been in Symphony Hall, because nothing was going to disturb her. She read each file, committed each name, each picture to memory.

Tabitha Mason, twenty, from Madison, Illinois. Pyrotechnics. She was the one Diego had recognized. There was Charlene “Charlie” Godwood, twenty-one, from Harris, Arkansas. She was an energy conduit. Titania shook her head. The girl was a walking lightning bolt according to her records.

There were so many others, telekinetic like her, or sentient. There were two telepaths in the group, too. All Titania could do was pray that if they still lived, they could be helped. But she feared Diego may have been right. Several of the files had ceased to have new information or new dated material added to them months ago.

She felt him then, a warmth that flowed over her before his arms encircled her. “
Cara
. Do not be sad.” His skin was warmed from his recent feeding, and she couldn’t resist curling into him.

“It’s hard not to be. So many. And they’re probably dead. And this monster has David.”

“David is not gifted, is he?”

“No. That is what scares me. There is absolutely nothing to keep Tenorio from killing him.”

“We have to believe he will not,
cara
.” He lowered his head to hers, but his lips were stiff.
“
Do not move, cara.”

“What is it?”

“The one. He is here.”

“He followed us?”
She fought to keep from trembling.
“
I never felt him.”

“Nor I. He is either very arrogant, or purposely giving away his location upwind wanting to take us off our guard.”

He strategically rolled her around his body, turning toward the threat. “I know you are here. Show yourself.”

“I greet thee, Brethren.” The voice was low, respectful.

Diego frowned. “I greet none of the Brethren. Who are you?”

“My name is Nathan. I mean you no harm.”

“Why did you follow us?” Command resonated in Diego’s words.

A shape began to form across the span of greenery, well away from Diego’s reach. Titania peeked around his arm. The stranger was blond and blue-eyed, standing at around six feet tall in a standard black T-shirt and blue jeans. He was leaner and less broad than Diego, and he held his hands out in peace.

“Because when I encountered you at the burned house, I thought it would be better to watch to see if approaching you would be the same as the last three I have met.” Nathan leaned against a tree, showing he meant no danger to them by crossing his arms. “Even now I have to do some things several times to learn properly,” he chastised himself.