Blood Royal (Blood Destiny #5) 7

I stood there, gaping like a fool at Winkler. What else could I do? I thought Winkler was going to be with us through this whole thing. I should have known better. Multiple births tend to come early and not the other way around. Somehow, I wished I could go with him, just so I could see the babies when they were new.

"Winkler, you're gonna be a good father," I came over and hugged him, trying not to cry.

"Lissa, I'll make sure the twins know they have an aunt. I hope I see you again really soon." He leaned down and gave me a kiss—he didn't care that Gavin had just walked into the room. Winkler waved as he strode swiftly toward the front door and then he was gone. I wanted to run after him, but that wouldn't do. I stayed right there, rooted to the spot while Gavin came to put his arms around me.

"Children on the way?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," I nodded against his shoulder.

 "If there were any way, I would take you," he murmured against my hair.

"I know," I said, reaching up to wipe away the tear that insisted on falling. Gavin led me out of the house and I went with him, climbing the steps to our second-floor guesthouse. Kifirin was there when we opened the door and Roff stood beside him, his bag packed. He looked as miserable as I felt.

"I am sorry, avilepha, but I must take Roff back to his home, now. Giff has already been taken there, earlier today. I regret that I must take him at such a difficult time for you, but I have no choice. Roff must go home." Kifirin's dark gaze held torment, and I had no explanation for it. Gavin held me up when my knees threatened to buckle. I wanted to fall in the floor and weep. I thought all my tears had been spent five nights ago, but I was very wrong. I knew if I said the word that I wanted to say—why?—that I would break down again.

"M'hala, it must be so. Do not forget that my love is forever," Kifirin sighed and he and Roff disappeared before I could reach out to touch either of them.

"Mr. President, do you think I haven't asked already? That Director Hancock didn't ask before me?" Bill huffed as the President looked at him across his desk, fingertips together and a slight frown on his face. "The ones we deal with—the ones in charge—will not allow her anywhere near the Middle East. That was a stipulation in order to get her help at all. In fact, when Director Hancock took her on that trip to the Arabian Sea, he was breaking his agreement with them."

"Why are they insisting on this?" The President lowered his hands but his gaze remained fixed on Director Jennings' face. "She could do so many things if we could just get her over there to work with our field agents."

"Mr. President, the information I have gathered I am not supposed to know. In fact, if her superiors knew that I hold such information, my life might be in jeopardy."

"What information is that, Director?"

"That there are only a handful of female vampires. They are nearly impossible to turn, as I understand it. And Lissa, well, she isn't like any of the others. You've seen a little of what she can do. They have a name for what she is, Mr. President."

"And what is that?"

"They call her Queen, sir."

We didn't speak, Gavin and I. We just sat on the roof of a mansion in Nichols Hills, Gavin staring at the Oklahoma City skyline while I examined the toes of my athletic shoes. I shivered now and then, though I wasn't cold. All at once, it had happened. One blow after another. Experiencing one of those moments in my life when I might have given just about anything to crawl out of my skin and into someone else's, in order to leave the suffering behind until it reached a more bearable level. My forehead was against my knees and Gavin, wisely, didn't touch or speak.

"He's gone." The doctor and a nurse stood before Franklin as Merrill slipped an arm around his shoulders. Franklin turned, placed both arms around Merrill's neck and wept. Greg had left him; only the machines had kept his body alive until Franklin gave permission to turn them off. That had been bare moments earlier. Greg had taken three breaths after the ventilator was shut off, each slower than the last until there were no more.

"Leave us," Merrill commanded and the doctor and nurse left the room quickly. "Child," Merrill held Franklin away from him gently, "we must say goodbye to Greg. If there is anything else you wish to say to him, then now is the time."

"I love you, Greg," Franklin's voice was agonized. Merrill led him to the bed, and Franklin collapsed against it, holding Greg's hand one last time.

Kansas City always looks so green to me, with trees everywhere. Oklahoma City generally turns brown toward the end of summer. Don and I used to go to Kansas City now and then—they have nice museums there to visit and we could get there in five or six hours. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art was one of my favorites. There would be no museum visit on this trip.

"Gavin, do you ever go to art museums?" I asked as he drove our rental toward a hotel. It was Sunday night—the twenty-sixth of September.

"If there are any open late enough for me to visit. I have been to the Louvre several times, as well as the Rijksmuseum. I am glad you kept the Vermeer, cara. Of all the works collected by Sergio, that would have been the one I would have kept as well."

"Yeah. Someday, I want to hang it in my own home, Gavin."

"Cara, that is the first time you have said such a thing to me." Gavin turned to study my face. "I know my apartments are not suitable, even if they were updated. I have never taken the opportunity nor held the desire to change my address for a very long time. When your five years of training are over, love, I will buy any home you want and we will hang your painting in a place of honor."

"All right," I leaned back in my seat with a sigh. René and Tony sat in the back seat, listening to us. Michael had been willing to come, but Gavin told Wlodek he didn't think it was necessary, so the werewolf made his call to Director Bill. He'd be leaving in three days for D.C. and an interview. I hoped things worked out for him.

I missed Roff and I missed Winkler. Why hadn't Kifirin stayed to explain why Roff had to leave, or at least given me a chance to hug him before he left? Winkler called just before dawn after he left, saying that William Wayne Winkler, Jr. and Wynter Willow Winkler had come into the world, both beautiful and exercising their lungs. Winkler had even sent photos through his cell. I'd shown them to Gavin, who smiled.

"How did you get a Vermeer?" Tony's curiosity got the better of him and his question pulled me away from my thoughts.

"Lissa's original sire, now deceased, had quite an art collection," René said. Neither Gavin nor I wanted to talk about that.

I asked Gavin if I could borrow his laptop when we got to the hotel, but he informed me that he had work to do so I left it and flipped through the titles on my e-reader, searching for a good book to read. I'd intended to email Franklin and Greg—I was worried since I hadn't heard from either of them in several weeks. I hoped everything was all right, but I figured Merrill would let me know if they weren't. Maybe they'd gone to Monte Carlo, this time; they seemed to enjoy the gambling in Vegas. I sure hoped somebody somewhere was having a good time.

I hadn't truly felt good, either, since Larry Frazier shot me twice in the chest, but I didn't want to tell Gavin. There wasn't any way to gauge what his reaction would be. Honestly, I just wanted to go home and realized that England was home. With Franklin and Greg. And Merrill, when he wasn't making me crazy. I wanted to have a sit-down with Griffin, too, and ask a lot of questions. About his side of the family. He'd said he was more than a hundred thousand years old—surely, he had family somewhere. I wanted to know about them. Who they were, where they lived, what they did. So far, he hadn't offered anything, other than the information that he was my father and that he'd been punished and kept from seeing me. I wanted that explained fully.

Gavin packed up his laptop around dawn and hauled me off to bed without even letting me finish a chapter in the mystery I was reading. And I had another dream—the first one in weeks, I think.

I was standing in a small clearing, thinking I recognized it somehow—as if I'd seen it before. Trees surrounded me on all sides and it was dark beneath their withering leaves. The air inside the clearing began to shimmer and I realized, even though I was dreaming, that this was another gate—just like the one I'd seen before when a young Xenides and others had walked through it. Only this time, I was close enough to feel the power of the gate—to feel the pull it exerted on me.

I stepped closer and heard conversation—laughter even—as the Elemaiya came through. The energy of the gate whispered through me, luring me, coaxing me. Telling me what I needed to know to walk through it and go anywhere I wished to go. Anywhere. As long as a gate existed there, I was free to travel. That fascinated me. Called to me. Offered itself to me.

I had to borrow a couple dollars from Gavin's money clip. I hadn't replenished my cash since I'd handed what I had to Winston Byrnett and his female companion. Hadn't needed any cash, either—someone else always paid or I used my credit card. Now here I was, up again during the day and standing in front of the hotel's soda machine. An orange soda had my name on it if I could get one of my dollars to straighten up and go through the machine properly.

"Here, try this." A very tall young man was there, his light brown hair combed neatly and a smile in his blue eyes. He offered to trade a better single for the one I had. I gave him my best smile and accepted the trade. It worked, so I thanked him again and walked down the hall drinking orange soda as I went. I was sitting up in bed, finishing off my soda and reading when Gavin woke for the evening. I don't think I'd ever seen him wake before. His eyes popped right open.

"I wish I could wake up like that," I said.

"Lissa, what are you doing awake?" he was growling at me and eyeing his laptop case immediately after. That worried me for an instant, until Gavin pulled me down next to him and proceeded to make me forget everything except him for a while.

While we cleaned up afterward, Gavin informed me that we were checking out a location later. "Cara, I want you to go to mist and if you see anything or notice anything strange or out of the ordinary, I expect you to send René, Tony and me mindspeech immediately. And if we are in danger, you know to take us up as mist and get us away." Gavin held my chin in his fist and leaned down to kiss me in the shower.

"You don't have to tell me twice," I huffed.

"Where are we going?" I asked, as Gavin led the way out of the hotel later, René and Tony right behind us.

"Lissy, there are caves around here and we've had people checking them out," Tony was the one to answer. "We got the idea that some of Xenides' spawn or allies might be using the caves to hide out if they decided to go after your cousins." My two remaining relatives lived in the area and that's why I thought we'd come to begin with. Kansas City had a warren of caves—in fact, they'd used some of them to house businesses and such. It made sense that vampires might use them as well. I turned in my seat to look at Tony, who sat right behind me in the rented SUV. Gavin had gotten it because he wanted something with four-wheel drive. Now I knew why.

"Bill was going to meet us here, but something came up," Tony went on. "He had to take his vamps and wolves out of the country on some secret mission." Tony sounded grumpy over that—more than likely because he hadn't been included in the information handout.

"You think things might be in an uproar since Rahim got caught?" I asked.

"Lissy, I think that's exactly what happened. We caught one of theirs, so now they want to retaliate. Rahim was a hero to some of those people."

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too," I turned around and leaned back in my seat.

"Cara, you cannot take responsibility for the unrest in those countries," Gavin said. I wasn't sure what I could take responsibility for, but I didn't mention that to Gavin.

Tony pulled some sort of GPS device out of a case when we parked near a wooded area a few minutes later, flipped it on and started walking. Gavin, René and I followed, after I turned to mist. We walked for perhaps a mile and a half before Tony started pointing—we'd apparently come to some sort of prearranged spot. I wondered then where the information had come from and what it included. I was so busy trying to hover over Tony's shoulder now, attempting to decipher what was showing on the little screen he was studying that I failed to notice my surroundings for a few moments. When I eventually gave up on the little numbers on Tony's tracking device, I did look around and gave a mental gasp. It was the clearing from my dream. We were right in the middle of it.

Tony, there's a gate here, I sent. That puzzled him—he didn't know what a gate was. He'd walked ahead of me, leaving me behind to consider the situation.

Lissy, what are you talking about? I don't see any gate. Tony was looking for a physical gate and there wasn't one. The light at the center of the clearing shimmered—I could see it as mist but the others couldn't.