A wisp of pain tugged at his awareness and he stared out the rain-darkened window at the new compound’s stark gray concrete and redwood construction, at the solemn faces of his assembled vampires.
“What’s wrong?” Cyn asked abruptly.
He turned his head to meet her gaze, her green eyes boring into his with a sure knowledge of his moods.
“I’m not certain,” he admitted. “Something . . .” His voice trailed away as he tried to capture whatever it was that had caught his attention. But there was so much emotion among the vampires in that building—fear and grief, as well as pain at the terrible loss they’d suffered. Surely that was it, that two of their number had been wiped from the earth as if they’d never existed, their flames extinguished in seconds as their shocked cries bit into his soul. But that wasn’t it. Or that wasn’t everything. His gaze sharpened.
“Stop,” he commanded. His driver hit the brakes, bringing the limo to a full stop before his conscious mind was aware of what he was doing. Raphael was only vaguely cognizant of the alarm spreading through the ranks of his security, of Cyn’s voice calling his name as he opened the car door and stepped out into the wet night.
Wei Chen and the others hurried toward him, their faces creased with concern.
“My lord.” Raphael’s lieutenant, Duncan, appeared at his side, while his Security Chief, Juro, calmly deployed various personnel to accommodate this new development. There was very little that could rattle Juro; it was why Raphael had chosen him.
“Sire.” Wei Chen was out of breath from the dash through the rain, testimony to his lack of any kind of routine physical activity.
Raphael lifted his head, his gaze searching the elegant face of the building, his heart aching at the pain he felt there. “Jeremy,” he realized suddenly. He turned an inquiring gaze upon Wei Chen, his black eyes beginning to gleam silver with anger. “What’s happened, Wei Chen? Where’s Jeremy?”
The nest leader met Raphael’s regard without flinching. “His house was attacked earlier, my lord. His mate, Mariane—”
Raphael had stopped listening. He was already moving, heading for the main entrance, following a trail of pain that was as clear as if it were painted on the ground before him.
Wei Chen hurried to keep up with him. “Jeremy is in the infirmary with her, Sire. He’s sharing his blood—”
“It will not be enough,” Raphael said, knowing it was true. He pushed through the heavy glass doors, heedless of everything but the need of his child pulling him down the hall. One turn and another, and he was striding into what passed for an infirmary on the vampire compound.
It was a smallish room. Vampires rarely required more than a donor’s blood and a few hours rest, and only the youngest vampires or the most serious injuries demanded even that. But in the far corner, beneath the dim glow of a wall lamp, a young woman lay in a bed that seemed too big for her delicate frame. Her face was nearly as pale as the sheets she lay upon, the white bindings upon her legs and arms still soaked with her life’s blood.
“Jeremy.”
The vampire looked up at the sound of his Sire’s voice, his face a mask of grief, streaked with the dried blood of his tears. “My lord,” he said brokenly, falling to his knees. “It’s not enough. My blood . . . It’s not enough.” His voice cracked as he began to sob, great wracking sounds that tore at Raphael’s soul.
He went to the broken vampire, holding him as he would a child, his child, reborn as Vampire less than thirty years ago. Jeremy buried his face against his Sire’s hip and Raphael stroked his head in comfort, examining the woman, Mariane, as he did so. He noted the shallow rise and fall of her chest, the sluggish beat of her heart, which was barely managing to push the blood through her body. The flesh of her fingers was already pale and cold, as her body shut down her extremities in favor of saving what vital organs it could.
“It is not too late, Jeremy,” Raphael said for his vampire’s ears only. “Let me help her.”
Jeremy’s head came up, hope warring with possessiveness for a brief moment before he nodded. “I would beg you, my lord, if it would help her.”
Raphael shook his head chidingly. “You are my own, blood of my blood. And Mariane is yours.”
He gently disengaged from Jeremy and shrugged out of his suit jacket, letting the expensive garment fall heedlessly. He was aware of Cyn standing close behind him, aware of her hands catching the jacket as it fell, handing it off to someone else as he walked around to the opposite side of the bed. She followed, staying close by his side, and his heart wrenched at the thought of her lying in this sterile bed instead of poor Mariane.
Without pausing, he rolled up his sleeve and used his fangs to slice through the skin of his wrist and open a vein. Sitting on the bed and bending over the young woman, he placed his wrist over her mouth, letting the first few drops fall through her open lips. Jeremy hovered across from him, holding his mate’s hand, whispering in her ear of his love for her, encouraging her to drink, to live for him.
Mariane’s throat moved spasmodically, her body forcing her to swallow before the blood choked her. Something stirred behind her closed eyelids and she swallowed again, and then again, before her thin, pale hands came up to hold Raphael’s life-giving wrist to her mouth. She began to suck greedily at the bounty that was his blood—the blood of a vampire lord, more powerful than anything produced in centuries of human medical research.
She was suckling like a hungry child, and Jeremy’s avid gaze was fixed on the physical connection between his Sire and his mate. His stress over that contact was growing with every second. Vampires were possessive creatures, even one so new as Jeremy. Raphael pulled his wrist away carefully, letting Jeremy take the woman’s hands when she would have grabbed for more. She mewed unhappily at the loss, and Jeremy covered her lips with a kiss, licking the blood from her mouth and feeding it back to her as their tongues twined.
Duncan handed Raphael a warm, wet towel to clean the blood from his arm. He remained seated on the bed, absently wiping the towel over his wrist as he watched Jeremy kiss Mariane’s hungry mouth. He handed the towel back to Duncan and held out his hand to Cyn. She came to him, placing her hand on his shoulder, dropping her cheek briefly to brush against his head.
“Jeremy.”
The other vampire looked up, his eyes wary, his fingers tightening anxiously on Mariane’s pale hands.
Raphael rolled down his shirt sleeve casually, the self-inflicted wound already healing. He stood, taking Cyn’s hand and pulling her into the circle of light. “My mate,” he said for Jeremy’s benefit. He lifted Cyn’s fingers to his lips. “Cynthia.”
Jeremy’s entire body relaxed at those words. If Raphael had a mate of his own, he could not be interested in stealing Mariane. Raphael understood. “She will be well, Jeremy. And if you need me further, I am here.”
As Raphael prepared to leave, Jeremy fell to his knees, taking his Sire’s hand and kissing it in gratitude. “My lord . . .” His voice broke with emotion. “Sire. Thank you.”
Raphael disengaged his hand lightly, resting it instead on Jeremy’s bent head. “You are my child,” he murmured. There was nothing else that needed saying.
He looked up and met his lieutenant’s eyes, letting a little bit of his anger show for the first time since arriving. “Duncan.”
“Yes, my lord.” Duncan turned and began hustling the gathered vampires from the room, murmuring orders via a throat mike to Juro and the others. Cynthia held out Raphael’s jacket, holding it as he slipped it over his arms and up onto his shoulders, her hands smoothing it across his back before he turned to face her. Unshed tears filled her eyes and he smiled. His Cyn wore a mask of toughness, a shield against a world that had shown her little love for most of her life. But there was a soft spot that only he could touch. He pulled her close, kissing her gently.
“Lubimaya,” he whispered.
Her warm fingers lingered on his jaw, then slipped behind his neck to tug him closer and press her forehead against his. “When do we go after the bastards who did this?” she murmured.
He pulled back to meet her fierce gaze with one of his own. “Very soon, my Cyn.” He urged her out of the room, his hand resting low on her back. “We will hunt them to the ends of the earth.”
Chapter Five
Raphael allowed Wei Chen to lead the way from the infirmary. He’d seen enough blueprints of this new compound that he didn’t need a guide, but this was the first time he’d been here since its completion. A visit had been planned for the near future, albeit under very different circumstances. Who could have foreseen the murder of two of his own, the attempted murder of a third and . . . His jaw tightened at what had been done to Mariane. She had been defenseless against them. She wasn’t a warrior, not like his Cyn. But he was all too aware that even Cyn could be overwhelmed when faced with that sort of brutality.
He pulled her closer with the slight pressure of his fingers. She obliged, but glanced up at him, questioning. He gave her a faint smile meant to be reassuring, although he knew it didn’t succeed. It would have been easier, he thought, if he’d fallen in love with a stupid woman, or at least one willing to ignore the more troublesome aspects of life. Cyn was none of those things. She was smart and intuitive, especially, it seemed, when it came to him, and her preferred method of dealing with trouble was to confront it head on. It was precisely those qualities that had drawn him to her in the first place—the first time they’d met, when she’d been smart enough to fear him, but too stubborn to give in to that fear.
He admired that about her. But it also terrified him when he thought about all the things in the world that could rip through that stubbornness and tear her apart. Like they had Mariane.
Their group moved into the gathering room of the compound’s main building, a spacious living space with high ceilings and a wall of glass granting a spectacular view down the hillside, across the city far below and on to the distant bay. It was early enough that the city was still full of light, but the ocean was a black, empty space, too remote for the tiny running lights from the boats anchored there to be seen.
