He circled his desk and lifted the receiver of an ordinary-looking phone sitting on the elegant credenza behind his desk. It was a landline, and in lighter moments, Lucas jokingly referred to it as the bat phone. It had only seven numbers stored in its memory, the numbers of his seven fellow vampire lords, and it was rarely used. Vampire lords tended to be hostile toward one another, which meant there were no chatty catch-up phone calls on this line. On the occasions when Lucas wanted to catch up with Raphael or Duncan, he used their personal cell phones. The landline was for emergencies and warnings. Like the one he was about to give Klemens.
Lucas waited until he heard Klemens’s hated voice, then snarled, “Rape, you son of a bitch? That’s what you’ve come to?”
Klemens laughed. “War is war, my dear Lucas, no matter the venue. But then you micks always worry too much about protecting the ladies.”
Lucas ground his teeth. “Those women were mated to vampires,” he snarled. “My vampires.”
“Really? I thought they were simply whores brought in to amuse,” Klemens drawled, not even pretending he hadn’t ordered the atrocity.
“Well, know this, a**hole. There is no mercy for r**ists. You’re officially thirteen vampires shorter tonight. Your army is shrinking, Klemens, and that means I’m one step closer to you. It’s time to start saying your farewells to anyone foolish enough to care for you.”
Lucas slammed the phone down so hard it cracked the base. “Fuck!” he spat and swept the damn thing to the floor in frustrated rage, spinning with a snarl when his office door opened.
Nicholas took one look and froze in place.
“I want a f**king target,” Lucas ordered. “Klemens is staging his people somewhere along the border. I want it found, damn it. No civilians, but it has to hurt. I’m tired of reacting and letting that bastard set the pace.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Nick was still in the doorway, eyeing Lucas as if waiting for the other foot to come crashing down on him. Lucas rubbed a weary hand over his face and waved him inside. Nick looked even worse than Lucas felt. Like Lucas, he’d changed his shirt, but still wore the torn and bloody leathers from the previous night. Unlike Lucas, he’d also been severely wounded. One of Klemens’s vamps had gotten lucky and ripped Nick’s jaw open to his teeth. The deep, raw-looking laceration traveled from the outside corner of his eye down to the curve of his jaw bone. The fact that it wasn’t healed more than twelve hours after the injury spoke to how serious it had been. Still, one more day, and it would be a healing pink scar. A day or so after that, and Nick’s cheek would once again be without blemish. The healing would have gone even faster, if Lucas had been able to give Nick some of his blood to drink. But in times like this, when an attack could come from anywhere at any time, it wasn’t wise to weaken himself even the slightest bit unless the need was critical.
“Fucking Klemens doesn’t even pretend to apologize for his r**ists,” Lucas said quietly.
“At least it proves what we already suspected, my lord. That he gave the specific orders.”
“Oh, he gave them all right. Bastard bragged about it.” Lucas collapsed onto his desk chair, falling hard enough that it skidded back a few inches. “Sit, Nick. And stop with the my lord bullshit. I’m not gonna hurt anyone, especially not you.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Magda drawled as she strolled into his office. She crossed to the desk and propped a hip on the edge, her narrow skirt sliding up to reveal an expanse of toned thigh as she turned to look at him. “Agent Hunter called this evening. Several times.”
Lucas swore softly. He probably should have called her from the plane, but he didn’t want the FBI to know his business and figured it was at least possible she’d have known he was in the air. Grabbing his cell phone, he pulled up her number, checking the time as he did so. Just past eleven. Damn it, he was late. Kathryn’s phone was ringing for the third time. Surely, she wouldn’t have—
“Kathryn Hunter,” she answered in a cool voice. Lucas rolled his eyes. She had to know it was him calling, since his number would have come up on her Caller ID.
“Yeah, Kathryn. It’s Lucas,” he said, identifying himself needlessly, and playing along with her little game. “Look, something fairly serious came up. We’ll have to do the club tomorrow night, instead.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’m already here.”
Lucas pulled the phone away and stared at it, wondering if he’d heard correctly. He brought it back to his ear. “Excuse me?”
“I’m at the club,” she said loudly, enunciating each word, as if she honestly believed he hadn’t been able to hear her. “In fact, I’m just about to go inside.”
“Bad idea, Kathryn,” he said, striving for calm, although his brain was screaming at her to get the f**k out of there. His warriors were about to descend on that club. They were fresh from the battlefield, high on the defeat of their enemies, looking for the blood and sex release they hadn’t had time to get last night . . . and there she’d be—one righteous, blond FBI agent directly in their path.
“Excuse me?” she mimicked archly.
“Bad. Idea,” he repeated, trying not to snarl, knowing intuitively that if he got angry or demanding, it would have the opposite effect he wanted.
But she only laughed. “I’m sure I’ll manage, Lucas. This isn’t exactly my first rodeo.”
Lucas said a quick prayer for patience. “Kathryn,” he began, then stopped in disbelief. She’d hung up on him! Lucas shouted wordlessly and threw the phone across the room, raging. No one f**king hung up on him. Ever!
Even worse, now he’d have to drag his ass to that stupid club, or Kathryn was going to end up as someone’s dinner. He had a sudden image of her pressed up against a wall, legs spread, her arms around some hulking vampire’s back while that vampire bent his head to her neck and— Oh, hell, no!
“Nick, we’re leaving in five.”
“Why?” Magda demanded impatiently, her vampire hearing having given her both sides of the conversation. “She’s a big girl, and no one forced her to go there alone. Let her deal with it.”
“What a great idea, Magda,” he snapped, an Irish lilt flavoring his words as it always did when he got angry enough. “Let’s send the f**king FBI agent into one of our blood houses to be blooded and possibly assaulted by a battle-raged vampire or two. Fucking fantastic.” He leaned across the desk until he was only inches away from the female vamp who was his lawyer. “I don’t know what your problem is with Kathryn, but you need to deal with it and do your job.”