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.
The room was furnished casually, with leather couches and armchairs scattered about in an almost random pattern. Since only vampires lived here, the heavy furniture was moved about to suit whoever was using the room at any given time.
Taking Cyn with him, he made his way to a collection of several large armchairs positioned directly in front of the window, but facing inward. His security people spread throughout the room, with a couple stationed behind him, between his chair and the empty window. The windows were bulletproof, of course, and the possibility of an attack negligible within the compound, but it was a risk Juro would not be willing to take.
He sat down, nodding for Wei Chen and the others to sit with him. Duncan took up his usual station to his master’s left, while Cyn slouched on the wide arm of the chair to his right, leaning in to rest her arm on his near shoulder. She still wore her weapons, despite the fact they were now safely within not just the compound, but the building itself with its formidable security. She and Duncan had joined forces in urging him not to make this trip, saying it was too dangerous. What if it was a trap? What if the humans were killing his vampires one by one to lure in the biggest prize of all—not just a vampire, but a vampire lord? He forced back a growl at the memory of their arguments, all of which he’d rejected. He had to be here. These were his vampires who were dying.
“My lord.”
Raphael was jerked out of his thoughts by Wei Chen’s soft voice. He speared the nest leader with a fierce gaze. “I want details, Wei Chen. Everything you’ve discovered about these murders and who’s behind them.”
“Of course, my lord.” He gestured at a vampire sitting next to him. “Loren is our security—”
“I am aware of who Loren is,” Raphael interrupted coldly.
Wei Chen’s lips trembled slightly. “Forgive me, my lord. Would you prefer Loren to—”
“I don’t care who gives the report, as long as someone starts talking.”
The nest leader paled so badly that Raphael feared he would topple over where he sat. As a vampire, Wei Chen’s power was greater than any other vampire in the nest, although not nearly as strong as most of Raphael’s closest security staff. However, Wei Chen was not a fighter, which was why he lived here. The Seattle compound reflected its environs. This had never been a high risk area before the recent murders. The vampires here maintained a fairly low profile. They were mostly professionals, many of them computer experts of one sort or another—vampire geeks Cyn called them in private. Most worked exclusively via computer or phone, rarely if ever meeting in person with their clients and/or human counterparts. Wei Chen was a financial consultant, chosen to lead the compound because of his corporate mentality and a natural ability to manage others.
“Loren, perhaps you could give us the specific details of what has happened thus far,” Duncan, ever the diplomat, said, easing the tension which had been sucking the air out of the room.
Loren glanced at Duncan, then met Raphael’s gaze and gave a self-assured nod. He opened a folder on his lap and began speaking. “Sire, as you know there have been two previous attacks, three now, after this vicious assault on Jeremy’s mate. I think it probable that the target of this latest atrocity was, in fact, Jeremy himself, that—”
“It was.” They all looked up as Jeremy walked slowly into the room, his exhaustion obvious, but his face full of determination. “They tortured Mariane, trying to force her to reveal my location. She refused.”
“Jeremy,” Raphael acknowledged. “Your mate?”
“She is well, my lord, thanks to you. I bless whatever chance of fate brought you here this evening. A human doctor from your retinue is examining her—”