you piece of shit.
He couldn't do it. "You want me to move out? Give you some space?"
More crying, somewhere in the middle of which she mumbled, "I need you."
God, if he'd heard that right, he pitied her.
"Bella, stop crying. Stop crying and look at me." Eventually she took a deep breath and wiped her face. When he was sure he had her attention, he said, "You don't worry about anything. You're staying here as long as you want to. Are we clear?"
She just stared at him.
"Nod for me, so I know you heard that." When she did, he stood up. "And I'm the last thing you need. So you just drop that bullshit right now."
"But I - "
He headed for the door. "I'll be back before dawn. Fritz knows how to find me - er, all of us."
After leaving her, Z strode down the corridor of statues, hung a louie, and shot past Wrath's study and the grand staircase. Three doors down he knocked. No answer. He knocked again.
He headed downstairs and found what he was looking for in the kitchen.
Mary, Rhage's female, was peeling potatoes. A lot of potatoes. Like, an army load of them. Her gray eyes lifted and her paring knife stilled on an Idaho golden. She glanced around, as if figuring he must be looking for someone else. Or maybe she just hoped she wasn't alone with him.
"Could you put this off for a while?" Z said, nodding at the pile.
"Um, sure. Rhage can always eat something else. Besides, Fritz is having a conniption that I was going to cook, anyway. What... ah, what do you need?"
"Not me. Bella. She could use a friend right now."
Mary put the knife and the half-naked potato down. "I'm so anxious to see her."
"She's in my room." Z pivoted around, already thinking about which alleys to hit downtown.
"Zsadist?"
He stopped with his hand on the butler's door. "What."
"You're taking very good care of her."
He thought of the blood he'd let her swallow. And the urge he had to orgasm in her body.
"Not really," he said over his shoulder.
Sometimes you have to start at the beginning, O thought as he jogged through the forest.
About three hundred yards from where he'd parked the truck, the trees gave way to a flat meadow. He stopped while still hidden among the pines.
Across the white blanket of snow was the farmhouse where he had first found his wife, and in the fading light of day her home was all Norman Rockwell, Hallmark-card, Middle America perfect. The only thing that was missing was some smoke coming out of the redbrick chimney.
He took out his binocs and scanned the area, then focused on the house. All the tire tracks in the driveway and the footprints to the door made him worry that the place had changed hands and movers had come. But there was still furniture inside, furniture he recognized from when he'd been in there with her.
He dropped the binocs, letting them hang around his neck, and crouched down. He would wait for her here. If she was alive, either she would go to her house or whoever was taking care of her would come for some of her things. If she was dead, someone would start moving her shit out.
At least, he hoped something like that would happen. He had nothing else to go on, didn't know her name or her family's whereabouts. Couldn't guess where else she might be. His only other option was to go out and question civilians about her. As no other female had been abducted lately, surely she'd have been a topic of conversation within her race. Trouble was, that route could take weeks... months. And information from persuasive techniques wasn't always solid.
No, watching her house was more likely to get him results. He would sit and wait until someone tipped a hand and led him back to her. Maybe his job would get even easier and that scarred brother would be the one who showed.
That would be just about perfect.
O settled back on his heels, ignoring the cold wind.
God... he hoped she was alive.
Chapter Nineteen
John kept his head down and tried to pull it together. The locker room was filled with steam and voices and the snapping of wet towels on bare butts. The trainees had ditched their sweaty jis and were showering before they took a food break and then hit the classroom part of the session.
It was all standard guy stuff, except John so did not want to