that someone would show at the farmhouse... only there was nothing. And there hadn't been for the past two days. Well, he thought he'd seen something before dawn this past morning, some kind of shadow moving around inside the place, but whatever it was, he'd caught it just once and then not again.
He wished like hell he could use all the Society's resources to go after his wife. If he sent out every lesser he had... Except he might as well take a gun to his head. Someone would blab to the Omega that focus had been diverted to one inconsequential female. And then there would be big problems.
He checked his watch and cursed. Speaking of the Omega...
O had a command performance with the master tonight and no choice but to keep the damn date. Staying viable as a slayer was the only way to get his woman back, and he wasn't going to risk getting poofed out of existence because he'd spaced a meeting.
He took out his phone and called in three Betas to watch the farmhouse. As the spot was a known place of congregation for vampires, at least he had an excuse to assign the detail.
Twenty minutes later the slayers came through the woods, the sound of their jogging boots muffled by the snow. The trio of big-boned men were just out of their initiations, so their hair was still dark and their skin ruddy from the cold. They were clearly thrilled to be used and ready to fight, but O told them they were to watch and monitor only. If anyone showed up, they weren't to attack until whoever it was tried to leave, and then any vampires were to be taken alive, male or female. No exceptions. The way O figured it, if he were his woman's family, he'd send feelers out first before letting her dematerialize anywhere near the house. And if she was dead and her relatives were moving her things out, then he wanted her kin captured in working order so he could find her grave.
After making it clear the Betas' heads were on the line, O went through the forest to his truck, which was hidden in a stand of pines. As he came out onto Route 22, he saw that the lessers had parked the Explorer they'd come in right on the road less than half a mile from the turnoff to the farmhouse's lane.
He called the idiots and told them to use their fucking heads and get that car good and concealed. Then he drove to the cabin. As he went along, images of his woman flickered through his mind, dimming his eyes to the road in front of him. He saw her at her loveliest, in the shower with wet hair and skin. She was especially pure like that...
But then the visions shifted. He saw her naked on her back, underneath that ugly-ass vampire who'd taken her away. The male was touching her... kissing her... pumping inside of her... And she liked it. The bitch liked it. Her head was back and she was moaning and coming like a slut and wanting more.
O's hands curled around the steering wheel until his knuckles nearly popped out of his skin. He tried to calm himself, but his anger was a pit bull on a paper chain.
He knew then with absolute clarity that if she wasn't dead already, he was going to kill her when he found her. All he had to do was picture her with the Brother who'd stolen her and his higher reasoning clicked off completely.
And didn't that put O in a bind. Living without her would be horrible, and though going out in a suicidal rush after she died had a lot of appeal, pulling a stunt like that would just land him with the Omega for eternity. Lessers, after all, went back to the master if they were extinguished.
But then a thought occurred to him. He imagined his woman many years from now, her skin paled out, her hair blonded, her eyes the color of clouds. A lesser just like him. The solution was so perfect, his foot slipped from the accelerator, and the truck coasted to a stop right in the middle of Route 22.
She would be his forever that way.
As midnight neared, Bella put on a pair of her old blue jeans and that thick red sweater she liked so much. Then she went into the bathroom, pulled the two towels down from the