I need to know, Lucan. I'd rather die trying to help him than stand by or walk away.
A slow grin spread over the face of the Order's fearsome leader. Anyone ever tell you that you're one stubborn female?
Tegan might have said so once or twice, she admitted wryly.
Then I guess he'll have to understand what I was up against when he sees you with me. He handed her a sheathed dagger attached to a leather belt.
Elise strapped the weapon around her waist and cinched the buckle. I'm ready when you are, Lucan.
Okay, he said, shaking his head in defeat. Let's go get our boy.
They exited the car and swiftly, cautiously approached the human residence. As they neared the place, Elise was assaulted with both the pain of Tegan's suffering and the growing awareness of Minions on the property. Her mind filled with a concert of corrupt thoughts, ugly voices pounding into her consciousness.
Lucan, she whispered, mouthing a warning to him. Minions inside--more than one.
He nodded, and motioned for her to come up near him. He gripped a wooden trellis that climbed up the side of the house, testing its strength. Can you climb it?
She took hold of the makeshift ladder and started pulling herself up. Lucan met her at the top; all it took for him to reach the level roof of the second-floor terrace was a powerful flex of his legs. He landed soundlessly from his fluid leap and thrust his hand down to help pull her up the rest of the way. A pair of French doors were open onto the tiled patio, the wispy white curtains riffling out like ghosts. Elise could see a woman in a nightgown lying motionless on the floor inside the room. Her arm was outstretched, unmoving, the wrist savaged and resting in a pool of spilled blood.
Marek, Lucan said softly, in explanation of the carnage. Will you be all right walking through there?
Elise nodded. She followed him in through the scene of recent violence, past the dead human woman and the husband who had evidently tried without success to fend off the vicious vampire attack. Bile rose in Elise's throat as they stepped out into the hallway and found the body of a young boy.
Oh, God.
Marek had broken in and killed them all.
Lucan ushered her past the child, taking her wrist and holding her behind him as he made a quick visual check of the hallway. She felt the sudden blast of mental pain, but had not seen the Minion coming until he was on them, having come out of another room just as they approached. Lucan silenced Marek's mind slave before the human had a chance to scream a warning. With a dagger slicing deeply across the Minion's throat, it sputtered in shock, then dropped in a lifeless heap to the floor. Lucan gave it no pause at all. He stepped over the corpse, waiting for Elise to do the same.
As they neared a stairwell that led to an upper floor of the house, Elise's veins lit up with an electric kind of intuition. She could almost feel Tegan's heart beating inside her own body, his labored breath a constriction in her own lungs.
Lucan, she whispered, pointing to the open door. It's Tegan. Up there. He moved into the unlit well and peered up the stairs. Stay close, and stay behind me.
Together they climbed the steep, narrow steps. At the top was a barred door. Lucan lifted the metal lock. He glanced back at her, and even in the darkness she could see the expression that seemed to caution her to brace herself for whatever they might find on the other side.
Tegan was alive behind that closed door-- that much she was sure of--and that's all she needed to know. Do it, Lucan, she whispered.
He pushed the door open and barreled through like a freight train, drawing a large blade and burying it into the Minion guard who pounded toward them in attack. Elise held back her scream as another one moved in and got like reward, going down in a bleeding, heavy crumble to the wood- planked floor.
But it was the sight of Tegan that nearly ripped a keening howl from her throat. Shackled to a pair of thick beams with irons on both wrists and ankles, his body bowed out, hanging limply from its restraints. His beautiful face was nearly concealed by the lank droop of his sweat-soaked, blood-coated hair, but Elise could