“I try.”
“Doesn’t sound like that worked out too wel for Elijah, considering he’s on his deathbed.”
Vash took the hit with clenched fists. She felt guilty and worried, her mind racing ahead of her common sense. She’d risked more than her own hide by going after Sentinel blood. That she’d done so for a lycan who intended to kil her made no damn sense at al .
Leaning forward, she tapped Raze on the shoulder. “How’s the Alpha doing?”
“How do you think? He’s like a wolf in a bear trap—he’s snarling and snapping at everyone. Not that the lycans seem to mind. They’re tripping over themselves trying to take care of him. I thought they were going to riot when he was unloaded from the chopper, but they calmed down when he told them he was jumped and you saved his ass.” The Fal en captain looked over his shoulder at her. “He won’t stop asking for you. I tried to distract him with a hot little honey named Sarah, but that’s not doing the trick.”
Her lip curled as she remembered the demure lycan who’d been so eager to tend Elijah’s injuries and remain by his side.
Vash fel back into her seat with a heavy exhale, struggling to find her balance. She was an emotional disaster.
The helicopter was landing fifteen minutes later. The moment Raze cut the engine, Vash shoved the door open and hopped out. “Get her. Keep her eyes covered until we’ve got her in a room.”
Her heels clicked across the parking lot and she entered the warehouse to find an industriously working crew. Van Halen blared on the radio as various groups went about unpacking and moving in. Salem stood before the map of contagion, explaining its significance to a mixed group of minions and lycans. Syre stood in the center of the vast space, clearly the orchestrator of activity.
Dressed in sleek black trousers and a gray silk shirt, the Fal en leader was drawing the eye of everyone in the room. Elegant, powerful, compel ing. A crazed minion had once cal ed him the antichrist, the dark prince who would mesmerize the world and bring about its destruction. A ridiculous assertion if one knew Syre’s heart at al , but she conceded that his charisma was fierce and seductive enough to bend the wil s of even the most contained of individuals. Even Vash, as used to him as she was, was drawn to him inexorably.
“Commander,” she greeted him as she approached. “Your visit to Vegas is an unexpected surprise.”
“An appreciated one?” he queried smoothly, his whiskey-warm gaze searching her features.
“Depends on whether or not you’re here for the fun of it or because you think I need a hand.”
“Would the latter be so terrible?”
She sighed. “I’m not fragile.”
“You don’t like to think so.” He held up a hand when her mouth opened in protest. “Fragility isn’t always a weakness, Vashti. It happens to be one of your greatest strengths.”
“What a crock.” Her mouth twisted rueful y. “Sir.”
He shook his head at her, then froze, his gaze locked on something over her shoulder.
“Lindsay,” she said, knowing without looking. Damn it, she’d been so scrambled over Elijah, she had forgotten Syre would be present to see the mortal shel that once housed his daughter’s reincarnated soul.
“What have you done?”
“No more than Adrian al owed me to do. Lindsay offered to come when she learned Elijah was injured.”
“Why?” he said tightly. “What purpose does her presence serve?”
“She’s a Sentinel blood source, in lieu of Adrian—” She gasped when Syre cut off her breath with a crushing hand wrapped around her throat.
Her boots dangled two feet off the floor.
His eyes burned into hers, his fury stunning and frightening. “You went after Adrian?”
“H-Helena…actual y,” she managed, fighting the urge to claw at the constriction that impeded her ability to speak.
He threw her thirty feet across the room at Salem, who caught her deftly. The warehouse fel into silence as someone hastily shut off the stereo; then the growls of agitated lycans rumbled through the air like war drums.
Vash struggled free of Salem’s hold, embarrassed at being so publicly chastised and worried about Syre’s cracked control. He didn’t use physical force as a rule; he didn’t need to. He could mesmerize like a snake charmer to get his way.
She was his fist. At least she had been until now.
Brow arched, Raze had stopped his progress across the warehouse floor halfway between the main door and Syre, his hand gripping Lindsay’s elbow. She was stil bound at the wrists and blindfolded…by her choice. Her vampire strength could easily break the rope. She could lift her hand and push the blindfold up at any time. Her continuing cooperation was starting to make Vash suspicious.