Blood Secrets - By Jeannie Holmes Page 0,82
more difficult each time. The freedom he felt in the Shadowlands disappeared once he returned to his physical body with its limitations. When he parted the Veil, his consciousness was free to go anywhere, become anything or anyone, and the rush of power he felt there left him breathless. Here in the physical world he felt only barrenness and coldness so deep he sometimes wondered if he even still possessed a soul.
Perhaps that explained his collection.
He paused at the box on the floor beside the door. Inside were the remains of five of his dolls, destroyed and the souls contained within them lost. Their loss saddened him but in the end he’d gained his greatest possession—his most precious.
Gliding down the hallway to the largest bedroom, he carefully opened the door and slipped inside.
Alexandra lay motionless in the massive bed, her auburn hair a splash of color in the otherwise stark whiteness of the room.
Peter moved to the bed and stretched out beside her, keeping the thick comforter between them. He molded his body to mirror hers and draped an arm over her waist.
She whimpered and shifted in her sleep.
He only had a few more hours to work on severing the blood-bond before the drug he’d given her wore off and she awoke. He couldn’t give her another dose without risking permanent injury to her.
Time was short and he needed to work quickly.
He stroked her hair and kissed her neck, inhaling her natural scent of jasmine and vanilla. His desire to make her his forever was almost more than he could bear but he forced himself to have patience. Soon she would forget about Varik and love him instead.
She mumbled something unintelligible and tried to pull away.
“Shh shh shh,” he whispered. He flexed his arm and pressed closer, pinning her next to him.
She quieted and he nuzzled her neck once more. “It’ll be over soon and then nothing will take you from me.”
Peter closed his eyes and sighed, allowing himself to drift into the realm of her dreams.
Moonlight dappled the front lawn of 463 Alpine Way. Neatly trimmed grass, now brown and dormant in the November chill, played host to a collection of cement toads while colorful garden gnomes peeked out from behind evergreen hedges. Red siding and white trim gave the single-story bungalow homey warmth, but the large gathering of police cars with strobing blue and white lights kept visitors at bay.
Varik stood out of sight on one side of an awaiting ambulance, making final adjustments to the paramedic uniform he now wore, muttering, “I swear I’m going to use this son of a bitch’s balls for target practice.”
“You’re not going to do shit until I give the order,” Damian snapped from beside him.
Varik scoffed and carefully inserted a wireless receiver into his ear that would allow Damian to give him directions. A small radio transmitter was hidden in one of the ink pens stuck in a special pocket on the sleeve of his uniform.
He was taking a huge risk by attempting to sneak into the house disguised as one of the paramedics sent to retrieve Janet Klein. However, it was the best plan they’d devised, short of storming the house and putting Emily and Janet in even greater danger.
“I mean it, Baudelaire. We need this to be by the book with Dreyer in town.”
“You let me worry about Morgan.”
“Just because the two of you bumped uglies for a while doesn’t give you a free pass with her.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Then don’t do anything stupid in there.”
“Have you ever known me to do anything to jeopardize hostages?”
“Do you really want me to answer that? Because I do remember that incident in Munich.”
Varik glanced at the taller vampire. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“The building blew up.”
“The charge I used was small and was meant to be a diversion. The building collapsed due to shitty workmanship, and regardless, the hostages were recovered alive along with two of the kidnappers.” He slipped a Jefferson Memorial Hospital baseball cap onto his head. “Let’s check this transmitter,” he said and called out a series of numbers.
A moment later a voice repeated the numbers in Varik’s ear over the receiver. “It works. Now all we need is—”
“For JPD to bring the Garver girl over,” Damian finished.
“Fuck. What the hell is taking so damn long?”
“The fact that Piper is scared out of her mind had something to do with it,” Tasha Lockwood said from behind him.
He faced her and wasn’t surprised to find Morgan standing with Tasha and