Tariq had done the same, standing in front of Chalah protectively. “What’s going on?”
“Too much, Abram,” Daniel called back. “But not enough to give a man a sense of satisfaction.”
The safe code came back with an edge of amusement.
Abram relaxed marginally.
“I’m coming up, Abram,” Daniel announced.
Seconds later he strode to the top of the stairs, dressed in black and looking almost as dangerous as Abram and Tariq. “Police will be here any minute,” Daniel stated as he stopped at the top of the stairs, his blue eyes gleaming like hardened gems. “We caught a man armed with a piss-poor shoulder-mounted rocket launcher and a few homemade rockets. We have him in custody but he’s not talking. We’ll see what the police can do with him in a few minutes.”
width="1em" align="justify">The sound of sirens wailing in the distance had Abram turning to glare at the window at the far end of the hall. The flash of lights, blue and red, flared in the distance as the sirens moved closer.
Fuck.
Abram glared at the window, aware of Paige behind him, her hand moving to grip his bicep as she whispered his name.
“I could have made him talk,” he stated quickly. “Azir sent him. I could force it out of him.”
“Yeah, well, that shit seems to be against the law here in Virginia,” Daniel grunted. “Give me a chance to help them load up our prisoner and then we’ll talk.”
About what?
Abram didn’t voice the thought. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing left to talk about if he was simply going to pack the man his agents had caught off to the local police station. “We can talk come morning,” Abram growled as he turned, catching Paige’s elbow and turning her back to the bedroom. “I have other things to do tonight.”
He was pissed, though he knew it was no one’s fault that his need to kick Jafar’s ass and shoot his own father was tearing through him.
The rage was building, and it was a rage he knew was only beginning to fester inside him.
“Abram, we’ll stop it,” Daniel assured him as Abram turned away from him.
“Will we, Daniel?” He grunted. “My brother is in the hospital near death, my lover must live in fear of being killed because she is my weakness, and my cousin, the only one willing to stand at my back has forever gained Azir’s hatred. Just as I did so long ago. Perhaps it’s time to realize there is nothing we can do in this fight. Had I not insisted on being here, where I was safe to feed my hungers, then neither Tariq nor Paige would be facing the danger that now stalks them.”
He didn’t give Daniel a chance to answer.
Turning away he headed back to the bedroom, his fingers curved around Paige’s upper arm before drawing her into the bedroom.
“Abram, I will see you later in the day,” Tariq stated as Abram paused just inside the bedroom.
He turned and stared back at his cousin, then at the young woman watching everything silently, her dark eyes glittering with tears and with pain.
“Leave Chalah alone for the night, Tariq,” he told him quietly. “Jafar wld have known where we were staying with no help from his sister.”
Tariq inclined his head in agreement, but Abram saw something in his gaze, in his expression, that warned him that in this, Tariq would have to cut his own throat before realizing the truth.
Abram closed the door, locked it securely, then turned back to Paige.
Pale, weary, yet with a strength he had always known she possessed. The strength to stare adversity in the face without losing her spirit or her courage.
God, she was the epitome of feminine strength and passion. A woman unlike any he had known before her.
He wanted to protect her. He wanted to place her in his bed and never allow her to leave it. At the same time, he wanted to stand before the world with her and proclaim her as his own. Each time that temptation rose inside him, though, memories of Lessa were there to haunt him.
“I’m sorry.” And he was, clear to the bottom of his soul he fully regretted the fact that Paige had been drawn into this hell.
Weary, worried, and frightened, she gave a hard, brief shake of her head.
“There’s no reason for you to be sorry, Abram.” She sighed. “This has been coming since the day Mother escaped Azir, and we both know it.” Had they? Or, had he orchestrated it with his desire for her? With a look, or a word spoken at the wrong time to Azir, or possibly an edge of hunger not as clearly hidden as he had hoped whenever he saw her in public.