“Or if you’re not, then I’d like to know who you are.”
“I am a doctor. And I work for the government,” Lillian said. “And I think we’re all through with your questioning now. You can relax. I’ll be back in a moment.”
“I don’t want to relax,” Lucy said. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve told you everything I know.” She was suddenly terrified, and while she thought she might benefit by demanding her rights or a lawyer, she decided to wait until those things were truly necessary. She didn’t like conflict or confrontation, but she liked the unknown even less. And she had no idea who these people were or where she was being held. And it was feeling more and more as if she was…being held. She’d assumed she was in a hospital, but she wasn’t so sure anymore.
The woman crossed the room to where the scar-faced man waited near the door, and then they stepped through it, leaving her all alone.
Lucy got up and went to the door—the windowless door—as well. And as she did, a feeling of fear rippled up her spine, because she had a pretty good idea of what she was going to find when she got there.
She closed her hand around the doorknob and twisted, her heart in her throat—and then it sank to her feet when the knob didn’t budge an inch.
Locked.
She was being held by people who had drugged her and questioned her. And might even have shot her.
But then her hands rose to her chest, and she pulled the fabric away from her skin and looked down her neckline. The necklace she’d found inside the crazy author’s book was still hanging there, Kwan Yin looking serene and gentle. But there was no sign of any wound in her chest. Not a mark.
And yet she remembered it all so vividly. She’d felt that bullet tear through her.
God, she wondered, how could that be?
But she knew how. It was that man. That angel.
He’d healed her.
She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer to him right then and there. “If you really are my guardian angel, please, come find me again. Save me again. I need to get out of this place. I want to go home.”
4
“Well? Where is she?” Rhiannon demanded.
James tipped his head to one side and met the eyes of the most powerful vampire he had ever known. Also the most beautiful. And the most dangerous. Rhiannon stood beneath a crystal chandelier in the foyer of the Long Island mansion that was her summer home, or one of them. She wore her usual choice of attire, a floor-length gown, with a slit up to her hip on one side and a neckline that plunged to her navel. Black satin that was almost as shiny as her endless raven hair, or the black panther, her beloved pet, that rubbed against her legs as she spoke.
“Good to see you, too, Rhiannon,” he said. “It’s been a while.” He glanced at the cat. “Hello, Pandora.”
Rhiannon made a dismissive sound like a set of air brakes releasing a brief spurt of excess pressure. “You walked away from us, J.W. Not the other way around. Don’t expect a warm welcome when you finally deign to honor us with your presence.”
“Rhiannon, he’s—” Brigit began.
“Where is the professor?” the arrogant one asked again, and this time her tone brooked no argument. No discussion.
“She got away,” Brigit said softly.
“She got away?”
“She was taken, actually.” Brigit lowered neither her head nor her eyes. She held the regal Rhiannon’s gaze firmly and strongly, and for just a moment James was amazed and impressed by his sister’s moxie. She’d grown up just as tough as everyone had known she would. And even though she’d been Rhiannon’s favorite, he hadn’t expected her to be able to stand up to, much less hold her own against, the most feared vampiress of them all. He could do so, always had. But that was because he didn’t particularly care whether or not he gained her elusive approval.
“Taken by whom?” Rhiannon asked, taking a step nearer, so the two women stood nearly nose-to-nose on the imported Italian marble floor. Black with swirls of silver. Pandora tensed, her sharp cat’s eyes watching every move, as her tail twitched.
“DPI,” Brigit said, not backing down a single inch. “Or that’s my best guess. There’s more going on here, Aunt Rhiannon. A lot more.”
“Such as?”
Leaning still closer, looking as if she was either going to kiss Rhiannon on the mouth or