“No,” but glanced up at the billed cap he was wearing. “I need this,” she said, taking it without asking.
He gave her a bemused look. “It’s yours. Anything else?”
She shoved the cap low on her forehead. “I need everyone to stay here on alert. Right here. I know they’re worried and terrified, but I don’t want an angry mob of parents coming after me. Tell them I’m on it, and I have a skilled hostage rescue team waiting below.”
“Is it true?”
“Yes, it is. Sometime, I’ll tell you the stories. Give me your cell number,” she said as an afterthought, thinking it would be good to have a second way of reaching the Fortalesa.
He rattled it off as Layla tapped in the numbers, then called him to be sure it stayed in her cell’s memory.
The gate was already open and waiting for her. “Lock it behind me,” she said, then stepped out onto the apron of empty space below the wall. Pausing for no more than a heartbeat, she ran at an easy lope for the trees, walked in several yards, until she doubted anyone could see her, then started downhill on foot.
WHILE LAYLA MADE her way through the forest and down the hill, Xavier lay trapped, fighting the unbreakable bonds of a sleep that held him prisoner while his people suffered. The most vulnerable and easily wounded of them all—the children who ran to hold his hand when he visited their homes or attended their holiday plays and parties, the ones who counted on him to keep them safe—those children had been taken in an act so violent, it would scar them forever. Just as it would him. He would never forget, could never forgive anyone who’d played even the smallest part in its planning. Everyone involved in this heinous crime would suffer before he was through with them. Every godforsaken one of them. He swore it.
For all the good his oaths did, he thought viciously. It frustrated him, infuriated him, that he couldn’t see the details, couldn’t know exactly what had been done, or even who’d done it. His mind could only read the horror of the guards’ brutal deaths, the frantic terror of the children.
He knew that Layla would already be on task, doing everything she could to find the kidnappers and get a rescue underway. He knew what she was capable of. Knew things that even her father didn’t know, things she’d never shared, because she didn’t want him to think his only child, his daughter, was a brute capable of monstrous acts of cruelty. Xavier only knew because he had contacts among the vampire community in the U.S., vampires who’d mated or married humans from that country, including several who’d moved to the U.S. to be with their lover or mate when they’d gone home. Those vampires in turn either worked, or had friends who worked, in places where they could be of assistance, and remembering friendship or loyalty to Xavier, were willing to help when he asked. Which he did only rarely.
In this case, they had, on his behalf, gained access to details involving both Layla’s military record and the jobs her current team had undertaken as private security consultants. Those records, both government and private, had often included so-called after-action reports, which frequently revealed the most extreme details of the undertaken missions. This was especially true for the privately funded jobs, since those were more likely to involve people who’d wanted to punish the ones who’d crossed them in one way or another, and would demand proof. They were most often hostage rescue and ransom cases, since neither Layla nor those she worked with were simple murderers for hire. But that didn’t mean they followed every law. When a child or children had been taken or abused, Layla’s team worried only about the hostages, and did whatever it took—killing or torturing whomever necessary—to return the children safely.
So he knew the extremes to which his Layla would go to rescue the ones who’d been kidnapped. He only wished he’d managed to get closer to her, faster. Their eventual bonding was inevitable in his mind, but if he’d already taken her blood, or if she’d already taken even the smallest amount of his, there would have been a chance that he could link with her, so they could communicate even when he slept and she hunted.
But all he could do now was lie in this dark room and curse the fate that had not