Chapter Thirty-Four
Dawn was just starting to break when Roman came downstairs. He was wearing jeans and nothing else and his hair was wet and slicked back.
He glanced at her face sharply, then around the room. He licked his lips and Kate knew he had already guessed the truth.
“Where is he?” he asked.
She wiped her cheeks. “Gone.” Her voice was strained.
Roman absorbed that for a moment, standing still in the middle of the room, his head down. “Why?” he asked, looking at her once more.
“He thinks you don’t want him in your life. Not deep down where it counts.”
He remained motionless for another endless minute, his gaze drilling into her and through her. Kate knew this was what her own expression must have looked like when she realized that Garrett really was leaving and why.
Finally, Roman stirred and sat on the sofa next to her. He picked up her hand. “You want him back, don’t you?” he asked softly.
“Don’t you?” she breathed, as more hot tears spilled down her cheeks.
His face shifted. A haunted, hurt expression crossed his eyes, almost too fast for her to catch. “It doesn’t matter—”
“It does matter, Roman!” She shook his hand, the one that held hers. “Damn it, this is what drove Michael away!”
Roman blinked.
She wiped away her tears again. “Do you love him?”
He swallowed. “You have to understand the culture and the times we moved in, Kate. We weren’t supposed to meet in groups larger than—”
“It’s a simple question and a very simple answer,” she said, lifting her voice to over-ride him. “Do you love him?”
Roman let go of her hand and pushed his fingers through his already damp and slicked-back hair. “It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s not,” she said flatly. “Do. You. Love. Him. Yes or no?”
He stood up with an impatient thrust of his thighs. “You have no idea about most of my history—”
She scrambled to her feet, grabbed his arm and turned him to face her. “Yes or no,” she demanded.
“Stop this.”
“Yes or no!”
“Fuck! Yes!”
“Yes, what?”
“I love him, okay?” Roman threw himself onto the sofa and buried his face in his hands. “I fucking love him.” His voice was muffled.
Kate sat next to him. “What was so hard about saying it?” she asked softly.
He lifted his head to look at her, anger in his eyes. “People I love go away on me. Everyone I’ve ever cared about has died, or been executed or just…gone.”
Kate stared at him in horror as she put it together. “And you love Michael so much, you don’t want the same thing to happen to him.”
Roman sighed and sat back, letting his head fall back on the cushion of the sofa. “It sounds so bloody pathetic when it’s said out loud like that. He’s one of the most powerful vampires and most powerful humans on the planet combined. And I’m so terrified something will happen to him.”
“You drove him away because of it,” Kate finished.
Roman sat up again and faced her. He picked up her hand. “You call him Micheil. Why?”
“He’s not a dove. And he’s my personal angel, especially after you two saved me from my ex.”
Roman grinned. “I never did like Calum much, either. Especially the way the clan used it. It was more like a dog tag than an endearment. You love him, Kate?”
She nodded.
“You want him back. Yes or no?”
She pursed her lips.
Roman shook her hand a little. “I’m not asking you to pick. You want him back with us. The three of us.”
She drew in a quick startled breath, her heart leaping. “Yes,” she breathed, answering without pausing to think. Then she realized: It was the truth.
Roman smiled a little. “So do I. Last night taught me a few profound lessons and that was one of them. I want you both in my life for as long as I can make it so.” He stood up and tugged her to her feet. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“To get him back, of course.” He pushed a wallet into his jeans pocket and keys into the other.
“But shouldn’t you…?”
He shook his head. “We do it, Kate.” He pulled her toward the door. “Besides, you can help stop me from making a complete idiot of myself when I see him and completely fucking this up.”
“Roman, I should change,” she pointed out, lifting the hem of his silk robe from around her ankles.
He opened the front door. “You’re decently covered. And there’s nothing in my closet that will fit you anyway. You really want to wander around L.A. in your ball gown at ten on a Saturday morning?”
She bit her lip.
“Didn’t think so,” he said and stepped out.
“You’re not wearing a shirt!”
“Nope,” he replied and shut the door behind her. “Let’s find Calum. Micheil.” He grinned. “Micheil,” he decided.
* * * * *
They stopped off at Kate’s trailer first. Kate thankfully changed into jeans, boots and a tee-shirt and arranged for the return of the jewellery to the security people, while Roman found a clean shirt of his own. Then they did a large circle around the stacks of unused props, moving along the unpopulated edges of the hangar, heading for Garrett’s trailer at the quiet far end of the cavernous hall. There were very few people wandering around on a Saturday morning, especially after all the Emmy Award parties last night, but by unspoken and mutual agreement, they avoided anyone who might be in the hangar and the endless gossipy conversations that would ensue if they were spotted.
Garrett’s trailer sat as it always had. Roman thumped on the door and got no answer.
“He’s not going to answer if he knows it’s you,” Kate pointed out.
Roman growled under his breath.
“Just go in,” she said. “He never locks it.”
“If he’s in that sort of mood, he just might lock it if he knows it’s me.”
“You’re both three year olds,” Kate muttered.
“What?” Roman said.
“You heard.” She stared at him. “You have super hearing.”
He grinned and caught her face in his hands and kissed her. “Ah, the two of you are going to drive me crazy, I can tell.”
“Then open the stupid door and stop pretending you resent the fact,” she told him.
He pulled the door open and stepped aside for her. Kate climbed the steps and looked around as Roman followed her inside. The trailer was empty, with the utter stillness that told her Garrett wasn’t here, not even in the bedroom.
Her innards tightened hard and it was then she realized how much she had been counting on finding Garrett brooding in his trailer.
“Where else could he be?” she asked, her voice emerging very close to a whisper.
“You’ve probably got better information than I do,” Roman replied. “We’ve been deliberately keeping our public details separate from each other here and now.”
“To help keep your personas legitimate?” she asked.
Roman frowned, as he lifted the small handful of papers on the antique desk and thumbed through them. “I’d give anything to say yes, but that sort of expertise we acquired a long time ago. It’s second nature now. Fact is we were too pissed with each other to even talk.” He glanced at her and grimaced. “You weren’t the only one that wanted a piece of his hide and a pound of his flesh.”
Kate put a hand on her hip. “So by encouraging me to pay him back, you were really settling your own score?”
“Something like that.” He glanced at her again. “He left me,” he said abruptly.
“The way I heard it, you shoved a musket against his chest and told him to fuck off forever.”
His jaw rippled, but he didn’t answer.
“Two year olds,” Kate breathed. “Girls would have pulled each other’s hair, screamed and rolled in the mud and been best friends ever since. You have to learn to talk, Roman.”
He rubbed at the back of his head, his gaze somewhere between her waist and her knees. “There was a bit more to it than that.”
“No, there wasn’t. You had a tantrum. And Micheil is just as stubborn and just as…male as you. So he walked away with his nose in the air, just like you. And you both out-stubborned each other for two hundred fucking years.”
Roman took a deep breath. “Well. Yeah.”
Kate shook her head. “Yeah.”
Roman’s mouth lifted in a half smile. “Good thing you came along, huh?”
She relented. “I should shoot both of you now and save myself a ton of misery.”
“Waste of lead,” Roman told her. “Shooting doesn’t kill us.”
She sighed. “So where else would he be? Has he got a hotel room stashed somewhere in the city?”
“He’s a frugal Scot. He’s not going to run up a hotel charge while he’s renting this monster as well.”
“True.” She looked around. “He’s sulking, Roman. Where does Micheil tend to go when he wants to pout?”
Roman grinned. “Don’t let him hear you accuse him of pouting. He’ll just pout harder.” His grin faded. “Open spaces, like the glens in the highlands. Especially if there’s running water nearby.”
“In L.A.?” She rolled her eyes.
Roman lifted his hand. “Wait,” he said, moving his head like he was tracking noise.
“What?”
“Someone’s coming.”
Kate listened, but could hear nothing. She realized that Roman was picking up something at the edge of his range of hearing, that she couldn’t possible hear, yet. So she waited and listened.
Then she heard it. Footsteps, light and quick, sounded on the concrete outside the trailer.
The door opened without any sort of attempt at a knock, or even a try at the handle to see if it was locked. It was wrenched open and flung aside. The two men that Kate knew as David and Terry climbed up into the trailer, looking around. They were Annette’s husbands, Kate realized. She reached for the names. Nathanial and Sebastian. Nial. She wasn’t sure which was which, but the one she knew as Terry had short hair now and it was a lot closer to blond than the dirty brown she was used to.
David was no different in appearance, except that he wore what she would classify as tailored, custom-made trousers and a button-through shirt, both slim-fitting so the width of his shoulders were evident. The clothes were fairly ordinary, but he wasn’t. He drew the eye in a way that Kate couldn’t quantify. Not yet.
Terry glanced at Roman and Kate, then hurried through into the bedroom. David stood with his hands at his sides, waiting.
“Garrett’s not here, Nial,” Roman said to David. That meant that David was Nial, and Terry, in the other room, had to be Sebastian.
“We’re not here for him,” Nial said, not moving from his spot.
Sebastian hurried back into the main room and shook his head.
Nial let out a heavy breath.
Kate glanced from one to the other, feeling a low grade alarm trying to develop in her belly. It was planted there by something that wasn’t in their faces. They were controlling their expressions and their actions with iron mastery. Both of them.
“Has something happened to …Winter?” she asked, just barely remembering in time the real name of the woman who was their wife.
Roman shot a glance at Nial.
“She didn’t arrive back from the after-show party last night,” Nial said. His voice was even. Expressionless.
Roman’s face hardened just like Nial’s as he looked at Kate. Fear bloomed in her chest.
Roman spoke. “Garrett has disappeared. He left my apartment ninety minutes ago and he didn’t make it back here.”
Sebastian swore softly. “what are you going to do about it?”
“Me?” Roman asked.
“They’re your people who have taken them.”
Nial put his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder as Roman turned on him, fury building in his face and posture. “We don’t know anything for certain, Bastian,” Nial said. “Tamp down your worry until we have a target to vent it upon.”
Sebastian drew in an audible breath, then nodded.
Nial looked at Roman. “Know this, though. If you are with the Pro Libertatis, if they have taken Winter, if so much as a hair on her head has been damaged when we find her, I will hold you personally responsible for this and I will take great personal delight in settling the debt that will then lie between us. Are we perfectly clear?”
Kate wrapped her arms around her middle, suddenly cold. The menace radiating from the man was unmistakeable. And now she understood why he had drawn her attention when he had stepped into the trailer. He wasn’t trying to blend into a crowd as just another anonymous security guy or babysitter for a misbehaving star. He was being himself…and Nial as himself was a powerful man. Nial angry was almost more than the trailer could contain.
Roman stared back at Nial with a cool expression. “I’m not with them, Nathaniel. No one tells me what to do. Not you and especially not those assholes, so take a fucking pill and get off my back.”
Kate bit her lip to stop herself from smiling. It was exactly what Roman would feel about being given marching orders of any sort.
Nial didn’t smile at all. His expression didn’t change in the slightest.
“Of course, you would have to deny it,” Sebastian said gently, moving to standing so that he was a third point in a rough triangle between Nial and Roman.
Kate stepped over so that she made up a fourth point, on the other side of Nial and Roman, dividing their attention. This was not good.
Roman glanced from Sebastian to Nial. “You want me to break down and confess? Cry? Beat my chest? I told you once. I’m not saying it again. Time’s wasting. You might not feel the urgency, but I would rather find Garrett before they start slicing into him.”
Kate gasped. “Torture? Why? What could Micheil possibly know?”
Roman grimaced. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have led up to that so directly.”
“You figure?” Sebastian asked dryly.
“Aren’t they just using them as hostages?” Kate asked. “And who are the Pro Libertatis, anyway? I’ve heard you use the name a few times, but I haven’t had an opportunity to get an explanation from anyone.”
“What do Winter and Garrett have in common?” Nial asked Roman. “That’s what the Pro Libertatis wants.”
Kate looked from Nial to Sebastian, surprised curling through her. “Hey!” she said loudly.
Sebastian glanced at her. Nial didn’t.
“Just because I’m not vampire doesn’t mean you to get to ignore me,” she told Sebastian.
He shook his head a little. “We’re not. Well we’re not ignoring you because you’re human. We’re focusing on the real issue. Roman’s allegiance.”
“Roman’s allegiance is to me and Garrett. Anything else is peripheral and irrelevant. Do you have any more questions?” Kate snapped.
She had everyone’s attention now. Nial’s gaze flickered to Roman before settling on her again. “You’re together? All three of you?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes,” Kate said coolly.
Sebastian smiled.
“What?” she demanded.
“I just lost five thousand dollars.”
“And you’re smiling?”
Sebastian’s smile broadened. “Winter always makes losing a pleasure.”
Nial glanced at him and Sebastian’s smile broadened even more. “Like Roman said, take a pill, Nial. This puts a different spin on it.”
Nial crossed his arms. “And meanwhile, they still have Winter.”
Sebastian’s smile faded. He looked at Roman.
Roman sighed. “We’re back to this again?”
“It’s not that we don’t believe you,” Sebastian began.
“Yes, it’s exactly that,” Nial countered. “A year ago, I got a taste of their methods. The Pro Libertatis don’t ask you to work for them. They demand. And when you don’t bend to their demands, their methods become a lot more persuasive.”
Roman scowled. “So?”
“So, no offense, Byzantine, but I’ve walked this earth a few more years than you. I’ve learned a handful more tricks, you would agree?”
Kate frowned as she stared at Nial. He was older than Roman? How old was he, exactly? How much history was he personally acquainted with? Come to that, how much history did each of them carry around in their minds, these walking encyclopaedias of lived experiences? Roman had known Murad. Who had Nial been friends with in his lifetime?
Roman’s scowl deepened. “Agreed,” he growled.
Nial nodded. “If I, with all my tricks, was unable to shake free of them for more than a year, I find it hard to believe you’re still walking free of their noose.”
“Perhaps I don’t have the vulnerabilities you did,” Roman said, glancing at Sebastian.
Kate put it together with an almost audible click in her mind. These Pro Libertatis, whoever they were, had obviously used Sebastian as leverage to force Nial to do whatever it was they had wanted him to do for them, a year ago. She would have to get details later, from someone who knew them.
She felt a little sickened as she realized what this implied about the Pro Libertatis. They used whatever means necessary to achieve their goals, including extortion, emotional blackmail and the threat of physical violence against their own kind.
“They have that same leverage to use against you, Roman,” she said. “Why didn’t they use it?”
Nial glanced at her. It was a mere flicker of his eyes, before they settled on Roman once more. “It’s a good question. You can understand my concern. Everything says they should have used Garrett against you. You say they didn’t. It’s hard to believe.”
Roman’s brows were almost meeting in the middle. Kate could see his temper was roused. But the very still posture of both Nial and Sebastian couldn’t be underestimated, either. They were alert, ready to spring at the slightest provocation. The tension in the room was pressing against her chest and making her heart work harder than she had ever felt it strive before.
“They tried, okay?” Roman said, at last.
“And you just said ‘no’?” Sebastian asked, his tone dry.
Roman’s lips curled. “I told them to fuck off. You think I can’t spot a bureaucracy coming at me, even if it isn’t wearing a suit?”
“They’re not an official organization,” Sebastian pointed out.
“They smell like one,” Roman replied shortly.
“They may as well be one,” Nial agreed. “They believe in all the same values that a large government organization believes in, and they’re fighting to maintain those values and standards. They’re using the resources of large government to try and defeat us.”
“They’re using government resources?” Kate asked. “That’s…that’s stealing!”
“I think you’ll find, when we finally uncover who the Pro Libertatis really are,” Nial told her coolly, “That most of their members are the power holders of this and other countries. Government officials, statesmen and military. And they don’t want their very comfortable status quo disturbed. Of course they’re using the power they already hold to keep us in line. Why wouldn’t they? They want us stopped. Permanently.”
“And these people, these Pro Libertatis…they’re all vampire?”
“Vampires that don’t want humans to know there are vampires in the world,” Sebastian confirmed. “They intend to stop Nial from his revelation next year, in any way they can.”
“So they took Garrett and Winter. Why?”
“To stop us,” Nial replied and for the first time she heard emotion in his voice. There was anger there. “By holding them hostage and milking them at the same time to learn what it is I intend to do so they can out-manoeuvre me.”
Sebastian briefly rested his hand on Nial’s shoulder and he breathed in deeply, and let it out. “Roman, you didn’t just get to say no and walk away. It’s not that simple.”
Roman grimaced. “Of course it isn’t. They’re watching me.”
“You knew that?” Sebastian breathed.
“I know when I’m being followed. I’ve had a long-distance tail since we got back from the desert. A bad tail. They got too close once and I made them for vampire, so I let them be until I could figure out what to do with them. Vampire told me they were either Pro Libertatis or your guys. Until just now I didn’t know which. Now I know they were Pro Libertatis.”
“Who else have they been observing?” Sebastian wondered.
“Probably all of us,” Nial answered. “I would. And they knew enough to pick up Winter straight out of the restaurant.” He moved over to the desk and rested against it, stretching his legs out. “They know about the Blood Stone. That’s why they wanted you,” he told Roman.
Roman rolled his eyes. “That much, I figured.”
Kate glanced at them both. “Blood stone?” she asked.
“It’s a mythical artefact known to vampires,” Sebastian told her. “The Libertatis think you might have dug it up in Turkey last year, and that Roman might have found it among the props here at the hangar. They’re watching him to see if he moves any stone-like or suspicious looking objects out of the hangar.”
She looked at Roman. He was watching her steadily, his gaze unwavering.
“This is why you and I met?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said flatly.
“So you really did have an agenda, after all.”
“Everyone does, Kate. Even if it’s just to meet someone, fall in love and never be lonely again. It’s still an agenda. It’s still an ambition. It’s still hope. You wanted to make a movie. I wanted to find the Blood Stone. Micheil wanted to further Nial’s cause.” Roman smiled a little. “None of us planned to fall in love.”
Sebastian grinned. “It turns lives upside down, that one.”
Nial stood up. “Garrett had faith in you, Roman. For now, I’ll rely on his gut instinct. I don’t have time to test for myself and the Libertatis can bury their tracks deep. It will be easy enough to deal with you later if we’re wrong about you.”
Kate drew in a breath that shook. Nial’s threat sounded off-hand and casual, but she knew there was real intent behind it.
And so did Roman. He didn’t smile. He didn’t scowl, or show any emotion at all. He just looked back at Nial steadily.
“For now, you can help us find them,” Nial added.
Roman nodded. “How?”
“You three spent the night together last night? After the party?”
A cascade of quick images from the night she had spent with Roman and Garrett spilled through her mind. Her body throbbed and tightened as she recalled them.
Sebastian glanced at her. “That would be yes,” he said.
Kate blew out her breath, her cheeks burning, as she realized that Sebastian had read the signs of arousal in her body – heard her heart rate elevate and possibly sensed her body grow warmer. Then she saw the sparkle of amusement in Roman’s eyes, even though he wasn’t smiling and she let herself smile ruefully back at him. Privacy took on a different meaning amongst vampires.
“Yes, we were together,” Roman answered Nial, bringing his gaze up to meet Nial’s.
“So the Libertatis would have seen you together,” Nial concluded. “And our marriage is an acknowledged fact among vampires. That’s a commonality. How did you get home from the party?”
“Rented limousine,” Roman replied.
“I’ve used Barney for every event since I started directing,” Kate interjected. “He’s more reliable than clockwork.”
“Winter said she was taking a cab back to the hotel,” Sebastian said. “She didn’t want to wait for me. After talking to Kate, she’d had enough and wanted to get back to you, Nial. She said she’d get the restaurant to call her a cab. That was the last I saw of her.”
“You didn’t go back to your hotel last night?” Roman asked.
“Not until early this morning.” Sebastian shrugged. “Winter and I have been living in cramped quarters for weeks, in that trailer. I wanted her and Nial to have some time alone together.”
Kate stared at him, as she pressed her teeth together to prevent her jaw from dropping. This was an aspect of a ménage arrangement she hadn’t considered before. There was a lot about a ménage she was going to have to think about.
“Garrett caught a cab here this morning,” Roman said. “He never made it here, either.”
“Cabs,” Nial said flatly, looking at Sebastian.
Sebastian nodded and left the trailer, moving fast.
“Where’s he going?” Kate asked.
“He’s going to hack into the footage of any security cameras capturing the street view in front of the restaurant last night and in front of your house this morning. With luck, we’ll see the cab picking up both Garrett and Winter.”
“Cabs,” Kate corrected.
Nial shook his head. “If I’m right, it’s the same cab, both times and we’ll find it’s not registered to any dispatch company in the city.”
“And that’s going to help us find Garrett and Winter?” Kate asked. “Because that sounds a lot like a cut-off.”
“Then you don’t properly grasp the full extent of Sebastian’s skills,” Nial told her, with a small smile. He looked at Roman. “You know what you have to do.”
Roman nodded.
“What does he have to do?” Kate asked.
“Deal with the devil,” Roman replied, pulling out his switchblade and testing it with a complicated spin of the blade and handle that was almost a blur in Kate’s vision.
“Just for a while,” Nial amended.