Nightbred

Burke nodded, and hurried off to the elevator.



Halfway down to the emergency exit, Sam’s mobile rang, and she set down her case to answer it. “Hello.”



“Got your message,” Alex Keller said over a terrible connection. “We’re in Ireland.”



“Great.” Sam sat down on the steps. “I’d send him to you, but the tranq darts aren’t working. Any suggestions?”



“Check your . . . bagged blood,” the doctor said. “Someone could . . . tampered with it.”



“Tampered how?”



“Added . . . animal blood.” Alex launched into an explanation of which Samantha heard only every third or fourth word. Then the connection crackled and her voice came through in a clear burst. “. . .bleed him first, then transfuse him. You’ll need six to eight pints, but no more than that or he’ll go into thrall.”



“I’m sorry, you want me to what? Bleed him?” Sam swore as the line began to break up again. “Alex, can you hear me?”



“There’s . . . Kyn . . . mind control . . . could . . . messing with . . .” The line dissolved into a buzz of static, and then disconnected.



“Shit.” Sam tried dialing Alex back, but a polite recording informed her that the number she was calling was temporarily out of service.



Although Sam didn’t know what Alex had meant by mind control, the possibility that their blood supplies had been tainted made sense. To please her, Lucan usually abstained from feeding on humans and depended mainly on the supply of bagged blood the jardin had stockpiled. Because the blood was kept out of sight in a refrigerated room belowground, and was available for any Kyn to use, no one had ever bothered to put a lock on the entry or otherwise secure it.



If someone had spiked their supplies with even a small amount of animal blood, it would definitely affect any Kyn who drank it. At first it would only make them sick, but if they’d continued using the tainted blood, it would gradually begin to change them.



Drinking animal blood for long periods of time caused the Kyn to undergo bizarre physical mutations. After being forced for decades to live exclusively on cat blood, the high lord had become a part-human, part-feline hybrid known as a changeling. Sam and Lucan had also battled a snakelike Kyn who had lost most of his humanity by living on the blood of reptiles.



Remembering Faryl Paviere and his grotesque appearance didn’t bother her as much as recalling the ferocious and violent behavior he’d displayed. Sam had personally witnessed him using his jaws to rip the head off the body of a Kyn warrior as easily as a human might pop a grape from a stem.



“No, it can’t be the blood.” She and many of the men among the garrison also made use of it, and none of them had fallen ill or shown any drastic changes in behavior. Unless someone tainted B positive blood, she thought. Ever the connoisseur, Lucan preferred the taste of that particular type over all the others. She and the rest of the Kyn were aware of this, which was why they usually set it aside for his use. . . .



Sam left her suitcase on the stair and trotted down to the first-floor landing, where she inputted the code to access the secondary stairwell leading down to the tunnels.



At the blood-stocks room she found the captain of the guard supervising a group of tresori wearing protective shrouds and working in bucket-brigade fashion as they removed bloodstained white bags.



“What the hell happened here?” Sam asked Aldan.



“Nothing good, Lady Samantha.” He sketched a quick bow. “Someone deliberately destroyed our stocks. They used a blade to pierce the bags, let them empty out, and strewed coin on the shelves and flooring.”



Samantha peered inside the room again and saw the hundreds of pennies that had been scattered everywhere. “Why throw coins in the blood?”



Aldan looked uncomfortable. “’Tis like a thing that was done in the old days, during the jardin wars. A traitor would come into a stronghold and poison the blood stocks by dropping coppers into the kegs.”



“You kept kegs of blood?”



“During the winter season, when humans remained indoors and were harder to hunt, the cold kept it sound.” He saw her expression and quickly added, “’Twas not taken by force, my lady. We collected the blood bled from the sick by leeches hoping to heal them. Our tresori would also give what they could to help sustain us.”



“The only thing we have in kegs now is beer, right?” When the captain nodded, she looked back in at the mess. “I don’t get it. This isn’t the Dark Ages. We can buy all the blood we want and have it here in a few hours. So destroying it was a waste of time and perfectly good pennies.”



“Often such a thing is done to provoke, my lady.” Aldan gestured for her to follow him, and led her out of earshot of the mortals. “It is not the act but the doing of it that harms. Lord Alenfar is as feared as he is respected. For an enemy to successfully elude detection and the guards to infiltrate his household and make worthless that which sustains it . . .”



She stared at him. “You’re saying they did this to make Lucan look bad?”



“Not bad. Weak,” Aldan said. “Or perhaps unworthy of rule.”



This on the same night Lucan had driven off the only son of another, highly dangerous Kyn lord, leered over a girl he’d always treated with affection, and nearly pushed Sam, his life companion, into shooting him. “You may be right, Captain. What is the general procedure when something like this happens?”



“We must make it known to the garrison,” he said. “They are the first line of defense. Our mortal allies should also be advised. For that, I would call on Mr. Burke.”



“All right. I’ll head upstairs and talk to him. If you would, call Lady Jayr and ask if she can spare some of her blood stores. Send one of the men to Orlando to pick it up.”



He bowed. “As you say, my lady.” When he straightened, he drew the short sheath containing his sgian dubh from his boot. “I would ask you to ease my mind and carry this.” He offered it to her. “Pistols require bullets,” he explained. “A blade does not.”



Sam curled her fingers around the Celtic knots carved into the stag-horn handle, and drew out the blade. It had been honed to razor sharpness, and forged from folded bands of copper and steel, which would make it effective against mortal or Kyn. “Thank you, Aldan.”



“My lady.” He nodded and went back to the cleanup.



Sam resheathed the small dagger and tucked it into her own boot before she headed for the lift, which she took to the first floor. As soon as the doors opened, music blasted in her face and red lights danced before her eyes. She wove through the milling patrons, wishing as she did that she could pull a giant plug and shut the whole place down.



Burke’s office adjoined Lucan’s, but she found it empty. Then she heard a low moaning sound on the other side of the door between the two, and kicked it open.



The love of her immortal life sat in his custom-made executive chair. On his lap sat a pretty twentysomething with a killer tan, a tiny black dress, a white silk bandeau around a messy beehive of raven hair.



Lucan lifted his face and had the incredible balls to look relieved. “Samantha.” The girl slid to the floor with another low moan as he stood. “You are—”



“Pissed off.” She went to the girl and helped her up. “Look at me.” After she checked her pupils, Sam removed the bandeau, folded it over, and pressed it against her throat. “Did you have sex with her?”



“No. I had no desire to—”



“You can shut up now.” Sam shed enough scent to blot out Lucan’s, and told the girl, “Ask the doorman to get you a taxi, and take it home. Forget everything that happened here.”



“Doorman. Home. Forget.” Like a sleepwalker, the girl drifted out of the office.



Sam looked down to see she stood in the exact spot where Lucan had kissed her for the first time. Or at least she assumed she did; after he’d felt her up, he’d wiped the memory of it from her then-mortal mind.



“Our blood stores have been destroyed,” Lucan said. “I haven’t fed in three nights.”



She stared at the little bulge Aldan’s blade made in the side of her trouser leg. “I know.”



“Samantha.” He came up behind her. “Why won’t you look at me?”



He had such a beautiful, seductive voice. Even before she’d fallen in love with him, Sam had been entranced by it. He had a huge vocabulary, which he loved to use, and could converse better than anyone she’d ever known, including Herbert Burke and Ernesto Garcia, two of the most educated men she knew.



Sometimes, after they made love, Lucan would tell her stories about some of the places he’d seen during his travels, and she enjoyed that almost as much as the sex.



Burke came through from his office. “My lady.” His voice chilled a few degrees when he added, “My lord.”



Sam made herself look at the lying bastard she loved. “All right, start talking.”



“Herbert.” Lucan watched Samantha’s face. “Tell my sygkenis what I intended to do when I left the stronghold tonight, and what time I departed.”



My lady.



“You left at seven so you might intercept the man who sent flowers to her office,” Burke said stiffly. “I believe you also intended to kill him.”



“That is the last thing I remember,” Lucan said. “When I came back to consciousness, it was midnight and I was in Palm Beach. My Ferrari had been driven into the sand and left to sink in it, hardly something I would do to my favorite vehicle. But I could not remember driving there or anything that may have occurred after I left the stronghold.”



“That’s convenient.” She should have been angry with his bullshit excuse, but it added another piece to the puzzle. “So you’re suffering from amnesia.”



“I haven’t forgotten a thing. What I lost was time.” He stretched out the fingers of one hand. “Five hours, gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”