“Jeez, Adrian,” Vash muttered, sitting up. “One would almost think you didn’t trust me.”

CHAPTER 10

“How’s the shoulder?” Vash asked Lindsay as the helicopter lifted gracefuly into the scorching desert sky with Raze at the cyclic. The car she’d stolen was whipped with sand scattered by the revolving copter blades, but that probably wouldn’t matter as much to the owner as the dents Adrian had left behind.

“Good as new.” Lindsay’s voice betrayed her irritation. “Are the blindfold and restraints real y necessary?”

“I could knock you out,” Vash offered, smiling because the other woman couldn’t see it.

“Gee, you’re so helpful,” Lindsay muttered.

“I try.”

“Doesn’t sound like that worked out too wel for Elijah, considering he’s on his deathbed.”

Vash took the hit with clenched fists. She felt guilty and worried, her mind racing ahead of her common sense. She’d risked more than her own hide by going after Sentinel blood. That she’d done so for a lycan who intended to kil her made no damn sense at al .

Leaning forward, she tapped Raze on the shoulder. “How’s the Alpha doing?”

“How do you think? He’s like a wolf in a bear trap—he’s snarling and snapping at everyone. Not that the lycans seem to mind. They’re tripping over themselves trying to take care of him. I thought they were going to riot when he was unloaded from the chopper, but they calmed down when he told them he was jumped and you saved his ass.” The Fal en captain looked over his shoulder at her. “He won’t stop asking for you. I tried to distract him with a hot little honey named Sarah, but that’s not doing the trick.”

Her lip curled as she remembered the demure lycan who’d been so eager to tend Elijah’s injuries and remain by his side.

Vash fel back into her seat with a heavy exhale, struggling to find her balance. She was an emotional disaster.

The helicopter was landing fifteen minutes later. The moment Raze cut the engine, Vash shoved the door open and hopped out. “Get her. Keep her eyes covered until we’ve got her in a room.”

Her heels clicked across the parking lot and she entered the warehouse to find an industriously working crew. Van Halen blared on the radio as various groups went about unpacking and moving in. Salem stood before the map of contagion, explaining its significance to a mixed group of minions and lycans. Syre stood in the center of the vast space, clearly the orchestrator of activity.

Dressed in sleek black trousers and a gray silk shirt, the Fal en leader was drawing the eye of everyone in the room. Elegant, powerful, compel ing. A crazed minion had once cal ed him the antichrist, the dark prince who would mesmerize the world and bring about its destruction. A ridiculous assertion if one knew Syre’s heart at al , but she conceded that his charisma was fierce and seductive enough to bend the wil s of even the most contained of individuals. Even Vash, as used to him as she was, was drawn to him inexorably.

“Commander,” she greeted him as she approached. “Your visit to Vegas is an unexpected surprise.”

“An appreciated one?” he queried smoothly, his whiskey-warm gaze searching her features.

“Depends on whether or not you’re here for the fun of it or because you think I need a hand.”

“Would the latter be so terrible?”

She sighed. “I’m not fragile.”

“You don’t like to think so.” He held up a hand when her mouth opened in protest. “Fragility isn’t always a weakness, Vashti. It happens to be one of your greatest strengths.”

“What a crock.” Her mouth twisted rueful y. “Sir.”

He shook his head at her, then froze, his gaze locked on something over her shoulder.

“Lindsay,” she said, knowing without looking. Damn it, she’d been so scrambled over Elijah, she had forgotten Syre would be present to see the mortal shel that once housed his daughter’s reincarnated soul.

“What have you done?”

“No more than Adrian al owed me to do. Lindsay offered to come when she learned Elijah was injured.”

“Why?” he said tightly. “What purpose does her presence serve?”

“She’s a Sentinel blood source, in lieu of Adrian—” She gasped when Syre cut off her breath with a crushing hand wrapped around her throat.

Her boots dangled two feet off the floor.

His eyes burned into hers, his fury stunning and frightening. “You went after Adrian?”

“H-Helena…actual y,” she managed, fighting the urge to claw at the constriction that impeded her ability to speak.

He threw her thirty feet across the room at Salem, who caught her deftly. The warehouse fel into silence as someone hastily shut off the stereo; then the growls of agitated lycans rumbled through the air like war drums.

Vash struggled free of Salem’s hold, embarrassed at being so publicly chastised and worried about Syre’s cracked control. He didn’t use physical force as a rule; he didn’t need to. He could mesmerize like a snake charmer to get his way.

She was his fist. At least she had been until now.

Brow arched, Raze had stopped his progress across the warehouse floor halfway between the main door and Syre, his hand gripping Lindsay’s elbow. She was stil bound at the wrists and blindfolded…by her choice. Her vampire strength could easily break the rope. She could lift her hand and push the blindfold up at any time. Her continuing cooperation was starting to make Vash suspicious.

“Where’s Elijah?” the blonde asked sharply. “I want to see him. That was the deal.”

The lycans responded with low rumbles. The ones who were seated rose to their feet, while those who stood sidled closer.

Unsure of whether their support lay with Lindsay or Elijah, Vash caught Raze’s gaze. “Take her to him.”

Raze glanced at Syre, who stood unmoving for a long moment before giving a curt nod. Al heads turned to track Lindsay’s progress. The smel of fear became thick and oppressive.

No one in the room doubted that her wel -being was tied to theirs. Adrian’s wrath was something no one wished to incite.

When she disappeared through one of the office doorways lining the rear wal , the room as a whole seemed to exhale in a rush.

Syre pivoted and disappeared behind another door. The latch engaged with a quiet click, but the sound struck everyone like a gunshot report.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Salem snapped behind her.

She shoved a hand through her hair. “I wasn’t.”

The tension in the room was so brittle it scraped along her skin. Making a beeline for the locker room and a much-needed shower, Vash fled the consequences of her inexplicable actions.

Elijah stirred from a half-conscious state when the door to his makeshift infirmary opened. “Vash?” he croaked through a dry throat.

“No.”

He stil ed, his nostrils flaring. Opening gritty eyes, he tried to blink through the fog of pain. “Lindsay?”

“Hi, El,” she said softly, lifting his hand from the bed and gripping it. “You look like shit.”

Fuck. Had the Sentinels rooted them out so quickly? He pushed the concern aside, finding he cared less about that than Lindsay’s welfare. He lifted his other hand to scrub at his eyes. Trying again to see, he looked toward her voice and found worried vampire irises glowing down at him.

“Jesus. You are a vamp,” he managed, taking some comfort in the fact that he smel ed Adrian al over her. The Sentinel real y hadn’t turned his back on her when she was returned to him as something different from what she’d been when she was taken.

“Yeah, imagine that.” Releasing him, she picked up the water cup on the table beside the bed, twisting the straw around to offer it to him.

He drank deeply and grateful y, soothing his parched throat. When he’d emptied the cup, his head fel heavily into the pil ow. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m overdue for blood donation and I heard you were in line for a transfusion.”

His chest tightened as the import of her words sank in. “Lindsay…”

She glanced over her shoulder at Raze, then offered a smal smile to Sarah. “Would you two give us a minute, please?”

Both Raze and Sarah hesitated.

“It’s okay,” Elijah said, hating that he was so weak the others feared leaving him alone. “She’s a friend.”

Once the door shut, he studied Lindsay’s face. Her hair was stil styled in short blond curls that framed a breathtaking face. Delicate brows and dark lashes framed eyes that had once been chocolate brown but were now the honey hue of a vampire. Her generous mouth was curved in an affectionate smile that revealed no fangs at present, but he could imagine them there.

“Kinda weird, right?” she said wryly. “I’m stil getting used to it.”

“I was told you wanted the Change. Was I lied to?” Nothing would save Syre if that was the case. Elijah would kil him the moment he was strong enough to do so.

“It was the only way.” She settled into the seat by the bed. “There were two people inside me—two souls—and one of them had to go. That’s why I had that crazy inhuman speed as a mortal. That’s also what I need to talk to you about.”

He listened to Lindsay’s explanation of the possible hazards to accepting her blood before he asked, “How the hel did you get here? Where’s Adrian? How did you find me?”

“It was Vashti who brought me.” Al the warmth left her face. “What did she do to you, El? If she’s just going to hurt you again, healing you isn’t going to be enough. You have to tel me what I’m dealing with here.”

“Vash found you?” His eyes closed on a shaky exhalation. Christ. “Why?”

“She came after Sentinel blood. She said she needed it to save you, but she wouldn’t tel me why you were hurt in the first place.” She gestured toward the door. “I smel other lycans out there. Are they using you to control the others?”

Fuck…He’d do just about anything to not disappoint Lindsay. Anything except lie to her. “She didn’t do this to me, Linds. We were working together and I got jumped by a pack of vamps. She tried to get to me, but she couldn’t.”

“Working together,” she repeated. She slumped back into her seat, her gaze stark and sad. “What about Micah’s death? Was that part of some plan between you two?”

“No! For fuck’s sake. You know me better than that. We’re working together in spite of Micah’s murder, not because of it.”

She looked him straight in the eyes, then nodded, as if she saw the truth of what he said on his face. “Tel me honestly. Are we enemies now? Are you gunning for the Sentinels?”

“Never. I’m just trying to save as many lycan and mortal lives as possible.” He thought of the wraith ambush and a chil moved through him. What kind of world would they be living in if such attacks were commonplace? “The vamp infection we saw in Hurricane is spreading. Vash is trying to stop it.”

“Why couldn’t you stop it with us?” Straightening, she set her elbows on her knees and leaned in close. “Why did you have to revolt?”

“I didn’t want this.” He pled for her understanding with his gaze. “But once it happened, I couldn’t not step up. Those who want to work with the Sentinels wil find their way back to Adrian. The rest need an Alpha or they’l die. I couldn’t just turn my back and let that happen.”

The door opened and Vash walked in. “How cozy. I’m not interrupting an intimate moment, am I?”

Elijah felt the knot in his gut loosen at the sight of her. She was fresh from a shower, dressed in her trademark stark black with her damp hair pul ed back in a ponytail. Her skintight pants barely clung to her hips, while her short sleeveless vest was smal enough to pass for a bra. It was a testament to how incapacitated he was that his dick couldn’t muster more than a semi in appreciation.

“You’re a crazy bitch,” he said gruffly. He glanced at Lindsay. “You, too. Adrian can’t be happy about this. Shit, I’m not entirely happy about it.

You’re too exposed here.”

“What was I going to do?” Lindsay shot back. “Let you die? Couldn’t do it, El.”

Vash gave an exaggerated sigh and rol ed her eyes. “My god, the way women fawn al over you.”

Lindsay snorted. “So says the vampress who fought off Adrian to get blood for him.”

The ringing of a cel phone had Lindsay pushing to her feet. She dug it out of her pocket and answered. “Adrian…Yes, I’m fine.”

As she moved into a corner to talk, Vash stepped closer. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “How do you feel?”

“Like hammered shit.”

“You look like it, too.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Muttering to herself, she reached out and pushed her hands through his hair, brushing the strands back from his face. He nuzzled into her touch, moved by what she’d done for him. He was a man sworn to kil her, yet she had risked her life to save him. “You went to a lot of trouble, Vashti. Put a lot on the line.”

“Don’t read anything into it,” she muttered. “We need the lycans, and you’re a package deal.”

“Hmm…”

“That’s al this is,” she insisted, scowling.

“We don’t know what this is,” he said softly. Somewhere along the way, in an impossibly short span of time, their higher reasoning in regard to each other had been subverted by impulse.

Lindsay returned. She gave Elijah a searching glance. “Are we going to do this?”

He knew what she was asking, whether or not he wanted to risk the possible hazards of her blood. After what she and Vash had gone through to get it for him, it was a no-brainer. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

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