CHAPTER 28
Aric reached the command center so fast it was as though his feet had wings. Kaya had insisted she and Leah would be fine making their way back in the car, leaving him only one crushing concern. The life of his best friend and comrade.
Siobhan O’Shea--or, rather, Iona Lynch--was only a diminutive female but the depth of her treachery knew no bounds. And Rafe was more than halfway mad in love with her, which Aric feared might prove to be an obstacle all of its own.
Rafe needed to be warned of the woman’s deception, but to his marrow, Aric dreaded it might already be too late.
He thought back to the excuses Iona had made for missing the ceremony earlier today. Excuses that had left Reginald Crowe’s bitch alone for hours while everyone in the command center was preoccupied with the ritual and celebration that followed. And the fact that there was a sizable cache of ultraviolet arms and ammunition at her disposal didn’t exactly ease any of the bone-deep dread that strangled Aric with every rapid beat of his heart.
He decided to check that hunch first, speeding directly to the lowest floor of the command center where the evidence from Scrully’s estate was stored. The scent of spilled blood was a punch to his system. The sight of his immense, practically immortal friend lying unmoving in the center of that dark, sticky lake was even more of a shock.
Crouched inside the open car of the stalled elevator was Iona Lynch. She held an electronic device in her hand, working frantically in front of several crates of UV now wired to blow.
“You fucking bitch.”
His seething growl brought her strawberry-blonde head up with a start. She squeaked at the sight of his transformed face and growing fangs.
Aric grabbed her in savage hands and threw her against the wall. She hit with a hard thump, bones cracking. Stunned, momentarily rendered immobile, she dropped in a petite heap on the floor.
While she was disabled, Aric went to Rafe’s side. He’d been stabbed in the abdomen and in the chest--a direct blow to his heart, from the catastrophic look of it. And the blood. So much fucking blood.
“I didn’t mean to do it.” Iona’s voice sounded small and tear-choked behind him. “Rafe gave me no choice, Aric.”
He glanced behind him, not because he cared what the duplicitous slut had to say but because he didn’t want to end up with a blade in his back.
“He was crazy, Aric. I think he intended to use this UV to kill himself and all the other Breed males under this roof.”
As she spoke in that quiet, desperate voice, Iona’s hazel eyes seemed huge in her pretty face. She was a beauty, even he had to admit that. And she was looking at him with a kind of helpless desperation--a trembling innocence--that would have been hard for any man to resist.
Except for him.
“You can drop the damsel in distress act. It’s not going to work on me.”
Her mouth twisted. “No. Your friend was much easier to read. I only had to show him what he wanted to see and he fell right into my hands. And between my legs.”
Aric cursed, hating that his animus for this heartless witch had to take him away from trying to help his wounded friend. Iona’s gaze widened as he stood up and faced her fully.
“I’ve never been with a daywalker,” she murmured, turning from coy waif to sultry siren in an instant. “It’s a pity. I’ll bet you and I would burn up the sheets, warrior.”
Aric snorted. “Even if my heart didn’t already belong to Kaya, I’d never dirty my hands on Reginald Crowe’s leavings.”
She laughed at that. “You think he was my lover? Reginald Crowe was my father.”
Aric sneered. “In that case, the Order’s going to have a good time wringing you dry for information on Opus Nostrum and the Atlantean queen he served.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”
Without another word or warning, she hit the timer device in her hand and threw it into the elevator before closing the doors and sending the packed car upward to the mansion.
Then she brought her knife up to her throat and sliced it all the way across.
“No!” Aric cursed as the Order’s best source of Opus intel dropped to the floor.
But even worse than that loss--exponentially worse--was the ultraviolet bomb now making its way into the heart of the command center.
He put all of his concentration into halting the car with his mind. Then he stalled the timer on Iona Lynch’s detonator. He would deal with the rest of that problem later.
Suddenly, Aric was no longer alone in the room. All of the Breed males in the place had been alerted to the overwhelming scent of so much spilled blood. Dante went directly to his fallen son on a roar that shook the concrete walls. His bellow was followed by Tess’s anguished cry. She fell to her son’s side, her healing hands covering the blood-soaked area of his pierced heart.
“He’s alive,” she gasped. “Oh, thank God. Rafe’s still alive.”
Aric did his best to explain what he’d walked in on, and the reason he’d known the Breedmate lying dead nearby was the betrayer the Order had been looking for.
The Order elders crowded in around him, a hundred questions issued at the same time while Tess and Dante and several of the other Breedmates moved in to carry Rafe away for treatment of his wounds.
Kaya now raced down to the room as well. Aric had never seen a more welcome sight. She went to his side on a soft exhalation, wrapping herself around him in front of everyone in the room. He held her close, never intending to let her go.