Bound to Blackwood (26 page)

Ryver just nodded.

"Kinda takes your breath away doesn't it?"

Ryver looked around properly for the first time. The flowers that lined the driveway to House Bowman were glorious, a riot of colour far brighter than anything he could have imagined. No one still alive had ever been to Faerie. That door had closed millennia ago, but Ryver had read about it. The Chronicles were obligatory reading for every school-aged youngling and Ryver had re-read them several times since. He couldn't have imagined a world so bright, but here it was, right in front of him.

Phoenix laughed, "C'mon kid, let's see that mentalist thing of yours in action."

And the moment was lost. "Fuck off, Phoenix."

Phoenix just shook his head, a smile still firmly planted on his face.

They made their way through the front door, not stopping to admire the tasteful decor or any of the riches House Bowman had on display. Kaden had told them where this now-infamous osmium door was, and that was exactly where they were headed. They marched down the wood-panelled hallway, Ryver pushing his senses out as they went. The big square of nothingness up ahead was where they needed to be.

Standing in front of the door, Ryver focused his mind. With the osmium in front of him, he forced his other senses to shut down. All Vampires had an inherent talent for
seeing
living things but that wouldn't help him now. Not with something as impenetrable as osmium in the way. The thoughts he was looking for were not sentient beings, he couldn't rely on his innate tracking ability. It was his
mentalist thing
, as Phoenix put it that was going to help him now.
 

More and more stray thoughts bombarded him all the time. The amount of crap he had to put up with on a daily basis had to have a good side. Or at least he really fucking hoped so.

Listening to shopping lists, worries about pet poodles, thoughts that some girl's scummy boyfriend was messing around, and ponderings about trips to the doctors to see about that rash just wasn't that much fun. And they were some of the less harmful thoughts he picked up. The amount of hateful, vengeful and murderous thoughts Ryver heard every single day scared the crap out of him.

He could do this. Well, he
had
to do this, otherwise his
ability
was little more than a cruel curse that was no use to man nor beast.
 

Ryver closed his eyes. No matter how hard he tried to ignore him, Phoenix was staring at him, no doubt waiting for Ryver's head to start spinning or fire to shoot from his eyeballs or whatever, and it was putting him off.

He listened hard. And there they were. Ryver felt a triumphant smile spreading across his face.

"What? What is it?" Phoenix asked from behind him.

Ryver ignored him. Concentrating harder, he began to disseminate the voices. Most of the House were asleep. Dreams were always fucked up if you had to listen to them and Ryver could hear the dreams of three male Vampires he didn't know.

There was something about a girl — typical. Something else about his mother not being pleased; not so bad. The last dreamt of the Fallen, which was kinda weird, but as Ryver listened, he realised
the dreamer was replaying an unhappy history. This man had lost someone and the sadness weighed heavily on Ryver. He didn't recognise the voice though, so he moved on.
 

His heart leapt as he found someone awake, a woman voice, and he hoped it was Lena. It only took a few seconds of listening to realise it wasn't her. Lena liked to moan as much as the next woman, but Ryver severely doubted she'd be worried that there wouldn't be enough orange juice for breakfast; had to be a servant. Ryver moved on, pushing his mind to find the quieter voices.

He found her.

And wished he hadn't.

There were some things you didn't want to know about your friends and he desperately wanted to unhear this. Visions of Thorn filled his mind and,
oh Jesus fucking Christ
, was he
naked
? Ryver hissed, which sent Phoenix into a fit of what-the-fuck-is-going-ons.
 

Ryver cleared his throat. "It's nothing." At least he hoped it was nothing.

Thorn. He had to find Thorn. Thorn was awake too and judging by his thoughts, he needed to feed. Well at least that was pretty normal.

Ryver felt Thorn's need pulling at his own and he realised it had been weeks since he'd fed. He chalked it up on his mental to-do list and started to back away. That was until Thorn's mind expanded the vision. It wasn't just anyone Thorn wanted, it was a woman with long, flowing, black hair, her neck arched back just inches from his mouth. Thorn reared back, about to strike and the woman's face came into sharp focus.

"Holy Mother of Fae."

"Right that's it, Ryver. What the hell is going on?" Phoenix yelled as he wrenched Ryver away from the door by his shoulders.

Ryver felt his mouth flapping around as he tried to form the words. What could he say?
Lena and Thorn are doing it?
Yeah right. He was sure tattling on the King's love life was tantamount to treason, and even if it wasn't, Lena would find a way to string him up by his balls anyway.
 

"It's okay. They're okay." Ryver finally croaked.

"Doesn't sound like it, sunshine. Why do you look like you've been kicked in the bollocks?"

"Just shocked I could do it, I suppose," Ryver offered.

"Right."

"Right. Look, honestly, they're fine. Lena's pissed off and Thorn is just Thorn. They're stuck on the other side of that door, but they're both alive and well." His smile felt weak, even to him.

"Positive?" Phoenix asked dubiously.

Ryver nodded. "One hundred and ten percent." Ryver watched the other Guardian's shoulders relax as Phoenix puffed out a relieved breath.

"Right. That's all we need to know. We better get going before Kaden has a coronary."

He would have a fucking coronary if he knew what I know
.
 

Lena sat in the kitchen. Despite her assurances that she was fine, the servant on duty kept fussing around her, offering refreshment and asking if she would prefer to sit in the lounge. Lena didn't want either. She didn't know what she wanted, except to get out of the godforsaken place as soon as possible.

Her mind reeled. She'd just had the best sex of her life. And she felt awful.

The heat had finally been doused but she could still feel the resulting steam swirling within her. She thought back, trying to work out what the hell had happened. When she emerged from that bathroom she'd been desperate and some inner knowledge told her that Thorn was the only one who
could save her. That she had been so god-damned needy disgusted her, but Thorn had understood, as if he needed her just as much.
Hadn't he?
 

Afterwards though, he couldn't bear to look at her. His eyes were screwed shut, the line of his mouth set in a grim line and Lena's heart sank to her feet. She was pleased that she managed not to run from the room crying, but other than that she had little to be thankful for.

Oh God
, her stomach lurched; she felt sick. She held her head in her hands, her fingers stabbing through her once-again-wet hair.
Jesus
. She had sex with Thorn. It had been amazing, mind-blowing, more satisfying than anything that had gone before.
 

And it could never happen again.

Kaden woke up as an alarm pierced the silence. Blurry eyed, it took a while to work out where he was. He'd kind of got used to waking up in the medical centre but it seemed like things were back to their predictable normality.

Lifting his head from his desk and peeling a Biro lid off his cheek, his eyes zeroed in on the cause of the disturbance. The Command Centre was loaded with all sorts of equipment but the one making the racket was the one he'd been waiting for. The UV index monitor was having a party all by itself and that meant only one thing. It was dusk. And it was safe to go out.

Hauling himself out of his chair, he checked his weapons. Most of it had stayed strapped to his uniform, but he had put Megan and Katie to bed before he crashed out, so he made his way to the armoury before meeting Mercury and Ryver in the garage. Yes he named his guns. No, he didn't care.

He punched in his security code and waited for the armoury door to click free and the motion detectors to disengage. Once inside he entered another code into the keypad for his own locker and set about holstering his set of modified, Gen4 Glock 17s. The extra clips went into the back of his utility belt.

Locking up again, he made the way to the underground garage. Ryver's report still bothered him. The young Guardian had sworn on the lives of his unborn children that Lena and Thorn were fine and completely uninjured and most definitely not being held against their will. But Ryver still looked like a child who'd just been told their puppy got run over. Twice.

Kaden was even more bothered that he hadn't been able to get anything else out of Ryver. Ryver was useless when it came to keeping secrets but Kaden would bet his last blood box that the Guardian was hiding something.

Mercury nodded from the driver's seat of
Xena
as Kaden came into the garage. The engine was running and Ryver was in the back seat, concentrating hard on not meeting Kaden's glare.
I'll find out soon enough,
Kaden thought as Mercury slid the four-by-four into gear and they roared out of House Blackwood.
 

Thorn could see Larissa Bowman's mouth moving as they sat down for breakfast, but he had no idea what she was saying. The sun had set, he could feel it in his bones, but they were still stuck here. Apparently the fucking time-lock wouldn't disengage until an hour after dusk.

He smiled and nodded in what seemed like appropriate pauses in Larissa's monologue but Lena was all that occupied his thoughts. After his manly display of pure genius last night, he half expected that she would have found a way to dematerialise out of here and never see him again. She hadn't. And she was sitting right next to him.

Not that that mattered. She hadn't said a word to him, hadn't even made eye contact. He had no idea where she'd spent the day, but it hadn't been in their room and judging by the circles under her eyes, she hadn't got any sleep. Thorn hadn't slept either.

By the time the servant knocked on his door to announce breakfast, he thought he'd managed to get a handle on the inexplicable blood lust running bat-shit-crazy around his body. He was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Sweat beaded on his forehead as the fever raged within him. His hands felt clammy and his throat was drier than the Sahara.

"My Lord?" Larissa's voice penetrated the fog. "My Lord, are you quite well?"

Thorn raked his sweaty hand through his wayward hair as he tried to remember how his vocal chords were supposed to work. What came out when he tried was more of a croak than actual words so he tried again. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you." Even then it sounded like he'd invented a way to speak with a gob full of sandpaper. He decided not to try again.