Promises (Blood Brothers #1) (13 page)

“Who are you?” she whispered, trying to reach for him as if somehow drawn to the safety that lay within the blue orbs she had seen in the shadowy veil. “Please, save her! Don’t let them…” Jollie didn’t finish her plea as the blackness began to suck her under once again.

“No!” she tried to scream, but it was barely a whisper.

Rafe came awake with a start, sweat covering his massive frame and naked body under the light sheet. Running his hands over his face, he pushed the last remnants of the dream back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. A quick glance said it was barely 4:30 in the morning but he knew sleep was an absent bitch now that he was fully awake. It was time to start his day and make sure Jollie Sanchez was recovering instead of allowing others to do it for him. Otherwise, he would never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to her.

Chapter 18

Chayle’s eyes moved rapidly as the nightmare pushed at her senses. The room was quiet except for the heavy breathing of the prisoner she saw strapped to the chair in the center of the room. She could see that Rafael’s eyes were closed, his search for the neural pathways that would lead him to the prisoner’s thoughts a dark, winding path within a virtual twisted mind of a madman who had somehow taken possession of another soul. His goal - to find the one they called “The Master.”

Kayne wouldn’t talk about the Intel recovered from the information his Team had recovered after the destruction of the cabin where they had found Jollie Sanchez and Chayle. It had shown that this madman was the mastermind behind the kidnappings and she could somehow sense Rafe’s determination to find the fucker right now. This degenerate had come onto their home, had trespassed after they had promised she would be safe on the compound. She could tell her mate’s twin was determined to uncover how deeply this attack went and how far reaching it stretched into the compound. Somehow she was able to connect with Rafe in her dreams, and it was as if she could hear Rafe’s thoughts, feel his anger.

The madman had reached was in Rafe’s territory now. The East Texas compound was home. It was where Rafe and Kayne brought their men after the military wanted to use them for more than “God and country.” Experimented on to create the perfect Super Solider, their basic genetic codes were tampered with to the point it wasn’t known what would happen to them as they aged much less if they produced offspring. And now a monster was sending someone to try to take his twin’s mate from him.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

“Your so called “Master” tried to take someone who was beyond replacement. Now you invaded my home, tried to take her from my brother again.” Rafe’s eyes were closed, forcing control over the fury that seethed just below the surface, not just for Kayne, but for all those they had failed. He knew under his lids the color changed from the cerulean blue to swirling silver as he concentrated on finding the unseen pathways, his powers intensified. “Not only have you failed but your Master will never have his hands on her again.”

Groans from the prisoner filled the room as he continued to mentally push into the man’s thought patterns, looking for anything that could point Rafe and his team to where the monster lived. Too many young men and women had disappeared over the last couple of years to allow this opportunity to escape.

Rafe mentally watched the invisible pathways slowly unfurl as if they were being peeled away by a knife. Slowly and painfully, each layer stripped away and were laid bare in his mind’s eye. Finally, he finally reached a virtual cavern in the prisoner’s mind. An immense black wall stood between him and the information identifying where this deviant came from. Pushing even harder, sweat beaded his forehead as he continued to search for an opening past the blackness ahead. Rafe could
feel
a breach if only he could just get close enough to open a doorway. He caught one brief glimpse of a female figure in the man’s mind, slender, young, with dark reddish brown hair streaming down her naked back as she hunched over herself in a corner. His breath hitched as recognition slapped him, causing an ache to begin to form where his heart should be located.

Jollie appeared even younger than she was now. So young and innocent, her dark eyes streaming with tears, her arms wrapped around her naked chest against prying eyes. He could see each vertebra in her spine, reminding him of how malnourished she had been when they had rescued her from the same cabin where they had found Chayle. His fury and determination almost drowned him as he forced his feelings down into that area where he could control them once again, otherwise he was of no use to anyone. He had to continue to dig through the sludge of blackness in the man’s subconscious to locate the information he needed or she would never be safe again. Suddenly, the prisoner began screaming, pulling on the bindings securing him to the chair.

“No, please not that! No more!” His screams became inhuman, begging, and pleading, tears streaming down his face as he stared into space.

Rafe knew it wasn’t from his probing. The blackness within the man’s mind began to throb as if it were a living being. He was unaware of the audience gathered behind the viewing windows of the interrogation room as he continued his mental push past the black barrier. He was convinced it held the location necessary to stop this madness. He focused on the man before him, twisting so hard he threatened to wrench his shoulders out of their very sockets as he begged for them to stop what they were doing. He knew they had to be close, he could feel Merc’s essence standing close by him and gently pushing the boundaries next to him as he tried to sidestep the blackness in the screaming man’s mind.

Suddenly, the prisoner abruptly stopped screaming and the room was eerily quiet. The man’s eyes went huge as he stared into nothingness beyond where Rafe and Mercury stood in the room, his mouth hanging open in nightmarish horror only he could see.

Rafe was suddenly, mentally shoved out of the man’s mind as a splash of red exploded out from the blackness. Screaming for Merc to back out, Rafe grabbed the man’s shadowed shoulders before shaking his head, realizing he was now in the physical world instead of the shadowed one of the prisoner’s mind. He reached the prisoner’s side and stared down into unseeing eyes, taking in his catatonic state. There was a huge sigh from the tied man and then the prisoner’s body jerked once, his eyes closing. Two fingers’ to his neck confirmed the prisoner was dead.

Chayle’s dream morphed and the room became silent except for Merc’s rapid breathing next to Rafe on the floor. It dawned on her that Merc must have physically thrown Rafe onto the floor. Looking down, a nod from Merc eased his mind but not his soul. They had lost their chances of finding the mastermind, again.

“Shit,” Rafe growled, releasing the dead man’s shoulders.

“What happened? We didn’t go that deep. I couldn’t get past the black glob we encountered, and I know you didn’t!” Merc raked his large hand though midnight black hair cut almost to military regulations as he pulled himself up from the floor with a groan.

Chayle’s soft gasp finally drew his attention to the others standing inside the doorway of the room. Gabriel was forcibly holding Chayle from entering the room, her gasp reminding him that his eyes probably hadn’t changed back as yet. Closing them, Rafe forced himself to calm down so the swirling mass of blue-silver would recede back to their normal cobalt blue. Kayne would surely give him hell now because there was no way Chayle would let it go.

“I’m sorry, little one. He was more afraid of his Master than of dying,” Rafe’s raspy voice echoed in the quiet room and he wished he could give his twin’s mate more than just a dead body.

She finally shook off the guard’s hand, rushing into the room but skirted around the body of the man in the chair, to put Rafe between her and the man in the chair. It was reassuring that she felt comfortable with him even if Kayne wasn’t there.

“I was worried about you, dumbass!” she whispered, slugging his muscular arm.

“Why are you here?” he growled, looking over his shoulder at Gabe. Distraction usually worked, right?

It seemed Chayle had no qualms about assaulting the two largest men in her life, which she felt she could reprimand as she saw fit. Rafe had tried to explain to Kayne that he needed to train his little mate a little. Kayne had just laughed, stating that would never happen.

She was sure Rafe still couldn’t understand how his twin could allow this small woman to dictate to him, but that was between the two of them. Rafe’s purpose in life was to protect Chayle, and now Jollie, with whatever resources he had available because it seemed this monster had a hard-on for both of them that he was not going to let go of, no matter what.

He watched Chayle move to stand silently nearby as others came in to remove the body, refusing to look away or show any weakness. Rafe was amazed at the strength in his twin’s mate. Kayne was such a lucky man.

“Brother, what’s going on? Where is Chayle?”

“Relax, she is with me in the training center There was an… attempt.”
Silence met Rafe’s answer and suddenly the training center doors flew open.

Kayne raced into the training facility just as their team doctor was loading the prisoner’s body onto a gurney and had already covered it with a sheet. Chayle had moved to the corner, her face white and hands shoved between her knees.

“What the hell happened?” Kayne growled, rushing over to pull Chayle into his arms and rub her back as he wrapped his huge arms around her.

“The guy under the sheet tried to grab me,” Chayle whispered. When Kayne started growling, she slapped a hand on Kayne’s chest. “Stop with the growly shit. He’s dead, ok?”

“How?” He looked to his brother and Mercury, but both kept quiet.

“Oh for pete’s sake. I watched the whole thing. Don’t you think I figured it out yet that you guys are not entirely normal like the rest of us mere mortals?” she growled herself this time, pointing at Rafe. “Tell the big guy here before he kills the creep again just for the hell of it.”

“I like her,” Gabriel commented from his position against the wall. He hadn’t moved ten feet from Chayle until Kayne’s arrival, so Chayle was surprised to see him so far across the room.

“Mine,” Kayne growled playfully at Gabe, his arm tightening around Chayle. At least she thought it was playful.

“Stop it!” she slapped his chest again. “Concentrate, will you?”

Kayne looked down at her in shock. She had slapped at his chest twice since he had entered the room, in front of his brother and men. He heard Gabriel laughing against the wall and wanted to go put some serious hurt on the junior team member but he couldn’t do that as long as Chayle was here. It seemed she liked the man and Kayne was not having any of that! Taking a deep breath he looked around the room.

“Someone, anyone other than Chayle, had better tell me what happened here. Now!”

His order echoed in the room for several heartbeats before Rafe finally recounted what had happened, in complete detail. Chayle just stood there, nodding her head the entire time, or pointing in agreement as if she knew exactly what Rafe was talking about. Which, once his brother got to the end, Kayne realized she had watched the entire thing.

“Are you telling me that you saw this interrogation?” He calmly asked Chayle.

“Well of course I did. He came after me, so why wouldn’t I watch it?” Kayne realized she was perfectly serious and convinced that there was no earthly reason whatsoever why someone should have not allowed her in the viewing room. He could feel his blood pressure rising as she talked. There was a funny buzzing that filled the air, as if silent bees were lighting up the airways, and Kayne was looking at Gabriel as if he was now hamburger meat instead of two hundred and thirty pounds of huge male. The other men in the room had huge grins on their faces, and it seemed that there was something entirely too funny that no one was sharing.

“Kayne, you cannot kill Gabriel.” Rafe said it very calmly and carefully, like it was every day he told his twin something like this. “We need him in the Security Facility.”

“Why in the world would you want to hurt Gabriel?” Chayle asked, moving away from Kayne, looking up at him. She noticed instantly that his eyes were a dark, stormy blue-grey, neck muscles were bulging.

“Gabriel can take care of himself,” was all Kayne said as he took off out the side door. It was at that point Chayle realized Gabriel was no longer in the room with them, and Rafe was shaking his head. “Rafe?”

“I’ve got her, brother,” he answered on a grin, as Kayne exited the training center on a sprint.

“Why is Kayne angry at Gabriel and why is he chasing him? He saved me from that man. He shouldn’t hurt him.” She started to go after the men and Rafe grabbed her around the waist, barely holding her as Chayle began to kick trying to get loose.

“Kayne won’t hurt him - much. He’s just mad because Gabriel didn’t get you out of the viewing room and allowed you to stay through the interrogation.” Rafe laughed as he struggled to hold her in place as she tried to follow them.

“He didn’t have a choice, dumbass. I made him take me in there and I wouldn’t leave.” She screamed, trying to stomp on Rafe’s foot.

Rafe took her back to the chair she had been sitting in. He dumped her in it and forced her to sit in it, standing in front of it so she could not move. When she caught her breath, Chayle looked up to see a faint smile on those lips so much like his twin’s.

“What?” she growled.

“You will give my brother a run, but he so deserves you.” Rafe grinned down at her, watching her fuming eyes glare up at him. “Come on, let’s get you back up to the house before it gets too dark. The men are sweeping all of the grounds and check points. Kayne should be back within the hour.”

Rafe took her hand and guided Chayle back into the house Something smelled good coming as they entered the kitchen and she realized just how hungry she was now. The kitchen was bright and filled with people as preparations were being made for supper. An older lady worked at the double stove stirring a couple of large pots. She remembered Kayne introducing her once before, but it took a minute to remember her name. She had two large pots on the stove. One looked to have pasta and the other a wonderful smelling sauce.