Sophia (4 page)

It was a smallish room. Vampires rarely required more than a donor’s blood and a few hours rest, and only the youngest vampires or the most serious injuries demanded even that. But in the far corner, beneath the dim glow of a wall lamp, a young woman lay in a bed that seemed too big for her delicate frame. Her face was nearly as pale as the sheets she lay upon, the white bindings upon her legs and arms still soaked with her life’s blood.

“Jeremy.”

The vampire looked up at the sound of his Sire’s voice, his face a mask of grief, streaked with the dried blood of his tears. “My lord,” he said brokenly, falling to his knees. “It’s not enough. My blood . . . It’s not enough.” His voice cracked as he began to sob, great wracking sounds that tore at Raphael’s soul.

He went to the broken vampire, holding him as he would a child, his child, reborn as Vampire less than thirty years ago. Jeremy buried his face against his Sire’s hip and Raphael stroked his head in comfort, examining the woman, Mariane, as he did so. He noted the shallow rise and fall of her chest, the sluggish beat of her heart, which was barely managing to push the blood through her body. The flesh of her fingers was already pale and cold, as her body shut down her extremities in favor of saving what vital organs it could.

“It is not too late, Jeremy,” Raphael said for his vampire’s ears only. “Let me help her.”

Jeremy’s head came up, hope warring with possessiveness for a brief moment before he nodded. “I would beg you, my lord, if it would help her.”

Raphael shook his head chidingly. “You are my own, blood of my blood. And Mariane is yours.”

He gently disengaged from Jeremy and shrugged out of his suit jacket, letting the expensive garment fall heedlessly. He was aware of Cyn standing close behind him, aware of her hands catching the jacket as it fell, handing it off to someone else as he walked around to the opposite side of the bed. She followed, staying close by his side, and his heart wrenched at the thought of her lying in this sterile bed instead of poor Mariane.

Without pausing, he rolled up his sleeve and used his fangs to slice through the skin of his wrist and open a vein. Sitting on the bed and bending over the young woman, he placed his wrist over her mouth, letting the first few drops fall through her open lips. Jeremy hovered across from him, holding his mate’s hand, whispering in her ear of his love for her, encouraging her to drink, to live for him.

Mariane’s throat moved spasmodically, her body forcing her to swallow before the blood choked her. Something stirred behind her closed eyelids and she swallowed again, and then again, before her thin, pale hands came up to hold Raphael’s life-giving wrist to her mouth. She began to suck greedily at the bounty that was his blood—the blood of a vampire lord, more powerful than anything produced in centuries of human medical research.

She was suckling like a hungry child, and Jeremy’s avid gaze was fixed on the physical connection between his Sire and his mate. His stress over that contact was growing with every second. Vampires were possessive creatures, even one so new as Jeremy. Raphael pulled his wrist away carefully, letting Jeremy take the woman’s hands when she would have grabbed for more. She mewed unhappily at the loss, and Jeremy covered her lips with a kiss, licking the blood from her mouth and feeding it back to her as their tongues twined.

Duncan
handed Raphael a warm, wet towel to clean the blood from his arm. He remained seated on the bed, absently wiping the towel over his wrist as he watched Jeremy kiss Mariane’s hungry mouth. He handed the towel back to
Duncan
and held out his hand to Cyn. She came to him, placing her hand on his shoulder, dropping her cheek briefly to brush against his head.

“Jeremy.”

The other vampire looked up, his eyes wary, his fingers tightening anxiously on Mariane’s pale hands.

Raphael rolled down his shirt sleeve casually, the self-inflicted wound already healing. He stood, taking Cyn’s hand and pulling her into the circle of light. “My mate,” he said for Jeremy’s benefit. He lifted Cyn’s fingers to his lips. “Cynthia.”

Jeremy’s entire body relaxed at those words. If Raphael had a mate of his own, he could not be interested in stealing Mariane. Raphael understood. “She will be well, Jeremy. And if you need me further, I am here.”

As Raphael prepared to leave, Jeremy fell to his knees, taking his Sire’s hand and kissing it in gratitude. “My lord . . .” His voice broke with emotion. “Sire. Thank you.”

Raphael disengaged his hand lightly, resting it instead on Jeremy’s bent head. “You are my child,” he murmured. There was nothing else that needed saying.

He looked up and met his lieutenant’s eyes, letting a little bit of his anger show for the first time since arriving. “
Duncan
.”

“Yes, my lord.”
Duncan
turned and began hustling the gathered vampires from the room, murmuring orders via a throat mike to Juro and the others. Cynthia held out Raphael’s jacket, holding it as he slipped it over his arms and up onto his shoulders, her hands smoothing it across his back before he turned to face her. Unshed tears filled her eyes and he smiled. His Cyn wore a mask of toughness, a shield against a world that had shown her little love for most of her life. But there was a soft spot that only he could touch. He pulled her close, kissing her gently.

“
Lubimaya,”
he whispered.

Her warm fingers lingered on his jaw, then slipped behind his neck to tug him closer and press her forehead against his. “When do we go after the bastards who did this?” she murmured.

He pulled back to meet her fierce gaze with one of his own. “Very soon, my Cyn.” He urged her out of the room, his hand resting low on her back. “We will hunt them to the ends of the earth.”

Chapter Five

Raphael allowed Wei Chen to lead the way from the infirmary. He’d seen enough blueprints of this new compound that he didn’t need a guide, but this was the first time he’d been here since its completion. A visit had been planned for the near future, albeit under very different circumstances. Who could have foreseen the murder of two of his own, the attempted murder of a third and . . . His jaw tightened at what had been done to Mariane. She had been defenseless against them. She wasn’t a warrior, not like his Cyn. But he was all too aware that even Cyn could be overwhelmed when faced with that sort of brutality.

He pulled her closer with the slight pressure of his fingers. She obliged, but glanced up at him, questioning. He gave her a faint smile meant to be reassuring, although he knew it didn’t succeed. It would have been easier, he thought, if he’d fallen in love with a stupid woman, or at least one willing to ignore the more troublesome aspects of life. Cyn was none of those things. She was smart and intuitive, especially, it seemed, when it came to him, and her preferred method of dealing with trouble was to confront it head on. It was precisely those qualities that had drawn him to her in the first place—the first time they’d met, when she’d been smart enough to fear him, but too stubborn to give in to that fear.

He admired that about her. But it also terrified him when he thought about all the things in the world that could rip through that stubbornness and tear her apart. Like they had Mariane.

Their group moved into the gathering room of the compound’s main building, a spacious living space with high ceilings and a wall of glass granting a spectacular view down the hillside, across the city far below and on to the distant bay. It was early enough that the city was still full of light, but the ocean was a black, empty space, too remote for the tiny running lights from the boats anchored there to be seen.

The room was furnished casually, with leather couches and armchairs scattered about in an almost random pattern. Since only vampires lived here, the heavy furniture was moved about to suit whoever was using the room at any given time.

Taking Cyn with him, he made his way to a collection of several large armchairs positioned directly in front of the window, but facing inward. His security people spread throughout the room, with a couple stationed behind him, between his chair and the empty window. The windows were bulletproof, of course, and the possibility of an attack negligible within the compound, but it was a risk Juro would not be willing to take.

He sat down, nodding for Wei Chen and the others to sit with him.
Duncan
took up his usual station to his master’s left, while Cyn slouched on the wide arm of the chair to his right, leaning in to rest her arm on his near shoulder. She still wore her weapons, despite the fact they were now safely within not just the compound, but the building itself with its formidable security. She and Duncan had joined forces in urging him not to make this trip, saying it was too dangerous. What if it was a trap? What if the humans were killing his vampires one by one to lure in the biggest prize of all—not just a vampire, but a vampire lord? He forced back a growl at the memory of their arguments, all of which he’d rejected. He had to be here. These were
his
vampires who were dying.

“My lord.”

Raphael was jerked out of his thoughts by Wei Chen’s soft voice. He speared the nest leader with a fierce gaze. “I want details, Wei Chen. Everything you’ve discovered about these murders and who’s behind them.”

“Of course, my lord.” He gestured at a vampire sitting next to him. “Loren is our security—”

“I am aware of who Loren is,” Raphael interrupted coldly.

Wei Chen’s lips trembled slightly. “Forgive me, my lord. Would you prefer Loren to—”

“I don’t care who gives the report, as long as
someone
starts talking.”

The nest leader paled so badly that Raphael feared he would topple over where he sat. As a vampire, Wei Chen’s power was greater than any other vampire in the nest, although not nearly as strong as most of Raphael’s closest security staff. However, Wei Chen was not a fighter, which was why he lived here. The
Seattle
compound reflected its environs. This had never been a high risk area before the recent murders. The vampires here maintained a fairly low profile. They were mostly professionals, many of them computer experts of one sort or another—vampire geeks Cyn called them in private. Most worked exclusively via computer or phone, rarely if ever meeting in person with their clients and/or human counterparts. Wei Chen was a financial consultant, chosen to lead the compound because of his corporate mentality and a natural ability to manage others.

“Loren, perhaps you could give us the specific details of what has happened thus far,” Duncan, ever the diplomat, said, easing the tension which had been sucking the air out of the room.

Loren glanced at
Duncan
, then met Raphael’s gaze and gave a self-assured nod. He opened a folder on his lap and began speaking. “Sire, as you know there have been two previous attacks, three now, after this vicious assault on Jeremy’s mate. I think it probable that the target of this latest atrocity was, in fact, Jeremy himself, that—”

“It was.” They all looked up as Jeremy walked slowly into the room, his exhaustion obvious, but his face full of determination. “They tortured Mariane, trying to force her to reveal my location. She refused.”

“Jeremy,” Raphael acknowledged. “Your mate?”

“She is well, my lord, thanks to you. I bless whatever chance of fate brought you here this evening. A human doctor from your retinue is examining her—”

“Peter Saephan,” Raphael confirmed. “He is an excellent healer, and I have trusted him with the life of my own mate on more than one occasion.” He twisted his mouth in a wry smile, acknowledging to himself if to no one else, the reality that repeatedly drew Cyn into situations requiring Dr. Saephan’s skilled care.

“I will tell Mariane. Thank you, my lord.”

Raphael nodded a silent acknowledgment, but Jeremy lingered, his thin frame vibrating with the effort of maintaining his dignity in the face of tonight’s terrible trauma. He seemed to be warring with himself over some internal debate, until finally he approached Raphael and dropped to his knees.

“I was with her, my lord,” Jeremy whispered. “I was there.” His eyes, when they met Raphael’s, were full of guilt. “But I couldn’t reach her. I tried,” he said desperately, more to convince himself, Raphael thought, than anyone else.