Bad Cop (Entangled Covet) (17 page)

Sharp pain suddenly struck the center of her stomach, and she pulled into a ball.

Ian made a quick call from the phone on the nightstand. Then he cradled her in his lap. “Time to feed again.”

“Already?” she cried. “Oh, oh, oh. Is this what labor pains feel like?”

He chuckled. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in labor, turtle.”

She was curling up in pain, and all he could do was make jokes? She glowered at him and pushed at his chest. “Don’t touch me.”

“Yep. Pretty much like labor.” He pulled her back into his lap. “Stop fighting me. Here, you’ll feel better if I’m touching you.” She let him snuggle her against him, and as he rubbed her back, it really did make her feel better. The problem was every time his skin came near her face, she wanted to bite into it. It wasn’t exactly a scent, but something she sensed inside him by some other method. A part of her clamored to get to whatever it was.

After ages-worth of torment, a subjugate arrived and she fed. This time, the wakefulness didn’t overcome her after the man had gone, but a deep lethargy struck instead.

“Tired.”

Ian tucked her into bed and slid in next to her. “A good thing. It means you’re getting there, progressing. It’s the pull of the sun, and get used to it because it’ll be worse for you next sunrise.”

She couldn’t respond. Her tongue had become a useless appendage in her mouth, her limbs too heavy to move, and then her thoughts grew sluggish until finally darkness sucked her under.

Chapter Twenty-two

Ian caught the door before the knocking on it woke Alice from her rest. It was well into evening, but she needed the sleep after such a traumatic and eventful night. Once she’d fallen asleep, she hadn’t awoken. Too bad. He’d meant what he said about taking her all day long, but he’d never compromise her well-being by waking her to slake his desire. He turned to Dec who waited impatiently on the other side of the doorway.

“So you want to know who’s dead?” Dec asked.

Ian glanced back at Alice to make sure she was still sleeping. He’d risen, showered, and dressed without her moving an inch. Sweet thing would sleep through an apocalypse. Even so, he crept out the door and eased it shut behind him.

“Dead? Who?”

“Revenant.” Yet Dec didn’t seem thrilled about it.

“Who killed him? He wouldn’t have offed himself.”

Dec glanced down the hall. “You’d better come with me. Kade and Ezra are downstairs.”

“Why are they here?”

“Why do you think?” His friend shot him a look of warning. “Better have a good argument when you see them. They’re pissed at you.”

“Well they can fuck themselves.” Ian would be damned if he’d lie down for their reprimands. He’d done the only thing he could do in the situation. Kade had ordered such an action for Val not long ago when she’d been wounded. Of course, her wound hadn’t been fatal, and she’d refused the transformation.

“Better not put it in quite those terms.”

Ian stopped Dec at the top of the stairway and studied his friend a moment. “I’m so sick of this shit, Dec. When you split, I’m going with you.”

“What makes you so sure I’ll split?”

“Come on, now.” He shook his head. How foolish did Dec think he was? “I know where you’ve been going before the team meets in the evenings.”

Dec blew out a breath. “Fuck.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s our job to keep our ears to the ground.” He shrugged. “If anyone asks, that is.”

They headed down the steps to meet the
Dominorum
awaiting them. “Would you consider marrying me?” Dec asked.

“Make a great couple, wouldn’t we? But ask my left one.” He laughed. “In other words, no. I’m taken.”

Dec grunted. “Thought so. I’m not cut out for marriage anyway. I’m too cranky when I get up in the evenings.”

“Well, duh. The only time you’re not a pain in the hole is when you’re sleeping.”

When they arrived in the foyer, Ian was taken aback by his reception. Kade grabbed his wrist and pulled him into a one-armed man hug, and Ezra clapped him hard on the back.

“Good to see you moving around in one piece,” Kade said.

Ian shook his head. “I thought you’d be fuming.”

“I am, but not for the reasons you’re thinking.” Kade braced his hands on his hips. “The question is how to get you out of this mess.”

“Could always off Ander and Kenji,” Ezra said with an impish grin.

“Sure. I’ll get right on it.” Ian would be doing him a favor, more than likely. The pale
Dominus
shunned most of the older
Immortalis
. “What’s this crap about Revenant?”

Kade frowned. “Kenji claims to have caught and killed him before Revenant left the grounds last night.”

“Wait. What? Before he left?” Ian shook his head. “No way.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one, he was acting strange all nigh—”

“What do you mean strange?” Ezra asked with suddenly hawkish attention.

Ian’s eyebrows rose. “Like the wheel was turning but the hamster was dead. That kind of strange.”

After a brief pause while he communed telepathically with Ezra, Kade turned to Ian. “All right, what else?”

“He didn’t go after Revenant. He stayed here and turned Alice, and then he went upstairs. Not long after, he returned and made some remarks about Alice’s adjuvant ability.”

“She’s an adjuvant?” Kade asked.

Dec answered this time. “A spectral, if you can believe it.”

“Fuck me.” Kade whistled, long and loud. “I’m jealous.”

Ian laughed. “Apparently, so was Kenji. Little bastard practically turned green.”

“The point is,” Dec said, “there’s no way Rev wasn’t already off the property by then. He had to have returned later. The question is why would he do that when he knew we would be here?”

“Ander had to have been sheltering him as the informant stated,” Ian said.

“He swears he had no knowledge of Revenant’s activities or location. Also claims no knowledge of the Slavers.” Dec’s bullshit meter was going off. Ian always recognized that face. “It’s impossible to get a read off that guy, but I believe him when he says he wasn’t harboring Rev. It’s Kenji I’m suspicious about after his absurd claim about Rev. I need to get a look at the rest of the surveillance video.” Without awaiting direction, Dec headed to the side door that would lead him to the security room.

“At least one problem’s solved. Graham’s home free on that opening with the Trackers.” Ian glanced between the two markedly unhappy
Dominorum
.

Kade wasn’t impressed with the notion. “Not only do I not give a shit about the douchebag, but I now have a bigger problem to worry over.”

“Izel won’t let me die.”

“You think so? I wouldn’t bet my life on that, friend. She’s got plenty of
Immortalis
breathing down her neck, too.” Kade paced, his head bent while lost in thought. He stopped abruptly. “I can’t step in for you, Ian.”

“I know. I’d never ask you to.”

The
Immortalis
prince sent him a rare, pained look. “I want to. I have the authority, but not the freedom. This is killing me.”

“I love her, Kade. I might not have done it otherwise.”

“What you love is getting into hot water over people you care about.” Kade nodded. “But I get it. These days, I sure as hell get it.”

Ian’s mind slammed the brakes and hit rewind a time or two.
He knew
. Kade knew what had happened all those years ago with Hes. Yet he’d done nothing. How many others had known or at least suspected what Ian had done? There had never been an investigation into the fire taking Hes’s life. If they hadn’t taken any action, they had to believe Hes had been guilty, despite the man’s ability to weasel out of the murder charges.

“Ptolomy will have to approve her transformation,” Ezra said. “That won’t be a problem. After you’re executed, I’ll take very good personal care of the little sprite for you.”

Ian growled. “You put one flirty finger on her, and I’ll—”

“Easy now, tiger.” Ezra laughed. “Now you’re almost as easy to rile as Dec.”

“Arsewise, you are. Complete arsewise.”

“And what fun would I be if I weren’t?”

Dec entered in a replay of his jog and slide from the day before. “It was Kenji working with Revenant. Caught him on video.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Ezra said. “Good work. Now let’s find the dead-hamster-for-brains.”

Kade and Ezra took the mansion while Ian and Dec searched the grounds and outbuildings, but when they met again an hour later in the foyer, no one had caught any sign of Kenji. None of the subjugates had noticed the
Dominus
leave the grounds.

“Now what? Time to hunt?” Dec wore an unusually eager expression. He knew his friend liked to indulge in a bit of justified violence, but Ian had the impression something bad was building up to epic proportions in Dec.

“I need to have a conversation with Ander, one he’s had coming for a long while.” Kade rubbed his hands on his jeans as if he’d touched something dirty. He likely felt dirty after speaking those words. No one in their right gourd enjoyed any sort of talk with Ander. “Ian, you wait for Kenji to come back since you have Alice here. He might have left to find a different sort of donor.”

Not one of them questioned what he meant by that. There were the subjugate donors and there were the respectable services and then there were the groupie donors, and that was putting it nicely.

“The rest of you can check his usual haunts while I catch Ander out in public where he can’t weasel out of this conversation we’re going to have.”

Ian would almost pay his left kidney to witness that event. Ander had been a pain in the Legion’s backside for at least two centuries, and he’d love to see someone like Kade take him down a few notches. It wasn’t worth leaving Alice, however. She should be about ready to feed.

Once he’d parted with his team, he took the stairs three at a time and then swung the door open wide.

“Time to rise and shine, turtle.”

His gaze hit the empty bed. Well, crap. He’d had a plan in mind to wake her, but catching her nekkid in the shower would do just as well. With a grin, he nudged the bathroom door open, but the room was empty.

Utter panic struck his gut. A hungry, newly turned roaming the halls unguarded was a derangement waiting to happen.

“Alice!”

He ran down the hall, shoving open every door along the way and surprising more than a few subjugates.

“Alice!” he roared. He raced down the stairway. The team had left already so he grabbed a few subjugates who’d been cleaning and sent them on a search mission. Hell and damnation. If she’d left the estate, he’d have little time to track her before she ended someone and got herself into a world of hurt like she’d never known.

After another half hour of fruitless searching, he reached a point of critical horror. She was going to give him a heart attack. If they were mated, this would’ve been a simple matter of reaching out telepathically. Her shiny newness made that impossible without that bond, and he had no way of knowing how far she’d gotten away from the estate.

He scoured the edges of the grounds for signs of her passing. Fuck. There’d been far too much foot traffic during their search for Kenji. Rounding the corner of the transformation facility, he nearly ran right into her. He tipped his head back and took several long, deep breaths before he said anything. “You took three centuries off my life. Where’ve you been?”

Giving her a once-over, he checked for blood. Just in case. Physically she seemed fine. It was her behavior that had the alarms going off. Swiveling around in a foggy daze, she hadn’t said a word.

“What happened? Why’d you leave the bedroom?”

Finally, she looked at him. “Ian?”

“What’s wrong, turtle?” He reached for her arms, and then he nearly did have a heart attack. His hands passed through her. “Holy fuck.”

She was casting. So if she wasn’t here physically, where the hell was she?

“Talk to me. Where are you?”

Her spectral self lost color until she appeared white. “I don’t know. It’s too dark, and I can’t see. It smells dusty.”

“Are you hurt?”

“My head…” Her ghostly version reached for the crown of her head. “I think someone hit me.” Her eyes widened. “Someone took me, Ian. I can’t move, and it’s getting harder to—”

Her form flickered and then dissipated only to reform.

“I can’t hold this much longer, and I’m seeing double vision but with two completely different images. It’s messing with my mind.”

His pulse leaped into a gallop. “Tell me everything you can possibly see, hear, smell, or feel. Give me something, Alice. Anything.”

“God, I can’t… Wait, there’s an echo. Water dripping.” She closed her eyes. “My wrists are tied behind me, and I’m on a cold, hard floor like concrete. I hear a horn, distant but there. Not a car. A foghorn maybe?”

An explosive mix of rage and distress rolled his gut into a nauseated knot. Swallowing past the despair crushing his esophagus, he drove his hands into his hair and gripped tight against losing his shit. She could have described a thousand sites around the marinas and harbors along the waterfront, and any of them could have been reached in the time he’d conferred with his teammates. He needed a fucking miracle.

Alice cried out as she began to fade again. She reached for him, and even knowing he couldn’t touch her, he held his arms out to her. The mist of her passed through him. For that one second, he was there with her in the cold darkness, and then she was gone.

Chapter Twenty-three

With her head pounding a tribal rhythm, Alice returned fully to her physical presence. Her heart ached more painfully than her head. If she were to die tonight, she would have given anything to feel Ian’s arms around her one last time, if only for a moment. God, she hadn’t even buried Zach yet. There was so much left for her to finish and so much life ahead to experience.

It took a supreme effort, but she finally coaxed her head off the floor. It was so damned dark, but then her vision sharpened as if at will. Wow. Turning
Immortalis
had its benefits. That knowledge slammed the fight right back into her. She’d never been one to accept the hopeless-victim role easily. At one point, she’d taken down a mugger with a well-placed knee and her trusty pepper spray. Her eyes had stung for hours afterward, but the price had been worth watching the sleazebag cry like a baby.

She couldn’t lie there helplessly and mourn her own death before it happened. A survey of her surroundings revealed an enormous, mostly bare room, somewhere industrial and abandoned from the looks of it.
Sometimes
abandoned. The detritus of the homeless and the degenerate littered the floor in a scattered mass of broken furniture, old clothing, and meager bedding. The windows were small, cracked, and filthy and the walls sparsely covered in the worst excuse for graffiti she’d ever seen. And she’d seen train cars pass with pretty bad examples of what should have been urban artwork.

Hunger pangs of evil proportions radiated through her, and she would kill—
literally kill
—for a donor. Never mind her uninhibited disgust at the thought of consuming blood. Her fangs wouldn’t retract, and they felt strange in her mouth, like something foreign had possessed her.

Jerking at her bonds, she explored what she could of them with her fingers. Chains. How the hell was she supposed to get out of those? A few hard, exhausting pulls later, she quit. There was no getting out of them. Being such a new vampire, her strength was at near-human level. She wasn’t sure an older vampire could break out of them.

At least her legs were free. She pushed herself upright, joints aching with the exertion. No doubt her hunger was partly to blame for her weakness. Standing and getting her legs to propel her the hell out of there—that would be the ultimate challenge.

“Awake at last?” A male’s voice came from behind her without warning, sending her heartbeat into momentary arrhythmia. When he stepped in front of her, and she recognized Kenji, her surprise shot through the roof. Too bad she was wrong about her ultimate challenge. He was it.

“Vampire got your tongue?” His laugh came out much more like a purr. “Make yourself comfortable. It won’t be long before we’re ready for you.”

“Who else is here?” It took some effort to get words past her fangs. She cleared the froggy rasp from her throat and tried again. “What do you have planned for me?”

“It’s not a Legion’s place to question.” Kenji’s arrogant sneer needed a good sandblasting. A woman in what could only be called an exotic dancer’s version of a catsuit sauntered in behind Kenji. If Alice knew of another word that went beyond surprised, she would have used it to describe her reaction when she recognized the woman. The burn scar on her face made her impossible not to recognize, though Alice had only seen her once before.

“Done already?” Kenji asked the woman.

“Close.” Otsana stretched her back. “I liked it better when Rev was around to do the dirty work. I’m not used to bending over so long.”

Kenji giggled, and Otsana acted as if she could slay him where he stood.

“I hate it when you get this bad. It’s been too long since you’ve partaken.” An accusation saturated her statement, and Kenji caught on to it.

“It’s not my fault Revenant screwed up the last one before we were ready.”

The
Domina
eyed Kenji with unadulterated contempt. “He didn’t screw up, you child. He was greedy and didn’t want to share with you anymore.”

“But I was taking care of him,” Kenji whined. “I supplied him and sheltered him.”

She tossed her head in a rather dramatic manner. “Fool.”

Alice couldn’t believe her eyes, much less what she was hearing. They were flipping nuts. Gone. Completely over the cuckoo’s nest by a hundred miles. Otsana was channeling an empress version of Imelda Marcos while Kenji had regressed to diaperhood.

“What does this have to do with Ander, and how did you manage alibies?” Alice asked.

“Silence, Legion.” Otsana didn’t look her way as she fiddled with her nails. “The wax,” she murmured under her breath. “Can never keep the wax from getting under my fingernails.”

Okaaaaay
. No answers to be had from the pair of wingnuts. All she knew was incredible luck had come into play in her case. If the process had gone as the other murders, she should have been dead by now.

“But I’m
Immortalis Legio
. I thought you only took
Dominorum
.” Alice directed the question at Kenji, the weak link of the two. He only laughed.

Otsana laughed along with him. “Why would
Dominorum
kill other
Dominorum
? Certainly a Legion had to have done it. Silly rabbit.”

Of course. Revenant was the scapegoat, but how did Ander fit? He could have been the backup plan. Unless he was part of it, too, which was still entirely possible.

“I get first dibs on her ability.”

Otsana screeched. “No, you don’t.”

“I turned her.”

“With that argument, I’d never get any since I’m not an adjuvant.” She actually stomped her foot like an overly pampered princess.

Good God, was that why Alice was still alive? They’d taken her because she was an adjuvant. For once in her life, she would have welcomed the short end of the stick. If having the spectral ability brought her into this nightmare, she would gladly do without it.

“Besides,” Otsana said, “if it weren’t for me, Revenant wouldn’t have shown up at Ander’s, and you couldn’t have made her in the first place.”

“You nearly got us caught the first night.”

Otsana flicked her fingers in an airy brush-off. “I took care of that bum, and I didn’t even have to kill him. You know how good I am with compulsion.”

Alice felt sick to her stomach. All this time, she’d harbored doubts about Ian’s involvement but he’d been truthful to her that time. Otsana’s twisted actions had been what she’d held against him, whether she’d condemned him openly or not.
Never again.
Nothing could stand between them anymore. If she made it out of there alive.

She could hope for Ian to come, but that would be idiotic. He had no way of knowing where she was. No one could save her but herself. The chains would be loud. That was the biggest problem, but the wingnuts made enough noise to wake the deaf.

The bickering pair headed toward an opening on the far side of the room. Candlelight flickered in the darkness beyond, and it gave her the shudders. She’d seen all too graphically what they intended to do with her. Before they reached the doorway, Kenji bent to grab something from a bag on the floor. A large, black-bound book. The journal? That would explain why the pompous
Dominorum
would even work with a Legion to begin with. It hadn’t fit well that they’d include Revenant in any of their plans.

Their voices faded as they disappeared into the other room, and Alice wasted no time to get free or die trying. Once again, the memory of a blade slicing her made her throat go tight and dry and her breath grow choppy and shallow. God, she couldn’t have a panic attack here. It would only hinder her escape.

Taking up the slack in the chain, she heard a few
clinks
, but otherwise she’d kept quiet. When she pushed to her feet, a teensy wobble nearly brought her down, but she locked her knees.

The windows in the room were merely cracked, not broken. Any attempt to break one would draw the sharks back into the room. She found where Kenji had come from earlier, another door on the other side of the room. There had to be an exit out that way somewhere.

Creeping toward it, she was within ten steps of freedom when a sharp yank of her hair stopped her in her tracks. Kenji jerked her back and then a short pipe crashed down.