Powerful Moves [L.U.S.T.] (Siren Publishing Classic) (20 page)

Such beauty belonged to him once, he seethed, as had the rose quartz flattered by beads of cherry quartz for love that created the fourth, final, and most important piece. All had been stolen from him by the one who had been meant to die.

Michael Delacroix. How could he not have known the bastard still lived? The connection between maker and subject rendered the ability to sense the presence, to feel when one was near. Yet, Regulus felt nothing.

“Tell me more about this agency of his.” Regulus spun on Armand, his fists closing more tightly around the ancient toggles still to be connected. They couldn’t be put together until the fourth piece was added, the piece currently in Michael’s possession. “LUST.” He spat the acronym in disgust. “What kind of name is that?”

“I know little of them, Master.” Armand leaned lazily against the stone fireplace in the tiny cabin. Neither man bothered to light a fire, as neither felt the true cold of the Alaskan wilderness. “They keep a low profile. Hell, Master, I didn’t even know the Delacroix brothers still lived.”

Regulus saw red as he stared at the wolf. He didn’t care for the ease Armand seemed to have gained in his presence. The feasting he allowed the wolf, the free reign he gave him at the museums, seemed to give Armand the impression he had nothing to fear from Regulus. The wolf couldn’t be more wrong. The wolf was quickly reaching the last of his usefulness.

“Someone knows of them,” Regulus spat. “Otherwise Tavius Zolan would not be working with them. How did they join forces?”

Armand lifted a shoulder. “Luck.”

Regulus closed the distance between himself and the wolf faster than Armand could blink. He fisted the wolf’s button-down shirt in his hand and lifted him several inches off the ground.

Armand’s eyes grew as fear mixed with Regulus’s powers hot enough to melt the ice outside the cabin. “Master, please, I am sorry.” His stammering soothed Regulus’s temper, bringing the vampire pleasure and satisfaction. “I meant nothing by that. I am as baffled as you. I don’t know how this Zolan guy hooked up with the LUST Agency.”

“You would be wise to mind your tongue when you are talking to me, wolf.” Regulus let his temper seep into his tone. He pushed at his powers, putting enough warning in his words to make a man’s skin crawl, human or wolf.

“If this guy who hunts you has joined with LUST, if he knows you are to meet with someone called The Whisperer, then they know you’re headed to me.”

Regulus shot a look over his shoulder at the new voice in the room. Tall and stocky, clad in a pressed three-piece suit and tie, the guy looked as far from the terrorist stereotype as a man could get. Regulus raked the man with a cold glare then gave him the back of his head as he set Armand back on his own feet with enough force to make the wolf stumble back a full step.

“You have kept me waiting, Whisperer.” Regulus hated to wait, though he had learned the benefits in the action after centuries of unrest. Sometimes the best things did come to those who showed patience. Not that he felt the need to make his lesson known to anyone but himself. “I do not care to be ignored.”

“Then we’re in agreement on that at least.” The Whisperer spoke articulately in a direct contrast with his thick Southern drawl. “You’ve kept me waiting quite some time as well. As they say in our realm, turnabout is fair play.”

“Business is not a matter to be played with.” Regulus turned and watched as the man he knew only as The Whisperer walked to the refrigerator and helped himself to a bottle of beer.

The Whisperer twisted the cap off the bottle and tipped it at Regulus. “Again, we find ourselves in agreement.”

“This LUST agency is after you?”

The Whisperer smiled around the lip of his beer bottle. “Everyone in this realm is after me.” He took a long pull from the bottle then smacked his lips as he lowered the beer. “This boy of yours, Zolan, I hear he’s keeping company with a blonde bitch most of all.”

Ah, yes, the angelic blonde. Regulus found his desire to experience the blonde growing in intensity. He hadn’t been so focused on his quest to collect the jewels that he failed to notice her strength, her determination and sheer wit. Such a beauty in possession of powers and brains would make a good conquest once he completed his other business.

“The bitch is my daughter, Elena,” The Whisperer said when Regulus didn’t reply.

Regulus lifted a brow, the only indication of his surprise he allowed to show.

“Something tells me she isn’t Daddy’s little girl working under cover,” Armand commented.

Regulus glanced at the wolf, whose eyes widened slightly, apology flooding them in an instant. He gave Armand an almost imperceptible nod and the wolf relaxed marginally.

The Whisperer gave a humorless laugh. “She’s supposed to be dead. The Delacroix brothers took her in when she was a baby, raised her rather than killed her as they should’ve done. Fucking bloodsucker and his fury twin,” The Whisperer muttered and took another swig from the bottle.

Regulus let the comment slide. His mind whirled with this new information and how he could use it to his advantage. “They care for her,” he said, more to himself than anyone else in the room.

“They sure seem to, though for the life of me I never could figure out why.”

Regulus ignored that comment, too, focusing instead on the new plan forming. “To kill her would cause them great pain. An eye for an eye perhaps?”

“I take it they killed someone you loved once.” The hint of amusement in The Whisperer’s tone sparked Regulus’s temper flame.

“They took everything from me for centuries.” When he felt the bite of silver digging into his palm, Regulus glanced down at the jewels he’d forgotten he still held. “It is past time they paid the price for that.”

“I’ll help you take them down.” The Whisperer tossed his now-empty bottle in the nearby trashcan. It landed with a loud thud that echoed through the small room. “I won’t jeopardize my organization to do it. I need those plans you brought me first. We’ll make the exchange, the payment for the plans.”

“You will help me or you will not get what I have for you.”

The Whisperer shook his head. Not an ounce of fear showed on the man’s stern face. “That wasn’t the deal.”

“Deals can change,” Regulus countered, “and ours just did.”

* * * *

The silence in the hospital room settled around Elena like a heavy blanket. She pushed to her feet, pacing the room at the foot of Cedric’s bed, her mind a conglomeration of too many thoughts to focus on one in particular.

“What is it that you will tell me when you’re ready?” Tavius kept his voice low as not to wake Cedric, who slept soundly in the hospital bed.

Elena glanced at her friend. He looked so much better than he had mere hours before. His healing powers coupled with the rest were doing the trick. He still had a long way to go though.

“Elena,” Tavius prompted when she didn’t answer.

She shook her head. “It isn’t important.” Damn Cedric for making any reference to her feelings for Tavius aloud. She couldn’t tell the man she’d fallen in love with him. Forget prophecies and big bad vampires and scary werewolves, Tavius could never know how she felt about him. Never.

“I find that hard to believe, muirnin, considering it sounded as though Cedric nearly gave his life to protect me. He can’t stand me, remember?”

“Apparently you’re wrong about that.”

“Naw, he isn’t wrong,” Cedric said in a groggy tone that sounded stronger with each word.

Elena hurried over to the bedside as he attempted to sit up. She put his pillow behind him as he settled back against the headboard.

Cedric looked at Tavius, his expression utterly serious. “I can’t stand you.”

“Cedric, don’t be such an ass,” Elena chastised him.

Cedric didn’t spare her a glance. “But I don’t have to like a man to admit when I can use his help. I need you to protect Elena.”

Tavius lifted a brow. “I would think you would figure yourself the best person for that particular job.”

“Sadly, I’m not this time. Le Mort is hooking up with The Whisperer. We all know who he is.” Now Cedric did look at Elena, apology and compassion swimming in his eyes. “The fucker is not only a bad father, but he’s a super bad tango.” He returned his attention to Tavius. “He’s solid proof that a human doesn’t need any kind of special talents to be especially dangerous and evil. You’re the only one in this realm who understands the plans Le Mort brought with him. You alone know what those weapons can do. I’m hoping, Gods help me, that you also know how to stop them.”

Tavius nodded. “To stop them, I have to find them, Le Mort, and The Whisperer. It pains me to say it, but that’s going to be harder now without you. You’re the tracker. Not me and or Elena.”

“Concentrate north.” Cedric’s expression grew thoughtful, his eyes taking on a faraway, clouded look Elena recognized. He was tapping into his power. She couldn’t help but wonder how much of it remained intact or how different it had become.

“Seattle?” Elena doubted Le Mort would linger anywhere near the museums if he didn’t have to. Then again, they still didn’t know the location of that fourth jewel either. The vampire had stolen three already. He wouldn’t stop until he completed the set.

Cedric shook his head. “No. Not Seattle, but not far from there. He’s still in the states, though I can’t get a read on where.” He sighed and shook his head again. “A northern state is the best I can tell you.”

* * * *

Elena tightened her grip on her cell as Gideon picked up the other end of the line. She didn’t bother to return his cheerful greeting but got right to the point of her call.

“I need you to help me find my father.” The words left a bitter taste in her mouth. Her father, or
fathers,
in her mind and heart at least, had always been Michael and Gideon.

Gideon’s sigh travelled the line like a rush of tornado wind. “The request every adoptive father expects at some time in his child’s life and yet dreads more than true death.”

“Hardy har.” Elena rolled her eyes even though she knew he couldn’t see and relayed the information Cedric had told her. “We don’t have a clue where the fourth jewel is being kept, but we’ve got to figure Le Mort has gone to The Whisperer now.”

“It would seem the next logical move.”

Elena wrinkled her forehead, listening to Gideon’s words and catching so much more that he didn’t say. Gideon wasn’t often so noncommittal. She wanted to ask what he knew that he wasn’t telling her. Instead, she played the “what if” game.

“Cedric said to concentrate on a northern state. If you were a vampire, what northern state would you choose?”

“I would think that would be pretty obvious, my lovely Elena.” Gideon did his best impression of Michael, all elegant speech and flowing tone.

Elena giggled. “Cut it out, Gideon. I’m serious here.”

“As am I, darling.” He swapped back to his normal speaking voice. “I wonder, my little horror-movie-loving friend, if you remember the delightful entertainment of
Thirty Days of Night
.”

Elena gasped as understanding hit her like a fist. “Alaska.”

“Ding, ding, ding, give the woman a prize,” Gideon said cheerfully.

Elena shook her head. “Sometimes you can sound so unbelievably gay.”

“Give me that honey you’re palling around with and I will show you just how gay I can be.”

“Tavius? Not on your life.”

“Elena.” The instantaneous seriousness in Gideon’s tone made her draw in a breath. “There’s something you should know before you go after Le Mort and your fa—The Whisperer. Michael left out a few things when you talked to him last.”

“What sort of things?” Icy fingers of fear danced up her spine. Michael didn’t keep many secrets from her, but when he did, he felt he had good reason.

Gideon heaved a heavy sigh. “Le Mort didn’t just kill Gilbert and Mica in Seattle. He tortured them, mind raped them. He knows Tavius is following him and knows you’re with Tavius.”

“He knew that before Seattle. He left Cedric alive as a warning to Tavius.”

“Yes, but he didn’t know Michael and I are still alive. He didn’t know about LUST. He didn’t know you or Cedric or Tavius or any of us were with the agency.”

“Are you saying he’ll come after you and Michael now?” The fingers of fear grew claws as they pierced her back and stabbed into her gut.

“He will in time, yes. He’s gone to The Whisperer. I still believe that. But he won’t leave this realm without confronting Michael.”

“Because he killed him,” Elena said softly. “He’ll want revenge for taking him out centuries ago.”

“He’ll want more than that.” Gideon hesitated for so long Elena felt the dread of his next words grow to an all-consuming force. “Elena, Michael has the fourth piece.”

* * * *

Tavius would give her five more minutes before he went looking for her. Elena had walked out of the hospital room nearly an hour before, leaving him with a once-again sleeping Cedric and a mind that wouldn’t stop. He should be out there chasing Le Mort, not lying on this terminally hard sofa, flicking through the channels on the television. The only hope he had of finding Le Mort this way would be to luck up with another special bulletin news report. Not that he’d understand the damned thing if he found one. Every blasted news station was in Portuguese.