Renegade (Ministry of Paranormal Research & Defence) (24 page)

“
Well, we've gone up in the world again. We're at this nice hotel.”

“
Is everyone okay?” I asked.

“
Well, our Master and Commander hasn't shown up yet but you know what he's like. It's just a matter of time.”

My heart sank. Jack wasn't with them? I understood Anna's reluctance to talk openly. I had no idea how secure mobile phone conversations were but it was best to be cautious. I chewed on my bottom lip for a few seconds.

“I'll come to you,” I said. “We can wait for him together.”

“
Okay, sounds good.”

After Anna told me how to get to the hotel I hung up. I turned the corner to find everyone waiting for me.

“Good news,” I said. “I got in touch with my friends. They're at a hotel.”

“
I'm sensing a 'but'?” said Kyle.

“
Jack's not with them,” I said. “Apparently they got split up and he hasn't reached the rendezvous point.”

“
You worried?” asked Aiden.

“
About Jack?” I asked. “Not hardly. I'd be worried about any vamps in the area but not him.”

That wasn't entirely truthful. I was worried about Jack.
Something
must have prevented him from making the rendezvous.

“
That hotel's in Jones County,” said Natasha. “It's outside our jurisdiction.”

“
And?” said Aiden.

“
And nothing,” she replied. “I was just pointing it out.”

“
It's okay,” I said. “You've been great. You don't need to come with me.”

“
No way,” said Natasha. “You've been given pack protection. We stick with you until you're safe.”

“
You don't have to,” I objected.

“
Look,” said Kyle. “You're not going to win this argument so you might as well just give up now and save your dignity.”

“
But I couldn't put you in any more danger—”

“
But you didn't,” Kyle pointed out. “The vampires did.”

I let out a sigh.

“Okay,” I said. “But only until I get to my team, okay?”

“
No,” said Kyle. “Pack protection means until you voluntarily leave pack territory and are welcome in another pack's territory. There's no pack out that way so you're still our responsibility.”

Kyle's response was smart. He'd made it a matter of responsibility and not risk. He reminded me of Liam at that point. Still, I had one last go.

“You're not a pack member, Kyle,” I reminded him.

“
No, he's not, but I am,” said Aiden. “And lacking the presence of your mate or any member of your pack, as eldest pack male here I'm making the decision. No more discussion on the subject.”

I felt my jaw drop in shock. I closed it and gave him a scowl.

“Your pack still practices that medieval bullshit?” I asked incredulously.

He suddenly gave me a sheepish smile.

“No,” he replied. “But I was hoping that your pack did, though.”

I threw my hands up in the air and growled, exasperated. Men!

“Okay! Fine. You win. I'll put my new friends in harm's way so they can protect me when I don't need protecting.”

“
If you don't need protecting we won't be in harm's way, will we?” said Natasha with a smile.

“
You know what I meant ,” I replied sourly.

We all got back in the vehicles and got back on the road. The journey to the hotel didn't take all that long. It was slightly annoying that we'd been so close all this time. As we pulled into the car park Aiden suddenly braked his truck and pulled into a parking spot near the rear of the lot. Kyle pulled in next to his truck as he was winding his window down.

“We may have a problem,” he said quietly. “Up near the entrance.”

I took a look. Next to a fine-looking limousine was a pair of white cars, powerful-looking. At first I thought they were police cars until I saw the writing down the side said 'KnightStar Security'.

“KnightStar is a vampire company,” said Aiden. “Run by vampires for vampires.”

A man in an odd red and black camouflage outfit came out of the hotel and opened the boot of the limo.

“Should we bail?” asked Kyle.

“
No, we've come too far,” I replied. “Besides, I don't think these will be any problem for us. Wait here, okay?”

I opened the door and stepped out.

“Marie?” hissed Aiden. “Where are you going?”

I waved him off and jogged across the car park towards the man. I sped up to a run. He must have heard me coming because he turned around and a shocked look came across his face. I threw myself at him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and gave him a fierce hug.

There may have been quite some distance between us when we first saw him but Jason was one of my childhood friends and I'd recognize him from a mile off.

“
Marie!” he said happily. “Good to see you again.”

“
I hope that uniform and those cars are just a cover.”

“
Of course they are,” he said with his usual goofy grin.

I stepped back to look at him, still amazed to see him here.

“How did Jack persuade you to join up? And where did all of this KnightStar gear come from?”

“
Well, it was Liam who wanted me to come,” he said. “He told Jack I might be useful dealing with the local wolves.”

“
Naah, that was no problem,” I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder towards the Mustang and the truck, and my new friends who were cautiously climbing out of them. “They've been nothing but friendly to me.”

Jason grinned as he shook hands all around and the introductions were made.

“Jack make it back yet?” I asked.

“
No,” said Jason, suddenly serious. “But Loki and Steph went to see if he made it to the third rendezvous.”

“
Well, I'm glad to hear that. That was nice of Loki and Steph. Good old Loki and Steph. Jason?”

“
Yeah?”

“
Who are Loki and Steph?”

He laughed.

“I guess you do have some catching up to do. Come inside and we'll explain.”

The team had set themselves up in a group of rooms on the third floor of the hotel.

“So if you were supposed to liaise with the local wolves,” I asked Jason as we rode up in the lift, “how come you haven't yet?”

“
Well, that was our next step, actually,” he replied. “Once we learned you'd escaped from the vamps we were just getting ready to contact as many packs as we could find.”

“
Well that explains that,” I said.

“
And then you called and made it all irrelevant,” he finished as the doors slid open.

The corridor was bewildering. The carpet had a design featuring interlocking stripes in brown on a dark brown background. The walls were a lighter brown and the doors were the brown of varnished wood. Brown seemed to feature heavily in the designer's palette. For all of its tactlessness it was clean and airy, but mostly brown.

Jason led us down the corridor and used a card key to open a door. I had barely stepped through when Natasha and Aiden shoved past me. Both were growling, their lips pulled back from their teeth, muscles bunched. It took me a fraction of a second to assess the situation and figure out what had caused their reaction.

Anna was standing on the other side of the room, her welcoming smile now a frozen grimace. John, meanwhile, had stepped in front of her, his hand darting inside his black jacket, pulling a pistol from a shoulder holster, and Cam had surged to his feet.

“Everybody stop,” I said firmly.

I'd forgotten to mention that Anna was a vampire and my new friends had reacted badly. It was understandable.

“Aiden, Natasha, Kyle, Terry,” I said. “This is Anna. She's a friend of mine and a member of the team. She works for the Ministry. Everybody, these are my friends. They're members of the local pack and they've been helping me out.”

John kept his hand on his pistol and his eyes on the newcomers.

“Sorry, ma'am,” said Kyle. “We just weren't expecting that. Someone forgot to mention that you were... you know.”

Anna smiled at him, not showing her teeth.

“John, put the gun away,” I said. “Everything's okay.”

John nodded and holstered his weapon.

“Pretty brave,” said Aiden as he gave John a respectful nod, “getting between a werewolf and a vampire.”

“
Oh don't judge a book by it's cover,” said Cam. “This little guy'll fuck you up. And even if you got through him you'd have to get through me.”

“
If you got that far,” said Bolt from across the room.

He hadn't been visible when we came in the door, but he was there, positioned so he could see the whole room, a submachine gun cradled in his arms.

“Okay boys,” said Anna. “Calm down. You can impress your new buddies later.”

“
Yes, mother,” said Cam. John glared at him. “What? I can be cheeky and get away with it. She's not
my
wife.”

“
Never mind that. I notice not one of you has said hello to Marie yet.”

She stepped forward and hugged me tight.

“Welcome back, girl,” she said. “What the Hell happened to you?”

I stepped back and gave her a long look.

“I'd rather talk about how you managed to lose my man.”

C
HAPTER

44

“
Who was the vampire who was with you?!”

The vamp was screaming an inch from my face, as if volume was the reason I wasn't answering him. When I again did not reply he slapped me across the jaw with a gloved hand. My head rocked to one side with the blow and another burst of pain sped through my skull.

“Who was she?!”

Another slap, harder this time.

I was in deep fucking shit. My broken arm had been given a crude splint by my captors but was now screeching in agony. Every breath sent sharp, stabbing pains through my torso. At least one broken rib, maybe more, I thought. I had been dragged from the ground and thrown in the back of a Humvee. One of the guards had gotten his jollies by giving me a good shoeing on the way to wherever we had ended up. He'd stomped on my back and shoulders as I lay on the floor of the vehicle. At least one blow had been serious, landing on my ribcage. Hence the feeling that I was trying to breathe ground glass. One day I hoped to meet that vamp guard again, preferably while holding a gun. Or maybe a knife.

I had been driven to this new location and dragged into this otherwise pleasant conservatory, tied roughly to a folding metal chair, and then beaten. I've had better days. Two vamps, one yelling questions and punching, the other just punching. Initially it hadn't been too bad. The vamps administering my thrashing had quickly figured out that my blood was burning them as they beat it out of me. Then they put on gloves and got right back down to business.

I was a complete mess. My right eye was swollen shut. Angry bruises decorated my forehead, cheeks and jawline. I'm pretty sure one of my molars was cracked. One nostril was blocked—probably with blood—and the other one whistled every time I tried to breathe through my nose. Blood and snot ran down my face. The pain was immediate and all encompassing and horribly urgent.

I went through all of my counter-interrogation training from the regiment. I was having to keep a tight reign on my personality. In an interrogation, insults and defiance bring death and pain. You don't play the big man, the hard man. You try your best to seem like a broken man, a nothing, a conquered and defeated enemy. The two vamps had been taking their bile out on me for just under an hour by the clock on the wall of the room just visible through the door I was facing. That's a rookie mistake. Rule one of interrogation is disorientation. And one of the most disorientating things you can do to a subject is to rob them of their sense of time. You want them thinking they've been here for an eternity.

I didn't waste any time sneering at the mistake. I was simply counting. An hour sounded about right for me to resist. It was time to crack and start blubbing.

“
She's the mistress,” I choked out. “We were her security detail.”

“
What?!” screamed the talky vamp.

“
Security,” I repeated. “Bodyguards. Hired to protect her.”