Primal Instincts (28 page)

Sid explained what was known to the newcomers.

Tobias came out of his frozen rage as she finished, and he said to Harker, “The fight for your territory isn’t over yet. The Tribes are sending in fresh reinforcements. If I have to tear up this city and reveal the existence of our kind to find the bastards with my kid, I will.”

Harker threw back his head and howled. Francesca worried that this was a protest until the local werefolk leader said, “You don’t need to hunt for them. We can lead you right to them.”

Tobias looked to Joe Bleythin for an explanation.

“My hunch that we should start tracking our bad guys where the original ferals hung out was right. They were dead, but their scent was overlaid with fresher traces of ferals that had been there over the years. It took a while, but we traced them to their den at a small airport. I gathered the local troops for a raid, but the ferals took off before we got to them. We followed them here. The scouts we left behind all report vampire headaches. There’s a vampire in the hangar at the airport all right,” Joe added.

“Why did a pack of werewolves show up here?” Ben Lancer asked. “They had to know it was suicide to go up against Primes.”

“That’s easy to answer,” Shaggy said. “Stupid and sad, but easy.” Everyone looked at the local shapeshifter leader. “Even ferals have a twisted loyalty to the pack ethic. These curs made a pact with the
Purists and Tribes and they got themselves killed fulfilling the pact. Their mortal
brothers
were prisoners. It was their obligation to try to rescue them.”

“I bet the vampire talked them into it,” Sid said. “If he was cutting his losses, it was the perfect way to get rid of them.”

Tobias wasn’t interested in the why or the who of the plotting right now but waited impatiently for the explanation out of respect for Shaggy.

And it was intel. He made himself remember that he needed intel when he wanted to run off right then. He was interested in only Saffie’s safety. He wasn’t going to do her any good if he didn’t do this the right way. He had the Crew. He had an ace inside that airplane.
Saffie—

“She’s going to be fine.” Joe broke into Tobias’s thoughts.

Tobias nodded. He squared his exhausted shoulders and gathered in his Crew with a decisive glance. “Listen up, people!” he announced.

Francesca took a few steps back to get out of the way as Tobias did what he did.

While Tobias gave crisp, precise orders to his attentive soldiers, Sidonie moved to stand next to her. Sid kept her gaze on the Dark Angel leader, but she spared part of her attention to ask,
You and Tobias?
Bonded?

It was a whirlwind courtship.

Do you want this?

Did you want to be bonded to a werewolf?

It’s not a matter of what I wanted or what Joe wanted. Oh, okay. Sorry
, she added after a bit of mental silence.
Does Tobias know about . . .

Patrick?
Sid was the only one who’d known about her marriage.
He knows.

Does your Matri know about Tobias?

I’m staying with Tobias
, was Francesca’s answer. She smiled as sudden intense belief hit her.
He needs me.

Tobias
is
the Dark Angels, and the Dark Angels are a combat unit. Do you think the Matri Council will allow both of us in a com—

The Matri Council will have to learn to live with not always getting everything their way. My mother set me up with Tobias. She’s going to support me in Council whether she wants to or not.

Sid gave a low whistle and looked at Francesca admiringly.
I’ve always been good at scheming, but you’re the political genius of our generation. This is going to mess up your writing career, though.

Tobias turned to her before she could protest that she wasn’t a writer. He took her arm and led her back to the guest bedroom. Her spirits sank with dread along the way.

She went on the offensive even before the door closed behind them. “Don’t you dare tell me I’m not allowed to come along on this op.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She was in his arms an instant later. He held her so close, so desperately tight, she thought she was going to break. But she loved it.

“You’re too strong to break,” he told her. “You’re a Clan girl. Clan girls and Family girls don’t break.” He kissed her so hungrily that her head began to swim, his hands on her hot and hard.

She moaned against his lips but pulled her mouth from his before it could easily lead to something else. She ached with wanting him, but they were both aware that this was not the time, bonding urge or not. She put her hands on either side of his face. His cheeks were rough with beard stubble. “Saffie is strong too,” she said. “She’s your child—no one else’s. She’s a Family Prime’s strong, tough daughter. As well as the daughter of the regiment,” she added with a smile. “Think of what she’s already come through with you. She’ll survive all those horrible, hideous revelations, and so will you.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. He looked incredibly sad and weary. But he hid those emotions away when he opened his eyes. “Saffie and I will survive,” he said. “But working through that is in the future. Right now we have to get her back. And in the
past . . .”

He pulled her closer. His hands rested on her waist, big and competent and full of latent violence that warmed a vampire girl’s heart.

“In the past I tried to defend the way Tribes think about females to you. Then I listened to that monster talking about Saffie’s mother, about Saffie, and I realized the bullshit I’d fed you earlier was a nostalgic kid’s view. I’m sorry.” He rocked back and forth with her in his arms. “I am so sorry.”

He was apologizing to the dead woman and the child he loved as much as he was to Francesca. She pulled his head down to her shoulder and held him and let him work through it without thoughts or words. Sometimes just being there was more important than all their psychic talents.

He lifted his head when a knock came on the door. He gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead and a brief smile that melted her heart.

“I’m ready,” he called. “Let’s go,” he said to her.

Francesca glared at the wide bracelet circling her right wrist. It contained a tiny electrical device called a mini-zap. Everyone in the van was wearing one, as it blocked telepathic signatures from other telepaths. It was the Dark Angels version of stealth technology. The silent humming was driving her mad.

“It’s giving me a headache,” she complained. “And I think I’m getting sunburned.”

The early morning sunlight coming through the windshield didn’t fall directly on where she sat near the rear of the vehicle, but she could
feel
it even though she knew it couldn’t hurt her. It was her imagination fed by the physical reaction to the mind shield.

Seated across from her, Sid held up her own arm. “You’ll get used to it.”

Counting the driver, there were four other Angels crowded into the van heading south toward their destination. The plan was to secure the bad guys’ hideout
for themselves before the private plane landed.

“Oh, like you’ve worn one before,” she snapped at Sid. The irritating mini-zap was not helping her mood. She was also a little queasy from having ingested at least a quart of cow blood. This was another part of the Dark Angel battle prep for vampires. Being sated was supposed to help keep them from going into a blood frenzy when fighting other vampires. It cut down on the fun, but also on reckless mistakes, she’d been told. There was a lot to learn about being a Dark Angel. She and Sidonie were learning on the job instead of going through basic training.

“You’re as new to this gig as I am,” she reminded Sid.

“Yeah, but I was around when the original zapper got field tested by the vampire hunters who are supposedly our allies. That prototype hurt like hell.”

This reminder that Sid had gotten to have adventures for years as a private detective upped Francesca’s irritation.

Sid recognized it and put a calming hand on Francesca’s shoulder. “It’s not the low-level pain that’s bothering you the most. This is really the first time you’ve been completely alone in your own head. For someone just beginning to bond—”

“Please be quiet now,” Francesca told her. “Or I will kill you.”

Sid only snickered. But she concentrated her
attention on inspecting the silver knife she’d chosen to add to her natural weapons, fangs, claws, strength, and speed. Seemed a bit like overkill to Francesca, but she’d accepted one of the knives just to make Tobias happy. She did like the piratical look of the sheath strapped to her thigh.

The headache was only an inconvenience. It was worth anything if it helped save that child. She rubbed her aching temples.

“Where the hell is Tobias? Why didn’t he let me go with him instead of assigning Sid to baby-sit me?

Because he has to
, the reasonable part of her pointed out.

“Not being able to feel him is . . . terrible. How can you bear to be separated from Joe?”

“I’ve had practice,” was the bitter answer. “Relax. It’s only for a little while. You can stop sulking now,” Sid said as the van came to a halt. “We’ve arrived.”

When she got out Francesca saw that the van, along with several
other vehicles, was parked on a dusty roadside on a ridge. In a valley several miles away was the small airport, and another mountain ridge rose beyond it. The place boasted a hangar with an arched metal roof, a couple of small buildings, and one runway. A pickup truck, a sports car, and several motorcycles were parked by the buildings, and the property was surrounded by a razor-wire-topped chain-link fence.

Standing next to her, Sid asked, “See them?”

Francesca shielded her eyes with her hand and studied the bramble-and-brush-covered ground between the ridge and the fence. “Eleanor,” she said when she spotted a werecoyote slinking behind a clump of scraggly trees. “Joe,” she guessed when she saw a huge black werewolf deep in some bushes. He crouched beside a reddish brown werewolf with a graying muzzle. “Shaggy?”

“Correct. Now that the werefolk are in place, we vampires will join them.” Sid moved to where the others were unloading equipment from the back of the van. “Are you going to help?” she called back to Francesca. “Or are you afraid of breaking a nail?”

Francesca laughed and extended her claws a little. She wiggled her fingers as she joined Sid. “Jungle Red.”

They laughed. It was an old joke between them. Despite the discomfort from the mini-zap, Francesca was suddenly very happy that she and her best friend were finally living the lives they’d always wanted.

Thank you, Tobias
, she thought, sure he felt her even without telepathy.

Tobias waited until he got word on his headset that everyone was in position, concealing any sign of his impatience. He stayed perfectly still, and word came that the fence was breached, followed by the report that the ferals guarding the perimeter were out of the picture.

He nodded.

This was the preliminary round, the first step. He liked his ops carefully orchestrated, but this one had to go perfectly.

He scanned the slightly overcast sky, willing the plane to appear. They’d calculated their attack to almost coincide with the airplane’s projected arrival. The less time the new arrivals had to sense any danger, the better for the Crew. The time projection had to be correct. He refused to worry about it now. Right now, there was a vampire in
the main building, and Tobias was looking forward to killing him.

“Let’s go,” he said to the fae whose job it would be to magically construct a shell around him in the form of the soon-to-be-late Dr. Stone.

Gregor wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but he was anything but complacent as the private jet approached the landing strip. Those who directly opposed the Dark Angels had a tendency to die. Survival was high on Gregor’s list of priorities. Being only one more grunt for Dragomir to throw into the fray was not on his list at all, but he bet he knew who the mercenary leader was going to order to be first out of the plane—the first casualty in case something went wrong.

He might not have liked that spot, but if he could get the girl to go with him on the exit, he could fulfill his own orders. Her going voluntarily wouldn’t be in the cards, of course. He carefully gave her an occasional glance, and what he saw didn’t look good. Where the kid had been feisty before, she looked completely broken now. She’d been crying quietly
but steadily since Dragomir casually revealed her personal history. She was so drawn in on herself she was practically catatonic.

Oh, well, it won’t be difficult to pick her up and carry her.

The airplane had been descending swiftly and now Gregor heard the landing gear operate. Outside the nearest window he saw a forlorn, dusty landscape.
Welcome back to California
, he thought. Had it been only a few days since he’d left? It seemed like a century.

There was the slightest of bumps as the plane wheels touched the ground. As the jet bounced down the rough runway to finally come to a stop, Gregor concentrated his senses on what waited outside. He detected one vampire and several werewolves inside the perimeter fence he’d spotted from the sky. Things seemed to be just the way he’d been told they’d be.