Sophia (39 page)

“Yes, my lord.”

He lowered his voice, speaking to her alone. “I know you would rather join the hunt, Elke, but there is no one I trust more to guard her.”

Elke’s pale eyes turned pink with unshed tears and Raphael blinked in surprise. He’d never seen her exhibit a shred of emotion before, except for anger. “I will guard her with my life, Sire. My place is here.”

Raphael tilted his head, smiling slightly. He knew Cyn and Elke were friends of a sort. They sparred together in the gym, and because Elke was the only female guard in his inner circle, she was frequently assigned to Cyn. But he hadn’t realized until now the depth of that friendship.

“Good hunting, my lord,” Elke said.

Raphael bared his teeth. “The ground will be black with blood tonight, Elke. I swear it.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder and turned a sober gaze across the great room. Duncan was already there, walking toward him. They met halfway.

“My lord,” Duncan began, but Raphael interrupted.

“Where is he?”

Robbie emerged from the large common room. “I am here, my lord.” He took several steps toward Raphael and sank to his knees, his head bowed.

Raphael stared down at the big bodyguard’s bare neck. “Tell me why you deserve to live,” he growled.

“Because he didn’t do anything wrong,” another voice interrupted.

Raphael swiveled his head slowly, looking over his shoulder to where Colin Murphy stood in the open door with Lucien’s child Sophia. Cold, wet air gusted around them, slapping against his legs.

“You,” Raphael sneered. “Another who somehow survived unscathed while my Cyn was being torn apart.”

“My lord!” Robbie protested, but Raphael silenced him with a sharp look, exerting just enough power to pin the human in place without harming him. “Be very careful, Robert,” he warned. “The only reason you’re still alive is that my Cyn pled for your life, though she had barely the breath to do so. Don’t make her sacrifice in vain.”

Raphael turned to face Murphy, giving the human his complete attention. He gathered his power casually, letting a tiny fraction of it swell out into the room, enough to scatter papers and rattle doors.

To his surprise, Sophia stepped forward, her own defenses rising sharply, expanding to encompass the human male. Her eyes began to glow slightly as her power built, and she stood directly in front of the much larger human, hands clenched at her sides, her chin raised in defiance.

Raphael blinked lazily and gazed down at her. “Your Sire may have anointed you his successor, Sophia, but never make the mistake of thinking you are
my
equal.”

Her shapely jaw tightened angrily, but she gave a curt nod, acknowledging the truth of his words. And then her chin came up again and she said, “You would die to protect your mate, Lord Raphael. I will do no less.”

Raphael studied her more carefully, noting for the first time the connection between her and Murphy. It was very new and very tenuous, but it was there. He frowned, glancing over at Duncan who was regarding the newly mated pair with open curiosity. Apparently, no one else knew about this either. It wouldn’t stop him from killing her if he had to, but it made him willing to listen.

“Robbie,” Raphael snapped over his shoulder. “Tell me what happened.”

Over the next several minutes, Robbie told him in detail the events of the previous day. “We were almost away, my lord,” Robbie said, coming to the end of his tale. He was still on his knees, but his eyes met Raphael’s stern gaze with open honesty. “I had Cyn moving toward the truck door, covering her back, when they opened up on us from a new direction. You know Cyn, my lord. She could have dived into the truck, gone for her own safety, but instead she started firing, covering Murphy’s back. I should have grabbed her, should never have let her go. That’s when—” His voice broke for the first time and he looked down. “I’m sorry, my lord. I failed Cyn and I failed you.”

“It’s not his fault,” Colin Murphy insisted again. “Dammit, Raphael, you have to listen to me!”

Raphael’s vampires, already jumpy and ready for the hunt, bristled at the human’s tone, and even Sophia had the good sense to place a cautioning hand on her mate’s arm. Murphy drew a deep breath and continued more carefully.

“My apologies, sir. But someone I know called me today with information that you really need to hear.”

Raphael gritted his teeth impatiently. This was taking too long. “Talk,” he demanded.

“Leighton was specifically targeted,” Murphy said intently. “They knew, or they thought they knew, that taking her out would weaken
you
personally. They thought your vamps would be leaderless and go nuts, or that you’d join them and start butchering humans indiscriminately. They
want
a bloodbath. They want headlines all across the television and Internet screaming about vampires prowling the night and slaughtering innocent humans.”

Raphael flattened his lips thoughtfully. “Stand up, Robbie,” he said without turning. He heard the human coming to his feet behind him.

“My lord,” Robbie said.

Raphael turned. “The only words my Cyn spoke this morning were in defense of you . . . and him,” he added, with a jerk of his head toward Murphy. “And your account of events was truthful.” He regarded the bodyguard silently. Robbie had been with him a long time, and he was mated to one of Raphael’s vampires. It was why he’d entrusted Cyn’s protection to him. “We won’t slow down for you,” he told him now. “But you’re welcome to join the hunt for these killers.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Sir,” Colin Murphy spoke up again and Raphael turned to eye him darkly.

“They knew about Mariane,” the human said urgently. “They knew what the attack on her did to Jeremy, how it weakened
him
. They knew where to find Marco and Preston—” He glanced quickly at Sophia before continuing in a quiet voice, “And they knew Leighton was still alive when we brought her here yesterday.”

Raphael stared at him, slipping easily into the human’s mind despite Sophia’s newly established link. The man was telling the truth as he knew it. And that meant Raphael had a leak inside this compound. His own people, the ones he’d brought from Malibu, were loyal to the core. He would stake his life on it. He
did
stake his life on it every day. He looked around, noting who was there . . . and who was not.

“Get Loren on the phone,” he ordered Wei Chen, watching the nest leader’s eyes widen as he searched the surrounding faces and realized Loren was not among them. He pulled a phone from his pocket and paged rapidly through his call list.

“Loren,” he said, surprise evident in his voice. “Where are you?”

Raphael took the phone from him in time to hear Loren’s answer. “I’m at Marco’s,” he said. “I got word of a possible break-in.”

Even over the phone line, Raphael could hear the lie in his words, and it only confirmed what he’d already begun to suspect.

“Would you like to try that again?” Raphael said coldly.

“Sire!” Loren gasped. “My lord, I—”

“Get back here now. And bring the woman with you.” He hung up while Loren was still sputtering, trying to justify his duplicity. Stupid son-of-a-bitch. He exchanged a quick look with Juro who nodded and took several steps away, taking two of his security people with him.

As they began to confer in low voices, Raphael turned to Murphy. “Do you know who these killers are?” he asked.

“Some of them,” the human replied. “And I think I know where at least some of them have been hiding out. But I don’t know all the names. If we can take the ones I do know alive, we can—”

From behind Raphael, Robbie spoke up, “Wait a minute.” He walked around Raphael to face Murphy. “Cyn took pictures of the license plates in that parking lot.”

“That’s right,” Murphy agreed, snapping his fingers. He switched his gaze to Raphael. “We need her cell.”

Raphael pulled his phone from an inside pocket and rang Peter Saephan, who answered on the first ring.

“Yes, my lord?” he said quietly.

“Cyn?”

“She is resting well, my lord. The fluids are helping already.”

“Excellent. I require Cyn’s cell phone. Her clothing from last night is in a bag in the closet. Could you check and see if her phone is there?”

There was a brief pause and then Raphael heard the closet door slide open and the sharp crackle of a plastic bag. “One moment, my lord,” Saephan said, followed by a soft thud as he put the phone down. More rustling of plastic and then the phone was picked up again.

“I have it, my lord. Let me . . . I’m cleaning the blood off with a bit of alcohol.”

Cyn’s blood, Raphael knew and was grateful for the good doctor’s hygienic impulses.

Saephan had continued, saying, “It looks okay, but the battery is low. Do you want me to—”

 
“That won’t be necessary, Doctor, thank you. If you would put it in the elevator and send it up.”

“Of course, my lord. Was there anything else?”

“No, thank you.”

Raphael disconnected and turned to the others. “The phone is coming up in the elevator now.”

Murphy stepped forward as if to retrieve the phone himself, but Raphael growled and Duncan stepped in front of the human, blocking his path.

“Elke will get it,” Duncan said. His tone was calm enough, but his body language left no room for dispute.

Murphy opened his mouth as if to protest anyway, but it died unsaid when he swung toward Raphael and saw the look on his face. Duncan might be calm, but Raphael most definitely was not.

Murphy fell back to stand next to Sophia who placed herself slightly ahead of him and cast a hostile glance in Raphael’s direction. Duncan, meanwhile, waited until they heard the elevator doors close once again and then sent one of the vampire guards over to get the phone from Elke who remained at her post.

The guard brought the phone over to Duncan. He looked to Raphael for permission, then accessed the phone’s memory. “They’re here,” he confirmed, paging through several photographs. “There’s a shot of the entire lot and then the individual plates. It looks as if . . . yes, she got them all,” he said with a note of admiration.

“I can run those—” Murphy started.

“That won’t be necessary,” Duncan interrupted

He beckoned Maxime over from near the front office where she stood along with Wei Chen and some others, watching events unfold. None of those watching were hunters—Raphael’s soldiers were specifically chosen and trained. But even among the vampires who wouldn’t actively participate tonight, even to those who spent most of their waking hours in front of a computer, the excitement level was high and contagious.

Duncan turned the phone over to Maxime, and she flipped through the images, moving far more quickly than he had. She gave Murphy a smug look. “Give me five minutes,” she said and headed for the nearby office.

“Most of those license plates are local,” Murphy commented, watching Maxime walk away. He turned back to Raphael. “So I’m guessing the owners are, too. And I have a couple of possible locations for the guy who called to taunt me this afternoon—Garry McWaters. He was raised around here, but until yesterday I thought he was living in San Diego.”

“Clearly not,” Raphael observed dismissively.

“You’re right,” Murphy admitted. “But that’s what he wanted me to think. I’d know if he was staying in town. You can’t keep a secret in this place. But his family has a couple of old properties way the hell back of nowhere. I didn’t even know they were there until I went looking for something like it.”

“How do you know him?”