Surrendering: A Regent Vampire Lords Novel, Book #1 (29 page)

She was cataloging creative ways to get revenge on Dev, when the door opened and a man that she hadn’t seen before walked in. She was completely vulnerable and immediately on alert.

“Hi, Kate.”

“Who are you?” Her pulse skyrocketed, fear coursing its way through her veins.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot we haven’t met yet. I’m Doctor Dirk. Most everyone calls me Big D, though.”

Big D. Yes, Dev had referred to him several times. He was the one running blood tests on her.

“Why are you here? Where is Dev? Why am I locked up like this? What in the hell is going on here?” She was practically hyperventilating.

“Whoa, there. That’s a lot of questions at once, Kate. First, I’m very sorry for these unfortunate circumstances of our first meeting. I’ve been quite looking forward to meeting the woman who stole Lord Devon’s heart.”

She just stared at him, not knowing how to respond, so apparently he took that as a sign to continue.

“As for why you are locked up, I’m afraid you’ll need to discuss that with your mate. I’m not at liberty to say.” He turned around and set down a phlebotomist kit, which she hadn’t realized he’d even been carrying.

“What the hell are you doing with that?” She was now petrified.

Instead of a needle, he withdrew a pair of scissors from the kit and turned to approach her.

“I just need a small sample of hair and I’ll be on my way.”

“Uh, the hell you will.”

While she apparently possessed the skill of stasis, actually controlling it was an entirely different story. She’d also been working with Dev on trying to use that ability this week and she hadn’t been successful. He’d told her that sometimes it can take years, or even decades, to master the skills a vampire possesses and use them upon demand. And they still weren’t sure why she could tap into a power she wasn’t supposed to be able to because she’d not been blooded. She would gradually take on the skills Dev possessed, but so far she hadn’t been successful in doing anything vampire-like since their mating. Now would be a really good time for that to change.

So as the doctor came toward her, she attempted to use the techniques Dev had been trying to teach her.

Earlier in the week, they had used Ren as the willing victim, him pretending to be an attacker. She could hear Dev’s soft, seductive voice in her ear as he stood behind her, coaching her.

Imagine your target as being perfectly still, like a statue.

Imagine he can’t move a muscle.

Imagine him frozen to the ground he walks on.

That’s it, Kate.

Now, imagine my cock driving in and out of your hot, sweet pussy while your climax makes you cream all over it.

Well, that had been the end of that particular lesson and onto another one entirely. Her entire body flushed and readied for her mate.

Jesus, Kate. Focus.

She concentrated, imagined…aaaand nothing. Shit! He was now at her side, clipping a small chunk of hair and placing it in a clear vial. Damn it. What good were these stupid powers if she couldn’t even use them.

After he’d placed the items back into his kit, he turned around and looked at her sympathetically.

“I’m sure Dev will be in very soon, Kate. He loves you very much.”

She snorted. He hadn’t told her he loved her yet. But in fairness, neither had she said it to him.

“If he loves me so much, then why the hell would he do this to me without any explanation?”

He stared at her for long moments, and she thought he would walk out without answering.

“Because he loves his people just as much.” He turned and walked out the door before she could ask any further questions.

What the hell did that mean,
he loved his people just as much
? Did he think she was a danger to his people? How could he possibly think that? She couldn’t even
do
anything remotely dangerous!! She couldn’t even stop this guy from cutting her damn hair!

She tried calling out to Dev again. Begging, pleading for him to talk to her. To release her.

As with every other time she’d tried…nothing. Crickets.

She decided then and there that a kick to his jewels was probably far less than he deserved.

C
hapter 51

Dev

Dev stood outside of the room in which Kate was being held, gathering his thoughts. He’d wanted to get to her sooner, but had a few things to handle before he could devote the time necessary to his beloved.

He’d dispatched Manny, Ren, and several others to interview the two other professors in his Regent. He would have dispatched Elle, but she’d fucking disappeared and he couldn’t reach her. She’d get a goddamned earful when she returned.

He’d retrieved Kate’s hair and blood samples from Esmeralda, but he couldn’t be certain that she didn’t secret some away before Ren tracked her down. She insisted she hadn’t. Of course, he didn’t believe her, but he couldn’t prove it or keep her here.

Unfortunately he’d put himself, and Kate, in a compromising position by doubting her and jumping to conclusions without first asking or investigating, and that worried him. He didn’t usually make careless mistakes like that. Kate had his head all fucked up and he’d better get it back on straight and quick, or he would put his life, and hers, in peril.

He slowly and quietly opened the door, preparing for his mate’s ire. He was both grateful and disappointed when he found her sleeping. And it looked like her sleep was fitful, as she was thrashing about.

He quickly undid her restraints and flashed them into his bedroom, where he held her tightly to him on their king sized bed. She had not awakened so she must be in a very deep sleep. Was she dreamwalking again? He was so proud that he had a Moira with such a special ability, but he also knew it was difficult on Kate, and for that, he wished she didn’t have to bear that burden.

He held her as she dreamed and thought about what Olivia had told him when he’d asked her opinion on how to handle this delicate situation only a short half hour ago. He had no goddamned clue how to be a good mate and this was an epic fuck-up, so he needed some womanly advice.

“
When a woman is wronged, her trust is broken and trust is both difficult and timely to regain. While flowers and gifts are nice, and always welcome, of course, a good bit of groveling goes a long way to repairing the damage quicker. You didn’t trust your mate, my lord, and that was a big mistake. She deserved the benefit of the doubt before you jumped to the worst conclusion possible. So in this case, I would advise groveling. Lots and lots of groveling. Kate is a reasonable woman and it’s clear she loves you very much. I’m sure she’ll forgive you…eventually. Good luck, my lord.”

He was a Regent Lord. He
didn’t
grovel…to anyone. But in this case, Olivia was right. Groveling was not only the right thing to do, but also probably the only way Kate would forgive his insolence.

He only prayed groveling was enough.

___________

Kate

Kate waited as long as she could for Dev before sleep overcame her. Her last thought before drifting off was that she hoped tonight was a dreamless one, because she could not deal with any more stress than she was already under.

Unfortunately that wasn’t to be. As soon as sleep took her, she was sucked back into that horrid place where helpless young women were held against their wills and unspeakable things happened.

Kate was immediately drawn to Sarah, as always. She lay in her bed, staring at the crumbling drywall ceiling, a completely blank look plastered on her face. Kate wondered how Sarah would possibly be able to recover after they rescued her.

Stay strong, Sarah. We’re going to bring you home soon.

This time it was easier to pull herself away from Sarah to once again look around the compound. This time she hoped she could get more information that would help save these poor women.

She forced herself out of Sarah’s room and into a dimly lit hallway. Down the right side of the hallway were a series of closed doors. She slid into the room next to Sarah’s and once again found the fair-haired young woman she had seen before, who was severely pregnant. She looked peaceful in sleep, but Kate knew she was anything but.

She slipped out of that room and into the next and found a very frail, very young-looking Hispanic woman, with stringy, dark matted hair. She wore a torn, faded yellow T-shirt with a giant smiley face on it,
ironic that
, and blood soaked cream panties. Kate noticed how bruised her arms, hips and inner thighs were. Her glassy, vacant eyes were sunken and she could see the outline of her ribs through her minimal clothing.

This was almost too difficult to bear, and as much as Kate wanted to wake up so she wouldn’t be witness to any more of this torture, she needed to gather as much information as possible before she was pulled from her dream again.

Kate slipped out of this room and into the next eight rooms, all holding women in similar states and most in various states of pregnancy. She began to distinguish the women that had been there for a while and those that hadn’t, not only by the condition of their bodies, but the expressions on their faces. The newer ones had hope and anger. Those in longer captivity were apathetic. Void of any emotion or life behind their dead eyes.

One young woman was clearly near death. Kate doubted she would be alive in time for them to rescue her. This was absolute agony to bear witness to their torture.

The woman in the last room gave Kate pause. She wasn’t as young as the other women. Definitely not the young nineteen-to-twenty-two-year-olds that had been kidnapped recently. She suspected this woman had been kept prisoner for quite some time. But what caused her stomach to drop was that she looked strikingly like Jamie Hallow. That couldn’t possibly be. Could it? Jamie was never found, but how could she have been kept prisoner for eleven years? Kate couldn’t think about that now, as she had a job to do.

Moving on, Kate found the surgical room where she’d previously witnessed two women being raped. Blessedly, there was no activity in that room at the moment, so she kept going. There had been nothing so far that gave her any further indication of where this place was located and she was hoping to find an upper level with more windows.

She stumbled upon a few more rooms with supplies and office equipment. She scanned the offices for any papers lying around that would give her anything useful and found nothing. Nothing, until the last office she came across, which was a bit bigger than the rest.

The office was extremely cluttered and there were stacks of paper
everywhere
. On the desk. On the filing cabinets. On the floor. In the chairs. There was almost no surface she could see without the piles of paper. Only a narrow path on the floor, leading from the door to the desk was devoid of paper.

She quickly scanned those, finding none of them useful, and noticed that the computer monitor had been left on. Unfortunately, she couldn’t understand much of anything on the screen. It looked like a bunch of meaningless numbers in a spreadsheet, but she thought it was some sort of master medical document on the kidnapped women. Column headers indicated Subject A, B, etc. She noticed what looked like dates too. She had a fairly good memory, so she’d try her best to remember what was on here so she could tell Dev and the doctor when she awoke. She wished she was able to actually bring things back from her dreams because a flash drive would come in handy about now.

She was about to leave the office when she noticed a newspaper sticking out from underneath the desk, like it missed the trashcan. Upon closer inspection, she noticed that the newspaper was the
Door County Advocate
. Door County was at the end of the Sturgeon Bay in Wisconsin. Her family had vacationed frequently in Door County when she was younger.
Holy shit!
Was it possible that they were really a mere forty miles or so away?

Kate quickly left the office and continued down the series of sterile-looking hallways. As she neared the end of this particular hallway, a feeling of evilness seeped into her pores. She was both drawn and repelled by the door standing in front of her and she warred with herself on whether to enter. She thought of those poor women she saw earlier and quickly decided to forge ahead, before she lost her nerve. For some unexplained reason, every instinct inside of her screamed this would be a defining moment in her life.

She went through the door and was met with stairs that led to a lower level. She was plunged into darkness as she descended down. When she reached the bottom, another series of hallways lay ahead. She was drawn to the left and while she wanted to explore each room on this level, she knew time was running out and she felt an unexplained urgency to get to the room at the end of this hallway.

Kate was outside the closed door and a feeling of terror unlike any she’d felt before passed through her body. She forced herself through, not knowing what she was about to see, and was surprisingly met with an empty room. Empty, as in, no one was currently occupying it, but someone obviously lived here. It was a small sitting room of sorts, with a tidy, nondescript desk and a large Italian black leather chair, which looked luxurious and very much out of place in the sparse room. She took note of a caramel colored liquor in a clear decanter, which sat on a shelf alongside a lone crystal tumbler and a few books.