Unchained (Men in Chains Book 3) (16 page)

“Our best lead yet on the weapon.” He handed Daniel a sheet of paper.

Daniel scanned the contents, one brow lifting slowly. “What do you think, Lev?”

The other brother spoke up, though the lines obscured his face. Still, she heard him well enough. “There’s mention of the red hood on this one, which is why we believe the tip is solid. We’ve had at least twenty mentions of a weapon with a red hood and shiny black base. This has to be it.”

Before she’d fallen asleep, Marius had shared more bits of information about his world. In this case, Daniel had set up a tip line about the weapon just as Rumy had.

“So it looks like you’re going to Sweden. And Lev, I want you both to go.”

Lev smiled, as if he didn’t often get to go on missions like this one.

Through the difficult wavy lines she watched Daniel smile and clap first Quill’s shoulder, then Lev’s. These were the sons loyal to Daniel, dedicated to his ambitions. They were just a few years older than Marius and his brothers.

Shayna’s heart thumped. If this was her tracking ability at work, she felt encouraged that both Marius and Rumy were right and that she truly could help in this situation.

But as she stared at Daniel, he turned in what felt like her direction, his brow pinched, but he didn’t make eye contact so she knew he couldn’t actually see her. When he spoke, however, a jolt of fear went through her. At that exact same moment, Marius tightened his arm around her, perhaps sensing her disquiet.

“Are you there, Shayna? Is that you spying on me?” Daniel smiled. “And do I detect lovemaking? Have you already seduced my son? Clever girl. But I’ll be waiting for you.”

The waves in front of the vision grew more severe so that she saw less and less, and now her head hurt again. Was Daniel creating this interference or was the problem hers?

The fact that he must have sensed her presence caused her to pull away from the vision completely. She kept pulling until she felt the connection actually break.

How did Daniel know what she’d been doing? How had he been able to detect she was there? And yet Marius had already told her he was one of the most powerful vampires on the planet.

“Shayna, I can feel your distress. What is it? What happened? What did you see?”

She drew out of Marius’s arms to face him, holding his gaze. “Daniel. I just saw him in the vision, but he somehow knew I was there. I don’t think he could see me, but he could tell I was there. He even called me by name.” She didn’t reveal that somehow Daniel had known they’d been making love. It was just too creepy.

“Shit,” Marius murmured. “My father has tremendous power, more I think than anyone knows. Did he threaten you in any way?”

She shook her head. “Not really, but he said he was waiting for me. What did he mean by that?”

“Don’t pay any attention to that. My father is a master at manipulation and inciting fear.”

“But do you think he really knew I was there?”

“He seems to have some kind of sixth sense, maybe even his own ability to see the future, I’m not sure. So was that it? Was the vision just about Daniel?”

“No, in fact I think it’s good news.” She then related everything she’d seen and heard, first about the large space then about the final extinction weapon, and that Quill and Lev were there, ready to serve.

“They were the first of Daniel’s spawn and he broke them. This is good to know. My brothers are both powerful in their own right, so I’ll know what I’m up against.”

Marius dipped his chin, eyes squinted slightly. Shayna watched his gaze shift back and forth in quick flashes. She could almost see him formulate a strategy. When he was finished, his gaze snapped back to hers. “We need to start accessing the more mobile part of your tracking abilities, the part that can detect location. So what I want you to do is to focus on the weapon as it was described in the vision and on the location in Sweden. Can you do that?”

“I’ll try and we’ll see what happens.” She drew a deep breath and settled her shoulders, trying to relax while she did as Marius suggested.

She took a series of deep breaths, letting them out slowly. Images began to drift in her direction, of a snowy landscape and low light, of the geography of the Nordic lands. She felt as though she were already in motion and began flying at a fantastic speed toward a vast snowy outcrop. Then suddenly she flew through the snow in altered flight, landing in a vast cavern space half filled with what looked like a flow of water that had frozen solid.

Leaning up against the cavern wall, well away from the glacier-like ice, was a red piece of metal about four feet square. She glanced around. No one else was there.

But the image, so clear in her mind, started filling up with the dark, wavy lines once more, then finally winked out.

She drew back and stared at Marius. “I was there. I saw the red portion of the weapon.”

He nodded, smiling. “That’s it. Now let me gather my weapons.”

She’d almost forgotten. He’d probably be battling again, something she’d pressed way back into her recent memories. “Right.”

He moved across the room quickly. She was so caught up in the recent vision that she didn’t follow him. The chain vibrated softly, gave a slight tug, then the pressure ended as Marius reached his dresser.

She stared at him, fully aware that twenty feet separated them now, well beyond the original proximity distance.

Slowly, while his back was to her, she moved away from him, returning to the bathroom. She kept waiting for another tug on the chains, but none followed.

“Marius?” she called out.

“What? Where did you go?” He sounded so normal, but she heard the doors to his dresser opening and closing, so he wasn’t really paying attention.

“I’m in the bathroom. Notice anything strange about that?”

Everything grew very quiet, until she heard him moving back in her direction.

When he arrived in the doorway, he held his chain up. “What the fuck?”

She shrugged. “Something happened. I got this funny feeling, sort of like a vibration while you were moving away from me, then a small snap. You might have been too fixed on gathering your weapons to have been aware of it.”

He shook his head, clearly perplexed. “I don’t know what this means.” He started backing up, clearly wanting to test the issue for himself. She moved to the doorway to watch how far he could go.

He kept moving well beyond the earlier ten-foot boundary, then stepped through to the hallway beyond.
I’m going to levitate from one end of the cave to the other.

Sounds like a plan.
This issue needed to be tested now.

She could sense he was in motion and moving faster.

I’m down by the waterfall and still no tug.

This is incredible. I still feel bonded to you. I can sense that you’re stunned.

I am that.

He returned suddenly in altered flight to stand in front of her. He put his hands on her arms. “I knew that your blood had done something to me, but dammit, I think it’s given me a bit of Ancestral power, the kind Daniel has.”

“Really?” This was good news. “That’s fantastic.”

“I know. Okay, let’s get dressed. We need to find out what else I’ve got going on, and we need to get to Sweden.”

She followed him into the bedroom and stood back as he drew a pair of what he called battle leathers from the dresser.

She stood back, watching him lose the towel and plant a foot into the pants. Marius went commando, which warmed up her cheeks all over again at the sight of his ass, as well as his movements that had his muscles rippling all over again. He was like an amazing wild animal.

As he zipped, he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Are you watching me?”

She sighed. “More than I should.”

“Well, I’m glad. I like you looking at me and I like even better how that makes you feel.” He shrugged into a snug black T-shirt then crossed to a cabinet in the far corner. He began sliding battle chains into thin slits in the leather pants. Larger rings dangled from the top, undoubtedly for ease of removal.

“This change between us is about you, Shayna. Your blood has pumped me up.”

“I guess it has.” She moved closer and felt down both arms. “You are bigger. I mean, I thought so at the time, but you are.” She then reached down to touch one of the rings. “Are these the chains you battled with last night?”

“No, this is a new set. Those need to be cleaned up and polished. I’ll get to them eventually, but right now you’re my priority—and getting that damn weapon.”

The part of her that had boundless curiosity, that had caused her to choose anthropology in the first place, launched into hyperdrive. The questions flowed rapid-fire. Why did he carry so many weapons? What was the advantage of the long chain over the short? How many daggers? Why did he carry different sizes? Did the battle situations dictate which weapon to use, and how did he make the decision?

He smiled and finally answered the last question. She’d hardly given him time to do more than that. “I make my decision by instinct mostly at this point.” Seeing her interest, he took a couple of minutes and showed her each weapon, even demonstrating how the long chains spun and describing how with the exact right flick of the wrist the chain could incapacitate the enemy. The short chain was used for strangulation and, with enough force, decapitation. The daggers didn’t require explanation.

She’d watched him fight, and the other vampires as well. She could still hear the whirring of the chains, the grunts of the men, and sometimes the crack of a head against stone.

“You don’t use guns?”

“No, but I think that time is coming, another reason we need to take care of Daniel’s threat in our world. You asked earlier what he spent his money on. If it’s been the acquiring of handguns and assault rifles, we’ll have a war on our hands like nothing my world has seen before. Now come with me. Let’s see if Rumy provided the right clothes for a trip into the cold northern lands.”

She sensed that he’d shifted into what she could only think of as “warrior mode.” He vibrated with a new level of energy, and she could feel that his heart rate had increased.

She followed him across the room to the inset closet in which she’d stowed the clothes Rumy had brought her. He pulled out a fur-lined jacket. “You’ll need this. I know that you’re streaming my power, but you’ll feel the cold. If what you’ve described is accurate, we’re heading to what is called an ice cave. It will be like a freezer in there.”

“That would be my guess as well.”

He reached down and pulled out a pair of fur-lined boots. “Better put these on.” He looked her up and down, then handed her a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. “You should be okay with just these as opposed to long underwear, which I doubt Rumy provided anyway.”

“Any socks?”

He pushed a few things around and hunted through the shelves. “Well, just these.” He handed her a pair of thin black ankle socks.

She took them. “These will do.”

He stepped back and gestured to one of the middle shelves. “You’ll want to pick something out yourself.”

Ah, bras and thongs, mostly lace and sexy as anything. Marius turned away and stared up at the ceiling while she lost her towel. And in what she’d come to learn was Rumy’s style, when she put her way-too-snug bra on, then the shirt, the low cut in front revealed another long line of cleavage. Marius had shared a few details about Rumy as well, and one of them was the fact that he believed if a woman wasn’t dressed up in something sexy, she didn’t have a grain of sense. Clearly, owning a sex-club complex as Rumy did had given him a skewed view of the world.

Fortunately, the jacket would cover things up.

She pulled on the boots, which fit really well. Despite the bra choices, she’d have to thank Rumy later for his attention to detail. Shrugging into the jacket, Marius turned back to her, then held out his arm for her.

He now wore a tight-fitting vest as well, also loaded with weapons, and as she hopped onto his booted right foot and slid her arm around his neck, she could feel the daggers beneath.

He put his hand to her face. “Ready for this?”

“Absolutely. But how do you know where to go?”

“I’ll head northwest in the direction of Europe. As we get closer to Sweden, you can guide me in. Not sure how it’ll work, but I’m confident we can figure this out.”

“Sounds good. Now what do we do about the fast-flight issue I have?”

He smiled. “I’ve been thinking about that and I have a feeling it’s not going to be a problem. If our proximity issue is gone, you should be okay.”

She smiled. “Then let’s go.” But her heart hammered hard. When she’d seen the vision, the cave had been empty. However, that didn’t mean that something could change by the time they got there.

As he switched to altered flight and took off, she closed her eyes, not wanting to see the stone wall rush at her. He soon had them high in the sky, flying faster and faster, but she didn’t feel a thing, not a single twinge of pain.
Marius, this is amazing.

No pain?

Not even a little. Incredible.

While he flew, she watched the moving landscape below, the breadth of ocean, then the shape of the Indian subcontinent. Soon the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Maybe twelve minutes had passed, but not much more, before they were descending. As she looked down she saw a good portion of Europe stretched out below. He’d taken her high into the air, high enough to get a bird’s-eye view of this part of the planet.

Soon enough he started to slow, then finally hovered in the air.
We’re close now. Try forming a picture in your head of the pathway into the cavern system. I’ll admit, I’ve never been here before. I don’t think it’s inhabited.

Okay. I’ll see what I can do.
She brought the vision forward, and as before, it arrived with the dark wavy lines. She felt a sudden disappointment that Marius’s increase in power hadn’t translated into her images improving. She began to think the problem lay with her.

She directed the destination point toward him as though speaking telepathically, then asked,
Are you receiving this?