“Of course you can,” Ami said.
Marcus met Chris’s gaze over her head. Though he seemed jovial enough, the man’s eyes revealed that whatever had brought him here tonight did not entail good news.
Well, screw that. The next crisis could wait. Tonight was Ami’s night.
Marcus pressed a kiss to her soft curls and led her from the room. While Ami had slept, he and the others had worked their asses off preparing a sumptuous feast they had then laid out on the long dining room table while she showered and dressed.
A formal white tablecloth had been added, as well as their finest dinnerware, which wasn’t terribly fine. Crap tended to break a lot around here. Large men and dainty china didn’t mix well. But Darnell had dug up decorative napkins and other little adornments from who knew where that left the presentation looking damned good, if he did say so himself.
“Oh my,” Ami breathed. “It’s beautiful. And there’s so much food! Will others be joining us?”
“No,” Marcus said. “It’s all ours.” And they did their damnedest to eat every crumb.
Seth took his usual place at the head of the table. Marcus and Ami sat close together on one side, thighs touching, arms brushing. David, Darnell, and Chris seated themselves on the other.
Laughter and teasing abounded as platters and glasses emptied.
“So, Chris,” Ami said, when much of the meal had been devoured, “tell us what brought you here tonight.”
Chris choked on the forkful of salad he had just shoveled into his mouth. His eyes met Marcus’s and caught the warning in them. “What?” he asked and took a long drink of tea to stall. “Oh. I was just dropping by to … hang out.”
“It’s bad news, isn’t it?” Clearly, she didn’t buy it.
“No,” he hedged.
Marcus hoped he lied more convincingly as a cleaner, because right now he was about as convincing as Ami was when she lied.
“Come on. Let’s have it,” she persisted.
Chris met those pretty emerald eyes of hers and crumbled. After tossing Marcus a what-can-I-do look, he said, “You all know I have contacts in … unusual places. Men and women in certain agencies whose jobs are so highly classified that even their spouses don’t know what their true professions are.”
“That’s what makes you so invaluable,” Seth pointed out.
Chris nodded his thanks. “Well, I went to all of these contacts as soon as we had the commander’s name, trying to find out as much as I could about Emrys and his soldiers, how far his reach extends, if he really is military, anything that would help us plot a course of action for stopping the group in its tracks and doing major damage control.”
“What did you find?” Ami asked.
He shook his head. “They’re gone. Disappeared without a trace.”
“That’s not terribly surprising,” Marcus said. “Montrose Keegan is a civilian, and he managed to disappear and stay off the grid for—what—a year and a half?”
Darnell nodded. “If these guys are some shadow branch of the military, they have the kind of connections that could keep them off the grid permanently, even shielding them from your moles in the agencies.”
“That isn’t what he meant,” David said, “is it, Chris?”
Chris sighed. “No. The commander and his shadow army aren’t gone. Or they could be, I suppose. I don’t know. I couldn’t find out anything about them because my contacts are gone. They are the ones who have vanished without a trace.”
Everyone lowered their utensils and stared at him.
“They’re gone?” Darnell repeated. “All of them?”
“And their families.”
Darnell looked at David, then back at Chris. “Is there any way whoever got to them can link your contacts to you?”
“No, I’m always careful not to leave either a paper or a cyber trail. And all calls go through heavily encrypted lines. They have nothing at all that would give them any indication of my identity.”
“What if your contacts are tortured?” Ami asked softly. “If the people who held me captive are the same ones who took your contacts … You’ve read the files, Chris. You know what they did to me. They’ll make your friends talk.”
Marcus scooted his chair closer to her and wrapped his arm around her.
Chris looked sick at the idea of his agency friends suffering such a fate. “We didn’t use our real names. And they never initiated communication. I left a prepaid cell phone at a designated drop spot, then called them from another that couldn’t be traced.”
No one spoke for a long moment.
Seth cleared his throat. “This only confirms our suspicions that we are facing a far more sophisticated enemy now than we ever have before, one who can use technology and black-op forces to hunt us down.” He looked at Ami. “To hunt you down. It isn’t safe for you to remain here, sweetheart. I think you and Marcus should leave the country.”
Ami stiffened. “You make it sound like I’m the only one they want. If that were true, they wouldn’t have drugged the immortals the night the vampire king captured me. They would have killed them. The last of the vampires just stood there, waiting for Marcus and the others to lose consciousness. Then they were going to move in and take them prisoner.”
“Keegan wanted the immortals,” Seth stated. “This commander wants you.”
She huffed in disbelief. “Do you honestly believe, after seeing the tape of the battle, that this man doesn’t want to get his hands on every immortal he can? Immortals are just as much of an anomaly as I am.”
Marcus spoke up, his desire to defeat their enemies trounced by his need to keep Ami safe. “I’m sure he would like to get his hands on us, Ami. But we aren’t as vulnerable as you are. We’re immortal.”
Her chin jutted out stubbornly. “Yes, you’re stronger. You’re faster. But, you’re conveniently forgetting just how hard it is to kill me.”
Marcus stiffened.
“You haven’t had a chance to read the files Darnell decrypted, the ones that detail the experiments they performed on me. If you had, you’d understand that I’m damned near as immortal as you are.”
“I don’t want them getting their hands on you,” he gritted out. He couldn’t stand the idea of her being tortured again and feared what it might do to her emotionally and psychologically.
“They won’t,” she insisted.
“You know we can’t guarantee that.”
“If they catch me, you’ll rescue me.”
He damned sure would. But what would happen to her before he found her?
Marcus looked to the others for help.
Darnell leaned forward, his face earnest. “The one fear you’ve been unable to overcome, Ami, is your fear of doctors and labs. It’s still nearly paralyzing in its intensity. Are you really prepared to risk ending up in one of their labs again?”
Damn. Marcus was glad he hadn’t been the one to ask that question. Ami loathed the fear the butchers had instilled in her and would not appreciate its being pointed out to her.
“Yes,” she said. “I would.”
Marcus stared at her in bewilderment. “Why?”
She smiled and held up her left hand, the silver ring gleaming. “Have you forgotten so quickly? I go where you go, Marcus. Your family is my family. And family members don’t take off running to ensure their own safety and leave the others to fight when danger strikes. They stand together.”
“Roland would dispute that,” Chris commented dryly. Ami smiled. But when she next met Marcus’s gaze, her pretty eyes turned flinty. “Besides, I want to help you catch the monsters who hurt me. And when we do … I want to make them beg for the mercy they denied me.”
He hadn’t thought of that: her need to seek and obtain justice.
“We can’t deny her vengeance,” David stated.
The other men nodded.
Marcus didn’t like it, but had to agree. It was her right.
Chris shook his head. “Brave as hell. Stubborn as a mule. Thirsty for revenge. She’s definitely one of the family.”
Ami laughed with delight.
The tension in the room eased. Hands reclaimed utensils and once more began carrying food to hungry mouths.
Marcus touched Ami’s chin, drew her gaze back to his. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Are you angry?”
“No. I want you to be happy. If that means staying here, then we will.”
“Thank you.”
Ducking his head, he pressed his lips to hers. Her tongue gave his a teasing stroke. Electricity shot through his veins.
Marcus wondered how rude it would be—on a scale of one to ten—if he were to drag Ami away from the celebration feast so he could make love to her again in the Quiet Room.
That would be a ten, Seth answered telepathically.
Marcus scowled at him. Damn it! Stay out of my head!
I can’t help it. I’ve had to tiptoe around you for almost a decade. Now that I’m free to irritate you at will, I find it exceedingly entertaining.
Marcus grumbled and growled inwardly, then thought of a way to teach Seth a lesson: He pictured himself naked.
Seth grimaced. Ugh! All right! All right! I’m out!
“Something wrong?” Ami asked, eyeing them both curiously.
Marcus smiled down at her. “No.”
“Good.” The corners of her lips curled up in a sly smile as she peeked up at him from beneath her lashes. Do you think they’d miss us if we snuck down to the Quiet Room to fool around?
Marcus would have laughed if fiery desire hadn’t shot through his whole body at the sound of her voice in his head. I’m afraid so.
She wrinkled her nose in disappointment, though he knew she was enjoying the family gathering.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”