"First of all, the Kyn never knew you existed. Elizabeth killed your parents and forced you to go through the change alone. Believe me, she paid for it." Alex considered telling Nick exactly how Richard had punished his sadistic wife, but decided the girl had enough material for her nightmares. "You really love Gabriel, don't you?"
"Duh." Nick invested the one word with a thousand unspoken ones.
Alex faced her. "Then you have to find a way to deal, Nick, just like I did. Because you love him, because you're bonded to him, and he's Kyn. And no matter how much you deny it, so are you."
The younger girl stared off at the horizon for a time. "I'll have to put up my hair and wear dresses and do all that formal greeting stuff, won't I? I hate that silly shit."
"Or you could wear jeans and a T-shirt and shave your head." Alex said. "You'll be the suzerain's lady; no one would dare give you grief about it. And personally, I avoid the formal-greeting stuff whenever possible. Unless it's another lord I like, most of the time I make Phillipe do it."
Nick looked thoughtful. "Gabriel will need a seneschal if he turns sig-lord." She smiled a little. "I wasn't much into M&M's, but man, there are some nights I'd kill for Reese's."
Alex grinned. "Pieces, or peanut butter cup?"
"Pieces." Nick snorted. "Why ruin perfectly good peanut butter with crappy milk chocolate?"
"Ah, but they have them in dark and white chocolate now." Alex took a deep breath. "Okay, my turn to bitch. We've got a situation."
Nick listened as Alex told her about the reaction of the Kyn pathogen to heat, the missing bodies of the arson attack victims, and the effects of the new ammunition on the survivors.
"What are they doing with the ones they take?" Nick asked.
"We don't know, but you saw firsthand what they did to Gabriel." Alex watched her expression. "Nick, I know it's a lot to ask of you, but no one else has your talent. We need you to find them."
"So that's it. Richard wants to use my fangdar." She studied Alex. "He made you come and ask me. He knew if he did it I'd tell him to go fuck himself with his scepter." She chuckled and shook her head. "Twisted son of a bitch."
"As much as I agree with you, he's right. Gabriel's told us how you work together. He doesn't even have to track them anymore. You always know where they are."
"I'll do it," Nick said abruptly. "On one condition. I want that big blond guy from Ireland to go with us."
"Korvel?" Alex frowned. "Why do you want him?"
"Gabriel told me about him. He said Richard made him his seneschal because he does whatever the Vampire King tells him, no matter how nasty it is," she said. "I want him armed to the teeth and under orders. If it looks like the Brethren are going to grab us, I want Korvel to kill us."
"Nick—"
"No." She looked into Alex's eyes. "You're not there when Gabriel wakes up shaking and has blood on his mouth from biting through his lips, trying not to scream. You don't see how he flinches every time a priest or even a guy dressed in black comes near us. You don't feel the burn scars against your skin while you're making love and remember how he got them. You sure as hell never pulled him off a goddamn cross."
Alex started to say something, and then fell silent.
"I'm never letting those freaks touch Gabriel again," Nick said softly. "And you really don't want them to get hold of both of us. Because they'll use him to make me work as one of their hunters."
Alex felt sick, but slowly nodded. "Okay. I'll tell Richard." Someone coughed, and she looked over to see one of Geoff's guards approaching them.
"Good evening, my ladies." The guard bowed. "Lady Nicola, your lord asks if you will join him in the garage."
"I promised Gabriel I'd show him how to change out a carburetor on the Triumph," she said, referring to her motorcycle. "I'll be there in a minute."
The guard bowed and left them.
"One more thing." Nick turned to Alex. "Tell Richard we're even now. He tries anything like this again, and I'll tell the fucking Brethren myself where they can find him."
Chapter Sixteen
Robin shouted over and over for Salva as the heavy doors to the floor above slammed shut, abruptly cutting off her laughter. He looked over at Chris and Nottingham, locked in the cage together, and went into an abrupt, furious rage. Howling like an animal, he hurled himself against the bars, smashing his shoulder into them over and over until blood began to spread down his sleeve and chest.
Gripping her bleeding arm, Chris limped over to the side of her cell closest to his.
"Robin." She kept her voice low and soft. "Robin, over here." When he did, she saw his lips had curled back from his fangs and his eyes had gone completely copper, never a good sign. "Listen to me. Calm down. We got in. We'll get out."
"We're going to die." He drove his fist into the unyielding bars.
Chris glanced at Nottingham and felt like punching something herself. "No, we're not. Robin, you can't freak out on me like this. I need you. I need to know what to do about him."
"Him." He didn't seem to understand her.
"Nottingham," she said. "They locked him in here with me, remember?"
Evidently Robin didn't, as he looked at the unconscious man and began to swear, furiously and without stopping, in some archaic form of English.
"Will you shut up?" Chris shouted, and felt a surge of dizziness that had her grabbing the bars. By then Robin had stopped swearing. "Thank you. Now, about the unconscious vampire, and what I need to do when he wakes up."
His burning eyes shifted to her arm. "You're bleeding."
"You noticed."
He uttered another archaic, filthy word. "Use one of your scarves to bind that wound. When he wakes, don't talk to him or touch him. Stay as far away as you can from him."
The cage was six feet by ten feet; she could take a step back and kick Nottingham in the head. She removed one of the scarves from around her waist and began clumsily binding her gashed arm. "How long can you two go without blood?"
A muscle in Robin's jaw twitched. "You needn't worry about that now."
"I have to," she told him. "The contessa told the guards not to feed you. I'm guessing she wants you to starve while you watch Nottingham to drain me dry."
"We can go without feeding for weeks, months. Years, some say. But he will not wait that long. The smell of your blood will rouse him." Robin curled his fingers around the copper bars, his flesh sizzling until he let them fall away and looked down. "What is in that basket? There, by your feet."
Chris hadn't noticed it, and bent to remove the napkin covering the top. Her head spun, so she was careful to go slowly when she straightened. "Apples, cheese, and bread. Some bottled water. I guess she doesn't want me to starve to death right away." She looked around the cell. "This is my worst nightmare, too. I hate being locked up."
"I know about your childhood," Robin said gently. "I shared your dream on the plane."
"How could you…" She stopped, and sighed. "Never mind. Can you eat any of the food?"
He shook his head. "Only blood." He saw her glance at the dead rat. "Animal blood makes us sick. We can endure small amounts, but when the hunger grows too great, we will attack any human near us."
Which would be me. Chris's heart sank. "How long do I have before he loses control?"
"I cannot say. If he has not fed recently… a week. Perhaps a little longer. It does not matter. He will attack you anyway." He began pacing around the cell, looking at all of the bars and the stones. "There has to be a weakness in the construction. Old mortar. Something."
Dizziness made Chris's knees finally give out, and she slid down until she sat on the dirty straw.
"Chris."
She looked through the bars at him. "I'm okay. Just a little light-headed. I should have let this thing with Norman go. None of this would have happened if I had." Blood ran down the inside of her arm, and she put her hand over the bandaged gash to apply pressure. "She called you Locksley, and said you stole the maiden Marian from Nottingham."
Robin started to say something, and then hung his head.
"It's okay. I actually have an easier time believing that you're Robin Hood than I do that immortal-who-lives-on-human-blood-and-can't-be-killed thing," she continued, her tone almost conversational. "I am a little confused, though. I've seen just about every movie ever made about Robin Hood. I don't remember him raping and killing Maid Marian in any of them."
"Chris."
She met his gaze.
"What the contessa said was partly true, but not all. I never forced Marian, and I never meant to get her with child. I loved her. I have never spoken of this to anyone before you." The sincerity of his words echoed in his eyes. "When we get out of here, when we are safe, I shall tell you about her, and what happened between us."
"Robin, I know you wouldn't deliberately hurt a woman. You've had too many chances to do that to me." Pain dulled her voice. "You know, I was so busy blaming you for Norman that I never told you the truth." She forced herself to say out loud what she had been thinking ever since she'd heard the news: "You didn't kill him. I did."
Her claim confused Robin. "You told me that he committed suicide."
"Norman pulled the trigger, but I put the gun in his mouth." She glanced at him. "What I mean is, he did it because I screwed up in Chicago."
"Tell me what happened."
"He never liked working with female agents. He was kind of dinosaur that way. Even on the job he referred to me as 'the bimbo' or 'my secretary.' I put in a dozen transfer requests, trying to get reassigned away from him." Chris's expression darkened. "Sometimes I wonder if that's why I forgot to turn off the camera. I saw too many bruises, and he got too many suspects to confess when I was out of the room. Maybe on a subconscious level I wanted him to get caught and bounced out of the bureau, so I wouldn't have to deal with him anymore."