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Clenching his jaw so hard that his molars ached, he did his best to ignore Jackson’s asinine idea. “That reminds me. I’m cancelling the ceremony. It doesn’t seem right to celebrate Guardians’ achievements when several of our own are suffering. I’ll postpone the event and give out the awards another time.”
A few of them murmured in agreement.
“Plus,” Lily said, “it may not be safe. This attack was orchestrated, premeditated. Guardians are clearly a target and until we find out who’s responsible, Darkbloods could strike again and injure innocent members of the vampire community.”
“I disagree,” Alfonso said, shaking his head. “Cancelling the ceremony would be a big mistake.”
Santiago scowled. He didn’t like to be challenged.
“In my personal opinion,” Alfonso added benignly.
“A mistake?” The more he thought about it, the more his pupils dilated with anger. Trying to keep his people safe wasn’t a strong enough reason to cancel the damn party?
It was Santiago’s responsibility to keep the region as free from Darkblood scourge as possible, not Alfonso’s. He needed to ensure the safety of the small vampire community who lived peacefully among the humans here in the Northwest. Thanks to Dom’s contact in the Seattle Police Department—a man he knew through some military training they’d done together—a meth lab explosion was what the papers had reported. Damage control when humans died or disappeared was difficult enough. But an entire building?
He stood, kicking the chair out from behind him and paced around the room. He’d root out these bastards once and for all. Wearing a daysuit, he’d find where they slept in those coffins of theirs and let Misery carve them into little pieces. They’d find justice all right. At the point of his knife. He sure as hell didn’t have time for a damn party.
“Listen,” Alfonso said. Santiago spun around to see him holding up his palms. “I’m not trying to challenge your authority on this, but in my opinion, the ceremony shouldn’t be cancelled. Darkbloods may not know the extent of the collateral damage. If you cancel it, they’ll know they succeeded. They’ll scurry around like a bunch of rats when the cat dies and you’ll have more problems on your hands. On the outside, I say it should be business as usual. Don’t let them know how deeply they affected us. And then behind the scenes, when they’re least expecting it, we nail their asses.”
Jackson pulled out a half sandwich from somewhere and took a bite. “He does make a good p—”
“Stop. Just shut the hell up. Everyone.” Santiago fired off a string of expletives in several languages, ignoring that they all were lifting their eyebrows and rolling their eyes at his outburst. Let them. It was no skin off his nose. They could bellyache all they wanted, but in the end, it was his decision to make.
The room was uncomfortably silent as he absently scraped at another splinter in this thumb. Last thing Santiago wanted was for Darkbloods to think they had the upper hand. Leave it to a guy who spent years inside Darkblood operations feeding intel to the Agency, to know how the bastards thought and operated. He had to admit, Alfonso did make some good points.
“We’d have to step up security,” Santiago said finally. “Eliminate all possible breaches.”
For the next few minutes, they hashed out exactly what needed to be done if the ceremony wasn’t cancelled.
“That doesn’t solve the original problem,” Lily said quietly when everyone was done talking. “We don’t know the source of the leaks.”
“I still think you and Roxy should pretend to be lovers,” Jackson said bluntly, wiping the back of a hand over his mouth. “What a fun way to find the traitor.”
“I don’t care about fun.” Santiago pinched the bridge of his nose as his head began to pound. The lingering effects of UV exposure weren’t something he needed right now. If he had known all this was going to happen, he would have fought the urge to go to the Ridge. “Some might know she’s the head tracker at the Academy.”
Jackson shrugged. “So what? We have various trackers there all the time. She could be your new hot girlfriend who’s in town because she’s going to the ceremony with you. She could poke around, ask a few innocent questions, and no one would be the wiser.”
Alfonso turned to Lily. “Do you think she’d go for it?”
“I could ask,” she said.
“I don’t see why it has to be her, why we have to involve an outsider.” Santiago was well aware that his argument was getting flimsier, but this couldn’t be the only solution. “I’m perfectly capable of reading people. I’ll go down there myself.”
Lily laughed. “And you’re about as subtle as my fist to Jackson’s nose. Seriously, Santiago, Roxy’s amazing at analyzing people and their underlying motivations.”
“Hey,” Jackson protested. “Leave my nose out of this.”
Lily recounted an event that happened when Roxanne was mentoring her out in the field when she was a trainee at Tracker Academy. “We were following Darkblood scent in New Orleans, which led to a small voodoo shop in the French Quarter. With all the smells permeating the small space—herbs, potions, gris-gris—I was having a hard time distinguishing the one I’d been tracking. The shop owner, an elderly human woman whose face was as weathered as a dried apple, was arguing with a customer. It was obvious she didn’t want him to leave. I assumed she wanted him to buy one of her concoctions, but Roxy said it had nothing to do with making a sale. She could tell that the woman’s motives for keeping him in her shop were pure, not selfish. But the man didn’t listen. Ten minutes later, he was killed in the middle of Canal Street by a runaway carriage.”
Jackson sat forward in his chair. “So the old woman was a psychic.”
“Yes, and Roxy knew she was telling the truth simply by listening to her.”
“Remind me not to invite her to play poker,” Jackson said.
Alfonso was nodding his head. “That’s pretty compelling, Santiago. She didn’t have to talk to the woman to get a good read on her intentions. All she did was listen. I say you should do this thing. What would it hurt?”
Santiago was fighting a losing battle and started to protest again.
“Guess you could always send her down there on her own,” Lily said.
“Kind of defeats the purpose though,” Alfonso countered. “People would wonder why she was there. Sure, you could invent something, but this is the simplest solution of all. She’s Santiago’s girlfriend, in town to attend the gala. Doesn’t get much simpler than that.”
With every beat of his heart, this headache grew stronger. Santiago did not want to pretend to be Roxanne Reynolds’s lover. That would mean she’d have to share his room at the field office, that they’d have to put on a show and act like they cared about each other. She was too different from him to make a charade like that work.
Besides, he didn’t let affairs of the heart control him in real life, so he sure as hell didn’t want to pretend they did. Hell, he wouldn’t even know how to act in a fake relationship. He rarely let himself carry on with a woman longer than a few days and he always kept his heart out of it. His father’s philandering ways had destroyed their family and Santiago had vowed long ago that he’d never repeat his mistakes. A night or two with the same woman was one thing, but several weeks?
He could almost smell his father’s cigar now as he thought about one of the last conversations they’d had.
“The sins of the father are passed down to the son,” his father had said, tilting his head back and blowing out a thick stream of smoke. “You have to realize that the men in our family were not meant to be monogamous. This nature of ours—it is in our genes and there is nothing we can do about it. Our seed does not belong inside just one woman.”
As far as Santiago knew, his father hadn’t produced any children outside his marriage, but it wasn’t from a lack of trying. His parents had been pressured to get married and have more offspring after his mother had gotten pregnant. Given the low birth rates among their people, when a pairing turned out to be fruitful, their society urged them to have more.
Having seen what his father’s actions had done to his mother, Santiago swore he’d never do the same to any woman. If promiscuity truly was in their genes, then he didn’t want to destroy a woman like his father had done. Because when the mother suffered, so did the children. And he sure as hell didn’t want to produce sons who’d do the same thing. As far as he was concerned, the sins of the father stopped with him.
Besides, there was something about Roxanne that unsettled him, caused him to think about things he’d rather not. And he happened to like himself just the way he was.
“You two could play house,” Jackson said. “Who knows? You might actually like it.”
For the second time tonight, Santiago pounded his fist on the conference room table. “Absolutely not.”
THERE HAD TO be a crib here at region headquarters somewhere, Roxy thought. Mackenzie said there wasn’t, which seemed crazy. Miguel couldn’t be the only child to ever stay here, no matter how uncommon vampire children were. But if there really wasn’t a crib here, then Roxy planned to head into town and buy one. And Santiago would just have to run it through as an expense.
She pushed open the door to his outer office, but it was empty. His assistant’s chair was tucked into her desk and the few personal things on the top were arranged neatly. Had the woman even been in today? It sure didn’t look like it. Either that or she was extremely neat and tidy. Glancing around at how orderly the colored files were behind her desk, Roxy figured the latter was true.
She stared at the closed double doors, wondering what she should do. If she knocked, would he even answer? Her tracker senses told her he was there. Maybe she should come back another time when Jenella was around. As she debated what to do, she heard a series of crashes behind the doors. Without thinking, she grabbed the handles and pushed them open.
The office was an absolute mess—chairs overturned, papers scattered everywhere, chunks of plaster and dust covered much of the floor. He’d thrown something—a chair, maybe?—at the ceiling at some point. With his back to her, Santiago said something in a language she didn’t recognize—no doubt a curse—and swiped a hand over the remaining items on his desk. Everything on top of it went flying, including his computer monitor.
“Whoa,” she said, ducking. It landed with a crash on the wall about three feet away from her and shattered.
He spun to face her, an angry fire blazing in his eyes. “What the hell do you want?”
This was madness. What had gotten into him that he’d want to completely destroy his office like this? It wouldn’t be a matter of just righting a few desks and chairs and straightening papers. This would take a whole crew of repairmen to fix the damage.
Breathing heavily, he stared at her, his nostrils flared, his mouth slightly ajar, exposing the tips of his fangs. His tattoo seemed darker all of a sudden, more ominous than it had before.
At first, she thought about turning on her heel and coming back another time. Clearly, she was not meant to have witnessed this, but she wasn’t going to let him scare her off. Where was the in-control man she was used to seeing around the offices? The man who confidently fired off orders that people eagerly followed through on? Even though a part of her wanted to leave, she knew she needed to stay strong and continue.
“I came to ask a question but I can see that the commanding officer has been possessed by a madman.”
“Where’s Jenella?” His voice sounded as if he’d just straight-shot a glass of gravel. “Why did she let you in?”
Roxy shrugged. “She wasn’t there.”
He kicked at what she thought was a part of his printer. “You shouldn’t be here either. Leave.”
She bristled. Not before she got what she came for.
“Are you through yet?” She could see him stiffen, but she wasn’t dissuaded from continuing. Miguel needed a crib. Mackenzie needed him to sleep in one, in order for her to get some decent rest. Something told Roxy to keep pushing. “What’s gotten into you? Why have you destroyed your office?”
“You weren’t supposed to see this,” he said. “No one was.”
“Well, the noise was hard to miss.” Several books were balanced precariously on the edge of the shelf so she pushed them all the way in and stooped to pick up one from the floor.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” She slid it back onto the bookshelf. Judging by the leather spines, there were some old ones here. It’d be a shame if any of them got bent or torn.
“I don’t want you coming in here and…cleaning up.”
Yeah, he probably expected his assistant to do it. Maybe that was why she was gone in the first place. She wanted her boss to clean up his own damn mess for once.
His chest continued to rise and fall, the muscles in his arms bulging, reminding her of a bull in an arena ready to charge. Only she wasn’t scared. She’d always felt sorry for the bulls.
“This wasn’t the reason I came.” She spotted another book on the floor behind the broken computer monitor. Oh, for goddsake. It was a first edition of The Call of the Wild. “What is the matter with you?”
He exhaled, his shoulders slumping slightly in defeat. “What do you want?”
She flung her hand around. “I want to know what this is about.”
“There’s nothing for you to understand. I already told you to leave. This is none of your concern.”
But she couldn’t just leave. She wanted to know more. Why the tantrum? He seemed like the most controlled and in-charge man she’d ever met. And this, she thought, looking at all the broken computer equipment and upended furniture, was far from that.
She narrowed her eyes and studied him. He seemed to have calmed down a little; his pupils weren’t quite so dilated, his breathing had slowed. Maybe the problem was that he was cool on the outside while torment raged on the inside. She had no idea why, but for some reason, it was important for her to keep pushing in order to better understand him.
“What if I don’t want to leave? What if I…care why you’ve done this?”
His head snapped up as if he’d been slapped, his eyes dark and menacing. “Why would you care about me? I’ve not exactly been warm and welcoming to you.”
He made it sound as if he’d been consciously trying to act like a jerk. She’d done nothing to warrant being treated like that on purpose. Then it dawned on her. Maybe her past had followed her. Maybe he’d heard the accusations from long ago and didn’t want her here.
She stood a little taller and put a wall of iron around her heart. “Well, for one thing, I need to know how to get a crib set up in Mackenzie’s room. She’s exhausted and the only way she’s going to get any rest is if Miguel sleeps in his own bed. Which means the region needs a damn crib. If you don’t have one, then I’m driving to the nearest town right now and buying one. And you’re going to reimburse me.”
His expression seemed to soften just a little and he leaned on the edge of his desk. “And what was the other reason?”
“I… I…don’t know. Guess I just wanted to see if I could help.”
His gaze darted around the room. He seemed to see the destruction for the first time through the eyes of a reasonable man because he actually looked a little sheepish. He strode over to the wet bar and grabbed a bottle of scotch. “Want one?”
Was that supposed to be a peace offering of some sort? She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not if I’m going to have to drive to the store and buy a crib.”
He smiled then, not one of those big, movie-star smiles with the gleaming eyes and the perfect teeth that made you want to strip off your panties, but a quiet, almost diminutive smile that said he knew she was right, he was wrong, and that maybe her past was still in the past after all.
He picked up his phone, barked a few orders and hung up. “Okay, Roxanne. Miguel will have a crib within the hour.”
“Thank you. That’s going to make it so much better for Mackenzie.” She ran her hands along the spines of the books and smiled. “Please, I’d like it if you called me Roxy.”
He studied her face for a moment before his gaze traveled slowly down her body all the way to her feet then back up again as if he were seeing her for the first time, as well. A ball of warmth concentrated in her belly and radiated outward, making her cheeks feel as if they were on fire. She resisted the urge to cool them with her palms.
He held up the bottle again. “Are you sure?”
“Um, thanks, but no. I’m a frou-frou drink person all the way.” At the amused expression on his face she added, “You know, daiquiris, cosmos, anything that comes with an umbrella.”
He poured himself a drink and knocked it back in one swallow. Twisting the glass around in his hand, he seemed to be inordinately interested in the tiny amount of scotch that was left at the bottom. A tiny muscle in his jaw ticked as if he was chewing on his thoughts.
“Positive?” He set the glass down and looked at her pointedly. “Because you might want one after what I’m about to ask you.”
A dozen red flags flapped in her head and her mouth went dry. First he wanted her out of his office and now he wanted to chat? Why the turnaround? She had a really bad feeling about this. Maybe she should take him up on his offer because she was suddenly very thirsty. Too bad she hated scotch.
She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to hear him out. Trying to maintain her composure, she opened the small refrigerator and spotted a small can of grapefruit juice. “Got any vodka?”
“Right here.”
“Then I’ll have a greyhound. And don’t add too much juice. I want to be able to taste the alcohol.”
Grabbing a glass that hadn’t been broken, he made the drink, poured himself another scotch and pointed to the couch, the only piece of furniture unaffected by his tirade. “Take this and sit down,” he said in that gravelly voice of his. “But I’m afraid I’m fresh out of umbrellas.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE CHAMBER WAS lit only by candles. Hundreds of them. Encased in identical frosted-glass votive holders, they sat on almost every flat surface, casting a warm, flickering light on the stone walls.
People came here for answers, comfort or guidance, which Santiago had never understood. He didn’t feel he should have to look beyond the borders of his own skin for validation or support. He was a firm believer in being the driver of your own life. If you wanted something, you took it. If you worried about something, you figured it out. If you needed someone to do something, you told them. You didn’t stew or fret or ask for opinions. He sure as hell didn’t live his life by committee—earthly or divine. A savvy combination of fists and brainpower was the only formula for success he subscribed to and it had served him well the past two hundred years.
So, when he stepped inside the sanctuary, it wasn’t answers he sought.
Roxy was bent over the small altar on the dais, lighting candles with a long match that reminded him of the cigarette holders used by old Hollywood starlets. And like those women, there was something timelessly beautiful about her look, something that would never go out of fashion.
Nothing about her was hurried. She was agonizingly slow in everything she did and it drove him mad. Deliberate and methodical, she spent way too much time thinking about shit. Introspection and Santiago were like oil and water. They didn’t mix no matter how hard you shook them. He was a shoot-now-ask-questions-later kind of guy, but without the questions.
Her off-white gauzy dress skimmed her ankles and because her movements were slow and fluid, it gave her the appearance of floating on the stage. She was barefoot, and the light from behind silhouetted her long legs through the thin fabric. Her arms were ballet-dancer graceful and something sparkled in the soft, loose curls that fell past her shoulders. Whether it was now or a hundred years ago, men would find her classically beautiful and elegant.
If she thought she could avoid dealing with “his proposition,” as she’d called it, by running and hiding out here, she was sadly mistaken. Not much happened around region headquarters without him knowing about it. A snap of a finger or a terse phone call and his people told him everything he wanted to know. Which included reports that she’d gone into the sanctuary.
But it wasn’t a proposition he’d given her back in his office. It was a goddamn order.
She still hadn’t acknowledged him with so much as a glance in his direction or a nod of her head, so he shut the heavy, hand-carved doors behind him with a bang. She didn’t jump or act surprised. She simply turned around and those golden eyes burned right through him, as if she’d known the whole time that he was here.
Undaunted, he strode up the center aisle between the rows of pews, the sound of his boots echoing irreverently throughout the chamber. “Are you trying to hide from me, Ms. Reynolds?” Going back to formalities emphasized who was in charge—him.
“Hide? Try ignore.”
“Because if you are, it’s a waste of time. My people tell me everything. You cannot—”
Wait. Did she say she was ignoring him? He came to a screeching halt. The woman came here because she was…snubbing him? Impossible. No one gave the region commander the brush-off. When he gave an order, people did what they were told.
“No one ignores me, Ms. Reynolds.”
“Am I supposed to be thrilled for you?” She turned back around and continued lighting those damn candles, dismissing him.
His blood boiled up like an active volcano and he spat out the toothpick he kept clenched between his teeth.
She was belittling him, discounting his authority. No one dared defy him like that.
No one.
He wanted to pound his fists through the walls and rip the sanctuary apart. Yank out a bench, lift it over his head, and throw it across the room. Instead, he stormed between the last set of pews and kicked at a hymnal that someone left lying on the floor. When he stomped onto the dais, the whole thing shook and a dozen tiny flames flickered.
She turned to face him, hands on her hips. From the defiant tilt of her chin, it was clear he didn’t intimidate her in the slightest. “What is your problem?”
Eucalyptus from either her shampoo or lotion faintly filled the air around him, while the fire in her eyes stirred up his insides. Both sensations were pleasing and he started to relax until he remembered the dakai thing. His sister had smelled of weird scented oils, too, because of that cult.
He moved in close until he towered over her, but she didn’t back away. Even with her head cranked back, she seemed to be able to level a stare at him. This vexed him even more. “I gave you a direct order.”
“Yes, I know you did.” She wasn’t at all impressed. “Too bad you have no authority over me.” There was a gleeful tone to her voice. It was subtle, but it was there.
Rather than stare her down, he stormed off the dais and stalked around the room.
“And don’t think you can go and have another one of your juvenile tantrums to make me cave,” she called after him.
“Juvenile? Where do you get off thinking you can call me that?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re not juvenile.” He started to relax. She was right to be apologizing because—
“You’re more infantile than anything.”
What? His head was seriously going to explode. No one spoke to him this way. Back in his office, he’d told her she was going to accompany him to Seattle and masquerade as his lover in order to root out the traitor. End of story. He didn’t expect her to like the plan, but he damn well expected her to go along with it.
With an expression devoid of all emotion, she’d listened quietly to the rationale of posing as lovers in order to throw people in the Seattle field office off guard. When she didn’t react, he continued. He told her what Lily had said, that she had an uncanny ability to tell if someone’s motivations were good or not. Figuring he was stroking her ego, he assumed she’d jump at the chance to work on such an assignment with someone of his stature. When he was done, however, she’d stood from the couch, calmly placed the glass on his desk and walked out of the room without a word or a backward glance. He’d been so stunned by this it took him a moment to go after her. But by then, she was gone.