Department 57: Rubies of Fire (27 page)

Marshall got to his feet, aided by the unencumbered George, making room for Cristos. “We’ll stay around for a while,” he said

“He needs to feed,” Cristos said. “I’ll take care of the other vampires. You go. But keep in touch.”

“Sure you’re all right?”

Andreas looked up, right into George’s deep blue, troubled eyes. “Thanks, guys. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help.”

“Thank us by taking care of Roz. We won’t go far. Call us if you need us.”

With George supporting most of Marshall’s weight, they slowly left the room. The thump of the front door closing sounded hollowly in the apartment as Cristos stepped back.

Nancy stood before Roz, tears slowly trickling down her face. “I’m sorry, Roz,” she whispered, “but it was the only way, and when you split with Andreas, our leaving for the wedding was just too much. I knew nobody would worry about you until it was too late.” She looked past Andreas to where what was left of Don sprawled over the floor. “I’d do it again.”

“We do it differently this time,” Cristos said. Andreas didn’t attempt to help him. Anything against Roz and he’d defy anyone and any rule to save her.

As though he’d spoken the words, Nancy met his eyes. “Yes. That’s what I meant.”

“Would you die for her? Would you have died for Don?” Andreas swallowed. If she said yes, had he the heart to insist on justice?

He didn’t have to ponder that problem, because Cristos solved it for him. “On your knees.”

Andreas felt the heat as Cristos exuded power, seemingly effortlessly. For the first time he noticed Cristos was wearing a tux and black tie. Cristos spoke without breaking an ounce of concentration. “I was at the opera. But it’s okay. I know how
Aida
ends.” The warmth left his voice when he spoke to Nancy again. “Down on your knees by the bed.”

“You want me to beg forgiveness?” She sank down. She had little choice, with the mental pressure Cristos forced on her, but she did it gracefully, as though kneeling before an altar. As she would have been doing in a couple of weeks if she’d been content to marry the man she loved and make the most of what they had. “I will. I do. Forgive me, Roz.” She looked up, her gray eyes as hard as flint, and met Andreas’s gaze. “The answer to your questions is no. I liked Roz, but not that much.”

“The choice is no longer yours. Offer yourself to Roz. She has enough strength to take you, and if she has not, I’ll help her.”

Implacably, Cristos moved behind Nancy. He didn’t touch her, but she moaned as if he had and pushed back against the immovable force he pressed on her, driving her, inch by inch, toward the wicked fangs protruding from Roz’s mouth.

With a swift movement, Roz turned her head away from Andreas, toward Nancy. Nancy cried out, but Roz had her, a panther seizing its prey. Andreas watched the sharp, feral teeth sink deep into Nancy’s neck and knew Cristos had initiated the deepest contact of all. He reached for Roz’s hand and lifted his gaze to Cristos.

“She needs to drain Nancy fast, before her strength ebbs fatally and she slips into a coma. She was close to it when you arrived, but Marshall’s offering stopped that. You owe him.”

“I know it.”

“When she’s done, take her away. I’ll deal with everything here.”

Andreas nodded. Exhaustion swept over him like a wave as the hand he held began to pinken and warm, and the adrenaline rush had its inevitable kickback effect. He slumped forward, holding her tight as if he’d never let her go.

Chapter Nineteen

Roz slowly became aware she was lying on a cloud. A warm cloud. A soft, warm, but inconsistent cloud, because parts of it felt harder and warmer than other parts. She heard a rustle when she turned toward the warm part and then smelled something she knew well, although she couldn’t quite get a handle on it.

Anyway, she knew it belonged to her, warm and comfortable. A low rumble sounded close to her ear. “Roz? Love, are you awake?”

She opened her eyes, blinking when her lashes caught on something in front of her. A wall of muscle. Smiling, she remembered that smell. Spicy male cologne and something even more delicious. Andreas.

She lifted her head and felt his arms tighten around her, lifting her up the bed so she could meet his eyes. Gazing into them, she felt his concern, and memories began to creep back into her mind.

Pulling away, she managed to get to the end of the bed. “So you decided Ellie lied before she confessed?”

He blinked, looked confused, then reached out to touch her arm. “She admitted it.” He gave a wry smile. “Oh, I know I’d look better if I decided it for myself. I’ve known the kid too long, and she’s the only other vampire I know in my predicament. I trusted her too much, didn’t take her age into consideration. And I’m sorry, so sorry. If I hadn’t had that moment of doubt, nothing else would have happened. Roz, I do love you, and I promise to always, always believe you first. I was a fucking idiot.”

In the face of that, what could she say? “Yes, you were. A complete fucking idiot. But I had something to do with it too. I lost my temper, and I’m a bitch then. I can’t think straight. I just react.”

“Never.” When he urged her closer, she came back, let him hold her again. She felt so damn weak. If she left, she wouldn’t get far. And it felt so good having him hold her like that.

More memories returned. Before they could overwhelm her, he kissed her, soft and warm like the comforter enveloping her. “How do you feel?” he murmured, pulling back just a little. His anxious regard swept over her.

“Fine.” She swept her hand up his side and around his back. “Better.”

A low rumble she interpreted as a chuckle. “Good. Do you remember anything?”

She frowned and moved closer, feeling his hug before he slackened his grip to let her relax, her head on his shoulder, her legs interlaced with his. Memories that horrified her. Best to face them now. “Some. Tell me.”

“You were kidnapped.”

She put her hand to her head, unsurprised when she found no trace of a wound. Peering over the expanse of his chest, she saw the dark night outside and the soft light cast by a bedside lamp. She knew this room. “We’re in your house, aren’t we?”

“Yes. Only Cristos knows where we are. I wanted you to rest. But he wants to debrief us as soon as we feel ready for it.”

“What time is it?”

“Around seven. Early yet.”

She smiled and pressed a soft kiss on his neck. “Are we living by night, then?”

“For now. Until you’re completely recovered. Even after that. It’s time I accepted what I am.”

She tried to lift herself up on one elbow and succeeded on her second try, frowning at him. “How long have I been out?”

“Two nights. The night before last would be the last one you remember. You slept the day through after that, and the doctor gave you something to make you sleep last night. He said it would help the healing process, but if you felt anything tonight to call him.”

“What doctor?”

“Poor darling, you don’t remember, do you?”

Mistily she remembered someone she didn’t know bending over her, but that was all.

“Before I brought you here, I took you to the hospital and they checked you over. That’s when the doc gave you a shot.” He smiled up at her, his expression softening the harsh lines by his mouth. “But I checked on you every hour like they told me to. Every half hour, really.”

“It was Nancy, wasn’t it?”

He nodded, and she was sorry to see the lines return. They seemed a little deeper than she’d noticed before. “It was. When we broke up, she suggested you take early leave and go back home for her wedding so we wouldn’t be surprised to find you gone. Only I was. I have Marshall and George to thank for helping me find you.” He lifted his hand and twined a lock of her hair around it, wrapping himself in her. “Do you remember Nancy using compulsion?”

“I remember realizing that was what she meant to do,” she said slowly, staring into the recent past, forcing herself to remember. Her mind shied away from it, but she had to face it while the memory stayed fresh. Then she could put it away and get on with her life. “That’s the last I remember, clearly. They fastened me to bed with silver. Like most of the Gardiners, I react badly to silver.”

“I’ll remember not to give you any. Are you okay with gold and platinum?”

She smiled at his attempt to give her some peace. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed each fingertip, lingering over his self-appointed task.

“I’m fine. What happened after that?”

He gazed at her and wrapped her hand in his, as though he could keep her safe that way. “Nancy used compulsion to make you drain Don and send him into a blood frenzy. He took you. We found you in time, brought you back to the New York apartment, and did what we had to do. Then I took you to the hospital and brought you here.”

“Tell me, Andreas.”

He sighed. “Do you have to know? You must have guessed. Nancy was the leak. She took the files from the Department and routed them through the DIB to provide the false lead.”

“I didn’t think she was that clever.”

“She wasn’t. Someone in the Department helped her. A clerk, someone nobody really noticed but with high enough clearance to collect information. Just not high enough to provide them with the proof they wanted, thank God. Cristos and Bernard Knox are working together to close the leak and any hole it might have left.”

She laughed. “There’s an unholy alliance!”

He smiled too. “They do make quite a pair. Cristos thinks there’s a consortium of businessmen working together to dissect Talents and distill whatever it is that we have.”

She frowned, lifting her hand to cup his cheek. “I thought we had scientists doing that already.”

He nodded against her hand, and she felt the stubble of a day’s growth rasp her palm deliciously. “We do, but these people want to bypass humanity. We’re creatures to them, subjects to be used. And all they want from it is money. Somehow it would be easier if they had some kind of ideal, however twisted, but they just want to make a profit. The labs have been getting more sophisticated, and the Department has suspected for some time that they’re linked, but Candy helped Cristos break the code, provided the final link. You were right about the metatags.

“Nancy helped them. They promised her Don would be one of the first people to take advantage of their studies. Probably said they had donors for her. He would get the magic bullet first. She decided not to wait for that. Once she realized we were on to her, she ran and took you with her.”

She swallowed when she saw the misery in his eyes. “Nancy’s dead, isn’t she?”

He lay completely still, watching her closely. “Yes, she is. George, Marshall, and I found you before Don had drained you completely, but I had to kill him to make him stop. It was the only way, I swear. He’d locked on to your artery. We had to stop that. I wanted to kill him for what he did to you, but I made it fast. He didn’t even yell.”

She stared at him, just listening.

“Marshall gave you blood while I removed Don from you and healed the wound. I couldn’t have done that alone. You were too weak to lose any more blood. You got most of your blood from Nancy. Cristos deemed it necessary. She had to die for using compulsion, and you needed blood.”

“But I didn’t kill her.”

He shook his head slightly, his hair rustling against the pillow. “No, you know you didn’t. She was already dead, Roz. Condemned by her own actions. Cristos delivered the verdict, began the exchange, and then knocked her out. She wouldn’t have felt anything.” His mouth flattened, the first sign she’d seen of the ruthless side of Andreas Constant since she’d woken up. “Frankly I wouldn’t have cared. Not after what she did to you.”

She stared at him for a long time, not entering his mind, just watching him and thinking. He’d suffered for her. She had no doubt he would have died for her if he’d had to. But she was glad he hadn’t.

“Andreas, I wanted to call you, but Nancy said you’d already called. You were on your way to London, she said, and you wanted to let me know, but you hadn’t wanted to talk to me. I should have known then. You always confront your problems head-on, don’t you?”

He continued to watch her, but his head inclined in a reluctant nod.

“I was mad at you, but not entirely sorry. I didn’t want to face you again if you didn’t want me.”

She watched his face, and this time he responded, his arms looped around her back, pulling her close. “Oh, I wanted you all right. After George found the smear of blood on your bedroom door, I knew for sure you were in trouble. I was so scared. Scared I’d lost you, scared I’d never see you again, that I wouldn’t find you in time!”

His grip tightened, and she gasped for breath. “But you did. You found me. Are you still going to London? Would you mind if I came with you?”

“Mind!” He laughed shakily. “Mind? I thought you wouldn’t want to come. You know, with your previous—”

“Life,” she finished for him gently. “Andreas, if you don’t let me loose, I’m going to suffocate.”

With a bark of laughter, he released her so she could prop herself up, her elbows on each side of his muscular chest. She bent and swiped her tongue over a nipple, but pulled away again when she heard his gasp and felt the nipple instantly tighten. “Andreas, London is very different from the city I used to know. Even if it wasn’t, I’d rather go there with you than spend time here on my own. I don’t want you to go alone.”

“I’m not going.” He lifted his hand to cup her cheek. “Fabrice is.”

“Fabrice?”

“Yeah. After…what happened to him, he’s a man, just a man. All his abilities have gone. For good, according to the experts Cristos consulted. He wants to start again in a place where people don’t know him so well. Cristos gave him the assignment instead. It’s the best lead we have from Nancy’s files. Some London-based company. The Talents there will know his past history, sure, but not him. It’s what he wants.”

“You’ll miss him, won’t you?”

“Not half as much as I’d miss you. I want us together. I want to be with you for as long as you can take me. Will you think about it?”

She lifted one hand and sleeked it over his chest. She couldn’t help it; the expanse of smooth muscle invited her touch. In return, he cupped her breast, gently thumbing her nipple until it stood out in proud relief. “I don’t need to think about it. Yes, Andreas, I want to stay with you.”