Eternal Nights (25 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Kendall battled to conceal her disappointment. She’d known when her attendant had informed her of Wyatt’s arrival that it was official business, so there was no cause to feel disheartened at seeing his lieutenants at his sides. She herself had come with half her cortege and her personal guard. It was expected.

The men went down on one knee, her lover included, and bowed their heads. “My lady,” he said.

She took a moment to study her visitors. “You’ve my leave to rise.” At times such as these, Kendall despised the formality to which they were forced to adhere. She wished to go to him, wrap her arms around his waist, and simply hold him while they discussed what was wrong. But they were surrounded by the entourages that came with their respective positions, and she could not.

Turning to her attendant, Kendall gave one regal nod. The young priestess stepped forward at once, and asked, “Would the gentlemen care for refreshments?”

“Thank you for your hospitality, senet,” Wyatt said, “but we must decline.”

“We shall be comfortable,” Kendall pronounced, and with all the gracefulness she possessed, glided to the sofa. When she was seated, her cortege and guards in position, she indicated the opposite chair. It wasn’t nearly as ornate or comfortable as her own, but since it was considered a great honor to be allowed to sit in her presence, that fact was usually overlooked.

Hands calmly folded in her lap, Kendall waited until Wyatt was settled to ask, “What news have you for the temple?”

“My lady, Guard Commander Gustus asked me to inform you of events which have taken place outside the walls of our city.” He took a deep breath. “There’s no easy way to impart this information. Thirty-two of our citizens were found murdered outside the city walls.”

Kendall barely kept herself from gasping, but her young attendant was not so skilled at hiding her reaction. “Is the Guard certain it was murder?”

“Most assuredly,” Wyatt said.

“Explain,” she ordered.

“The details are gruesome, my lady.”

After giving that a moment’s worth of consideration, Kendall dismissed her attendant, then added, “All save my guard may leave if they wish to do so.” Not one member of her cortege shifted. Kendall inclined her head toward Wyatt, and said, “Proceed.”

There was a hesitation that Kendall ascribed to Wyatt’s need to protect her. “My lady,” he said at last, “the victims were mutilated—their eyes were missing from their sockets, their tongues gone as well, and their hearts torn from their chests.”

Kendall clenched her hands tightly in her lap. The description itself was factual and held no unnecessary detail, but she found it too easy to envision such horror. “Has the Guard discovered those responsible for such carnage?”

“No, my lady. The physical strength required to break through a person’s rib cage is incredible. We’ve been unable to discover who could possess such power.”

She asked more questions, but Wyatt had no answers. Perhaps that was not too surprising. The City Guard was ceremonial and unaccustomed to dealing with such matters. There were tales of violence in the ancient past of their home world, but they’d long since abandoned such uncivilized behavior. The Guard was at a loss as to what to do, that was obvious. By the time he and his men bowed before taking their leave, Kendall was concerned about how many more would die before this madman was apprehended.

*** *** ***

Alex stared down at the paper lying on his desk blotter and scowled. It shouldn’t be this difficult to come up with ideas to win Stacey. Hell, men wooed their women all the time.

He’d started with three items—flowers, candy, perfume. This was Jarved Nine, though, and any kind of candy was hard to come by. Everything they had that wasn’t alien in origin had to be shipped from home, and space on the transport was too valuable to waste on chocolate. He’d crossed that off the list.

Giving her perfume ran into the same problem. Besides, Stace had so many damn bottles of the stuff, she hardly needed more. Alex had removed that item from his list as well.

Flowers were more viable since they grew everywhere in the Old City, but if he picked them, they’d look far from perfect. More likely, they’d resemble something Cam would gather for Ravyn, and Alex refused to hand something to Stacey that was less than what she deserved. That had taken care of his final idea.

Shit, it wasn’t like he had time to sit and mull this over. Every damn time he turned around, it seemed as if more people went missing. Four more soldiers—three men and a woman—had been reported AWOL today. McNamara was riding his ass to come up with answers before, as she put it, “half the post vanished.” Alex was working sixteen-hour days or longer, and so were his men.

Maybe he was foolish, playing this so close to the vest, but he’d told no one except Montgomery’s team about the smuggling. Cantore and his men were investigating that angle, and Alex had everyone else working on pieces. He hadn’t even informed the colonel about the antiquities thieves because she would jump the gun, and Alex refused to risk lives unnecessarily. The woman had always been too worried about how she appeared to the top brass.

It was a safe guess that most—if not all—of the missing were part of the smuggling ring. With the number of men and women involved, something must have leaked—that many people couldn’t keep a secret—but no one had reported it. Not one damn soldier.

Tossing his pen down on top of the paper, Alex leaned back in his office chair and scrubbed his hands over his face. He was tired. Instead of spending his few off hours sleeping, he was spinning his wheels, trying to come up with a plan for his personal life. Why did Stacey have to throw down the gauntlet now? Why not six months ago or six months in the future?

He sighed. Women were a mystery to him. Alex knew better than to compare Stacey to his mother, but she was nothing like his stepsister or his stepmother, Marie, either.

How the hell had Brody wooed Ravyn?

Alex didn’t have a clue. By the time he’d arrived on J Nine as part of a rescue team, the two of them were already committed to each other. He supposed he could ask, but he wasn’t going to. Brody would have a good laugh, and Ravyn was too close to Stacey.

Leaning forward again, Alex picked up his pen and started doodling. With all the pairings that had happened on the planet, there must be dozens of examples to emulate, but after wracking his brain, he was forced to concede that he hadn’t paid attention to the details, only the results.

If it wasn’t for the damn situation going on around him, Alex could pull a quick covert op, kidnap Stacey and hold her in one of the buildings of the Old City until he got his point across—that she meant everything to him.

But it wasn’t an option. Until Hunter’s killer was identified and caught, until he’d located all the missing soldiers, Alex was stuck. He needed time.

If he’d had more warning, he could have out-maneuvered Stacey, made sure her request to return home was denied, but she’d blindsided him. It took more than a day and a half for messages to travel between the two planets and she’d already received approval before his communique had reached Earth.

He’d briefly considered asking McNamara to hold the transport on Jarved Nine until the murderer was apprehended, but he wouldn’t. Those Spec Ops teams were needed back home and in position before war was formally declared with the coalition.

So that pretty much shot all his ideas to hell. Stacey would be leaving and his determination to win her was going to die on the drawing board. How pathetic was he?

He’d never given up easily. If Plan A didn’t work, he used B, C, D or even Plan Z if that’s what it took to get the job done. His persistence had distinguished him when he’d been part of Special Operations. So with his limited time and the obvious answers unworkable, he’d simply have to come up with another method to get his point across.

Alex dropped his pen and pushed his chair back. He had a couple of hours before he had to be back at his desk, and he was using them. Maybe he couldn’t kidnap her indefinitely, but he could grab Stacey and talk to her.

“Sir?” his aide asked as Alex strode past him.

“I’ll return for the twenty-three-hundred-hour briefing, Sergeant,” Alex told him without slowing down.

When he reached his sister’s home, though, he paused. Frontal assault or covert insertion? He opted for the first choice. His mood was fractious after the bitch of a day he’d had, and if Brody was stupid enough to get in his way, Alex could work out some of his frustrations.

It was almost anticlimatic to find the main gathering chamber empty. He proceeded down the hall, checked out the private rooms, and found those unoccupied as well. In fact, there was no one present—not Brody, not Ravyn or Cam, and not Stacey either. Where the hell were they?

Parking himself in the main room, he waited. Alex was fairly certain there were no events tonight, so they shouldn’t be gone long, but he’d sit here all night if he needed to. With one person dead and eight more missing, he wasn’t going anywhere until he knew his woman and his family were okay. If worse came to worst, he could hold the damn briefing here.

He should have brought some paperwork with him, Alex thought as his wait lengthened. So what if he’d been over the damn sheets a million times; maybe he’d spot something on the next read through. Since there was nothing here to keep him occupied, he began to pace, becoming edgier with each passing minute.

Alex was ready to start tearing the post apart looking for them, when he heard someone enter the house. He turned to light into whoever it was for taking off without telling him where they were going to be, but it wasn’t a member of his family. “Sir,” the private panted, “I’ve been searching for you everywhere.”

“Well, you found me,” he snapped. “What did you want?” The gir—woman went white and Alex bit back a sigh. Moderating his voice, he tried again, “What did you need, Private?”

“Sir, Major Brody sent me to find you.”

Alex felt his trepidation grow, and not for the first time, he cursed the inconsistency of the Western Alliance comm systems within the Old City. “What’s his message?”

“The major’s son was hurt,” she said, “and they’re at the infirmary waiting for—”

He didn’t hang around long enough for her to finish. Brushing past the woman, Alex was out of the house and headed for the infirmary at a pace just short of a run. If Brody had sent someone looking for him, Cam’s injury was serious. It seemed to take forever to reach the prefab building, and he pushed through the door, his gaze immediately scanning.

Ravyn sat between Damon and Stacey, her hands linked with both of them. His sister was pale and tense. Her head came up the instant she heard him. What scared Alex shitless wasn’t her wanness; it was the fact that her lower lip wobbled when their eyes met. Ravyn was as tough as they came, and seeing her on the verge of falling apart had panic bubbling inside him. “How is Cam?” Alex demanded of the room at large.

“The doctor hasn’t come back yet,” Brody reported.

“What happened?”

His sister did start crying then. She pushed to her feet and crossed the floor, putting her back to the room. Without saying a word, Brody followed. He wrapped his arms around his wife from behind, and Ravyn turned, burying her face against his throat. Alex looked away to give them privacy.

Heart heavy, he made his way over to Stacey, and sat beside her. “What happened?” he asked, keeping his voice quiet. He didn’t want to upset Ravyn more than he had already, but damn it, he needed to know what was wrong with his nephew.

The silence lengthened, and he didn’t think she was going to fill him in, but at last Stacey said, “Cam got hurt. We don’t know how. Ravyn had put him to bed, but about an hour later she heard a noise, and when she went to check, she found him unconscious on his bedroom floor. God, Alex, his head was covered in blood.”

Stacey suddenly seemed shaky herself, and Alex felt his own stomach heave. Not Cam. Shit, it would kill Ravyn—hell, it would kill
him
—if anything happened to that boy. “Head wounds bleed a lot,” he offered thickly.

“I know.” Stacey’s voice was tremulous, and although he half expected to be rebuffed, Alex put his arm around her. It surprised him no small amount when she leaned into his side.

“Did the doctor say anything about his condition?”

Shaking her head, Stacey said, “Not a word. They just rushed him off. For a split second, I thought Ravyn was going to pass out.” She turned her head so their eyes met. “I’ve never seen her like that. If Damon wasn’t here for her, I don’t know if she could have held it together.”

Alex glanced over. Ravyn and her husband were clutching each other, sharing their strength as they waited for news of their son. At that same moment, Stacey stiffened, straightening away from him, and reluctantly, he pulled his arm back. “What about you?” he asked her quietly. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m okay, just worried. I wish that doctor would let us know how Cam’s doing.”

“They haven’t even sent a nurse out with an update?” When Stacey shook her head, Alex decided there was something he could do besides sit here helplessly. “I’m going to find out what the hell that doctor is doing,” Alex said, as he stood and headed for the back of the building.

Stacey caught him before he reached the hallway. “Oh, no, you don’t. What if the doctor is in the middle of some intricate procedure? Do you think your bursting into the room and intimidating him is going to help Cam?”

“Someone has to get answers for Ravyn and Damon.” His voice came out tight, but other than that, he sounded normal.

“You’re not charging back there,” Stacey told him again.

He stared at her, hands clenched at his sides as he struggled to hide his emotions. His whole life had been filled with people leaving, people
dying
. He couldn’t lose Cam too; he refused, and he wouldn’t allow his sister to lose her son. The problem was there wasn’t anything he could do to make a difference. Not one damn thing.