Hard Days Night (The Firsts Book 8) (22 page)

Now, this incredible gift, this extraordinary child.

“I will find him, my darling babygirl,” Mal whispered.

            
 
Chapter 10

Ahmose arrived in France at Koen’s villa to join five
first bloods that would travel to England to try, once again, to capture and ultimately eliminate, the man who operated the SRS.  He wanted this finished before his daughter came into this world. 

While she was inside of her mother,
his unborn daughter and Starla were practically invincible.  Being Shoazan seemed to be the most powerful magic of any first blood.  This had been discovered when Starla had been brutally murdered, a death she should not have survived, but did.  Since the child within was first blood, that unknown power protected the vessel carrying the baby.  No one had ever seen anything like it.  All Ahmose cared about was that his children, and Starla, were completely safe while she was pregnant.

Th
e two first blood children that Lamont had kidnapped recently, and Ahmose’s son, did not bear that protection.  While they had retrieved the abducted children, the fact that Lamont had gotten to them at all was unacceptable.

Koen greeted him with a big hug.  Ahmose thought that if the children of the sun had kept a hierarchical society like his own with the children of the moon, Koen would have been their leader, their king, as he was.  But the children of the sun had become scattered nearly from the beginning over a thousand years ago, and there was no community like his in Africa.

Ahmose had learned to love this man who had a heart the size of the Mother Earth.

Koen slapped Ahmose on the back aggressively.

“You must come and have a meal with us before we go.  I had my chef prepare uniquely French and American meals for you.”

“Gladly. My latest passion.  I have found the intriguing selections from other countries my favorite feature of travel. Now that I have a taste for it, my brother, I would like to continue.”

Koen grinned, his smiles the biggest and brightest Ahmose had ever seen.  Koen had found his mate this past year, so he had reason for such unbounded
happiness.

“You enjoyed your vacation,” Koen remarked.

“Very much, until one of Lamont’s henchmen shot me in the head.”

“What the fuck?  Can’t a man enjoy a seaside wine without a bullet in the brain?”

Ahmose smiled.  “I guess not.  Because of the attack, though, I did have a delightful two days with a local woman I cannot forget.  In fact, once we are finished, I plan to return to California.”

Koen lifted his eyebrows.  “That’s a long way
to go for a pretty girl.  She must be something special.”

“It would seem so.”  Ahmose followed Koen into a large dining room.  “I can’t get her out of my head.”

“Ah, that’s dangerous, my brother.  It’s how Alisa ended up here.  One night with her, and I was lost in blue eyes that followed me until I found her again.”

Ahmose shook his head.  “I doubt that.  But something unique did happen and I
don’t have a choice.  I must return and find out why that happens to be so, why she haunts me.”

“Well, good luck, and by that, I hope that she
is
someone special for you.  You must try these hamburgers!  They are Alisa’s favorites.  She taught my chef to load them with sauces and spicy peppers and onions, and they are so good, the taste of the sauces stay with you for days.”

“I look forward to it.  She taught my cooks a few things when she came to my village.  Your mate is welcome back any time.”

“That’s an invitation we expect to accept as soon as Lamont is dead.  Xavier, David, and Eillia will join us shortly and we will leave.  This time, we take no chances.  We leave the most powerful first bloods known to care for our children.  Park and Tamesine combined are invincible.  Other than taking them to your hidden village, they couldn’t be more secure.  We don’t come back until Lamont is a dot on the landscape.”

“Agreed.
  Now, where is this
hamburger
?”

             
IN L.A.

Tommy dialed the cell number he had for Mal.  It rang four times and then voicemail picked up. 

“Figures,” he whispered, as her message played.  Once it ended, he spoke clearly into the mic since his wife told him
that he always mumbled.

“Mal, you had a visitor.  He said to tell you his name is Jinx and he has the dirt on
Canzone.  The guy was going fucking nuts because you weren’t home, Mal.  He said he
had
to give you the information.  I freaking thought he was going to explode, so I told him I’d get it to you for him.  He was incredibly relieved, left two big folders here for you, and disappeared.  Well, anyway, call me back.  Uh, this is Tommy.”

He looked down at the two thick folders on his coffee table.  Man, he hoped she called back, because he had a really bad feeling about them.

The flight to London ended quickly, but the vampires had to stay parked in a secure location until they could safely go out into the city to begin their battle.

Eillia had all the intel since she was the one who had been in touch with the mercenary who had become an unexpected ally when they fought Lamont at the facility in Switzerland about three months ago.

“Taggert gave us the location, the security details, Lamont’s London residence, and Claude’s apartment.  If we break into teams, we can get Lamont in his home, capture Claude, and then come back together to destroy what is,
God
, I hope
, this psycho’s final location.”

“This Taggert, he’s completely reliable?”  Ahmose asked, because he knew
that Taggert was human and had been the leader of one of Lamont’s trusted security teams.

“He is.
Proven, more than once.  In this, he is in more danger than we are, because he’s much more fragile and both Lamont and Claude know he’s betrayed the society.  If they find him before we get him out, he’s done.  Taggert is a priority, Ahmose, we must get him out safely.”

“I will do what I can to assure his e
scape.”

“All right, everyone, sleep now, and quickly. We rise again in five hours to face the greatest enemy we’ve ever known
to vampires.”  Koen beamed his signature grin.  “What an adventure, eh?”

“You’re such a big kid!  Lie down, Koen, before I push you down,” Eillia teased, and grabbed a blanket to commandeer the plushe
st sofa in the safety room built inside of the airplane hangar.

The vampires rested until it was okay to take the black SUV toward downtown London.

IN MOLOKAI

A message from Tommy?
  Why the hell would Tommy be trying to contact her?

Mal pressed the accept button and listened to Tommy’s rambling message.  He sounded worried,
which was rare.  Tommy was the original easy-going party boy, she’d never seen him rattled.  Jinx had been at her apartment?  With some papers for her?  What the hell could
that
be?  The Jinx she’d been chasing for months wouldn’t go anywhere near her place if he had a choice. 
Did he have a choice?
  Had Canzone sent him?

“Yeah, Tommy?” she said, as her phone connected with his.

“Mal?  Hey.  Damn, I’m glad you responded.  Where are you?”

“Distant. 
Really distant.  Tell me more.”

“I told you most of it in the message.  He was frantic to get this stuff to you.   No, man, he was manic.  He really freaked me out.  Do you want me to
send
this to you?”

“Tommy, do me a favor and take the stuff to Captain Kordalis.  If it’s critical, he’ll let me know, okay?  I appreciate it.”

“Okay.  I looked at it and it’s just a bunch of invoices and shipping manifests, some real estate stuff, several banks listed and what looks like account numbers.  Maybe you guys will know what it means.  I’ll take it tomorrow morning.”

As she listened to Tommy detail what Jinx had given him, her heart pounded.  Was it possible?  Had Ahmose sent Jinx in as a Trojan horse?  This might be all they need
ed to get Canzone.

“Yeah, Tommy, thanks, and make sure you deliver that directly to the Captain, no one else, okay? 
First thing tomorrow, all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, you can trust me, you know that
.”

“I do. I’ll be back in a few weeks.”

Ending the call, Mal pitched her phone onto the couch.  Hmmm.  If this was Ahmose’s gift to her, she needed to be there. Canzone had Jinx kill Luka, so she owed it to her partner to avenge his murder.  It didn’t matter that the Captain wanted her out of the way now.  It didn’t matter because she was flying back tomorrow night.

If she was going to have this child and relocate here to Hawaii, she
had to wrap up all of her old business. 

Canzone was her old business.  Once she put that to rest, and arrested the motherfucker, shut down his entire operation, then she’d come back here to raise her child in the
safety and serenity of these islands.

She looked down at her belly.  “You deserve this life,
nani
, and I am going to see to it that you have it.  I loved being a cop, but I’m not raising you in the life.”

Mal thought of her father, injured, discontent, broken…
heart
broken, an ex-cop with a drinking problem.   She was choosing a different path for her own small family and passionately hoped that Kai would come back to stay and help her raise her little girl.

After the beep-tones stopped, a smooth, elegant feminine voice spoke.  “Hello?”

Kai’s expression was hard as he responded.  “Erin?  It’s Kai Kalani.”

A brief hesitation preceded a soft laugh, her Irish accent only apparent when she spoke again.  “Wow.  I really didn’t think I would ever hear from you again. 
Although, it makes me curious…and a little happy.”

“I wasn’t planning this call, but something’s happened.  My daughter
has had an incident.  With a vampire.”

“Did she?  Was it as lovely an
incident
as ours?”

“She’s pregnant.”

Erin didn’t respond right away.  Then she said, more seriously now, “That’s fascinating.  Vampires can’t make children.”

“She says this one did.  What the hell?  Erin, I’m
way out of my wheelhouse on this.  Is it possible?”

“Not ordinarily, but yes, if it was a first blood
, then she could indeed be carrying a vampire child.  First bloods are incredibly rare.  And if she’s with child, it makes her incredibly rare as well.  Do you know his name?”

“She didn’t say. Erin, can you come to me?  Can you help me with her?”

“Kai, if she’s carrying a first blood’s child, he will take her.  There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Come anyway.  I need your help, or I would never ask.”

“I know that. All right, Kai, I will find you, you know that.  Tomorrow night.  And Kai, I am excited to see you again.”

He paused, look
ed at the phone, and then just hit the END button.  He didn’t know what to say.

He dropped into bed and hoped he’d done the right thing.

Bev looked gorgeous in a slinky halter-top dress with a hibiscus pattern that showed nearly every square inch of her generous breasts.  Mal grinned as she entered the deck from the living room to join her friend, where, judging by the level of the wine in the bottle that Bev had just opened, and by the sly smile, Bev was feeling no pain.

“Whoa, lady, you might want to slow that down.  At least wait until we have some dinner,” Mal suggested as she lifted her hair up off her neck to let the brisk breeze from the sea cool her down.  Reaching for a hair clip, Mal set the bottle on a table out of Bev’s reach
before she clipped her hair into a messy bun, and attached a white flower to it.

“Not on your life,
sweetie.  I’m in paradise with my dearest girlfriend, her superhot father, dressed to kill, and on vacation for the first time in over a year. I’m drunk and planning to stay that way because it feels good to be free and feel sexy.  You know our lives are all about bad guys and trouble, and we’ll be going back to it too soon.”