The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12)(69)

Assail rezipped his backpack and strapped the thing on again. Going to first one and then the other of the chains, he inspected them for security. Indeed, they were well and truly placed. The same was true for the cuffs upon those wrists.

Snapping out a hold, he took Benloise’s chin and forced the man’s head back.

With another hiss, he bit into the flesh by the carotid, ripping a hunk out and spitting it onto the floor. The blood tasted good in his mouth and his canines tingled in anticipation of more. Except they would be denied.

The bite was but a symbol of what as a male he was driven by instinct and custom to do in the protection of his female. And he would have torn the neck fully open if Benloise himself had not been into torture.

As his prey spoke in a rush in that foreign tongue, Assail fought the battle to leave the man alive. Cruelty was going to require self-control in this circumstance—and ordinarily that was not a problem.

Nothing involving Marisol had been ordinary, however.

Assail slapped the man into silence. Jabbing his forefinger into that face, he growled, “She was not yours to take. Do you hear me? Not yours. Mine.”

Before he lost his hold upon his temper, he stalked off to the stairs, leaving the lights on so that Benloise was fully aware of where he was: a prison of his own making with naught but the remains of one of his bodyguards to keep him company.

Mounting the steps two at a time, Assail knew there was a possibility someone could come and free the wholesaler, but it was remote. Benloise was notoriously secretive, and with Eduardo dead, the only people who would miss him were guards and staff—and given the cagey manner in which the man operated, there would be a lag before the troops marshaled up conversation and discovered that each individual was not so much out of the loop as that there had been no contact from their superior to anyone on the team.

After that? It was an open question whether any of them would actually look for their boss. People who operated in the underground world scattered when it came to complications like this—no one was going to risk getting killed or handcuffed by the human authorities just to save somebody else’s skin.

Benloise was going to slowly die, alone.

And when someone found the bodies inside the facility? This year … next … a decade from now?

The cover Benloise had constructed was going to be blown.

Upstairs, Assail performed a sweep of the open room. He found two more phones, which he turned off, removed the batteries, and slipped into his pack. He left the guns and ammo, and was careful to shut the door and test that it self-locked.

It did.

Walking around the squat little building, he found a petroleum tank in the back. Locating the gauge, he noted that it was only a quarter full. Given how cold it was at this elevation, he guessed that the supply would run out within a day or two.

The bodies would be stored in a rather cool environment. Good to keep down the smell, not that there was going to be much of that getting out, given the small windows upstairs, all of which were closed.

He was about to take off when he noticed a car parked off to the side.

Heading over, he lifted its camouflage cover and tested one of the doors. Locked.

If he blew it up, the fireball would attract attention, and that was not desirable. He let the tarp fall back into place.

Closing his eyes in preparation to dematerialize, he saw his Marisol coming out of that door. And it was as he shuddered that he became one with the night air, casting his molecules to the south, to a rest area approximately twenty miles down the Northway.

Re-forming, he got out his cell and dialed Ehric.

One ring. Two. Three.

“She is just fine,” his cousin said by way of greeting. “She has eaten and had some water. And she is anxious to see you.”

Assail sagged in his own skin. “Well done. I am where we agreed.”

“Did you accomplish all and sundry?”

“Indeed. Is there anyone upon you?”

“Neither in front nor behind, and we are but two miles from you.”

“I shall wait here.”

Hanging up, he stared at his cellular device. His first instinct was to get her to his home, but she was going to require medical attention—and she would want to be cleaned up and clothed before her grandmother saw her.

Assail’s next call was to his own home, and when the heavily accented female voice answered, he found himself blinking away tears.

“Madam,” he said roughly. “She—”

“Not dead,” the old woman moaned. “Meu Deus, tell me she—”

“She is alive. I have her.”

“What? You say again, please.”

“Alive.” Although he wasn’t sure about any kind of “well” part. “She is alive and within my care.”

Frantic speech now, in the mother tongue. And though Assail knew none of the words, the meaning was not only clear, but something he agreed with.

Thank you, Scribe Virgin, he thought, even though he was not religious.

“We are far from Caldwell,” he told her. “We may not make it before dawn, in which case we shall be home after sunfall.”

“Speak to her? May I?”

“Of course, madam.” Up ahead, a pair of headlights mounted a rise on the highway and came down toward him, paring off on the exit ramp. “I need but a moment, and I shall put her on.”