Chasing Shadows(56)

“Oh God, Loch,” I said, beginning to tremble. “He must have woken early and read this, and then left right after. That means he’s been gone at least an hour and a half and who knows what the hell they’re doing to him!”

My voice had risen in pitch with each word, until I was shouting. Lochlan took Mark’s cell phone from my hand and read the text for himself. He then reached for me and gathered me into his arms, holding me for a moment. “Try to stay calm, sister. You won’t be able to help him if you’re not thinking clearly,” he said.

“He’s right.”

I gasped and Lochlan turned sharply at the sound of Juliette’s voice. She was standing in the doorway of my bedroom wrapped up in the blanket from the bed.

“What the devil are you doing out of bed? And how did you manage to get your I.V. out?” Loch demanded.

She raised an eyebrow. “My mother is a nurse, Vampire Ken. I know how to manage an I.V.”

He managed to look momentarily pleased by the moniker she had just used. Crossing his arms he looked at her sternly, saying, “That doesn’t explain why you’re out of bed, young lady.”

Juliette met his gaze. “I heard Saphrona’s voice. Something’s happened to my brother—and don’t you dare try to tell me it’s nothing, because I am far from stupid.”

“He got a text at six this morning from your cell phone,” I said before Lochlan could speak. “It told him to come alone to the parking garage at Easton, level 2B.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s where I parked his truck. Damn it, he had to know it was a trap!”

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. “I know that. And I’m sure Mark knew that too, and that’s why he left his phone here for me to find.”

“Instead of being smart and waking us so we could go with him? What the hell was my stupid brother thinking?” Juliette wondered angrily.

“He may not have known he could rouse you,” Lochlan said. “And it’s not like you’d be going anywhere even if he could have.”

She afforded Lochlan a narrow-eyed gaze. “And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that after my sister gets you something proper to wear, you’re going back to bed,” Lochan replied. “You’ve just been through a very traumatic ordeal. Your body needs time to rest and recuperate.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” she protested, shaking her head with each “no” and stepping further into the room. Were she not wrapped in the blanket, I had no doubt her hands would be fisted on her hips. “Don’t you think for a second that I’m not going to help you go looking for my brother. He is my brother, bloodsucker, and I will help him.”

“I don’t think you’re going back to bed, Juliette,” he countered, “I know you are. Doctor’s orders. You’re in no condition to run off playing the hero dog.”

“Oh really?” she said, sneering mildly as she threw the blanket off her shoulders, dropping down to the floor as she shifted into her Siberian form and looking up at him pointedly with those ice blue eyes of hers.

“So you can change form, so what? Doesn’t mean you’re in any condition to fight,” Loch replied, planting his hands at his waist.

Juliette huffed and shifted back to human form. While still on her knees she reached for the blanket, wrapping it around herself again as she stood up.

“Look, buddy—you have no control over me. You’re not my brother, my father, or my imprint, not that any of those titles would grant you the right to tell me what to do, either. And even if you did get to play doctor last night, we’re not in a hospital, and even if we were, I could still leave of my own free will against medical advice, and you’d have no choice but to let me. Now, are we going to continue to waste time standing here arguing, or are we going to go look for Mark, hmm?”

Her gaze roamed between the two of us, and each time she looked at me, I knew she was seeking support. Truth was, I agreed with Lochlan: I didn’t think she was in any condition to fight, even if she could change her shape. I also realized the futility of trying to dissuade her, but I knew I had to try.

“Juliette, based on what you told me a little while ago, you haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast yesterday,” I said slowly. “Where are you going to get the energy to maintain your animal form, let alone fight two or more vampires?”

She huffed. “I’ll find it somewhere, don’t you worry. Now shouldn’t we be piling into that tank of a car Lochlan drives and getting our asses out of here?”

In no doubt an effort to make sure we didn’t try to leave without her, Juliette turned and marched purposefully down the short hall to the stairs, which she descended with the blanket trailing behind her.

I looked at Lochlan. “Unless you can do a Vulcan Nerve Pinch, pal, I don’t see how we’re going to leave her behind,” I said, following after Juliette.

Lochlan threw up his hands in surrender, groaning in frustration. “I just don’t want to see her get hurt again,” he said as he walked behind me down to the first floor.

“I don’t either, Loch, but since I have no way of forcing her to stay behind…” I said, my words trailing off because I really didn’t know what else to say.

As we were walking into the kitchen, Juliette was letting Moe and Cissy into the house, and she’d grabbed a bagel out of the bag on the counter. When she’d come into the kitchen again, she walked over to the refrigerator and reached into it, grabbing the milk and chugging it down, leaving Lochlan and I to stand staring openly. She finished off the last half gallon and tossed the empty jug into the kitchen sink, then reached into the fridge again for the remaining two bottles of blood that she’d brought up from the freezer the day before.

Handing one each to Lochlan and I, she said, “Drink up, kids. You’re going to need it.”

I said nothing at first as I took the bottle from her and unscrewed the cap, taking a long swig. Lochlan did the same, though he didn’t stop for breath like I did—he just kept chugging. “You realize that the chances of finding anything in the parking garage are moot, right?” I said before taking another long drink. “It’s been over an hour since he was supposed to meet them there.”

Juliette reluctantly nodded agreement. “I know. So what are we going to do?”

Loch finished off his bottle of blood as I was chugging mine. “Ah, Chateau de Bovine, a fine 2009 vintage,” he joked as he carried the bottle to the sink. Turning to Juliette he said, “I suspect we are going to have to hope that enough of your brother’s blood remains in Saphrona’s body that she can make use of the blood blond drinking from him created—shouldn’t be a problem, given she’s fed from him almost every day since they met.”

She glanced between us. “But what if there’s not enough that she can use it to locate him?” she wanted to know. “Then what?”

I finished off my bottle and tossed it to my brother, who caught it effortlessly. “Then we pray that the strength of our pair-bond leads us to him. Otherwise, we have no choice but to wait and see if those two vampires or whoever they’re working for calls with some kind of ransom or other demand.”

I didn’t mention the other possibility—that we waited for them to drop his dead body at the end of the driveway like they had with her. Because I knew without a doubt that the point of drawing Mark out was so that they could kill him for his blood, and I refused to consider that outcome.



*****



After Lochlan and I had finished the two bottles of blood (during which time Juliette had wolfed down the last three bagels—I’d never seen another woman eat that fast), I took Juliette back upstairs to get her some clothes to wear, noting that it was the third time in less than a week I’d had to provide for her from my meager wardrobe.

“Don’t try to talk me out of going, Saphrona,” she said as she followed me back up the stairs. “He’s my brother, and I have to help him. It’s what I do.”

I turned to her in the doorway to my room. “I know it is,” I said simply, and walked over to the dresser. “And I know that you’re going to end up phasing and destroying what I’m about to give you. I just think you’ll be more comfortable if you have real clothes on.”

“And less distracting to your perverted brother,” she noted.

I frowned at her as I handed her another tracksuit. “Juliette, Lochlan genuinely cares about you. Maybe that means nothing to you, but he does. He doesn’t want you to go because he doesn’t want to see you get hurt again.”

She sighed as she removed the blanket she’d tied around her like a toga with one hand, letting it fall to the floor. “I know he does,” she said quietly. “And I kinda like him too, may I be struck by lightning for admitting that.”