Warrior (Relentless #4)(171)

I opened my mouth and closed it again. I think I was more scared about her walking around town in the dark than her river stunt. I wanted to say something, but it wouldn’t change what was already done.

“Then you drove to Boise to pick up Roland and Peter. What was in Salt Lake City? Jordan and the others wouldn’t tell us much about it.”

“A friend who set me up with a laptop,” she said vaguely, making me curious to know what friends she had in Utah. “You traced Roland’s and Peter’s cell phones there?”

“Yes.”

She made a face. “You almost caught us at our hotel and we had to take off.”

“I know, and I spent the better part of a day searching for you there.” I didn’t like to think about how close I’d come to catching up with her that first day and how I’d let her slip through my fingers. “Why did you go to Albuquerque?”

Her mouth fell open. “How did you know we were in Albuquerque?”

I smirked at her. “You aren’t the only one with resources. Although, I have to say yours are impressive to help you get as far as you did with us on your trail.” Genius was more like it.

“Aren’t you full of yourself?”

Her look of mock chagrin pulled a laugh from me. “I do have some experience in this area.”

“What? Chasing runaway…orphans?”

“Among other things.” I noticed she hadn’t answered my question about why she was in Albuquerque. “Are you going to tell me why you went to New Mexico?”

“Madeline was there,” she said with a heavy sigh. “We were so close, and we just missed her. But we got a good lead that she was headed for LA.”

Madeline was in Albuquerque? How the hell had Sara gotten that close to her when no one else could?

“Now it’s your turn,” she said. “How did you know we went there?”

“Let’s just say that when a vampire as old as Stefan Price is killed, news travels fast. We’ve been hunting him for years, but he’s always managed to evade us. When we heard a rumor that he was killed by a girl warrior who looked suspiciously like you, we went to Orias’s place to check it out for ourselves.”

She didn’t even try to deny she’d been at the warlock’s. “You know Orias?”

“Everyone knows Orias. He’s a powerful warlock, but he usually stays under the radar.” At least he had until Sara walked into his place. What a coincidence he suddenly suffered from memory loss around the same time? “For some reason he couldn’t mention the names of the warrior and her friends or where they’d gone.”

She lifted her shoulder. “Warlocks are a strange breed.” I had a feeling there was more to the story than she was saying, but I didn’t push her.

She raised her hand, and I caught it. “Tell me the truth. Did you kill Stefan Price by yourself?”

I’d mulled over it countless times and couldn’t figure out how she could have killed one of the strongest vampires in the country. Or maybe I didn’t want to imagine her fighting a vampire like Price.

She nodded. “Roland and Jordan helped, but I did kill him.”

“With your power?”

“That and one of Jordan’s knives,” she said with more than a hint of pride.

I didn’t know whether to be horrified or impressed, so I settled for a bit of both. I didn’t want to think about her fighting Price, so I locked it away to deal with later. Much later.

I let out a breath. “And then you went to LA, and you met the faerie at Adele’s club.” That much I’d learned from Eldeorin, and Jordan had confirmed it was true. Although, she’d been strangely vague about it. All she’d said was Sara went to see Adele about Madeline, and Eldeorin went with her to keep her safe from the succubus.

Sara scowled darkly. “You know Adele, too?”

Her reaction filled me with pleasure. “Jealous?”

“No,” she blurted.

I pressed my mouth to her fingertips and she flushed, making me want to kiss her again.

“Adele is well-known in the Los Angeles underworld, and she has given us helpful information in the past,” I explained.

Sara smiled, looking pleased with herself. “I bet she didn’t tell you that she and Madeline are pals or that Madeline goes to visit her once or twice a year.”

“She told you that?”

Madeline friends with Adele? I knew the succubus couldn’t be trusted completely, but for her to keep this from us, there had to be more to it.

What I really wanted to know was how Sara had pried that information out of her.

Her smile grew. “I told you I was close to finding Madeline.”

Footsteps came toward us, and I almost yelled at whomever it was to go away. What did it take for a man to have a few minutes alone with his mate?

“Um, what are you guys doing down there?” Roland asked, his voice full of laughter.

“What does it look like?” Sara retorted.

“Looks like you got started without the mistletoe.”

“Mistletoe?” She looked at me with wide eyes. “It’s Christmas?”

“Christmas Eve,” Roland told her. “And we’re getting ready to decorate the tree. You two coming?”