Warrior (Relentless #4)(184)

“You don’t have to apologize.” My fingers brushed her face, and her eyes made me forget everything but her and the kiss we’d been denied earlier.

She moistened her lips and leaned toward me in invitation. My other hand lifted, intending to pull her to me. Nothing would come between us this time.

Khristu! I swore inwardly as my cell rang loudly in my pocket. This better be a goddamn emergency.

I recognized Raoul’s number and sighed. There was no way I couldn’t answer it with all that was going on out there. Smiling at Sara, I put the phone to my ear.

“Here.”

“Nikolas, it’s Raoul. Anders called in from Seattle. They just got back from searching two houses for that missing girl.”

“What did they find?”

“No sign of the girl, but a vampire had definitely been nesting in one of the houses,” Raoul said. “I told Anders you’d call him back, but if you’re busy, I can debrief his team.”

“No, I want to talk to them. We’ll be there shortly.”

Raoul was thorough, but I had more experience tracking down vampires. The smallest detail might lead us to this one and the missing girl. Three days had passed from when the first girl went missing and when her body was found. Time was running out for this one.

I hung up and looked at Sara. “It’s still early. Do you want to come see the command center?”

Jordan appeared out of nowhere. “Hell yes, we do.”

Sara grinned. “What she said.”

I smiled at her as I pocketed my phone. “Grab your coats and we’ll head over.”

The four of us walked over together, and several warriors nodded to us as they walked by on patrol. Eldeorin’s house might be hidden behind faerie glamours and protections, but this one was open to attack.

“How many warriors do you have here?” Sara asked as we entered the house through the main door.

“We have three units working out of this place, plus Chris and me. Half the warriors are out on jobs now.”

We walked into the main control room, and Raoul waved me over. Excusing ourselves from the girls, Chris and I went over to the other warrior.

“New recruits?” Raoul joked.

I followed his gaze to Sara and Jordan, who had stopped at one of the computer stations to talk to Dominic. The blond warrior was showing them something on one of his monitors, and the two girls looked fascinated.

“Not unless we have really good hazard insurance,” Chris said. He chuckled at Raoul’s puzzled look. “Let’s just say Sara and Jordan have a unique talent for finding trouble.”

Raoul smiled. “I’ll make sure to lock up the big weapons.”

“Probably a good idea,” I said then got down to business. “Is Anders calling back, or am I calling him?”

Raoul handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it. “He asked that you call him.”

The three of us left the control room and closed ourselves in the den to call Seattle. We were five minutes into our call with Anders when a knock came on the door. Chris opened it to admit Hamid and Ammon.

Raoul and I stood to greet the warriors. I was six-two, and Hamid Safar made me feel short next to his six-six height. His shoulders almost spanned the doorway when he entered, and his dark eyes regarded me for several seconds before he nodded.

“Nikolas, it has been a while,” he said in accented English.

“I haven’t seen you since we hunted that Master together in Spain twelve years ago.”

His eyes gleamed. “Ah yes, my first Master kill.”

“Which would have been my kill if you hadn’t stolen my bike,” I retorted good-naturedly.

At the time, I hadn’t been as amused. The two of us had tracked the Master to Valencia. While we were talking to a human informant, a truck ran over Hamid’s bike, which was parked beside mine. He’d made off with mine before I knew what had happened.

The only reason I hadn’t been furious was that Hamid had a personal stake in finding the Master. The vampire had killed Hamid’s cousin’s mate in Cairo, and nothing was more important to the big Egyptian warrior than his family.

“You guys want to continue this later?” asked a voice from the phone.

“No,” Hamid answered brusquely. “Continue, please.”

“As I was telling the others, we raided two houses today. One was a bust, but a vampire’s been nesting in the second one. We found the body of a transient in the basement, drained.”

“Do you have more leads?” I asked him.

“None yet. We caught a young vampire last night, and it didn’t take him long to talk. He said he’d heard there was an older vampire grabbing the teenagers.” Anders exhaled slowly. “It’s getting crazy up here with the press involved and everyone calling this a serial killer.”

Hamid walked over to stand by the desk. “Ammon and I will be there tomorrow to assist.”

I almost laughed because Hamid didn’t assist, and he didn’t play well with others. But he was a damn good hunter. If anyone could find this bastard, it was him.

“I thought you wanted to help out in LA,” Chris said to him. “Too boring for you?”

Hamid scowled and crossed his arms. “We go where the need is greatest. Children are more important than what is happening in Los Angeles.”