Warrior (Relentless #4)(218)

Chris waved me over, and the two of us righted an overturned couch. Then we went outside to drag bodies from the front lawn to the garage. The last thing we needed was for someone to drive by and see a pile of bodies on the lawn before we could dispose of them. We were lucky as it was that the houses on this street were spaced far apart, and that no one had come to investigate. Lucky too that the storm had probably camouflaged most of the noise.

Sara was standing where I’d left her when I went back to the living room. The cleanup was underway, and she looked around as if she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing.

“Are we staying here?” she asked me.

“We’re leaving once we help get the place secured. The rest of them will pack up and move to another safe house in the morning.”

I would have left for the airport with her already, but the chances of another attack on the safe house were slim, especially now that all the warriors were here. The place was trashed, but it was probably the safest place in Vegas tonight.

It took all of us working together for two hours to clear out the bodies and cover most of the windows to keep the rain out. Sara and Jordan worked alongside us, neither of them complaining about the hard work, though I knew it had to be tiring after their long day and the attack.

Sara had been put through an emotional wringer in the last twelve hours, and I had no idea how she kept going. I hoped this was the last of the excitement for us until we got home.

As we were finishing up, the pilot called to let me know we could leave in the next hour.

I looked around for Sara. I couldn’t wait to get her out of this city.

She came down the stairs a few minutes later, wearing dry clothes someone had loaned her. I hid my smile when I saw the rolled-up legs of her borrowed jeans.

She looked tired but otherwise okay as I made my way over to her.

“The storm is letting up, and the pilot says we can take off in an hour or so,” I told her. “I’m going to call Tristan, and then we’ll head over to the airport.”

“Okay.” Her smile told me I wasn’t the only one eager to leave.

I took out my cell phone and frowned when I saw there was no signal, most likely due to the severe storms. I walked out to the covered deck at the back of the house to call Tristan, who still didn’t know we were coming home or that we’d talked to Madeline. I’d called him from the plane to tell him we were on the way to Las Vegas and that we had a lead on Madeline. But so much had happened since then I hadn’t been able to update him.

The vampire screamed as I stepped outside and closed the door behind me. Geoffrey and Abigail had been down in the basement with her this whole time, questioning her, and I could imagine what interrogation tactics they were using now. Silver probably. It was clean, easy, and effective. None of us liked that part of our job, but you had to do unpleasant things when you fought a war like this one.

Someone shouted inside the house. It was followed by a second one, and then a third.

I ran inside and down the hall to the living room as the vampire screamed again, closer this time.

The first thing I saw was Geoffrey coming through the open basement door. Then I saw the crowd gathered in front of the kitchen, bodies crouched in attack positions.

A pit opened in my stomach. I pushed my way through the warriors to the kitchen as a flash lit up the room, and the vampire sagged against Sara.

“Damn it, Sara. There are a dozen warriors here. You couldn’t let one of them handle this?”

Her glare told me what she thought of my question. “Look at her, Nikolas. She’s even smaller than I am. Do you think I can’t handle one little vampire?”

Jackson spoke up. “Don’t answer that, my man. It’s a trap.”

I shot him a hard look, though he had a point. Not that it was a trap, but that Sara was capable of holding her own against the vampire. Arguing with her just because I still had trouble with her fighting was not going to help. It would only make her think I doubted her in front of everyone.

The vampire moaned, alerting me to the fact she was not unconscious.

“We need to get her secured again before she comes to,” I said to Geoffrey as he and I entered the kitchen. “How the hell did she escape in the first place?”

He rubbed his jaw. “She picked the lock on the shackles. I don’t know how she did it. Most vampires can’t handle silver that long.”

Sara smiled wanly. “Desperation will make you do a lot of things you couldn’t do before.”

Evan joined us in the kitchen, and he and Geoffrey moved to take the vampire from Sara.

“Good job, Sara. We’ll take her now,” Geoffrey said.

The vampire woke up and bared her fangs at us as she tried to twist away from Sara. Before anyone could grab her, Sara sent another jolt of power into her, knocking her out again. The ease with which she handled the vampire and the control she displayed impressed the hell out of me.

Even more impressive was how cool-headed and fearless she was, holding a vampire in her arms. Every warrior there, myself included, was tense and ready to jump in at the slightest provocation. Sara could have been holding a life-sized doll for all it seemed to affect her.

Geoffrey whistled under his breath. “That’s some trick.”

“You should see me pull a rabbit from a hat,” she joked.

Several people laughed, but the mood was still tense as Geoffrey and Evan took the vampire by the arms and relieved Sara of her burden.