A slow smile spread across Randal’s face as the Blood Covenant snapped into place.
Their hands separated, and the mark of the covenant spread all the way up to Darien’s elbow, turning his skin a splotchy, ashen gray, marked here and there with symbols from a forgotten language.
“We’ll be in touch,” Randal said, the same mark on his own arm. “And if you see any Phoenix Head scum, shoot them on sight.”
Darien and Loren were the last ones out the door. Before they left the room, Randal said, “If I detect you’re toying with me, you’ll be in for a world of trouble, boy.”
Darien smirked. “I’m sure I will.”
“Wipe that arrogant look off your face,” Randal snapped. “Or you can join your mother in City Cemetery.”
Darien’s smile faded. But not into grief—into red-hot rage.
Within two seconds, he had composed himself. Not a single hint of that grief remained, though there was a glint in his eyes that told Loren he wouldn’t suffer the antics of this idiot for much longer, not if he had any say in it.
Randal Slade was the real devil of them all.
Darien gestured for Loren to head into the tunnel, and he followed behind her.
But Randal got one last comment in. “She really is a pretty little thing, isn’t she?”
Loren looked over her shoulder to see Randal wearing the smile of a shark. She recognized his words for the threat it was, for he must’ve seen the way Darien looked at her.
And he must’ve decided, in that moment, that should he discover they were hiding the truth from him, Loren would be his first target.
The target that would make Darien talk.
—
Nobody said a word as Randal’s men escorted them through the murky tunnels. Loren stuck close to Darien, relying on the strong energy she could feel emanating from him as they plunged on through the tunnels.
She figured they were about halfway out when Darien slowed. His attention was fixed on a tunnel they were passing by—and whatever he’d seen—or sensed—in the alit room at the end of it.
He gestured for Loren to keep going. Maximus, having sensed that something was amiss, stepped in to take his place beside Loren as Darien slipped through the shadows.
It took a moment for Randal’s cronies to notice Darien’s absence. “Back in rank, Cassel,” one of the brutes barked, his voice echoing. The group slowed.
A female voice as pleasant as windchimes called Darien’s name from the tunnel he was heading toward. Everyone stopped at the sight of the lithe silhouette strutting toward them.
The beam of a tactical light mounted on the gun of one of Randal’s cronies fell upon her, illuminating a face so lovely, it pained Loren to look at her.
Lips painted a stunning shade of ruby; eyes so big and dark, they seemed to swallow the light. Her porcelain skin was made whiter by the thick mane of dark hair that framed her delicate, heart-shaped face and tumbled over her generous breasts.
The way her name floated off Darien’s lips made Loren’s heart stop cold.
“Christa.” The name was colored with surprise, along with a handful of other emotions Loren couldn’t place.
The raven-haired beauty looked as surprised to see Darien as he was to see her. Her smile broadened as she drank him in, and then she gave a breathy laugh that managed to be sultry as hell as she batted her long, dark eyelashes and said, “What are you doing here?”
As if things couldn’t get any worse, Darien told everyone to go and wait in the car.Everyone—and that included Loren. The worst part about it was how he didn’t even look at her when he said it; his eyes were all for Christa.
So, Loren walked with the others to the dark street above. Once they were outside, and out of hearing range of Randal’s cronies, the others began to discuss what had happened tonight. Loren barely heard a word they said as she followed them to the vehicles.
But she looked over her shoulder as she walked. And she continued to stare down the street long after she’d climbed into the back of Darien’s car with a couple of the others to wait for him. There were far worse things to worry about than the girl who was speaking to Darien in those tunnels, but Loren couldn’t help how she felt.
She knew she should get a grip, but in that moment, her own imagination was her worst enemy. And for those few minutes it took Darien to get to the car, something worse than what Randal had done to her in that room had taken hold of her heart.
40
