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“And I really am sorry,” he murmured as he stroked her back. “That I underestimated you and got all up in your face about leaving the clinic. I was a bonded male off his rocker. It won’t happen again.”
Bonded? she marveled. For true?
Pulling back, she reached up and touched his face in awe. “You know just what I want to hear, don’t you.”
His smile was wry. “It’s not that hard to apologize for being a douche canoe.”
“Douche… canoe?” She frowned. “Does that involve oars?”
“Paddles.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders and guided her farther underground. “On my own ass.”
“Oh. Well… one hopes your posterior survived.” She hesitated. “May I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“I saw you… in a cave somewhere. There was firelight, I think, and rock walls behind you. Where is that?”
He glanced over at her. “How did you know about that?”
Up ahead, the drive widened into an open area where vehicles were parked among concrete columns that anchored a low ceiling.
“It was just a vision I had,” she answered lamely.
There were reasons why even he could not know about the Book. She trusted Lassiter’s intentions always, but minds could be read and sometimes secrets were shared in the hopes of improving situations. It was safer for everyone.
Besides, the Book was done being used, and it had earned its privacy. And safety.
As they reached a reinforced door that surely led into the training center proper, Rahvyn stopped and took the angel’s hands. “I want you to know why I left here tonight. Shuli tracked me down on the phone and begged me to come out and help with Nate. The male is struggling, and part of that is my fault. I have offered him no help with the transition after… everything that happened to him. I have a responsibility unto him, for I am the reason he is the way he is.”
Lassiter nodded. “I get it, and I didn’t think about that until later. What’s going on with him?”
She started talking, and the words just kept coming—yet it was weird, she wasn’t sure exactly what she was saying. She could tell by the way Lassiter’s expression kept getting grimmer and grimmer, however, that she was accurately conveying the situation.
“Do we need to talk to Murhder?” he asked. “If Nate’s playing around with guns, his parents need to know.”
“I never got a chance to speak with Nate. Things happened really fast with the lesser.” And the male hadn’t exactly been glad to see her. “Where is he now?”
“With Murhder. He’s gone home.”
“First thing tomorrow, I shall reach out to him. If he won’t talk to me, let’s go to his sire.”
“Deal.”
Dropping one of her hands, he turned away and reached for the handle—
“Lassiter… do you think you might take me to your cave? And show me… the firelight?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Just down the road.
The blacked-out box van went less than a quarter mile away from the Tudor mansion before it pulled into a far shorter drive. The Federal house on this property was of the same caliber, however, old, grand, and kept in meticulous order and condition. In the rear, a detached garage was set way back, and the butler proceeded right to it.
As the panels of the left bay retracted up their tracks and the van disappeared into the darkness, Lash perched on the top of the next-door neighbor’s cupola. There was no way he was touching down on what potentially could be Brotherhood property, and the viewpoint was perfect, allowing him to see over the hedges that separated the two parcels while staying totally out of the way.
After the garage was shut back up, he waited. And waited. And… waited.
No butler. Was there an underground tunnel access to the house?
Studying the manse’s structure, he noted the three floors, the kitchen in the back, the gracious, fenced-in yard that was planted with some really good, well-tended-to fruit trees. Unsurprisingly, there were monitoring cameras set under the eaves of the roof, the units discreetly hidden in the architectural details, and he was willing to bet there were more inside. On that note, all of the windows were unshuttered, only drapes pulled in some of the rooms, but that didn’t mean there weren’t interior fittings for the daylight barriers that were absolutely necessary for vampire homes—and especially common in a place like this, where there had been so much money invested into things.
From what he could see, no one was moving around inside, and he eyed the roof of the garage for a different vantage point—
The butler came out of a side door located under the stairs to the outbuilding’s second story. Giving his black uniform a tug at both sleeves, he walked briskly to the rear door of the main house, in a manner that belied his aged appearance. Using a key—that had to be copper—he let himself in and shut things up.
