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“I do,chèr. But I don’t trust all the others along the way who would see you transporting me. Anyone could be under Esteban’s command.”
“Even if we fly at night, we would have to take the jet to Calgary,” Garrett reasoned. “That’s an hour and a half. Add another two hours on the road after that, and the night is half over.”
“What if he wakes up on the plane?” Jackson suggested.
Dominique raked the fingers of both hands through his damp hair. “Still too long. I must be there at sunset.”
Silence descended as everyone fell into their own thoughts.
Francesca was the first to speak. “If you are there right at sunset…can you defy all these…vampires by yourself? Are you that strong?”
Dominique gave his mother a weary sideways smile. “It is only two of them I need to worry about, and as long as I get a day’s rest, I will be strong enough.” To emphasize this point, he conjured the illusion he had been showing her before, the version of him she remembered: sun-bronzed, strong, and human. The moment she inhaled sharply, he let it go, the effort to maintain it too great and no longer necessary. “They will submit or die. The rest will fall into line.”
You hope, Cassidy said. He didn’t argue. He knew it was a gamble. The others could turn on him as easily as submit, especially Bhavanur and Markandeya, who were just as old and strong as Adilla. And two hundred vampires were two hundred vampires. Regardless of how powerful Dominique was, there would be only one of him.
“What we need is to get you there during the day,” Jackson said. He stood with his arms crossed, staring out the window at North Vancouver glowing on the bay’s far shore. “And we need to do it as inconspicuously as possible.”
“You could bag me and drive me back there.” He said it with a straight face, but Cassidy felt the reluctance behind the words.
I would come with you and watch over you, she let him know quickly.
“That’s what I was thinking, but not in the SUV.” Jackson turned away from the window to face them. “We need to be completely under the radar. Totally unexpected.”
“I’m listening,” Garrett prompted.
Jackson raised his hands and lowered them, palms up, as though presenting his proposal on a platter. “RV.”
Cassidy’s brows lifted.
Dominique smiled.
Garrett nodded.
Francesca looked between them. “I do not understand. What are you saying, Jackson?”
“RV. Recreational vehicle,” Garrett explained.
“I saw them all over the road when we drove out there,” Jackson elaborated. “There’s a campsite on the access road to the village. We’d have every legitimate reason to be there. Plus, there would be bunks in the back. Dominique could be bagged in one, and I could grab a nap, too. Not to mention not having to stop to get food.”
“Savant,” Dominique murmured. “This could work.”
“It’ll work a lot better if you have someone you can trade off driving with,” Garrett said. “Count me in.”
“And me,” Cassidy added. “You’re not driving his unconscious self around during the day without me.”
Dominique gave her a sharp look that felt like a slap to her brain.You stay here.
“What do you mean, I stay here?” she retorted, stunned.
Francesca’s head swiveled to her. “What?”
“I’m definitelynotstaying here while you go running off into danger again.”
“You will be safer here,” Dominique countered. His words and his thoughts echoed each other. His hollowed eyes grew adamant.
“You will be safer with me near you.” She was reaching, and she knew it. There wasn’t much she could do for him beyond being close enough to touch his mind. “I won’t spend another day not knowing what’s happening to you or if you’re even still alive.”
“If you go there, you become a target, Cassidy.” Dominique all but growled the words. Francesca stilled, suspended in the growing tension between them. “Thatsalaud,Esteban, had his teeth in me. He could have pulled anything out of my addled head before I passed out. You may not be safe even here.”
