Nightbred

Page 20

“Relax, sweetie. This isn’t on you.” Sam gave her shoulder an absent, awkward touch before she looked at Lucan again. “I don’t get it. I’ve seen him behave like a jackass before, and he never talks trash like that. When he’s angry, he’s an iceman. Wordy, sarcastic, and vicious, but an iceman.” She said to Jamys, “Is this one of the big secrets I don’t know about? Some kind of personality change Kyn males go through when there’s a full moon, or what?”
“The moon has no effect on us.” His dark eyes went to Lucan, too. “I have never seen him like this.”
Chris thought fast. “Could he have hit his head on something? Maybe that would have made him forget that he’s a decent guy that never acts like this.”
“Decency.” Lucan pushed himself up from the sand, looking as if he’d never been drugged. “You know nothing of that.” He regarded the three of them as he reached back and pulled the second dart out of his shoulder to examine it. “Poison. Pathetic.” With a contemptuous flick of his wrist he tossed it to the sand in front of Sam’s feet. “At least the whelp there had enough spine to wield a blade.”
“Oh, I was only trying to be nice.” Sam drew the nine-millimeter from her shoulder holster and pointed it at his face. “This one has copper rounds in the clip, lover. Would you like to find out just how much spine I have now?”
“You’ll suffer for this, you farthing bitch.” He abruptly turned on his heel and walked off.
The three of them stood in shocked silence, broken only by the sound of Lucan starting the Ferrari’s powerful engine before it roared off down the highway.
“Did he just threaten to make me suffer?” Sam’s voice sounded hollow.
“Yeah.” Chris couldn’t believe it, either. “Could he be immune to Alex’s tranquilizer, and we just didn’t know it?”
“That or maybe the cartridges are defective and he didn’t get a full dose.” Sam tucked the nine back inside her jacket. “Chris, until I say otherwise, don’t talk about what happened tonight to Burke or anyone else in the jardin.”
“Should I call Rafael and ask him to fly back tonight?” Chris knew that, as Lucan’s seneschal, Rafael was the only member of the jardin permitted to temporarily take charge if anything happened to the suzerain. Lucan also respected his second more than any other warrior who served him.
“Not yet. First I need to have a serious chat with Alex Keller.” Sam turned to Jamys. “Jamie, under the circumstances I think you’d better head back to North Carolina. Chris, will you give him a ride to the airport?”
“Sure, no problem.” She shared a troubled look with Jamys. “Is there anything else I can do?”
“Yeah.” Sam bent and picked up the dart Lucan had thrown at her and held it up. The streetlights illuminated the glass cartridge, which was cracked and empty. “Pray that Alex has come up with something stronger than this.”
* * *
The sound of something tapping gently on glass roused Lucan enough to open one eye. He didn’t see Burke, Samantha, or any of his jardin warriors. He saw a patrolman standing next to his Ferrari. The cop had his nightstick in one hand and a citation book in the other.
With no small amount of relief Lucan pressed the button to retract the window. “How may I be of assistance, Officer?”
“Have you been drinking tonight, sir?” the cop asked.
Lucan checked the roof of his mouth with his tongue, where his fangs did not protrude. “Not yet, I should think.”
The patrolman straightened. “Please step out of the vehicle, sir.”
Lucan complied, and discovered his Ferrari sat parked on an empty stretch of sand, in which it had also sunk halfway to its wheel wells. He didn’t recognize his surroundings but, from the size and architectural style of the mansion sprawled to the left, surmised it was a private beach.
Darkness has no need. Lucan didn’t know why that line from Byron’s poem echoed in his mind, only that it made him feel a strange, almost unbearable sense of doom.
“Do you know where you are, sir?” the cop asked.
“A beach in South Florida.” He hoped. He regarded the shorter man, who shuffled back a step. “Do you know where I am?”
“I’ll ask the questions, sir. Would you walk up here, please?” When Lucan had crossed the sand and stepped over the curb, the cop pointed to a faded strip of white painted on the road’s edge. “Stand on the white line with your heels together.”
Lucan frowned. “Why would I do that?” He breathed in the air. From the temperature and smell of it, he was no longer in Fort Lauderdale. “Where the devil am I?”
“Now, there’s no reason to get angry about this, sir.” The cop rested his hand on the holster clipped to his belt. “You’re going to walk this line for me, and then you’re going to blow in a little balloon, and it’ll all be over.” He inhaled, and his expression became uncertain. “If that’s okay with you, sir.”
Lucan moved closer, deliberately shedding more scent until the officer’s pupils dilated, indicating he was experiencing the full effects of l’attrait. “Where am I, and how did you find me?”
“You’re in Palm Beach,” the cop said, and rattled off an address Lucan didn’t recognize. “The owner of the estate called 911 when you drove off the road onto his property. Dispatch sent me to respond. I love that car, man.”
“So do I.” Lucan reached for the patrolman’s arm, and stopped as he saw his hands were bare. “Tell me the time.”
The cop glanced at his watch. “Quarter past midnight.”
Somehow he’d lost five hours. As he reached inside his jacket to check his pockets, Lucan discovered the long tear in his shirt and the tenderness of a newly healed wound beneath it. Someone had slashed his chest, and he had no memory of it. “I need a phone.”
The cop reached into his pocket and produced one. “Please, use mine.”
“Wait here.” Lucan dialed the number to Samantha’s mobile as he walked down to the Ferrari. When she answered, he said, “Sweetheart—”
“Kiss my ass.” She hung up.
“I’d love nothing better.” He stared at the phone for a moment, and redialed. The number went straight to her voice mail.
Lucan searched the interior of the Ferrari, finding only a trace of his own blood on the rim of the steering wheel, and some scattered beach sand on the floor mat. Traces of sand also encrusted the seams and soles of his shoes.
He placed one more call, this time to his tresora, who thankfully did not hang up on him. “Good evening, Herbert.”
“My lord.” Burke sounded relieved. “Where are you?”
“Presently, in Palm Beach.”
“I see.” Burke sounded quite the opposite. “May I ask why?”
“You may not.” Until he learned what had happened to him over the course of the last five hours, Lucan could not rely on anyone, even his most trusted human servant. “The Ferrari has had a slight mishap.” He gave Burke the address. “Call Triple-A, have it towed back to the stronghold, and summon my mechanic.”
“Yes, my lord. Should I send a car for you?”
Lucan glanced at the patrolman still waiting by the curb. “I have already arranged alternate transportation.” He hesitated before he asked, “Is Lady Samantha there?”
“No, my lord. My lady departed shortly after eight and has not returned. She did not mention to anyone her destination.” Burke waited for his response, and then said, “I could call Captain Garcia—”
“That is not necessary. See to the car, Herbert.” Lucan ended the call and walked up to the curb. Along the way he heard again the echo of the poetry fragment inside his head.
Darkness has no need.
What he needed, Lucan decided, was to find Samantha and reassure her, determine what had caused his memory lapse, and then hunt down the bastard responsible and personally thank him.
“Officer,” he said to the patrolman. “You will drive me to Fort Lauderdale.”
“Of course.” The cop opened the passenger door of his squad car for him.
Lucan climbed in on legs that began to shake. “And please, do use your emergency lights.”
Chapter 10
Jamys took the keys to the Mercedes from Chris’s purse as they walked Samantha to her car and watched her drive off. So absorbed by her thoughts was Chris that she didn’t notice he’d put her in the car and was himself driving until he stopped at a red light.
“Hey.” She sat up and stared at him. “I thought you didn’t know how to operate a motor vehicle.”
He shrugged. “When last I came here, I did not.”
“You just forgot to mention that since then you learned.” She looked out through the windshield. “You’re not driving to the airport, either.”
“I am not leaving.”
“Right.” Chris rubbed her eyes. “You did hear my crazy boss when he described the send-you-to-your-Dad-in-a-basket scenario.”
“I can stay without trespassing on Lucan’s territory.” He turned down a side street that led to the Intracoastal, and parked outside one of the many marinas that lined the waterway.
She dropped her hand. “You’re going to steal a boat. This is so much better.”
“Borrow a boat.” He scanned the slips and noted the vessels with lighted cabins before he climbed out of the car.
“I’ll assume you know how to sail,” she said as she followed him down the ramp to the slip dock. “But where are you going to park?”
“In Miami, near the museum.” He stopped by a beautiful wooden-hulled sailboat and nodded at the man sitting in a deck chair and coiling rope. “I will call you soon.”
“Take me with you. You need me,” she insisted as he looked doubtful. “You’ll need a mortal to do stuff during daylight hours, and I promised Lucan I’d look after you. That was before he went psycho, so it still counts.”