Double-shit!

As soon as Yvette woke, she would attack him. And then he would have no choice but to kill her after all.

“You can’t do that!”

“Really? Watch me.”

“Listen, the bitch is going to kill me.” Of that he was certain. Then he ventured a guess. “And I figure you want me alive.” He sure hoped so; otherwise, wouldn’t she have killed him already?

“True, but as a big, bad bounty hunter and vampire slayer I count on your ingenuity. You might just have to kill the vamp before she kills you.”

Manipulative witch!

That’s what she was doing, getting him to do her dirty work for her. By locking him up with Yvette, she was forcing him to kill the vamp bitch to save his own hide before she took a bite out of it. Now he hated her even more.

“I’ve done everything you asked.”

“I’m sorry. Did you want a thank you? Here you go: thank you!” Then she pushed more power against him, pressing him against the wall behind. “Time to join your friends.”

Less than a minute later, she’d forced him into a large, sparsely furnished room. Three cots were lined up along one wall, a few pillows and blankets strewn about, a small fridge and table with a few chairs in another corner. An open door in the opposite corner showed a rudimentary toilet and a small sink.

Kimberly lay on one cot and Yvette on the one next to her, her hand still clamped around Kimberly’s wrist. She was still unconscious. Kimberly was curled up in a ball, crying. He searched the rest of the room.

“Where is Wesley?” he yelled.

“You’ll see him when I’m done with him,” Bess answered from the other side of the already closed door.

Kimberly jerked up from her prone position and pressed herself against the wall behind her. “You!”

He shrugged. “Well, honey, looks like we’re all in the same boat now.” And he’d been the one who’d delivered them all into the hands of the devious witch. Which meant he was the one who was responsible for getting them out.

“You bastard! You kidnapped me. Get out! I don’t want to see you here. Leave me alone!” Kimberly tossed her head in Yvette’s direction, her look weary.

“I can’t do that. I’m imprisoned just like you.”

“That’s a trick! What do you want? Money?”

He ignored her question. “Listen, we have to work together now to get out of here.”

Kimberly shook her head. “Why should I trust you? You got me in here in the first place. You attacked us, and you took out my bodyguard.”

“Your bodyguard is a vampire.”

She glanced at Yvette once more. “Yeah, you said that in the car already. I heard you. There’s no need to try to confuse me. I’m not a dumb blonde, you know. I’m not even a blonde. Vampires don’t exist, so I don’t know what you’re playing at. I want to go home now.”

Haven sighed. He’d have his work cut out. “We all want to go home. But that’s not going to happen right now. So, listen, here’s the deal …”

***

Zane used his key to Gabriel’s house when nobody responded to his knocking. It appeared that the doorbell had still not been repaired. He stomped into the foyer and listened for voices. The house was quiet except for the muffled voices coming from the basement where Maya had set up her medical practice a few months earlier.

He hated to intrude, but what he needed to report was urgent.

He slunk down the stairs as stealthily as always. It had become such a habit that even now, when he was visiting his boss’ house, he approached silently, as if closing in on prey. It was strange how some habits were so ingrained in his psyche that even consciously he couldn’t rid himself of them. He knew it creeped his colleagues out. But hey, everybody had a reputation to uphold.

Zane heard the voices clearly now. They came from Maya’s examination room.

“No, this is the foot, and that’s the umbilical cord,” Maya explained.

Great! That meant Delilah and Samson were here for Delilah’s ultrasound. He should have guessed. Delilah was now seven months pregnant, and when he’d seen her last week, she’d looked like she was ready to drop the baby right there and then.

“She looks big,” Samson commented.

“She is. So, would you guys please tell me how you know it’s a girl? I don’t recall ever telling you the sex,” Maya said.

The smile in Delilah’s voice was evident when she responded. “She talks to me. I think she’s got a gift.”