“I’m not certain, but I think the sorcery is more than just a protective spell.”

The handsome vampire frowned. Obviously he was like every other leech who preferred to pretend magic didn’t exist rather than try to understand a power he couldn’t battle against.

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“The sorcery is coming from the book,” she said, her tone hesitant.

“Which means?”

She hesitated, unconsciously nibbling at her bottom lip. It was a definite case of the blind leading the blind since her knowledge of sorcery could fit in a thimble.

Still, she had to do something. She could sense Roke’s straining impatience. They had about two minutes flat before he smashed his way through the brick walls.

“I might be able to use the book . . .”

“Nooooo.”

The hair-raising shriek came completely out of the blue. Stumbling backward, Sally turned to watch a strange, black mist float out of the mutilated vampire’s body.

At her side Santiago cursed, pressing the Roman dagger against his chest until she could smell his flesh beginning to burn and a flow of blood stained his T-shirt.

“Stay back,” he rasped.

The mist seemed to hesitate, as if it understood Santiago’s threat. Then, with a movement too swift for her eyes to follow, it darted across the room.

With quicker reflexes, Santiago was lunging forward. But as fast as he was, he was a half step too slow as the mist disappeared into the female vampire who had regained consciousness while they were focused on the mysterious book.

Time seemed to stand still as the beautiful woman watched Santiago rushing toward her with such an intense sense of loss it was painful to witness. Then, as Santiago reached her, those dark eyes were filled with an unearthly glow and her slender hands wrapped around the gold medallion at her neck.

Santiago cried out, but he couldn’t halt the inevitable.

He reached for her, but she was already gone.

Santiago roared, his fury exploding the overhead lights and coating the walls in a layer of frost.

Nefri.

That bastard had taken his female.

He was going to rip him apart and feed him to the jackals. No wait. That was too quick.

He was going to . . .

“Santiago,” a harsh voice broke through his searing rage. “My son.”

With a growl he whirled toward Gaius, who remained pinned to the wall. His former sire looked like death. Literally.

His gray skin sagged to reveal the sharp angles of his brittle bones. His dark eyes were sunken, although they’d lost the weird-ass glow, and only a few tenacious clumps of hair remained on his head.

“Don’t call me that,” Santiago hissed, flowing across the floor, intent on finishing off the vampire he’d once considered his father.

Gaius’s gaze was pleading as Santiago halted directly in front of him. “Please, I need to tell you . . .”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

Santiago made a sound of disgust. Did this vampire truly have the arrogance to believe that after all he’d done—the abandonment, the betrayals, the treachery—that he could ever gain Santiago’s forgiveness?

But even as he lifted his hand to strike the killing blow, Santiago found himself hesitating.

Nefri had disappeared using her medallion. Which meant he couldn’t track her. It could take hours, if not days to discover where she’d gone.

The creature had been inside Gaius for weeks. If anyone would know where it was headed, it would be this pathetic wreck.

A gut-wrenching pain nearly doubled him over and with a savage anger he slammed his fist into the wall next to Gaius’s gaunt face.

“Where did he take her?”

Gaius flinched, but he refused to be distracted. “Please, Santiago, I thought Dara had been returned to me. It seemed so real.”

Santiago pulled back his lips, exposing his fangs in a visible warning. “Tell me where he took her.”

“But she was an illusion,” Gaius continued, as if Santiago might actually care that he’d been fooled into believing Dara had been returned. Gaius was eager to blame everyone but himself for his weakness. “Nothing more than a figment of my imagination.”

“I don’t give a shit.” Santiago wrapped his hands around Gaius’s too-thin neck. Every second separated from Nefri was like pouring salt on a gaping wound. “Tell me where they went or I’ll kill you.”

“You should kill me.” Gaius gave a shake of his head. “I no longer matter.”

“Goddammit.” With an effort, Santiago managed to keep himself from crushing the bastard’s throat. So long as Gaius was wallowing in his bout of self-pity he would be useless. “What do you want from me?”

Gaius licked his rotting lips. “I need . . .”

“What?”

“I need your forgiveness.”

“Fine,” Santiago bit out, willing to say anything to get Gaius to help him track Nefri. “You’re forgiven.”

The dark eyes softened with a soul-deep gratitude. “Thank you, my son.”

Santiago tightened his fingers on his sire’s throat. “Now take me to Nefri.”

“Yes.” With a visible effort, Gaius lifted his hand to cover the medallion around his neck. “Hold on tight.”

Santiago scowled. “Why?”

“The medallion,” Gaius rasped. “It will take us to Nefri.”

“Wait,” he commanded, glancing toward the wide-eyed witch. “Tell Styx what happened here. . . .”

His words were lost as blackness surrounded him and they were being catapulted through a rift in space.

Mierda.

Chapter 28

It was a gross understatement to say that Roke’s patience was strained. It was, in fact, hanging on by a very slender thread.

Which was why it was no surprise that it snapped the second he heard Santiago’s roar.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Sally’s soft whispers in his mind (her ability to reach him telepathically was astonishing since it was a rare talent that usually only manifested itself between pairs that had been intimately bonded for centuries).

He fully believed that the spirit was capable of taking command of a vampire. And he equally understood the logic of keeping the creature contained by shutting him off from available hosts.

But logic was no contest against the instincts of a newly mated vampire, and the need to get to Sally was a force that wasn’t going to be denied.

No matter what the consequences.

He stepped forward, ignoring Styx’s grim presence. Jagr had taken the Ravens to circle the warehouse, making sure nothing could escape, and Levet had thankfully remained at the lair with his odd demon friend. But it wouldn’t have mattered if they’d all stood between him and his goal.

He was getting to Sally.

Now!

He swung his arm, hitting the brick wall with enough force to make the entire building shudder.

“Dammit, Roke,” Styx growled. “You said that Sally warned us not to enter.”

“To hell with that,” he muttered. “I’m done waiting.”

“But . . .” Styx reached to grasp his wrist before he could widen the crack he’d just created in the wall. “You’re going to bring the entire building down on our head.”

Roke yanked his arm free, his fangs throbbing and his temper threatening to explode. “I don’t care what I have to do. I’m getting into that room.” His eyes narrowed. “Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Styx muttered. “Stand back.”

Lifting his leg, Styx used his Sasquatch-size boot to kick the center of the door. Steel screeched in protest, but with two more kicks the stubborn door at last twisted off the frame, and before Styx could open his mouth to protest, Roke was leaping through the wreckage.

He had a brief glimpse of Santiago holding on to a vampire, or at least he thought it was a vampire—the pathetic male looked more like a rotting zombie. Then, just as he began to move across the floor, the two vampires simply disappeared.

Ignoring the bizarre vanishing act, Roke’s attention honed in on the tiny female who stood near the safe hidden behind the crumbling wall.

The tightness in his chest eased at being able to see her and catch the sweet scent of peaches. But the driving fury at the knowledge she’d been stolen from him, snatched from beneath his very nose, had him storming forward, not halting until he’d wrapped his arms around her slender body.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said, but her voice quavered and her body shivered with the terror she’d been forced to endure.

“I swear, I’ll kill that bastard,” he snarled.

Her hand lifted to his chest. “Roke.”

He gave a low growl as he sensed she was about to pull away, burying his face in the curve of her neck.

“Don’t move.”

“What are you doing?”

Like he knew? He was running on a primitive impulse and gut need.

“Just . . .” His hands ran a compulsive path down the curve of her back. “Give me a minute.”