Argeneau Family - Vampires Are Forever Part 22

He watched her stop at the counter on the main floor and place an order, and then lifted his gaze back to the second floor where Terri in a long blond wig and flowery dress was also at the ready. She too was hard to recognize in the get up.

Rachel returned upstairs with her drink and claimed a different table where she could still watch both Inez and the stairs. The moment she was seated, Terri stood and headed below to fetch herself another drink. Thomas wished they wouldn't, he'd rather both women not be more than five feet away from Inez, but knew they would be kicked out if they didn't have something to eat or drink.

Inez would soon have to refresh her cappuccino too, Thomas thought and glanced down at his watch, frowning when he saw that she'd been seated alone for more than half an hour.

"It's not going to work," he announced with relief. "If he was going to make a move, he would have done it by now."

"He's right, Bastien," Etienne said, but he sounded disappointed rather than relieved.

Bastien was silent for a minute and then said, "She's reading a book."

"As you instructed," Thomas said. She was reading one of Lucern's novels. She'd insisted on buying it so she wouldn't have to admit that she'd never read his work when Lucern and Kate arrived later that day. "You said to get her something to read so she wasn't sitting there thinking about the trap, unintentionally warning the guy off."

Bastien nodded silently and then said, "Call her."

"Why?" Thomas asked warily.

"You have to tell her to try to figure out who the seven persons are. If she did work it out and that's what set him on her before, she might work it out again, and he might make a move," he explained. "After you call her, Etienne and I will call Rachel and Terri and tell them what's happening and not to let their guard down in case the long wait makes them think nothing's likely to happen."

Thomas peered unhappily down at Inez. He didn't want the guy to make his move. He wanted to take Inez back to the townhouse and keep her safe, not to mention turn her. When Bastien touched his arm, he turned reluctantly to peer at him.

"Please, Thomas, I promise I won't let anything happen to her. I'll jump off this building in full view of everyone, if necessary, to give chase and keep her safe."

That was a big deal. Bastien was the one constantly berating anyone for doing the least little thing to draw attention to their kind.

For him to be willing to openly reveal what he was if it became a necessity to save her...

Sighing, Thomas slid the phone out of his pocket and called Inez.

Inez turned the page of the book in her hands, her eyes eating up the story of how Thomas's cousin Lissianna and her husband had got together. It was fascinating to read about people she'd met as well as those she would soon meet, and she was glad she'd picked it up. It was actually distracting her from the reason she was there, which was exactly why Bastien had said she should read.

Realizing that her thoughts were heading into an area she was supposed to avoid, Inez forced herself to concentrate on the story once more and reached blindly for her cappuccino, frowning and glancing down at it when she tipped it to her mouth and got nothing.

Her cup was empty she saw and wondered how long she'd been there. She was about to check her wrist.w.a.tch when her cell phone began to ring. Leaning to the side, Inez picked up her purse and quickly dug out her phone.

"h.e.l.lo?" she said as she placed the phone to her ear.

"Inez, I'm sorry to be taking so long," Thomas said quietly, and she presumed it was in case she was being read and then immediately tried not to think about that.

"That's all right," she murmured, managing not to look around and try to spot the men on the roof where they were supposed to be positioned to watch her.

"I shouldn't be much longer, but in the meantime, I was thinking about that seventh person business."

Inez tilted her head, a frown plucking at her brow. "Were you?"

"Yes, and I want you to think who those seven people might be while you wait," Thomas said, his voice very solemn.

Inez stiffened, understanding at once.

"Can you do that?" Thomas didn't sound like he really wanted her to, but she wasn't surprised. He'd been angry with her ever since she'd agreed to be the bait in Bastien and Etienne's plan. In fact, he'd been short and stiff with her when he brought her here to the cafe. She'd almost been relieved when he'd left after sitting with her for ten minutes or so.

"Yes," she answered calmly. "I'll do that."

There was a long silence and she knew Thomas wanted to say something, but was hesitating. Finally, he simply said, "I'll see you soon."

"Yes," Inez whispered and closed the phone, and then slipped it back into her purse.

Leaving her purse on the table, she closed her book, but continued to hold it. She stared down at it, trying to do what Thomas had suggested and then glanced around as she heard a phone ring. Spotting Rachel pressing her phone to her ear, she glanced quickly away, cutting off the thought that Etienne must be calling to tell her what was going on. And then her gaze moved to Terri and away, as her phone too began to ring.

Forcing her mind away from the two women, Inez concentrated on focusing her thoughts. It took her several moments to manage it, however, but finally she found herself picking away at the puzzle of who the seven people in Marguerite's party could have been, but nothing happened. She wasn't suddenly controlled and forced to leave the cafe. Instead, half an hour pa.s.sed and then her phone, Rachel's,' and Terri's all rang at the same time.

"He's not going to make his move," Thomas said in her ear. "Something must have scared him off. Etienne and Bastien and I are coming down."

Inez felt her back and shoulders, and indeed, her entire body suddenly relax. She'd thought she'd been relatively calm about sitting there playing bait under the watchful eyes of five immortals, but now that it was over, Inez realized she hadn't been as relaxed as she'd thought, or even really distracted by the book she'd been reading. It had absorbed her conscious attention, but her subconscious had been as wound up as a clock."We'll be there in about five minutes," Thomas continued. "Why don't you order us both a cappuccino and we'll relax a bit and decide where you want to have your last meal as a mortal."

Inez wanted to smile at his words, he certainly sounded cheerful saying them, but then he wasn't the one who was going to suffer the unbearable agony, drowning in a vat of acid that's eating you up inside and out, horrible, nightmare-ridden, desperate pain that will make you wish someone would just put a bullet in your brain and end it all. At least that's how she thought Etienne had put it. While she wanted to be with Thomas, the whole suffering-the-agony-of-the-d.a.m.ned part to do so kind of sucked.

"Yes," she said her tone solemn. "I'll go order us both a cappuccino and see you when you get here."

"I love you," Thomas said and then hung up before she could respond. Inez wasn't sure if she was glad or not. It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't yet actually told him that she loved him. She'd nodded when Rachel had asked if she loved Thomas, but had never got the chance to actually say the words to him. She would do so the minute he got here, Inez decided...

and then maybe she'd suggest they put off turning her until after Marguerite was found, or maybe longer. She loved him, but was not a great fan of pain.

"Inez? I'm going down to get another tea while I wait for the men to get here. Do you want anything?"

Glancing up, Inez smiled as she peered over Terri in her wig and dress. She looked totally different in the outfit. Standing, she said, "I'll come with you, I have to order Thomas a cappuccino too."

"Okay. Don't forget your purse," Terri said easily.

Inez picked up her purse and was putting the book in her bag when Rachel joined them to descend the stairs.

"I swear, Terri, you look like a Stepford wife in that getup," Etienne's wife said with a light laugh and then added, "A gorgeous Stepford Wife, but still a Stepford wife. Did Bastien ask you to keep the wig for later?"

Inez laughed at the way Rachel was wiggling her eyebrows as she asked the question, but laughed harder when Terri blushed and nodded her head.

"Do they have a bathroom in this place?" Terr asked as they stepped off the stairs.

"Yes. Just there," Inez said helpfully, pointing out the door to the left of the stairs.

"Oh, thanks. I'll be right back."

Inez trailed Rachel to the counter as Terri moved off toward the door to the bathrooms.

"I wonder what their lemon m.u.f.fins are like," Rachel murmured as they waited for an older woman to give and collect her order.

"They're quite good. Thomas and I had them the other day."

"Hmm, maybe I'll have one of those and a latte, then," Rachel murmured.

Nodding, Inez glanced over the board herself, trying to decide what she wanted. She was still looking when the woman at the counter claimed her order and moved on. When Rachel gestured for her to go first, Inez shook her head and waved her on. "I'm still looking."

Nodding, Rachel stepped up to the counter to give her order, and Inez turned to peer back to the board, but found herself continuing to turn until she faced the door, and then she was walking out of the cafe.

A silent scream immediately went off inside her head as Inez realized what was happening and that Rachel would be too distracted to notice until it was too late.Inez had been so relaxed just then. Thinking it was over she'd dropped all her guards and hadn't been prepared for this sudden hijacking of her mind and body. Her memories of being controlled last night had been fuzzy and fractured when she'd woken up on the couch and heard Thomas, Etienne, and Rachel talking. Little bits and pieces and flashes of fuzzy scenes and faint feelings were all she'd been able to grasp at, but as the terror of it all struck her anew, Inez recalled last night's events with stunning clarity.

The terror of being controlled and made to do someone else's bidding, the endless walk along dark streets in the cool night breeze, all the while wondering what her controller planned to do with her. The inability to do a single thing to stop what was happening or protect or defend herself in any way as he'd stopped and made her turn to face the river while knowing with every fiber of her being that he was about to kill her.

It was like that again now as she was made to walk once more up dark York streets to what she feared might, this time, be her death. As that thought struck her, Inez felt herself giving up and shrinking under the terror claiming her.

"Inez!"

Rachel's voice was like a lifeline in the middle of an ocean. Relief pouring through her, Inez immediately began to fight, trying to regain control and battle the mind controlling hers. It didn't work. There was no sudden stutter in her step, not even a miniscule movement of her mouth as she tried to cry out to Rachel. Instead, her body began to move more quickly, bursting into a run that sent her flying down the street at a speed Inez had never realized she had in her.

Rather than be alarmed at this, Inez took it as a sign that she might yet have a chance. Rachel must be in pursuit, and there was no way she could outrun her. The woman was an immortal and Thomas had said immortals had increased strength and speed. Inez was confident the woman would catch up to her quickly and she would be saved... so long as she didn't have a heart attack and die first by the effort being forced on her, Inez thought with reawakened alarm as her body began to move even faster. Her arms and legs were pumping at an unnatural speed that she was sure her body alone could never manage and would not be able to sustain long. Her heart was already racing in a way she'd never before experienced as it tried desperately to supply the oxygen this race required.

A man suddenly stepped out on the sidewalk in front of her, and Inez's eyes widened in horror as she recognized him. Tall, blond, bearded, and dressed all in black, he had a cold face without a drop of humanity or mercy in it. He had stepped out much like this last night, Inez recalled, though she hadn't been running then. He suddenly reached out with one arm and s.n.a.t.c.hed her up.

Inez would have grunted in pain as her stomach crashed into his arm if she could have, but the blond man was now running, moving faster than her body had been able to accomplish. She was being carried along, her upper body leaning slightly forward over his arm, her head turned by the impetus so that she could just see Rachel out of the corner of her eye.

The woman was racing down the street behind them, grim determination on her face and Inez could have wept with relief to know she wasn't yet lost. A quick rage soon followed as Inez mentally balked at the unfairness of it all. Were the blond man not controlling her, she'd be kicking and screaming and clawing the skin off his arm. She'd have fought him with her last breath, but she wasn't being given that opportunity. Despite being bigger and stronger and faster, despite the fact that he was an immortal, impossible to kill since she had no idea how to, he was even now controlling her body and preventing her from defending herself.

The man was a b.l.o.o.d.y coward, she decided, afraid to risk her puny struggles.

Much to her amazement, her captor suddenly stumbled in his step and she was sure his control on her slipped briefly, long enough for her to instinctively clench her fists in rage.

Realizing the man was still in her mind in order to control her, Inez thought she might have a weapon after all.

You really are a coward. I suspected as much when you cut and ran last night the minute Thomas showed up. But I just thought you were afraid to take on someone your own size, I never expected you to be afraid of little mortal me. What's wrong? When you were a little boy immortal did a little mortal girl punch or scratch you? I bet that's what happened, and I bet you cried like a baby.

"Keep it up. I shall kill you slowly and painfully and enjoy the doing."Inez stiffened unsure if he'd actually spoken the words aloud as he ran, or if he'd somehow communicated them to her with his mind. Thomas had never said they could talk in your head, but they could alter memories in a mortal's mind, why not a thought?

I'm sure you will. And no doubt you'll control me the entire time so I'm completely defenseless. The big superior immortal, torturing a defenseless mortal female to death. Woo-woo! You should be proud. But then I bet that's how you get off. It's probably the only way you get off. Are you impotent? Inez asked in her head with interest.

I bet you are, she added. I bet you have a really small p.e.n.i.s too. I mean, I know nanos put you at your peak physical condition and all that, but some of you peak a little smaller than others, huh? And, I suppose, nanos can only do so much.

Inez felt his control falter. Excited, she persisted, Seriously, I want to know. Are you hung like a horse and just mean or did fate stick you with a mini tootsie roll between your legs that women stare at in horror and then say the dreaded, "size doesn't matter?"

She'd definitely hit a sore point there, because a wave of rage poured through her mind and then died abruptly as the immortal's control over her suddenly collapsed. Knowing it wouldn't last long, Inez immediately kicked back one leg with all her force. She'd hoped to break his knee or something. Instead, she jammed her leg back as he was midstep, sticking it between one leg and the other like a wrench between the spokes of a fast-moving bicycle tire. Unfortunately, her leg wasn't as hard and solid as a metal wrench.

Still free of his control, Inez screamed in agony as her leg was mulched between both of his, one pushing forward against her calf bone, while his other leg swung back, snapping the bone with a thick cracking sound. She was still screaming as he pitched to the side and the ground rushed up toward her. While her leg had broken, it had also tripped him up. He was falling, some part of her mind realized and Inez had just enough time to hope she hadn't just killed herself before her head slammed into concrete. Stars exploded behind her eyes, along with the pain in her head and then they were rolling, the immortal still clutching her in the crook of his arm as they tumbled down what she thought were stairs.

"Inez!"

She barely heard Rachel's shriek as the lights behind her eyes began to fade and blessed unconsciousness took her away from the pain.

"What do you think warned him off?" Etienne asked with a frown as he, Bastien and Thomas descended the stairs down from the roof of the building they'd chosen to watch the coffee shop.

"I'm not sure," Bastien said, sounding weary. "Inez may not have been able to keep all thoughts of what we were up to out of her mind."

"Don't blame Inez for this," Thomas said through gritted teeth as they stepped off the stairs and headed out the door into the alley between the rows of buildings. "I'm sure she did everything she could. She agreed to help, didn't she? Putting herself at risk for your stupid plan."

"It wasn't a criticism," Bastien a.s.sured him, soothingly. "And we do appreciate it. We also know how hard this has been on you, Thomas, and I'm sorry about that. We were just hoping to catch the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and find Mother."

"Well, I want to find her too, but..." Thomas paused in the alley, frustrated that he couldn't find the words to say what he felt. He was terrified of losing either woman, but Marguerite might already be lost to them, and he didn't want to lose Inez to find that out.

h.e.l.l, he didn't want to lose her at all. Given a choice between saving one woman or the other Thomas would rather die himself.

"But Marguerite is your aunt and Inez is your lifemate and you'd rather not lose either of them," Etienne said quietly, saying what he thought Thomas was trying and failing to verbalize.

"Marguerite is my mother too," Thomas snapped bitterly. "She's the only mother I know.""You called her Mother as a child," Bastien said quietly.

"Yeah, well, Jean Claude soon put a stop to that," he muttered wearily, and then shook his head and turned away to continue up the alley. "Let's go. The women are waiting."

Bastien and Etienne hesitated and then fell into step on either side of him to walk out of the alley. They walked the rest of the way in silence, coming around the corner half a short block up from the coffee shop in time to see Terri come rushing out of the cafe, panic on her face.

"Something's wrong," Bastien growled and burst into a run.

His heart lurching with alarm because Inez was nowhere to be seen, Thomas raced past his cousin.

"Where is she?" he demanded, grabbing Terri roughly by the arms.

"I don't know," Terri cried with distress. "We all went down to get coffees for everyone and I went into the bathroom. But when I came out, Rachel and Inez were gone."

"Rachel's gone too?" Etienne asked with alarm as he reached them. "Where did they go?" Thomas asked, ignoring him.

"Someone must have seen. Did you read the guy behind the counter? He had an eye for Inez and would have noticed her leaving."

"I tried, but..." She shook her head helplessly, guilt filling her eyes.

"It's all right," Bastien said as he caught up. Slipping his arm around her, he gave her a quick hug as he explained to Thomas. "She hasn't finished her training Thomas. Terri can't read mortals well yet. I'll do it now," he added, giving his fiancee a quick squeeze and then releasing her to hurry into the cafe.

Thomas whirled away from the woman, not angry at her but just plain angry as he peered up the road one way and then the other.

There was no sign of either woman.

"Maybe we should split up, you go one way and I go the other," Etienne suggested anxiously.

Thomas turned cold eyes on his cousin. "The plan doesn't look so good when your own lifemate gets caught in it, does it?"

Etienne winced and briefly closed his eyes, then blinked them open and said, "I'm sorry, Thomas. I deserve that. We thought we had all the bases covered."

"The fact is, Etienne, that you can cover all the bases you want, but if you put a ball into the game, it's going to get hit by the bat at some point," he snarled.

"That way!" Bastien yelled, rushing out of the cafe.

Thomas glanced toward the man, and then burst into a run in the direction his cousin was pointing. The others were immediately on his heels.