The Midnight Breed Series Companion Part 14

"I won the contest and sent the human woman away to be looked after until she was well again," Gideon replied. "As for Faulkner's sword, I wish I'd left it where it lay that night, next to his corpse."

Understanding dawned in Savannah's tender eyes. "The twin boys I saw playing with the sword before they were attacked in the stable by Rogues..."

"My brothers," he confirmed. "Simon and Roderick."

"Gideon," she whispered solemnly. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"A long time ago," he said.

"But you still feel it. Don't you?"

He released a heavy sigh. "I was to blame for not protecting them. Our parents were dead. The boys were my responsibility. Several weeks after the confrontation with Faulkner, I was out carousing in the city. Simon and Roddy were young, not even ten years old, but old enough to hunt on their own as Breed youths. I took it for granted that they'd be safe enough on their own for a few hours that night."

Savannah reached over and pulled his fisted hand up to her lips, kissed the tightly clenched knuckles with sweet compa.s.sion. He relaxed his fingers to twine them with hers. "My brothers were the reason I came to Boston. I joined the Order t hunt Rogues, after killing the three who murdered the boys, as well as dozens more for good measure."

"Hundreds more," Savannah reminded him.

He grunted. "I thought killing Rogues would make the guilt about my brothers lessen, but it hasn't."

"How long have you been trying to make it better, Gideon?"

He exhaled a low oath. "Simon and Roddy were killed three centuries ago."

She lifted her head up and stared at him. Gaped at him. "Exactly how old are you?"

"Three-hundred and seventy-two," he drawled. "Give or take a few months."

"Oh, my G.o.d." She dropped her head back down on his chest and laughed. Then laughed again. "I thought Rachel was nuts for l.u.s.ting after Professor Keaton, and he was only in his forties. I'm falling in love with a total relic."

Gideon stilled. "Falling in love?"

"Yes," she replied quietly, but without hesitation. She glanced up at him. One slender black brow arched wryly. "Don't tell me that's all it takes to scare a three-hundred and seventy-two-year-old vampire."

"No," he said, but he did feel a sudden wariness.

Not because of her sweet confession; he would come back to that tempting p.r.o.nouncement another time.

Right now, his warrior instincts were buzzing with cold alarm. He sat up in the tub, frowning.

"Keaton," he said flatly. "When is he due out of the hospital?"

"He is out," Savannah replied. "I saw him yesterday on campus. He looked awful, but he said he'd made a full recovery and the hospital released him earlier than expected. He was acting kind of odd--"

Gideon tensed. "Odd in what way?"

"I don't know. Weird. Creepy. And he lied to me when I asked him about the attack."

"Tell me."

She shrugged. "He told me he saw who killed Rachel and attacked him that night. Keaton said it was a vagrant, but the glimpse I got from Rachel's bracelet showed me a man in a very expensive suit. A man with amber eyes and fangs."

"Holy s.h.i.t." Why he didn't see it before, Gideon had no idea. The attacker killed Savannah's roommate, but left the professor alive. That was no accident. "What else did Keaton say to you?"

"Nothing much. Like I said, he was just acting strangely, not like himself. I didn't feel safe around him."

"Did Keaton know you were going to the bus station last night?"

She paused, thinking. "I told him I was going home to Louisiana. I might have mentioned I was taking the bus--"

Gideon snarled and got out of the tub. Water sluiced off his naked limbs and torso. "I need to see Keaton for myself. It's the only way I can be certain." He thought about the hour of the day--probably just past noon--and cursed roundly.

Savannah climbed out too, and stood beside him. She put her hand on his shoulder. "Gideon, what do you need to be certain of?"

"Keaton's injuries the night of the attack," he said. "I need to know if he was bitten."

"I don't know. I didn't see that much when I touched Rachel's bracelet." She stared at him in confusion. "Why? What will it tell you if Keaton was bitten?"

"If I see him, I'll know right away if he's still human or if he's been bitten and bled by his attacker. I need to know if he's been made a Minion to the vampire who took that sword from the university."

"A Minion." Savannah went quiet now. "If Keaton was bitten, that will tell you what you need to know?"

"Yes." He raked a hand over his scalp. "The problem with that is, I'm trapped indoors until sundown."

"Gideon," she said. "What if I see Keaton now?"

"What do you mean?" He bristled at the thought of her getting anywhere near the man. "You're not going anywhere without me. I won't risk that."

She shook her head. "I mean, maybe I can tell you if Keaton was bitten during the attack." At his answering scowl, she said, "I still have Rachel's bracelet."

"Where?"

"Here, with me. It's in my purse in the other room."

"I need you to go get it, Savannah. Now."

CHAPTER 13.

Savannah woke up from an unusually heavy doze, in bed alone.

How long had she been asleep? Her head felt thick, like she was coming out of a light anesthesia.

Where was Gideon?

She called out to him, but the empty house was silent. Pushing herself up from the mattress, she made a bleary-eyed scan of the dark bedroom. "Gideon?"

No response.

"Gideon, where are you?"

She sat up and tossed the sheet away from her. Turned on the bedside lamp. On the pillow next to her lay a piece of paper. A note scribbled on the back of the unused bus ticket that had been in her purse. The handwriting was crisp, precise, forward-tilting and bold--just like him.

Sorry had to do it like this. You're safe here. Back soon.

Savannah looked around the bedroom. Gideon's clothes were gone. His boots and weapons. Every last trace of him, gone.

She knew where he went.

Through the fog of whatever he'd done to her, she recalled his explosive reaction when she'd used Rachel's bracelet for another glimpse of the vampire attack that night in Professor Keaton's office.

Keaton had been bitten, just as Gideon suspected.

No longer the man he was, but a slave to the command of his vampire Master.

An individual Gideon seemed h.e.l.lbent to find.

He had nearly climbed the walls with restless energy as the afternoon dragged on outside the house. He couldn't wait to get out of there. He'd paced anxiously, waiting for the chance to head out and confront Keaton, then hunt for the Minion's Master.

Savannah had wanted to go with him, but his refusal had been harsh and unswerving. He'd been adamant that she stay right where she was, leave him to deal with the situation as he saw fit--alone. Or with his brethren of the Order, if necessary.

It wasn't until she had insisted she wouldn't stay behind, digging her heels in with determination equal to his own that he finally gentled.

He'd kissed her tenderly. Brought her into the shelter of his arms, and carefully touched his palm to her forehead. Then...

Then, nothing.

That's all she could remember of the past couple of hours at least.

Sorry had to do it like this, he'd written in his note.

d.a.m.n him!

Savannah vaulted off the bed. She threw on her clothes, ran to the front door. She yanked on the latch. It wouldn't budge.

He'd locked her inside?

p.i.s.sed now, she went to the windows and tried to open them. Sealed permanently shut, each of them shuttered from outside. The whole house was locked down, she realized, making a frantic perimeter check of the entire place.

She finally came to a rest in the small, empty kitchen, breathless with outrage.

There was no way to get out.

She was imprisoned here, and Gideon was somewhere out there, looking to face off with a powerful enemy on his own.

She knew she couldn't help him--not in the kind of battles he was used to fighting. But to leave her behind like this to wait and worry? To strong-arm her into complying with his will by flexing his Breed power over her? If she wasn't so worried about him, she'd want to kill him herself the next time she saw him.

She choked back a panicky breath. G.o.d, please, let me see him again.

She sagged down to the rough plank floor on her knees...and noticed something in the far corner of the kitchen that she hadn't seen in her search for a means out of the house.

There was a door in the floor.

Hardly visible, fashioned out of the planks and perfectly level with the rest of the flooring.

With a mix of curiosity and foreboding, Savannah crept toward it and felt around for its seams. She pried her fingers between a couple of the planks and found the hidden, square panel was unhinged and unsecured. She lifted it, slid it aside, and sat back as a draft of cool, damp air breathed out of the dark opening.

Savannah peered down into the s.p.a.ce, trying to see if it the gloom led out of the house somewhere, or merely down to an old cellar. A p.r.i.c.kle at her nape told her it was neither, but now that she had opened the door, she couldn't simply close it again without having the answer.

A crude ladder was built into the earthen wall below. She slipped down into the hole and carefully climbed about twenty feet to the bottom.

It was a deep pit, lightless, except for the scant illumination spilling in from the kitchen above.

Had she thought the house felt like a tomb last night, when she and Gideon first arrived? This hand-hewn chamber in the cold, dark earth brought the feeling back tenfold.

Who made this?

What was it for?

Savannah peered around the forlorn s.p.a.ce. Nothing but dank walls and floor, a place of sorrow and isolation. A place of forgetting.

No, she thought, seeing the purpose of the hidden room only now--a niche carved into the far wall, created to hold the crude wooden box that had been carefully placed within the nook.

This hole in the earth was a place of remembrance.

Of penance.

She drifted closer to the alcove and the aged box it contained. Even without touching it, she could feel the anguish that surrounded the reliquary.

Where had the box come from? Why was it here? Who had set it so deliberately in this place?

She had to know.

Savannah ran her bare hand lightly over the top of the ancient box.

Grief swamped her, seeping straight to her marrow.

A young woman's remains were inside from long, long ago. Ash and bone, anointed in tears. A man's tears.

No, not a man.

A Breed male, unfamiliar to her, mourning his dead mate. Blaming himself for her demise.

Savannah saw him in a flash of her extrasensory gift: A ma.s.sive warrior with s.h.a.ggy, tawny hair and piercing gem-green eyes. Eyes that burned hot with rage and sorrow and self-loathing.