Chapter 2 #3
“No, wait,” Rosemary said, following me as I headed toward the front door.
Their old bulldog was snoring loudly on a bed in front of the fire. He didn’t even lift his head. Clearly, he wasn’t a watchdog.
“Stay inside,” I ordered her. “I’ll let you know when to come out.”
“Okay, first of all—”
“Do I need to tie your ass up?” I snapped. Shit, it felt like I couldn’t concentrate. Between the car getting closer on the driveway, the scent of Rosemary’s shampoo wafting toward me, and the fact that she clearly wasn’t wearing a bra under her loose T-shirt, my brain seemed to be misfiring.
“You could try,” she said with a laugh, shaking her head.
“Flower?” her dad called from the kitchen. Why the hell hadn’t he done what I’d asked?
“I can’t fucking think with you standing here,” I ground out. “Go.”
“Well, lucky for you, I can think for both of us.”
She moved faster than I was prepared for and threw the front door open, stalking outside as I spun and wrapped an arm around her waist. Her feet left the porch just as the car outside rolled to a stop.
“Put me down, you pain in the ass,” she griped, pulling her knees to her chest as she shoved at my arm.
“Quiet,” I breathed in her ear as I watched the car.
My arm loosened as the driver climbed out, and I let out a breath of relief.
“It’s about time you showed up,” Rosemary called, pushing my arm away as she moved to the top of the steps. “Daniel’s practically frothing at the mouth.”
“Daniel Boucher,” Dalton Cavendish drawled, striding toward us. “It’s been a while.”
Just then, the passenger door opened and another tall man stepped out of the car.
“Good to see you in one piece, Oregano,” he called out teasingly.
I reached out to shake Dalton’s hand as Rosemary bounded down the steps toward the stranger.
Sidestepping Dalton, I monitored the interaction closely. My mate shoved at the newcomer with a laugh and then stepped in for a hug. Was that the fictional mate?
Every muscle in my body tensed until she jerked away with a curse. I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision.
“Shit, I forgot,” the man said with a grimace, glancing at me as he raised his arms out at his sides. “You okay?”
“Oh, ew,” Rosemary exclaimed. “I forgot about that bullshit.”
Dalton chuckled beside me. “They grew up together,” he informed me. “Nothing to be worried about.”
I scoffed. “I’m aware.” Even if Rosemary and this pup had anything going on before, it was over now. The mating bond would make it physically painful for them to fuck around.
“Come meet my mate,” Rosemary said with a frown, stomping back toward the house. She was barefoot and didn’t seem to even notice the rocks beneath her feet.
“This is my son Ian,” Dalton said, nodding toward him. On closer inspection, the young Vampire was barely an adult. His face hadn’t lost the innocence of youth yet. “Ian, this is Rosemary’s mate, Daniel Boucher.”
“Boucher?” Ian asked, reaching out to shake my hand.
“Yes, one of those Bouchers,” Dalton murmured with a smile. His expression dropped as he looked at me. “I was very sorry to hear about Zeke. You have my condolences.”
“Thank you,” I replied, finally relaxing a little as Rosemary grudgingly sidled up to me.
“Is Gary inside?”
“Where the hell else would I be?” Rosemary’s dad called.
Dalton chuckled as he moved toward the door.
“We can’t stay here,” I said, stopping him. “Rosemary can’t stay here.”
“Why the hell not?” she interrupted.
“You were abducted here,” I replied slowly. She was clearly intelligent, but if I were guessing, her sense of self-preservation was completely absent. “You’re no longer where they put you. Where do you think they’ll look for you first?”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened a little. “About that…”
“Have you told him nothing?” Dalton asked incredulously.
“I didn’t have time before you and Sunflower here showed up.”
“Stop calling me that,” Ian hissed in embarrassment.
“Inside,” Dalton ordered, gesturing toward the door. “Everyone inside.”
If it had been any other Vampire ordering me around, I would’ve balked, but Dalton had been one of my first team leaders when I joined Vampire Command. I trusted him with my life and, more importantly, with my mate’s.
Setting my hand on Rosemary’s back, I let her hair tangle around my fingers for a moment as I led her inside. As we moved through the door, she leaned slightly into the touch. Well, that was comforting. At least she felt the pull too. I was beginning to wonder.
Mates were hardwired to be drawn to their other half, even when they didn’t want to be.
I’d seen it time and again. Even if mates were fighting, even if they couldn’t stand each other, even if it was inconvenient and frustrating, they still gravitated toward each other, pulled by an invisible and nearly unbreakable thread.
Rosemary seemed to be able to ignore that thread for the most part, but the longer I was near her, the tighter I felt that thread pulling.
I wanted to get my arms around her. I wanted to pull her onto my lap.
I wanted those long legs wrapped around my back.
I wanted her hair in my face and trailing down my chest.
“Good to see ya,” Gary announced, snapping me out of my fantasy as he performed some strange handshake with Dalton.
Ian immediately dropped down on the floor, and the dog scrambled onto his lap, panting like he’d just run a mile.
I took a seat next to Rosemary on the sofa. She leaned against the opposite arm and pulled her legs up beside her, tucking her feet under my thigh. Maybe she wasn’t as immune as she was letting on.
Dalton dropped onto one of the chairs. “So what have you told him?”
“Just that you reported that I’d mated one of your sons and they’d picked me up like we’d hoped.”
“You put her in this?” I asked Dalton incredulously. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that my very human goddaughter didn’t have a mate, and when they figured that out, they’d let her go.”
I laughed humorlessly. “You thought they’d let her go?”
“From all accounts—”
“What accounts?” I asked, cutting him off.
“From what we’ve seen, no one has made it out of their little labs.
And who the fuck are you working for? Because I’d really like to speak to whoever decided that it was a good idea to send a human woman to those fucking monsters. Are you out of your godsdamn minds?”
The minute my legs tensed so I could rise to my feet, Rosemary moved, crossing the couch to tuck her shoulder into my armpit and her arm around my waist. I wasn’t sure who had taught her the move, but she succeeded in instantly calming me.
I nearly let my eyes fall shut as my heart stopped thudding in my ears.
“Why don’t I start at the beginning?” Dalton said.
“Calm down,” Rosemary whispered in my ear. “Flying off the handle isn’t going to get you answers any faster.”
I turned my head until we were nose to nose. “I’m going to tear the head off anyone who thought putting you in danger was an acceptable choice.”
“I was safer than you’re thinking,” she replied, her breath whispering across my lips. “Now, shhh.”
“We started getting reports that Vampires and their mates were disappearing three years ago—”
“Four,” Gary corrected. “Sam came to us four years ago.”
“Right,” Dalton agreed. “We’ve known Sam for years. He works at the local tractor store…” He paused when he caught my dubious expression. “Gary and I own a lot of land. We’re in there more than you’d expect.”
“He said he hadn’t heard from his sister in a few weeks, and he was getting worried. She’d never gone more than a few days without checkin’ in and shootin’ the shit with Sam’s wife,” Gary explained. “His sister’s mated to a Vampire, if you hadn’t figured that out already.”
“We looked into things for him, but there was no trace of the sister or her mate,” Dalton added grimly. “Their house was untouched, cars parked in the driveway. They had no children yet, no pets. It looked as if they’d just left.”
“But they didn’t come back,” Gary said.
“No, they didn’t.” Dalton shook his head.
“And then it happened again about six months later. Someone else mentioned that a Vampire they knew had vanished. There one day and gone the next. They’d assumed that their acquaintance had gone on a trip, but they never returned.
The stories kept happening. Vampires and their mates disappearing into thin air.
All newly mated, all quietly living their lives, suddenly gone. ”
“How many?” I asked, my voice rough. My brother Ambrose had found a handful of small tokens hidden in the room where our brother Zeke had been held, so we knew there were others, but this sounded much bigger than any of us had imagined.
“Fifty-four,” Dalton replied quietly.
It felt like I’d been punched in the chest. That was far more than we’d heard of. More than I’d ever thought possible.
“Couples,” Rosemary clarified. “Fifty-four couples. One hundred eight, total.”
“One hundred nine,” Gary said. “When we add your brother. He was mated?”
“My brother’s mate is safe,” I replied, sick.
Gary’s nod seemed relieved.
“We didn’t put it together,” Dalton said apologetically. “As far as I knew, Zeke hadn’t been mated, so his death didn’t fit the pattern.”
My baby brother had known better than to report his mate to our government. There was no record of Charles. Unfortunately, the militia had discovered him anyway. I doubted Zeke had been able to hide his mating heat symptoms for long.
“Tell me the rest of it,” I ordered, pulling Rosemary tighter against me. Her heart beat steady and strong beneath my palm.
“We’ve kept things quiet,” Dalton said. “I didn’t want to get caught up in the bureaucratic bullshit that you know would come up.
Between the treaties and the political posturing, we’d never get to the bottom of things.
Even so, we’ve hit a wall. That’s why Rosemary was sent in.
We’ve managed to track some of the soldiers, but we haven’t figured out who’s giving them orders. ”
“Yet,” Ian said quietly, still petting the bulldog. “We haven’t found them yet.”
“Nowhere in this story have any of you convinced me why you thought it was acceptable to send my mate into the fucking lion’s den,” I reminded them. “Or why we’re still sitting here waiting for the militia to show up.”
“No one knows where we are,” Gary assured me with a quick shake of his head.
“Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”
Gary looked pointedly at his daughter.
“I can explain all that,” Rosemary said with a sigh, unfolding her legs so she could climb off the couch. “Come on, let’s go outside.”