Chapter 22
Sam woke, once again, to Mediterranean sunlight and the warm weight of Claudia in his arms. For a moment, he just lay there, savoring the feeling of completeness that came with having her with him. He could feel the gentle hum of her magic intertwined with his own power.
Last night had been extraordinary. Not just the lovemaking, though that had been incredible, but the battle before it. Watching Claudia face a centuries-old dark mage and win had filled him with a pride so fierce it had taken his breath away. His mate was magnificent.
Claudia stirred against him, making a soft sound of contentment. Her eyes fluttered open, dark and still drowsy, and when she saw him watching her, she smiled.
“Morning,” she murmured.
“Morning, love.” Sam pressed a kiss to her forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore in interesting places, and completely happy.” She stretched, catlike, and Sam had to suppress the urge to pull her back down and forget about the rest of the world. “What time is it?”
He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “Just past nine. We should probably get up. I want to check in with Mark and Nick about Marta, among other things.”
“Reality intrudes,” Claudia sighed. “Though, I suppose we can’t stay in bed forever.”
“We could try,” Sam suggested, his hand sliding down her spine.
She laughed and swatted his chest. “Tempting, but you’re right. We have responsibilities.” She sat up, the sheet pooling around her waist, and Sam took a moment to appreciate the sight. “I should call Granny too.”
“After breakfast,” Sam said firmly. “You used an enormous amount of magic last night. You need to eat and replenish your strength.”
They showered—separately, because together would have led to them definitely not leaving the suite—and dressed in casual clothes.
Sam opted for dark slacks and a button-down shirt while Claudia put on one of the simpler outfits Maurice had provided, a sundress in soft blue that made her look young and carefree, despite everything they’d been through.
“Ready to face the world?” Sam asked, offering his arm.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Claudia took his arm, and they headed for the door.
The plan was simple. Breakfast in a private room he’d reserved in the hotel restaurant, then a meeting with Mark and Nick to discuss what to do with the intelligence Marta might provide.
After that, they’d start getting ready to head back to Houston.
The Celestine Gala weekend was essentially over—there were a few more events, but Sam had no intention of attending.
Kettering had run away, so there was no reason to stay.
They’d accomplished a lot and would have to wait to get to Kettering another time.
They were halfway across the lobby, heading for the restaurant, when a voice cut through the civilized murmur of the hotel.
“Kinkaid!”
Sam turned to see Abdul Kettering striding toward them, his face flushed with rage. Sam was surprised.
“He really is that stupid,” Sam mused as he moved in front of Claudia. “I thought, for sure, he’d have run away last night.”
Kettering’s expression was full of rage, and something else. Fear. The arms dealer looked nothing like the smooth, confident businessman from the balls. His hair was disheveled, his tie askew, and his eyes held a manic gleam.
“Where are they?” Kettering demanded, stopping directly in front of Sam and Claudia. His voice was loud enough to draw attention from other guests. “Where are Schwarz and Marta? What did you do to them?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam said calmly, though his lion was already rising, sensing the threat.
“Don’t lie to me!” Kettering’s voice rose higher, practically shouting now. Spittle flew from his lips. “They went after you last night and never came back! Schwarz was supposed to—he promised—” He cut himself off, seeming to realize he was revealing too much.
Sam could see hotel security starting to move toward them, drawn by the commotion. Other guests were staring, some pulling out phones to record the spectacle. This needed to end, now, before it became an international incident.
“Mr. Kettering, you need to calm down,” Sam said, his voice carrying Alpha command. “You’re causing a scene.”
“I’ll do more than cause a scene,” Kettering snarled. His fear was morphing into desperate rage, the cornered-animal instinct to lash out. “I’ll expose you for what you are. You’re a monster pretending to be human! Let’s see how your business empire survives when everyone knows—”
He never finished the sentence. Claudia raised her hand in a sharp gesture, and the world stopped.
Sam noticed the change immediately. He had a sense of being out of sync with reality, like stepping outside the flow of time itself.
Around them, hotel guests froze mid-motion.
A woman halfway through taking a sip of coffee, her cup suspended at her lips.
Security guards caught mid-stride, their expressions of concern frozen on their faces.
Even the fountain in the lobby’s center had stopped, water droplets hanging in the air like diamonds.
Only three people still moved. Sam, Claudia, and Kettering faced off while the world around them froze in place.
The arms dealer’s eyes widened in shock as he realized what had happened. “What—how—”
“I stopped Schwarz. He is gone from this world and his power scattered to the winds, just like his ashes,” Claudia said, her voice eerily calm in the frozen silence.
“I bested him and can stop time, as you can see. It is a gift given only once in a millennia, and I have it. I’d tread carefully if I were you. You are at my mercy.”
Kettering’s face went pale. Sam could practically see the wheels turning in the man’s head. If they were outside of time, there could be no witnesses, no recordings.
Kettering’s hand moved to his jacket, pulling out a small pistol that had somehow made it past hotel security. “If I can’t expose you, I’ll just kill you both.”
He aimed at Claudia, and Sam moved. His shifter strength and speed overcame Kettering’s mere human abilities easily. Sam had the gun in his hand before Kettering could squeeze the trigger. Kettering sputtered but Sam had him immobilized with his arm twisted painfully behind his back.
Sam’s eyes scanned the frozen figures, and he spotted Nick Balam standing near the concierge desk, caught mid-conversation. “Can you unfreeze just Nick without releasing everyone else?”
“I think so.” Claudia’s brow furrowed as she focused her magic. She crooked her finger at Nick in a come-here gesture.
The jaguar shifter suddenly unfroze. His eyes went wide as he took in the scene. Everyone in the lobby remained frozen around him.
“What the—” Nick started.
“Over here,” Sam called, and Nick jogged over, a look of concern on his face.
“I took us out of time for a short moment,” Claudia explained as Nick approached. “Mr. Kettering just tried to shoot me, but as you can see, Sam stopped him. The problem now is how we make this look natural when we return to the time stream.”
Nick looked around. “Well, everybody is looking at him. He was causing quite a ruckus.”
“I’ll do more than cause a ruckus, you bastard!” Kettering yelled, still incapacitated in Sam’s hold, though he tried his best to struggle. He just wasn’t strong enough to get out of Sam’s tight grip.
“You’ve caused a lot of misery for a lot of people, Mr. Kettering,” Sam said calmly. “You have to know there’s a kill order out on you.”
“A kill order?” Kettering blubbered, sounding outraged. “From who? A bunch of animals?”
“Actually, I understand it was issued by the CIA. There have been commandos scoping out your castle for months, but you haven’t been going anywhere, and it’s not easy to get to you in that fortress.
I’d be shocked if they didn’t have an operative or two in place here to take you out, actually.
” Nick looked around the lobby again with mild curiosity, as if trying to spot an assassin aiming for Kettering.
“You’re joking!” Kettering argued back, even as he winced at Sam’s tight hold on his arm.
“No, I’m not,” Nick replied quietly. “You’ve been named as an enemy of the state due to your less than circumspect selection of clients throughout the world.
When your illegal weapons got into the hands of terrorists that attacked the U.S.
, they put you on the hit list. I’m surprised you didn’t know that already.
I figured that’s why you were hiding in your castle for so long. ”
“I wasn’t hiding. I was busy!” Kettering shouted, his expression wilder than before.
“Here’s how we’re going to play this,” Sam spoke close to Kettering’s ear.
“I’m giving you a choice. Either I knock you out, and Nick rushes up to catch you when Claudia puts us back in time, or you cease your nonsense and come along quietly.
We’ll make sure the CIA doesn’t kill you in this very public lobby, and you come with us, but your ass is ours either way.
So what’ll it be? Are you walking or being carried out of here? ”
“Neither. I will annihilate you!” Kettering screamed and then started to chant, but it was Claudia who put an end to that.
“Oh, no you don’t.” She tapped his forehead with one finger, knocking him unconscious before he could complete his spell.
“Carried, it is,” Sam murmured, giving Claudia a raised eyebrow look. He hadn’t known she could do that and found every new facet of her magical abilities intriguing. She really was one in a million, and he had a feeling he’d enjoy learning all her facets for the rest of his life.
“Let me position myself close enough to make it look natural and yet far enough away that nobody will really notice that I covered the ground from where I was to where I’ll be in no time at all,” Nick said, backing up to more or less the right spot, by Sam’s judgement.
Sam moved Kettering’s dead weight so that he was holding him up by his hands.
He had to time this just right. It would look funny no matter what they did, but people’s minds often filled in the blanks when the saw something odd, so he wasn’t too worried about it.
They just had to create a lot of action around the moment Claudia put them back into the time stream that would create enough confusion to blur everything together.
Sam made a mental note to clear the camera footage from the lobby asap as well. They had to sell this, and having a recording would make that more difficult.
“Let go of his hands when I tell you, and this should work,” Claudia said. “He had them raised when he was yelling, so maybe throw them upwards? It’ll look like he had a stroke or something caused by his own anger, and Nick will catch him on the way down.”
Sam heard the uncertainty in her voice but agreed. This might work, and really, they had little alternative.
“How long until he wakes up?” Sam asked, needing to know in order to plan.
“Not for a few days. I put him into a coma. I could bring him out sooner if you want, but on his own, it’ll take a while,” she replied.
Sam was a bit shocked and altogether impressed by his powerful mate. His inner lion approved once again, secure in the knowledge that, even if she wasn’t a lioness, she was a woman to be reckoned with, who knew how to protect those she loved.
“Good to know. Ready when you are, sweetheart,” Sam told her, shooting her a grin as she retook her position and waited for Nick to nod his readiness. Then, she counted down.
“Let him go in three…two…one…go!”
Everything happened at once. Motion returned to the lobby, and Nick made the catch, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, but nobody questioned it.
The hotel security men came quickly and assisted Nick in carrying Kettering out of the lobby and into a side room.
Probably the manager’s office. They requested politely that Sam and Claudia come with them, if it wasn’t too inconvenient.
Since Sam wanted to get the security footage that would likely be in or near the manager’s office anyway, he didn’t mind, and he followed the little parade into the back area of the hotel.
What followed was twenty minutes of tedium while emergency services were called to check Kettering’s health.
The manager apologized profusely for the altercation that wasn’t his fault, and Sam allowed himself to be placated while he sized up the security setup.
He nodded to Nick, who went with the security men to secure the video.
This hotel, in particular, knew the value its clientele placed on absolute privacy.
Nick was able to procure the only video recording from the security team after a generous contribution to the staff holiday fund, and he delivered it to Sam who accepted it with a nod of thanks.
They left the obsequious manager, still apologizing, as soon as Kettering had been ushered out the staff entrance and into an ambulance.
Sam had texted Jacques to follow the ambulance and keep an eye on Kettering, which was good enough for now.
They had things they had to discuss before they decided what to do about the arms dealer.
Nick went with them up to Sam’s suite. As soon as the door closed, they started planning.
“Did you see Seth in the lobby?” Nick asked curtly.
Sam nodded. “I did. I expect he’s the one with the CIA contract.”
“Yep. He approached me early this morning and said as much. It’s a big bounty,” Nick said, speculation in his tone.
“So you think we should let him collect it?” Sam countered.
“Two birds, one stone, as the saying goes. Seth takes out Kettering and gets the payday. We get Kettering out of our hair permanently. Win-win.”
“Who’s Seth?” Claudia asked.