Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
They bundled her into the back of a sedan, and Cally’s tears spilled unseen inside her hood.
Her wrists were still handcuffed, a symbol of the far stronger ties Darian had bound her with. She could snap them. She could kill the Order guards driving her away from Eve.
What good would it do? What punishment would Darian exact?
She had a month to show results. Not to get Eve back, just to stop them torturing her.
Hell, Antoine could kill all the vampires he wanted. Cally had no problem with that. But to do it because she forced him to? Even if she could?
It would destroy him. Their bond, their love.
She reached for him, feeling the tug northeast, but where it usually gave her comfort, now it was burdened with guilt. She tried to shy away from it, to think of other things, but there was nothing else.
Only Antoine. Only Eve. Only her dad.
And how she’d betrayed them all.
The sedan rumbled over uneven ground, jostling her in her seat, then the wheels hit asphalt and the ride smoothed.
The hood revealed nothing but the occasional flash of oncoming headlights, creating silhouettes of her Order escort in the front seats.
They spoke little to each other and completely ignored her, driving her away from Eve and back to Antoine.
Fisher Hill, Darian had said. But of course Anthony Du Pont was on his list. She’d found him easily enough, and the Order had been looking for longer. Darian had wanted her to know he had the address.
The miles rolled by and her tears blurred her vision. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. Was it for Eve? For Antoine? Or just her fear and shame?
The bond tugged constantly. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. How he’d hate her for controlling him. He’d see her as worse than Belle.
What if Darian was wrong, and she couldn’t make him do what she wanted? Could she encourage him through normal means to kill more vampires than just those who had entombed him?
Hell, Nico was already out of the picture.
There were only two others, Tobias and Roberto.
Not enough to meet Darian’s ‘quota’. She would have to tell him, and beg him to help her.
Maybe that was the answer—maybe he would, just because she asked.
Not because she forced him, but because he wanted to.
Damn it, why hadn’t she told him about the Order when she’d had the chance?
Because he would’ve tried to kill them all for blackmailing me, and likely got killed in the process.
Helpless with no options, whichever way she turned. And her tears wouldn’t stop flowing.
“Stop sniveling, bitch.”
The first words either of them had said to her.
“What do you expect? I can’t breathe in this hood.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” the driver said. “We’ve come far enough.”
The other turned in his seat, reaching back. He pulled off the hood, yanking out several strands of her hair at the same time.
They were on a two-lane back road, cutting through dense New England woods, white pines rising above a tangle of maples and undergrowth. Cally didn’t know what time it was, but few cars came the other way.
It could be any road in rural Massachusetts, except they were heading back to Boston. Her bond tugged northeast still, straight through the windshield and on.
Except it didn’t. It veered left, the angle rotating even as she focused on it. And their road was straight.
Antoine was on the move. Not only that, but for the bond to shift so abruptly, he was close. Was he coming for her?
She felt a thrill of hope. Did he know where she’d been? Would he know where Eve was?
But it was quashed just as fast. She wasn’t there anymore, and he had no sense of distance. He’d only be able to track her—and only if he checked.
She focused on the bond, willing him to find her, yet fearful for the confrontation. What would happen? How would she stop him from killing the Order guards, and what punishment would Darian exact if he did?
It wasn’t just her that was trapped, it was him too. And it was all her fault.
The road she was on kept straight. If Boston was northeast, Antoine was due north of her now, yet the angle veered slightly every second.
They passed through a small town, taking the back road out of it, and Antoine was almost directly ahead.
A car whipped past, its headlights bright, but it wasn’t Antoine’s Audi.
She strained her eyes, watching every car that came their way for one that might be a low sports car.
Another drove past, too large to be his, but Cally gasped as the bond abruptly pulled from behind her. That had been him; she’d caught a fleeting sense of his proximity. But now he was going the wrong way. Had he been focusing on her too? Did he know?
She strained to hear brakes screeching or tires skidding, but the road noise was too great. She wanted to turn in her seat and look through the back window, but to do so would alert her escort. Her pulse thumped in her ears.
A minute crawled by, another mile with the bond pulling directly behind her. Where was he?
Then a car roared past, overtaking. It briefly held level with them, and she felt him near. It was a silver SUV, and it swerved in front of them.
“Shit!” the driver muttered, then slammed the brakes as Antoine’s red lights filled their windshield. Cally was thrown against the seat in front as they lurched and shuddered, tires screeching. “The fuck is he—”
Antoine had stopped, forcing them to a halt, and both doors on his car opened.
She had a brief glimpse of him in his usual all-black and long leather jacket, blurring with vampiric speed, then the passenger window exploded inward, the Order guard pulled out through it.
His neck snapped with a crack that echoed through the night.
“No! Don’t kill—”
The other door was yanked from its mountings, and a woman in a revealing evening dress plucked the hapless Order driver from his seat. He flew through the air, his scream cutting off abruptly as he slammed into a tree trunk with a crunching impact.
Damn it. We needed one of them. The thought was quickly overlaid by another as she stared at the woman. Is that… Belle? Why is she here?
Then her own door was pulled off, and Antoine was silhouetted against the night.
“Good evening, ma chérie. Who were these men you were traveling with?” He took her arm, helping her out. “And… why are your wrists handcuffed?” A snap of metal, and her hands were free.
He turned her to face him. “When you didn’t—” He stopped in mid-sentence as he saw her face, tear-stained, bruised and swollen, and his glamour flickered, eyes shifting full red. “What has happened?” he said sharply. “Who has done this to you?”
So many questions. So few simple answers.
She couldn’t face answering any of them. Not yet. “They have Eve,” she said instead, the words coming out high and tight.
His expression went cold. “Where?”
“I… don’t know. A basement in a large house, somewhere southwest of here. We drove for maybe half an hour.”
Antoine was already pulling out his phone, lifting it to his ear.
“Noah?” He said nothing more, listening, and his gaze locked on her and grew colder still.
“We’ll talk about Nico later,” he said at last, watching her.
Cally couldn’t hide her reaction fast enough.
She dropped her gaze as heat rushed to her face, and her fractured cheek flared with it, shame tangled with the ache until she couldn’t tell them apart.
“I need possible addresses for a wealthy estate—”
“Just off Chestnut Street,” Belle said from inside the sedan. They both turned, and she gestured to the GPS. “Or at least, that was their previous destination. Technology, mon amour. Haven’t I told you to be more adaptable?”
“Scratch that, Noah,” Antoine said into his phone.
“Get a couple of thralls down to Hopkinton Road on cleanup. Black sedan, two bodies.” He gave Belle a wry look.
“One of them is somewhere in the trees.” He killed the call and fixed Cally with his stare.
“Get in the car. We’ll talk on the way there. ”
“We can’t,” she said helplessly. “They have an army. Dozens of men… automatic weapons. They’re holding Eve in a…” She swallowed hard, her throat closing up.
“Do they have Nico?”
“Yes. He’s in a secure cell.”
“What do you think?” he asked Belle. “Armed chattel in numbers, behind reinforced doors.”
“With a captured vampire?” she said. “They will think we are going for him, no?”
“Exactly.”
“Sounds like an entertaining evening.” She ran her hands down her body. “If I had known you were taking me out, I’d have dressed more appropriately.”