Chapter Twenty-Two

ARI

The ride to Flagstaff had been uneventful and Ari was glad. Used to being on the road for long stretches beside Eoghan at the wheel, he was able to get some sleep while his lover traded driving duties with the chief. They traveled in a black SUV she’d procured, stopping just outside Lake Havasu City just as the chief promised before dawn. As she checked her phone and then the navigation on the dashboard, she followed the asphalt highway as far as she could before exiting onto a smaller road. When Ari read the sign Grand Canyon Caves, Lake Havasu, Arizona, he was immediately intrigued.

“I take it the caves have something to do with the giant semitruck full of vampires we’re following?” he asked, watching the dust as it kicked up from the eighteen-wheeler about a quarter mile ahead.

She nodded. “Yep. The vampires will be spending the night or day, as the case may be, here. The only reason I’m following is because I want to make sure they arrive safe and sound. Besides, we’re not far from the city and a nice hotel bed. I could really use one since we’ll be back on the road after sunset. Not only that, after meeting Elora, I’m convinced keeping her and her vamps away from a bustling tourist center isn’t an altogether bad idea.”

“But it’s nearly daylight,” Eoghan remarked from the backseat where Ari thought he’d been dozing. His scratchy voice sounded like he’d just woken up.

“I’m not worried that they’ll be out roaming during the day, but we don’t get back underway until nearly nine tonight which gives them a good hour to hunt. Let’s just say I prefer they find their food outside of town rather than worry about them snacking on tourists,” she replied.

“You’re talking about animal blood?” Ari asked. “I know King John said they could live on it in a pinch, but they’ll need human blood eventually. How long can they go between feedings?”

“They like to eat daily, but the king told me that the older a vampire is, the longer they can go without food. I’ve heard the same thing from a lot of vamps over the years. Still, I suggested they bring along a supply of human blood in a cooler and they probably did. Elora doesn’t strike me as being stupid enough to ignore something as basic as wanting her vamps up to full strength and capacity when she leads them into a fight, possibly for their lives.”

“Got it. So, what’s out here to eat?” Eoghan asked. “Rodents?”

“Rodents, rabbits, even a Billy goat,” she said. “I really don’t care as long as they don’t kill a farmer’s herd, or an unwilling human, and she’s been warned.”

“Good,” Ari said, watching as they pulled into the parking lot of the Grand Canyon Caves. While they were waiting for the semi to park at the entrance of the caves, he read the signs and tapped the chief’s shoulder before pointing to the sign.

“What’s up with this?” he asked. “It says it’s an attraction that opens at nine a.m. You don’t think it’s going to be a problem if tourists get an eyeful of a bunch of sleeping vamps on their tour?” He held up both hands and pretended to take a series of pictures with his invisible camera. “Click. Click. Clickety click. ‘Hey, Grandpa, wait till you see what we saw on our vacation!’”

Priest chuckled. “Very funny.” She pointed at the entrance which one of the vampires had already conveniently opened. Everyone was already jumping down from the semi’s box trailer and entering the cave at a rather rapid pace. As Elora and King John hit the ground hand in hand, both of them turned and waved at their idling SUV, flashing bright red eyes for a split second, before following their vampires into the cave.

“These caves are twenty-one stories deep—proven by the elevator inside—and they weave over sixty miles underground all the way to the Grand Canyon itself, Brown. There’s plenty of darkness not on the tour where the vampires can sleep. Tourists can’t venture into those parts of the caves.”

“Good,” Ari said. “I didn’t think about our route to Flagstaff or where we’d be stopping but that’s why you and the king decided that Lake Havasu was the place to spend the daylight hours. It all makes sense now.”

As soon as the last vampire disappeared into the cave, Priest turned the SUV and drove back to the main highway. “Should we stop and grab breakfast somewhere before checking into our hotel?” she asked once they were headed toward town.

“Sure,” Eoghan said.

“I’m game,” Ari replied. It had just gone four in the morning but his words were instantly followed by the loud rumbling of his tummy which made them all laugh.

“I’d guess,” the chief said.

They stopped at an all-night diner which the local gas station attendant recommended as a place where the locals go. Ari could have kissed him when the server brought over his favorite breakfast of chicken fried steak and eggs. The gravy was outstanding and the steak and eggs were cooked to perfection. It always paid to ask the locals where they eat when they were in tourist towns. Ari and Eoghan had learned that many times on the road.

After breakfast they went for a quieter option of hotel in the busy touristy town and stopped at the Wyndham Travelodge, grabbing two rooms. They promised to check in with each other after getting a good rest to make up for their lack of sleep the night before.

And sleep they did until Ari finally woke when the bed moved. He rolled over and spotted Eoghan’s retreating boxer brief covered backside as he disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door with a quiet click. He rolled to his back, lifted both arms and stretched, letting out a loud yawn as he glanced at the clock. He had to blink twice before the green, digital numbers came into focus. Six thirty-two. Huh? He sat up in bed as the door opened, and Eoghan padded back across the floor to the bed.

“What day is it?” Ari asked, rubbing his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Eoghan looked over at him and laughed.

“What?”

“ Aw , honey, you just look too cute when you rub your eyes like that. It’s Tuesday. You’ve been asleep for nearly twelve hours. We’re in Havasu.”

“Damn!” Ari exclaimed, falling back on his pillow and throwing an arm over his eyes. “I’m so disoriented.”

“I hate it when that happens,” Eoghan said, rolling toward him, and then throwing a leg over him, grinding his groin into Ari’s abdomen before scooting lower.

Ari immediately reacted, reaching for Eoghan’s hips as his dick started to fill. “Baby, I need to fuck you,” he growled.

Eoghan smiled and leaned down, kissing him passionately but then inexplicably rolling right back off him again.

Ari protested, frowning as he reached for him, missing him by inches as he scooted backward, chuckling. “Tease! Get your ass over here.” He chased him across the bed, dragging the sheets in his wake. He somehow managed to get tangled in them at the very edge of the bed, and crashed onto the floor as Eoghan jumped off, and danced away from him, laughing.

“Fuck!” he said, rolling to his ass and yanking at the sheets which were obstinately holding onto his feet. It took several seconds to untangle himself, swearing left and right. But by the time he was free, Eoghan had disappeared into the bathroom. The laughter behind the door mocked him, and the stubborn erection he was sporting as he struggled to his feet refused to go down. He walked over to the door, rested his forehead on it, and smiled to himself, despite his unquenched lust for the man. When he finally stepped back from the door, he had to raise his voice over the laughter on the other side. “I know we don’t have time to fuck right now, but trust me, when we do, you’re gonna be punished, Sapphire!”

The laughter only got louder.

A half hour later, freshly showered and beard trimmed, Ari felt a hell of a lot better as he and Eoghan met the chief on the lobby level of the hotel a few minutes after seven.

“I hope you both got some rest,” their boss said as soon as she saw them walking over. She’d traded her Laura Croft outfit for a less showy pair of jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers. She looked very much like a woman on vacation now. “I’d like to make it to Flagstaff just after one so we can find a place for the vampires to hold up and sleep. We’ll need them rested and fresh for the coming fight.”

“I slept like a log,” Eoghan said.

“Yeah, so did I,” Ari said.

Neither of them addressed the elephant in the room, which was the fact that he and Eoghan had shared a room with a solitary king-sized bed when they’d checked in earlier. Clearly, the chief didn’t care whether they were a couple or not. She already knew Eoghan was gay, based on the PMs she’d seen on Kellen’s computer. And she’d witnessed the fight in the restaurant at the office where Eoghan had punched his ex so hard he’d landed on his ass. The chief could put two and two together and no doubt had figured out that they were a couple.

“Good. We’ll grab some food before we go.” She looked them up and down. “I assume you haven’t eaten since this morning?” She headed out to the forecourt and looked around the parking lot, no doubt spotting the SUV at the same time they did. “Over there,” she said, nodding to the vehicle as they walked beside her.

“A drive-through works for me,” Eoghan said, glancing at Ari. “Right?”

“There’s an In-N-Out Burger near London Bridge,” Ari said, consulting his phone as he opened the back door and got in.

“That’s great,” the chief said. She looked at Eoghan. “Do you want to drive or—” She let the question hang.

Ari watched Eoghan shrug from the backseat where he waited. “Works for me, Chief.

“Good.” She tossed him the keys and they headed out.

By the time they’d finished their animal style double doubles, fries, and vanilla shakes and picked up the vampires, it was nearly eight thirty, but they were once again underway. Ari fell asleep in the backseat to the sound of soft rock which he hated but the chief liked as a driving companion. When he next opened his eyes, it was still dark. He sat forward and noted the dashboard clock read one-ten. He’d been asleep for a little more than three hours.

“Nice nap?” the chief asked as their eyes met in the rearview mirror.

Ari frowned, noting that Eoghan was now sitting in the passenger seat and their boss was driving. When had that happened?

“ Uh …yeah, I slept fine.” He sat up and looked around. They were driving down what looked like the main drag of a town. Several cars were on the road, but the traffic wasn’t thick. “Where are we?”

“Flagstaff, Brown. You’ve been asleep for the last three hours,” she replied.

“You fell asleep a little after we left,” Eoghan said, twisting around and meeting his eyes.

“I was asleep when you traded places,” Ari stated the obvious. He felt a little hungover even though he’d slept all day and now these stolen hours. His nights and days were all mixed up after only one day. “Why did we stop?”

Priest pointed to the big rig in front of them. “The vamps needed to fill up, so I did too,” she said. “We made good time, considering the semi is slower than a car. I need to give their driver a pat on the back. I wouldn’t have gone as fast as he did, considering he’s literally transporting living cargo.”

“Dead cargo, boss,” Eoghan said with a tiny chuckle.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “I think your shifter friends might agree with you, though.”

“Speaking of which…have you heard from the others?” Ari asked.

“Eoghan’s been monitoring my phone messages.”

“So far, Walters and Garcia arrived at Santa Fe and Albuquerque last evening,” Eoghan said. “Juan says he and Edward already have plans in place and will be ready to move by midnight, less than twenty-three hours now. Vance Ross says his clan has arrived in Tucson and they’ll be ready to move on time as well.”

“Red Crow and Rana?” Ari asked.

“They’ve been in Phoenix since early morning yesterday,” Eoghan replied. “Rana says she’ll make sure they’re in place and ready to move by midnight. All of them are scoping out the synthetic blood plants where Tillis Bradshaw has his base of operations to find the best way in.”

“I have every confidence we chose the right partners for this mission,” Priest said.

He was glad she trusted them the way he and Eoghan did. “That’s good,” he replied. “And I guess that leaves our guys. Have you heard from them?”

“Yes. Severin and Invictus have been here in Flagstaff since noon yesterday,” the chief replied.

“Yeah, they texted her two words…arrived…noon,” Eoghan said with a laugh.

“They’re men of few words for sure,” Ari said with a chuckle. “What about Joe—”

“—and Alo?” Eoghan interrupted. “Yeah, I was getting to that. They called while we were at the gas station and told the chief…well, you tell him.”

“They have a plan,” she said.

“Already?” Ari asked, a little astonished.

“Yes, and it sounds like a good one,” she replied. “Apparently, the blood plant is located right off Highway Forty, butting up against the very western boundary of the Navajo reservation. King John’s reservation is immediately beside it. When Roosevelt set up the Agency and formed the shifter and vampire reservations, they were often in proximity to a human reservation.”

“Yes, I did know that,” Ari replied.

“Well did you realize that Arizona has more reservation lands than any other state in the nation?” Eoghan asked.

“I actually did know that,” Ari said, smiling. “In addition to the Navajo Nation, Arizona has Hopi, Apache, Gila River, and Hualapai tribes among others. Twenty-two federally recognized tribes.”

“How’d you know that?” the chief asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror.

“Books.”

“Books?”

“Yeah, books. Things like that fascinate me,” he said.

She nodded, offering him a little smile.

He smiled back, and looked at Eoghan who was watching him with nothing less than pride in his expression. “So, what else did Joe say?”

“Alo has a friend on the Navajo rez, not a shifter, but a good friend from his college days. When they figured out where the blood plant was, Alo called him, and they met with him as soon as they got to town.”

“So, what’s going on?” Ari asked, not liking the frown on Eoghan’s face or the concerned tone in his voice.

“He says that people from the Navajo reservation have been going missing. His brother-in-law is a tribal police officer out there and he’s told Alo’s friend that fourteen people have disappeared without a trace in the last five months.”

“Shit,” Ari said. “Just as we feared might happen.”

“Yes,” Priest said.

“Does Alo’s friend know about him being—”

“About him being a shifter?” Eoghan asked. When Ari nodded, he shook his head. “No, and Alo wasn’t about to tell him those people are most likely dead, killed and drained by starving vampires even though there’s a blood plant within spitting distance of the rez.”

“So, that means Bradshaw is such a fucking bastard that he’s limiting even his own loyal vampires access to the blood too?” Ari asked. When neither Eoghan nor the chief replied immediately, he went on. “Look, the killers can’t be from King John’s reservation since the king told us Bradshaw has them locked down, basically stuck on the rez with no way out…so they have to be Bradshaw’s men.”

“I don’t know why they can’t be from King John’s rez,” the chief said. “I mean some could have escaped Bradshaw’s people and gone onto the Navajo reservation to drain a human here or there.”

“I don’t see how, Chief,” Ari said. “King John told us that he was almost killed escaping Tillis Bradshaw’s trap and he’s fairly certain the man who freed him didn’t make it out. If Bradshaw has two braincells to rub together, he would’ve tightened security around King John’s palace, probably the plant too. I mean it is his headquarters.” He paused, shaking his head. “This guy is some kind of sadistic freak. He stops Townsend’s people from getting a freely available source of blood and now I suspect he keeps his own vamps starved as well. We knew this guy was evil, but I had no idea things were that bad.”

“Explained that way, I have to agree, Brown. This is why we’re going to put an end to Tillis Bradshaw, his shitty empire, and free King John’s vamps once and for all. We should be wrapping it all up by this time tomorrow,” Priest said.

She’d pulled into a truck stop called the Blue Navajo Travel Plaza and waited for the vampire’s semi to park beside several others, including the one containing the Tahoe clan. Ari realized that off in the distance, he could make out the bright lights of the Twin Arrows Casino. As soon as they were all out of the car, he spotted Joe and Alo coming their way along with the dragons, Severin and Invictus.

He’d never been happier to see paranormal creatures in his life. Of course, the presence of the dragons made him feel a hell of a lot better about the proximity of the vampires who were getting out of the back of the semi to stretch their legs. Their glowing red eyes never seemed to shut off. He glanced around. In this parking lot, reserved for tractor trailer rigs, everything was quiet, and he realized they were in the back lot where the truckers parked to sleep out of the noise and glare of the pumps and bright lights out front.

They greeted each other with handshakes all around and from somewhere, the chief pulled out a map and unrolled it, spreading it on a small, folding table she pulled out of the back of the SUV.

Elora and King John walked over and greeted the others with handshakes. Ari watched her greet Eoghan with a leer, examining the pulse in his neck and seeming to watch the artery in his neck beat rhythmically. He wondered if she could hear it and based on the hunger she didn’t even try to disguise in her eyes, he already had his answer. She looked at his lover as food, even worse than a sexual object as he’d thought before. When he finally turned his back on her and stepped between them, moving Eoghan close to Severin and Invictus, the dragons looked up, even as Eoghan protested being manhandled.

“What’s going on?”

“Come with me,” he demanded.

“We’ve got this, Brown,” Invictus intoned in his deeply scary voice. Like magic, both dragons moved to insert themselves between Elora and Eoghan, making the vampire take several steps back and howl out in protest.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Puff?” she barked as she was jostled and then steadied by King John who stood beside her.

“Back up and leave the humans alone, Elora. We know you wouldn’t know a boundary if one came up and bit you in your dead ass,” Severin said.

“Okay, if we’re all done here,” Joe said, sounding exasperated. “Alo has some things to share with everyone.”

As they all calmed down, Alo explained what his friend had told him about the people missing from the Navajo reservation. Ari noted several people watching the king for his reaction to the news. When Alo had finished, the king stepped forward. His frown was intense, his concern real and telling.

“We always had a good relationship with the Navajo Nation. This comes as a terrible shock to me. It has to be Bradshaw’s people doing this to the Navajos. I just can’t imagine anyone could escape from my reservation. I nearly died making my escape all those months ago. I would imagine security has to be even tighter since then.”

“We had the same thoughts, Your Highness,” Priest said. But none of that changes things. We still have to end him and in order to do that, we need to figure out how to get to him.”

“Fortunately, we’ve been here a while and we think we know how,” Joe said. He walked over to the folding table and the map. “If everyone could gather around, I think you’ll agree with the approach Alo and I came up with.”

Elora, King John, Ari, Eoghan, the chief, and Severin and Invictus moved in close enough to see what Joe and Alo proposed. Ari noted how the dragons, again, put themselves between Eoghan and the vampires—in particular—Elora, and he appreciated it more than he could express.

And by the time it was all laid out for them, Eoghan and Ari were smiling as they exchanged a look with their chief.

Priest nodded to them before turning back to the plans. “It’s gonna work, Joe.” She grinned, nodding vigorously, and taking his hand as her eyes teared up. “It’s really gonna work.”