Chapter 36

I'd thought I'd lost Eden.

I don't think I'd ever forget the terrible fear that had clogged my chest when we'd spotted the fire in the distance, red-hot fingers clawing at the midnight sky.

Eden was human. She couldn't survive long in a blaze like that.

"That's the lair." Pascal had somehow summoned a smug smile from where he was draped over Cain's shoulders. "Lemaire must've set a fire to keep you bastards out."

I covered those last few hundred meters in two of my heartbeats. The fishing shed walls had caved in. Flames shot out of the roof, licked at the charred framing. A section of the ground had collapsed, revealing a metal staircase leading down into the flames.

Brien and Cain caught up again with Pascal. I pulled him off Cain and shook him like a rag doll. "Is there another way in?"

Pascal's face contorted, but only a single, pained grunt escaped him. He stared at me, hatred in his remaining eye. "No. That's the only way."

We all knew the prick was probably lying—a vampire lair always has at least two exits—but there was no time to beat the information out of him. He might not even know where the other exit was.

I tossed him away and turned back, muscles bunched to dash through the flames. Brien caught my arm. "Hang on—we need a plan."

I shook him off. "Eden's in there. The plan is to fucking extract her before the whole damn place collapses on top of her."

I didn't wait for an answer. Filling my lungs with oxygen, I shot forward, scrambling over and around the burning debris. When I reached the steps, I kept going, taking them in a single leap and landing in a crouch in front of the burning door at the bottom.

My shirt and pants had caught fire. I slapped at the flames to extinguish them. My skin was scorched, but the pain seemed far away. I noted it and moved on.

I'd heal. Eden wouldn't, not if she was in that inferno.

Still holding my breath, I rose to my feet and examined the door blocking my way. The fire had eaten deep into the wood. A single hard kick, and I was through.

Brien caught up with me in the hall. Flicking a smoldering ember from my shoulder, he said, "Twilight went back for the boat. Cain's seeing if there's another way in."

I tested the smoke-filled air with a shallow inhale. There was enough oxygen for my needs, although I couldn't see more than a meter or two in front of me.

"What about Pascal?" I asked.

"I staked the motherfucker."

"Good."

We hadn't gone three meters when we came across a man lying face down in a pool of blood. Nice clothes, dark hair touched with silver.

The hairs on my body lifted. Beside me Brien muttered a curse.

I crouched, turning the man over. Esposito stared unseeingly up at me, his throat torn, skin ashy from having his blood drained.

A muscle jumped in my cheek. "I think we found Eden's kidnapper."

"Yeah." Brien shook his head. "I'm sorry."

An impotent rage coiled in my belly. Too bad the SOB was already dead because at that moment, I could've killed him myself.

"Don't be," I returned flatly, rising to my feet. "He got what was coming to him. But where's Eden?" The terrible fear slashed at my chest again.

I squinted into the dense smoke, but all I saw were a couple of open doors. "I don't sense her on this level."

We moved forward, me in the lead, until we came upon a flight of narrow metal steps. "You take the lower level," Brien said. "I'll check the rooms on this floor, just in case."

"Thanks." I surged forward, descending the stairs in two giant steps.

The smoke wasn't as thick on the lower level, giving me hope that Eden might still be alive. After noting the gate at one end of the hall, I did a quick search of the bathroom and the place where Eden had clearly been kept prisoner; her scent was strong.

The bastards had locked her in a windowless cellar without even a cot to lie on.

Brien poked his head inside the open door. "No trace of her upstairs." He took in the waste bucket with a grimace. "Bloody Lilith. This is where they were keeping her?"

"Yeah," I said grimly, coming out of the cell. I indicated the gate. "Lemaire must've taken her out that way. Hurry."

The gate was locked, but fortunately, it was constructed of iron, not silver. Brien and I each took hold of two iron pickets and tore it off its hinges. We tossed the gate aside and took off down the narrow, twisting passage.

We reached the main cavern in time to see Lemaire fumbling with the motor and Eden creeping away. A dizzying relief crashed through me.

"Shadows," I mouthed at Brien.

He nodded, already graying at the edges, as I followed suit.

"I'll take care of Lemaire," he said before he disappeared completely. "You get Eden."

I sensed rather than saw him flit across the cavern toward the boat. I sprinted along the water's edge to Eden.

And then I was stepping out of the shadows and gathering her into my arms.

Now Eden's eyes met mine, large and dark with emotion. Her short hair was matted, her face bruised and dirty.

It didn't matter.

To me, she was the most beautiful sight in the world, and at that moment I knew she'd always be.

Twenty years from now.

Fifty years from now.

Forever.

So when I said she was what mattered—that she was everything—I meant it with every fiber of my being.

I'd almost lost her. Everything else paled—my honor, my blood oath, my position in the hierarchy—beside that single, heart-stopping fact.

I tightened my grip on her shivering body, face buried in her hair, and breathed her in, needing to assure myself she was okay, that we'd reached her in time.

"I didn't…," she rasped. She halted, shook her head.

"What? Tell me. Please."

She lifted her gaze to mine. "I didn't w-want to make that video. You know th-that, don't you?"

I consigned the brief doubt I'd felt to the garbage bin where it belonged. Eden didn't deserve anything but my unwavering support.

"Of course, I knew."

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Yes," I said firmly.

A couple of tears leaked from her eyes, leaving muddy tracks on her dirty cheeks. "I was so a-afraid you'd b-believe I wanted to go with them. Lemaire said… He kn-knew stuff about me." She drew a ragged breath. "That I'd run from the s-syndicate before. He was sure you'd think I'd d-done it again."

"Forget what he said." I kissed each eye in turn, taking the salty liquid into my mouth. "It was all lies. He was fucking with you."

Her soft mouth trembled. "That's what I th-thought, but I was alone and I w-wasn't sure…"

"Be sure." I rubbed my lips over hers. "I trusted you. I ripped the island apart looking for you. I thought I'd go crazy when we couldn't find you."

"Oh." Biting her lip, she gifted me a wide smile, followed by another hard shiver.

I withdrew deeper into the cavern to protect her from the wind. A flash of silver had us both turning to look at Lemaire's boat. Brien had the other vampire on his back on the fiberglass deck. Both men were bloodied, their fangs extended.

Brien raised his blade above his head with both hands. The silver glinted in the moonlight. His lips peeled back in a feral grin.

Eden swallowed audibly. I immediately turned away, blocking her view with my body.

"No. I w-want to see him die." She pushed at my shoulder, craning her neck to look around me.

I turned back; she had the right to see this through to the end. Together, we watched as Brien drove his silver blade into Lemaire's chest.

Lemaire jerked and released his own weapon, pushing feebly at Brien's hands, blood spurting from the wound. His flesh was already blackening. The sickening odor of burning flesh drifted to us.

Eden gagged and slapped a hand to her mouth.

"That's enough," I said, angling my body so I blocked her view again. Swamped by guilt, I nuzzled her temple. "I'm sorry you got dragged into this."

"Not your fault," she muttered.

I grunted, not so sure about that, but this wasn't the time or place to discuss it. "Twilight should be here any minute now. Can you hang on a little longer?"

"Of course." She removed the hand from her face and glowered at me. "I told you, I'm not fragile."

My mouth widened in the kind of smile you give when you're so goddamned relieved you'd smile at anything. "You're not, sweetheart. You're tough as goddamned nails. And I thank Lilith for it."

Twilight arrived soon after. The water was too shallow to bring the motorboat in, so she set anchor and started rowing toward us in the dinghy.

Cain appeared on the cliff above, scrambling down the rocky face and landing on the beach a few meters away from us. He took one look at Eden, wet and shivering in my arms, and said, "What can I do?"

"Help Twilight bring the dinghy in."

"On it." Cain waded into the surf, grabbing the small boat by a D-ring on its side and towing it the rest of the way onto shore.

Twilight leapt out and hurried toward us. "You okay?" She frowned at Eden's bruised cheek.

"Y-yeah," Eden said.

"She'll be okay, but she's cold." Cuddling Eden to my chest, I strode past Twilight to the dinghy. "I need to get these wet clothes off her as soon as possible and warm her up."

Brien rinsed the blood from his face and hands and joined the others on the shore as I climbed into the dinghy with Eden.

Twilight pointed at Eden's cheek. "You stake the bloodsucker who did that to her?" she asked Brien.

"Yeah." He jerked his chin at the pile of ashes on the boat deck. "That's what's left of him."

Twilight's smile showed a little fang. "Good man," she said, and, grabbing Brien by his blood-soaked shirt, pulled him in for a kiss.

Meanwhile, Cain shoved the dinghy back into the water with me and Twilight in it. "I'll take you to the boat," he said, swinging over the side and taking up the oars. To Brien, he said, "The dinghy's too small for all of us. We'll come back for you two."

Our primus took his mouth from his mate's long enough to say, "We'll be here," before going back in for another kiss.

"Careful," I called. "Eden says there may be another trap."

He waved a hand in acknowledgment.

On the cliff the fire danced, a gleeful red and orange. The harsh smoke scratched at my nostrils. A sudden burst of wind caught the embers and scattered them like confetti over the dark waves. They sparkled gold, then winked out.

My mouth turned down. "Esposito's body is in there," I told Cain.

"Yeah?" He shook his head and kept rowing. "Nobody got out. I waited, just in case."

"He was already dead when we found him. They drained him."

Eden stirred. "He was your father, wasn't he?"

Sperm donor. "Afraid so."

"Lemaire," she said. "It was Lemaire who drained him. He k-killed your dad because of me. B-b-because he h-helped me."

"So Esposito was part of this?" Cain asked.

"H-he was the d-driver," Eden said, shaking so hard her teeth knocked together. "But he helped me—"

"Shh." I tucked her head into my shoulder. "You can tell us later."

Cain put the oars down and stood up, grabbing the motorboat's rail and bracing his feet apart to steady the dinghy. Shifting Eden to one arm, I pulled myself one-handed over the rail and onto the deck.

Cain went back for the others while I took Eden below deck and stripped off her sodden clothes, leaving her in her underwear. Dragging off my henley, I put it on her, then wrapped her in a couple of wool blankets. She sank onto the cabin's lower bunk, watching listlessly as I removed my wet socks and combat boots.

The listlessness scared the piss out of me. I sat on the bunk with her on my lap, my back against the wall. I would've liked to turn on the heat, but on a small boat like this, the heater didn't work unless the motor was running.

Eden's shivering increased. I took her feet in my hands beneath the blankets, trying to warm them. They felt icy even to my vampire-cool skin.

On the deck above, I heard the other three bringing the dinghy aboard. The engine sputtered to life and the boat swung around, heading back the way we came. I left Eden long enough to fire up the heat, then lifted her back onto my lap.

Twilight popped into the cabin to check on us. She frowned, seeing Eden's shivers. "She needs a hot drink." The lithe, dark-haired vampire moved around the tiny galley, opening and shutting cupboards.

"Don't bother," I said. "This boat's not set up to cook while we're running. Things'll go flying as soon as we hit a rough patch." As if in emphasis, the boat crested a wave, landing on the other side with a bone-jarring thump.

"How about another blanket then?" Twilight dug one out of the storage chest and tucked it around me and Eden. "And water." She handed Eden a bottle and she drained it.

Meanwhile, Twilight uncorked a bottle of blood-wine and passed it to me. I accepted it gratefully; I could barely recall the last time I'd fed. I drank my fill and handed the bottle back.

"Anything else?" she asked Eden.

"No, thank you." Eden closed her eyes and rested her head against my bare chest. Her teeth had finally stopped chattering, although she clutched my shoulder with one hand like she was afraid I might vanish if she didn't hang on tight.

Something unknotted inside me.

It felt like I could breathe deeply again. Like my heart could beat the way it was supposed to. Like the world could resume turning.

Eden was back. She was in my arms where she belonged.

The rightness of it filled my chest with an almost human warmth.

I glanced up to see Twilight's mouth hitched in a knowing smile. "I'll leave you two alone, then."

"Thank you," I said, my gaze returning to Eden, who'd closed her eyes.

I stroked her matted hair and murmured soothingly, telling her she was going to be all right, that we'd have her home in an hour or so. She nodded sleepily and relaxed against me. We sat that way for long minutes, her drowsing in my arms, me trying to come to terms with that feeling of rightness.

That warmth.

Hell, yeah, you're in love with her.

I hadn't really believed in love, figured it was more a mating urge than anything else.

I'd told myself I'd never fall in love. Love made you stupid or weak or both. I only had to look at my mom to see how it could fuck your life up.

When I mated, I'd choose wisely, leaving messy emotions out of it.

My throat closed up. I sipped in a breath—and gave into those messy, inconvenient emotions.

I loved Eden, and yeah, she was my mate. It was time to stop resisting, to admit that I wanted forever with her. If she'd died, I would've wanted to plunge a stake into my own heart.

The small cabin warmed rapidly. Eden's shivers finally eased. She stiffened, her hand flying to her abdomen.

My brows lowered in a worried frown. "What's the matter?"

"The baby…he moved." She gulped. "I haven't felt anything since we came aboard, and I was afraid."

"They…they didn't hurt you, did they? Other than your cheek?" The question scraped out of my throat.

"No. Not like you mean. I even had food and water—your dad made sure of it."

I feathered my fingertips over her swollen cheek. Sending Lemaire to his final grave as part of a fair fight had been too good for the SOB.

"As soon as we dock, I'll call Olivia and have her check you both out."

She nodded her thanks and fell silent again. Her breath deepened and she fell asleep. A few minutes later, the boat slowed, and she stirred.

"We're back?"

"I guess so." I frowned. It seemed too soon. "Current must've been with us."

Eden sighed. "I've been dreaming about a mug of thick, sugary hot chocolate. And after that, a bowl of fish chowder."

I brushed my lips over her forehead. "Anything you want, angel."

Rapid steps sounded above, accompanied by urgent voices. My chest tightened. "Something's the matter."

"I'll get them," Twilight said at almost the same time. She threw open the door. "The boat's going to blow. We have to get Eden into the dinghy. Now."

What the fuck? I swung my legs to the floor, Eden in my arms, and jogged up the steps.

The air reeked of fuel. My stomach tightened. This must be Lemaire's second trap.

"You go with Eden," Brien told me as Twilight approached with a life jacket. I set Eden down long enough to bundle her into it, then pulled the blankets around her again and swung her back into my arms.

Eden hooked an arm around my neck, watching everything with dazed eyes. The gods damn Lemaire anyway. There must've been at least one other vampire on the island. Pascal hadn't been lying after all.

"How far out are we?" I asked as they helped us into the dinghy.

"A quarter mile. You can't start the motor here—everything could blow." Cain waited until I'd settled Eden on the seat opposite mine, then handed me the oars and shoved us off with his foot.

The smell of fuel grew stronger. I snatched up the oars and dug them into the heaving water, rowing away from the motorboat as fast as I could.

Twilight, Cain and Brien pulled off their boots and dove over the side into the ocean. Instead of striking out for Lilith Island, the three of them lined up along the stern and started to push the dinghy.

On the motorboat, a couple of small fires ignited. It wouldn't be long now.

"Get down," I ordered Eden, "and hang onto my legs."

She immediately lowered herself into the bottom of the dinghy, sliding her ass toward me and locking her arms around my calves.

"That's it." I rowed harder, aided by the three swimmers. "Whatever you do, don't let go."

Eden's fine-boned jaw set. She turned her head to look at the motorboat. "I won't."

An eerie silence fell, unbroken except for the slap of water against the dinghy's hull.

I tensed. Here it comes...

I dug the oars into the waves and pulled.

Dug, pulled.

Dug, pulled.

I found myself counting: one, two, three…

On four, the motorboat blew apart in a fiery ball. Burning chunks shot skyward, arcing over the ocean. Then the shock wave hit, nearly throwing us out of the dinghy. Salt water sloshed over the sides and debris rained down around us, miraculously missing the dinghy except for a few glowing ashes.

Bracing my bare feet against the polyester hull, I pulled the oars into the dinghy, clinging to them with one hand and to Eden with the other while we rode out the waves. In the water, Brien, Cain and Twilight never stopped kicking.

When things calmed down again, I set Eden on the bench next to me. "There's too much water in the dinghy," I called to my friends. "I'm going to have to empty it before I start the motor."

"We'll keep pushing," Cain returned.

Grabbing a cut-off plastic jug tied to the back ring, I bailed as fast as I could until we were riding higher again, then moved to the bench at the stern.

Twilight was closest to the small outboard motor. "I'm going to fire the motor up now," I warned her.

She released the dinghy and popped up a few feet away. "Go ahead."

Brien took in the situation—there wasn't enough room for all three of them to push and steer clear of the motor—and told Twilight to get in the dinghy. She nodded and pulled herself on board in a single ninja-like movement, dropping down on the bench next to where Eden was huddled in the blankets, shivering.

Twilight rubbed Eden's knee. "You're doing great."

"T-trying," she said with a brave smile.

It took several tries before the motor started. "C'mon, c'mon," I coaxed, my gaze on Eden, who'd slumped against Twilight.

She was fading fast. Twilight had both arms around her, holding her so she wouldn't slide off the seat. Fear sank hooks into my gut. This was too much stress for a pregnant woman. Eden could go into early labor, stroke out—hell, I didn't know. But women died from things like that, didn't they?

In desperation, I smacked the motor and, mercifully, it sputtered to life. Gripping the rudder, I aimed us in the direction of the castle. Even with Cain and Brien assisting, we cut through the waves at a maddeningly slow pace until at last the castle appeared, its four towers silhouetted on the cliff against diamond-bright stars.

That's when I saw the fins. Three great whites, keeping pace with the dingy. They didn't usually attack vampires—something about our scent turns them off—but these seemed a little too interested in us.

"You guys see the sharks?" I called.

Brien gave me a thumbs-up. "We'll keep them away from the dinghy."

Twilight and I exchanged a look. Normally a vampire could outswim and outfight a shark, even a great white, but Brien and Cain had to be getting tired.

She pulled out a switchblade. "Want me to spell one of you guys?"

"No way," Brien ground out. "You're the youngest by a long shot. Stay in the damn dinghy."

Twilight rolled her eyes but stayed put, staring out at the circling predators, one arm around Eden, the other hand keeping the blade at the ready.

I aimed the dinghy at a cove a little south of the castle. If we'd still been in the motorboat, we could've returned through the sea cave. Unfortunately, the 10-hp motor didn't have the horsepower for the maneuvers required, which was kind of like trying to thread a needle while bouncing on a trampoline.

If I failed, we'd be dashed against the rocks.

The small motor started losing power. I eased off on the throttle, but a few minutes later it stuttered and died, out of fuel.

I cursed and started rowing again.