Chapter 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

T he ominous feeling crammed into every corner of her mind, even as she told herself logical things. Like that it was totally normal for her father not to answer the phone. He was probably out on the sanctuary, working with the cats.

Adan was with Derek, doing Guardian things in another realm, out of Ruth's range. Out of anyone's. Yvette and Maddock would head for the island, but it would take time to reach a portal in their current location and configure it for the jump to the island.

No one could get there any faster than she could. She had an angel. And if all was well, Ruth could call off the cavalry.

She was glad she'd worn jeans and a T-shirt at breakfast, casual wear. Battle wear. When she and Merc moved back out to the balcony, there was only time for a quick nod to a worried-looking Kaela and Garron. Kaela had the phone set to her ear, trying Mal's number again.

Merc went as fast as he could go without damaging her. Even so, she willed him to go faster, faster. When he stopped, the sudden inertia made her gorge rise. She vomited everything in her stomach, trying to miss his supporting arm, not entirely successfully. Struggling through the haze on her vision the dizziness caused, she attempted to reinflate her lungs. "Where are we?" she wheezed. "Why are we stopped?"

"We're over the island. There's a shield over it, Ruth."

"Over the entire island?" Thank God for Adan's tweaking.

Then her gaze cleared enough to see Merc's grim face. "Yes. It's not your father's magic. It's not a defense."

She reached out for Mal and Elisa. Nothing. Nothing from them, or the cats, that brush of feline presence in her mind. She tried the two or three servants on the island she'd second marked. Hanska. Again, nothing. It was as if the shield were a concrete wall, blocking anything behind it.

The power of a being who could do that, impose a field over an expanse that large, one she couldn't penetrate with her family blood link…

That alliance hadn't been with another vampire. She was getting a really bad feeling about who it had been, though that made no sense at all.

"Can you get through?" she asked Merc.

"Yes. But I don't know what I will trigger, or who else that could harm. I need a Guardian or a sorcerer to aid me."

Coldness spread into every corner of her being. She wished Adan was here.

As Merc descended, carefully, the shield's energy became so strong it hummed in her ears like a high voltage fence. The signature had been masked with as much reinforcement as the field itself. Despite her suspicions, she couldn't tell it if had been cast by human, vampire, Fae, or a being unknown to her.

"There's a rock formation on the island's west side," she told Merc. "It's a mile from shore. Drop me there and go get a sorcerer."

"I'm not leaving you here."

"You can travel faster without me. Please, Merc. Please." Her heart was beating wildly. "I'll be fine until you get back."

With a muttered curse, he took her to where she'd indicated. Seabirds squawked as the shadow of his wings passed over them. They scattered from the rocks as he landed.

"I don't like this," he said, his expression grim. "I can go slower and still make haste."

"We know who they're after. Putting this kind of shield in place gives them the cover to take them, but also time to cover their getaway. They may no longer be here." Her jaw hardened. "Like Asva said. Do we really think that Grollner asshole would have been so loose-lipped, if the plan wasn't in the advanced stages?"

She'd so wanted to be wrong about her chess theory. She'd have gladly accepted the embarrassment of overreacting, being a drama queen.

But she couldn't feel her father's magic or the sanctuary's magic. Some evil force stood between her and her parents, and all those they cared for and protected.

Ruth pointed to the rock behind her. "There's a cave up there, about ten feet deep. If for any reason you're delayed, it won't be comfortable, but I'll be safe from the sun."

"That's three hours from now. I'll be back."

"I know you will. I'm just saying. They come first." She gripped his shirt. "Help them, Merc. Please."

Despite her impatience, he lifted and deposited her in that cave, checking it out for himself. She could be offended that he hadn't trusted her, but he knew as well as she did that she would have lied through her teeth to get him to go.

He gripped her nape and kissed her, hard. "Never lie to me. Even if I can hear you do it. Stay here, out of sight, or I'll beat your ass black and blue."

Then he was gone, so fast she stumbled at the loss of his supporting touch.

Ruth squatted on her heels, lacing her hands behind her head, fighting for calm. Fighting to think. Panic served no purpose. She wasn't a child. There was no one to pick her up and tell her this was going to be okay.

A field strong enough to block mind links and blanket the entire island. That meant a sorcerer as powerful as Maddock or Adan.

Or a Fae.

A Fae would work with a Trad only if there was something to be gained on their side of things, and she couldn't imagine what that would be. She was too far outside of vampire or Fae politics. But a plan this complicated, and risky, taking Lady Lyssa's son and Lord Mason's daughter, required coordination and cooperation.

Kane and Farida. Their faces flashed in her mind. Your mother is excited. She's already baking their favorites.

Ruth squeezed her eyes shut. It wouldn't be a Guardian. Their loyalty couldn't be bought, manipulated or overwhelmed. Adan had told her so, not as a boast, but as a simple fact, related to their link to the Lord and Lady.

She stood up and paced. Back and forth, back and forth. She kept reaching out, trying to push through. Nothing. It was a wall. Etsi , Sgidoda . All the staff, Hanska, the cats…

When Adan had been kidnapped by the Fae as a child, she'd been unhinged. Inconsolable, nearly mad with grief at the loss of one-half of her mind, her heart. Mal and Elisa had done what they could, but they had all they could do, trying to retrieve their son and hold it together themselves.

Kohana and Chumani had taken over her care during those terrible months. He'd taught her how to calm her mind, hold her heart and soul together.

Ruth dropped to her heels again. Though everything in her rebelled against it, wanting to shriek, rail and fight her way through that field that would likely fry her brain, she started the chant, rocking back and forth, lifting her hands. Each word and gesture possessed meaning. She pulled on the power within her, of family. Her mother, her father, her brother, always with her, always tied to her.

It doesn't matter what world they're in. They're with you. Nothing severs that bond. You ride in the same hunt, side by side, always…

As her heart slowed and mind cleared, she focused on the lap of the water on the shore, the noises of the birds who had once again landed on the rocks. Her calmer energy must be helping them, too. Then she became aware of something else.

Someone was reaching out to her.

Someone beneath the water.

The voice…there were no intelligible words, but she could feel the insistent pull on her mind. It drew her to the mouth of the cave.

Merc's logic was sound. If someone powerful enough to impose that field was still around and saw her, she'd have no chance.

But this wasn't that. She was sure of it. Fuck it. Ruth picked her way down the rocks, slipping and sliding in her haste, cutting her hands and ripping a hole in her jeans.

She ignored that, scrambling to the water's edge and forcing herself to embrace that calm center again. Then she reached out with every sense she had.

Vampire. It was vampire.

Calling for help, with a savage urgency. No trickery. A trickster would be cajoling, pleading. There was nothing here but rage.

Definitely male energy. Not her father. She squelched her disappointment and considered what was below. An artificial coral reef, formed by several freighter containers and a shipwreck, an old fishing vessel. He had to somehow be trapped within them.

Vampires had no buoyancy. Swimming was like pulling a body-sized boulder through the water. But since who was calling to her so insistently was beneath the water, buoyancy wouldn't have been in her favor anyway. She removed all her clothes except for her underwear and entered the water.

It got deep quickly, and she used her arms to push herself downward, holding her own against the current. The pressure got uncomfortable, but a vampire didn't get the bends. She supposed at a certain depth they could still be crushed, but she didn't have to go that deep. She saw the wreck and the containers, half buried in the sand, claimed by the sea, coated with seaweed, barnacles and other ocean life.

But there was a newer container, and that deadly fury was coming from within it. The metal box was wrapped up in spellcraft that had the same signature as the field over the island, which explained why she hadn't immediately detected him. As she stroked closer, she reached out toward the latch.

An electrified bear trap closed on her arm. Fortunately, she shoved herself backward at its first touch, sheer luck allowing her to escape its range. If it had succeeded in knocking her unconscious with its voltage, she would have been drawn off by the current, her body headed for the Gulf Stream.

Then Merc would have really been pissed.

She planted herself on top of one of the other containers. Hooking her foot under a rusted bolt kept her there, and she did the centering exercise again to manage the air hunger her lungs didn't need to feed.

She stared at the container. There was definitely a vampire in there. The container should have exploded from the wrath of its occupant. He was pounding on it, loudly enough to echo through the water and inside her head.

It had to be Lord Mason.

The name matched the energy so precisely she knew she was right. But that terrifying coldness returned. Who had the ability to contain a Council vampire that powerful?

Focus on the positive. They couldn't kill him, so they'd had to settle for containing him.

Unless there was a more important reason for leaving him alive.

She had no mind connection with Lord Mason, but he'd been able to reach out to her, so she hoped the concentrated feeling she sent back to him penetrated, in spirit if not in the actual words attached to the feeling.

I'm getting help. Hang in there.

She fought back to the surface and pulled herself onto the rocks. Merc, Lord Mason is locked in a metal container under the water. I can't get him free.

She didn't know what her range was with an angel. They hadn't yet tested it. She wished they had. She didn't get a response, but in case his range was better than hers, she repeated the message several times, in the hopes one iteration would get through so he could communicate it to the others.

Mason's pounding, that kind of urgency, meant really bad things. Things they needed to be handling. Not sitting here waiting for help.

Fucking hell, this was going to make her crazy. She thought again of Lord Mason's prison, the shape and look of it. When Adan was still young enough he did his magic lessons with Derek on the island, she'd trailed along and paid close attention.

There's always a key. It doesn't always take a sorcerer to unlock it. Especially if no one expects a sorcerer to be there.

What if they do?

Well, then they'll leave some kind of counterspell or trap to annihilate him. You won't even know what hit you.

Terrific. But back down she went. Being underwater put an unpleasant pressure on her chest, much like traveling with Merc at supersonic speeds. But she could handle it. Thanks to the spell, the container was wrapped in a faint blue light. She cautiously moved around it, staying clear of that defense field. Had the container been dropped here under the cover of darkness weeks ago, carried by a passing freighter? Had it been made ready for its prisoner then, well outside the sanctuary's detection perimeter?

Clara had suffered from the Trad visions long enough for that to be plausible. They'd spent time setting this all up.

Ruth picked up a piece of concrete and tossed it at the binding. It jittered upon contact, became the same blue for a blink, then floated unevenly down to the murky bottom.

Could balanced energy become unbalanced? Like putting water into a cup, and then tipping it until the weight inside took it all the way over?

Pumping her arms and kicking her legs with purpose, she scoured the coral reef and found what she was looking for. A bar of steel, crusted with barnacles, but solid, and long enough to keep her just out of range of the spellcraft preventing a powerful vampire's escape.

She wasn't as strong as a lot of vampires, but with the right leverage, she could do this. Don't be afraid to use tools, daughter.

Mal's advice, when teaching her to fortify her strength.

Plunging the bar into the sand beneath the container, she shoved it in, then jumped back as it made contact. A slight vibration went through the bar, but the blue light stayed around the freighter. Her lever wasn't electrified or hammered out of shape. She closed back in and pushed the end further beneath the container, then pulled down on it.

Her muscles groaned in complaint, but the container shifted. Triumph surged as she saw the energy vibrate, like water in a cup, showing it had been disturbed.

As the pounding continued inside the container, she left that bar in place, and moved to examine the door latch, without reaching out to touch it.

There will be an anchor point, where the magic will be arranged in the pattern needed to keep it running…

The door would make sense, right? She considered ways to test it and went in search of another steel bar. A shorter one that she bent into a hook at one end.

Returning to the door latch, she braced herself, then shoved the bar behind the latch, driving the hook down upon it in the same motion.

She hadn't let go fast enough, getting a fierce zap for her troubles, but her guess had been right. The energy shimmered, showing a series of symbols spinning around a hub before they disappeared in the flow of the water. They also warped her hook and dissolved it, making the water around it flash with heat.

So the spellcraft on the latch was what she had to "unbalance." Returning to the lever under the container, she went at it. Pushing on it, again and again, pausing only as briefly as needed to surface, cough water out of her lungs, and go back down again.

Fuck, this would be so much easier with an angel incubus. But he had a more important task. This one was hers.

She refused to let herself think of giving up, and at last the container was sliding away from the shelf where it had been placed. It wasn't much of a drop, the ocean contour behind it just a short hill. But she only needed it to tip. She heaved one more time, hard, shouting her frustration and demand for it to do her bidding. The gurgled sound of the yell hummed in her ears.

Triumph surged as the container started to topple over.

The energy stuttered at the latch site, like a lamp reacting to a cord coming halfway out of the socket. Hoping she wasn't wrong, Ruth darted in, grabbed the latch and shoved against it as hard as she could.

The magical energy that somersaulted her backwards felt like a lighting strike. When she slammed into the coral reef crusting an older container, she received an up close and personal snapshot of the insides of her eyelids and her skull, plus annoyed commentary from all the nerve endings in her teeth.

When she could shake it off, she snarled as she saw the latch hadn't completely given way. However, the energy also didn't have the same cohesiveness. The blue rippled and sparked, as if an important component of the spell had been knocked out of place. Before she had time to figure out how to take advantage of it, she was forcibly reminded she wasn't the only one working the problem.

The door exploded off its hinges, like a cannon had been fired at it from the inside.

It flipped away on the ocean current, bouncing off the shipwreck and getting caught against the stump of the mast.

The projectile that had broken the door loose wasn't a cannonball. It was a bowling ball, which arced down once it felt the pull of gravity and disappeared into the ocean bottom.

Cautiously, she approached the opening of the container, feeling some residual electrical ripples, but nothing debilitating. The spell around the container had been dismantled.

A man was struggling through the debris of the container's ruined contents. She assumed the bowling ball had come from one of the broken crates she saw.

Getting near an enraged male vampire was never a great idea, but he'd been underwater long enough to be disoriented, and she didn't know how else they'd weakened him. However, when Lord Mason's eyes found her, an amber color that reminded her of tiger eyes, she saw recognition. She stretched out her hand, and he caught it with a much larger one. His grip hurt, showing he was still less aware than normal, but she didn't let him go.

She helped him get free of his prison and start toward the surface. By the time they reached the rock formation, he was able to drag himself onto it, where he coughed out an ocean's worth of sea water.

He wore no shirt, soaked black trousers clinging to his muscled backside and thighs. Lord Mason was a big male, his long, copper-colored hair lying sleek against his broad back. It partially covered the tattoo there, a tiger looking as if it was ready to leap free of the skin. With his age and his amber eyes, it was difficult for Mason to pass as human. At this moment he had no interest in trying.

Almost before he stopped coughing, he was stumbling to his feet and spinning around to find the island. Ruth put a steadying hand on his biceps before he could plunge back into the water to get to it.

"It's shielded. We can't get through. Merc, an angel friend, went to get help. We don't know if they're still there, Farida and Kane."

Mason's chest and shoulders shuddered. He sat down heavily on one of the rocks, putting his hands on his knees. Carefully, Ruth rested her palm on his back. He'd closed his eyes, either to pull it together or keep himself from going mad. She wanted to reassure, but she knew as well as he did all the possibilities.

No. He knew more than that. When the centuries-older vampire straightened, opened his eyes and turned toward her, she saw his bleak look. It didn't dilute his urgency, or his killing rage, but it wasn't either of those things that made her draw back, avoiding the hand he reached out to her.

"Our children are no longer there," he said.

And she knew. In her faltering heart, her terrified mind, her frozen soul, she knew.

When Merc landed on the rocks, Marcellus was with him. Almost before their feet touched, the field over the island was dissipating, the energy fading, though the sky had the sickly green and yellow look it had before a lethal storm.

"Marcellus and I transported Yvette and Maddock. They dismantled it from the air. We put them down near the portal it was spun from so they could cleanse and reinforce its protections again. They're also evaluating the condition of the island's fault line and portal interfaces. They'll meet us at your house."

She was numb, but nodded. Fists opening, closing. Please, please, please…

Merc moved close enough to put a hand on her, but she moved back, shook her head, a short snap. His brow creased, but he turned to Lord Mason. Whatever he saw in Mason's face sent a tension through his shoulders and the arcs of his wings. A moment of silence, then Merc spoke, his voice flat.

"Marcellus is going to take you back to Council headquarters in Savannah. Lyssa is already there with other Council members so you can plan your next step, to get your children back."

Lord Mason's jaw flexed, and he looked toward Ruth.

"I've got her," Merc said. "You're needed in Savannah, my lord."

Ruth turned away from them and spoke through stiff lips. "Get me there," she said. "To the house. I need to see if my parents are all right."

She twitched when Merc touched her, but didn't resist when he picked her up. She didn't look at him, putting her face against the side of his neck, and staring over his shoulder.

It was a short flight, so she had her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips. The way he'd brought her to the island the day he'd met her parents. When she hadn't wanted them to see her in such an intimate pose, because of a silly self-consciousness.

Ruth.

As soon as he touched down, Ruth wrenched away and ran toward the house. She could feel the energy of the cats now. They were upset, riled up. The island was unsettled, unbalanced. Someone had fucked with it. Fucked with the magic. That had to be why she still couldn't access the mind link, but Mal and Elisa would be in the house. Or where the cats most needed them. She'd find them.

No. She'd found them. They were in the house. She could feel them. But no mind link. Just emptiness. A lack of…anything.

She smelled blood. Human, vampire. Death.

Yvette was inside. She would be with them. It would be all right.

Several railings of the porch had been busted, as if something had landed on them or kicked the boards so hard they split.

Merc landed in front of Ruth before she reached the steps. She tried to get around him, but then she was in the air, his arms around her again.

She struck at him, not caring if he dropped her. She landed a couple good hits before he brought them to the place she'd shown him, her place to find faith, when her faith was floundering. She saw the wavering energy lines between the African habitat and the sanctuary, but she didn't see any cats. They were hiding. Watchful. Too much violent energy, too disruptive. Everything was in fight or flight survival mode.

"Why did you bring me here? I have to get home, to see…"

She wouldn't let him speak, wouldn't let him say anything to her. She shouted at him, pushed, attacked. She didn't care if she hurt him. She would destroy anything in her path. He let her run away, toward the road that led back to the house. He retrieved her multiple times, until she collapsed on the grassy slope.

Then she started screaming, a voiceless wail.

She screamed and screamed her heartbreak, so it echoed through the sanctuary, imprinted and embedded itself there.

Merc was over her, holding her now, his wings covering her. He'd done that before, to give her sanctuary, rest. Now he did it to let her stay hidden from the world when she couldn't bear to show her face to it.

It seemed a lifetime before she could speak, and yet there'd never be enough time in the universe before she'd be prepared to say the words she said now.

"How…" she said, her face still buried in his feathers.

"You don't need to know that."

"You know I do."

"It was quick."

"His body is still there?"

"Yes."

She swallowed noisily. "No one would have gotten close enough to stake him."

"No."

She squeezed her eyes shut. Decapitation. Horrible, but a quick death, as Merc said.

"Your mother is next to him. It appears she was able to crawl to him before she succumbed."

The third mark bond between vampire and servant meant if the vampire died, the servant died with him, within minutes.

"My brother…"

"Mikhael, the Dark Guardian, is trying to locate them. Catriona is at Club Atlantis. She will continue to try her mind link with your brother until he's in range."

"I need to see them. I have to see them. So when he comes, I can tell him."

"All right. I'll take you to them now."

She lifted her head, stared at him with a swollen face and glassy eyes. He slid a strand of hair away from her damp mouth, his hands as gentle as they'd ever been. She didn't want him to be gentle, but she couldn't bring herself to reject the touch. "Why now, and not a few moments ago?"

"Yvette made some adjustments. She said there were some things no one should see. She was making it…"

Easier? Better? She saw him roll over the different words, none of them right. Not even close. She shook her head, relieving him of the need to try.

Merc took her back to the house. When they landed at the steps again, she stared at the wreckage. There was blood spatter on the porch boards. The chair Chumani had made was twisted out of shape and hanging on the jagged teeth of a shattered front window.

Ruth started up the steps and stumbled. When Merc would have lifted her again, she held him at arm's length. With dull despair, she knew if it became too much, he would take her away.

I'm begging you. Stand with me, so it doesn't become too much. I need to do this.

He touched her face, and wouldn't let her move until she looked up at him. He wouldn't let her shut him out. I'll honor that request. I promise.

It helped, in a terrible way she'd never be able to explain. Maybe the closest attempt would be what Kaela had said. He can overpower you, but he doesn't overpower those things you need him to respect.

Ruth moved into the house. The smell of blood, death and violence became stronger. It was so silent. The house was never silent. The grandfather clock had been knocked over in the struggle, so its ticking was missing. The house cats…she reached out and found their life energy. Still here. Hiding. She would help them shortly.

Furniture was destroyed, more windows shattered. Some of the glass was inside, crunching under her shoes. The fight had moved to the porch and back inside again, combatants breaking through both sets of front windows.

As she approached the kitchen, knowing that was where they were, her gaze dropped to the bloodstained floor. Her father's feet jutted out from behind the island. The frayed cuffs of his jeans, his work shoes. The tread was worn at the toe and heel. He'd mentioned needing to order some more.

She didn't know how long she stood there, but she was aware of Merc by her side. His hand rested on the small of her back, fingers curled in her waistband, under her T-shirt. She was shaking, yet under that, she'd turned to stone.

She felt like she could hear the echo of her mother's anguished scream. She imagined that last moment. Had her father had a chance to fix his gaze upon Elisa? Remind her in that last second the bond would never end, that they would go into eternity together?

She lurched forward, around the island. The blood smears marked where her mother had pulled herself across the floor to reach Mal's side. Ruth didn't want her eyes to reach the end of that journey, but they went there anyway.

Up her father's legs, to his knees. Her mother's feet were tucked partially under his calf. She'd been wearing a pair of her canvas sneakers with the cat faces. Mal painted them on every new pair she bought. Different types of cats, different expressions.

A sob hit her in the chest, like Mason's bowling ball had hit that container door. Merc's arm tightened around her, but he honored his promise. He didn't take her away. He was deep in her mind, in her soul. He knew what she needed.

Steeling herself, she let her eyes travel up their inert bodies to discover what Yvette had done.

The sorceress had left the area mostly unaltered, knowing Ruth needed to see it. For Adan, and for herself, she needed to see evidence of her father's heroic fight to defend Kane and Farida, Elisa and their home. Her mother's agonizing journey to reach his side before they crossed the Veil. But Yvette had decided there was one key thing Ruth did not need to see.

To her eyes, her father was intact, his head tilted down toward Elisa. Elisa had managed to pull one of his arms around her, their hands clasped.

In this position, they looked almost the way they did when they were on the couch. Elisa curled up next to him, Mal's arm around her as they spoke in low, affectionate murmurs, punctuated with the occasional soft laugh or wry comment.

The only evidence that what Ruth was seeing wasn't reality was the pendant Mal always wore, a carved cat's head on a silk cord. It connected to the bespelled energies of the island, helped him monitor them wherever he was. It was on the ground a few feet away. That, with more spurted blood patterns, told her where his head actually was.

Seeing her gaze move in that direction, Merc picked up the pendant. He had to step away and bend over to do it, but he kept his fingertips resting on her hip. He grasped Ruth's wrist, lifted her limp hand and put it in her palm. Her fingers convulsively closed over it, and the reality of it under her hand, the polished stone, told her all of it was real. There was no escaping this, no chance it was a bad dream.

She was Mal and Elisa's daughter. She needed to do what they'd expect her to do. Holding onto that as tenaciously as she held the pendant, she moved forward. While her bones felt ancient, she managed to kneel by them. Laying her hand on Elisa's was another terrible moment, the feel of her mother's soft skin and slim bones, the well-worn cloth of her father's shirt and solidness of his chest beneath it. All of it devoid of the life that made them…them.

After she choked back another sob, she began the chant to give peace to the dead, and wish them a safe journey.

For the living…she didn't want peace. She wanted death. Horrible, horrible death. For everyone responsible for this.

After she completed the chant, she rose, swaying, not sure what to do next.

"Lady Yvette is on the porch," Merc prompted her. "She needs to talk to you."

Ruth moved that way, mostly because Merc took her hand and led her in that direction. Her feet dragged, then stopped.

"It's all right," he said, reading the confusion in her mind. "No one is going to bother them."

Yvette stood against an unbroken part of the rail. There was a tightness to her mouth, an anger in her eyes, a deep well of emotion.

"Thank you," Ruth whispered.

Yvette nodded. "Lady Lyssa wants you at Council headquarters," she said quietly. "Maddock has already headed that way. You met with the Trad. There may be things you can offer that will help them find Farida and Kane."

Ruth stared at the Circus Mistress. "I can't leave them."

"Ruth." Merc touched her face.

She saw the knowledge in his eyes, felt it in her own self, but she savagely rejected it. She didn't want to go anywhere.

But Farida and Kane were in danger. Mal and Elisa would tell her that took priority over everything else. Especially the dead, who didn't need her help.

"There's some disruption to the sanctuary spell work, but the cats are safe," Yvette said carefully. "They're just very spooked. I patched it enough, and Derek can fully right it, once he and Adan return."

"The staff…"

"Three were killed. Two men, one woman. They were at the house when the attack happened, and joined your parents in trying to resist the invaders. The rest were at various places on the sanctuary, and found they couldn't approach the house. An additional blocking field was brought down around it. A man named Hanska said Farida and Kane were with your parents when it happened."

Hanska was alive. A relief, since he knew how to manage the sanctuary. A detestably practical thought, but it kept her from having to think about the three staff members who had been killed.

"I expect that's why they used the additional field," Yvette added, "to contain their target and keep out any other attempts to come to their aid. Not because they felt they were a threat, but to minimize the nuisance of having to deal with them. It saved most of their lives."

Yvette's gaze flickered with suppressed fury. "The humans were taken out far more easily than your parents were. Which did not make them any less brave for trying."

"No." Just the opposite. During visits by more contentious vampires, Da would firmly tell Hanska and the others not to interfere in any conflicts between him and them, because a human would have no chance against those vampires, and he didn't want them harmed. Their focus was the care of the cats.

But if they'd been close enough to help, they wouldn't have listened. Just as the three whose names she didn't want to know yet hadn't. Because they were family.

"Wolf, a vampire who works for Anwyn at Club Atlantis, is on the way to provide Hanska backup if they need a vampire's help with the cats. His servant Ella is with him."

Ruth must have been kneeling over her parents' bodies for a while, for Yvette to have time to communicate with Council and arrange for all that. And not just that.

The Circus Mistress met her gaze. "Your people have asked for the honor of preparing their bodies, Ruth. They said they'll hold vigil on them until we return."

No. I can't leave.

Farida and Kane are in danger.

Two sides fought a bitter war inside her, trampling her heart, overrunning her mind, tearing gouges in her soul. Then Merc tipped up her chin to lock gazes with him. Call on the warrior, Ruth, not the child, and tell me what you really want.

She stared into his eyes. I want whoever did this to be eviscerated . I want them to suffer in ways hell hasn't even thought up. I want to do it myself. I want to laugh at their screams. I want to…

Tears came with the hatred. The warrior couldn't separate itself entirely from the grief. I want them back.

Yvette's hand was on her, a comforting pressure, but also carrying the reminder that they had to go. There were things to handle. The rest would have to wait.

"It's perhaps good your brother is out of touch with Derek," The reluctance in Yvette's voice said she didn't want to say the words, but felt Ruth needed to know. "Guardians, like angels, have strict rules on interference in matters…like this. Mikhael said this is one of them. The angels are the same. Marcellus was instructed to report to his Legion duties, after he delivers Mason to Council."

Ruth stared at her. Even after what Marcellus had told her earlier, she'd assumed this would be different. It should be different. She couldn't grasp that he couldn't help. Or Derek. Light Guardian neutrality or not, if Adan was here, he would say fuck Guardian rules, right up the ass.

Which was why Yvette had said it was better he was not here. Though she doubted he would feel that way. She certainly didn't.

"Though you risked a great deal by making contact with the binding holding him, you did well on freeing Lord Mason," Yvette added. "That kind of intelligence, determination and insight is what we need from you now."

Lord Mason was alive. Her parents weren't. Why couldn't one of the most powerful vampires in the world stand against their enemies and save her parents? Why was he alive and they were dead?

It was a child's question. The adult knew the answer, and Lord Mason, as well as Lady Lyssa, needed the help of everyone who could give it. She would be the warrior that Merc had called upon. The grieving child would have to wait.

She met Yvette's gaze. "Yes. We'll go."

She'd heard of the formality that governed an audience with the currently nine-member Vampire Council. How intimidating it could be to stand before them.

She was too shut down to care about any of that, but when they arrived at the Savannah estate, Council headquarters, she noticed a distinct lack of that reputed formality. She'd arrived at a war room, where communication was straightforward, no wasted time with posturing or pretenses.

They were gathered around a large table in a big hallway, servants swiftly coming and going with information being cultivated from the network of assets throughout their world, anything that might be of use to locate the two young vampires.

Lady Lyssa and Lord Mason were shoulder to shoulder over the information laid out before them. Though Ruth was sure the mother in Lyssa and the father in Mason were suffering dreadful levels of worry, the only evidence was the flat, lethal sharpness of their eyes and the tension in their shoulders. They had lived through enough crises, protected enough of their own kind, to know calm planning and decisive action were the only tenable options.

Their servants were the same. Jacob stood at Lyssa's side. Jessica watched nearby. Anwyn was next to her, her hand resting on Jessica's back. Jessica being at Club Atlantis at the time of the kidnapping may have saved the life of Mason's servant. Though Ruth expected the thought brought the mother little comfort.

Gideon was beside her and Anwyn, his hips propped on a side table, arms crossed over his chest. He observed the strategy session with the stillness a weapon had, waiting to be pointed in a firing direction. Ruth didn't see Daegan, but he might be gleaning information directly from his own sources.

When Ruth's arrival was noticed, she was almost grateful that the Council dove right into an interrogation, rather than asking her about…anything else. Relaying what happened with the Trad, recalling every detail, kept her mind occupied. Merc stood at her shoulder while she did so. However, when more probing questions about what she'd seen on the island were asked, her voice faltered.

He drew closer, his wing curving around her shoulder as he picked up the information from her mind and spoke it aloud for her. Surprised gazes shifted to him, suggesting Lady Lyssa hadn't yet informed the Council of the possibility of the marking. Let alone that it had actually happened, but no one had known that. No one except Kaela and Garron and…

She pushed her mind away from that. She shouldn't need Merc to speak for her, but emotions kept surging up,. Keeping her head up, not letting what was hammering against her walls get through, was all she could do.

Huff and puff and blow your house down…

Not now. Not today. She imagined her father's will holding her up, and her mother's. And then she thought of why she was here. Why it was important to hold it together.

Ruth had held Kane when he was a baby, a great honor. He'd latched onto her hair with a small fist, his eyes so still and sharp, his mouth so sweet. She'd brushed and curled Farida's hair when she was ten. Stood at her side outside the rehab enclosure when the young girl asked Ruth if kissing the hurt on the leopard's paw would help. "It's what Daddy does for me," she confided.

The powerful Lord Mason. He and Lady Lyssa were both capable of terrifying and bringing the vampire world to heel when it needed that. Ruth had seen a different side, the proud and loving parents. During informal dinners on the island, they'd bonded with Mal and Elisa over the challenges and fears of raising vampire children.

Her gaze moved back to Jessica. Mason's servant had curly brown long hair, gray eyes and the build of a gymnast. While she wore jeans and a casual T-shirt, she also had on a choker of copper, bronze and gray metals in a tiger stripe pattern. The choker's lock looked like a talon. Ruth remembered a silver key hanging on a chain on Mason's wet neck, and made the connection. Her Master's collar.

Jessica's expression was frozen in a mask Ruth recognized. When Adan had been taken by the Fae as a child, her parents had worn that mask for months. Holding it together, doing whatever could be done, while behind it the primal cry of rage never ended, the grip of terror never eased.

Though Mason was focused on the strategy being discussed, she could feel the energy between the two, giving one another strength. But if the children were lost, it would be an immeasurable blow to two Council members. Which in turn would strike at the heart of the vampire world.

"Can we find him again?" Lady Lyssa demanded. "This Asva?"

"Cai and Rand are on it," Lord Belizar said. The big Russian male had cold gray eyes, and his thick, swept back hair was streaked with silver. He looked as if he'd been spawned by the brutal winters and wilderness Merc had endured. His fitted black dress shirt and belted slacks didn't soften the impression. When he spoke, his voice reminded Ruth of a general whose vocal cords had been permanently roughened by the roar to charge and give no quarter.

He'd been Council head before Lyssa deposed him, a decisive move that removed all debate about her strength and ability to hold the reins on the vampire world. And renewed his loyalty to her, which had been wavering before that power move. Vampires.

"Maddock portaled them to a spot close to Lady Kaela's home. Rand is on the scent," he added.

Ruth thought of their visits to the island, Rand shifting to run with Ruth at night, the giant black wolf wrestling with her. The cats had viewed him with great suspicion and animosity, except for one of the female mountain lions, who Cai had teased him was ready to break interspecies boundaries to become the first wolf-mountain cat mating.

Your children would be so adorable. Wolf-kittens.

Rand was an exceptional tracker, in human or wolf form, and Cai was no slouch at it, either. They would find Asva, if they hadn't already.

"Have we heard from the Fae Queen yet, my lady?" Lady Helga sat in a chair on the other side of the table. She had intelligent and concerned brown eyes, framed by thick blond hair she had pulled back in a chignon. "With this level of magic use, the Fae's involvement needs to be ruled out. I find it very difficult to believe the Trads have achieved the magical capability to fortress the island the way they did. And wipe your memory on top of that, Lord Mason."

Despite Mason's preoccupation, Ruth's confused look caught his attention. Probably because of her situation, he took the time to tersely explain, his voice laden with frustration. "I remember little before I was imprisoned in the container, except the children being taken and Mal…falling."

Tense silence descended. It was as if they suddenly realized Ruth was not just a vampire with information, but also Mal's daughter. A few expressions flickered, warning her she was about to be offered condolences. Ruth shook her head, almost violently, stepping back into Merc as if warding off an attack.

Fortunately the message in her reaction was heeded. Lyssa's eyes touched Ruth's, but then she spoke to Helga's question. "My half-sister, Queen Rhoswen, says it's impossible to know what every Fae might be up to. The machinations of their two courts are even more political than ours. But she is doing her own research, as is Lord Keldwyn, our Fae liaison."

"The children's visit to the island was known to very few," Lady Carola said. She had a dark bob around thick-lashed gray eyes. Her sharp cheekbones and chin gave her a perpetually intent look. Her face held little warmth, and Ruth suspected that was its normal temperature. "Isn't that correct?"

"Yes," Mason said. "Beyond Ruth, Mal and Elisa, no one except myself, Lyssa and our servants knew. Mal doesn't even inform his staff until we arrive. He also doesn't schedule other visitors Lyssa and I haven't vetted."

"Would your children have mentioned it to someone?" Lord Walton posed the practical question. "At a café, a discussion in a taxi, anything. It's expected that your children are watched by unfriendly eyes, and though you do all you can to protect them, information can be used and ferreted out, if the one seeking it is determined."

Lyssa and Mason accepted the idea with an exchanged tight look. Then Lyssa's gaze turned inward. "Lord Uthe has arrived with an update. Maddock is with him."

At one time Lord Uthe had been Belizar's and then Lyssa's right hand, respectively. He'd officially stepped down from Council some time ago, leaving the current nine-member count, but was bound to Lord Keldwyn, one of the first approved Fae-vampire pairings, something that still drove as much controversy in the Fae world as vampire-servant open declarations of love did in theirs.

If he was bringing a missive of support from the Fae world, it would be welcome news. Especially after Yvette's crushing news that the angels and Guardians weren't allowed to take sides. It was good Marcellus wasn't here right now. Ruth screaming curses at him wouldn't do much good for anyone.

Uthe strode into the hallway. His clothing was well made but functional and unadorned. He'd once been a Templar Knight, and still adhered to many of its warrior-monk tenets. On earlier visits to the island, before bonding with Lord Keldwyn, he'd kept his hair military short. Now he'd grown it out, a gleaming brown mane, but he kept it tied back. Except for the Fae Lord who liked it longer.

Just before he reached the tense knot of those waiting for him, Uthe stopped and closed his eyes. He looked as if he might be gathering his thoughts. Or praying. But then his eyes opened again, and he moved forward, executing a bow to Lyssa.

"Cai and Rand found Asva," he told her. "He was staked and burned, no more than an hour after he left Kaela. Rand sniffed out the ash residue."

"So someone found out he had betrayed them," Lord Stewart noted flatly. His olive-skinned face looked set in a permanent expression of disapproval, his brows lowered over intense green eyes. "Perhaps they were watching him, and executed him after he left Kaela's home."

"Or they fed him the information before then, watched him to confirm delivery, and then tied up loose ends. Which means the information itself is suspect." Mason's gaze was hard. "We need to know where the chess-playing Trad bastard is."

"We believe we do." Uthe slid a paper from his front breast pocket, glanced at it as if to remind himself of what was on it, then handed it to Lyssa. "Cai and I still have enough of a network in the Trad world to secure a high probability on his location. If we're correct, this might be where your children are being held."

His brown eyes met Lyssa's. "Our advantage is they won't have expected us to locate them this quickly. They also don't know the travel resources we have." His attention moved to Maddock. "Maddock said a portal route is possible that will deliver you within a few miles of the location. He's willing to be the conductor for that transport."

"Good." Lyssa nodded to Maddock.

"All that said," Uthe added, his expression grim, "I do believe they assume you will find them. Which means they will be prepared for that."

"So will we," Lyssa said.