Keri Arthur - Moon Sworn

I turned around and walked back up the stairs. The first room was a bedroom that had been converted into a living area. There was a TV in one corner, several lounge chairs, and a coffee table set against the side walls. To the left of the door was a bank of wires and monitors.

I stepped inside. Four monitors showed slowly panning views of the sides of the house and the immediate surrounds. One was fixed on the front gate, another swept the rear garden, a third appeared to be scanning a bathroom, and the last one was in a bedroom.

I watched the pan of the camera. Saw the bed, the TV, and the bucket, and felt fury sweep through me. The bastards hadn’t even offered her decent toilet facilities. I should have smacked that vampire a little bit harder.

The camera finally panned around far enough to reveal Lyndal. She was standing near the window, her face pressed up against the barred glass, as if desperate to see around the corner of the house and figure out what was going on. She was naked, her skin bruised but otherwise clean, meaning that while they’d not given her proper toilet facilities, they’d at least allowed her to shower. It didn’t ease the anger burning through me, though.

I spun around and headed into the next room. This one was set up as a bedroom, with two single beds and a battered pine coffee table squeezed in between them. On this sat wallets, coins, cash, and keys—two sets of car keys and another ring holding five other keys. I swept them up, spun around, and ran for the padlocked room.

“Lyndal,” I said as I sorted through the keys trying to find the right one. “It’s Riley Jenson from the Directorate. I’m here to rescue you.”

One of the keys finally slipped into the lock and it snapped open. I unlatched the door and pressed it open. A bucket came flying at me, its stinking contents splattering through the air.

“Whoa,” I said, jumping out of the way. “Easy, Lyndal. I really am here to rescue you.”

“Riley Jenson is up in Dunedan, not down here in Melbourne.”

So the men had told her what Evin was doing and who he was minding—which was only more evidence to the fact that they never intended for any of us to live.

She stepped into my line of sight, her fists clenched and fury etching her features. Her face was unmarked, green eyes spitting fire, but her limbs were as bruised as her back and there were ugly welts around her wrists and ankles. She’d been tied with silver more than once.

Even her gently rounded belly had bruises, and for the second time in a matter of minutes, I wished I’d hit the vampire harder.

“What fucking game are you lot playing now?” she added furiously.

“No game, I promise you.” I reached into my pocket and withdrew the phone. “You can ring Evin, if you like.”

I pressed the appropriate number, made sure it was ringing, then tossed her the phone. Her expression was still a mix of defiance and disbelief, but she nevertheless held the phone to her ear and waited.

Evin answered, and her face just about crumbled. “Oh god,” she said, “It is you.”

I don’t know what Evin said, because it didn’t exactly sound coherent from where I was standing. Quinn, we need to get these two back together ASAP. Any chance of your plane coming to the rescue again?

I’ll have to get another pilot, but yeah, we can do it .

Fantastic . I stepped over the puddle of urine and fecal matter and into the room.

Lyndal’s gaze jumped to mine and she backed away a step. “What does she look like?”

I paused, waiting. Her gaze slipped down my body, and the tension riding her eased. She closed her eyes briefly and said, “Yeah, it’s her.”

I held out a hand. She hesitated, then handed me the phone. “Evin—”

I didn’t get any further, because he was all but crying “Thank you, thank you, thank you” over and over.

“Evin,” I said sharply, even though my heart ached for him. “We’ve got to go. You need to listen.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Okay.”

“We’re sending Lyndal to you via Quinn’s plane. She’ll get there around lunch. But you need to carry on phoning every night as usual. They have to believe everything is fine.”

“But the guards will know—”

“The guards won’t remember a damn thing, and they’ll believe she’s still here safe and sound. As long as you and West keep up the charade, we should have a few days’ leeway.”

“But what if they do realize? We’re sitting ducks staying here.”

“I didn’t say you were staying there. I just said you needed to keep phoning.”

“But caller ID will tell them—”

“Caller ID can be faked. They’ll think you’re still there, Evin. Trust me.”

“I do.” He paused, then said, “When you confront Blake, I want in. Whatever you do, I want to be a part of it. He has to pay, Riley. For you, and for Lyndal.”

“He will. But I haven’t yet decided what—”

“I don’t care. Just factor in my help.”

“And mine,” Lyndal murmured. “I may be pregnant, but, by god, someone is going to pay for what these bastards did to me.”

I glanced at her and saw the fire in her eyes. The need for retribution. And understood it, totally. I gave her the phone. “We need to move. Say good-bye.”

I turned and led the way downstairs. She talked and walked, hanging up as we neared the front door. She paused when she saw Quinn, her nostrils flaring, then glanced at me and marched forward.

Not at Quinn, but the two men. She raised a fist, but Quinn caught it before she could land a blow.

“I can understand the need to lash out,” he said softly, “but leaving a bruise they can’t remember might just undo the mind washing I’ve done.”

She glanced at him, her thin face fierce, then nodded once and stepped back. “Will the Directorate take care of them later?”

“If not the Directorate, then I will,” Quinn said. And he said it with such an utter lack of emotion that it was chilling—and totally believable. “They are dead men walking.”

“Good.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, though it wasn’t an attempt to cover her nakedness. “What next?”

“We’ve some clothes for you in the back of the car, if you’d like to climb in and dress.” Quinn glanced at me.

“You need to put the guards back.”

“Put them back how?”

“The vampire tripped on some loose carpeting going up the stairs, hit the hall stand, and knocked himself unconscious.”

Meaning I’d have to ensure there was loose carpet. “And the wolf?”

“Before the vamp had his accident, he and the wolf had a minor altercation. The wolf was knocked down and smacked the back of his head on the tiles.”

And given I’d neutralized my scent before we’d come here, no one would scent me. “Neither man has appropriate bumps.”

He glanced at me, his smile cold. “Oh yes they have.”

I snorted. “And you stopped Lyndal from hitting him.”

“I built my bumps into their memories.”

“You could have done it to hers.”

“It’s not easy to account for bruising to the front and back of the head. In a case like this, where you’re adding memories and forcing them not to see certain things, too many complications can risk blowing the whole thing.”

“Which is what happened with me.”

He nodded. I grabbed the vamp’s arms, dragging him back through the hall and up the stairs. I was sweating by the time I reached the landing. He might appear to be little more than a string bean, but he obviously had heavy bones.

I dumped him on the floor, knocked over the hall stand, then ripped up a little of the carpet covering the top step. Then I ran back downstairs to grab the werewolf. Him I dragged into the kitchen.