Dianne Duvall: Night Reigns

Overwhelmed, she nodded. “I will.” Throwing her arms around his neck, she buried her face in the warm skin above his collar. “I love you so much.”

His strong arms squeezed her closer as he rose. “I love you, too.” He sounded as choked up as she felt. “I’ve waited so long for you, Ami.”

After a long moment, Darnell cleared his throat and murmured, “Come on, guys, don’t make me cry, too.”

Ami laughed and released her hold.

Marcus took her hand, iridescent eyes glistening, lips curled in a happy smile.

“Thank you for this.” Ami motioned to the nattily-garbed men and the floral plants in the room. “And for this.” She held her hand out to display the ring. “I love it.”

“I know it would’ve been very different on Lasara, but ...”

“It was perfect,” she vowed and meant it.

“I’d like to include as many Lasaran customs as we can in the wedding ceremony.”

“Thank you, Marcus.” Happily, she swung his hand between them as she eyed her family. “All of you, thank you.”

Seth grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Well then. Let’s celebrate, shall we?”

Cheers and eager agreement ensued.

Seth and David suddenly turned their heads toward the front of the house. A couple of seconds later, Marcus did as well.

Seth sighed. “One evening! Can’t we have one evening off?”

Ami heard the front door open.

“Reordon,” Chris called from the foyer, announcing his entrance. “Hey, where is everybody?”

Since none of the men seemed inclined to answer, Ami called, “In here, Chris.”

The thump of boots hitting bamboo flooring preceded his appearance in the doorway. As soon as he saw them, his eyebrows shot up. “What’s going on?” His gaze met Ami’s. Concern flared. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

She laughed and swiped at her damp cheeks. “Marcus proposed to me. We’re getting married.”

His rugged face lit up. “Hey, that’s great!” He strode forward, clasped Marcus’s arm, and pulled him into a man-hug. Then he turned and gave Ami a bone-cracking embrace. “Welcome to the family, Ami.”

Marcus struggled not to growl as the other man hugged Ami. He hadn’t experienced this jealousy with Bethany. Probably because he had always thought of her as Robert’s woman. But with Ami, it hit him fast and hard whenever another man touched her or smiled at her or leered at her.

Not that Chris was leering. But Marcus had seen other men do it. Ami was a beautiful woman.

When Chris backed away, Marcus wrapped an arm around her and drew Ami into his side. She smiled up at him, glowing with happiness. Damn, he loved her. He always wanted her to be as happy as she was in that moment.

“So,” Chris said, “I couldn’t help but notice the fancy spread in the dining room. Don’t suppose I could join the celebration, could I?”

“Of course you can,” Ami said.

Marcus met Chris’s gaze over her head. Though he seemed jovial enough, the man’s eyes revealed that whatever had brought him here tonight did not entail good news.

Well, screw that. The next crisis could wait. Tonight was Ami’s night.

Marcus pressed a kiss to her soft curls and led her from the room. While Ami had slept, he and the others had worked their asses off preparing a sumptuous feast they had then laid out on the long dining room table while she showered and dressed.

A formal white tablecloth had been added, as well as their finest dinnerware, which wasn’t terribly fine. Crap tended to break a lot around here. Large men and dainty china didn’t mix well. But Darnell had dug up decorative napkins and other little adornments from who knew where that left the presentation looking damned good, if he did say so himself.

“Oh my,” Ami breathed. “It’s beautiful. And there’s so much food! Will others be joining us?”

“No,” Marcus said. “It’s all ours.” And they did their damnedest to eat every crumb.

Seth took his usual place at the head of the table. Marcus and Ami sat close together on one side, thighs touching, arms brushing. David, Darnell, and Chris seated themselves on the other.

Laughter and teasing abounded as platters and glasses emptied.

“So, Chris,” Ami said, when much of the meal had been devoured, “tell us what brought you here tonight.”

Chris choked on the forkful of salad he had just shoveled into his mouth. His eyes met Marcus’s and caught the warning in them. “What?” he asked and took a long drink of tea to stall. “Oh. I was just dropping by to ... hang out.”

“It’s bad news, isn’t it?” Clearly, she didn’t buy it.

“No,” he hedged.

Marcus hoped he lied more convincingly as a cleaner, because right now he was about as convincing as Ami was when she lied.

“Come on. Let’s have it,” she persisted.

Chris met those pretty emerald eyes of hers and crumbled. After tossing Marcus a what-can-I-do look, he said, “You all know I have contacts in ... unusual places. Men and women in certain agencies whose jobs are so highly classified that even their spouses don’t know what their true professions are.”

“That’s what makes you so invaluable,” Seth pointed out.

Chris nodded his thanks. “Well, I went to all of these contacts as soon as we had the commander’s name, trying to find out as much as I could about Emrys and his soldiers, how far his reach extends, if he really is military, anything that would help us plot a course of action for stopping the group in its tracks and doing major damage control.”

“What did you find?” Ami asked.

He shook his head. “They’re gone. Disappeared without a trace.”

“That’s not terribly surprising,” Marcus said. “Montrose Keegan is a civilian, and he managed to disappear and stay off the grid for—what—a year and a half?”

Darnell nodded. “If these guys are some shadow branch of the military, they have the kind of connections that could keep them off the grid permanently, even shielding them from your moles in the agencies.”

“That isn’t what he meant,” David said, “is it, Chris?”

Chris sighed. “No. The commander and his shadow army aren’t gone. Or they could be, I suppose. I don’t know. I couldn’t find out anything about them because my contacts are gone. They are the ones who have vanished without a trace.”

Everyone lowered their utensils and stared at him.

“They’re gone?” Darnell repeated. “All of them?”

“And their families.”

Darnell looked at David, then back at Chris. “Is there any way whoever got to them can link your contacts to you?”

“No, I’m always careful not to leave either a paper or a cyber trail. And all calls go through heavily encrypted lines. They have nothing at all that would give them any indication of my identity.”

“What if your contacts are tortured?” Ami asked softly. “If the people who held me captive are the same ones who took your contacts ... You’ve read the files, Chris. You know what they did to me. They’ll make your friends talk.”

Marcus scooted his chair closer to her and wrapped his arm around her.

Chris looked sick at the idea of his agency friends suffering such a fate. “We didn’t use our real names. And they never initiated communication. I left a prepaid cell phone at a designated drop spot, then called them from another that couldn’t be traced.”

No one spoke for a long moment.

Seth cleared his throat. “This only confirms our suspicions that we are facing a far more sophisticated enemy now than we ever have before, one who can use technology and black-op forces to hunt us down.” He looked at Ami. “To hunt you down. It isn’t safe for you to remain here, sweetheart. I think you and Marcus should leave the country.”