Page 11 of Sylas's Captivating Mate

Alaric let out a short growl. “I hadn’t thought of that. Either someone has hacked the communications network for the kiss or there’s a mole.”

“Neither is good,” Sylas said.

“Not even a little bit,” Alaric said. “Shit. Okay, I’m going to reach out to the security team and Caleb. We need to get to the bottom of this immediately before someone else is hurt.”

“Let me know if I can help.”

“Enjoy your mating, I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

The call ended and Sylas glanced at the time. It was nearly dinnertime, and he was actually starving. He’d missed breakfast and lunch thanks to his sexy truemate and the sweet way she cried his name in the throes of pleasure.

He strode back into the bedroom when he heard Georgia call his name.

“Do vampires say good morning when it’s evening because you just woke up?” he asked, sitting next to her and leaning over for a kiss.

“We say whatever time of day it is,” she said. She cupped his face and gave him a second kiss.

“Well, good evening, sweetness. Did you sleep well?”

“I was well and truly worn out by my sexy truemate. You?”

“Same.”

She smiled, her eyes sparkling. “I overheard you speaking to Alaric.”

He told her what he’d learned. Her brow furrowed. When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “What’s on your mind?”

She pursed her lips and then said, “Someone’s clearly trying to take over the kiss.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, first the car bombs at the hotel in which there were no casualties. Then someone messed with the electricity at both the hotel and the club.”

“Right.”

“And then, someone brought in toxic plants to the club, which, if they hadn’t been taken out by Dredge, from what I heard it would have eventually leeched into the entire club and down into the apartments through the ventilation system.”

He stared at her. “Go on.”

She sat up and tucked the blankets under her armpits. “Okay, so if you were going to take over a kiss, you have to go after the master. Whoever started with the car bombs must have thought that Caleb was in the hotel. He does have the penthouse apartment there. They may have expected him to be evacuated quickly and outside when the bombs went off.”

“What about the electricity?”

She stared at him for a moment, then said, “They clearly knew about the protection spells that Dredge set up, which means that they were trying once more to get people outside. Not just at the hotel, but also the club. If someone was watching the hotel, they would have known that Caleb wasn’t there and switched their attention to the club.”

Something clicked in his head. “So Caleb really is the target.”

“Right. And attacking his people, including me, while we’re out—I don’t think someone was going to kill me, or Isla and Richard, I think we were meant to be taken captive and held for ransom.”

“Why didn’t someone take you yesterday? You were alone in your car for a half hour while I drove to you.”

“I think they wanted to wait until sunrise, so I’d be weak. Sunlight doesn’t kill vampires immediately, it weakens us. They could have broken into the car after the sun came up and I would have been helpless to fight back.”

“So in your case, they were using people who were humans to be out during the daytime. It must be someone from Caleb’s past,” Sylas said.

Georgia hummed. “So he killed the original master of the city of Belle Terra and took over three years ago. But he wasn’t turned by that master, he was turned by a female from the kiss named Felicia, who turned him against his will. His dad hated vampires so much that he went after Felicia and killed her, and then members of the kiss killed him and his wife, so Caleb and Aubrey lost both their parents. Caleb killed the kiss members who killed his parents once he took over the kiss.

“I wasn’t here when it happened, I joined after Caleb took over. But I do remember… holy crap. Where’s my phone?”

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