Page 101 of Warrior's Cross

“Yeah?” Lancaster asked tauntingly. “Mine too,” he responded coldly as the smile on his face dropped suddenly. He stood and began pacing back and forth slowly. “You even know his real name?” he challenged. “Where he’s really from? Hmm?”

Blake swallowed with difficulty and glanced at Cameron, and then he lowered his eyes instead of answering. Finally, he just shook his head.

“Yeah,” Lancaster agreed. “No one does, Nichols. No one but Preston. And no one else will,” he claimed simply. “When I met him, he was living in London, and he was speaking German with a perfect accent,” he told them in amusement. “Finally, he came out with this random Irish one day and told me he was tired. The only person he’ll ever really give a damn about is Preston. Remember that.”

He stopped suddenly and cocked his head at Cameron, then lurched out of his chair and took an alarmingly quick couple of steps and bent closer, grabbing at the necklace around Cameron’s neck.

Cameron’s eyes widened in fear as he felt the yank on the chain around his neck. “No. Don’t...”

Lancaster looked up at him as he held the trinket in the palm of his hand, his dark eyes masked by the low light. He gave the chain a yank and snapped the clasp.

“Damn it!” Cameron hissed as the chain cut into his neck painfully, and then the comforting weight of the pendant was gone and in Lancaster’s hand. Cameron stared at it. He’d not taken it off, not once. Ever. Even after he’d pushed Julian away. Even after he’d watched them bury him.

Lancaster straightened and took a few steps away, closer to the light, as he looked at the pendant. He looked up at him again, anger flaring in his eyes as he clenched it in his fist. “Do you have any idea what this is?” he asked with a snarl.

Cameron flinched and stared at Lancaster’s hand. His eyes darted up to face the anger in the other man’s eyes. He didn’t understand it, but it frightened him more than any emotion Julian had ever displayed.

“Julian gave it to me,” he answered in a whisper.

“No shit,” Lancaster snapped as he took the pendant and held his hand up as if he wanted to throw it out the door into the empty warehouse. The emotions warred briefly on his face, but in the end he couldn’t do it like he so obviously wanted to. Instead, he looked back down at it and then tossed it into Cameron’s lap disgustedly as he turned away.

Letting out a shaky breath, Cameron looked down at the necklace that lay draped precariously over his thigh. Without thinking he strained to reach it with one hand, but there was no way to touch it. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down.

“What the hell did Jules see in someone like you?” Lancaster wondered quietly to himself as he walked away, looking out at the quiet warehouse with a shake of his head.

Cameron pulled up his head to watch the other man, who had no way of knowing Cameron still asked himself the same question, even now after Julian had been gone for so long.

“What is it?” he asked thickly, looking back down at the necklace.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, not from Lancaster. But to this point he’d thought it meant something only to Julian.

Lancaster turned slightly and looked back at him with obvious contempt. He looked away again, as if answering the question while looking at Cameron was just too much for him. “The stone is to be given from one warrior to another,” he answered bitterly. “It’s called a warrior’s cross. Symbolizes the fucking bond between us, and the cross we all have to bear for being what we are.”

Cameron’s brow wrinkled. He wasn’t a warrior. Not even close.

“He said it was worn for protection,” he objected.

“Yeah?” Lancaster asked through gritted teeth. “That’s what I told him when I gave it to him.”

Cameron’s head snapped up and he stared at Lancaster in disbelief.

Lancaster stood with his back to Cameron, staring out over the darkened warehouse.

“Now I won’t feel too guilty killing the bastard,” he murmured.

Cameron knew he was trembling just as much from fear as from the cold. He swallowed thickly, tasting blood, and he glanced at Blake fearfully. Blake was watching him, and when Cameron met his eyes, Blake merely shook his head dejectedly. They were bait, pure and simple. Bait for a fish that had already been caught.

“I found Smith and Wesson,” Blake finally murmured to Cameron with a nod of his head to the corner of the office.

Cameron’s eyes trailed to the corner to see a large cage, filled and covered with blankets to protect it from the cold of the warehouse.

Through a part in two of the blankets, Cameron could clearly see long, orange fur. As if on cue, a low, throaty meow emitted from the cage, followed by another.

“He may not come for you two,” Lancaster told them grimly as he stood in the doorway with his back to them. “But he won’t leave those beasts behind,” he wagered with confidence.

“How did you find them? Where were they?” Cameron blurted.

“Preston had them,” Lancaster answered after a moment of thought. “He was easier to find than Julian,” he explained.

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