Page 111 of Fanged Embrace
River
Breaking into Exercitus Biomedical was a whole lot easier than I expected with Dylan around. Under the cloak of her shadows we were able to scale the glass walls of the building without detection, slipping in through an open window four stories up.
With a team of seven vampires crowding the stairwell it was a little hard to be stealthy, but we managed, though there didn’t seem to be a soul about to spot us anyway. My heart hammered double-time as we made for the elevator and I kept a wary eye out for guards patrolling the premises, but we made it to the eighth floor without trouble—to the research labs, if the plaque on the wall could be trusted.
Dylan’s shadows peeled back and we crept down the corridor. Hunter and Maxine led the way, Jordan and Sky brought up the rear. Dylan and Amara hovered beside me in the middle, tense expressions on their faces. Leah and Addison had hung back at Leyore headquarters to tend to any wounded who turned up after the attack on the facilities.
After passing cluttered storage rooms and empty officespaces, we eventually reached a steel door that looked promising. Once again, Dylan’s spooky shadow tactics pulled through. She looked around the sparse corridor for a shadow to sink into, chose Hunter’s (much to the other vamp’s chagrin), then she disappeared from view and a moment later the door slid open—with Dylan grinning at us from the other side.
“Are you sure she’s in here?” Maxine whispered as we quietly filed through the doorway.
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure at all. This building was huge, and if Laurie was here, they could be holding her captive behind any one of the hundred doors on this floor alone. But the labs seemed like a good enough place to start looking.
Maxine must have clocked my hesitation because she hiked up a brow and opened her mouth to call me out on it—and then promptly shut it again when the motion-capture lights flickered to life overhead, bathing the space in an ominous green glow.
The massive room we stood in fit perfectly in the realm of science fiction, packed floor to ceiling with strange cylindrical tanks and whirring machinery. Thick cables snaked across the floor, sparking occasionally and sending small zips of electricity skittering across the concrete.
“Creepy,” was the apt description Jordan supplied, muttered under her breath as we stealthily made our way through the sprawling laboratory.
“Something of an understatement,” Sky deadpanned, looking at a shelf packed with strange contraptions—surgical scissors, twisted drill bits, and wicked-looking bone saws. Her nose wrinkled when we passed a jar with what looked like an eyeball floating inside. “There’s cartoonish levels of villainy going on in here.”
Jordan was halfway through mumbling a response when the sound of another door clattering open reverberated from further down the luminous walkway. We froze in unison,deathly still and listening intently as the sound of a violent scuffle floated toward us.
Dylan whipped her head my way. “Is that?—?”
“It’s her.” I was already moving, because a familiar sensation had crept over me, a familiar aura melding with my own. I could sense Laurie’s fear.
Her spiking emotions guided me like a moth to a flame. It sent adrenaline zipping through my body and spurned me into rapid motion, sent me running toward that sound with reckless abandon despite Hunter’s hissed warning to hang back.
I turned a corner, careering past empty holding cells and metal lockers, and came to a screeching halt under flickering neon lights. Before me I saw two guards, both of them grappling with a familiar, slim figure that hissed and spat like a wet cat in their grasp. Both guards glanced back at my sudden arrival, and when Laurie paused her struggling to follow their gaze her eyes widened to saucers—blown-out pupils reflecting bright neon green.
“Hi. I have a bone to pick with you.” I offered her a wave and a warning, and wasted no more time with small talk. Before the guards could react I was striding forward, hooking an arm under the first guy’s bicep and yanking him into a vicious headbutt that had him dropping like a stone at my feet.
“Hey—” The second guy shoved Laurie to the ground and barreled toward me. He barely had time to draw his weapon, a familiar silvery gun secured at his waistline, before I was batting his arm away, rocketing the heel of my palm forward to crush his nose.
He howled, stumbling backward and clutching at the crumpled cartilage. Blood poured between his fingers and I used the distraction to land a kick to his ribs. He went down and I followed, one fist swinging in a wide arc across his jaw, hard enough to knock him out cold.
I shook out my hand and then lifted it to point acondemning finger at Laurie as she scrambled to her feet. “You.” I was breathing heavily, simply finding her alive enough to weaken my knees. “You promised you weren’t going to do anything reckless!”
She stared back at me, stunned into silence, features rendered stricken and harsh under the neon glow. I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and carry her home immediately, but first I had a point to make. My fingers itched to reach for her so I folded my arms, slapping on the best stony expression I could manage when the mere sight of her had me aching to crack a smile.
“River…” Laurie reached out a hand, hesitant, like she couldn’t quite believe I was there. She approached like I was a ghost, an apparition of her imagination that would vanish if she touched me. “You… you came for me?” She dropped her hand and halted her steps. “Why?”
Why?Seriously?Was it not fucking obvious at this point, or did she really think I orchestrated an entire attack on the organizationandan infiltration mission purely because I felt like causing a little chaos.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe you!” I stormed over to her, gripped her by the collar and yanked her into my arms before she could ask any more ridiculous questions. “Of course I came for you, you absolute idiot.” I pressed rapid-fire smooches into her hair, her cheek, the tip of her nose. “I’m so mad at you—do you have any idea howfuriousI am right now?”
Laurie’s indignant reply was muffled under my sudden outpouring of affection. “If you’re so mad, why are you kissing me?”
“That’s irrelevant.” I refused to relent, crushing her to my chest while I peppered a flurry of kisses over her forehead. I thought I’d never get to do it again and I wanted to cash in as many as I could before the moment was over.
Behind us, the others rushed up to assess the scene.Hunter’s brows rose to her hairline and Sky cocked her head to the side. “Oh my. Should we give you guys a moment or…?”
“You brought everyone?!” Laurie squirmed in my grasp, peering over my shoulder at our audience. They all looked thoroughly confused, except for Dylan, the only one of the bunch who had any idea just how deep my relationship with our ‘eyewitness’ ran.
Jordan eyed me with a wry smirk, but she directed her words at Laurie. “Well, it all makes sense now. River’s been driving herself crazy since you disappeared—I thought she was just put out about misplacing her houseguest.”
“I knew something was going on between you two!” Maxine butted in, and she swiveled a manicured finger between both of us. “Leah and I took bets on it.”
