Page 46 of Embrace Me Darkly

Doyle’s hand fisted at his side. He wanted to smash Lucius in the face. Wanted to wipe away that smug grin.

Oh, yeah. Doyle wanted to see the bloodsucker burn.

Lucius turned his head, then the beast reached slowly up and pulled off his sunglasses. The familiar amber eyes stared straight at Doyle. Calm eyes. And too damn arrogant.

“You’re going down,” Doyle said, stepping forward to slap the binders on his wrists.

“Right now, perhaps,” Lucius said. “But there’s always a plan B.”

ChapterTwelve

Luke paced the hematite-and-glass cell. Or he tried to pace, but as he could take only five strides before colliding with a wall, he gained little satisfaction from the mindless motion.

He had never intended to end up caged like an animal, and his own miscalculation frustrated him. Tariq’s removal from the active RAC team had been a critical blow, and considering that Luke was now locked in a cell, he took little satisfaction from the fact that Tariq’s debt remained unpaid.

He needed another way out.

The possibility of calling upon his usual connections crossed his mind, but Braddock had been a personal matter, and any assistance he requested would come at a heavy price. Since he had no interest in being beholden to anyone, he preferred to keep that possibility dormant until the need was truly great.

Then again, considering that the prosecution intended to remove him from this plane of existence, perhaps the situation called for desperate measures.

Not that this little detour hadn’t been useful—Luke had at least been able to confirm firsthand that the evidence gathered with regard to the death of Marcus Braddock was sufficient to condemn him. His hope that a percipient demon would be among the first responders had been satisfied, and both the DNA and the ring had played their intended roles. With such indisputable evidence in its pocket, the prosecution would have no need to look for motive. No need to look closer into Braddock’s life and uncover that reprehensible creature’s connection to Tasha.

She was safe.

And soon he would figure a way out of this mess and be gone.

Both thoughts gave him some bit of satisfaction. But the latter also gave him sorrow.

Sara.

From this moment forward, she was out of his life forever. The thought left him feeling cold. Empty.

“Sara,” he murmured, his body tightening from the mere memory of her touch. He’d craved her for so long, but actually being with her had defied all his expectations. And knowing now that they had been together in the past—that she’d felt the same connection to him that he did to her—made the certainty that he would lose her again that much more devastating.

He closed his eyes, letting his body recall the splendor of her touch. They’d made love with a fierceness born of need, a delicious intensity that was somehow both gentle and rough, giving and accepting. And when they collapsed, sated, in each other’s arms, he’d stroked her hair and her dewy skin, relaxing gently against her until they were both calm enough to go again, the next time slow and soft and sensual.

He had gone to her despite the plan he had so intricately worked out, knowing that it was a risk. But how could he have chosen otherwise?

He’d had more than his share of women over the centuries, but she was the first since his wife, now long dead and buried, who had breathed true life into him. He’d wanted to remain by her side. To talk with her, to laugh with her, and not merely to sleep with her. He wanted to watch the stars with her. To take her for long walks on a moonlit beach. To simply be with her.

She’d caught him off guard—both surprising him and fulfilling all his expectations and more. She stilled the writhing of the serpent, making him forget that darkness that was always so dangerously close to the surface.

She was his. He knew it resolutely. Completely. And the knowledge that he would never see her again delivered more punishment than being trapped in this cell ever could.

A high-pitched beep pulled him from his thoughts. That sound was soon followed by the grate of the detention block door opening and the clatter of overlapping footsteps. Luke cocked his head, listening. Three creatures, one surefooted, two oafish, moving in his direction. He returned to his bench, sat, and waited. In a moment, Nicholas Montague’s pretty face appeared beyond the glass wall, flanked on either side by the ogres who guarded the detention block.

Despite his angel face, Nick was both vicious and brilliant. And because of his innocent features, he was a far more effective defense advocate than he would be working with his intellect alone, admirable though it might be. They’d been friends for over five centuries, watched each other’s backs countless times, and owed each other their lives a dozen times over.

It had been Luke who’d introduced Nick to Tiberius, and as the vampiric liaison to the Shadow Alliance, Tiberius had sponsored Nick’s training as an advocate.

As Luke watched, Nick signaled to the ogres, who unenthusiastically began to disengage the series of locks that held the glass door shut. The glass itself was unbreakable and, like an antenna embedded in a car’s back window, was infused with a series of thin hematite filaments. The hematite-reinforced glass coupled with the hematite alloy of the walls meant that escape by transfiguration was impossible. Luke knew; he’d tried. As for breaking the glass, that was impossible, too, as the damned mineral sapped his strength considerably.

Escape by less elegant means, however, remained a possibility, and the ogres knew it. The ogre who was not operating the locks raised his weapon, the stake mounted on the crossbow aimed menacingly in Luke’s direction.

“Hands,” growled the ogre. “Clasp you on head.”

Once Luke had complied, the second ogre released the last lock and pulled the door open. He gestured roughly for Nick to step inside, then shut the door and locked the advocate in.

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