He didn’t know if she felt the same.
He put the turmoil of thoughts aside as he helped her into her coat. She picked up a black clutch with a glittering rhinestone clasp and tucked it under her arm. She withdrew a pair of leather gloves from her pockets and slipped them on.
He had left his coat with Darcy, but she was waiting for him with it and his gloves in the foyer as they entered it. He dressed for the outdoors and they left the penthouse apartment. He guided her to the elevator with a hand to her back. He was tempted to slip his hand beneath the relatively short hem of the coat as it only went to her hips, but he thought it best to behave himself for the time being. There would be time for touching her later. All he had to do was get the urge to do so under control.
No small feat that.
They went directly onto the street this time, passing through the guarded lobby. Their shadows were waiting for them there, the two men quickly falling into step at a discrete distance behind them. Their objective was to blend into the background enough to be unobtrusive, but close enough to guard. It didn’t matter. Marcus was aware of them regardless. So he behaved himself for the most part. There might be rumors about their relationship circling already, but he would rather not verify those rumors until they both felt comfortable doing so.
They began to walk to the corner of the block. Their destination was only two blocks away and she had insisted on walking and taking in fresh air. It was bitterly cold air. He would prefer her to be warm and not so much out in the open, but he could appreciate her desire for the outdoors. They could feel a little cooped up, restricting themselves to the inside of vampire central day in and day out. Yes it provided everything they could need or desire physically and materialistically, but it didn’t provide everything required for the thriving of the soul.
The restaurant they were heading to was at the top of a skyscraper. Like vampire central the building housed both businesses and residences. There was no penthouse, only a thriving and very expensive fine dining restaurant. They were immediately escorted to their table only to find their guests had not arrived yet. The couple lived in that same building, so they were surprised they were late. Her surprise was perhaps more than his because she had never once before arrived without receiving a grin and a gregarious handshake from her waiting friend. He was always, always there before her. In the four years of their relationship he had never made her wait for him. His wife as well.
“Something isn’t quite right,” she said as Marcus pulled out her chair. “This isn’t like them at all.”
“Call them. Perhaps they’ve forgotten the day,” he suggested.
She pulled out her phone, frowning as she searched her contacts for her friends’ number. She found it and put the phone to her ear.
It was clear after a minute there was no answer. She hung up on his voicemail, which Marcus could hear pick up even from where he was sitting. He watched as she searched her contacts again, saying, “Let me try Angela.”
The phone rang until voicemail picked up again.
“Do you want to go to find them?”
She nodded and put her phone back into her clutch. She stood just as the waiter came to the table.
“Good evening,” he said with a smile.
“Good evening. We’re going to find our friends. Please serve the ’68 merlot. We’ll be back to drink it momentarily,” she said, effectively holding their table for them.
“Of course madam,” the waiter said, his voice heavily accented. “But for such an expensive bottle of wine I must insist you pay for it first.”
“Of course,” she returned. She impatiently went for her wallet, fumbling at her clutch. Marcus reached out and covered her hands with his, stopping her. Calming her.
“Let me,” he said, removing his wallet from his back pocket and withdrawing his bank card. He handed it to the waiter. They waited impatiently as the man went to run the card and returned to them, handing Marcus his card back.
Once the bill was settled he guided her out of the restaurant and back into the elevators. Then he waited for her to press the button for the floor she wanted. The elevator doors closed and she nervously tapped her foot as they waited for the car to move in total silence. He watched her carefully. He had never seen her so agitated. She seemed very concerned for the well-being of her friends. And it was clear they were indeed very great friends. They were more than just a meal to Simone.
They reached the necessary floor and Simone was out of the elevator and hurrying ahead of him. He immediately felt a twinge of concern. They had left their backup guard behind. They, not knowing where they were headed, had been left at their table in the restaurant with a dismissive gesture from their queen as they had passed. Marcus hurried to catch up with her as she came around a bend in the hall. She approached a door as another couple walked past her in the corridor. She knocked briskly and Marcus kept a stern eye on both the door and the slow-moving couple. That was when he realized the slow-moving people were vampires. The odds of running into other vampires at that moment on that floor of a human building were astronomical. The door to the apartment suddenly opened, before he had a chance to react to this understanding, and the world went to hell.
The person inside of the apartment pounced on the queen, grabbing her by her arm and yanking her inside the apartment and out of Marcus’s immediate reach as the door was slammed shut in his face and the couple he’d been eyeing turned suddenly and barreled into him. He reacted instinctively, even as his mind was gripped by the sudden terror of knowing she was in trouble and she was out of his sight.
The male half of the couple was big and very strong. Marcus cursed himself as he round-housed the male, putting all of his power into the strike of his fist into his face. He didn’t want to trade blows. He wanted to put down the two hostile vampires as quickly as possible and get to the queen.
His punch knocked the male back into the opposite wall, sending him staggering. The female jumped onto Marcus’s back, her nails bared and digging into the cheeks of his face, raking at them. It was painful and he roared out in fury. Then he reached up over his shoulder, grabbed her by the roots of her hair, and dragged her violently over his shoulder, sending her back smacking into the ground so hard she grunted and coughed out the breath in her body. Wasting time with her allowed the male time to recover himself, so before Marcus could grab for the door Simone had disappeared behind, the male was on him with a fury. He pummeled Marcus with hammering fists, driving the authoritarian back, making him stumble and nearly fall before catching himself. The last thing he wanted was to be on the ground and fighting the two of them.
He didn’t spend time wondering what had caused two lawful vampires to change allegiances…or what their motives were. He only had one concern. One goal. Get to Simone. Whatever the cost to himself, he must get to her and aid her.
To that end, Marcus went for the dagger he kept concealed him his boot. He never left home without being armed with at least two weapons. The dagger was the first. He waited for the male to pounce on him with expected victory, and then plunged the dagger violently upward beneath his ribs. The movement was so quick, from drawing the weapon to using it, that the female of the two hadn’t even seen it. Not until Marcus shoved the male away and yanked the dagger free, flinging blood against her face with the whipping movement. Then he was flipping the dagger’s grip in his hand and with all of his power he plunged it into the man's chest and into his heart.
The female cried out shrilly, her obvious distress at the male’s catastrophic injury, telling Marcus she was emotionally attached to him. Fine. As she went to grab hold of him to help him to the ground, Marcus withdrew his blade from the male’s chest and grabbed the female by her hair, yanking her away from the male and forcing her to her knees facing away from him. He wasted no time before plunging the dagger into the base of her neck, leaving her to fall lifelessly to the floor of the hallway. Her body would dissolve within moments, erasing all trace of her existence, cl
othing and all as long as it was on her body at the moment of desiccation. Even the blood he had flung against the wall would disappear along with its owner the moment it was left free of the live body it was belonging to. They never left DNA behind or even the oils from a fingerprint. It all disappeared…which was good considering they were aliens. This could be discovered if their genome was examined too closely.
Marcus then turned back to the male. Even though he was slumped against the wall with what appeared to be a mortal blow to his body, the vampire could and would heal from anything except the severing of the nerve bundle at the base of the neck. The same nerve bundle they used to nourish and feed themselves from in humans and in each other. Marcus grabbed the incapacitated male by his longish brown locks and yanked his head forward. The male put up a last gurgling fight to prevent the inevitable, but Marcus was easily able to act in spite of it. He plunged the dagger into the back of the neck, finding the sweet spot into the medulla oblongata with practiced ease. He had killed many a sycophant in this manner, however, he could until now count on a single hand how many vampires he had killed…excluding of course those reached by committee justice. Each of those deaths, like these, had been acts of self defense against vampires who had clearly turned their back on the law. They had been pathetic and pitiful and traitorous and not worthy of the sensation of guilt that inevitably followed after he took a vampire life.
Marcus shook it off. He also didn’t spend a single moment catching his breath. He kicked at the door leading into the apartment. Once. Twice. The third time it came open with a crash and splintering of wood. He held his bloodied dagger at the ready. Right then all he was worried about was the queen. And, he realized, not just because she was queen. It was the woman who had gotten under his skin that motivated him even more intensely than his duty to his queen. It was a dangerous sensation. It meant his emotions were involved…and he couldn’t afford that. Emotions made him vulnerable. Made him impatient.
Made him weak.
Chapter Sixteen
Wait. No. That wasn't true. As he tore into the apartment he knew he had never felt stronger or more determined in his life. He could face anything…even if it meant sacrificing his own life for hers. That kind of devotion was powerful. It was unimpeachable and intense.
The apartment was pitch black except for the light now pouring in from the open front door. The condo was spacious, providing valuable Manhattan acreage, although it was nowhere near as large as Simone’s…or even his…apartment. He sensed everything in the front rooms immediately. He didn’t understand what they hoped to gain by locking themselves into an apartment with the queen with no means of escape…unless they had no intention of leaving with her alive.
His first opposition flew out of the darkness of the living room in the form of two sycophants. He could sense the poison on them; smell the befouling of their systems. They were high right that very moment, high on the poisonous ways they fed themselves. However, he didn’t fool himself into thinking that would somehow make them less able in their attacks. He was outnumbered and they were strong and fresh while he was coming off a previous fight. He wasn’t injured, thank god, but he wasn't fresh either.
Marcus met with the first sycophant with a loud crack of bone and muscle impacting. He grabbed the sycophant by the hair and wrenched him down and off of contact with him even as the other jumped on his back. With his neck exposed he had no choice but to grapple with the sycophant on his back, letting the other loose. He grabbed the sycophant by his collar and with a great heave threw him over his shoulder and into the other sycophant, killing two birds with one stone. Before they could regroup and pick themselves up off the floor, Marcus sheathed his weapon in his right boot and withdrew a second weapon from his left.
This weapon was far more deadly and far more modern than a dagger. It was a small .25 caliber pistol, powerful enough to get the job done and small enough to remain hidden from immediate view. He jumped on the back of the nearest sycophant, pressed the muzzle of the gun to the back of his neck and fired. Just like that he fell lifeless to the ground beneath him.
Realizing they were now one on one, the other sycophant panicked and bolted from the room. Marcus had no choice but to follow him, even if that meant running into danger. The other danger was the sound of gunshot. It was bound to attract attention. The trick was in rescuing the queen and making certain no one saw them leaving the place where the gunshots would be reported.
But first things first.
He cautiously made his way after the sycophant, easing down the hallway, off of which were several bedrooms. His enhanced sight allowed him to sense body heat, but only one room at a time…the closest room. He made it past a bedroom and a bathroom before he picked up an individual body heat signature in the next room. The owner of the heated body was hiding behind the bed, making Marcus roll his eyes. What was he trying to accomplish? They both knew he could see him…just as he could see Marcus. It did place Marcus at a disadvantage, however. It put the bed between them, providing the sycophant with decent cover. It also provided him with a dilemma. If he entered the room he could potentially be cutting off his route of escape by letting others have the opportunity to come in behind him, yet he couldn’t progress down the hall in search of the queen and thus putting this man at his back. It would be doing the same thing.
His only choice was to methodically remove every enemy in his path as he encountered them. He could only hope that he wouldn’t be drastically outnumbered. His other hope was that they weren't simply trying to distract him so they would have the opportunity to make it past him with Simone.
That was when he heard a loud crash from the room down at the end of the hall. Then another. A shout of, “Hold her still!” Marcus grinned. Simone wasn't waiting around like some wilting princess in need of a rescue, she was fighting every step of the way. He felt sorry for her attackers. Simone was an expert in dozens of fighting techniques. She had mastered many in her years on the planet, not to mention what she had learned before embarking on the journey that had led them to Earth in the first place. She had been a warrior long before she had been a queen. She had once held Marcus’s job. She was no slouch when it came to taking care of business.
Satisfied that they weren't going to make it past him any time soon, Marcus entered the room and launched himself over the bed. He skidded over the bedding and tackled the sycophant. Ringing and arm around his neck, he immediately pinned the bastard down face first onto the floor. He held his head down with his palm gripping the back of his head, all of his weight pressing down as he straddled his back.
“You’re dead my friend,” he muttered as he brought his gun to the back of his neck.
“Yeah but I’m taking you with me you fucking idiot!”
That was when a telltale whine began to fill the room. The whine, he realized, was coming from beneath the sycophant.
“Shit!” Marcus yelped as he launched himself off of the sycophant just as the explosive device went off. The sycophant suddenly became shrapnel, not to mention what was included in the bomb itself. Marcus was thrown back over then bed. When he landed on the other side his ears were ringing and his whole body was in agony. The percussive force of the explosion had bruised him from head to toe. If he had not been halfway over the bed when it had gone off, he would likely be in pieces like the sycophant was.
Self-sacrifice wasn't usually the sycophant way. It was a testament to the blind devotion these sick people were giving to Draz. It gave Marcus a mental chill even as he groaned and rolled onto his back on the floor near the doorway to the bedroom. He was barely aware of his surroundings as his head continued to ring. His body hurt. He felt several penetrating wounds along the insides of his thighs, his left side and even that side of his face. He reached up to his cheek, the world sounding muffled around him, and pulled something sharp out of his skin with a wince. He looked at it and realized it was a piece of bone.
Suddenly the vision of a beautifully familiar f
ace filled his line of sight. Simone, her red hair in a tumultuous cloud around her shoulders, was leaning over him and saying something.
“What?” he asked loudly.
“We had better get out of here,” she repeated.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Let’s go,” she said, ignoring the query. She wedged herself under his arm and stood them up straight with a surge of lithe muscle. He leaned on her, he had no choice but to lean on her as he was incapable of walking upright on his own, and they quickly exited the apartment. A crowd of people had gathered outside of the front door and when they saw he was injured they immediately moved to help him. This was the worst-case scenario. He couldn’t be trapped where human doctors would be watching him as he healed at a phenomenal rate. It was ingrained in them that the less exposure to the medical community the better.
“I’m taking him to the lobby,” Simone said to the crowd in general. “Someone call 911.”
“We already did. You shouldn’t move him!”
“What if there’s another bomb?” Simone asked, cleverly playing on their fears. The hallway cleared out in a hot minute and Simone found the nearest stairs. It was going to be a bitch walking down twenty flights of stairs, but they couldn’t afford to go down in an elevator with him looking like he did.
But the time they reached the lobby level he was in agony, and he was working under his own steam. He burst out of the door and stumbled toward the front entrance where there was a sea of others exiting the building in a controlled panic. New Yorkers plus high rises plus bombs did not equal good things and they knew to get away as quickly as possible.