“I’ll be your maid of honor, right?” Glynis asked.
Brynley nodded, still focused on the red handbag. Her portal to freedom.
“Oh, I bought the cutest dress the other day in Billings. It’s teal-green. Is that all right for the wedding?”
“Why don’t you try it on?” Brynley suggested. “I’d love to see it.”
Glynis jumped to her feet. “That’s a great idea! Then you can help me decide which shoes to wear with it.” She dashed into her giant walk-in closet. “I’ll just be a sec!”
“Take your time.” Brynley rushed over to the red handbag and dug through its cavernous interior. No phone? She checked inside pockets, outside pockets. Dammit. She opened the drawers of the bombé chest. Scarves, mittens, hats, berets, gloves.
She ran to the bedside tables and checked the drawers. No phone. There had to be a phone somewhere in this damned house. Her bedroom had a phone. At least it had before she’d run away. It was just down the hall.
She eased open the door, and a guard quickly appeared.
“Can I help you?”
He was a new guard, probably from a pack far away in Idaho. The other two guards stood nearby. Strangers to her, but loyal to her father.
She cleared her throat. “I thought I’d go to my bedroom for a second. My wedding dress is there, and I’d like to see it.”
“We’ll arrange it,” the guard responded. “Anything else?”
Could you arrange to jump off a cliff? “I’m a bit hungry.” Actually, after killing that deer and having wild sex with Phineas, she was starving. She needed to keep her strength up.
“We’ll have a tray brought up for you.”
Before she could say anything else, the guard shut the door in her face.
“What do you think?” Glynis bounced from the closet, wearing a beautiful teal-green dress.
I think I’m screwed. She heaved a big sigh. “It’s lovely.”
With a laugh, Glynis twirled in a circle. “Only three days till your wedding!”
Three days to escape. She wondered again how Phineas was doing. She should have told him she loved him while she had the chance.
The sat phone buzzed again. Phineas groaned inwardly. Freemont had to know something was wrong. He was going to get chewed out for sure if—
Four forms materialized nearby. Zoltan with Roman hitching a ride. Vanda giving Gregori a ride. Of course. Freemont’s choices had been limited to those Vamps who had teleported here before. Zoltan and Vanda. The location of the cabin was embedded in their psychic memory. And they’d brought Roman and Gregori, because most of the MacKay employees were still in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Zoltan and Roman were armed with swords, Gregori with an automatic pistol, and Vanda with a whip.
Roman sheathed his sword. “Jack? Phineas? Are you all right?” He knelt beside Phineas. “Can you talk?”
Phineas blinked.
“We’re not alone.” Zoltan pointed his sword toward the couch. “Let’s get back to Romatech now.”
“Just a minute.” Roman picked a dart off the floor and looked curiously at it. “I think they were drugged.”
“It must be Nightshade,” Gregori said. “I don’t think they can move.”
A groan sounded from the couch, then a sleepy “What the hell?”
“Vanda,” Zoltan whispered. “Go. Take Jack with you.”
She fell to her knees beside Jack, wrapped her arms around him, and vanished.
“Roman, take Phin—” Zoltan stopped.
A huge growl sounded behind Phineas, and he knew Kyle must have shifted.
“Watch out!” Zoltan shouted.
Roman jumped back just as the werewolf leaped, his vicious jaws snapping.
Gunshots fired, and the wolf jolted in midair, then landed with a thud on top of Phineas. He winced inwardly as the two-hundred-pound weight squirmed in death throes on his torso.
Zoltan shoved the wolf off him, and it shimmered, returning to human form.
“Shit,” Gregori said softly, the gun still in his hand. “Is he dead?”
Zoltan felt for a pulse on Kyle’s neck. “He’s gone.”
Gregori grimaced, then muttered another curse.
“You had no choice,” Roman told him. “He was attacking us.”
Gregori holstered his gun. “I thought he was going to bite you. I just meant to stop him. I didn’t mean to . . . Shit!” He paced away.
Phineas blinked slowly. Nate Carson would have a lot to deal with when he woke up. His first night as a vampire. And the news that his brother was dead.
Zoltan straightened and looked around the cabin. “Brynley’s gone. The werewolves must have taken her.”
Phineas managed to make a sound something like a moan.
Zoltan leaned over him. “We’ll get her back.”
Roman knelt beside him. “The drug should wear off during your death-sleep. Tomorrow night, you’ll be as good as new.”
“And tomorrow night, we’ll have a small army,” Gregori added. “Angus ordered everybody to return to New York. They’ll arrive tomorrow.”
Zoltan picked him up. “We’ll find her, Phineas. Mark my word.”
The next night, Phineas awoke in his basement bedroom at Romatech. Alone. It was only last night when he’d kissed Brynley in this bed. Just last night when he’d made love to her by the Cloud Peak Glacier.
Frustration seethed in him that he had spent the rest of the night drugged and entirely helpless, unable to rescue her. He guzzled down two bottles of blood, threw on some clothes, and zoomed upstairs to the MacKay security office.
“Hey, bro!” Freemont grinned at him from behind the desk. “You’re looking a lot better. Last night, you looked kinda stiff.”
“What took you so long to send someone? We could have fried there on the floor if the sun had risen!”
“Dude, it was only fifteen minutes.”
Phineas blinked. “What?”
Freemont snickered.
Damn. “It felt longer than that,” Phineas mumbled. “I was paralyzed, you know. I couldn’t see any clocks.”
Freemont nodded, his eyes twinkling. “You have to admit I did pretty good, huh?”
Phineas shrugged. “Yeah.” So there had been several hours of darkness left, hours that he should have spent rescuing Brynley, but he’d been unable to move.
He turned away, and one of the monitors caught his attention. Nate Carson was sitting up in bed, drinking a bottle of blood. His sire, Zoltan, was standing nearby, talking to him. Nate’s bare chest looked completely healed.
“We have a new Vamp,” Phineas murmured.
“Yeah.” Freemont walked over to stand next to Phineas. “I heard your wolfie-girl is missing. I’m sorry.”
His heart squeezed painfully. “It was my fault.”
“I think it was mine.” Jack walked in, a bottle of blood in his hand. “I should have managed to escape. I felt so damned helpless, lying there on the floor, unable to move and worried that you and Brynley might return at any minute.”
“Well, we have good news from the school.” Freemont gave them an encouraging grin. “Caitlyn had her twins this morning. A boy and a girl. No fur, but healthy lungs.”
“That is good news,” Phineas agreed.
Jack nodded. “I should go pick up Lara.”
“Whoa!” Freemont pointed at a monitor. “Angus and the guys just teleported in.”
They stepped into the hall as Angus and ten of his employees entered the side entrance. Angus lifted a hand in greeting. “Phineas, Jack, how are you? I heard ye were drugged last night.”
“We’re fine, sir,” Jack said. “Did you hear the good news? Caitlyn had the twins, both healthy.”
Emma clasped her hands together, grinning. “That’s fabulous! Oh, I’d love to see the babies.”
Angus chuckled. “Go ahead and go. I’ll take care of things here.”
She kissed his cheek, then teleported away.
Angus motioned toward the conference room. “Let’s get started. I want to hear everything that’s happened.”
Everyone filed into the room and took a seat around the conference table.
Phineas was too anxious to sit, so he paced toward Angus at the head of the table. “We need to rescue Brynley. She’s been taken to her father’s house, and they’ll force her to marry—”
“Lad.” Angus stood and rested a hand on his shoulder. “The sun is still up in Wyoming. We have two hours before we can teleport there.”
Phineas took a deep breath. “You’re right.” He should have known that. He wasn’t thinking properly.
“Doona fash,” Ian told him. “We’ll get her back.”
“Who took her?” Phil demanded.
“A nasty werewolf named Rhett Bleddyn,” Jack said.
Howard Barr stiffened. A low growl vibrated in his chest.
Rajiv, who was sitting next to him, gave him a worried look. “You all right, Pooh Bear? We could go to cafeteria and get you donuts.”
“I’m not hungry,” Howard gritted out.
Howard not hungry? Phineas turned to look at him and noticed everyone else was staring, too.
“Do you know Rhett Bleddyn?” Austin asked.
Howard shimmered for a second, then resumed his usual large human form.
Rajiv moved back. Phineas could never recall a time when Howard had struggled to control the Kodiak bear within him.
“If we go to battle with him,” Howard growled, “then I will be the one to kill him.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“Would ye care to elaborate, Howard?” Angus asked.
“No.”
Everyone exchanged glances. As far as Phineas knew, Howard had grown up in Alaska, and since Bleddyn was also from Alaska, there was obviously something that connected the two shifters. Something bad.
Phineas took a seat at the table. “Bleddyn is allied with Corky. She’s the one who drugged Jack and me.”
Angus motioned to Jack. “Tell us what happened.”
“I was at the cabin when an SUV pulled up,” Jack began. “Tinted windows. I could only see the front seat. Bleddyn and Kyle got out and asked to see Brynley. I said she wasn’t there and they should leave. That’s when I heard shots. I whirled around and spotted Corky and Dimitri just as the darts hit. They must have been in the back of the SUV, and they teleported behind me to attack.”
“They shot you with Nightshade?” Mikhail asked.
“Yes. I fell down, and they dragged me into the cabin.” Jack made a face. “I couldn’t warn Phineas to stay away.”
“At least we now have proof that Corky is there,” J. L. Wang said.
“She claims to have a lot more Nightshade,” Phineas said. “We’ll have to careful capturing her.”
Angus nodded. “And you believe she’s hiding at Bleddyn’s ranch?”
“Yes,” Phineas replied. “She and Dimitri. After she shot me, they teleported Brynley and Bleddyn to her father’s ranch. Bleddyn left Kyle behind—”