He ended the call. “Krys says Robin has called her at least six times since we left, asking about you. Didn’t ask about me at all.”
It was dark in the car, but Cage could tell Aidan was smiling. So was he. What a sap.
Another ninety minutes or so, and they should be home.
Home was Penton. Home, he realized with some surprise, also was Robin.
“Hey.” Aidan leaned forward. “Slow down. What’s that?”
Cage eased his foot off the accelerator, letting the car coast a few feet before cautiously putting his foot on the brake. He’d been doing so well at driving; he refused to skid out at the sight of a little orange dunce cap or two in the road.
“I don’t like this—there’s no construction visible.” Aidan’s voice was tense. “Floor it. Go as fast as you can and let’s get past it.”
“Right.” Cage pressed his foot on the accelerator and as soon as the car started rolling, he stomped the pedal. The back end of the car skidded a bit, the tires squealed, but by God they were—
A white light flashed from the side of the road. Before Cage could register what it might be, flying blood and glass filled the air around him. The world turned in a rapid roll.
The world fell to black.
CHAPTER 32
Matthias checked his watch for the fourth time in ten minutes. He’d gotten the call at Frank’s safe house at half past 9:00 p.m. and had been sitting on the side of the interstate ever since.
The plan was so simple it was brilliant. A few orange construction cones in the roadway, moved from a site several miles back. Murphy would slow down, Matthias would take aim, and—boom—no more Penton. With Murphy dead, they’d scatter like rats. If Matthias was lucky, he’d be able to take out Cage Reynolds as well.
In fact, he might shoot Reynolds first. Murphy would lose control of the car, and Matthias would be able to make him suffer. Die more slowly. Pay for the humiliation of taking William away from his father. Pay for taking Matthias’s life away from him.
It was off script, but he liked it. The Austrian megalomaniac would never know the difference, and by God, Matthias deserved a reward after what Frank Greisser had put him through.
All he had to do was wait for a dark-blue sedan.
CHAPTER 33
Robin slipped her phone back in her pocket and ran to catch up with Mirren. Damn, but that vampire could cover some ground with those long legs.
“Cage is fine. That was Krys, and they’re on their way back.”
Mirren looked at her and squinted. “So I have to assume Aidan’s fine as well? Or did you ask about him? You didn’t the other five times you called her.”
Robin’s face heated, and she was thankful it was dark so he wouldn’t see her all red and embarrassed. She might have called six times, but who was counting?
“I don’t have to see you blush. I can smell it when the blood gets that close to the surface of your skin.”
“Ewwwww.” Jeez, but vampires were creepy sons of bitches. “Do you want to know what happened, or do you want to keep grossing me out?”
“Talk.”
Monosyllabic ass. They’d been sneaking around Penton for the past four hours on little eagle feet, and Mirren wasn’t the best conversationalist. He sucked at it, in fact. And when he told her she talked “even more than Gloriana but not as interesting,” she’d talked more just to spite him.
Not that it had been completely boring. They’d run across two vampabonds—she liked that word—coming into town. Neither of them put up much of a fuss; once they got a look at the not-so-gentle giant, they moved along quickly enough.
“Wait.”
She stopped and looked around. They were in downtown Penton, or what was left of it, near the Baptist church. Nik had told her that the original entrance to the Omega underground hiding place lay in the floor of the church sanctuary, and that Matthias had thrown a grenade down it.
She hoped she’d get the chance to meet that vampire one day. He was an abuser of the first order, by all accounts, and she hated nothing worse than a bully. They were cowards with big sticks, nothing more.
A flash of white moved behind the church building, and she tapped Mirren’s arm and pointed. He nodded, and they set out toward it. Cage would’ve split the direction with her; Mirren just plowed ahead and expected her to follow. As she trailed the grump, she reflected on the way Cage had treated her the night they caught Shawn. He had trusted her to carry her weight, just as she’d trusted him to follow Shawn while she tended to Nik. Somehow, they’d expanded their repertoire to include respect. Which, in the long run, probably lasted longer than lust. Not that they’d run out of that by any means. The man was still going to feed from her.