She started toward the bedroom, and that fast, his lustveered to panic.
Leaping in front of her, he slammed the door to thebedroom closed. At her blink of surprise, he growled, “That room is off-limits.”
She sniffed. “I’m happier about that than you canimagine.” Her expression shuttered, she crossed herarms over her chest, closing herself off to him. Whythat irritated him, he had no idea. “Why are we here,anyway?”
Cursing, he swiped his cell phone off the desk.
“You’re going to call your company, and you’re going toarrange an exchange. Neriya for you.”
“Gladly.” She snatched the phone, and he wondered if she suspected at all that he was lying.
Chapter 15
Nicole dialed Chuck’s number with trembling fingers. Her brother would get her out of this mess, and if she could just explain to the board why she’d missed the meeting—
“Charles Martin speaking.”
“Chuck!” Nicole turned away from Riker, who was watching her like an eagle. Such an apt comparison, given that both were striking. Formidable. And deadly. “Oh, my God, it’s good to hear your voice.”
“Nicole?” There was a crash and a curse on the other end of the line, probably Chuck jumping up from his desk chair and knocking crap over. “Shit, Nicole, is that really you? Where are you? Are you okay? Roland’s dead, but there was no sign of you. Where are you?” he repeated, clearly rattled.
She took a deep, bracing breath. Hearing his voice was a soothing balm to her seriously frayed nerves.
“I’m fine. I’m being held—”
Riker snared her arm in a vicious hold and shook his head, a warning to not reveal anything that might hint of her location. She jerked away from him. She didn’t know where she was, anyway.
“I’m being held by vampires.”
“You’re what?” Chuck roared. “Where?”
She slid a covert glance at Riker. “I can’t tell you that.” She was so lost in these woods that she’d never in a million years be able to find her way back to the clan stronghold. “I need you to arrange to have a female vampire named Neriya set free. She was taken from the forest outside Seattle two weeks ago by bounty hunters.”
“You know it’s illegal for individuals or companies to capture wild vampires.” Chuck’s voice had gone flat.
Lifeless. Guilty as hell.
Chuck was well aware that Daedalus had gone outside the law to acquire vampires. Doing so would be faster and cheaper, and it would bypass regulations regarding the number of vampires allowed in specific spaces—not to mention directives regarding their treatment.
“Yes,” she said sickly, disappointment in her brother putting a cold knot in her belly, “I do. But apparently, Daedalus doesn’t.”
She could practically feel the anger steaming off Chuck. “How do you know we have her?”
“Because one of the vampires who was with her heard a hunter say he had a buyer from Daedalus lined up. So she’s got to be at one of our facilities.”
“Please,” he scoffed. “You believe a fucking scumbag vampire? You’re smarter than that.”
Beside her, Riker stiffened. And, she realized, she’d done the same thing. “I have my reasons for believing this, so please, just check on it for me.”
He uttered a nasty curse under his breath. “Hold on.”
She waited, listening to Chuck type furiously on his computer’s keyboard.
“Got it,” he said. “Feral number eight-two-six was sent to the South Seattle B-lab.”
She frowned. Besides the main corporate offices in downtown Seattle, there were nearly a dozen Daedalus holdings around the city, from laboratories and trainingcenters to manufacturing pl ants and vampire-holding kennels, but she didn’t know about a lab on the south side. “B-lab? What is that?”
There was a long pause, and the longer she waited, the more her stomach churned. And the more agitated Riker became. She heard the clink of ice in a glass and then the pour of liquid.
“Nicole, you haven’t been back for long—”
“What. Is. It?”
Chuck’s voice went low. Almost to a whisper. “It’s a research facility. Top secret. Only a handful of people know about it.”
“And why is that?” When he paused again, she repeated the question, sharper this time.
“Come on, Nikki. You know how those vampire-rights freaks get. We don’t need them up our asses because we aren’t giving those poor, helpless vampires cable TV in their cages or some shit.”
She couldn’t believe what Chuck was saying.
“Bullshit. It’s because we’re running the facility outside the confines of the law, isn’t it?” She cursed at his lack of response. Which, really, was an answer. “Why wasn’t I told about it?”