Immortal Unchained(52)

"I knew that my uncle had the Rogue Hunters looking into it from a phone conversation I had with Drina, and-"

"Who's Drina?" Sarita asked sharply, surprised at the different emotions whipping through her at the mention of another woman. Possessiveness, worry, and even jealousy were suddenly tugging at her emotions, which was kind of unexpected for Sarita since she wasn't clear on her own feelings for the man.

"My sister," he explained gently. "She is a Rogue Hunter in Canada. She used to live and work in Spain where my family lives, but found her life mate recently. Since he lived in Canada, and Uncle needed more Rogue Hunters there, she moved to be with her mate."

"You have family?" she asked, unable to hide her surprise.

Domitian arched his eyebrows. "You thought I had been hatched?"

"No, of course not. I just-" Shaking her head at her own stupidity, Sarita said, "Dr. Dressler mentioned that your kind were like us, with families and everything, but I guess I just-I mean Dracula didn't have family, you know? I guess I just keep mixing you up with him." Seeing from his expression that she'd managed to insult him, she quickly said, "I'll try not to do that. So what are Rogue Hunters?"




 

 

Domitian stared at her narrow-eyed for a moment, but then slowly relaxed and explained, "Basically, they are the police for immortals. They hunt rogue immortals, those who are breaking our laws and feeding on or harming mortals, or turning them in numbers, and so on."

Her eyebrows rose. "You have your own police force?"

"Well, mortal police could not manage our kind what with our ability to read and control minds," he pointed out gently.

"Right. Dr. Dressler mentioned that you guys were able to do that," she said with a frown. Tilting her head, she added, "But he said you couldn't read or control me?"

"No. It is how I knew you were my life mate," he said solemnly.

Unwilling to talk about that, Sarita lowered her eyes and tried to think of something to say that would steer the topic away from this life mate business. She wasn't sure how she felt about the man sitting across from her. He was sexy as hell, and she'd never had sex like they shared, but really he was still a stranger to her . . . and he was different. Not mortal.

Sarita was no longer horrified by the fact that he was a vampire. Or perhaps it was closer to the truth to say she'd stopped worrying about that for now. However, while she needed to work with him to get off this island, Sarita wasn't sure she would be able to accept what he was once that was done. She certainly wasn't ready to think about what he might want from her or if she could give it.

"So is your uncle the head of these immortal police then?" she asked, finally, as that question occurred to her.

"Si. But no," Domitian said and grinned at the face she made in reaction to the confusing answer. Taking pity on her, he explained, "A man named Garrett Mortimer is supposed to be the head of the Rogue Hunters, but he answers to Uncle Lucian who was never good at delegating."

"So two cooks in the kitchen?" Sarita suggested.

He smiled with appreciation at her choice of words and nodded.

"Why does this Mortimer guy have to answer to your uncle? Who is he?"

"My uncle Lucian is the head of the North American Council of Immortals. They make the laws, and basically govern our people there. He also used to run the hunters before he put Mortimer in charge of them."

"Right, okay." Sarita nodded, sure she understood the basics now. "So, your uncle had this Mortimer guy put his Rogue Hunters on the job."

"Si. They were to find out if the disappearances were connected and, if so, who was behind them. Immortals were disappearing from several areas, but the last three disappeared from bars in Texas, so they concentrated there and hunters and volunteers were sent out to act as bait. But something went wrong. A couple weeks ago two of the volunteers-twin brothers I understand-were kidnapped together." 

"Twins," Sarita murmured recalling Dr. Dressler's "experiment." Scientists had a thing for twins and experiments, didn't they? She couldn't even imagine what he was doing to them. Maybe cutting them in half and then seeing if once blood was applied Twin A's bottom half would reattach itself to Twin B's upper half and vice versa? The very thought made her shudder with disgust.

"Fortunately, both men escaped," Domitian added finally, and would never know how close he came to getting punched for not saying so right away and sparing Sarita her distressing imaginings.

"A handful of Dressler's men died," he continued obliviously, "but not before our people found out some vital information. One, the intent was to fly the two captured men to Caracas, and then on to an island, and two, that the man in charge was a Dr. Dressler."