Surrendering(91)

Obviously not able to tell the complete truth, Kate explained that Dev was her boyfriend and Ren was a good friend. They seemed very impressed with Dev. They had been after her to get married and give them grandbabies. The married part she’d accomplished. The baby part would never be. But that was okay with her, as she had Dev for eternity and he was more than enough. They left, telling her parents she would be in touch with them and they would try to make it to dinner very soon.

On the long drive back home, Dev and Ren checked out both the adoption agency and Tom Cutler. As suspected, all searches for Tom Cutler were a dead end. Of course it was an alias. Her parents didn’t remember much about what he looked like, as they were so taken with her, but they did say he was rather on the short side and had thinning hair. And that was so helpful, as that didn’t describe about two million men in this country.

As she sat on the chaise in their bedroom, frustration welled within her. She was not a violent person, but she just wanted Xavier found and killed. She desperately wanted to save all of those kidnapped girls from their daily horrors. She wanted to leave the goddamned house and do something with Dev, like normal people. She wanted to finish her dissertation paper. She wanted to veg out on the couch and watch Real Housewives and Ellen. She wanted normal.

She sighed. She wanted to go back to teaching. That was probably one of the things she was most sad about. She was literally just months away from completing her PhD and applying for a professorship that would secure her tenure and she knew there was no way she’d be able to go back to that life. So once all of this other stuff was behind her, she’d have to figure out what she could now contribute to this new life. She was not going to sleep in every day, read romance novels and wander around, waiting for Dev to finish his workday.

No.

She had a lot to give, a lot to contribute, and she wasn’t about to be a stay-at-home wife of a Vampire Lord.

And what happened when they did rescue these women? Many would need years of trauma counseling and some may not even want to return home under the scrutiny of their parents or loved ones. At least for a while. While counseling was never really Kate’s career aspiration, with her training, she knew she’d be able to help these tortured women.

The kernel of an idea started forming. She’d have to give it more thought, work out the kinks, before she talked to Dev about it, but suddenly she was very excited and had something to really look forward to after they’d taken care of the task at hand.

Feeling a bit more refreshed, she rose to find Dev, but was hit with sudden queasiness, and had to sit back down. She guessed the chicken salad sandwich she’d had for lunch wasn’t sitting well with her. She knew that damn diner they’d stopped at for lunch on the way to her parents’ house was sketchy.

She lay there for a few minutes until the worst of the nausea passed, praying she wasn’t going to spend all night worshiping the porcelain god, when she’d much rather make love to her new mate.

___________





Dev





After returning home, Kate said she was a little tired and went to rest in their room. Dev wasn’t sure if she was physically, mentally or emotionally tired, and while he didn’t want to be away from her for a minute, he wanted her to rest.

So Dev sat in his office, getting the daily update from Giselle and the detective. They’d identified several more missing girls potentially related to the dream studies and they were working on tracking down more leads. He’d asked them to check out other adoption agency registries that may have had potential parents withdraw their applications. If there were other female vampires out there, he definitely wanted to find them. And protect them. He had a feeling there were more out there than any of them knew. He would have Rom’s computer wiz help with that request as well, as it was bound to be an arduous task.

Just as Giselle was finishing her update, Ren walked in, excitement lighting up his pretty boy face.

“We have an update from the field.” The men had not finished their scout of the area last night, with only a few more houses remaining this evening.

“And?”

“We think we may have found it. Manny found shrouding over a large wooded area on the northeast part of Washington Island, north of the Door County peninsula.”

“Get everyone together in here immediately. Get Damian and Rom on the vid com. Tell Manny to leave two men there to watch for any activity and have everyone else return.”

As everyone was filing out of his office, Kate walked in. And she didn’t look well.

“What’s the matter, love? You don’t look well.”

She laughed, but it lacked her usual cheeriness. “Well that’s not something any woman wants to hear.”