“We were taken from the bar you sent us to,” Dante interrupted. “Both Tomasso and I were kidnapped. They used drugged darts. I was apparently out for two days and nights,” he added grimly, and wasn’t surprised by the silence that followed his announcement. No doubt, Lucian was as taken aback at this news, as Dante had been when he’d realized what had happened. Mortal drugs did not work on their kind. They were flushed from the system too quickly to do more than make them woozy or a little faint. They’d had to develop their own drugs to use on rogue immortals and even those only worked temporarily and had to be re-administered too quickly to be viable as more than a temporary stop-gap measure to get the rogue bound up. Yet he’d apparently been unconscious for two days. It suggested that an immortal was behind the kidnappings, or a mortal with information about them that they should not have . . . as well as access to their specialized drugs.
“You got away, obviously,” Lucian said finally. “Are you both all right?”
“They still have Tomasso,” Dante said quietly, and quickly related how he’d got free and why Tomasso hadn’t, finishing with, “We have to get him back.”
“Where is he?” Lucian asked at once.
“Do you have a pen?” Dante asked, glancing down at the piece of paper in his hand. Mary had lovely handwriting, he noted. When Lucian said he was ready, Dante read off the instructions Mary had written down. Once Lucian read it back to him, he added, “That is where I came out of the woods onto the road. The house was perhaps a five minute run east from there through the trees.”
Lucian grunted and then asked, “Where are you now?”
“In an RV, heading northwest on Interstate 10. The kidnappers are following us. I am hoping that means Tomasso is safe for now. But you need to get someone to him as quickly as possible. I can’t guarantee the kidnappers will continue to just follow us, and with the drugged darts they have—”
“Who is this us?” Lucian interrupted. “You took control of a family traveling in an RV to help with your escape?”
“No.” Dante glanced toward Mary, and then cleared his throat and said, “I had a little accident with an RV when I was escaping. The woman who was driving it is now helping me.”
“A lone woman in an RV?” Lucian asked sounding suspicious.
“She has a dog with her,” Dante said with amusement, peering down at Bailey as he petted her again. The shepherd immediately twisted her head to give his hand a swipe with her tongue.
“Still, women do not generally travel in RVs by themselves, even with dogs,” Lucian said thoughtfully. “Are you sure she is not one of them and letting you think you are escaping while she delivers you back into the hands of your captors?”
“I’m sure,” Dante said at once, his voice firm, but his gaze was now on the back of Mary’s head as he tried to slip into her thoughts once more.
“No, of course she’s not one of them,” Lucian muttered. “You would have read that from her mind were it the case.”
Dante grimaced and gave up on trying to read Mary. It was impossible for him to do so. He didn’t, however, tell Lucian that, but simply allowed him to think what he would.
“If they have drugged darts that are that effective on us, it would be dangerous for you to try to take on your kidnappers on your own,” Lucian muttered.
“Yes,” Dante agreed wryly. He’d said, or started to say that just moments ago. It was why he’d done as Tomasso had insisted and fled when they’d heard their captors clattering down the hall outside the room where their cages were. His first instinct had been to stand and fight, but that would have done them little good when their adversaries had the drugged darts. He would have ended up unconscious and back in a cage, probably one that had no loose bars too, and then they simply would have been two more immortals who had gone missing from the bar scene in San Antonio. Escaping to get help had been more sensible. Still, it had been a terrible wrench to leave his brother behind.
“Can you keep ahead of your hunters for a while? Long enough for me to send men to find Tomasso and arrange a trap to catch your kidnappers?”
“I can try,” Dante said determinedly.
“Good. Stay on your present course. I’ll call you back,” Lucian announced and then the phone went silent.
Dante lowered it to peer at its face. Through the cracked glass he saw that the call had been ended. Breathing out a little sigh, he stood and caught at the edges of his afghan as it tried to slip away to the floor. His gaze then moved over the mess he’d traipsed through to get to the bed. Plastic dishes, utensils, and foodstuffs littered the floor, obviously escapees from the open doors and drawers throughout the RV.