"Wasn't my place to tell you," Thane said. "You going down to the control room to have a look?"
"Yeah." Bran nodded, well aware that there was a back exit to the building down there too.
Thane started walking toward him. "I'll go with you."
Bran scoffed. "You've helped me enough for one night, don't you think? Why don't you do something useful and send a few of the girls up to the boss for a while, tell them to take good care of him, make him real happy. Pick the best ones too, the ones with the most skilled mouths. Maybe if we keep him busy, he'll lay off the rest of us for the night."
Thane stared at him, unsmiling. "All right, Bran. You do what you have to. I'll handle things with Mr. Reiver."
Bran might have questioned the cryptic response, but all his focus was zeroed in on one task now. He stalked toward the club's security control room, casting a quick look behind him as he neared the back exit. The hallway was empty. Thane was gone.
Bran punched open the door and stepped into the bracing wintry chill outside. Too risky to take one of Reiver's fleet vehicles and hope it wouldn't be missed. Besides, he was Breed. He'd get where he was going even faster on foot.
He summoned the speed of his preternatural genetics and vanished into the night.
Chapter Four
Danika got up from the rocking chair and gently placed little Connor into the nest of blankets in his crib, careful not to wake him. His face was as innocent as a cherub's as he slept, sated from his evening feeding at her wrist. She savored these tender moments with her baby.
Watching the small bundle nestled in the center of the delicate crib, it was easy to forget how fierce and unbreakable he'd be one day. How bold and courageous his father's noble Breed blood would make him. In just a few years' time, by the age of five or six, Connor wouldwha be old enough to hunt his own prey. A short decade more and he would be full grown, lethally so, a Breed male ready to make his mark on the world. Would he accept a civilian life, perhaps find a Breedmate to give him sons of his own and centuries of peaceful existence? Or would he follow in his father's footsteps, pledging himself to a greater purpose?
In her heart, Danika knew the answer to those questions, difficult as it was to accept. Each time Connor grasped her finger in his tight little fist, his innocent eyes far too knowing, too fathomless for a mother's peace of mind, she knew. Her son would be a warrior, like his father.
And it killed something inside her to think she might lose him one day too.
With a soft kiss to Connor's velvety head, Danika drew away from the crib to let him sleep. She retrieved her empty tea mug from the table beside the rocking chair, then clicked off the bureau lamp on her way out of the bedroom, her gaze lingering on her child as she quietly closed the door.
Even before she turned around, she realized she and Connor weren't alone anymore.
"Nice little place," said one of the two vampires who stood inside the living area of the cottage. "Cozy, ain't it, Kerr?"
"Secluded too," murmured his companion with a leer that threatened more than simple violence.
Her fingers tightened around the earthenware mug in her hands. There was no need to wonder how the pair got in. Locked doors were nothing but a moment's mental effort for a Breed vampire who wanted something on the other side. As for the two thugs who dripped melting snow from their boots and dark menace from their every pore, there was no doubt where they'd come from.
Reiver.
For what wasn't the first time that day, Danika regretted her visit to his private club. She was still sick to have discovered that someone she once knew-someone she had cared for-was part of a despicable organization like Reiver's. Whatever Malcolm MacBain was calling himself now, and for whatever reason he seemed determined to deny his true identity, Danika hadn't been fooled. Not even the scars that marred his face had been enough to convince her that he was someone other than Mal. But knowing his name and face from the past was not the same thing as knowing the man he'd become.
And as she stood before these two terrifying intruders now, part of her wondered if it was Reiver who'd sent them or his loyal guard dog back at the club, who'd demanded her silence with a cold fury that had left her shaken to her core.
"What do you want?" she asked them, lifting her chin to face this threat, even though her legs felt like sand beneath her.
"Mr. Reiver asked us to come and see you," said the one named Kerr. His big hands were gloved in black leather, sinister mitts that looked large enough to crush her skull. "He wants you to know there's a storm could be heading your way. He thinks it best if you don't stick around to see it arrive."
"Is that right?" As the pair of them stalked toward her, Danika edged away from the bedroom door where Connor slept. Whatever might happen to her tonight, she didn't want to give them any reason to search the rest of the tiny cottage.
"Mr. Reiver's of the mind that Edinburgh's going to prove inhospitable to you if you stay any longer." As Kerr spoke, the other thug aligned himself with the path she was subtly taking, moving so that he could block her if she had thoughts of making a break. "My associate Mr. Packard and I are here to help you. Come with us now, and you can avoid what's sure to be a very bad situation."
"A painful situation," added the second vampire, his lips splitting in a chilling grin, baring sharp white fangs.
Their minds were black with awful intentions, thoughts so brutal she found it hard to breathe as she watched them close in further. She didn't need her extrasensory talent to understand that the odds of her surviving this confrontation weren't good. Even if she agreed to go with them and swore never to speak Reiver's name to another living soul, she knew the trip would end with her death.