guess? Someone wants us to blame him. More disturbing, he thinks I sent Nikki to him in some compromised state of mind, so the reverse is true: we’re being blamed for Nikki’s actions. Who has the most to gain from a war between vampires and angels?”
“The lycans.” Vash exhaled harshly and began to pace again. Her long-legged stride ate up the twenty-foot distance between walls, back and forth, at a speed that would give most mortals a headache to watch. “Underhanded and clumsy suits the dogs, I suppose. But I didn’t think they had the balls-or the brains-to wriggle out of the Sentinels’ collar.”
Syre smiled grimly. It was a testament to Adrian’s leadership that he’d kept the lycans in his service for so long. Somehow he managed to keep each successive generation indentured by the bargain he’d made with their ancestors.
To this day, Syre admired the Sentinel leader for his foresight. The lycans’ finite life spans enabled them to breed. Unlike the vampires, who were sterile. Or the Sentinels, who were forbidden to procreate. Adrian needed those lycan pups to supplement his Sentinel ranks, which had never been reinforced.
“Remember,” Syre said grimly, “the lycans are descended from our fellow Watchers. They’re distantly related to you and me, so certainly some of our rebellious temperament exists in them. And while they were little more than beasts when they were first infected with demon blood, their mortality has given them an advantage-we remain the same while they’ve evolved.”
“So a renegade lycan or few sets us up to war with the Sentinels. Why? Mass suicide? Their sole purpose for drawing breath is to serve the Sentinels. They’re stuck right in the middle.”
“Maybe they no longer want to be. Find the ones responsible for Nikki’s abduction and we’ll ask them, but hold off on taking down any Sentinels for the time being.”
“We’re justified,” Vash argued.
“Do as I say, Vashti.”
“As you wish, Syre.” Pivoting, she went to the door. She moved like the huntress she was, with precision and deliberation. Syre trusted her with his life, just as he’d trusted her with Shadoe’s in her original incarnation. Vash had trained his willful daughter, instilling some much-needed discipline in her, and together the two women had been responsible for the eradication of thousands of demons.
Vash hugged Torque before passing him, murmuring a promise to hunt down the bastards who’d killed his wife. Then she left, taking her agitated energy with her. In the sudden stillness that descended in her wake, Torque’s shoulders drooped as if the weight of the world was upon them. He’d Changed Nikki because he had fallen in love with her, bestowing immortality so that she’d always be with him. Forever. Unfortunately, immortality was no safeguard against a Sentinel.
Torque crossed his arms and glared, his eyes glowing a molten amber. “Avenging Nikki is my right, not yours or Vash’s.”
“Absolutely. But I need something looked into, and it’s too delicate an assignment to trust to anyone else.”
Stepping deeper into the room, Torque halted when the tips of his steel-toe boots touched the line between sunlight and shadow. His brutally short hair stuck straight up in opposing directions, the thick Asian locks bleached nearly white at the tips. It was a style that suited both the exotic features he’d inherited from his mother and his sharp-edged lifestyle. While Syre nurtured small towns that attracted motorcycle enthusiasts, ensuring a steady flow of fresh blood to local cabals and covens, Torque managed an expanding chain of nightclubs that offered haven to fledgling minions.
Approaching his son, Syre clasped him by the shoulders. There was so much of Shadoe in Torque’s features, all the haunting similarities of twins. Now his daughter was stripped of her genes along with her memories. Once the spitting image of her mother, her incarnations bore the trademarks of someone else’s lineage. Although he loved Shadoe regardless of her exterior, there was a part of him that felt as if he was losing her mother anew every time their daughter was reborn with another woman’s face.
“I know this is a terrible time,” he said softly, “but I have to ask you to drop off the map. In addition to Adrian’s comments about Nikki attacking him, he made a reference to Phineas that concerns me. I need you to find out what’s happened in the last forty-eight hours.”
“I’ll see to it.” Torque set his hands over Syre’s. “I need something to focus on now, or I might do something we’ll all regret.”
Syre pressed his lips to his son’s forehead. He understood all too well. He’d barely survived the loss of his wife and Shadoe. If not for Torque, their deaths would have killed him long ago. “When we spread the word that you’ve gone under in mourning, no one will question your absence.”
It was heartless to use his son’s grief to further his agenda, but he didn’t have the luxury of passing up perfect opportunities.
God, he felt old and callous. So old that he didn’t recognize the youthful face staring back at him from the mirror on the wall by the door. He looked to be only ten years older than Torque, who most people would guess was in his mid- to late-twenties.
Torque spoke gruffly. “How does Adrian maintain control when he’s losing the love of his life every few hundred years? Can you be sure he’s got it together? Shadoe’s been gone a long time, Dad. It has to be fucking with his head.”
“That might be true if he gave a shit. Letting her die again and again… never having any memory of her family and the people who love her? That’s cruelty, not love.”
“I don’t know.” Torque’s eyes reflected his inner torment. “I think I’d do anything to get Nikki back, whatever the cost.”
“He’s not like us. If you’d heard him on the phone… so calm and unaffected. He’s a seraph in every sense of the word. The soul is everything to him. He can see no purpose in existing without one. You say you’d do anything, but if you were faced with the choice, I know you’d make the right one.”
“You can’t know that.
“That’s precisely what Nikki’s death was designed to do-make us wild with rage. We have to be smarter than that. If we gather intel first, we can move with precision instead of shooting in the dark. Think of how it would benefit us to cause a rift between the Sentinels and the lycans. All we need is proof that the dogs are conspiring against their masters. We turn that over to Adrian and he’ll do the dirty work for us.”
“What am I looking for?”
“You’ll know it when you see it. If something’s off, you’ll catch it.”
“Suggestions for where to begin?”
Syre held his wrist before his son’s mouth, offering the potency of his Fallen blood to assist him on his way. Although Torque’s naphil state gave him an advantage over minions, he was still disadvantaged when compared to the Fallen. Drinking a pint or two of pure Fallen blood would negate that deficiency for a few days.
Hissing as Torque’s fangs sank into his artery, Syre closed his eyes. “Phineas will be near Adrian. Go to Anaheim. Start there.”
“Don’t like flying?” Lindsay queried, eyeing the white-knuckled force with which Elijah clutched the armrests of his seat.
He looked at her with those beautiful emerald eyes. “Not especially.”
“You have to admit, taking a private jet is way better than flying commercial.”
“No.” He paled as the plane banked slightly. “I don’t.”
Her mouth quirked. She looked around the luxurious cabin, her palms rubbing over the tan leather of the bucket seat she lounged in. Adrian sat a few feet away, deep in conversation with Damien and a blond guy-Jason-who was smokin’ hot, as all the angels appeared to be.
She returned her attention to Elijah, who sat across from her on the other side of a table. A table. On a plane. The aircraft was about as cozy as an RV. “You got stuck with babysitting duty, didn’t you?”
He just looked at her.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said, feeling bad for him. “I won’t give you any trouble.”
“You say that, but I can tell Adrian isn’t happy about bringing you.”
Lindsay finished his thought. “And you think that means he’s acting under duress, which makes me
