Screams pierced the air as he suckled greedily, her distress sending a tingle of electricity jolting through him. She was so much more than the syphons had revealed. With every mouthful of her life-fluid, he felt himself strengthening as a vitality he hadn’t known for years filled him. He felt invincible, unstoppable. He noticed the moment she became limp within his arm, when the fight faded from her and her screams became muted whimpers. He knew he should release her, allow her time to recover, and yet he was reluctant to end this feast. His tongue traced her flesh, greedily devouring the ruby fluids that had mingled with her sweat. Pulling away, he saw Devon watching him from the cell door.
“She has breeder potential. Move the silent auction forward. We cannot keep this female here, she’s too high profile. The way her abilities have been sealed, her scent disguised, all suggest she’s been hidden by some powerful beings. We need to unload her quickly. Attend to the notifications, mark her as an Elder blood breeder. She’ll fetch a good price, especially for those banned from acquiring breeder services. How many other Tabus do we have ready for re-homing?” Vincent wiped his mouth. Her blood had left him thrumming with power and he intended to utilise this feeling while it lasted.
“Seven including her, but she’s not broken.”
“Not our problem. That’s what restraints were made for, after all. Get her cleaned up and into something presentable.” He caressed her face once more, suckling the tears from his fingers. Any other time, he would have kept her for his own, but it was too risky. Especially since he knew the Blue Coats still held him as a person of interest regarding the abductions.
“What now?” Jack questioned as they regrouped. He had made it obvious to Tess that he hated how everyone seemed to have a part to play but him. Will had got to scout out the donor area, Conrad the lounge, and now she was studying the pictures the two had managed to take. Just moments ago, they had detached the small plug from the port of their device, placing them in a small petri-dish style container, while Tess copied the images across.
“Well, thanks to Tess’s gizmos we were able to bypass their privacy security measures, but I’m not sure how much good allowing the camera to stay active actually did.” Will transferred the data to Tess’s device. She held a finger up as several pieces of software sprang to life, running a program she had created on the fly while waiting for the two to return from reconnaissance.
“Okay, good news, none of the active donors are on the missing person’s alerts,” she said finally, her brow furrowing.
“Bad news?”
“I can’t see any way to bypass the locks to the Elite area without access to their system. It requires fingerprints as well as access credentials. It’s updated nightly, so there’s no chance we’re getting in there without getting past their firewalls.”
“So it was a waste of time?” Will chimed in.
“Not really.” Tess zoomed in on the system screen where the orders were displayed. “I can’t hack the security systems without direct access, but the menu system—now, that’s a different matter. But I can’t do it from here, we’d be too easy to track.”
“Where to?” Jack questioned, the engine roaring to life. Tess glanced at her watch. It was a little after half nine. It seemed impossible that only two and a half hours had passed since her friend had been abducted. This last hour felt like a lifetime.
“Drive to the city,” she commanded, programming a route into his navigation system before reaching under his seat to remove an old slimline laptop, complete with integrated keyboard. It was an ancient treasure, just what she needed for something like this.
“How long has that been stashed there?”
“Since forever,” she answered, as he started to drive. The route she planned would offer enough varying signals, tethers, and networks to ensure no one could track them. Removing one of the—as Will had called them—‘gizmos’ from the container, she affixed it to the book-sized laptop. “This’ll let me hop between each establishment’s connection. Even if they figure out what’s going on, they won’t be able to pinpoint us. It’ll look like I’ve bounced the signal.”
“I have no idea what you just said. You do it, I’ll drive.”
“How are you still at the academy with those skills?” Conrad asked.
The smile that spread across her face sung of a hidden secret. “I probably should have come clean when we were sharing, but I’m not actually a student. I work there. I’m the new engineering and programming mathematics lecturer.”
The silence was punctuated only by the sound of her fingers rapidly clacking upon the keys. She
