Belonging (4 page)

“And how can you be sure this female was mine? Could be anyone’s.”

“I asked some of your minions in the local PD’s to check their records for anything that may be useful relative to an infant child. A man matching Marcus’s description knocked on a couple’s door claiming to be from the adoption agency. They’d been on the list for some time, but they were suspicious. He came very late in the evening, told them he didn’t have any papers or birth certificate and that the adoption agency would be in contact with them shortly to sort everything out. They called the police and the man fled, leaving the baby. They filed a report and turned the child over to protective services.”

“What happened to the female?”

“We need to do some more research on that, my lord. Last we knew she was in the social services system, so we need to track her down. I didn’t want to waste any time letting you know until we had a solid lead.”

“About fucking time. Hurry up and find her. I’m done waiting.”

“Yes, of course, my lord.”

Whimpering brought him out of his musing. Now, where were his manners? How could he forget about the delicious young female tied to his bed, waiting for his cock? And his bite. He liked to think of himself as a gracious host and daydreaming about his revenge while in the presence of such a fine piece of ass was just plain rude. The female released a shrill scream as he slowly crawled across the bed toward her.

He’d just have to make it up to her.

C
hapter
5

Damian

“Rom, my friend, good to see you.” They did the “guy hug” thing, pounding it out. Since they all had their separate Regents, they rarely saw each other, but Damian kept in regular contact with Romaric, his friend, his mentor. And Lord of the West Regent.

“And you, Damian.” Rom was always so formal. He made note to take him to Dragonfly while he was here. Rom was a workaholic and needed to loosen up a bit. Angel could definitely help with that. The females could only work two nights a week at most, given the fact they also donated their blood. And even that varied dependent on how many vampires they’d served in a shift. There could be serious health issues if too much blood were taken any more frequently. He made a mental note to check with Ronson on her availability.

“Did Circo accompany you?”

“Of course.”

Damian had much respect for Rom, he really did, but the guy could use a serious personality transplant.

“Great. So why don’t we get everyone together and look at what we have so far.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Fifteen minutes later, Damian, Marco, T, Rom, Circo, Thane and Giselle were gathered in Dev’s office. He’d sent Thane to retrieve Giselle. He thought Thane would have better luck and he did. They would loop in the local detective after their meeting, once they decided what they would share with him.

“So,” Damian started. “We need to bring everyone up to speed. And for now, this information stays in this room.” He looked pointedly at Giselle and Thane. “T, let’s get everyone up to speed on the facts and then get into the new stuff.”

T was insanely brilliant and, like most vampires, also insanely handsome. His almost translucent green eyes were the perfect complement to thick blonde wavy locks always tightly pulled back at the nape of his neck. But unlike most other vampires, T seemed more fascinated with research than fucking. He’d been in more than one situation with T where a beautiful naked woman would climb into his lap and he’d politely ask her to get the fuck off. So he implicitly trusted any intelligence T uncovered.

“Yes, my lord. We’ve been able to determine Xavier has indeed been somewhat successfully running a baby farm. He kidnaps young women of prime childbearing age and attempts to impregnate them after the doctors first prepare the female with a concoction they’ve developed, which helps with the fertilization process absent a mate. Success rate is about five percent.

“Unfortunately we don’t know where the babies are taken, and neither do the humans we captured. There are no leads in the records we confiscated either. Looks like Xavier got a little smarter after we invaded him a century ago and he’s spread his operations around the country. Hell, maybe even the world. At this point, we don’t have a fucking clue.

“Our attack on Xavier several decades ago, though, set him back significantly. We took out a good part of the army, which took him almost a century to rebuild. We also know this latest attack wiped out over fifty rogues. However, since they’ve had more success recently, he’s stepped up his aggressiveness. Dr. Shelton didn’t know how many dreamwalkers Xavier had in his possession, but he did say he believed it was several.”

T looked at Damian, who indicated he should continue.

“Dr. Marcus Shelton is Xavier’s lead physician and researcher. He revealed to me that Xavier is only able to sire female offspring. According to the doctor, it’s a genetic anomaly. No one apparently knows this besides Xavier and the doctor. They’ve even hidden it from his men. Dr. Shelton had been tasked by Xavier to find a cure, but has been unsuccessful. In addition, Dr. Shelton was given the task of eliminating unwanted female babies. Female vampire babies that were sired by Xavier himself.”

Giselle popped up violently out of her chair, sending it flying, a murderous look in her eyes.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I’ll kill the bastard!” She was already halfway to the door when Damian intervened. He pulled her aside, talking to her softly.

“Giselle, sit down. This is disturbing to all of us, especially you. I get it, but we need the doctor alive. For now.” She was silent, hatred emanating from her in endless waves. “Please, Giselle.”

She turned, sitting back down without a word.
Daaamn
…he’d handled that pretty well. Dev would be proud.

Damian nodded for T to resume.

“Shelton indicated Xavier sired at least a dozen females in the time he’d been with him, but none within the last twenty-two years. At first, the doctor disposed of the babies as told. Then he grew a supposed conscience and was able to save three of the females by placing them with families who were on adoption registries but had no children placed with them yet.” T paused.

“We all know Kate, Lord Devon’s mate, is one of the three, but we need to find the other two before Xavier finds them first. For obvious reasons, Lord Devon does not know there are possibly two more female vampires out there, Kate’s half-sisters at minimum. We don’t know if either is still alive and we’re hoping to find them before Lord Devon and Kate return from their honeymoon, when, of course, we will bring him up to speed.”

At that little piece of news, Giselle’s eyes snapped to Damian’s. He knew she would be less than happy keeping any news from Dev, as loyal as she was to him.

T continued, “Unfortunately we have little information to go on, as the doctor doesn’t remember the exact addresses where he dropped them, but he remembered one was in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and the other somewhere in northern Wisconsin. He did say that the Eau Claire female was left with the family in the winter months, December or January timeframe. That one was a debacle and the adoptive parents called the cops on him, so he left the baby and ran. We don’t know whether the parents kept that baby or not. The other female was dropped off to a family around July Fourth.”

“And their birth mothers? Don’t suppose they’re still alive?” Thane asked.

“No,” T replied.

Damian added, “One tactic we thought of taking was to check out the families that dropped themselves off the adoption registries. Kate mentioned her parents had done that, so maybe the others did as well.

“Giselle, we could really use the detective’s resources to help with this part, especially where the cops were called on the Eau Claire baby. But I don’t trust him to do it on his own. If we’re going to involve him, I need you to shadow his six. But first, do
you
think we can trust him enough to involve him in this?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. Good.

“And
you
will help?”

Silence.

“Giselle, please.” Christ, he
never
said please and he’d uttered the pained word twice already. Dev owed him big time for this. “You already have a relationship with him and I need T to continue the interrogation of the recovered human medical staff. We need you.” Not a lie, but it hurt to say it anyway. This was the ice queen after all.

After several beats of silence, she nodded. He returned it. Enough with the
pleases
and
thank yous
for fuck’s sake.

“One more thing. Xavier knows we have his scientists and his records. We also are in possession of the one person who knows his flaw. Even with all of his faults, Xavier is a smart bastard and surely he’s worked out the puzzle by now. He probably knows Kate is his child. And if he doesn’t know, he has enough minions that he will find out soon enough. Since he bit her, he certainly has to know she’s pregnant. And that puts her and her baby, in more danger. We can expect Xavier to come with guns blazing. The question is when.

“So, we need to find these two females and Xavier’s other lairs, which should lead us to the babies and the remaining missing girls. Let’s get to work.”

And since they’d been trying to do that for centuries, this was a piece o’ cake
, he thought snidely.

C
hapter
6

Analise

This toilet could use a good scrubbing
. She was in the bathroom stall, head hanging over the white porcelain. She always felt nauseous before taking the stage, even though this was what she loved to do most in the world. Waitressing paid the bills and was steadier employment, but singing…singing was her passion. Music was her first and only real love. If she could make a decent living from music, she would do it in a heartbeat. As it was, she had to settle for the side gigs she could get, supplementing her main waitressing income.

She’d arrived in Milwaukee just a little over a week ago and, since she didn’t know how long she’d be here, was living in an Economy Lodge paying rent week to week. She’d packed only the bare necessities in her Chevette, leaving the rest at her shitty duplex. She’d called the landlord telling him her mom was very ill and that she needed to leave for a few weeks to care for her. She was the only child, the only one her mom had. He bought it hook, line and sinker, and it got her rent deferred for a month. She had no idea how she’d come up with two months’ rent, but that problem was for another day. Sure, she felt bad lying but had no other option at this point.

In her bones, she knew she was Beth’s only hope, so she needed to pull her shit together. She was due to perform in less than five minutes and needed this job. In
this
particular club. She was fortunate enough to get both a waitressing and small entertainment gig at Dragonfly and she couldn’t blow it now. The pay was actually decent and the job provided her a valuable in, which she desperately needed.

She was to sing a two-hour set from eight to ten on Mondays and Wednesdays and was scheduled to waitress five nights a week, including one of the nights she sang. The house band or DJ came on at 10:30 p.m., so she provided the early evening entertainment. She had one day off a week, not that she cared. She’d work seven days a week until she got what she came for.

The club manager, Frankie, seemed nice and a lot less pervy than her old manager. In this particular case, that didn’t work to her advantage. Analise was a very humble person, but even she knew she was attractive, and when it served her purpose, she didn’t hesitate to use that beauty to her advantage.

And she was using it at every opportunity to get close to Frankie. She’d even resorted to touching him! It made her nearly physically sick every single time, not because he was
fugly
or anything, but she simply hated being touched, or touching anyone. But she did it anyway. A little brush here, a pat on the arm there, a laugh at the appropriate time at his awful jokes. She was a master at reeling in a guy. She just generally chose not to.
You’re better on your own
was her mission statement.

But Frankie was only a means to an end and she needed to remember that. The person she really needed to get to was Devon Fallinsworth, Vampire Lord of the Midwest. And what a more perfect place to find him than at his new nightclub? Now she needed to find a way to the lower level as she didn’t think he probably lowered himself by hanging up here too often. Once she’d reeled Frankie in all the way, she was hopeful he’d be able to help.

The thought made bile rise, but she continually reminded herself it was all in the vein of finding Beth. That was her sole focus. She would do anything for Beth.
Anything
. Analise didn’t have a mother. Or a father. Or aunts, uncles and cousins. Or a sibling…except Beth. Regardless of the fact they shared no actual DNA, she was and always would be her sister. That was why she’d made the decision to come here.

Banging on the stall door made her jump.

“Analise, you’re on!”

Ugh, Amy
. One of the other waitresses. She couldn’t stand to listen to or look at her. Amy’s high-pitched, whiny voice grated on her nerves like nails on a chalkboard and her DDD silicone boobs constantly spilled over the top of her low-cut blouse, courtesy of her push-up bra. Hey, Victoria’s Secret…don’t sell push-up bras in DDD. Please. It’s just not necessary.

“Coming! Jesus, a little privacy, please.”

“Sorry, babe, but you’re late. Frankie’s freakin’ the fuck out. Wanted to come in here after you himself.”

“Christ. I’m coming.” She heard the restroom door close, indicating Amy had left. Analise pulled herself together, left the stall and gave one last cursory look in the mirror. She didn’t
look
green, so there was that at least.

On the way out of the restroom, she bumped into Frankie. She took a slight step back, cursing herself for her queasiness when it came to touching people.