Days of Redemption (The Firsts Book 6) (13 page)

TWELVE

David reached for Cherise, desperate to feel her soft hair and skin.  But every
thing he touched was cold and hard.

Opening his eyes, he looked around, hoping to find his oversized bed and his mate nearby.  But his eyes met smooth metallic surfaces and nothing else.  When he lifted his hands, he knew immediately they were bound, the feeling too familiar to him.

No!  No, not again
.  Panic came unbidden and he tried to tamp it down, but the idea that he was taken again, and lost again, never to be with his mate, ripped him apart.

That
could not happen
.   Spirit had separated from self the last time he’d been held and he could feel the tiniest tear in his lifeforce once again.  

Waking hard and quick, Koen rolled onto his feet immediately, pulled back brutally when he tried to move forward.  He looked down, shocked to see chains attached to heavy bands that encircled his wrists.

Amateurs!
  He brought both hands up, and powered them forward.  The chains would splinter and fall to the floor of this enclosure in pieces.

Only it did not happen.  Trying again, with the same results, Koen felt tightness in his chest he hadn’t felt since he’d lost Alisa that one night in Chicago months ago.

How had they managed this?  Any vampire with rudimentary skills could break chains and release locks.  A first blood of over a thousand years should get exactly what he expected…a chain left in fragments with one tug.

For the first time in
all those centuries, someone had captured him.  This was a precedent that had far-reaching, terrifying consequences, given this society’s hatred of his kind.

David. 
Oh, fuck, David
…

Koen knew what he had suffered and how impossibly difficult it had been for him to come back
from his imprisonment and torture to resume his life.  To find himself held again with that history, how would David cope?

This was not the same, though, since
Koen knew this had nothing to do with a first blood’s betrayal.  Someone within this organization had figured out how to restrain a first blood vampire.

A loud roar and thrashing sounds, followed by a string of ancient curse words
, revealed to Koen that Xavier was nearby.  In spite of the situation, Koen’s lips tilted up. 

Xavier
would
be the one to let his fury fly.   A mixture of old Gaelic and modern-day profane terms came out with Xavier’s Scottish brogue, still noticeable at times even after all of his years in France.  

While Koen couldn’t break free of chains that should have been child’s play for him, and his head spun, he did not doubt that, whatever this place had in store for them, he and his vampire brothers would lay w
aste as soon as they got free. This he knew.  They
would
get free.

Xavier roared until his throat ached.  How dare these gnats think to capture him and his brothers?  More important,
however, was how they had done it.

His outbursts were more than mere anger and
frustration, he meant to let them know they’d caged a beast that would be the death of them.  He wanted them to understand that the threat was real.  Once he gained his freedom, these human dogs had taken their last breath.

Calming down,
he let his throat rest, stopped and dropped his weight back to the floor.  He’d been pulling against chains that should have shattered instantly.  Searching their length, each link, the wide bands around his wrist that seemed to be one endless cylinder, he couldn’t believe they were unbreakable. 
Nothing
was unbreakable for a first blood.

As he searched
the bands, he tried to discern the opening, when suddenly his vision became so blurred, he lifted his eyes to see the walls waver before he passed out.

David was dreaming
again.  Somewhere in his mind, he knew he was trapped, but Cherise came to him with worry in her eyes, and he reached for her.

“It’s okay, baby, I’m here with you,” he assured her in the dream.

“No, you are not, my love.  I can feel you, and you are in pain, terrified.  Like when I found you in Colorado.  What is happening, David?”

“Nothing.
  I’m fine.”  Then, he said, “No, I’m not. I am dreaming of you, but I feel as if I’m back in chains in Paris.  It’s a nightmare within a dream, Cherise.”

“It is. But I believe it is real, because I can feel your
lifeforce, and it is beginning to fracture again.  I’m coming to you, baby. Do not give in.”

No!  No!
  His mind screamed and he woke. His connection with his empathic wife was strong enough to link from anywhere in the world, and he knew she had actually touched his mind and that she would come.  He couldn’t allow it, for he feared that they would capture her as well, and
that
, he could not live with.

Dez waited outside the facility and let her mind reach for each of the three men who had gone inside the facility.  She could hear their thoughts and emotions as they were sedated and lost consciousness.  Initially, she’d been unconcerned, because their fast vampire metabolisms would burn through any sedative quickly and they would take down the assholes who presumed to fire on them.

But when they didn’t waken, she kept her team hidden and just listened.   Two hours past their capture, she reconnected to each man and realized that something was
radically wrong.  Not only were they chained in some kind of cell, they were unable to break free.  She could hear their anger and confusion, but when all three men lost consciousness a second time, she made a decision.  

Dez needed more help to rescue them
.  If
these
men were being held, no one was safe.  She needed numbers, and a lot of them, to successfully overcome whatever this hellish SRS had conjured up now.

As she arrived back at her SUV, her cell chimed.

“Yeah?” she responded.

“It’s Cherise.”

“I thought so by the number.  You know?”

“I know they have my husband. 
The others?”

“Yes.  Something
’s going down here, Cherise.  It’s bad.”

“If they have those three, it is.  I tell you, I will bring Tamesine
, Katerine, and Park.  You find as many vampires in your area to come, and we will swarm them.”

“My idea exactly.
  They might be able to overcome those powerful men, but I don’t see how they can stop a vampire army.”

“They’re afraid of us.  Now, we must give them a reason to be. 
Our plane will leave immediately.”

“Okay.  See you soon.”

Dez nodded as she got into her car with five members of her team.  A vampire army.  It seemed wrong and yet right, all at the same time.

Moving quickly, Reuben passed through the double doors and stopped abruptly in front of Bryn’s cage.

“I have to get you guys out of here. 
Right now.  If I don’t, things are going to get much worse for you.  They’ve captured several first blood vampires.”

Bryn lifted his head.  “What?”  He rose off of the floor and came as close to the front of the cage as possible.

“How?”

Reuben had a keycard in his hand and began striking the locking mechanism to enter his codes into the system.

“The same way they got you, I assume.  When they had that first blood in Paris, they took a lot of his blood.  They used it and the results of the research to develop something to tranquilize vampires.  You’ve seen that it works.”

“But I’m not first blood.”

“Yeah, you’d think they could overcome it.  But turns out, it works on them too.  Lamont has three chained and celled one floor up.”

Bryn knew who they had to be.  “They’re my friends who came for me.  Take me to them, Rube.”

“It’s Reuben.  And I will, if I can get this door to…”

A sudden loud clink surprised Reuben and the door sprung open.

“Okay, one down,” he said, but hesitated to walk into the cage to the point where the vampire could reach him.

Waiting, Bryn noticed Reuben’s pause and worried eyes.

“I’m not gonna eat ya!”

Reuben tried to laugh, but failed. 
“No, of course not.”

“Although,
ya haven’t fed me since I’ve been here.”

A second attempt at a laugh came out strangled, but Reuben continued toward Bryn, who towered over the slender man.  His hands were shaking as he laid a small electronic device on top of one of the cuffs.

“It, uh, takes a moment, but this should disengage the band, if I have clearance.  I don’t know that I do.  Lamont is a wild card and he doesn’t trust most of us.”

Bryn made sure his voice was warm when he said, “I understand, little man.  That ye’re
willin’ to help is all I expect at this time.”

Reuben looked up into Bryn’s eyes then.  “I am truly sorry for this.  I’ve wanted to find a way to close this place from the beginning, but I’m just one man and I don’t have any idea how to do it.  Security here is state-of-the-art, the
best money can buy.  I don’t have the manpower or resources to fight that.”

A sudden series of beeps drew their attention back to the cuff, which broke apart and slid off of Bryn’s wrist.  It left a pressure ring, but otherwise, Bryn was nearly free.  He rubbed his wrist while Reuben attached the device to the se
cond cuff.  “Ya might not have the manpower and resources to shut this place down, but I do.”

The second cuff
fell with a clank.   Moments later, having removed the leg bands, Reuben stood up and stepped back. 

“There.  You’re free of the cage and cuffs.  But I don’t know if that serum is going to kick in again.  It seems as if it cycles.  It can keep you out for an hour or so, then when you waken, it’s like it needs time to knock you out again.  All I know is its powerful.”

“Aye, that it is.”

Bryn walked from the cage, rubbing his other wrist now.  “Release
her
,” he demanded.

Lauren waited through Reuben’s unexpected rescue, watching
Bryn’s cuffs come off with relief. 
Could something
finally be going their way?

Once her cage was unlocked, Bryn pulled her out and into his arms.

“Little human,” he whispered into her hair.  His hands spread over her back and lifted her against him.

Lauren felt the same attachment to him that she’d felt the first time they’d made love.   He was big, sexy, and
arrogant, a full-time lush and womanizer, and she wondered if she might be falling in love with him.

She’d never been in love, so it was just a guess, but all she knew for certain was nothing had ever felt better than feeling him against her after she was certain she never would again.

“Vampire,” she whispered back.  

They were still holding each other a few minutes later when Kalia came through the doors on a run.

“Oh, shit!  Reuben, you let them out.”

Reuben turned to her. 
“Yeah?  You wanted me to.”

“Sure, but Lamont’s on his way here with the researchers.”
 

Kalia hurried up to Lauren, paused, ran her hands over Lauren’s hair, and said, “Pretty.  But you
gotta get back in there now.”

Lauren’s eyes went to Bryn.

Bryn shrugged.  “Maybe it’s wise.  Make our move when they don’t suspect it.”

Lauren nodded and let Kalia close the door on her.

Reuben followed Bryn to his cage, reattached the bands, and closed the door just minutes before Lamont entered with ten men, six of which were armed.  The others wore white lab coats with the SRS logo imprinted at the pocket level.

Bryn stood in the center of the cage and glared at them.

Lamont’s eyes went to Reuben and Kalia.

“What are you doing here?”

Kalia stepped up.  “I take care of rations for the subjects, sir,” she said, eyes downcast.

Reuben pushed her behind him.  “She’s just doing her rounds to feed everyone.  I stopped in to make sure everything is secure since you’ve deflected all security to the third floor.”

Lamont stared at Reuben, then Kalia, before he waved his hand at them.  “Fine.  Just get out of here right now.  I have some things to discuss with my staff here.”