Jace

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue

M
IRI
was here.

Anticipation thrummed along Jace Johnson’s nerves as he stood outside the Sanctuary stronghold; his fangs cut through his gums; bloodlust filled his veins. The bones in his face ached in pre-morph exhilaration. After a year of hell, he was close, very close to finding her. His mate. Adrenaline surged through his body, both from the battle about to begin and from the hunt about to end. A year ago she’d disappeared. He’d come home from a mission and found her gone, and no one, pack or vampire, claimed to know where she’d gone. It wasn’t until his brother Jared had brought home his mate, a pretty little vamp who they’d all had reason to hate, that Jace had discovered she’d run from him, pregnant, straight into a Sanctuary trap. They’d taken her, kept her prisoner, experimented on her until Miri said there wasn’t much left of the woman he remembered. And what was left, Miri said, she wasn’t sure he’d want. Not after what had been done to her. Things she was sure no wolf mate could get past.

Jace slid along the stone wall leading to the bolt-hole from the Sanctuary compound, motioning Derek forward on the other side. Miri had an annoying habit of forgetting she wasn’t mated to a werewolf. There was nothing that could change what she meant to him, and if she had scars, they had forever left to get past them, and they’d do it together. Jace pressed his hand to the wood door, illusioned to look like solid rock. He mentally scanned for energy on the other side, any flicker of light or change that would indicate Sanctuary vampires. He didn’t find any, but that didn’t mean anything. He tightened his grip on his gun. Hell, with the new cloaking devices that Sanctuary had invented, there could be a whole army of Sanctuary vampires on the other side of that door and he wouldn’t know. He smiled as adrenaline rushed through his system like a good friend. He hoped to hell there was. After a year of searching and worrying, he had a ton of frustration to vent.

He glanced over at Derek. The powerful werewolf wore the same smile he could feel on his face. Nothing like the potential for a good fight to perk a man up. Derek jerked his head and raised his eyebrow. Jace shrugged. He didn’t know what they were going to find on the other side of the door. He touched the side of his nose with his finger. Weres had a much better sense of smell than vampires. A second later, the wolf also shrugged. Jace nodded. So be it. Tonight they were going in blind. He scanned again, this time looking for another type of energy. The video feed was easy to find. He mentally threw a subtle cloak of energy over the area before carefully opening the door. It swung soundlessly on its hinges.

The corridor beyond was dark. Not surprising. Vampires didn’t need light to navigate. He sent another tendril of energy through the opening. Still nothing. A quick glance didn’t reveal anything untoward, just a dark corridor stretching into the bowels of the mountain. The slight scrape of claw over metal disturbed the silence as Derek shifted his grip on his gun. It was the only sign the were shared his unease. There should be at least one sentry. Either the Sanctuary vamps thought no one knew about this little bolt-hole, or it was a trap. Either way, they didn’t have any more time. Once his brothers and the Renegades launched their assault on the front of the compound, the chances of getting caught in the bolt-hole by fleeing Sanctuary vamps grew exponentially with the number of cowards in the place. He was betting there’d be a lot of cowards.

Derek gave him the thumbs-up. Jace went in first, and Derek slipped in behind him, a silent, deadly ghost. The wolf was a good man. A McClaren to the bone, which meant he had a very black-and-white philosophy about right and wrong, which probably explained why Jace and his brothers had taken up with the McClarens when they’d turned. The alliance might have evolved by accident when Caleb saved Derek’s life, but it had grown out of respect for the values each held, until now, two hundred and fifty years later, the McClaren pack was family. And in some ways, the Johnsons were pack. The relationship might defy description, but it worked.

Jace paused just inside the door and mouthed,
You can still go back.

Derek flipped him off.

Jace shook his head. There was just no talking to some men. And deep inside, he admitted he was glad of it. With Derek along, this mission might work out to be more than glorified suicide. The McClarens were hell on wheels when it came to a fight, and more than a match for most vampires. With Derek along, he might just get his wife back. And his child, who he only found out about days ago. He shook his head at that. Jace Johnson, a family man. It didn’t hit his funny bone as hard as it could have. Over the last few days he’d grown rather attached to the notion.

They made their way soundlessly down the dark corridor. Processed air blew past. A few feet beyond the opening, his night vision kicked in, casting everything in shades of gray. He blinked. He’d never quite gotten used to the switch. Night vision was as detailed as day vision, but he still had the hardest time getting used to the lack of color.

Truth was, he liked color. He liked laughter. Hell, he even liked life as a damn vampire. Of all the Johnson brothers, he was the only one who’d welcomed Caleb turning him. He couldn’t imagine being left behind. It’d always been the Johnson brothers against the world. And when push came to shove he didn’t see the sense of losing his brothers for want of turning. Being immortal definitely had its advantages. He was stronger and faster, and he could fight better and love longer. It had pretty much been wine, woman, and song interspersed with an occasional battle for two centuries. Until Miri. Miri D’Nally, with her witchy eyes, sunny smile, and soft-as-summer-rain ways, had turned the fun into something much more serious. He tightened his grip on his gun. Much more welcome.

They came to a split in the corridor and another camera. He shimmered an illusion of the surrounding wall over himself and Derek and quickly passed beyond its view. Video devices were good against weres and they were good against humans, but they were pretty useless against vampires.

He scanned again. There were people in one of the rooms ahead to the right. Not moving. Prisoners? He was too far away to tell and the energy too weak to read. No telling whether they were wolf, vamp, or human, but his gut twisted with a hard clench. It had to be Miri. He signaled for Derek to cover him and pointed down the corridor. Derek nodded. Jace moved forward, curling his finger against the trigger guard, itching for a target. He wanted to kill someone for burying Miri in this glorified grave. Just being this far beneath the earth must have driven a woman like her mad.

Miri was a woman of laughter and joy, a werewolf who loved to run in sunlight and dance in moonlight, who gloried in her connection to nature. Forbidden to him by her pack law, given to him as a mate by fate, he remembered her as he’d last seen her: relaxed and sated from his lovemaking, her lips parted and swollen, her breath panting, her long black hair a fan of contrast against the white sheets. She’d stared at him as he’d told her he was leaving, disbelief slowly replacing the bliss in her soft golden-brown eyes when he’d told her he was coming back the following week, creating a nagging unease that he was missing something. An unease he’d ignored. To their detriment. Truth was, if he’d spent more time understanding her out of bed, he’d have known how devastating his casual announcement that he was leaving had been to her, but he’d been thinking as a human and she’d been thinking as a wolf. Not a good combination in any circumstances. Damn near terminal when it happened in the beginning of a relationship. It’d taken longer than a week to come back. Civil war had a way of messing with a man’s schedule, and when he had returned, Miri had been as gone as if she’d never existed. And there hadn’t been a whisper as to where. And when all his efforts to find her had come up empty, he’d braved direct confrontation with the D’Nallys. While he’d accepted the D’Nallys’ right to put a bounty on his head for touching a were female, he hadn’t accepted their statement that his Miri was dead. Not when his gut told him she wasn’t. Not when, every time he closed his eyes, he went quietly crazy because her cries haunted his dreams. And then Raisa had come to the compound and he realized those nightmares were real. For a year, his wife had needed him, called for him to save her, believed he would come. Goddamn! For a year she’d suffered while he’d hunted in all the wrong places. For a year she’d kept believing until, Raisa said, she finally couldn’t believe anymore and she’d given up, forced by Sanctuary plans into a final act of desperation to save their child. Something that had her living on borrowed time. And now the clock was ticking.

Rage flared as he moved deeper into the mountain. If her pack hadn’t been so insular, so stuck on tradition, Jace might have found her sooner, but the D’Nallys were real particular about their women and no doubt one of their women hanging out with a vampire from the wrong side of immortality did not float their boat. He moved down the corridor, studying the energy coming from the room, slowing as it became more distinct. He couldn’t afford a mistake. Derek growled a low warning. He was flaring out of control. Jace stopped, taking a breath, steadying the wild fluctuation of energy that surged at the thought. Legend was, vampires were sterile beings that could only be made, not born, but apparently the Johnsons were the exception to the rule, because Caleb’s wife, Allie, was pregnant and he… Shit! He had a child.

The wonder of that tempered his rage, giving him something positive on which to hook his excess emotion. Once again under control, he moved on, logging the information coming at him as he did. About a hundred feet ahead, the corridor veered off. He probed the left hall. There was the hollow thunk of machinery and the consistent hum of fans but no sense of life. Maybe a security room? If there was one, the occupants were cloaked or it was unmanned. He was betting unmanned, since the hairs on the back of his neck weren’t standing on end. Derek paused against the opposite wall, his eyebrows raised, gun sitting easily in his hand, the butt resting against his hip, looking for all the world like he was out for a picnic, while from somewhere down the maze of corridors came the muffled sound of a single shot and an explosion. Vibrations from the blast vibrated through the floor and wall, adding to the tension in Jace’s muscles. They only had a short time to find Miri and get out. Sanctuary leaders were notorious for blowing up compounds if the battle went south. And this battle was definitely going to go south. The Johnsons had a score to settle.

Don’t be influenced by what you see. Use your senses.

Caleb’s words came back to him. Jace closed his eyes, going deep into his vampire senses. Instinct told him this area was where he needed to be and the direction he needed to go was…right. He needed to go to the right. The walls came alive with echoes of the past as he concentrated, expanding and contracting with the embedded energy that only came from extreme suffering, seeming to writhe with the agony of the screams of those who had suffered in the Sanctuary’s bid for power.

He closed his mind to the empathic pulse, not wanting to know, now, what had been done to Miri, what he had allowed to be done to her because he’d assumed that while he was away she’d be safe with her pack. Though he blocked out the remnants of screams, the memories haunted him, dogging his steps, just waiting for a break in his concentration to pounce. Ten seconds later, he felt it. The subtlest of vibrations. Just twinges on the edge of his consciousness, but everything in him snapped to attention—Miri.

Instinct demanded he charge down that connection and wrap her safely in his energy, hold her the only way he could, tell her he was coming, that she wasn’t alone.

Another growl from Derek, rumbling over the impulse. He nodded, stifling the urge. If Miri wasn’t alone, if he betrayed his presence with his energy, if Miri showed any sign, to whomever was with her, that he was coming, the rescue might be over before it began. It was doubtful all of them were going to get out of here alive as it was, but he was determined that one of the survivors would be Miri. She had to live.

He signaled to Derek. Corridor on the right. Approximately thirty feet. His normally steady heartbeat, the one that didn’t elevate even in the tightest situations, picked up speed. One by one, his senses focused on the woman just a minute away. He hadn’t seen her in over a year. Hadn’t caressed her face, hadn’t loved her body or restored himself with the touch of her soul in too damn long.

Another explosion shook the walls. Derek made the motion to hurry. He nodded. It did sound like the boys were having just a bit too much fun with Slade’s toys. And that much boom meant they were fighting hard to buy him time against some ugly odds, but the Renegades didn’t have an endless supply of weapons. He picked up speed. Derek followed. Calm and steady, with a vicious side most didn’t see coming until it was too late, Derek had saved all their asses more than once. The day Caleb had saved Derek’s life and forged the pact between the McClarens and the Johnsons had been a good one for the Johnsons.

The next corridor was short and unremarkable. Two doors on either side with a steel door at the end. The one at the end was an impressively thick device, with one of those mechanical locks they didn’t have a prayer of opening without five hours and Slade sitting there working his magic with technology. That is, if someone hadn’t already opened it for them. The heavy door was jammed open about fourteen inches with a metal bar. Not big enough for a man to get through, but it might just be big enough for a small woman to squeeze through. Miri was small. Jace glided to the opening. Miri’s scent reached out, flowed around him in a silent caress. Subtle, light, enticing, cinnamon spiced with bitter fear. A red stain on the door drew his hand. Blood. He rubbed the residual smear between his fingers, keeping his expression impassive as his vampire howled in recognition. Miri’s. He brought his fingers to his mouth, refreshing his memory with her taste as he reached out carefully with his mind.

Derek, following his actions, frowned. Jace didn’t have an answer for the question in his eyes. He didn’t know how badly she was hurt. From the standpoint of Miri’s rescue, it didn’t matter. They’d planned for the worst, hoping for the best. He looked through the door. The room was large, with computers and gadgets around the perimeter. It looked a lot like the lab that had held Caleb for a time. In the middle stood a stainless steel table. Restraints made of the same stainless steel gleamed ominously in the sterile white light. A dark liquid spread over the bottom of the table and dripped off the edge. Two bodies lay crumpled on the ground, shards of glass sparkling around them. No energy came off the bodies. Looked like the worst hadn’t happened. Miri was ambulatory. Jace smiled. And kicking ass.