Vengeance (Night Roamers) Book Three (25 page)

“It’
s the truth. I didn’t kill her back in Vegas, although I have to admit, I wanted to at the time. Anyway, she’s pregnant with my father’s child.”

The blood rushed to my head and I grabbed onto the side of the boat.
“She’s alive and pregnant? What kind of lies are you concocting now, Celeste?”

“Believe me, I’m not lying. Why would I sit here and waste my time just to fabricate some story about your mom when I’d rather be back at that little soiree on the beach scoping out my next meal?”

“I don’t know.”

She groaned. “Listen, your mom is pregnant. Probably a month or two, I don’t even know.”

“How do you know she’s pregnant?”

“
I found a pregnancy test in their suite after escaping Victor last month. He and his dogs almost killed me again. Luckily, Ethan helped me get out of there before it was too late.”

“Pregnant? Really, i
s that even possible?”

“I guess so. It appears that ou
r parents actually did bond three times, and sometime during one of their interludes,” she grimaced, “she must have become pregnant. So, you know what that means?”

“She’s a
pregnant vampire?” I replied dryly.

She smirked. “Give the girl a cookie
.”

“I can’t believe she’s alive,”
I said, looking away as my eyes filled with tears.

“
Oh, she’s alive, and so is her fetus. For now.”

I wiped a tear from my cheek and turned back to her.
“What do you mean?”

“Victor. He
has
your mother and plans on keeping the infant once it’s born so he can give it to that crazy Dr. Shepard. He’ll use it like a lab rat.”

I stared at her in horror. “
No.”

“Oh yes,” she replied. “
Obviously, the man is insane. Anyway, like it or not, the baby is what’s left of my father, and,” her face darkened, “there is no way in hell that I’m going to let that madman figure out a way to populate the world with vampire-infused Lycans. He killed my dad and I plan on stopping that prick in any way possible.”

“And
now you want my help?”

“Yes. I figured you’d want to save your mom.”

“Well, of course,” I said, sitting down on one of the benches. Although I wanted to believe her, I knew it was dangerous. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

She smiled. “I figured you’d ask that. Here,” she said
, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a photo and handed it to me. “Proof.”

I stared down at the picture of my mother
and sighed in relief. She was sitting next to Victor in a restaurant, looking miserable, but healthy. Healthier than I’d seen her in a long time.

“
Now that was taken last week. He has several guards monitoring her at all times. All of his Lycan dogs,” she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Anyway, obviously, we need to get her out of there.”

“Can I keep this p
icture?”

“Yes.”

I let out a long, ragged sigh. “Obviously I’m going to try and help her. But,” I said, glaring at Celeste, “I still don’t trust you. Not only have you tried to kill everyone in my family, but you seem to turn on a dime.”

“I know you’re pissed. I can respect that.”

I pointed my index finger at her. “I’m telling you right now, if you do anything, anything to my brother or Duncan, I will hunt you down and kill you.”

“I’d expect no less,” she replied
, forcing a smile. “So, you’re in?”

“
Of course. One more thing, we leave Nathan here.”

“No, Nathan is not staying here,” he replied, stepping out of the darkness.
Obviously he’d stepped out the other side of the boat and had been listening in the entire time. “She’s my mother, too. I’m coming with you.”

“What can
you
do against a group of Lycan, Nathan?” I asked, standing up. “Seriously?”

“I don’t know
, but there’s no way you’re leaving me behind.”

“What about Taylor?”

He hesitated. “I’ll come back and see her when all of this is finished. She’s a nice girl, but we’re talking about family.”

“That’s right, brother,”
said Celeste, smiling.

“
You
stay the fuck away from me,” he snapped. “I mean it. No hypnosis or whatever it is you were trying to do to me in Vegas.”

“I’ll leave you alone,” she said
, her eyes so wide I had a hard time believing she meant it. “Scout’s honor.”

“Where does
Victor have her?” I asked.

“Back in Shore Lake
, at the cabin you guys stayed at,” said Celeste.

“Well, at least we don’t have to go back to Vegas,” I said
, folding my arms under my chest. “How did you find us, by the way?”

“One of you
screwed up and used a credit card a couple of weeks ago. Ethan has connections, so we eventually tracked you here.”

“A credit card purchase, huh? Where?” I asked, stunned.

“Tommy Bahama’s,” she said, turning to Nathan. “Nice shirt, by the way.”

“Nathan!” I
hollered. “What in the hell were you thinking? We talked about this.”

His face turned red. “I didn’t think they had the resources to track us
out here! I had the address changed on my credit card and everything. I was just so tired of borrowing money from Duncan.”

“You should be happy he screwed up,” said Ethan, stepping off of the deck and onto the boat
wearing shorts and a tank. “Or you’d never know about your mom.”

Ethan, although still heartbreakingly handsome, did nothing but
make me sick to my stomach now. I glared at the one person who’d caused me so much heartache. “Where’s Duncan?”

He snorted
. “Hopefully out of my life for good.”

It was then that I noticed h
is clothes were wet and his lip was puffy and bleeding.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said Duncan, landing on the boat. “But I’m here and actually, doing a lot better than you,” he said, chuckling.

“Thank God, are you okay?” I asked, putting my arms around Duncan’s waist.

“Considering that I’m dry and have a hot girl in my arms, I’m doing
better than anyone here. That piece of shit, on the other hand, just found out that I’m not as weak and vulnerable as I once was.”

“
Give it up, you’re always going to be weaker than me,” snapped Ethan, his lips pulled into an ugly scowl. “Just because you got in a couple good licks, doesn’t mean squat.”

Celeste groaned.
“Would you please quit your fighting? Ethan, did you tell Duncan why we’re here?”

He licked the blood from his lower lip.
“I started to and then he attacked me. I wasn’t expecting it.”

“You weren’t…” Duncan snorted. “
What did you expect? That I’d invite you onboard for a couple of drinks, so we could talk about what douchebag you are?”

“I would have loved to have gotten in that conversation,” said Nathan.

“Enough!” snarled Celeste. “This is giving me a migraine. Look, we’re leaving. We’ll meet you guys back in Shore Lake, at Club Nightshade. Tomorrow night around midnight.”

“Fine,” I said. “But don’t think for one moment that we’re buddies now. We’ll help save our mother from
Victor, but after we get her away from him, you won’t be hearing from us ever again. And I expect the same of you.”

“
I can live with that,” said Celeste.

“
I still don’t know what’s going on,” replied Duncan. “I’m not agreeing to anything until someone besides Ethan fills me in.”

I explained the situation as briefly as I could. When I was finished, he sighed.
“Well, I’m
in
, obviously. But just like Nikki said, we’ll work together to free Anne, but that’s it. And you,” he said, pointing towards Ethan. “You keep your distance from Nikki or so help me, I’ll kill you. I swear it on my father’s grave, I will kill you.”

“Nikki has nothing to worry about from me,” he said, giving me one of his charming smiles.

I rolled my eyes.

Puke.

I turned back to Duncan. “It doesn’t matter if Ethan tries anything because I love you, Duncan.
You.
I have absolutely no feelings for him, and the ones I thought I had died in Vegas. So,” I leaned forward and kissed his lips, “don’t worry about me.”

He
smiled. “I love you, too, Nikki.”

Ethan clapped his hands. “Oh, how touching,” he said with a
mocking sneer on his face. “Well, now that we have all of that established, Celeste and I will take our leave.”

“Okay,” replied Du
ncan, waving his hand as if he was shooing away bothersome flies. “Nightshade, tomorrow night.”

“See you tomorrow, Nikki,” said Ethan, undressing me with his eyes.

Celeste chuckled and grabbed his hand. “Down, boy. Can’t you see you’ve been replaced?”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” he said, as she pulled him away from the boat.

“Stop it,” she giggled.

“That guy needs a good ass kicking,” said Nathan. “Next time you need to give him more than a fat lip, Duncan.”

“Believe me, I’d love to.”

“
I’m going to call Taylor. She probably thinks I abandoned her.”

I turned towards Duncan
as Nathan went inside of the cabin. “Ethan just doesn’t stop,” I said. “He makes me sick.”

He put his arm around me possessively. “Don’t worry. I won’t leave you alone with him for a minute.”

“Speaking of being alone,” I smiled seductively. “You and I need
more
of that. I want to celebrate the fact that my mom is alive and I can’t think of a better way to do it.”

“As much as I would love
it,” he replied. “We don’t have time.”

“What do you mean?”

He smiled grimly. “We’re not waiting until tomorrow night to get back to Shore Lake. We’re leaving tonight. I don’t trust those two. They’ve already tried to kill us several times. For all we know, this could be another trap.”

I bit my lower lip. “Good plan. Plus, we can leave Nathan here. It’s too dangerous to bring him with us.”

“I agree. Let’s fuel up in the galley with a couple quarts of blood and head out.”

We made it
back to Victor’s cabin in Shore Lake in record time. Three cars were parked in the driveway and two armed guards were standing outside, smoking cigarettes and talking.

“What are we going to do?” I whispered.

We’d landed on the roof of the garage and were crouched down, hidden by the darkness.

“I don’t know. We don’t even know if your mom is inside.”

“She must be, otherwise they wouldn’t have the guards.”

“Good point,” he whispered.

“We could fly to the balcony,” I said, pointing to my bedroom. “Sneak in and try looking for her.”

“Not when they’re standing right there. If they don’t hear us, they might smell us.
Lycans have a keen sense of smell since they’re related to the canine family, probably much better than ours.”

“
Well then, let’s cause some kind of distraction then.”

He thought about it for a
while and then nodded. “Okay. This is what I’m going to do – I’ll fly over to the boathouse and start the boat on fire.”

My eyebrows shot up. “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”

“No, it’s the perfect distraction. Everyone will run out of the house, we’ll snatch your mom, and get her the hell out of here.”

I smiled. “Oh, wow… that’s a brilliant idea.” I kissed him quickly on the cheek. “I’ll have to reward you later.”

“If that’s not incentive to stay alive,” he said, “nothing is. Now, wait for the explosion. When everyone runs out of the house, fly to your balcony and sneak in.”

“Okay.”

He kissed me on the lips. “Mm… incentive never tasted so delicious.”

I pushed him playfully.

Like a gust of wind, he blew off of the roof and disappeared behind the boathouse.

I stayed low, watching the house and
the guards. After a few minutes, the guards separated and began to walk around the property.

“Shit,” I whispered as one of the men began walking towards the boathouse. Instead of going inside, however, he walked to the edge of the dock, unzipped his fly, and took a whiz.

I rolled my eyes and turned my head to look at the other guard, who I noticed was walking behind the house. As they continued to walk the property and the seconds ticked by, I started getting worried, wondering if Duncan was having problems setting the boat on fire. I wasn’t even sure how to do it myself, but knowing how boats had been his life, there was no doubt in my mind that if anyone could light one up, it would be him.