J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 1-4 - J. R. Ward [145]
The phone on the wall rang and she jumped.
She reached over and picked up, still keeping her eyes on the man. He stopped as he saw her.
“Hello?” she said into the receiver. The CG&E guy started walking again, coming up to the back door.
“Beth, get down here now,” Wrath barked.
At that moment, the meter man looked through the kitchen door’s glass panels. Their eyes met. He smiled and lifted his hand.
Chills went over her flesh.
He’s not alive, she thought. She wasn’t sure how she knew it; she just did.
She dropped the phone and ran.
There was a crashing noise behind her as the back door splintered, and then she heard popping sounds. Something hit her in the shoulder with a sting. And then she felt another prick of pain.
Her body began to slow.
She fell facedown onto the kitchen tile.
Wrath yelled as he felt Beth hit the floor. Bolting up the stairwell, he burst into the drawing room.
The sun hit his skin and burned like a chemical spill, forcing him back into the darkness. He flashed down to his chamber, picked up the phone, and called upstairs. It rang and rang and rang.
His breath pumped in and out of his mouth, his chest moving in a series of rough contractions.
Trapped. He was trapped. He was trapped downstairs while she was…
He let out a roar that was her name.
He could sense her aura dimming. She was being taken away, taken somewhere away from him.
Fury poured out of his heart, a black, deep freeze that made the mirror in the bathroom fracture in a series of cracking sounds.
Fritz picked up. “We’ve been broken into! Butch is—”
“Get me the cop!” Wrath screamed.
Butch came on the line a moment later. He was breathless. “I couldn’t catch whoever it was—”
“Did you see Beth?”
“Isn’t she with you?”
Wrath let out another roar, feeling the walls press in around him. He was utterly helpless, caged by the sunlight that washed over the earth above him.
He forced himself to breathe deeply. Only managed one breath before he went back to panting.
“Cop, I need you. I need…you.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Mr. X floored the minivan. He couldn’t believe it.
He absolutely couldn’t believe it.
He had the queen. He had abducted the queen.
This was the chance of a lesser’s lifetime. And it had happened so smoothly, as if it was all meant to be.
When he’d approached the house, he’d merely been on a scouting mission. It had seemed far too coincidental that the address the vampire had given him last night in the alley was the same as that of the warrior he’d blown up. After all, why would the Blind King hang around the mansion of a dead warrior?
Assuming it had to be a setup, Mr. X had fully armed himself and gone to Darius’s before dark. He’d wanted to survey the house’s exterior, see if any of the upstairs windows were blacked out, and check the cars in the drive.
But then he’d noticed the dark-haired woman in the kitchen. With the Saturnine Ruby on her finger. The queen’s ring.
Mr. X still couldn’t fathom why she was able to go around in the daylight. Unless she was part human. Although what were the chances of that?
At any rate, he hadn’t hesitated. Even though he hadn’t planned on infiltrating the place, he’d broken down the door, surprised and grateful when the security system didn’t go off. The woman had been quick on her feet, but not quick enough, and the darts had worked perfectly now that he’d calibrated the dosage correctly.
He glanced into the back.
She was out cold on the minivan’s floor.
This evening was going to be intense. There was no doubt that her male would come after her. And because the Blind King’s blood was surely in her veins, he'd be able to find his mate no matter where Mr. X took her.
Thank God it was still daylight and he had time to fortify his barn.
And he was tempted to call in for reinforcements. Though he was confident in his skills, he knew what the Blind King was capable of. Total destruction of the property, a complete razing of the house,