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  Red flashed in her eyes again, and he grinned. Jab at him, and he jabbed back. She was the type who kept jabbing until she got a reaction, so Sorin always gave her one, and if his reaction wasn’t exactly what she wanted, then she’d better learn to stop jabbing. He’d give her respect, he’d give her loyalty, but he wouldn’t be her punching bag.

  She fiddled with the amulet she wore. For her excursion away from Council headquarters she had dressed in modern clothing, leaving the identifying robe behind and opting for a hideously expensive and perfectly fitted black suit and very high heels. But the amulet … she never removed it. Every Council member had one as a mark of their position, and her ego wouldn’t let her part with anything that signified her power, her position, her place in their world. She sighed. “You don’t have anything to worry about. Luca doesn’t change his mind. If he’s protecting the humans, he won’t be joining us. That’s a shame; it’s such a waste of strength and possibility.”

  “Do you want me to kill him?”

  “Of course I want you to kill him.” She lifted her hand in a dismissive wave. “But not just yet. Give him a few days to settle in with our little D.C. conduit. Maybe he’ll get to know her and decide she’s not worth the effort, because Luca’s very pragmatic. He might decide to sit out the action this time, or at the least he’ll relax somewhat. Even Luca isn’t infallible. Assign two or three of our more expendable soldiers to keep an eye on them. If Luca sees reason and gives up on her, then all the better.”

  “Expendable?” That was the word which caught his attention. He was a soldier; none of his people were expendable, not in the sense of logistics and strategy.

  “If Luca catches them, they will die,” Regina said without even pretending concern. “You might as well not send your best.”

  Sorin’s hands clenched and unclenched. “And what am I supposed to do while Luca Ambrus picks off my weakest soldiers one by one?” It went against every instinct he had as a soldier to simply sacrifice his men for no good reason.

  She was obviously unconcerned with the loss of a soldier or two. “Another target has been located, one who is apparently further along than Luca’s pet.” She seemed somehow displeased with the news. “I swear, if Jonas doesn’t pick up the pace, the Warriors will start coming in long before we’ve eliminated all the conduits.”

  Poor Jonas, Sorin thought. He’d been cajoled, bribed, and then tortured, in order to get what Regina wanted from him. Nothing made the answers come any faster, and it would never occur to her that she was actually slowing down the process.

  “I can’t tell you how annoying it is to have the one conduit that’s right under my nose protected by the only creature in the world who might actually keep her safe.”

  In his opinion, there was very little chance they’d be able to eliminate all of the conduits in time, but a handful of Warriors, while formidable, wouldn’t be enough to organize the humans and realistically have a chance of winning. Even then, if Nevada didn’t succeed in breaking the sanctuary spell, the vampires were doomed to fail. The war would be costly to the humans, but as long as they could withdraw to a safe place the vampires couldn’t penetrate, couldn’t harm in any way, they would win.

  She shrugged then, putting the subject aside for another. “Have you ever been to Atlanta?”

  “Many times.” Just not in the past sixty years, or so.

  “That’s where the next target is located. You leave tonight, so get some rest today.”

  Good enough. At least when he was out hunting he wasn’t called to her audiences. That’s what his meetings with her felt like lately. Instead of being her second in command, nearly an equal, he could tell she was beginning to look at him as merely a subject. She habitually treated everyone as inferior, but lately it had begun to grate.

  After she left, he did as ordered and assigned two soldiers to watch Chloe Fallon’s house when night fell. Regina might not approve, but he also warned them to steer clear of Luca, to keep a safe distance, and to inform him immediately if the two separated for any reason.

  With that chore done, Sorin climbed the stairs to Nevada’s room. She’d been keeping vampire hours for most of her time here, working at night, sleeping during the day, so he knew she would be hard at work.

  Nevada couldn’t remember when she’d last slept well; not since coming to this place, at any rate. She woke often during the night … well, during the day, which had become her night … thinking of her family, of the life she’d lost, of the monsters who held her here. Sometimes she wondered why no one had found her; she wondered if anyone was even looking. Probably not. The vampires had left little to chance. What did her friends think had happened to her? Did they believe she was dead? Touring Europe? Since her family was also being held, did the cover story involve them, too? Probably.

  It was likely everyone from the real world thought them all dead. A house fire or a horrific car accident would explain their exit from the world better than any other story. She hoped not, because that meant some other people had died in their places, to provide bodies for the authorities to find. If that was the case, would any of them ever be released?

  Since discovering that she had a talent for remote viewing, Nevada had tried to reach out for her family, to see them, to know they were alive and well. Alive, at least. She’d cast her net far and wide, thinking of her parents, her brother and sister, trying to find them in a big, chaotic world, but she couldn’t find any trace of them. She knew they were alive, or had been recently, because Sorin occasionally let her speak to them, very briefly, on his cell phone. But if she could just see them, visit them even if only in spirit, she’d feel better, feel as if something good could actually come from what she was doing.

  Though she couldn’t see beyond these walls, and she didn’t have a clock to mark the hours, she was pretty sure it wasn’t full dark yet. At night the vampires became more active, they moved about, made more noise, filled the house with the energy Nevada had learned to feel. So, not yet dark; in these early-evening hours she was rarely disturbed by the vampires. It was easier to concentrate on her task when she didn’t expect to be interrupted for an hour or so.

  Instead of searching willy-nilly for her family, it had occurred to her that she might have more success if she started at the center, and slowly widened her net of awareness. Taking a deep breath, she settled herself with her fingertips spread on the proper page in the book of spells, and drew all her energy in. Slowly, slowly, she began pushing it out, taking her time, examining every surge whether it felt familiar or not—

  And there they were. Her family. Shock almost broke her concentration, but desperately she gathered all her strength and energy and held on to the vision. They weren’t beyond her, they were below her, in the basement of this very building. Their windowless room was much too small for four people, and the walls were bare and gray. There was little furniture—two cots, some blankets, and a dim light—and no amenities that she could see.

  But they were together, and alive, and oh, so close.

  She sent her spirit soaring, out of her body and away from the physical world. In a flash Nevada stood in the corner of the gray room, washed in the love and fear her family emitted. She could see and hear them, and in that moment that was all she needed, she didn’t care that they couldn’t see her, that they had no idea she was with them. Anxiously she examined their throats, looking for signs of biting. Sorin had promised her none of the vampires would feed from her family, but why should she believe anything she was told by the monsters? Even though part of her whispered that he was different, he was still a vampire. It was a relief to see for herself that none of her family members bore any marks, no scars or bloodstains.

  The tears that ran down Nevada’s cheeks were real. They dripped down the cheeks of the body while the spirit, in another place, felt the pain. She walked toward her parents, who sat side by side on one of the narrow cots. They were both thinner, older, and so very tired. She felt their fatigue, of both