Luther's Return (Scanguards Vampires Book 10)

Reluctantly, Grayson retreated a couple of steps. By doing so, he gave Luther a view of the people standing farther back. In the door frame of what appeared to be a backstage area, a woman stood dressed in a long blue period dress with an empire waist, which accentuated her full breasts. Outside he’d seen posters about a play when he’d arrived. Apparently she was one of the student actresses.

For a moment, the sight of such female perfection made him forget that he was in the middle of a confrontation. One thing was immediately evident: she wasn’t a vampire. However, she didn’t appear fazed by the show of aggression the vampires around her demonstrated.

Luther slowly lifted his eyes from her cleavage to her graceful neck and the beautiful oval face framed by dark brown hair, which was upswept with curls dangling from it. She looked like she didn’t belong in this century. As if she was a time traveler, a mirage from a different era. Not quite human, but something more. She was beautiful, and the sight of her filled him with an odd sense of yearning. A longing he didn’t understand.

“I’m asking again, where is my daughter?”

Intrigued and at the same time irritated, Luther tore his gaze from the dark-haired beauty and glared back at Samson.

“I don’t fucking know. So take your hands off me.”

“Luther?”

At the sound of Eddie’s voice, Luther spun his head to the side. His protégé, the young man he’d turned into a vampire over twenty years ago, came toward him.

“Hi Eddie, been a long time,” he said dryly.

Only once, Eddie had visited him in prison, and back then they’d gotten into a physical fight. He wasn’t expecting Eddie to take his side now either.

“What’re you doing here?” His protégé seemed genuinely surprised and interested.

“He abducted Isabelle,” Samson claimed.

“No, he didn’t,” Eddie contradicted his boss.

Luther raised an eyebrow, surprised that Eddie would give him the benefit of the doubt.

Eddie moved closer, addressing Samson directly. “Blake asked me to check any surveillance recordings from the cameras inside and outside the building. We have a visual. Isabelle was taken. But not by Luther. If he’s behind it, he didn’t do the dirty work himself.”

Well, so much for Eddie’s confidence in him.

“Who? Who took her? Did she get hurt?” Samson asked, easing off Luther and reaching for his wife’s hand.

Luther recognized true fear in his old friend’s face.

“All I could see on the tape is that some guy grabbed her outside the dressing room. She struggled, but she couldn’t shake him. Which suggests that he’s a vampire or a hybrid himself—we don’t know for sure, since a video can’t capture a vampire’s aura. But with Isabelle’s hybrid strength she would have been able to defeat any human.”

“Did you recognize him?”

Eddie shook his head. “I only got a partial of his face. And no voice. There’s no audio on the recording.”

“Run what you’ve got through our database at HQ; see whether we can get anything with facial recognition.”

Eddie nodded. “I already sent all the footage to the server at HQ.”

Samson turned back to Luther, narrowing his eyes. “Who took Isabelle?”

“Didn’t you hear Eddie? It wasn’t me!”

“One of your men?” Samson continued grilling him.

Luther sucked more air into his lungs. “I don’t have any men. I was in prison for twenty years. Remember?”

“Oh, I remember.” A dangerous undertone colored Samson’s voice. “And now you’re out. And back here. On the night my daughter disappears.”

“I’ve got nothing to do with that.”

“We’ll see.” He motioned to Zane and Amaury. “Cuff him and take him to HQ.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” Luther warned.

Samson went toe to toe with him. “No, you’re the one who’s making a mistake by showing up here.” He tossed a sideways glance at his subordinates. “Interrogate him downtown.” Then he swung around and looked back at Eddie. “Did the guy on the video touch anything? Doors? Walls? Anything at all?”

“There’s a chance we can get some fingerprints off the door, but it means we’ll need to get fingerprints from everybody else too in order to rule them out.”

“Do it!”

“I’ll get a team on that,” Blake interrupted him, then nodded to Eddie. “You and Thomas analyze the recording and run it through the system.”

Not too gently, Zane and Amaury grabbed Luther’s arms.

“Welcome back,” Amaury gritted.

“I hear we’re related now,” Luther replied. His protégé Eddie being Amaury’s brother-in-law made them practically family.

Amaury flashed his fangs at him, apparently not too pleased about that fact. “Trust me, that won’t have any bearing on how I treat you.”

A shove from Zane catapulted Luther closer to the door of the backstage area. The woman in the blue costume still stood there, her lips moving as she mumbled something to herself.

Tears rimmed her eyes. “It’s all my fault.”

The words registered but didn’t make sense. Luther hesitated for an instant, resisting Zane and Amaury’s grip, and inhaled.

The scent filling his nostrils made him jerk back in surprise.

The woman wasn’t human.





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