Luther's Return (Scanguards Vampires Book 10)

“I’m so sorry.”


“You heard my father,” Grayson interrupted, a protective arm around his mother’s back. “Leave!”

“Let’s go.” Wesley put his arm around her. “I’ll take you home.”

Reluctantly Katie allowed her brother to lead her toward her dressing room. Out of earshot of the vampires, she stopped and turned toward him.

“Wes, please, I want to help. I feel responsible. If I hadn’t changed roles with Isabelle, she would have been on stage, and maybe this would have never happened.”

“You can’t know that. Whoever took her probably just waited for the right moment.”

“But one of Blake’s men would have been there had he known Isabelle was going to be on her own backstage. I should have told him.” She felt tears well up in her eyes. But she couldn’t cry. Crying meant admitting defeat.

Wes opened the door for her and motioned to the interior. “Get changed. I’ll wait here for you, and then I’ll take you home.”

When the door closed behind her, silence suddenly greeted her. The voices and sounds from the corridor were muffled in the small room. She reached behind her back, trying to find the zipper, but the fabric tightened across her chest, making it impossible for her to reach far enough back to open the dress.

A sob tore from her chest. “Damn dress!” she cursed.

Frustrated, she ripped the door open. “I can’t get this stupid dress off,” she wailed at Wes who stood there.

“Oh, Katie,” he murmured, reaching his arms out to her.

“I’ll take care of it, Wes,” Yvette suddenly interrupted.

Katie looked at her sister-in-law as she came toward them, grateful for her concern. Yvette, beautiful with her long black hair and elegant in her figure-hugging red dress, ushered her back into the room and closed the door behind them.

“Hey, honey,” Yvette murmured and pulled her into a sisterly embrace. “It’ll be all right. We’ll find her. Scanguards takes care of their own.”

Katie sniffled and lifted her head to look at Haven’s mate. “I feel responsible.”

“Don’t,” she demanded. “Now let’s get you out of this dress.”

With expert hands, Yvette helped her get undressed.

Katie wiped her tears from her eyes. “Are the kids scared?”

Yvette rolled her eyes while she handed Katie a T-shirt. “The younger ones maybe, but the older boys are all suddenly turning into Rambo. Even Cooper.”

“But he’s only sixteen!” And in Katie’s eyes, her nephew was still a child, though he probably wouldn’t have liked to hear that.

“Don’t I know it? But he hears the twins talking about joining the search and off he goes, begging his father to let him help, too.”

“But Amaury’s boys are hellions! They aren’t like Cooper.” Cooper was a lot more sensible. More the thinking kind.

“Yeah, and guess who they got that from. Damian is cut from the same cloth as his father, and Benjamin is just like Nina. And together they’re unstoppable once they’ve gotten something into their heads. No wonder Amaury and Nina stopped having any more after those two.”

Katie sighed and pulled her jeans up. “Aren’t all hybrids like that? Thinking they’re invincible?”

“All hybrids of the Scanguards family sure are. They see their parents and what they do for a living, and they think that every vampire is like that: a fighting machine out to right all wrongs. They’re gonna have a rude awakening one day when they realize that not all wrongs can be fought and defeated. I try to instill that in Lydia and Cooper, but whenever they get together with the rest of the bunch, they want to be superheroes!”

“Can you blame them?” Katie put her hand on Yvette’s forearm, thankful that her sister-in-law was preventing her from spinning out of control. “They see their parents as superheroes, and they want to be just like them. Your kids want to emulate you.”

Yvette raised an eyebrow and tilted her head to the side. “Why do I suddenly feel like you’re trying to butter me up, sis?”

“I’d never do that,” Katie claimed. “Though there is one thing you could do for me, since you have Level A clearance at HQ.”

Yvette shook her head. “The answer is no.”

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“The answer is still no.”





6


Zane slammed his fist on the table, clearly enraged. The silver chains with which Luther was tied up rattled from the impact. They didn’t do any damage to his ankles, since those were covered by his pants, but the shackles around his wrists were another story. They burned painfully into his flesh. But he didn’t flinch. There was nothing Zane could do or say to make him change his answers.

“As I already said, I have nothing to do with the disappearance of Samson’s daughter.”