“And I think that’s great. You have kept others safe with what you can do. You didn’t abuse what you were born with. Don’t assume, Mitch. You know that only makes an ass of you and me. I love that you did that. You more than likely saved countless other children by doing it.” She smiled, and he could see her fangs. “We’re just going to have to make them pay more.”
Mitch followed her into the kitchen and wondered for the first time in his life how the hell he’d gotten so lucky. First, there were Steele and Ray and the other men, and now her. Mitch thought in that moment he might just be able to win against the Bruces after all.
Chapter 5
Darling, I can’t enter your house. What’s going on? She’d been trying to contact Vinnie for the past ten minutes through their connection, and it just wasn’t working. Amber looked around when her daughter didn’t answer her. Something was keeping her not just from the house, but the land as well. Every time she started to step over the boundaries of some...well, hidden line, she felt herself burn, like she’d been staked out in the sun. She looked at her mate, dead now, when he growled at her.
“Well? Why aren’t you going in? I’m telling you right now, I’ve never seen a more labyrinth house in my life. Those underground tunnels are driving me crazy just trying to keep which way I’ve been or where I need to go again. I need to get to her lair.” She reached for her daughter again, telling her to come let her in as Horatio continued. “When I get in there where she rests, you’ll come to me then and we’ll take care of her.”
“There is something wrong here. I can’t cross over into her domain, nor can I get her to talk to me. It more than likely has to do with that fucking Mitch, I’m thinking. He’s put some sort of spell on the house that is blocking me as well. I told her she needed to get rid of him, and now he’s got her doing things against me that just isn’t right.” She wanted to snarl at them all, but knew better than to do so with Horrie. “Mother told me all about the house and how Luther showed up to show her what he’d done. She even told me how she’d had help looking up her own builder to see if he had something hidden. She was telling me that that bastard Luther showed her the doorway we’ve been using...or I’ve been using. Fucking bastard. Someone needs to tear his eyes out. What the hell was he doing hanging about anyway?”
“More than likely hoping to see her in the nude. That boy, the one that has been around, do you know if they’re really mates or not? You know, sometimes it’s just a simple lust thing. Like I had with that woman a long time ago.” She said that they were. “Damn it all to hell and back. You know that will mess things up for us. We need to get into the house and make it ours. And soon.”
Amber nodded. She missed her mate, more and more all the time. And the fact that her daughter had...well, murdered her own father had made her both sad and angry at the same time. He was a good man on occasion, and when he was good, he was very good. Every person had bad days. His were just...well, his were more violent, yes, but they were a violent-natured species. She’d thought that Vinnie would just tie him up for a bit, let him burn a little, then let him go. It shouldn’t have mattered that the council had ordered her to end his life. It was her father, and she shouldn’t have been able to harm him. Then they’d told her she had to watch him die. It had been too much for her, and she’d gone into her crypt to hide away her pain. Amber had mourned him for months before he’d finally come to her and told her of his plan.
They were going to take her house. Seemed innocent enough, she supposed, but the house, with all of its tunnels, would take them places not even their magic would. And they could hide away, deep in them if the house were to catch fire or be raided. The house had been built by a vampire for a vampire to live in. Vinnie only used part of the expansive house, and she and her Horrie wanted it all. And the things he’d found in it when he’d been looking around. Money for one thing…more than either of them ever had.
“Has she answered you yet?” Amber told him she had not. “How is she blocking you, I ask? It is bad enough she was able to kill her own sire, but to block her mother? Unheard of. Try again and keep trying until the little cunt answers you. She’s going to have a lot to answer to when I get to her.”