Page 60 of Pursued

“Trust me,” I mouthed next to her right ear. I waited until she nodded before saying in a slightly louder voice, “They’re searching the house now. We have to get to the helicopter.”

Meanwhile, I snapped my fingers for Diesel, who’d pushed ahead to sniff out the passageway. He trotted back to look up at me expectantly. I twisted the silver earring around his collar and took him back into my suite. Mila followed, watching us from the bedroom door.

I disengaged the security and rubbed my cheek against Diesel’s rough fur. “If you get out of this alive,” I murmured, “you’ll be eating steak for the rest of your life.”

I eased open the door to the hall. The door to Mila’s suite stood open now. “Go,” I told the wolfdog in a low voice. “Heliport.”

He whined, but obediently loped down the hallway.

I returned to my suite, silently closing the door and reengaging the security. Back in my bedroom, Mila had donned her sneakers. She stood with her arms wrapped around her middle, a big-eyed waif in a rainbow T-shirt and cargo shorts. The still-open switchblade glinted obscenely in her hand.

Guilt swamped me. This was all my fault.

I should’ve never shown myself to her, all those years ago in the garden. Security had been on their way to escort her out, but I’d told them to back off, that I’d handle it. But instead of ordering her off our property, I’d somehow found myself offering to show her the garden instead.

She’d been so entranced by the flowers, she hadn’t noticed that all I could look at was her. By the end of an hour, I’d known I had to see her again.

Now I hauled her into my arms for a hard kiss. “Don’t worry,” I whispered in her right ear. “It will be all right. I have people looking for Joey.”

Her head whipped up. Her fingers curled into my shirt.

“I don’t care about me,” she mouthed back. “But please, don’t let them hurt him.”

And just like that, I knew Joey had really been kidnapped. No one could fake that kind of terror. Her pupils were dilated, her heart racing, her scent sharp with fear.

Which meant Mila had been forced to spy on me.

Maybe it was a fine line, but it meant everything to me—that she hadn’twantedto help my enemies.

I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “He’ll be okay,” I mouthed. “I swear it.”

She nodded, anxious yet trusting.

My heart squeezed. “He’ll be okay,” I repeated. “I promise.”

I just hoped I could keep that promise.

I took Mila’s hand, and together, we ducked through my suits and into the dark passage, which was basically a rough tunnel with no steps. In a couple places where it grew too steep, I’d had the workmen install metal ladders.

Mila gamely kept up, climbing down the two ladders like a cat burglar. Even though I had to move slower to accommodate her human reflexes, we were in the cavern in under five minutes. I slapped my palm on the control, and a door concealed in the rock slid open. Outside was a strip of beach separated by a high, rocky outcropping from the larger cove we’d visited yesterday.

The boom of the surf filled the small cave. Ten yards away, my speedboat was secured to a small dock, concealed in a V-shaped cove formed by the high black rocks.

It was time to get rid of Mila’s other earring. I carefully twisted it off her earlobe and shoved it under a rock at the back of the cave.

We hurried, hand in hand, onto the wet beach. The rain had passed, and the sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving a muted orange shimmer on the dark sky. Long shadows stretched, fingerlike, across the narrow cove, and to the east, the moon hovered, a slender silver crescent above the black water.

I shot a glance up at the beach house. The windows were dark, the whole compound shrouded in an unnatural quiet. But then, vampires fought silently, with stakes and silver blades, and they had incredible night vision.

I started toward the speedboat, then froze. The boat rocked gently, the ocean slapping against the hull. But something or someone was huddled on the deck.

I pushed Mila in the direction of the cave. “Go.Hide in the passage until sunrise.”

But it was too late. A man leapt off the speedboat and stalked toward us with a vampire’s easy grace. Two other vampires dropped from the top of the sixty-foot cliff like great bats to land on the beach a few yards away. One man blocked the way to the passage—whether by intention or accident, I didn’t know.

“Gee, boys,” Mila said out of the side of her mouth. “Nice of you to drop in.”

My lips quirked in spite of myself.