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  Helen smiled, her dark eyes identical to Chalton’s. “True.”

  “How could you lie to me and get away with it?” Olivia asked. “I can usually tell.

  Helen smiled. “I’ve been immortal for centuries, dear. Masking a lie isn’t as difficult as you’d think.”

  “Why, mom?” Jared asked, gently leading Ronni away from the wired window. “Why in the world would you leak proprietary information and put a bounty on your head?”

  Helen shrugged. “I figured the king would send Chalton to investigate. I hired Theo, and I had friends of mine hire you to all track down Olivia.”

  “Why?” Chalton asked, his eyebrows drawing down.

  “You boys haven’t talked in over a hundred years.”

  Helen put both hands on her hips. “I thought that having a common goal would get you in the same place, and look! It worked.”

  “Is that all?” Theo asked, a smile barely lifting his lips.

  “Um.” Helen shuffled stunning black Manolo’s. “Well, I did notice that Olivia was enhanced. As is Ronni, by the way.”

  Chalton groaned. “This is some elaborate matchmaking scheme?”

  “Well, it was, but I admit it got out of hand. I didn’t expect Petey to make a move.” Helen swallowed. “It’s my fault. Obviously he was watching me, and when I arranged for you all to be here at the same time, he finally made a move. I’m so sorry.”

  That did explain the timing. Chalton strode toward the crumpled inward door. “Let’s get out of here and deal with the treason and matchmaking issues later. It sounds like the explosion completely blocked the door.”

  Olivia straightened and craned her neck, her gaze searching. “Something is off. I feel…something. A weird vibration.”

  Ronni frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Olivia turned toward Helen. “Did they touch anything in the room? Leave anything?”

  Helen glanced around. “I’m empathic, not psychic. I was knocked out for a little while, but I did hear them rummaging in the desk. I figured they were looking for the research I’d leaked to Olivia.”

  Olivia inched toward the desk and bent down to study the drawers. Gingerly, she pulled out the bottom one.

  “Hell,” Jared murmured, looking over her shoulder.

  Olivia sucked in air. “We have a bomb, folks.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Chalton hurried around the desk to study the bomb. Different wires cascaded out from a compilation of material only known to the immortal world. When it blew, it’d take out the entire building.

  A timer ran along the side, and he had to bend down to read it. “We have two minutes.”

  He levered up and glanced around the room. The outside walls were brick, the door was blocked, and the window was wired from the outside. “Everybody take cover. It has been a while, but I’ll do what I can,” he said evenly, trying to remain calm.

  Ronni cleared her throat and stood up. “I have no clue how to diffuse a bomb.” She grasped Helen’s arm and drew her over to the bookshelf. “Anybody?”

  “I know more than most.” Chalton reached for a pair of scissors on the desk, his gaze on Olivia. “When you sense lies or truth…what is it like?”

  She blinked, panic darkening her eyes. “Like?”

  “Yes. Do you smell a lie? See a lie? Just sense it?”

  She rapidly shook her head. “There’s a subtle vibration I sense through the air.”

  He smiled and tried to banish all concern. “Good. That’s good. Come here.”

  She moved without hesitation, arriving at his side and kneeling down, her gaze on the bomb. “I don’t know anything about bombs.”

  He gripped the scissors. “Wires send out vibrations, just like people do.” He leaned toward her. “I’m going to press on each wire, and I want you to listen to and catalog the sound.”

  She swallowed and glanced at him. “I can see patterns in books, colors, words, speech, even the air sometimes.”

  He frowned, wanting nothing more than to force open the door and tell her to run. “You see one here?” he asked instead.

  She gulped in air and studied the bomb. “The wires. Colors and crossing.” A tingling set up from her…popping the air around him. “I don’t sense the bad ones.”

  He angled to the side, the scissors at ready. “This pink wire is an instant detonation if cut. I can tell by the way it’s inserted. We have to cut all the other ones first, but I don’t know the order.” Careful and slow, he pressed the scissors on the wire.

  She glanced up, her face pale. “Okay. That was shrill.”

  He hadn’t heard a thing. She was amazing but obviously getting freaked out. Couldn’t blame her. “Okay. Let’s try the yellow one.” He tried to convey confidence in his gaze.

  “Not as bad,” she said. “I can hear the difference.”

  “Good. Now blue.” He went through each one, careful not to cut. Finally, they were done. “In order from barely shrill to very shrill, it goes blue, yellow, red, black, and then pink. Right?”

  Tears filled her eyes. “No way will this work.” She pushed back her hair, and her hand visibly shook. “The good news is that even if we blow up, you won’t die, right?”

  He wanted to lie to her, but she’d know it. “We can die, sweetheart. By beheading, by losing all our blood, and by being blown to bits.”

  She grimaced. “Oh. Guess we’d better get this right.” She bent down so close she was almost nose-to-nose with the myriad of wires. Just in case this was it, she couldn’t leave things unsaid. “I do love you, you know,” she whispered.

  “I know,” he whispered back. “I realize it doesn’t make sense to you, but when it happens, it happens quickly for my people. I love you, too.”

  She glanced up, a small smile on her face, tears in her eyes. “Guess we’d better live.”

  “Fucking get to it,” Jared ordered from across the room where he and Theo tried to shield Ronni and Helen.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t talk for so long,” Chalton said. There was a chance that his crazy plan wouldn’t work, and he’d end up in pieces. It was time to become a strong family again, even if it was during his last moments. “You’re my brothers, and I carry you with me at all times.”

  Theo nodded. “Ditto, and a hundred years isn’t long, really. We would’ve caught up.”

  “Yeah,” Jared said with a low growl. “Without anybody committing treason.”

  Helen sighed. “I believe we’re running out of time. I love you boys.”

  “You can do this. Blue wire first,” Olivia said quietly.

  Chalton, his hand steady, clipped the blue wire.

  Olivia breathed out. “Good. Okay, good. Um, twenty seconds. Yellow wire.”

  He moved to cut. It seemed to help her to direct, so he let her, although he’d already memorized the order.

  “The red wire.”

  He swallowed and then snipped the red wire, his body tensing for the explosion.

  Nothing.

  His chest heaved. “Fifteen seconds.”

  She grimaced, her gaze on the wires. “The next is the black wire, but it’s underneath the pink one. You can’t cut the pink.”

  He inched to the side and slid the scissors beneath the pink wire, holding his breath. With a slight twist of his fingers, he snapped the black wire and glanced at the timer. “Ten seconds.”

  She coughed. “Thank you for the last couple days. They were crazy but the best of my life.”

  “Ditto.” He snapped the pink wire, dropping the scissors and tackling her to the ground, covering her completely.

  Quiet reigned.

  She looked up at him, her gaze wide.

  Slowly, he turned and moved back to the bomb. It had frozen at one second. One second.

  “Are we done?” Jared asked, tension riding his voice.

  Chalton went limp. “Yeah. Bomb’s out.” He yanked Olivia into him and covered her mouth with his, taking her deep and showing her everything he was feeling. She k
issed him back, giving him the sense of coming home. Finally.

  A throat clearing drew him away from her.

  “We still need to get out of here,” Jared snapped, heading for the bookcase and tossing books on the floor. “We’ll have to go through the inner wall to the next office and so on until we can get out to the hallway.”

  Chalton nodded and moved to help pull the bookshelf away from the wall.

  “Me first.” Theo pivoted in a stunning spin-kick to demolish the drywall.

  Olivia rushed for the hidden wall safe on the other side, opened it, and drew out her laptop and a stack of manila files.

  Jared jumped in to assist Theo, and within minutes, they were in a small office that appeared to belong to a bunch of performing belly dancers, based on the costumes strewn around.

  They had to attack another inner wall to enter a magician’s office to be able to access the outer hallway. Once there, they filed out single-handedly the same way they’d arrived.

  Sirens trilled in the distance.

  “We need to be out of here,” Chalton said, leading the way into the sunlight and around the corner. “Look natural.” He glanced left and right, looking for a threat but finding nothing.

  Crowds moved past them, several people stopping to gape at the smoke billowing out of the brick building from the inner hallway explosion. The smoke was secondary without any remaining fire, so hopefully nobody had been harmed. He couldn’t smell any blood or sense death, so the strike had been localized well.

  Chalk one up for Petey.

  The crowd thickened, and he tried to maneuver between shopping bags and kids on a field trip holding museum bags. He paused near an alley, scouted the quiet row, and moved on.

  A man in a hat jostled him, stepped by, and shoved Olivia into the alley.

  Chalton turned in time to see a knife flash against her delicate skin. Everything in him quieted, and he shut off all emotion, even as he wanted to roar. He followed with his brothers flanking him, guns already out.

  The hat fell off.

  “Petey,” Chalton breathed, his focus on the knife pressed against her vulnerable jugular. Her fear climbed into him, and he had to concentrate to keep from losing his mind. His entire body heated and then chilled to ice. Petey held her around the waist, knife to her throat, her back to his front.

  “You took out my bomb?” Petey asked, his blue eyes flashing. Standing well over six-feet tall, the blond easily pulled Olivia deeper into the alley.

  “Yes.” Chalton took note of the area, looking for a place to take him down. A series of stench-riddled garbage bins lined the way, while puddles glimmered all over. “Why don’t you stop hiding behind a little human?”

  Petey pressed his nose to her hair and breathed deeply. “Your little human. She reeks of you.”

  Olivia’s eyes widened, fear filling the green. Her head was back and her head was arched to avoid the sharp blade digging in. A sliver of blood rolled down her neck.

  Chalton fought to keep from turning into the predator living inside him. “Only cowards hide behind women.” Or kidnap mothers.

  Petey shrugged. “Your people killed my father. I guess killing your mate is a fair exchange.”

  “She’s not my mate,” Chalton ground out, angling a little to the right as Jared went left. “But I will avenge her death in ways you can’t even imagine right now.” She was his mate, and his fangs tried to flash. A rumbled set through him. Everything inside him rioted at the image of her in danger. “I will kill you, Petey.”

  “Ah. The Realm assassin makes an appearance. Thought you went limp there,” Petey spat, backing away.

  “Just took a vacation.” It had been way too long since he’d fired a weapon, but there was only one chance to save Olivia. “Let the girl go, and I won’t kill you.”

  Petey smiled and let his fangs drop. “No.”

  Allowing instinct to take over, Chalton grabbed his weapon and fired.

  The bullet impacted Petey’s wrist, going right through to his collarbone and missing Olivia by centimeters. Petey dropped the knife and yelled as blood sprayed from his injury.

  Chalton leaped for him, shoving Olivia away and continuing down to the ground. Nothing existed. No thought, no feeling…only protecting his mate.

  His knife was instantly in his hand from his boot, and he shoved down through Petey’s throat right to the concrete. Grunting, Chalton twisted right and then left, sawing until the head rolled under a dumpster.

  He growled and stood, wiping his knife on his jeans. Turning, his fangs out, blood on his face, he saw Olivia right before she pitched forward in a dead faint. Theo caught her before she could hit the dirty ground.

  Slowly, reality returned to Chalton. His brothers and mom stared at him, concern bright in their eyes.

  He focused on the woman he loved. To save her, he’d had to become what he’d vowed never to become again. A monster who killed.

  Had he just lost her?

  Olivia settled into the plush sofa at Helen’s house, her gaze on the slowly forming king on the broad plasma television. Apparently vampires rarely used texting and instead had to see each other in full color.

  Ronni perched quietly on a settee, drinking an iced tea, more pale than ever. Helen was in the other room trying to keep Uncle Benny from sending troops to kill Chalton, while he and his brothers stood as a unit to face the television.

  King Dage Kayrs stood as well, his hands behind his back. “Is it over?”

  “Yes,” Chalton said. “We have the research and have stopped the stories. The mission is concluded.”

  Dage frowned and studied Chalton. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine, King. Stop worrying,” Chalton said.

  The king nodded, glancing to the sides. “It’s good to see you and your brothers together.” He focused on Jared. “He’s been lonely without you.”

  “Ditto,” Jared said.

  “Good.” The king visibly relaxed. “Your mother was matchmaking instead of committing treason, as far as I’m concerned. We’ll keep her involvement out of any reports whatsoever, so this stays between us. The issue is concluded.”

  “No.” Olivia sucked deep for courage and stood to face what could only be termed a deadly predator. “I haven’t promised to stop writing the articles.”

  Dage’s eyebrows rose. “Chalton? Your mate seems to have a different idea than you do.”

  “We haven’t mated,” Olivia said as sweetly as she could.

  “We will,” Chalton shot back.

  “Maybe.” She tried to appear calm and not scared shitless. “That’s private, and we’ll discuss it later.” As of now, her insisting on accompanying him on the mission had resulted in his killing somebody, and a new darkness had entered his eyes. Did he resent her? He had a right. “My business is with the king.”

  “Is that so?” Chalton asked, his voice dangerously mild.

  She shivered. “Yep. Here’s the deal. You promised to save my friend, King. If you figure out how to do so, then I’ll even write an article debunking the extra-chromosomal species.” She could come up with something interesting that made sense and might still help human scientists. “Deal?”

  The king studied her, his silver eyes nearly glowing. “Chalton? Any ideas?”

  Ronni cleared her throat. “Um, hi, Vampire King. I’m not mating Chalton. Period.”

  Amusement flashed across Dage’s face. “I could find you a lonely shifter.”

  Was he kidding? Olivia frowned.

  “I’ll mate her.” Jared stepped closer to the camera.

  Ronni gasped. “Ah, well, hmmm.”

  He turned to face her. “You want to live or not?”

  “I really do,” she murmured. “But the whole mating thing? It’s forever.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Olivia shook her head. “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “Yet it does,” Jared said, his gaze not leaving Ronni’s.

  Dage chuckled. “Well then, problem so
lved. Olivia? Send me a copy of your new article as soon as it’s written. Chalton? Take all the time you need with your family, but please do check in.” The king clicked off without another word.

  Chalton shook his head. “Olivia? Would you and Ronni please join my mother in the other room? I’d like to talk to my brothers.”

  Olivia nodded and tried to keep her knees from shaking.

  Ronni opened her mouth to protest, and Jared shook his head. “We’ll talk in a few minutes, and I’ll lay out your options for you. For now, please give us a moment.”

  Olivia took her hand. “Let’s go.” If nothing else, they could probably make a break for it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Chalton waited until the door closed behind Olivia. “Have you lost your damn mind?”

  “Probably.” Jared crossed to the bar and poured three glasses of aged Scotch. “But here’s the deal. Olivia won’t stop until her friend is saved, and the king will be forced to do something about it, which would just hurt you.”

  “We can find her somebody else to mate,” Chalton muttered.

  “True, but this way, our mates will be friends and maybe we’ll see more of each other.” Jared handed glasses to Chalton and Theo.

  Chalton drew himself up short. “I’m sorry about the last century, but you sure as shit don’t need to mate my mate’s friend to stay in contact.”

  Jared took a deep swallow and hummed in pleasure. “I know, but why not? I hadn’t planned on mating, so why not save Olivia’s friend? We can mate, I can save her, and then we can go our separate ways.”

  Chalton frowned. “Do you think it’ll be that easy?”

  “Sure.” Jared took another drink.

  Man, was he clueless.

  Theo snorted and shook his head. Then he sobered. “Are you all right, Chalton? I mean, with, you know.”

  “Killing Petey?” Chalton tipped back his head and took a deep swallow, allowing the potent brew to warm his insides. “I think so.” But he’d made Olivia faint. Would she ever be able to see him as anything but the killer he was at heart? “I might have a few more nightmares, but he was threatening my mate.”

  Jared nodded. “You did what you had to do.”