"I said I was sorry."
"Forget the sorry. Just quit doing it."
"Okay, okay." We entered the lower foyer and ran up the scrumptious staircase. Rhoan headed over to reception while I continued on to check out the dining area. The rich aroma of toast and sweet pastries made my nose twitch, but I tried to ignore the luscious food on display and scanned the area. No sign of Quinn or the dark mage. My gaze drifted to the food, and my stomach rumbled.
I somehow forced my feet away, and headed back to reception. "They're in six-twelve," Rhoan said. "Apparently he had food delivered half an hour ago."
"Why? He doesn't need to eat and she was unconscious."
"Obviously, that's no longer the case."
Obviously. The question was, why did he force me away and then kidnap her? What did he need to do that he couldn't let the Directorate in on?
"Quinn won't take this lightly," Jack said. "Whatever he's up to, he doesn't want us to know about, and that means he'll probably fight capture."
My stomach did an odd flip-flop. I wasn't sure whether the cause was excitement or fear. "Even against the two of us?"
"Sentimentality doesn't play a whole lot into the thinking of an old vampire," Jack said, voice dry. "Not when he's on the hunt."
"Great." I looked at Rhoan. "Let's get this over with."
We headed up. As we approached the room, I blinked, flicking my vision to infrared. Two bodies jumped into focus, one far darker than the other. Oddly enough, Quinn was the brighter one, and closer to the wall. Maisie sat near the window. I glanced at my brother.
He pointed to me, then to the right. I nodded, and pressed a hand flat against the door as he got the keycard out of his pocket. He looked at me again, and raised an eyebrow in query. I took a deep breath, then readied the laser and nodded again. He swiped the card through the slot, and I flung the door open, waiting until he was in before following him through.
There was an exclamation, a flash of red light, a blur of movement, then Rhoan was being tossed sideways like so much rubbish and that blur of heat was coming at me. I pressed the laser, aiming low, scouring the carpet and the end of his toes, not wanting to permanently hurt him. There was a brief whiff of rich spice and seared flesh, and Quinn was on me. I ducked his blow, dropped to the ground, and swept with a leg. Incredibly, I hit him, knocking him off his feet. His butt hit the floor with a thump that would have bruised the tailbone of any other man. And though I'm sure he could have moved, he didn't. Just sat there with a somewhat surprised look on his face.
At any other time, it might have been funny.
Right now, when it was just another instance of how much he underestimated me, it wasn't.
I rose and aimed the laser at him. "Move, and next time it'll be more than your toes."
The surprise melted away, and anger sparked to life, burning in his dark eyes, heating the very air around me. "What are you doing here?"
"My job. Rhoan, you okay?"
"Yeah. Bit of a bruised jaw, but I ducked the worst of it." Footsteps whispered across the carpet. "He has the mage confined."
"Good." I looked at Quinn. "You want to get up?"
He did. And the closeness of him, the rich, glorious smell of him, had my hormones doing giddy little cartwheels. I couldn't ever imagine a time when I didn't want this vampire, moon-heated lust or not. But as I kept trying to tell him, while sex might play a major part in my life, there was only so much shit I could take before the enticement of good sex began to wane and frustration and annoyance took hold.
Quinn and I had passed that point ages ago.
"How did you find me here?" His voice was low, rich with the lilt of Ireland. Which usually meant he was barely controlling some emotion or other. His accent was rarely noticeable, otherwise.
"I asked Jack to track you after you knocked out the mage last night."
He raised his eyebrows, surprise evident yet again. "You countermanded my order to go home?"
"I did. Fancy that." I looked past him. "You want him cuffed?"
"There is no need—"
My finger tightened reflexively against the laser and a soft whine filled the room. "I am itching for an excuse to shoot, you know."
"Cuff him if you want to," Rhoan said.
"I want."
"Revenge for last night?" Quinn said, amusement playing amongst the anger.
"Just doing my job," I said, and met his gaze.
I'm not entirely sure what he saw in my eyes, but the amusement and the anger fled abruptly. "Riley—"
"It's too late, Quinn," I said softly. Wearily. "I'm tired of listening to your excuses, tired of the one-way traffic. I am a werewolf, I am a guardian, and it seems you can't accept either."
"We had a deal—"
"Would that be the deal you keep breaking?" I caught the cuffs Rhoan tossed my way. "Tell me, how long have you been using our telepathic bond to curb my visits to the clubs?"
It was a guess, but a reasonable one. I certainly hadn't been restricting my visits consciously—but my reaction in the Blue Moon last night had certainly proved that they had indeed been curbed. And the wolf within wouldn't have done it willingly—hell, she wanted more visits, not less.
So it had to have been an unconscious decision. A decision caressed into compliance by a link so light I wasn't even aware of it.
He didn't say anything, and that in itself was damning.
"Turn around and place your hands behind your back."
"There is no need for this," he said quietly, even as he obeyed. "And there was a good reason for sending you home last night."
"I don't care if there was or there wasn't. And there is every need for me to do this. There are consequences for every action, Quinn. It's about time I started making you pay for yours."
"We—"
"Are finished." I looked at Rhoan. "You ready?"
He nodded, then looked at Quinn. "Don't try anything. If she doesn't shoot you, I will."
"For interrogating a suspect?"
"No. For abusing Riley's trust yet again." He picked up Maisie, throwing her like a securely cuffed sack over his shoulder. "Let's get this show on the road."
I stepped back and waved Quinn past me. He gave me his vampire face, but the air fairly burned with his anger. And surprise.
He hadn't expected that I'd really end it. Hadn't believed that I'd meant what I said.
Now all I had to do was find the strength to really walk away.
Chapter Ten
I leaned my head against my hand and barely restrained a huge yawn. "This is going nowhere fast."
Jack handed me a coffee, his expression grim. "No one said breaking a mage's defense would be easy."
I sipped at the hot liquid in the cup. It couldn't be called coffee because it just didn't look, or taste, anything like it. Still, if it served the purpose of keeping me awake, I'd drink a gallon of the muck.
I eyed our captive through the one-way glass. Maisie was currently being interrogated by both a specialist in magic and a specialist in "interviewing" techniques. I'd seen the interviewers in action on several occasions over recent months, and knew their methods could get extremely gruesome. Unlike regular police, the Directorate didn't have to worry about prisoner rights. If the person being questioned posed a threat to the human population in any form or shape, then the Directorate could basically do what they wanted to get the required answers. Except, of course, if the person involved was human or part human. Then it got trickier.
Which was probably why the techniques being used today had been pretty mild so far. Maisie might be a mage of extreme power, but she was also human. By law, the Directorate had to tread cautiously.