Page 5 of Blood & Bond (The Bouchers #2)

“Saved from what? Bedbugs?” Lucy scoffed. “If I remember correctly, you broke into my perfectly safe hotel room?—”

“Which obviously wasn’t as safe as you were pretending since it took about fifteen seconds with a lock pick to get in,” Chance interrupted flatly.

“Considering that I’m not even sure anyone was looking for me to begin with?—”

“You can’t be that fucking na?ve,” Chance barked.

I took a step forward, but Lucy didn’t need me. Her eyes widened as she sneered at Chance.

“You don’t know anything,” she spat. “You’re just a bunch of bumbling idiots.

Oh, I’m supposed to trust you? Thank you?

I met you like five minutes ago. Vampires are the ones looking for us, you frigging asshole!

They’re the ones selling out other Vampires to humans for their sick experiments.

Why do you think Zeke left my brother, even though it was excruciating for both of them? Huh? He loved Charlie.”

I stared at Lucy in horror.

“What do you mean Vampires are the ones searching for you?” Danny asked softly.

“I mean…” Lucy snapped, oblivious to the undercurrent drifting through the room.

“That Zeke was sure that Vampires were the ones selling out the mates to the humans. Apparently, you guys have some kind of reporting system or something, and that’s how they were finding the new mates. That’s why he didn’t report Charlie.”

I didn’t want to believe it. The idea that our own kind was setting up others to go through what Zeke had gone through before he died. It was abhorrent. Mates were sacred.

“That’s why Zeke went back to his unit,” Chance said quietly, his hands braced on the kitchen counter.

“He thought if he poked around, he could get more information,” Lucy said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He wasn’t sure who was behind it, but he was working with Americans and the guys from Europe, and he thought he could narrow it down or something.”

“Fuck,” Danny whispered. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“He had names. Dates. He was trying to piece it all together.” She went quiet, and her gaze dropped to the floor. “He was due back, so he said he was going to do one more job, see what he could figure out, and then he’d be back for Charlie, and they could take everything he’d gathered to you guys.”

“Someone’s leaking classified information to the humans,” I said out loud. The words sounded just as strange out loud as they had in my head.

“Money can do horrible things to people,” Lucy replied, almost sympathetically.

“Most Vampires have money,” Chance said tiredly. “Benefit of a long life.”

“Not this kind of money,” Lucy replied. “Zeke said he thought the whole thing was funded by that billionaire. You know, the tech guy. The one who invented those electric boats that can go underwater.”

Danny’s gaze shot to me.

“I can never remember his name,” Lucy continued quietly to herself. “Dammit, what is that guy’s name?”

“Francois Baudelaire,” I answered as Chance’s head snapped up. “Am I right?”

“How the hell did you do that?” Lucy asked suspiciously. “You can’t read my mind, right?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Just checking.”

“He’s well known in some circles,” I explained. “High in the United States government.”

“Oh, goody,” she said tiredly, leaning back against the wall. “Because this shit wasn’t crazy enough.”

“Why did Zeke think that Baudelaire was involved?” Chance asked.

“How the hell should I know?” Lucy snapped. “That’s just what he said. That he thought Baudelaire was funding the research or something. I don’t even understand what the hell they could be researching.”

I knew. I’d suspected since I’d walked into the hut they’d tortured my baby brother in, but I hadn’t wanted to believe it.

“If they’ve got that kind of funding, they could be tracking us by fucking satellite,” Danny said, straightening. “We need to get rid of our phones.”

When we’d begun searching for Charlie, it was for the sole purpose of finding our brother’s mate and bringing him into the fold. Ignoring his existence would’ve been impossible. He was Zeke’s soul match. The other half of the baby brother we’d lost.

We’d realized early on that Charles and his sister were in hiding. The fact that they’d suddenly dropped off the grid was proof of that. It hadn’t been until our brother, Beau, and his mate, Reese, were attacked that we’d begun to understand exactly how much danger Charles might be in.

Lucy would’ve been collateral damage if the group that was hunting mates had caught up with them. Their only interest in her would’ve been as an avenue to Charles. Now that we’d met and the mating heat had begun, she was in as much danger as her brother.

I tossed my phone onto the counter.

“I don’t have one,” Lucy said with a shrug. “Those were the first to go. Amateurs.”

“We need to leave,” Chance said, glancing toward the front door. “We’ve been here too long.”

“You two go straight to the airport,” I ordered. “Take my phone with you. Toss them all when you get there.”

“This is fucking stupid,” Chance said, stuffing my phone into his pocket.

“Probably better that we’re splitting up,” I replied, actually believing it.

With any luck, whoever was watching would assume that I was flying home with my brothers.

Maybe they’d think that we hadn’t found anything because Baltimore was a dead end.

“Hopefully, it’ll give us a little time to get to Charles before anyone notices. ”

“You take the car,” Danny ordered. “We can make it back to the airport?—”

“We’re biking, aren’t we?” Chance bitched. “Excellent.”

“Stop whining,” Danny replied.

I caught the keys that Chance tossed my way.

“Go,” he ordered. “We’ll clean up here. Make sure no one knows we stopped by.”

“I’ll call as soon as I can,” I said, gesturing for Lucy to follow me. “Give me a few days before you call out a search party.”

“No promises,” Danny said, moving in for a hug. “This is fucked,” he murmured in my ear.

I nodded as I let him go. It was fucked. We had more questions than answers, and I didn’t see that changing for a while, at least until I could get Charlie and Lucy back to my parents’ place, where I knew they’d be safe.

“No details when you call,” Chance ordered.

“No, really?” I said sarcastically as I hugged him with a hard thump on his back.

“You sure about this?”

“If I need you, I’ll call.”

“With what phone?”

“I’ll fucking buy one,” I said in exasperation. “It’s going to be fine. If no one has shown up yet, we’ve still got some time.”

“Clock’s ticking,” he warned as I led Lucy toward the garage door.

“I’m aware.”

“Love you,” I called out as we entered the garage.

Both of my brothers replied, repeating my words as I opened the passenger side door for Lucy.

“They’ll be okay on those bikes?” she asked dubiously, looking at the bicycles in the corner.

“Don’t worry about them. They’re resourceful,” I assured her.

A few minutes later, I was driving two miles above the speed limit as we left the little neighborhood behind.

Lucy was quiet beside me, her arms wrapped around the bag on her lap. She’d pulled her baseball bat up from the back floorboard and set it next to her feet. Easily accessible.

I wanted to assure her I wouldn’t let anything happen to her, but since I’d seen what she could do with that bat, I kept my mouth shut. If she felt more comfortable with it in reach, she could sleep with the thing.

“Where am I going?” I asked as we made our way closer to the freeway.

“North,” she replied, resting her chin on the bag.

“Still not going to tell me where he is?”

I thought she’d ignored me. She didn’t reply for a long time. We’d been on the freeway for half an hour before she finally spoke again.

“Lancaster,” she said quietly, staring out the windshield. “Charlie’s outside Lancaster.”

I understood instantly and almost laughed at the brilliance of their plan.

Zeke must have told them where to go if things went sideways.

My brother had been a pain in the ass since the moment he was born, but he’d also been the kindest of us, and arguably the smartest. If Lucy hadn’t gone back to Baltimore, there was a good chance we wouldn’t have ever found the Franklin siblings.

“Are you hungry?” I asked after another half hour of silence.

She was killing me. Our proximity inside the car had ratcheted up the heat that was currently racing through my veins, and I knew that she wasn’t immune to it.

Every few minutes, she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

She’d already dropped the bag between her feet and had spent most of the last fifteen minutes pulling on the chest of her shirt like she was fanning the skin beneath it.

Even her hairline was becoming a little damp.

“I’m not hungry,” she said. “Could we turn up the air conditioning? Why is it so hot in here? It’s starting to make me feel sick.”

“It’s not hot in here,” I replied as she messed with the controls. “I turned it up as far as it will go.”

“Maybe it’s broken.”

“It’s the heat.”

“That’s what I said,” she snapped. “It’s frigging hot in here.”

“The mating heat,” I clarified.

Her head snapped to the side. “The what ?”

“Didn’t Zeke explain anything?”

“He explained plenty,” she said slowly, staring at me. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s a biological process?—”

“Cut the shit.”

“It’s basically nature’s way of making sure that mates complete the bond. Can I try something?”

“No.”

I ignored her and set my hand carefully on her knee.

Lucy’s breath left her in a whoosh of air. I understood the feeling. The pulsing in my veins slowed. Not completely, but enough that my skin stopped crawling. If that small point of contact could settle it that much, I wondered how it would feel to have her pressed against me.

Naked.

Lucy jerked my hand up a few inches so that it was partially wrapped around her thigh and sighed in relief.

“Good?” I asked, glancing at her.

“A little better, yeah,” she said quietly. “This is how Charlie felt?”