Jordana studied her across the small table. “You can’t shut him out forever, Car.” The Chase siblings hadn’t spoken since their heated confrontation over Rune the other night, and Jordana knew it was killing Carys to have a wall standing between her and her twin.
The device vibrated again, and with reluctance written all over her face, Carys finally picked it up. Before she even had the chance to utter a word of greeting, Aric’s deep voice came over the receiver. “Carys, where the hell are you right now?”
“Hello to you too, brother dear.”
His response was clipped and dark. “Are you at La Notte?”
“Since when do I have to answer to you, Aric?” Amber light sparked in the Breed female’s blue eyes. “Where I am is no business of yours. I thought I made that clear to you.”
“Dammit, Carys! I’m not playing a f**king game here,” he snarled, and suddenly it was obvious that Aric’s demanding tone wasn’t about anger but something more visceral. Something more urgent than that. He was calling out of fear and worry for his sibling. “Carys, tell me you’re nowhere near that goddamn place right now.”
Carys’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “What’s going on?”
Jordana could no longer hear Aric on the other end, but judging from his sister’s stricken expression, the news wasn’t good. Carys inhaled a sharp breath, her fingers coming up to her mouth for an instant before relief flooded back into her features. She listened for a moment, her face grim, then she quietly ended the call.
She glanced across the table at Jordana. “There’s been a killing at La Notte.”
“Oh, no,” Jordana murmured. “But it wasn’t—”
“No.” Carys shook her head. “Not Rune, thank God. Aric said it wasn’t any of the fighters, but he didn’t have any more information than that. Some of the warriors are heading there now to investigate. Aric told me to stay away from the club tonight.”
And yet Carys was already pulling out cash enough for the bill and a generous tip from her pocketbook. “I have to see Rune,” she explained as she got up. “I just need to see for myself that he’s okay.”
The depth of Carys’s love for the fighter was evident in her eyes. So was her fear. The strong Breed female trembled where she stood, visibly shaken by the news of a death at the place where her lover risked his life every night in the cages.
And while Jordana had no wish to be anywhere near the Order if it meant she might run into Nathan, she wasn’t about to let her friend go there alone.
“Come on,” Jordana said. “I’ll drive.”
Carys managed a faint nod and followed Jordana out to her car.
They made the short trek across town, arriving at La Notte’s block in mere minutes. The club was closed, the arched wooden doors of the old church building barred.
A pair of immense bouncers was parked at the top of the steps leading up to the place, standing shoulder to shoulder in the dark beneath the thin lamplight at the front entrance. As the club’s usual stream of patrons arrived to party upstairs or do other, less savory things in the lower level, the two bouncers turned them away on arrival.
“Drive past and turn down the side alley,” Carys instructed Jordana as she slowed outside the club.
They rounded the corner and found the alleyway access blocked by one of the Order’s huge, unmarked black patrol vehicles. Carys hopped out of the car the instant Jordana brought it to a full stop. Jordana followed her, only to be halted along with Carys by one of Nathan’s team.
“Out of my way, Jax,” Carys said as the pantherlike Asian vampire moved out of the shadows to intercept the women.
“Captain said no civilians, Carys. We’ve got a crime scene back there.”
“I know. Aric called me. I just want to see Rune.”
Jax gave a shake of his dark head. “He’s around back with some of the other club staff, but you ladies are gonna have to stay out here for now. Trust me, you don’t wanna see—”
“I’m going back there.” Carys shoved past the warrior, breaking into a bolt before he was able to react.
Jordana followed her, jogging to keep up as her friend rushed around to the rear of the building. Rune may not have been injured here tonight, but it was obvious there was no one, not Carys’s brother or any of the Order itself, who could keep the female away from the fighter she loved.
“Rune!” Carys called to the dark-haired Breed male as she and Jordana rounded the back of the club. Standing among a few of the other fighters and La Notte staff gathered in the gloom behind the old brick church building, Rune glanced up at Carys’s shout.
His hard face was grave, his eyes shadowed and grim as he broke away from his colleagues to meet her as she and Jordana approached. Carys launched herself into his arms.
“Rune, I was so worried! Aric called and told me someone died at the club. Even though he said it wasn’t you, I had to see for myself. I had to be sure—”
“Shh,” the brutal fighter soothed, stroking his broad palm over the back of Carys’s head as she clung to him. “It’s okay, baby. I’m right here.”
While the couple embraced, sharing private words of comfort and affection, Jordana drifted away from them. Although she’d never been to a crime scene before, and didn’t want to be at one now, she found herself drawn toward the dark stretch of pavement where the apparent victim lay, surrounded by the team of warriors from the Order.
Her heels ticked hollowly on the asphalt, an odd sense of dread snaking around her with every careful step. Death hung in the air, cold and cloying. It lifted goose bumps on her arms, put a chill knot behind her sternum.