Page 101 of Dark Lover

Sam wondered if she was really going to double-cross him. How could she not? They’d gone through hell because he’d stolen the page and was refusing to hand it over. She’d almost lost her short hair to a knight wielding a spiked ball because he had the page! Enough was enough.

She knew what she had to do, but it didn’t sit well with her. She stared at the little chipmunk, which had been gathering up seeds, grim and thoughtful. She just didn’t have a helluva lot of choices now.

“So how are we getting back to 2009?” she asked. But damn it, she wasn’t really ready to leave. She wanted time with Brie and her sister.

“So ye can run to Nick an’ betray me?”

“Yeah, Ian. So I can run to Nick and betray you.” She stared at him intensely and his regard was as unwavering. Then she reached up and cupped his cheek. “I don’t want to argue or fight. I don’t want to be on warring sides. I owe you. I want to say thanks. But it’s time to hand over the page before they do some terrible things to us. Before they wind up with its power. This is the real deal, Ian. We’re not fighting bit-part players here and you know it.”

He pulled his face away. Sam thought he was angry, but then she realized he was sitting up, listening. Alarm kicked in as she strained to hear, as well. She realized that the birds had stopped singing. The forest was so silent that she could hear their breathing again. It was unnatural.

And then she thought she heard something moving in the black depths in front of them.

Maclean took her hand and they glided backward, deeper into the forest. Sam heard heavy breathing now. It wasn’t human. And that was when she felt the draft slither through the trees, brushing her bare arms, her bare legs.

Their gazes met. Then they turned as one and from behind a tree saw the shadows of man and beast.

The demon was hulking. So was its dog. The height of a Shetland pony, it had to be two hundred and fifty pounds. It was sniffing the ground, its gray coat glowing.

The nonhuman being had to be seven or eight feet tall. He stopped and looked right at them. When he smiled, his teeth flashed in the darkness.

Sam looked at Ian and jerked hard on his hand.

He threw his arms around her.

The demon dog howled and the nonhuman released it. As it charged, Sam said, “No more time, Maclean.”

It galloped madly at them, eyes blazing, ready to tear them from limb to limb.

Ian cursed.

Had he lost the power? “Maclean!” Sam shouted.

He grunted and pulled her more tightly into his embrace. As the dog leapt at them, they spun wildly up through the trees, past thick branches and spikelike needles, the pines scratching and clawing their arms, their faces. Then they were being hurled through the bright blue sky, into clouds, past the bright, glowing sun.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FRANKIE THE DOORMAN seemed more afraid of Rupert Hemmer than he did Uncle Sam. Nick began to lose patience as the doorman stared at his phony FBI ID and warrant, clearly reluctant to let them in. Nick sighed. “Let’s go,” he told his team.

As Nick walked to the elevator with his team, Frankie ran to the phone. Nick sighed again. How dumb could a doorman be? “Hold the cage,” he said to Kit. He turned and strode back across the lobby in about one second flat. He smiled at Frankie, who held the lobby phone, before ripping the telephone and its cord from Frankie’s hands and the wall at the same time. “Now, that was downright oppositional,” he said. He started to frisk him.

The thirty-two-year-old Latino blanched. “Hey, what are you doing! For all I know, that warrant is a fake. For all I know, you’re a fake!”

Having found the jerk’s cell phone, Nick dropped it on the floor and stomped on it, making certain that the loyal doorman could not call his boss. “Frankie? I swear to reimburse you. Now you need to swear that you won’t run down the street to the closest phone. Otherwise I’m gagging you, tying you up and sticking you in the janitor’s closet.”

“It’s Freddie,” he gasped, eyes bulging. “Fine! But he’ll fire me, you know that, right?”

“I think we can make things right with the union and get you another job really, really fast.”

Frankie calmed. “Okay,” he said.

Satisfied, Nick hurried to his team. They were holding the elevator, not fazed by his little bout of violence. He stared impatiently at the floor indicator as the private elevator went right up to the penthouse. The clock was ticking and he knew it. There was no point in bouncing around 1527 when he didn’t even know if Sam was there. Hemmer had taken her back in the first place. He’d have to come home sooner or later, and he’d sure as hell know where she was. Nick itched to get answers. He itched for a raw, dirty fight. Hemmer was going to pay for touching his agent. Oh, yeah.

He kept thinking about Jan, who’d forgiven him for Alex, and Katie and the kids, who were too dead to forgive him for anything. He kept seeing the faces of the Twelve.

Kit Mars was first out of the elevator.

Having read her mind without even trying, he knew she was really worried about Sam. Did Sam even know that she had a loyal friend in her coworker? She was beyond determined, but that was why he’d recruited her out of the NYPD. The kid was fierce. Untested, really, but fierce.