Darkness Captured Read Online Free PDF Page B

survive the act, because the heat in his heavy-lidded gaze was burning her alive.
    Guntram’s hand remained wrapped around the stock of his crossbow as he entered the room on the ground floor of the mansion. A meeting room, he surmised, from the large ebony table that dominated the space.
    At the head of the long table sat a man he recognized, the one he’d battled in an alleyway in New Orleans days ago when he’d gone prowling in wolfskin. He’d thought him unusually skilled for a Revenant. The man had managed to choke Guntram with his bare hands until he’d passed out.
    Now he didn’t feel quite so chagrined at being beaten. This man ruled the coven now. Something he’d learned while the men were led to the barracks. He had to be a Born male, the daywalker they’d been brought to kill.
    Gabriella had known exactly what he was all along. This was the man she’d insisted they could trust.
    Alexander Broussard sat like a potentate, relaxing against rich leather; Nicolas Montfaucon stood at one shoulder, and another man, older with shoulder-length brown hair and a fathomless stare that seemed as old as time, stood at the other. Knowing vampires’ love for magic, Guntram guessed this one was Alex’s mage.
    Guntram suppressed the urge to slow his steps, to hunch his shoulders and balance his weight on the balls of his feet in case they attacked.
    Vampires weren’t straightforward creatures. They hid their black souls behind civilized smiles.
    “Please, have a seat,” Alex said, gesturing toward a chair beside him.
    Guntram chose one farther down and took his seat with a show of reluctance.
    Alex raked a hand through his brown hair. By his expression, Guntram knew he wasn’t going to like what the vampire was working his way up to saying.
    “I suppose you know by now, that the sabat, our council, is no longer in charge.”
    Guntram nodded, just suppressing the urge to grunt. Vampires already thought weres were primitive creatures, that they belonged to a four-legged subspecies of dog.
    Alex’s hands curled slowly on the tabletop. “When the smoke cleared, I placed Gabriella in a safe—”
    “Placed?” Guntram said softly.
    Nicolas, still standing beside Alex’s shoulder, folded his arms over his chest, and his lips thinned.
    The older man’s face betrayed no emotion whatsoever.
    Alex nodded. “I escorted her to a safe place. Things were happening fast. Although the worst of the danger had passed, I still had vampires loyal to Inanna to deal with. I feared for Gabriella’s safety.”
    He lied. Guntram could tell by the way his eyes blinked at the last. He couldn’t quite hold his gaze. “You imprisoned her for your convenience.”
    Nicolas’s terse expression eased. His lips slid into a cynical smile. “Gabriella is anything but convenient,” he murmured.
    Alex shot him a cold glare, and then turned back to Guntram. “The place where I left her was perfectly safe, with one caveat that she understood well. But she has somehow … disappeared.”
    Guntram’s stomach knotted, icy calm sliding down to douse the anger rising inside him. Now was not the time to punish. “I would see this place,” he said, keeping his tone carefully even.
    “It’s not necessary,” Alex murmured.
    “It’s necessary for me to see how allies who give you aid are kept … safe.”
    The older man touched Alex’s shoulder. “Show him.”
    Alex slowly rose from his seat. Guntram did the same as he approached.
    The vampire reached into his pocket, produced a crystal dangling from a keychain, and held it up. “This is the key. When I close my hand around it, we’ll enter the room where I left her.”
    “How do I know you won’t do the same to me—leave me?”
    “You don’t. But since I told my men to allow you your weapons, I’m assuming you’ll come armed.”
    Guntram laid his bow on the table and bent to slide a knife from his boot. “Not wood. Not lethal to your kind. So what other assurances do I have? You have