Anger shot through Gabriel. “There’s no fucking privacy! If somebody from Scanguards disappears, there’s a protocol to adhere to. You should know better!”

Pissed off, he disconnected the call and met Cain’s inquisitive stare.

“What’s going on?”

Gabriel motioned to the phone. “Thomas didn’t come home. He disappeared after the party.”

“You mean not even Eddie knows where he is?” Cain’s voice was colored with surprise.

“But . . . ”

“We have to find him.”

“You think something happened to him?” Cain asked.

Gabriel ignored the question, not wanting to think of the many possibilities of what could have happened. He hoped that Thomas was simply out on a binge, enjoying a day of sex and blood, and was still in some guy’s bed, even though Thomas was too conscientious to not have called the office and told somebody where he could be found in an emergency.

“Find out if he left any messages with the front desk,” Gabriel instructed Cain.

“I’m on it.”

37

Samson sat in his office at Scanguards, having been alerted to Thomas’s disappearance hours earlier, when the door flung open.

“Now tell me what’s really going on!” Gabriel thundered, charging inside and pounding his fist onto Samson’s desk. “And no more bullshit!”

Samson jumped up, glaring at him. “What the fuck is this?”

“I’ll tell you what it is: Cain just called from his patrol. He saw Thomas at Xander’s headquarters in Chinatown. And he looked like he was there of his own free will.”

“Ah shit!” Samson cursed. “I was afraid this would happen.” He ran his hand through his thick, dark hair.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Samson pointed to a chair. “Sit down, Gabriel.”

Gabriel folded his arms over his chest. “I’d rather stand.”

“Suit yourself.” Samson paused. “Thomas came to me the other night. After he’d confronted Xander. Everything I told you and the others when we met at Zane’s house is true. But I left something out. I’m afraid Thomas carries a dark power in him, the same dark power his maker had. The same that’s ruling Xander and his people. Thomas has struggled to suppress this power for all his life. But now that these vampires have come here, his power senses them, and is drawn to them. He told me that it’s getting harder and harder for him not to act on it, not to succumb to its pull.”

“Fuck!” Gabriel hissed. “Why didn’t you warn us? We could have had somebody watch Thomas day and night. We could have prevented this!”

“I couldn’t tell you. I gave him my word!”

“Fuck that! Look where that got us! Thomas has joined them!”

“We can’t know that for certain,” Samson protested, but he knew he spoke more out of hope than conviction.

“We have to do something,” Gabriel urged him.

Samson nodded, his shoulders feeling the weight of responsibility on them. “We have to convince him to come back to us.”

***

Samson stepped out of the shadows when he finally saw the door open. He’d sent Thomas several messages to his cell, and later emailed him after realizing that Thomas had switched his phone off. It appeared that Thomas was finally responding by leaving the house in Chinatown.

Behind Samson, his friends Amaury, Gabriel, and Zane remained in the background, even though he realized that Thomas would be able to sense them, just as Samson realized that Thomas wasn’t alone. Remaining in the shadow of the covered entry, too far back to see his face, stood another vampire.

Samson crossed the street halfway and perused his surroundings once more. There was barely any traffic this time of night, and since the shops on this small side street were closed, nobody else seemed to be around.

“What do you want?” Thomas asked, his words clipped, the friendliness that normally colored his voice wiped from it as if they were strangers. No, worse: as if they were enemies.

“We need to talk, alone.” Samson motioned his head to the stranger in the shadows.

“If that were the case, you would have come alone too,” Thomas retorted, his gaze drifting past Samson’s shoulders.

“We’re all friends—”

“Friends don’t break promises,” Thomas interrupted. A snarl ripped from his throat. “Friends don’t betray friends.”

“I didn’t betray you! It’s the dark power in you talking. You have to fight it, Thomas!”