“A tattoo in the shape of the mark,” Gates clarified. “Cass inked it on her himself when she was an infant, soon after he took her out of the Atlantean realm.”
“Jesus Christ,” Rafe murmured from his position across the small interrogation room. “What for? Why try to pretend she was something other than what she truly was?”
Nathan knew. “To hide his child among the Breed,” he said, the pieces beginning to fall into some logical pattern now. “Cass wanted to hide Jordana where he thought she’d be safest. In plain sight.”
Chase looked at Gates narrowly. “How was he so certain you’d keep his secret, or that you could be trusted with raising his child?”
“Because I’d already proven myself to him the night I found Cass hiding with an infant in my barn outside Vancouver. He’d been on the run for days. He was bleeding, gravely wounded, even for an immortal,” Gates explained. “Naturally, the scent of so much blood drew me to the barn. But when he pleaded with me to help him and I saw the baby girl in his arms, I put aside my thirst and allowed him to recuperate in my home.”
Nathan pictured the scene, imagining what he might have done, had he been in Martin Gates’s place.
Having been raised not to feel mercy or compassion—to have been conditioned as a Hunter to exploit weakness and punish kindness—Nathan couldn’t deny that he was humbled by Gates’s actions and his honor. He was grateful to the man as well.
“Cass was fortunate to have ended up in your care. There aren’t many who would’ve been so charitable with their trust.”
Gates shrugged in mild dismissal of the praise. “I was fortunate too. Back then, I was alone, with no mate or kin of my own. All I had was a meager farm in the middle of nowhere.” Gates’s expression softened in remembrance. “It’s because of Cass that I live in luxury now. It was his wealth that allowed me to start a new life here in Boston. He made me who I am today. And he gave me the most precious gift of all, my daughter.”
“She knows nothing of this?” Nathan asked. “Jordana has no idea that she’s not a Breedmate but full-blooded Atlantean?”
“No. But soon enough, she’ll know.” Gates leveled a sober look on Nathan and the other warriors in the room. “When Jordana turns twenty-five, her Atlantean powers will mature. In addition to extrasensory gifts a Breedmate might have, she will become stronger both physically and psychically. Her aging will stop, and she’ll be impervious to all but the most severe injuries. She will know that I’ve been deceiving her all along about who she is. But even worse, Cass warned that unless she’s shielded by a blood bond, the enemies who hunted him will now be able to sense her as one of their own kind.”
The thought of Jordana being pursued by the same killers who caught up with Cass made Nathan’s veins go icy with dread. If he had to take on the entire Atlantean race to protect her, he would. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her, and if he’d known his blood might keep her safe, he would have already begged her to accept his bond.
Hell, he wanted that connection to her regardless of anything he’d heard here just now.
And he could only hope she would let him make it up to her for how things had gone so wrong tonight.
“She has to be told.” Nathan pulled out his comm unit and hit Carys’s number. As it started to ring, he stalked for the door. “Jordana should have been told all of this long before now.”
And she needed to be told how he felt about her. That he loved her. That he was sorry if he hurt her tonight. She needed to hear that she was the only woman he would ever want, if she would have him.
Carys wasn’t picking up.
The realization seeped into him like acid. Something wasn’t right.
Nathan knew it in his marrow.
He was already bolting into the corridor outside the interrogation room before he heard the rise of panicked female voices carrying from the other end of the long hallway.
Tavia Chase had her arm around her Breed daughter, Carys staggering alongside her mother. When she saw Nathan heading toward them, Carys let out a ragged sob.
“I didn’t see him until it was too late,” she murmured. “He did something to my head. Bright light in my skull. Too much power—I couldn’t fight it. I’m so sorry, Nathan. I couldn’t do anything. It just happened so fast.”
All the blood in Nathan’s body seemed to halt. Froze solid in his veins. “Where is Jordana?”
“He took her.” Carys shook her head weakly, her face wrenched with anguish and worry. “When I came to in the museum lobby a few minutes ago, there was no trace of her. Oh, God, Nathan … Jordana is gone.”
24
THE SUDDEN, BRIGHT TWITTER OF A SONGBIRD PIERCED THE FOG of Jordana’s waking senses. A soft, warm breeze blew in from somewhere, carrying the fragrance of a nearby garden—flowers and lemons and rich, fertile earth. Farther away, quiet thunder rolled, its rhythm drawing her out of a deep, dreamless sleep.
No, not thunder, she realized.
Waves.
The sea.
Where was she?