Page 29 of Luca’s Magic Embrace

“Listen up. We’re going down to the last room on the right, the one that Dominique was silvered in. Étienne, you go ahead of us. X, you bring up the rear. No stopping for shows or looking around. We’re going to move fast and then get outta here. Understood?” he asked.

They all nodded and one by one passed through the red-beaded curtain, making their way to the room. Samantha held onto Luca for dear life, hearing screams of pleasure and pain as they crept down the darkened hallways. Finally, when they reached the room, they found it occupied by two very naked humans. The man had the woman bent over a spanking bench and was entering her from behind.

Samantha’s mouth gaped open at the sight, while Luca strode in and interrupted them. He bared his fangs and roared. “Out!”

The people froze mid-coitus, the blond woman’s mascara-streaked face staring at them defiantly. Luca knelt down to the man, who appeared not to have heard his order, and glowered. “I said get out. Now move! Move! Move! Move!” he yelled.

The couple scrambled around for their clothes. Upon seeing Étienne and Xavier’s exposed fangs, they stopped looking for clothes and ran out the door. Samantha grinned. Vampires are scary when they’re angry.

Luca slammed the door behind him, scanning the room. “This room’s all we’ve got, so let’s tear it up. There’s got to be something here. Xavier, check all the floor panels. Étienne, you check the walls and light fixtures. Samantha, you’ve got the sofa. I’ll take the equipment,” he instructed.

They spread out and started searching. Samantha was more than grossed out by the plastic-covered sofa. She shuddered to think who and what people had done on it. “Gloves,” she called out, finding a box of surgical gloves on a small table in the corner that also housed towels, sanitizing wipes and a bowl of flavored condoms. Snapping on the latex life-savers, she began to rip the cushions off and delved into the cracks, looking for a clue.

Xavier inspected the heavily worn, oak floor planks. While the floor appeared well used, it presented as if it was in good condition. Aside from a few squeaks, he couldn’t find any loose boards.

Étienne scrutinized each brick in the wall, running his fingers along the grout. Not one stone was wavered. Save a few high hat lights, there was no other illumination in the room. Each one was tightly mounted and left no room for an opening.

Having already examined the Saint Andrew’s cross and spanking bench, Luca moved on to the massage table. On first glance, the padding looked clean and uncracked. Running his fingers underneath, he felt only smooth particle board until he came upon a section that was worn. Losing patience, Luca flipped the table upside down, exposing its warped underside. He noticed that one of the corners did not seem to evenly match the rest of the seams; it was slightly raised. Digging his fingers into the juncture where the particle board met the padding, he tugged until it popped. What the hell? Someone had put chewing gum inside the backing as makeshift glue. It had hardened into nothing more than a small tacky spud, yet it had held tight.

Luca peeled back the panel until he spied a flattened cocktail napkin. He carefully removed it and called the others over. “Got something. A napkin. Looks like there’s writing on it, but it doesn’t make sense. Samantha, take a look.” Luca surmised it was not a foreign language, and sincerely hoped it wasn’t nonsense. It simply read, “NIJE QN QSMGIOT.”

Samantha gently took the tissue paper into her hands and unfolded it. Her eyes widened in surprise, unexpectedly realizing she’d written it. “Oh my God, Luca. I wrote this; it’s my handwriting. I know what this is; it’s a code. A code to conceal a message. Knowing me, I probably created a cipher. My co-workers and I sometimes play encryption games with them. You know, create codes and see who can break it. I wouldn’t have used something easy, though.”

“Can you break it?” he asked.

“Probably, but I need to think about how I created it, and I can’t think in here.” She fingered the napkin and held it to her chest as if it was made of gold. This clue could give her back her life. Excitement coursed through her body; she could feel the tendrils of magic stirring under her skin.

“Let’s go everyone, we’ve gotta get out of here,” Luca ordered. “The back door. It leads to an outside alley. Although it looks like someone decided to lock it up good, since the last time we were here. Stand back while I break it.” Luca went over to the door, the same one Samantha had used to leave after she’d silvered Dominique. Obviously management wasn’t crazy about people using it as an exit, so they’d put a chain and lock on it. Whoever thought a chain would stop a supernatural was a dumbass, Luca thought. He knew a simple steel chain wouldn’t keep vampires from breaking it, so why bother? Luca wrapped the steel chain around his fists, grunting as he broke it apart. He kicked the door open, and they all took off down the alleyway.

Samantha started to analyze the code as soon as they got into the car. She couldn’t wait to get home to crack it. On the precipice of solving the mystery, she smiled to herself. Inwardly, she celebrated the fact that despite all Asgear’s efforts to control her mind, some small part of her couldn’t be controlled. The code was evidence that she probably had stolen the periapt, and had taken great care to hide it from him. Yet despite her small victory, its clandestine location had drawn a very powerful and dangerous vampire into her circle. She prayed she’d find it before he found her again.

CHAPTER TEN

After taking a hot shower, Samantha checked her cell phone for the hundredth time. Neither Rowan nor Ilsbeth had attempted to log into the database. She was still feeling exhilarated from finding the code. Wrapping herself warmly in Luca’s robe, she held it to her nose and inhaled his masculine scent. Samantha shook her head, knowing that Luca was stealing her heart. She could feel herself falling for him, and wasn’t sure how or if she wanted to stop it. All she knew for certain was that she was going to find it very difficult to go back to Pennsylvania without him after they found the amulet.

She sighed in defeat, conceding that her heart might break into a million pieces if she didn’t have him in her life. Even though they’d only just made love, she felt as if she’d known him forever. She wasn’t one to just have sex with any guy. But on a whim, she had given in to her most carnal desire and let him make love to her. In the aftermath, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was the one for her. She wished it wasn’t true. He probably had a thousand women on speed dial who’d come willingly running to service him…to be his donor or whatever else he needed. How could she leave her heart open to a vampire? The answer didn’t matter, because it was already done. Samantha contemplated whether or not she should move to New Orleans. As the thought popped into her head, she laughed to herself. Just a day ago, she’d been kicking and screaming to stay away from that city. But now there was Luca. And Luca was in New Orleans.

As she walked out into the kitchen, he was putting out sandwiches on the large granite bar. There was something heartwarming about seeing a large, sexy man preparing food for her.

“Hi there, the sandwiches look great,” she said.

“Hey, beautiful. Thought you might be hungry. I had Kade’s cook bring over something to eat, so you’d have strength to work. And to play with me,” he joked, pushing a plate towards her. “But work before play. So first, let’s take a look at the code while you eat, shall we?”

She took a healthy bite of turkey, and looked at the code: “NIJE QN QSMGIOT” What did it mean?

“So here’s the thing. When I do my ciphers, I usually use something called a date shift cipher. That way, I can stack the ciphers when I’m trying to make it really hard to decode. Also, all I have to do is change the dates and it will change the codes. I wrote a program that can run through figuring out a date cipher, so that’s not the problem. The real challenge is finding out what date I used.”

“I’ve heard of date ciphers. It’s going to make this tough to crack without the date,” Luca commented. When he’d joined the war, they’d often put their messages into codes; if captured by the enemy, they were indecipherable without the key date.

“Yes, you’re right. So what code would I have used?” she spoke aloud to herself.

“A birthday?” Luca suggested.

“No, too easy. I did this all the time at the office. Sometimes I would use someone else’s birthday, but given that I don’t know anyone down here, I don’t think I would have done that. A family member’s birthday would, again, be too easy. Sometimes I’d pick dates of important events. Things that only I would know,” she explained.

“Your graduation date, perhaps?” Luca realized in that moment that he didn’t know that much about her past; something he fully intended to investigate once they’d found the amulet.

“Maybe. I have used my high school graduation date in the past. Can you get me your laptop? I want to pull over my date cipher program from my home server, and try it.” Samantha was starting to worry that she wouldn’t be able to find the date. It literally could be any date, past, present or future.