Bane's Choice

by Alyssa Day

  “There are rules?” Edge closed his eyes and groaned. “Why didn’t anybody tell me about the rules?”

  “Because they’re archaic,” Meara snapped. “Have you ever run into any angels or demons? Even two hundred years ago, the monks believed the Nephilim were no more, and nobody has seen one since, as far as I know.”

  Bane raised an eyebrow. “You keep up with the monks?”

  “They’re scholars, and yes. They have a website, and we email periodically.” Meara shrugged again. “What can I say? I’ve always found the history—our history—fascinating.”

  Bane reached down and smoothed a strand of hair off Ryan’s cheek. “Are we in trouble?”

  Meara nodded. “Partly, it depends on who her father is. There’s a slim chance he won’t smite you on sight. But yeah. We’re pretty much fucked. An angel will definitely know the rules.”

  “Fuck him,” Bane growled. “He broke some rules himself. And he abandoned his daughter. Let him try to come for me.”

  After that, they left him alone to watch over Ryan, probably going off to research on their computers how to fend off a smite attack. Bram Stoker came galloping down the hall and shot across the study to the bedroom, where he jumped up on the bed next to Ryan.

  “Should have made a no-dogs-on-the-bed rule,” Bane told the hound, who grinned a doggy grin, tongue lolling out, and ignored him totally. Then Bram Stoker turned around three times, curled up on the end of the bed next to Ryan’s feet, and fell asleep.

  Bane, on the other hand, was all but flying from the effects of the night’s battles and—even more so—from the blood he’d drunk from her veins. The richly delicious, almost unbearably sweet taste of it still lingered, phantom-like, in his mouth, and now it made sense. The tiny taste he’d had before, when he’d made love to her, hadn’t been enough to let him know exactly how special it was. How special she was.

  The more he fixated on Ryan—and her blood—her Nephilim blood—the more he worried that he wouldn’t be able to resist jumping on her.

  Putting his mouth on her.

  His teeth in her.

  His cock in her.

  All of it—forbidden. The treaty Meara had mentioned, so ancient he doubted anyone even remembered what the penalties were. Because nobody today thought they’d need to know. Of course, it was probably bloody death. Everything dealing with angels and demons involved bloody death.

  Vampires—created originally by the breeding of demons and humans. How the hell had he never known this?

  Nephilim—the children of angels and humans. That, he’d known, but in the same way he’d known ancient Rome once existed. Not as a fact that would show up in his life.

  In his bed.

  The pairing of vampires and Nephilim? Never. No way, no how, forbidden, taboo. Almost as bad as the inconceivable idea of demons mating with angels.

  And yet, here they were.

  I need to get the fuck out of here.

  This time, he very deliberately did not lock the door behind himself.

  In the hallway, he found Luke talking quietly to Edge, who had stationed himself in front of Meara’s door.

  “Standing guard over my sister?” He thought he was speaking in a calm, mild voice, but Edge’s narrow-eyed reaction clued him in that maybe he hadn’t been.

  “Your sister doesn’t need me to guard her. I just—I don’t want to leave her alone yet. Especially since we’re all going to die any minute now, since you’re fucking a Nephilim.”

  Bane snarled at him, and Edge shook his head. “Later. We’re going hunting.”

  Luke’s eyes lit up. “Necromancers?”

  “You bet your ass.”

  Meara wrenched her door open and stared out at them. “Go. And call me when you find them. I want to be in on this kill.” She glanced at Edge and then quickly away, but it was enough for Bane to see that something had happened between the two of them—something more than the blood sharing after the attack. “Bane, I’ll go to your room and watch over your angel girl.”

  He could feel two warring urges inside himself. Should he go wipe these necromancers off the face of the planet or stay and be sure Ryan was safe?

  She could only be safe if the necros were gone. He’d deal with the imminent daddy issues later.

  “We’ll take the bikes,” Bane said. The other two couldn’t fly, at least not far, and he wanted them to stay together, in case of ambush.

  “Should we call any of our vampire club members? Some of them are scary motherfuckers,” Luke said.

  “Not for this. None of them are scary enough to face necros. Warlocks, maybe, but not this. And if the Chamber sent many more than these two we know about, we’re all fucked,” Bane said grimly, voicing the threat he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.

  If the Chamber came in real force, they might all be dead in a matter of days. But he’d sure as hell take as many of them as he could with him. Luke and Edge said nothing, no doubt silenced by the specter of an army of warlocks.

  “I’d hoped those unholy bastards had decided to stay in Europe after the last time we stopped them from invading,” he admitted as they headed down the stairs.

  Luke snorted. “Fucking Brexit.”

  Bane grinned. Sometimes black humor was the only kind that would do.

  “Speaking of unholy.” Edge aimed a narrow look at him. “What the hell are you going to do about Ryan? If the warlocks figure out what she is, they’ll never stop coming after her. Nephilim blood would fuel their rituals for years.”

  “If they kept her alive,” Luke growled. “Imagine what power killing a Nephilim would give them.”

  “They’ll never get their hands on her,” Bane told them, his voice ice. “We’re going to kill them. Tonight.”

  They headed out to the bikes, and then three of the deadliest predators to ever set foot in Savannah went hunting.

  …

  Six hours later, though, they had to admit defeat.

  The warlocks, wherever they were holed up, had covered their tracks very well. Everyone they asked claimed to know nothing and then, when compelled to answer, gave the same response.

  Nothing, nothing, nothing.

  The Wolf Pack alpha called and reported the same. “Not a clue. Nobody knows. And my wolves that they infected are trying to kill us, each other, and themselves, in spite of the restraints. I’m still trying to break the binding myself, but it doesn’t look promising. We need to kill Sylvie, or Constantin, or both of them, and we need to do it now.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Bane hung up and shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “I need to get to my computers,” Edge told them.

  They stood in the ruins of the Noble Jones house on the Isle of Hope, eight miles south of Savannah. It had been a last-ditch effort, since they knew the wolves liked to run the marshes of Jones Narrows at night during the full moon, so they’d thought maybe the necros had found it.

  No luck.

  Again.

  “How will computers help?” Luke asked Edge, who just grunted.

  Bane knew better than to even ask. The former government scientist was a wizard with those things, working his own kind of magic on the internet’s darkest corners. If there was intel to be found, he’d find it.

  “Nice place, this,” Bane said, inhaling the fresh night air.

  “Maybe you can bring your lovely doctor to a twilight picnic here sometime,” Luke said, sarcasm dripping from every word. “You know, right before her daddy shows up and smites us?”

  “Shut the fuck up about smiting,” Bane said. “You should have seen her tonight. She went after one of those shifters with a tiny little scalpel.”

  Luke shook his head in disbelief. “What? A cut from a blade that small would heal on a werewolf in a minute or two.”

  “She didn’t know that. And she
got his carotid on the first try. All she knew was that they were trying to kill her and Meara, and she was determined not to let that happen. She’s incredible. She tried to pull the same trick on the necromancer. That’s when the woman blasted her with blood magic. Defending herself from that is what seems to have unlocked Ryan’s power.”

  Edge brushed his hands off on his pants and then headed back to the bikes. “Yeah. She’s brave, I’ll give you that. But she’s also Nephilim. So, on one hand, she’s incredible, but then on the other hand, there’s the smiting. You need to clear the fuck away from Dr. Ryan Angel-Baby St. Cloud.”

  But Bane had the crystal-clear feeling that it was far too late for that. And now that it was almost dawn, the overwhelming need to get back to her pushed him out of his reverie and back on his bike.

  He needed to see his…angel.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jasmine, aged three, was a tear-streaked bundle of unhappiness whose mother had brought her into the clinic for a possible ear infection. Ryan tried to cover her wince when the teenaged mom carried her child, screaming and kicking, into the exam room.

  Maybe coming to work after only a few hours of sleep—not to mention the werewolf attack—hadn’t been the best idea.

  Especially adding in the necromancer attack—with zombies.

  Or finding out that she, herself, might be part angel… Yeah. It would have been understandable if Ryan had said no when the clinic admin, not knowing anything about Ryan’s fake family emergency, had begged her to come in, since two other doctors were out with the flu.

  And now here was Jasmine, clearly in pain, who needed her doctor to pay attention to her, rather than to Ryan’s own increasingly bizarre Grimms’ Fairy Tale of a life.

  “Hey, sweet pea. Let’s see if we can help you feel better, okay?” She automatically dropped into her soothing doctor voice. “Can you sit up on the table for me, like a big girl?”

  Big girl or no, Jasmine was having none of it. She shook her head, which made her wince and cry even harder.

  “That’s okay. You sit here with Mommy while Dr. Ryan has a quick look into your ears.”

  Sure enough, it was a raging ear infection. A Mom Diagnosis was rarely wrong in cases like this.

  “We’re going to have to put her on the pink stuff,” she told Mom, who was nodding.

  “She’s had that before, about six months back. I wish she’d stop getting these awful ear infections. This is the fourth one she’s had!” Mom—Tyra—blew out a sigh and snuggled her little girl. Ryan glanced at the chart again. Though only seventeen herself, Tyra had been diligent about vaccinations, well-child checks, and bringing Jasmine in when she was ill. Ryan had met a lot of adult parents who weren’t as careful.

  “She’ll be fine,” she told Tyra. “Her fever’s a little high, though. We don’t like to see 101.5 last very long. Alternate the acetaminophen and the ibuprofen—baby Tylenol and the baby Motrin—like it says on this sheet, and Jasmine should be feeling better very soon.”

  Suddenly, the child sat up straight, stopped crying, and stared up at Ryan, the tears glimmering in her lashes. She held out her hand and pointed one chubby little finger. “Shiny!”

  Tyra laughed. “That’s her new favorite word. Everything is shiny. Tin foil, the car window in the sunlight, whatever. It’s all shiny.”

  Ryan smiled at Jasmine. “That’s a great word!”

  But before Ryan could move on to her next patient, the child lunged at her, pushing free of her mom’s grip. Ryan dropped the chart on the floor and caught the girl before she took a header.

  “Wow. Okay. You have to be careful, sweetheart.”

  “Jasmine!” Tyra patted her chest over her heart. “I swear she’s going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”

  But Jasmine wasn’t paying attention to her mother or to what Ryan was saying. The child put her hands on Ryan’s cheeks and stared into her eyes.

  “Shiny,” she whispered. “Shiny lady.”

  Ryan smiled, but suddenly she felt a powerful sensation of warmth, and it felt as if something inside her was reaching out to the little girl. Something warm and comforting.

  Something…magic?

  Whatever it was, it surged between them, carried from Ryan’s face to Jasmine’s hands, and the little girl’s sturdy little body, which had been tense with pain, relaxed completely.

  Jasmine’s eyes opened wide. “Oh, that feels me better, shiny lady.”

  “It’s Doctor Ryan, Jazz, and you need to come to Mommy now,” Tyra interrupted, giving Ryan an apologetic smile and taking her child.

  “Doctow Wyan feeled me better, Mommy,” Jasmine babbled, and Tyra gave her a distracted pat.

  “Yes, I know. Let’s go get your medicine now, okay? And then you can have some ice cream.”

  Ryan suddenly jumped into action on a hunch. “Tyra, just a moment. I want to check her temp again.”

  The mom looked confused, but she nodded. Ryan whipped out the thermometer and placed it to Jasmine’s forehead and then smiled up at Tyra, dropping the thermometer in her pocket. “Okay. Just double checking. You’re good to go. They’ll fill these prescriptions up in front at our pharmacy desk.”

  Tyra bit her lip. “Are they very expensive? It’s just, I don’t get paid till next week, and—”

  “No charge.”

  Ryan smiled and waved bye-bye to Jasmine, who continued to peer at her over her mother’s shoulder, mouthing the word “shiny.”

  When they’d walked out of sight, Ryan pulled her hand out of her pocket, clutching the thermometer she’d used to take the girl’s temperature.

  The thermometer that had read 101.5 on Jasmine only minutes earlier but had read 98.6 after the shiny lady touched her.

  …

  The rest of the day went by in a whirlwind, and she was far too busy to think about magic or supernatural creatures or special healing powers. Normal cases came in and got normal treatment.

  Normal, normal, normal—everything her life suddenly wasn’t anymore.

  After her last patient walked out of the exam room, Ryan stretched, her back sore from a very full day. The clinic staff was bare bones even when nobody was out sick, so today had been a whirlwind. It was sometimes hard to find people with the time and inclination to donate that time to indigent patients.

  Although, now that she had an idea of how much money Meara and Bane must have, she might put in a word that they hire more full-time staff doctors instead of depending on volunteers for so much.

  Suddenly, to her surprise, she realized that she actually wouldn’t mind being one of them. Her mind started to race with plans for what she might do if she had the chance to work here full-time. There were better policies and procedures that could be put in place and implemented. Higher standards of care. Better patient follow-up.

  She shook her head. Always trying to think ten steps ahead, and now she only had to convince her new vampire friends to more fully fund their free clinics, instead of spending so much money on convertibles and mansions and ball gowns.

  She glanced at her watch and grimaced. It was already seven, and she’d promised to be back by six p.m. when she ran into Mr. C in the kitchen at five in the morning. Bane hadn’t returned yet, but Mr. C had convinced her that Bane, Luke, and Edge were fine, just “doing a sweep,” whatever that meant.

  The vampires would want to talk to her about the attacks and about Ryan’s new Nephilim status, but Ryan wasn’t ready for that conversation, and she didn’t know when she would be. Still, time to woman up. She grabbed her bag, said good-bye, and rushed out to her car. When she pulled out her phone, she had eighteen missed messages, all from VMC ENTERPRISES.

  Ouch.

  She sighed, ignored the messages, and drove back to the mansion, preparing to face the music, hoping that the sight of her in the red ball gown made Bane forget
that she’d been out of touch all day.

  Except, necromancers.

  She was probably out of luck.

  She pushed the speaker button and called Bane, who answered almost before it rang.

  “Where the fuck are you?”

  She looked at her phone in disbelief and contemplated stopping for a cheeseburger and fries. Lots of fries.

  And a beer or three.

  “Nope,” she finally said.

  “What?”

  “I said, nope. You do not get to tell me I’m a warrior goddess one day and then try to control my life the next. Or speak to me like that. And may I remind you, you never checked in with me when you were gone all night.”

  “But—”

  “And,” she continued, speaking right over him, “we still have to talk about that time you locked me in your room.”

  Silence.

  “Bane?”

  “Did Meara let you out?”

  She pulled out onto Route 80. “No, I let myself out. My father used to pull that nasty little trick, so I learned to be fairly competent at picking locks. But if you think it’s in any way a good thing to do something that makes me compare you to my asshole father, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  “He’s not your father.”

  “That actually makes me feel better,” she snapped, making the turn at the light.

  Another, longer, silence.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said, just when she was about to hang up.

  She sighed. “I forgive you, so long as you never do it again. There. Was that so hard?”

  “You have no idea,” he said fervently, and she burst out laughing.

  “Are we going to talk about what we discovered about you last night?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “My capacity for new revelations ran out somewhere around the zombies. We’re going to go to this party with Meara, and maybe even dance, and then we’ll talk.”

  “Okay. Come back to me now.”

  “And there you go, ordering me around again.” She sighed again, loudly this time, to be sure he heard it, and he laughed.