Lost Angeles

by Mantchev, Lisa

  “Back off, mini-muffin.” The heat in the words isn’t directed at her, though. “I need to finish this.”

  “A nice idea,” Jax says, leaning over the reaper and settling the tip of the sword against his throat, “but a little more complicated than you’d think—”

  Underfoot, a shudder starts in the floorboards and travels up the walls, shaking everything like there’s been an earthquake. Whatever else is happening with Asher and Jess back in the main room, some of the C4 charges have been set off. The first should have taken out the massive water feature, and the rest are going to reduce the building to rubble.

  Tamsyn’s taken enough of an edge off the sin-eater crazy for Xaine to realize that our timeline just shrank down to approximately sixty seconds, give or take a few.

  “Leave him, Trace.” He snags my waist in passing, hauling me against his chest. “We have to get out of here now.”

  The gun is still tucked into the waistband of his pants, the hard metal edges jabbing into my forearm. My next thought is for Tiberius, his claim that he can’t die. Anxiety settles hard and fast in the pit of my gut, bringing with it a burgeoning terror.

  Leave. Let it burn. Get far away and try to forget. Try to start over.

  Except I’ll never sleep again if I’m always waiting to hear wind chimes.

  My hand closes around the gun, and I jerk the weapon from Xaine’s pants, turning back to where Tiberius is still on the floor, pinned under the tip of Jax’s sword. Impossible to kill a reaper, so I hear, but I train the weapon on him anyway. His gaze travels up the length of the barrel, sliding ever-closer to my face. The moment we lock eyes, his shimmer and come up the same blue that I see in the mirror every morning.

  “See you on the other side.” I offer a one-sided shrug. “Wherever that may be.”

  I tighten down on the trigger and fire, ruining the rest of the reaper’s face, splattering his brains across the floor and halfway up the wall. Rough hands close around my middle, but I’m done. Finished. There’s no fight left because there’s no fight left.

  Whether he lives or dies, I owed him this.

  A rush of water bursts into the hall, flooding the narrow passage and lapping at my ankles. Xaine’s got an arm around me, hauling me backward as the tide rises. He swings me around and sets me on my feet, shoving me toward some destination that I can’t even see. We’ve been trapped in the darkness for so long that I’ve almost become comfortable with the absence of light, with the scent of blood, with the feel of concrete pressed to my skin. A second explosion sends another cold wave surging around us, the water rising to knee-level as we wade toward the doors at the far end of the hall.

  “Fucking water feature.” Xaine shakes his head. “Why did I have to have a water feature?”

  “Because you wouldn’t be you if you didn’t,” I say. “Hey, Dr. Trace, wanna give me a hand here and pop this shoulder back into the socket?”

  Jax rocks back on his heels. “Do I have to?”

  “Yes,” Xaine says with a glower. “You have to.”

  “She’s your wife, you do it.”

  There’s a staring contest that Xaine must win, because the next thing Jax says is, “Fine, but someone’s gonna hafta hold my sword.”

  In short order, Tamsyn is playing sword-bearer, and Jax is cracking his knuckles like he’s about to go to bat. He widens his stance and takes hold of my arm, pausing for a three-count before he whips my shoulder around and up with a sickening pop! I groan, but there’s no time to spare for recovery.

  “Stay here,” Xaine mutters. “I have to go upstairs and override the security system. The fucking doors are still locked down.”

  “Like hell, Capello.” My grip tightens down on his wrist. “You’re not leaving me here with the building about to come down around our ears.”

  “Well, unless your stupid shithead of a guardian angel has some magic he can pull out of his ass, it’s going to be the only chance for you to get out—”

  A third detonation, and half the wall falls into the corridor behind Jax and Tamsyn. One of the emergency light fixtures twists away from steel and plaster, dangling like my injured arm. A shower of sparks rains down on our heads, and now the race is on to see if we’ll end up buried, drowned, or electrocuted first. Jax has his sword back, now devoid of blue flame, and levers the damn thing between the reinforced glass plates overlapping the door like it’s some kind of celestial crowbar.

  Xaine hugs me to his chest, raking his hands through the tangled mess of my hair. I lean against him, my face pressed to his shirt, the fingers of my good arm tracing over the seams of his bulletproof vest. For a guy who makes his living writing songs, it takes him an inordinately long time to find the words he’s looking for.

  “I’d turn you if I could. Keep you with me forever.”

  “I know.” The words sound thinner than I’d like.

  “I’ve never been more certain of anything than I was that first day that I saw you,” he tells me. “Mad as hell, but certain. And I am so fucking sorry it’s ending like this. God, Lore—”

  “Don’t,” I mutter, holding on tight, digging my forehead into his chest. For one supremely ironic moment, I find myself wishing that he wasn’t wearing a stupid shirt. “It’s not ending. I need—”

  There’s the sharp crackle of surging electricity. Every few seconds, that light fixture sways, wires touching, enough zapping light cast off that I can see Xaine. The expression he’s wearing is heartbreaking. We’re trapped here, and everyone but me stands at least a passing chance at getting out. There were so many things I wanted to do. With him. So many places I wanted to visit. With him. Everything we wanted to explore…

  And not just the fleshy bits, either.

  “The suspense is killing me, sweetheart,” Xaine says, interrupting my reverie. “What do you need? A cookie? Some bubblegum and a paperclip, MacGyver?”

  The light swings and sparks again, and in that brief flash, I’m looking for something, anything that would indicate a manual override on this floor. Wallpaper, stucco, bits of splintered two-by-four shove us closer to the doors, closer to the wall. The water’s up to our thighs now. I can’t see for shit, so I have to run the hand holding the gun over the wall, using the intermittent sparks to see—

  Bingo.

  “A kitten, X,” I tell him. “If we survive this, I want a kitten.”

  He hits me with a raised eyebrow. “You mean one of those didn’t come in the FTD welcome wagon? Those assholes aren’t getting any more of my business.”

  Over the security doors, there’s a torn-away chunk of plating, and beyond that is a bunch of switches and circuit breakers that mean precisely dick to me. I don’t have wire cutters, and we don’t have time, so I shove the gun at Tamsyn, reach into my pocket, and pull out the stupid taser that Asher slapped into my palm.

  “I need you to lift me up,” I tell Xaine, “so that my feet are out of the water.”

  He looks at me strangely, then glances from the wall to the taser, putting the pieces together.

  “Fuck no,” he blurts out. “I am not going to let you fry yourself trying to pop a breaker.” His fingers clamp down on my wrist and squeeze hard enough that a second later, the taser is in his hand.

  “Xaine,” I tell him, hating that I have to say the next words out loud, “I’m dead anyway. At least this way, I have the possibility of being either not dead or dead quickly.”

  “What’s the plan here?” Jax interrupts.

  “Boost me up, Trace,” Xaine says before I can get a word in edgewise. “My wife wants to see some fireworks, and I have to keep the little woman happy.”

  Jax’s eyes skim over Xaine, the taser, up the wall, and across the way to the sparking emergency light. With a frown, he says, “This is a really stupid plan.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, now make like a cheerleader so I can do this thing.” When Jax doesn’t move, Xaine adds, “Come on, asshole. I was a passenger on the Titanic and all this water is t
riggering my PTSD.”

  “A Titanic joke, really?” Jax says, lacing his fingers together to make a cradle. “Like really, really?”

  “Never let go, Jax.” I say, my teeth chattering together. “Never let go.”

  Xaine starts scaling the resident angel like some kind of gothic spider monkey. It takes a little doing and a lot of cursing, but eventually he manages to stand on Jax’s shoulders, one foot planted on either side of Jax’s head. There’s a few seconds of fiddling, but it feels like forever because everything is slowing down like it did on the white carpet in Vegas. I stand next to Tamsyn, who’s back to clutching Jax’s sword. She’s got her eyes squeezed shut, muttering some kind of prayer that alternates between filth and kitchen gadgetry.

  I tune her out at “tit-sink” because that’s when Xaine jams the taser’s prongs into the security system’s exposed innards. White-hot and searing, electricity arcs from device to wall and back into him. With my eyes fixed on his features, I’m only dimly aware of the hissing, popping, and cascading sparks that are like something you’d see in a Fourth of July pyrotechnics finale. It all lasts as long as it takes to fry the breaker. Then he’s falling, dropping like a stone into Jax’s arms, still twitching. There’s a split-second of catch, long enough for Tamsyn to snatch the taser from Xaine’s hand, before the inevitable give as Jax retracts his arms and dumps my rock star vampire husband into the murky drink with a splash.

  “Dick move, Trace,” I say on Xaine’s behalf, because the vampire in question is only now resurfacing and far too busy stringing together expletives like Christmas garland to rebut.

  “Yeah, well, I told you it was a stupid idea, it didn’t even wor—”

  Click!

  The reinforced glass plates over the door unlock, releasing with the tiniest hydraulic hiss and cutting Jax off.

  “You were saying?” I ask wryly. I still can’t see much, because the emergency lights shorted out with the rest. There’s only a sliver of streetlight slicing between the exit doors.

  “Holy assbutts waffle-maker, it did work.” Tamsyn laughs like a little kid who’s fallen off her bike, bleeding profusely from the knees and elbows but hysterically glad to have survived.

  “Yeah, I’m actually pretty shocked.” Jax turns to Xaine to add, “Welcome back, princess. Can you stand without fainting?”

  There’s a wheezy “Fuck you, asshole” before Xaine adds, “She told you not to let me go.”

  “I’m sure we can all agree that you’re long dead, ice cold, and probably better off at the bottom of the ocean.”

  Despite the witty repartee, Jax has set himself to prying the doors open, and everything flexes under the ripped-up bits of wet fabric clinging to his skin. The glass plates don’t make it easy, but he levers them to a breaking point. When they finally give, the water rushes out, and I’m swept up by the current before I can think to brace myself. Xaine doesn’t let go as we’re carried into the street. The two of us end up on our knees in the VIP driveway, at the end of the carpet which is now sodden black and littered with debris. The PFC van sits there like a present under a Christmas tree; Jax and Tamsyn head for it at ninety miles an hour.

  “Come on!” Tam hollers over her shoulder. “There’s a time and place to be on your knees, and this ain’t it!”

  I glance at Xaine through the dripping curtain of my hair. I’m broken, bloody, and still holding one arm close to my chest. Tired and wet and so very ready to collapse into a soft bed for days, all I can think to say is, “So, I can taze things and shoot stuff. Does this make me a weapons expert?”

  Xaine shakes his head like a dog trying to get the water out of his eyes. All that so he can give me a narrow-eyed look and say, “You’ve always been an expert at handling my weapon. Now let’s get you in the goddamn van.”

  His hands slide beneath my knees and shoulders, lifting me up until I’m cradled against his chest. His concern is obvious. Puny mortal is injured; not-so-puny immortal is responsible. And knowing Xaine, I’d be willing to bet that I’ll be drowning in compensatory gifts by the end of the week.

  “Don’t forget,” I murmur against his shoulder, “you owe me a kitten.”

  “Sweetheart, I’ll buy you any kitten that you want,” he tells me. “Never mind, I’ll get you one of each and you can choose.”

  “You’re going to bring me all the kittens? Like, every single one?” My mouth twitches at the idea, because if anyone was ever going to ring up the Humane Society of Los Angeles and demand every single kitten, it would be this guy.

  He hitches me up so he can get right in my face with, “Sure, how many could there be?”

  “More pussy than you could possibly handle.”

  “It couldn’t be any more trouble than the pussy I already have.”

  Jax slides the door back as we approach, and Xaine hands me in, careful not to jostle me. Behind us, the building gives one last enormous shudder and starts to collapse in on itself. Tamsyn hits the gas before Xaine’s all the way inside, but he manages to hoist himself in and wrangle the door shut as she rockets across three lanes of traffic.

  “Speaking of pancakes,” she starts.

  Jax thumps her on the back of her bright orange head with the palm of his hand.

  “Don’t,” he says. “Just shut up and drive.”

  EPILOGUE

  Lore

  A bay breeze blows through an open window, warm and dry and carrying with it the sounds of life from below. The room is shaded, pointing south toward the inlet and overlooking the downward slant of the red-roofed houses that pepper the hillside. Funchal is located in a naturally-formed volcanic amphitheater, and the view is absolutely breathtaking.

  I suppose the sprawling vistas and glittering blue waves are nice too, but the only view that really matters to me is this one right here in this bedroom.

  Xaine.

  Both of us lay belly-down on the blankets, legs tangled in the sheets. Everything is light and airy and smells permanently of sunshine, despite its proximity to shadow. With slow deliberation, I brush my fingers through the short bristles of his hair, smiling as Jax’s parting advice echoes in my head.

  You might want to go incognito. And by incognito, I mean not a ponytail and sunglasses.

  We have to trim it every few days. Xaine mutters under his breath during the ten minutes that I spend clipping behind his ears. He pretends to hate the fact that I grin at him in the mirror the whole time, but really, I think he enjoys the attention, especially when I thread my fingers through the ever-growing lengths of straight, black silk.

  Even jungle cats like to get petted.

  It’s been a couple of months. Long enough that I’ve begun to drive him crazy with my ukulele. I can’t seem to get him onboard with my upbeat strumming, go figure, so every time I pick up that little piece of musical genius, Xaine finds a fairly naked way to tell me to go fuck myself. Or him.

  “Lore.” His sleepy voice recalls my attention, widens my smile. The shorter hair makes him look younger, almost boyish, and the way that he immediately reaches for the closest piece of me is absolutely adorable. Wouldn’t tell him that, though. He doesn’t like it when I think of him as anything but a snapping, growling, manly alpha. “Don’t get up yet.”

  “You’re not the boss of me,” I quip softly, tracing my fingers over his stubbled jaw.

  One arm inches across the blankets, but instead of lacing his fingers with mine, he reaches out to touch a soft lock of pink hair that spirals over my shoulder. When I lean in closer, my face hovering over his, he sits up far enough to place a quick peck on my lips.

  “I missed the color,” he murmurs.

  I can’t help but smile again and turn my head slightly to take in the dark chestnut waves with the pink and purple streaks. It’s so different from the platinum rainbow I had when we first met, but in its own way, everything’s come full circle. I look different, but I look like me, and I guess that’s all that counts really. His hand inches forward, following the heavy loc
ks until his fingers brush against the bare expanse of my shoulder.

  He gets that look then, when he rubs the pad of his thumb over the smooth scars dotting my flesh. It took them a while to heal, and they’ll probably never fade entirely. He dug in so deep that he chiseled fang-shaped divots into the bone underneath.

  I think Xaine wavers between tragedy and triumph each time the shiny marks come into view. Because it’s what he wanted. Just not like this.

  My hand covers his, enfolding those cool fingers between my own, and I bring his palm to my lips so that I can place a soft kiss on each treasured fingertip. He’s got calluses, and I often wonder if he’s had them for the entire four hundred years or if he’s simply so dedicated to his craft that he managed to overcome his vampire super-healing enough to make them stick.

  Slowly, I push myself up from the bed, yawning, stretching, then huffing out a laugh as I take in the full picture. Xaine’s hand finds my knee, squeezing as if he doesn’t want to stop touching me for a single second. He wouldn’t, I think, given the option. As it is, he’s mindful of the current situation, and he takes care to move as little as possible.

  “Don’t roll over,” I say. “You’ll squish the baby.”

  “Hrmph,” Xaine grunts out, but I’m not fooled. Just like with the hair, he likes to pretend that he’s not absolutely tickled by the way that tiny, helpless things are smitten with him. “Too stupid to know better, and too damn small for her own good. Now a tiger, there’s a cat I can get behind. I could beat a tiger in a fair fight.”

  With a snort, I roll my eyes and reach out, scooping up all one-point-five pounds of kitten from her nest at the crook of his neck. “Go home, vampire, you’re drunk.”

  “Sleepy.”

  “Then sleep.” I press the mewling feline to my cheek, rubbing my nose in her feather-soft fur. Vegas usually sleeps under Xaine’s chin, but sometimes she can’t quite scale the mountain of his big, fat head, in which case she settles for the closest piece of skin she can find.

  Just like her daddy.

  When the kitten squirms, I put her down on the bed. Vegas picks her way carefully across the blankets, her tail like a question mark until she curls up against Xaine.