everafter

by Nell Stark; Trinity Tam

  I rested a hand on his shoulder as I stood. “Thank you.”

  “Say hi to Alexa for me,” he called softly as I turned to leave. I closed my eyes during the cab ride home in an effort to sort through the jumble of thoughts in my brain. I had no doubt that the Red Circuit would be profoundly disturbing, but it also sounded promising. Whatever the rogue vampire’s motivation, he was clearly a sadist, and a party where even the veneer of civility was discarded seemed like exactly the kind of entertainment he’d look for.

  “Hey, lov—mmph!” No sooner had I stepped into the apartment than Alexa’s arms were around my neck, her lithe body pressing me up against the wall next to the door. She kissed me fiercely and I met her with all the love and passion in me, wrapping the thick strands of her hair around my fingers and urging her even closer than she already was. When she finally pulled away, licking her lips, I was gasping for air. I watched as she closed the door and set the bolt and chain. She kept one hand on my stomach the entire time, stroking my abs through the fabric of my sweater.

  “You okay, baby?” I asked, once I had my breath back. She led me to the couch; I lay down and she snuggled in on top of me. “It was so hard being away from you today.”

  “Yeah. For me, too.” I ran my palms firmly down her back and she hummed deep in her throat.

  “How’s Olivia?”

  I settled in on her lower back, massaging in small, tight circles. It felt so good to touch her. “She’s okay. Awake. And not a vampire.”

  “Oh?”

  “Apparently he got interrupted. Didn’t have time to do enough…

  damage.” She felt my wince and kissed my chin.

  We lay there for a good half hour—me gently working out the tension in her muscles and telling her about everything I’d learned, and

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  her punctuating my narrative with the occasional question. While she listened, she rested her head over my heart. When I got to the part about the Red Circuit, her grip on me tightened.

  “That sounds awful,” she whispered. And then she raised her head to glare at me. “You’re not going. You’re not even contemplating going. Right?”

  Her insistence didn’t faze me—I knew I’d feel exactly the same way if our roles were reversed. “I might be able to recognize him if I did,” I said quietly.

  “Hell no. Hell no.” Alexa grasped my head in both hands. “Because he’ll definitely recognize you, Val, and what do you suppose he’ll do then?”

  That was true. She was right. He would know that I’d want vengeance. “I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted.

  “You really won’t, right?” she pressed. “Maybe there’s a way to tell Detective Foster?”

  My jaw clenched as I had a sickening epiphany. “They wouldn’t let her live,” I realized out loud. “Not whoever’s in charge of that party…

  and I bet not the Consortium, either.”

  “Shit,” Alexa whispered.

  I sat up then, rearranging us so that my back was to the couch and she was straddling my lap. “Kyle might have a way in for me,” I said softly. “He’s looking into it.”

  Her eyes narrowed. I met them without flinching. “If you go, I go,” she said finally.

  “That’s craz—”

  She pushed one finger against my lips, halting my protests. “You listen to me. We are a team—so much stronger together than apart. Have you really not learned your lesson by now, after everything that’s happened? Really?”

  I shook my head, even as I realized that trying to convince her to stay would be useless. “Weren’t you listening? From everything Kyle’s heard, this place is going to be chaos!”

  But she showed no sign of backing down. “Either I go, or you don’t.”

  “Okay,” I finally conceded, both frightened for her safety and relieved that we could watch each other’s backs. “Thank you.”

  Fortunately, my stomach growled at that moment, lightening

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  the mood. She leaned in and grazed my jawline with her teeth before whispering, “Hungry?” into my ear.

  I shivered, but didn’t surrender. “Mmm,” I whispered back, letting my hands drift down to her hips. “What if I’m thirsty?”

  Alexa yanked the neck of her sweatshirt down over one shoulder.

  “Have a drink, then.”

  Arousal and need slammed into me. At the jolt that ran through my body, Alexa smiled. She caressed the back of my neck, then pulled me forward until my mouth rested against the soft skin at the juncture of her shoulder and torso. Saliva flooded my mouth as I traced her warm skin with my tongue.

  And then I bit down. The rush was instantaneous—hot, thick, rich—and I swallowed to the sound of her low moan. Fuck, this was hot. So. Damn. Hot. So—

  The images flooded my brain, a kaleidoscope of agony: rain in my eyes and vomit coating my tongue and his laugh ringing in my ears. The burn of the knife pinning my arm to the earth. I knew I was going to die. Olivia, pale and bruised, covered by a mound of white blankets.

  “Please,” I tried to whisper, but gagged on the blood trickling into the back of my throat.

  I snarled as the vision unfolded, barely registering Alexa’s flinching movement.

  “Easy, love, easy,” she said, her voice strained in a way I’d never quite heard before. But it was only when her fingertips brushed against my cheek that I finally had the sense to pull away. I came back to myself, rather than the dark alley: to the sight of Alexa, left hand pressing into her right shoulder in an attempt to slow the blood, her teeth clenched in pain.

  “What the hell,” I muttered, horrified at myself. Jumping up and going to the kitchen, I moistened a fresh washrag and hurried back to clean the blood both from her arm and palm. She watched me silently, and I felt the panic return to my gut.

  “What just happened?” she asked, once I had fixed her newest Band-Aid in place.

  I leaned back against the couch and grabbed a fistful of cloth in each hand. “I saw him, in my head. It was like I was back there, feeling it all over again for the first time.” When I shuddered, Alexa moved back into her original position and wrapped her arms around my neck.

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  Nell Stark and Trinity Tam

  “Why, do you think?”

  I rubbed my cheek lightly against her hair, struggling to hold myself together against the riptide of despair that was threatening to engulf me. How had I lost control? How had I been so absorbed that I’d hurt her? What did this mean? I had finally dared to hope that we could make this work, that we’d be okay. Was I doomed to be bad for her forever, no matter what we tried?

  “Don’t know,” I said hoarsely. I thought back to what had flashed before my mind’s eye: the attack, and Olivia. “Maybe…maybe it was seeing Olivia, in the hospital?”

  She kissed me lightly. “Oh, love. I wish I could have been there with you. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been, to see her like that. To remember.”

  I shook my head. Why was Alexa trying to comfort me, when I had just practically attacked her? It made no sense. I felt like I was going to be sick. “I hurt you,” I whispered, feeling the heat rise behind my eyes as I fought the urge to cry.

  “It’s fine. It really is. Look at me.”

  One tear spilled out when I did. She caught it on her forefinger.

  “You’ve had that bastard in your thoughts all day, love,” she pointed out. “It’s no wonder that he popped into your mind.” She cradled my head against her neck and I took a few deep breaths. She smelled so good, so warm. So vibrant. So alive. I could have—

  Like clockwork, her grip on me tightened. “If you’re thinking about leaving me again, then you’d better quit it. Right now.”

  I pulled back, not even bothering to wipe the moisture from my face. “I can’t leave you again,” I said, hoping that my voice conveyed the deadly seriousness that I felt. “It was a mistake
the first time. I don’t think I’d survive a second.”

  Suddenly restless, I got to my feet. Usually, I was a fan of talking through whatever problems were confronting us, but I suddenly wanted nothing more than to forget this had ever happened. “Are you getting hungry? How ’bout I cook us some dinner?”

  “Okay,” she said, but didn’t let me escape to the kitchen. Or rather, she escaped there, too. Within a few minutes, she was bumping my hip with hers as she chopped vegetables and shared the latest gossip from her peers.

  She seemed perfectly fine. And she was probably right about the

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  source of my disconcerting flashback; all day, I’d been obsessing about how to bring the rogue vampire to justice. So I kept up the best happy façade that I could muster, for both our sakes.

  Deep down, though, I couldn’t help but continue to worry over the fragile equilibrium we had just managed to find.

  • 129 •

  • 130 •

  everafter

  Chapter eleveN

  The car picked us up promptly at 10:30 outside of our apartment. It was a nondescript black Honda. When Alexa and I slid into the back, Kyle turned around from the driver’s seat.

  “Valentine, Alexa, meet Monique.”

  I reached across the gap to take the cool hand of the beautiful vampire who had homed in on Kyle at Luna, after Sebastian dragged Alexa and me away. Her honey-colored curls hung in tiny corkscrews down to her shoulders, and her long, dark fingernails matched the shade of her fur coat.

  “Pleasure,” I said, even though she creeped me out—particularly the way her predatory gaze lingered on Alexa. I wrapped my free arm around Alexa’s shoulders, pulling her close. Mine.

  “Hello.” Monique seemed uninterested in me, withdrawing her hand quickly from my grip and stroking her fingers through the closecropped hair on the back of Kyle’s neck. “Take the Williamsburg Bridge.”

  “Looks like we’re going to Brooklyn,” Alexa whispered as Kyle headed out on Avenue C toward Delancey. I nodded, settling in for the drive with my hand on Alexa’s knee. Apparently, the location of the Red Circuit shifted each week. Information about its whereabouts was top secret. I wondered about the distribution channels: did news of a party spread by word of mouth? Or was there some other mechanism?

  We didn’t speak much as Monique guided Kyle along the Brooklyn waterfront. I tried to steel myself for what I might see tonight, but the uncertainty was far more anxiety-producing than any facts would have been. “Brutal,” Kyle had heard. What was the definition of “brutality”

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  for those who lived by drinking the blood of others? The rogue vampire had called his bloody assault on me “beautiful.” I nervously picked at a thread on my down jacket, suddenly wishing that I’d thought to bring my gun. But that would have been fruitless—I hadn’t gone to the firing range yet and had no idea how to use it well. If I saw him, I would call Helen. She would know how to bring him in.

  “The Steiner Studios?” Alexa was leaning forward, her face almost pressed against the glass. She turned toward me, one perfectly manicured eyebrow arched in a mixture of surprise and amusement.

  “There’s a clandestine vampire party at the Steiner Studios?”

  I glanced over at Monique, wondering if the question would offend her, but she didn’t even acknowledge it. Instead, she directed Kyle to a parking spot. When we got out, she didn’t so much as pause to appreciate the sparkling beauty of the Manhattan skyline—a metropolitan Narcissus admiring its own reflection in the East River. Monique headed straight for Sound Stage Four, and we followed in her wake.

  There were no guards posted at the outer door. The inner door was attended only by one woman, who immediately stepped forward and tried to offer Monique some sort of ticket. She waved it away. “We’re here for the fights,” she said. “Out back, I presume?”

  “The fights?” Alexa whispered, but I shook my head. I didn’t know what was going on here any more than she did.

  “Yes. Go straight through—you’ll see the signs.” The woman threw open the door, revealing a sprawling space, crisscrossed above by catwalks. At the far end, a massive stage was overshadowed by a dramatic urban backdrop—New York as it must have looked during the Great Depression. In striking counterpoint to the period feel of the scenery, a DJ and several nearly naked dancers commanded the stage. But I barely spared them a glance. Monique was on the move. She strode purposefully through the crowd that had gathered in the staging area and we crowded behind her like sheep. When she drew even with the bar—clearly constructed just a few hours ago from spare plywood—she paused and turned to Kyle.

  “Get me a drink, then meet me outside.” She pointed to an exit sign. “That way.” And then she turned to me. “See to it that no one else touches him.”

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  Kyle willingly obliged, shouldering his way through to the bartender, but I stared after Monique, disturbed that she thought she could order me around that way. Then again, we were in her debt. And she was older than I was. The ageless, I had noticed, were somewhat obsessed with their own longevity. Lived time had a lot of cachet.

  “‘See to it that no one touches him?’” Alexa repeated, pressing close to me. I wrapped my arms around her and took comfort from her familiar scent. “How are you supposed to do that?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, watching as Kyle returned with an elaborate cocktail and three beers. He passed two of them to us.

  “This place is sweet!” he said eagerly, gaze darting around the room. “I wonder what film they just made in here. And check out that stage—think they only let the pros dance up there, or will we get a chance, too?”

  “No idea,” I said, catching several vampires in the act of looking Kyle up and down, as though he were a gourmet snack. Which, given the fact that he basically belonged to the Master of New York, wasn’t far from the truth. “But we should get outside, huh? Give Monique her drink?”

  “Yeah. We can always come back in here later.”

  Thankfully, we hustled toward the exit sign and didn’t meet with any opposition along the way. As we stepped into the night, a chill breeze rose off the water, and I felt glad of my winter coat. The area we had just entered must, I imagined, normally serve as an assembly point for materials that would later make it onto the stage itself. For tonight, though, the outdoor space, bordered by a tall fence, had been converted into an arena. A sense of dread opened in my chest as I realized that this must be the site of Monique’s “fights.”

  The women stuck out in the mostly male crowd, and I spotted Monique with little effort. She was standing by a crude plywood stall that had been labeled “Bookie.” Now, the disinterest she’d shown the club portion of the Circuit made sense. For Monique, this event was all about betting. But on what, exactly?

  We joined Kyle as he jostled through the crowd toward Monique. I scanned the faces before me warily, afraid of my own reaction if I recognized my attacker. Alexa’s warm presence at my back was simultaneously a comfort and an anxiety. At least there were more

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  shifters than vampires out here—I didn’t have to worry about Weres lusting after Alexa’s blood. Not while they were in human form, anyway.

  When we reached Monique, she accepted her drink without a word of thanks. “Go find me a place close to the action,” she said, pointing to where the crowd was thickest. “On that side.”

  Ever obliging, Kyle persistently worked his way toward the spot Monique had indicated. As we drew closer, it became possible to see the arena itself—just a circle of concrete formed by a thin line of chalk and the throng of not-so-human bodies. Within, two men, each wearing only a pair of shorts, were stretching. One looked middle-aged—silverhaired and distinguished. The other was younger, with a thick dark mane that flowed down to
his shoulders. Both of them were strong, fit, and apparently unfazed by the cold.

  Epiphany struck. “Those aren’t humans, are they?”

  Kyle shook his head slowly. “I’ve heard of this, but never seen it. Dogfighting.”

  Alexa pressed closer, and I drew her in front of me so that I could hold her. “What does that entail?” she asked.

  At that moment, a sharp whistle pierced the air. “I think we’re about to find out.”

  Monique joined us as the referee—a tall, thin woman wearing a bomber jacket with a rifle strapped across her shoulders—held up the hand of each man in turn. It was just like a boxing match: she shouted their names and the crowd applauded. But unlike a boxing match, when she finally blew the whistle, each man dropped to his knees. Their outlines began to blur. A hush fell, so profound that it was possible to hear a choked-off groan from the silver-haired man, and the harsh, panting breaths of his opponent. This part of the fight, I realized, was in many ways a race: to see who could transform first. The process was happening faster than it had with Darren, and I wondered whether that was because these men were actively encouraging their beasts to come forth.

  I cringed as the younger man’s spine arched at an impossible angle…and suddenly, he was no longer a man. But his opponent was only a second behind. Clutching Alexa’s waist tightly, I watched in awe as both contenders met in the center of the ring.

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  The wolves were gray and black. They circled each other, lips pulled back over razor teeth as they snapped and growled. The breathless pause of the crowd was broken by dozens of voices at once, each shouting the name of their champion—inciting him on, driving him mad. When Monique put her fingers to her lips and issued a piercing whistle, the wolves’ ears flickered. The gray wolf lunged first, trying to get hold of his rival’s throat, but the black wolf was agile and dodged the attack. A well-aimed swipe at the older wolf’s haunches drew first blood, and the crowd howled in pleasure.

  My breaths were shallow and fast, and I could feel the adrenaline soaking into my infected blood. There was something compelling about this raw violence—something viscerally satisfying about the shifters’