Scorched [Pain & Love 3] (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Ashlei D. Hawley

  Leigh couldn’t help his smirk when he saw Dan enter the room soaked to his skin. Apparently, there’d been an altercation.

  Hesitant to mimic Lydia’s gung-ho attitude regarding finding the Hunter stronghold, Mallory stood and frowned. “Why so urgent?” she’d asked, hoping to calm the situation if she could in any way.

  “They have my mother’s heart,” Lydia said coldly while glaring daggers into Dan. Heddy had given him a towel. He’d need to change his clothes before they left. “We’re going to get it back.”

  After a fight, Jade agreed to stay and watch over Daria. She demanded Lydia find their mother’s heart and burn anyone who stood in the way of reclaiming it. With Lydia’s promise to her sister heavy on the air, they left.

  * * * *

  As Mallory and Leigh infiltrated their fourth building of the night, Mallory wondered why they were searching known points of operation. Wouldn’t the Hunters know none of their previous safe havens were useable anymore? With the question on her tongue to pose to Leigh, Mallory turned but froze mid-motion. She’d heard something in the distance and smelled the unique aroma that all Hunters wore. The scent of a crisp night wind hovered over the stench of rotting death. Only one, but even one Hunter, properly prepared, could be a formidable opponent.

  Leigh swiveled his head to the left, and Mallory knew he’d scented the threat, as well. Tipping her head in the same direction, Mallory wordlessly asked if they would approach, or if they should return with Dan and Lydia. Leigh silently gestured for them to retreat. Just killing the Hunter wouldn’t do for what they worked toward. They needed information.

  Once outside, Mallory and Leigh met Lydia and Dan in the parking lot of a small grocery store. They hadn’t found anything in their last target. Mallory and Dan moved quickly, coming up on the Dragon and the Fallen with silent urgency.

  “There’s one inside,” Mallory announced as she and Leigh seemed to materialize before Lydia and Dan. The Dragon felt a momentary pang of envy for how fast they were able to move, but her focus hinged on what Mallory said. They’d found one of the Hunters.

  “Let’s go, then,” Lydia said excitedly.

  “Did you recognize him?” Dan asked as they moved.

  “Not by scent alone,” Leigh answered.

  Within moments, they were back in front of the Hunter safe house Dan had directed them to. The apartment complex was made up of four low-sitting buildings with three rental spaces apiece. From what Dan said, the place was owned and occupied solely by Hunters. They didn’t fear civilian casualties.

  “This one,” Mallory said point to building two. All the rentals were dark and silent except the first apartment in the second structure. A single lamp burned, and movement could be heard behind the thin, flimsy door.

  “Did you check the layout of any of the apartments?” Dan asked. Hunters weren’t fond of being cornered. He didn’t think any of them would stay in a place with only one easily broken door as the way in and out.

  “We didn’t,” Mallory admitted.

  “Move slowly and quietly, then,” Dan instructed. “We don’t want to force him out a back way if there is one.”

  Leigh stepped forward and took the faux-gold door handle in his hand. He twisted hard enough to break the lock, which gave under his enormous strength with a barely discernible sound. Breaking the chain lock created more noise, and the movement from within the apartment halted. Leigh waited for a moment, but he felt certain they’d been made.

  “I think he hears us,” Leigh whispered.

  “Let’s go, then!” Lydia said and finished off the last of the door barrier with a solid kick. She plowed through the threshold before the others could respond to her words.

  “Crazy idiot,” Dan muttered as he followed her in. Leigh and Mallory waited for them to go through, not wanting to create a traffic jam of bodies right at the entrance.

  Lydia recognized Jerry as he hefted a black briefcase and a silver suitcase. He stood near an open door that led to a back porch. A large silver vehicle sat waiting for him, and Lydia knew that if they hesitated, they’d lose him.

  Jerry dropped the suitcase and went for his pocket.

  Standing beside Lydia, Dan saw Jerry’s movement and reacted instinctively. He shoved Lydia out of the way and she fell to the ground. Knowing the other Hunter was faster than he was, Dan had no chance to remove himself from the line of danger when he heard the bark of the gun.

  Jerry’s blank, Ken-doll face split in a truly joyful smile as he unloaded half the clip in his handgun at Dan’s chest. He was out the door before Dan fell to his knees on the tiled floor of the small apartment’s kitchen.

  “Go after him!” Lydia shrieked as she rolled away from Dan and toward the door Jerry had left open.

  Jerry fired once more as he slung himself into the vehicle’s passenger seat. The wild shot buried itself in the side of the building. The driver of the vehicle put pedal to the floor, and the car peeled away.

  “Lydia, we need to get Dan to a hospital, not chase after Jerry,” Mallory snapped as she pulled the Dragon away from where she stood.

  Lydia watched the vehicle, which she couldn’t have given the make, model or passenger capacity of, disappear into the darkness. She gave a scream of fury and threw an end table through the glass door that led out to the back porch. It shattered as she turned away. Rage, an invisible cloud that emanated volcanic heat, billowed around her.

  A spear of terror drove itself through her heart when she recognized Dan’s situation at last. He’d been shot four times. Blood pooled around him, and his eyes were closed.

  “Let’s get him help,” Leigh ordered, lifting Dan with as much gentleness as possible. The Fallen moaned as his body shifted. “We’ll get him to the hospital quicker if we run. You take the car and meet us there.”

  Mute with guilt and anger, Lydia simply nodded. Leigh fished the car keys from Dan’s pocket and tossed them to her. Before she’d caught them, he and Mallory were gone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dan couldn’t find himself. It was a strange sensation, he thought. Vaguely, he was aware that he’d been injured. He couldn’t remember what the injury had been, but an ache resonated through his incorporeal chest. He remembered thunder before the pain. Was he dead? This wasn’t how his being dead had happened before.

  He spent an unknown amount of time drifting in the darkness. He didn’t do much, didn’t think of much. Lydia, however, was ever present in his thoughts. He needed to get back to her. What had happened didn’t matter. His injuries didn’t matter. Lydia mattered.

  “It’s been a strange life, hasn’t it?”

  The voice wasn’t one Dan recognized. He realized the darkness he’d been floating through had begun to lighten. He couldn’t see the speaker, and still couldn’t see himself. He was a consciousness adrift in a sea of black, that quickly became gray, then a murky eggshell. But he was no longer alone.

  “I guess you could say that,” Dan said, mostly to figure out if he could talk in this strange, foggy place. His voice sounded foreign to his ears. Maybe he did know the other speaker. From voice alone, he didn’t even know himself.

  “Out of all of them, you are the only one to have repented. You are the only one who has learned anything of value.”

  Dan tried to frown but found he didn’t have a face for it. The words of the stranger puzzled him. What had he repented for?

  “What is most important to you in this life?” the stranger asked, derailing one train of thought and switching to another with ease. Dan was confused by the question. He hadn’t finished working on the previous statement.

  “Why does that matter right now?” Dan responded with a question of his own. “Am I dead? This doesn’t feel like being dead usually does.”

  “I’m not here to answer your questions,” the person declared.

  The absolute authority in the words shook Dan’s confidence. They weren’t having a pleasant chat. Dan had a fleeting thought he was being judged for s
omething, and then the thought solidified into fact. He might not recognize the person’s voice, but he’d certainly felt the presence before. It had been centuries, but he could identify the overwhelming manifestation of his maker whether he knelt in angelic form or floated through mist without a body.

  He didn’t know what to say or whether he should address his maker. He was still a servant, had always been, through The Fall and after. Going with the safe route, he opted to answer his maker’s question.

  “Lydia,” he answered with all of his honesty. “Lydia is most important.”

  “Followed by?” his maker prompted.

  Dan didn’t have to debate that one, either. “The preservation of human life. For they are precious to you, my Lord. And now to me, as well.”

  “You see, you’ve learned.”

  Dan felt warm all over from the praise. Nothing had been worse throughout his repetition of life on Earth than the separation he’d felt from his maker. Being so close now, he felt drenched in tears though he had no eyes to cry. The feelings of relief, of completion, were indescribable.

  “I had confidence in you from the beginning,” Dan’s maker confided to him. “Don’t let me down now.”

  Before he could respond, Dan felt himself falling through the quickly deepening darkness. The last thing he heard was a whisper of promise that whirled around him, warm like ocean water and as sweetly scented as a summer breeze passing through cherry trees.

  “You are precious to me as well, my child…”

  Dan opened his eyes, and the first thing he found was Lydia’s warm golden gaze. His awareness came back in layers of feeling. He felt the cool, hard concrete beneath his body. Sticky, tacky wetness dried on his bare chest. A breeze tickled over the skin, disturbing flakes of drying blood.

  He wasn’t numb anymore, not in the slightest. He felt everything. The one thing he didn’t feel was what had been his constant companion for every lifetime. The grinding, hellish pain of being Fallen plagued him no longer. Reaching up and over his shoulder, he felt for the wing stumps Lydia had abused earlier in the night. They were nonexistent.

  He wasn’t a Fallen anymore. If he had to guess, he’d say he was human. He’d been transformed into a human!

  Tears trembled on Lydia’s dark lashes as she pulled him into a sitting position. Dan placed one hand on his blood-covered chest and searched for the bullet wounds. He found smooth skin and no injuries. His human body had been healed.

  “You died,” Lydia said in a daze. “You died and then…you came back. And you’re healed. What happened?”

  “If I had to guess,” Dan said, “I’d say I’ve been forgiven.” The words were accompanied by unexpected tears. Not quiet tears, either. He gulped air between sobs and buried his face in his knees.

  “He’s no longer Fallen,” Leigh said in an amazed tone. “He’s human, purely human. How is that possible?”

  “Well, however it happened, it’s a good thing,” Mallory said softly as she knelt by Dan and rubbed his back soothingly. “The hospital is dark. It seems like the evacuation is going strong. No one’s here. Whoever healed Dan and changed him saved his life.”

  “My maker gave me back my life,” Dan said through his slowing tears. “A better life, actually. Time to put it to good use.”

  * * * *

  Convoys left the city, spiriting citizens away from the soon-to-be warzone from the late hours until the dawn began lightening the area. Along the city edges, blockades were constructed and perimeter-monitoring army personnel kept watch. Armed with more weaponry than information, the men and women in uniform interacted uneasily with each other and the citizens they helped evacuate from the city.

  They’d heard everything from terrorism to stranger, darker things plagued the small town. Of the eight thousand residents it had started with, only three thousand were left by the second day of evacuations. That number was expected to continue to decline as the next night loomed closer.

  Lydia, Dan, Mallory, and Leigh saw the soldiers as they patrolled the streets. Blackout blankets had been tucked into the back car windows and the rear windshield, blocking the two vampires from the rising sun. Even though they wouldn’t burn, their clothes and the vehicle’s upholstery would.

  “The Hunters will be on the air now,” Dan predicted. “They’re going to want this broadcast to be as public as possible. Maybe we should check the radio, too.”

  Lydia switched on the radio and scanned the channels. Most of the local stations were off air. The two that were still active blared government warnings over the airwaves. At the far end of the AM spectrum, a lone deejay gave his tinfoil-hat-wearing crowd theories regarding the situation. Choosing the crazy man over the cookie-cutter government warnings, Lydia let the ravings spill through the vehicle as she turned onto the street that would take them back to Heddy’s home.

  “…because they want us here to die, that’s why!” the deejay shrieked with near-rabid fervor. “You seen all the army yahoos and blockades they’re puttin’ up. They want us to stay and rot. What did they do, do ya think, to make this happen? Dirty bio-weapons? Mind control in the TV? They fucked up bad, you know it and I know it, and know they want to bury the town and their screw up!”

  “Jackass,” Lydia muttered. “They’re evacuating people. How can he even be spouting stuff like this?”

  “…eatin’ each other and shit. What do we have going on here, huh? Zombies? Do ya think they finally gave the Walking Dead morons and Romero boners what they wanted? Ya think we got zombies in the streets now?”

  “Yes, zombies that only come out at night. Brilliant man you are,” Lydia said sarcastically. She rolled her eyes as she switched the radio off. “Useless fear mongering,” she snapped, shaking her head and turning the car into Heddy’s driveway. “Guess we should go risk having our brains melted and see if the Hunters have taken over the TV,” Dan suggested when Lydia put the car in park and he opened his door. Lydia didn’t respond to him or look at him. He figured his kissing Death hadn’t warmed her to him much since he’d given her his last confession.

  Mallory waited until Dan had opened up a blanket for her to slip underneath so the sun wouldn’t make her catch flame. Lydia repeated the same process for Leigh and they walked up to Heddy’s front porch in an awkward procession together. Inside, Heddy already had the TV on with volume way up. Lydia heard Mallory swallow hard and knew worry for her brother had fully consumed her. She opened the door and let the vampires inside first, frowning with concern for her blonde companion. Following them inside, Lydia went to check on Daria before she sat down to watch the show.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Daria slept, snoring quietly. She had rolled over in the night and now rested on her side, clutching a plump pink pillow, legs curled up toward her belly. Lydia brushed her youngest sister’s dark hair away from her pale forehead and kissed her on her temple. The press of lips on skin was gentle and light, but it was enough to make Daria’s eyes flutter open.

  Pain filled the oceanic blue but washed away as she locked her gaze with Lydia’s. Daria smiled and sat up, cupping one hand around her sister’s cheek and bumping her forehead against her sister’s. “I missed you, sis,” she said in her perpetually soft voice.

  “I’m glad to see you’re awake,” Lydia replied, wondering how much she should tell her sibling about what had transpired during the night. “A lot has gone on. How are you feeling?”

  “Certainly been better,” Daria admitted. Her hand hovered over her injured chest and shook her head. “Heddy patched me up pretty well. I won’t be any use in a fight, but I’m not going to keel over on you or anything.”

  Lydia smiled and helped her sister stand. She knew Daria would want a shower, but they would watch the den infiltration first. “You weren’t ever going to be much help in a fight, anyway, little mother,” Lydia teased. “We love you anyway, but it isn’t your strong suit.”

  Daria peeled her shirt away from her chest and made a disgusted face when she saw
the tears in her skin. “I’ll second that.”

  “The fray is not somewhere I want to be. I’m happy enough to let you handle it and I’ll stay out of it.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Lydia said. She hesitated at the door while Daria changed into a clean shirt. She wanted to tell her about their mother’s heart. It should wait, she told herself, until after the broadcast. “Come out when you’re ready, Dar. I’ll try to find some food for you.”

  She knew the broadcast had started because everyone was seated in Heddy’s living room. Trying not to block anyone’s view, she joined Leigh and Mallory on the long couch at the back of the room, placing the female vampire in the middle. She scooted over, closer to Leigh, barely acknowledging Lydia’s presence on the sofa.

  Lydia watched as Mallory clutched Leigh’s hand. The sight of the panicked vampire seeking reassurance from her ancient lover captured Lydia’s attention more than the scene unfolding on the television. She cursed Dan in her mind. She wouldn’t have a reason to cling to him for solace. That wasn’t the problem at all. Her family member wasn’t walking into Hell with an enemy-of-my-enemy-type friend. Even so, she cursed him for the fact that his being a jerk meant the option wasn’t even open.

  They’d been at odds originally, and Mallory hadn’t warmed to her much since then, but that didn't stop Lydia from grabbing her free hand.

  “He’s going to be all right,” Lydia said.

  Mallory spared a wide-eyed look her way. She gripped the Dragon woman’s hand with enough tightness to bruise. Lydia’s incredible power did dick against vampire strength when she was in human form.

  It was one of the reasons Lydia felt a small measure of relief to be one of the watchers and not one of the hive infiltrators. But it was only a small measure. She hated what Henry was doing in her town. She wanted to kick vampire ass as much as any of them.

  The main reason Lydia wouldn’t be useful in the fight in the den was because her talent was with fire. Fire was hard to contain, and there were too many bodies not infected with Henry’s blood craze to risk the flames spreading.