Lovers Awakening

by R. A. Steffan

  Eris raised his eyebrows, trying to prompt him into speech, but—shock of shocks—nothing happened.

  “Stubborn bastard,” he finally muttered under his breath, before continuing in a louder voice. “Anyway, she ran off in the confusion. I tried to find her afterward, but had no luck.”

  Snag rose and crossed to the open, west-facing window, still in the shadow of the building as night gave way to morning. He closed it with a single, precise movement and gazed out across the city, tapping the glass thoughtfully with his finger. Putting aside his earlier irritation, Eris joined him, and the two of them stood silently side-by-side as the city outside woke.

  Despite his best efforts, Eris found himself grateful that the other vampire was here. For reasons that were fairly obvious, Snag was an excellent listener, for all that his skills as a purveyor of emotional support left something to be desired. And, despite his lack of action the previous evening, his immense power made him invaluable in a crisis. If he had not raced to Eris’ side, it was clearly because he believed that Eris could handle the situation without help or interference.

  Eris supposed he should be flattered. Or something. But still—

  “I don’t know what to do now, Snag,” he murmured, his breath fogging up the glass. “I have to find her before Bael does. He’s coming. I can feel it.”

  Snag twitched restlessly. His bony ribcage expanded and contracted in a sigh.

  “What?” Eris demanded. “Damn it, Snag. What?”

  Danger. The word floated across his mind’s eye, borne along the mental link that connected the two of them. For both of you.

  Eris knew that Snag was thinking about the connection between Tré and Della, which had nearly caused such catastrophic consequences for both of them. For them all.

  “It won’t be like that,” he said, not sure which of them he was trying to convince. “This is completely different. We know what we’re facing now.”

  Snag gave him a look. The memory of Tré with an iron dagger lodged in his heart flashed before his eyes.

  Eris sighed in exasperation. “It’s different,” he insisted mulishly. “Things will be fine. I just have to find her.”

  But, deep in his divided soul, Eris knew better. The vortex of chaos was already surrounding his beloved, and Bael’s forces would not be far behind.

  “Do you think that Bael’s out there, right now?” Eris asked, jerking his chin toward the window, and the city beyond.

  Snag didn’t answer as he closed his eyes and breathed out deeply. All at once, Eris felt the ancient vampire’s power wash over him, crashing through his mind and past him like a wave, expanding in all directions.

  Though he probably shouldn’t have been, Eris was staggered by the force he could feel surrounding him, penetrating him, filling him up. It was as though Snag’s mind had pressed outward, encompassing the entire city like a storm cloud.

  Eris stayed perfectly still and silent, aware that his every thought and movement would assault Snag’s senses as he scanned the area around them. He could feel the power ebbing and flowing in his mind, at times a low thrum, and at others a blazing heat. Taken unawares by a particularly powerful wave, he swallowed a gasp, trying to stay upright under the immense pressure he could feel pressing down on him.

  With a sensation like a sharp wind pulling the breath from his lungs, Snag’s power receded, leaving Eris feeling shaky and disoriented in its wake. A sense of foreboding, deep and wide as the ocean, brushed his mind, and he knew that Snag had sensed Bael’s power nearby.

  Unable to speak, Eris turned away. Turned his thoughts inward. Tried to organize the facts he knew into something coherent and actionable.

  Fact. This woman is my soul mate. Phaidra, reborn. He felt that this was a solid point. Unassailable.

  A vortex of Bael’s evil is already forming around her. It wasn’t random that she was caught up in a madman’s hostage standoff. This, also, seemed a solid truth.

  It will only get worse. And if Della’s experience was any indication, it will do so quickly.

  How could he reach her before Bael did? She’d seemed to vanish off the face of the Earth in the moment between one breath and the next. How could he protect her and explain things to her, when he understood so little himself?

  These pressing questions—all without good answers—circled through Eris’ mind as the sun rose, bathing Nicosia in a golden glow beyond the shelter of the shadowed hotel room. His skin prickled, and he let the heavy drapes fall back, obscuring the light.

  FOUR

  HOLED UP IN HER low-end hotel room, Trynn spent what was left of the night downloading information from the miniaturized recording equipment that she had worn to the bank. A small pin at her collar, which matched the color of her blouse, was specifically chosen as the means of concealing a camera. The tiny lens looked like a small stone inlaid within the design.

  Trynn had not yet been able to wrap her brain around exactly what had happened to her that evening. The entire chain of events was foggy and unfocused. It seemed strange and befuddling, as if it had happened to someone else who had simply described it to her. Her reason tried valiantly to catch up with her impressions, but try as she might, she was unable to reconcile what she knew must have happened logically with what her shocked heart insisted had happened.

  All she knew for sure was that the man who had rescued them—the Hot Hypnotist, as she had taken to calling him in her mind—had touched her hand, and something amazing had happened. Even though she’d been terrified and exhausted at the time, Trynn had experienced a swooping sensation in her stomach just as a soul-deep jolt electrified her. For a brief moment, then, her panic had completely faded, and she could think of nothing else but her rescuer.

  It was as though her heart was screaming a message about the man, but her mind couldn’t interpret it. By the astonished look on his face, she thought he might have felt something similar. Or, Trynn thought wryly, he could have simply been reacting to her hand jerking in his. It was hard to tell.

  Well, what you don’t understand, you research, Trynn thought. She had never yet been stumped by a mystery, and she was not about to start dabbling in failure now.

  She had already pulled a picture of the Hot Hypnotist off the camera pin, and was currently running it through facial recognition software that she had hacked from a government agency in the US, as a part of a security recon mission she’d been assigned. Of course, it was strictly illegal that she had kept the program after the job was over, but she felt that it was the least the Americans could do after she discovered the huge flaw in their security system.

  It’s like a payment, she justified to herself. A tip for excellent service. Besides, it’s not as though I use it for evil purposes. I’m simply trying to track down the man that saved me. Us. That saved us.

  Unfortunately, the program had failed her so far. But Trynn wasn’t giving up. Not by a long shot. There were hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of faces to trawl through. Dredging up his identity was not a task her small laptop could manage in just a few minutes.

  Not unless I can narrow the search parameters, anyway, she thought. That would cut down the possibilities by thousands of people. But how? What criteria would I need to impose?

  Her fingers hovered over her keyboard for a moment while she thought to herself. It felt like her brain, which was so usually sharp and quick-thinking, was trying to dredge through an oily sludge of exhaustion that had filled her up after the attack at the bank.

  No time for that. Come on, come on, think!

  With a sigh, Trynn got up and went into the pathetic little bathroom. She splashed some cool water on her face, trying to dispel the anxiety that had her heart thrumming in her ribcage. She dabbed her skin dry with a towel before hiding her face in the scratchy fabric for a few moments.

  The threadbare excuse for a towel was one of the handful of amenities this shithole had to offer, yet she was grateful for the place. The employees had accepted her reservation
without even checking her ID, which, of course, was fake anyway. It was still nice to know that they were turning a blind eye.

  Through her company, which had sanctioned clearance with all the top government agencies, she was issued a letter giving permission to use fake identification. So far, though, her ID had never been questioned, which was pure luck—

  Trynn nearly dropped the towel in shock. Travel! That was the answer to her question. She could find the man’s identity by searching through recent travel logs and comparing his face to security footage at the major carriers.

  Hurrying back to her computer, Trynn flopped down in the rickety chair facing her desk and began to type.

  I must be out of it, if I didn’t think of that before. Based on the rich tourist chic thing he had going on, he wasn’t from around here. He probably flew in recently. Maybe from Greece.

  Shaking her head at her own slowness, Trynn organized the search data to scan through security footage and passport images first, then resume its scanning of the entire database. Once the computer was again rifling through thousands of gigabytes of data, Trynn sat back in her chair, swinging one foot petulantly back and forth as she considered her options.

  His eyes itched and stung with exhaustion. She knew that she needed to sleep, and very soon. Her mind was racing out of control, both from the trauma of what had happened a few hours ago, and, she suspected, from lack of sleep.

  After efficiently preparing for bed, Trynn crawled under the covers and settled against the flattened pillows. Through the darkness in her room, she could see a flickering glow as her computer continued to scan through documents. The clock on the bedside table read 4:45am.

  Groaning, Trynn closed her eyes and tried to sleep. She struggled for what felt like an eternity, because every time she started to drift off, her body would jerk her awake to resume reliving the horrid memories or begin contemplating her mystery man.

  When she finally slipped into a fitful doze, Trynn dreamt of sand and the sound of soft waves crashing on a nearby shore.

  *

  In the dream, her surroundings materialized around her from a gray haze, and she found that she was on a beach at night. Though part of her was surprised, another part of her was happy. Excited, even. She laughed joyously and stared upward towards the bright moon that bathed her in its pale light.

  A hand slipped into hers and she looked to her left, where a tall figure loomed in the darkness. The man lifted his face, and she recognized his handsome features in the silver light of the moon. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she had seen him before, but her confusion didn’t last long as he grinned at her and spoke.

  “Victory is ours at last, my love,” he said. “Flavian agreed to the shipping contract without altering a single one of the terms. We’re well and truly rich now, and we won’t ever have to worry again.”

  Trynn swung around so that her arms were draped around the man’s neck and shoulders. She drew him into a deep kiss, her skin tingling and heating with excitement as he returned it with obvious enthusiasm.

  As his hands smoothed over her shoulders, she realized that she was dressed oddly, her body draped artfully in an elaborate toga. Part of her accepted this without question, but again, a part of her was confused. It was uncomfortable, as though she were being pulled into two pieces, one part clearly belonging in this world, and the other that was equally out of place and bewildered by it.

  The man picked her up and swung her around in glee, her feet flying out behind her. Giggling madly, the two collapsed into the sand, which felt cool underneath her. Wrapped in his arms, Trynn grinned as he rolled himself on top of her, settling between her legs. Her dress was wrapped around them, keeping their bodies pressed closely together.

  She could feel the sea washing up against her feet, soaking the bottom of her skirts. Neither part of her cared, however—both of her separate halves were too enthralled by the sensation of the long, lean body pressed against hers.

  *

  His touch was intoxicating, and she wanted to bask in the sensation even as her consciousness began to slip away from the dream world and rise back toward wakefulness. She groaned in discontent as her mind pulled her out of fantasy and into reality. A reality of musty sheets, mashed, lumpy pillows, and a dark, dreary hotel room that was distinctly unwelcoming after the delightful warmth and sea breeze within the dream.

  Trynn jerked upright, swearing under her breath, feeling the unpleasant tackiness of the cooling sweat that drenched her entire body like seawater.

  FIVE

  CLOUDS OF TURKISH CIGARETTE smoke hung in the air. The clink of glasses crashing together or being smacked heavily down on tables seemed unnaturally loud and irritating to the man sitting at the far end of the bar, shrouded in shadows. He was wearing a long, heavy coat with the collar pulled up, the folds of thick fabric hiding the well-tailored lines of the black suit that clung to his muscular frame.

  With a sigh, he swiveled a glass of top-shelf whiskey under his hand, ignoring the suspicious looks the bartender kept throwing him. A babble of voices in several languages surrounded him like the buzzing of insects, tiresome and meaningless. This shithole bar in the ass-end of Damascus was well placed to host unscrupulous meetings, situated off the beaten path as it was.

  “You need another?” The bartender grunted, glancing down at Bastian Kovac’s nearly empty glass.

  In reply, Bastian rapped his knuckles on the top of the counter without looking up. He was wearing reflective sunglasses despite the dim lighting inside the bar. He knew that secrecy would be his greatest challenge on this mission. Maintaining a shroud of mystery around his identity would keep his contact off balance during the negotiations.

  Bastian was a master of using fear and hopelessness against people, and this pathetic arms dealer from Stalingrad would be no different.

  Information he had received from a faithful contact told him that this man, Matvei Timur, was highly placed in the Russian mob. Timur was renowned for his brutality, destructiveness, and, perhaps more importantly, his untouchability. Neither his fellow mobsters nor the Russian government had ever been able to lay a finger on him.

  Bastian let a smirk curl one corner of his lips. There was no power on this earth that could contend with the darkness now descending on the weak and subservient humans… at least, no power created by man. Other than his temporary usefulness, this arms dealer was no different from any of the other pitiful beings crawling around in the mud of this world. Bastian would twist him and bend him to his will as though he were made of soft putty.

  A glass slid across the counter towards him and he grabbed it. As he lifted it to his lips and swiftly tipped it back, a form moved next to him in the semi-darkness, taking the chair immediately on Bastian’s left.

  Bastian held back a flicker of annoyance as a man laid his elbows on the counter, taking up more space than he needed to as he requested a drink.

  “Are you Kovac?” The man asked, once the bartender had taken his order. His Russian accent was thick and heavy, leaving no doubt in Bastian’s mind with whom he was dealing. He nodded once, not even bothering to look up from the dregs of his whisky, wanting to make it evident to the man that he, and he alone, held the power in this transaction.

  Timur seemed to be waiting for Bastian to speak for several long moments. When Bastian did not oblige, he shifted uncomfortably.

  “I have heard,” he finally said, “that you are in the market.”

  Bastian lifted an eyebrow and let it drop, neither confirming nor denying the man’s inquiry. Timur watched Bastian for several more moments before saying, “I may have what you are seeking, but you will have to pay a fair price for it.”

  Taking his time in answering, Bastian pressed out, expanding the malevolent aura that he knew surrounded him, reveling in the involuntary shudder that Timur attempted to hide.

  “Where are your men?” Bastian asked, his voice a low growl that nonetheless carried straight to Timur.

&n
bsp; “My men?” the mobster replied. “What men?”

  “You did not come alone and probably have someone planted in this bar. I will not ask you again, where are your men?”

  Timur swallowed hard, but his expression was angry. “I don’t see how that is—”

  With lightening quick reflexes, Bastian slapped his hand down on Timur’s arm. He did not press or hold, but kept the contact between them as he forced his power into Timur’s arm, deep into his bones.

  The man began to struggle as the taint of Bastian’s evil traveled up through his elbow and into his shoulder. Bastian watched with sick enjoyment as it became ever more intense… watched Timur squirm and attempt to pull away, beads of sweat breaking out on his head. From the corner of his eye, Bastian saw a man lounging against the wall twitch, his hand wandering toward an inner pocket. Another man seated at a table nearby straightened almost imperceptibly—the answer to his question about Timur’s guards.

  “You will cooperate with me, or this deal is off. Have I made myself clear?” Bastian said, the words barely audible over the voices and rowdy laughter from elsewhere in the bar.

  The Russian tried to pull away, but was unable to sever the connection between them. Bastian saw the moment the fight went out of him. He slumped and nodded frantically, a burst of air escaping his lungs in relief when he was released. Immediately, he grasped his arm and wrapped it close against his stomach.

  “You are either very brave or very foolish,” Timur snarled, looking furious now that he was free, but also afraid. “Perhaps I will change my mind about this deal and withdraw it. You sit here smelling like a cheap cologne factory and making demands of me! Threatening me! You—you have a very inflated opinion of yourself if you think you can control Matvei Timur!”

  Bastian did not reply to the man’s tirade, but simply returned to his drink. He knew, just as Timur knew, that the deal would proceed. It was too beneficial for the Russian mob for them to back out at the eleventh hour.