Love, Blood, and Sanctuary

by Brenda Murphy

  “I have to work. These debts aren’t going to pay themselves.”

  Taylor’s sigh was a clear indication her patience was nearing an end. But she didn’t understand. Not that Izzy expected her to. She’d never been in a position like this. Suddenly poor and being the charity case everyone expected to take care of.

  “They won’t pay themselves, but your parents could pay.”

  “No. Absolutely not!”

  But Taylor kept pushing. “They already want to help you, Izzy. Come on! Don’t let your pride set you up for a fall the way that ex-girlfriend of yours did.”

  It was like the mention of Marun summoned her from the bedroom. Her scent in the living room was all Izzy needed to know that she was there.

  “Listen, Taylor. I have to go. I’d love to see you, but maybe this weekend when I have the night off.”

  The long-suffering sigh came again. “All right, girl. You’re a pain in my ass but I still love you. Talk to you later.”

  After Izzy ended the call, she turned to face Marun who looked like a storm cloud in human form.

  “No matter what your so-called friend tells you, we’re still married.” The words were dangerously low and seared with anger. “You’re my wife, and I’m yours. Nothing’s changed that.”

  Izzy ignored the hot spike of pleasure in her belly and the clear possession in Marun’s tone. “I don’t have time for either you or Taylor right now. I have to get ready for work.”

  An earlier glance at her phone had told her it was later than she thought. As usual, time with Marun had both stood still and spun ahead, the moments with her filled with an intensity of emotion that dulled her awareness of time itself and put anything else she’d ever felt for anyone to shame.

  Careful not to touch, Izzy brushed past Marun on her way back into the bedroom, her heart doing sprints in her chest.

  “Please see yourself out,” she said to a silent Marun as she closed the door.

  Trying her best not to think about what Marun’s possessive words meant, or their kiss, Izzy rushed through getting ready. By the time she ran out of the house, throwing her bag over her shoulder, she’d almost convinced herself that none of what Marun said mattered.

  Almost.

  Chapter Seven

  “You’re here early.” Javier, the night manager who came in an hour earlier than everyone else, looked up from his clipboard as Izzy walked past his office on the way to the locker room.

  She called back to him, not stopping. “It’s only half an hour.”

  “Well, don’t think you’re getting paid for the extra time.” He shouted loud enough for the neighbors to hear.

  Safely out of sight, Izzy rolled her eyes. He acted like he owned the place and every penny over expected expenses would come out of his pocket. “I wouldn’t dare hallucinate such a thing,” she muttered.

  An hour later found her wrist deep in cardamom-scented dough, preparing for an East African bridal shower happening late morning in the restaurant. The women wanted traditional mandazi, fried bread Marun used to make for Izzy all the time. Although she would’ve liked to claim otherwise, it was slowly killing her.

  The scent of the dough wrapped dangerous memories around her, brought back the phantom touch of Marun’s fingers on her lips as she fed her pieces of mandazi on the balcony of their old apartment.

  Marun.

  Who was more extraordinary than she ever thought. Some sort of immortal, able to prevent a runaway car from crushing Izzy into the pavement. An immortal with high-strung brothers and sisters trying to kill her just for loving Marun. Even if she could look past the lie of “oh, I blinked and three years passed,” was being with Marun worth the constant threats to her life?

  “Are you kneading the dough or having sex with it?” Javier’s voice snapped the ties of memory and yanked Izzy back to the present.

  Her elbow jerked into a nearby metal bowl, splashing water on the counter. She muttered a curse under her breath and grabbed the still rocking bowl with her flour-dusted hands to keep it from falling to the floor.

  “We have a schedule to keep, Ransom. Don’t fuck up this early in the night.” He leveled his bushy eyebrows in her direction and then, once he seemed sure she wasn’t about to say anything, or go back to daydreaming, he stalked off.

  Izzy bit the inside of her cheek and kept her head down, not looking up at the other four people who worked the night shift with her. Javier was an equal opportunity asshole. He didn’t discriminate in who he talked shit to at any given time. One of the very reliable things about him was he was always popping up to chew somebody out just for existing.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d jumped on Izzy’s case, and it wouldn’t be the last. She kept a sigh behind her teeth and reached for the mandazi dough.

  One of the other women, also wearing a full apron and hairnet, gave Izzy a sympathetic half-smile before turning her attention back to the cake batter she was mixing.

  Javier was being a real asshole tonight, even more than usual. Nights like this, Izzy missed the bakery she used to run with Marun. Going at her own pace, even if that meant waking up at four in the morning to get everything ready for the day’s customers. She’d never been a dick to her employees. Then again, she’d been so damn happy. Every one of those days filled with love and the challenge of making their business better and better.

  Okay. Stop thinking about her.

  She managed to fall back into the rhythm of work, ignoring Javier when he stopped by two more times to complain that she hadn’t made the tall walk-in oven hot enough. It was total bullshit, but she wasn’t invested enough to argue about it with him when he went over to the giant monster that took up a large part of the kitchen and cranked up the temperature.

  Just before it was time to put the dough in, she’d turn it back down. If the huge batch of brioches burned, he’d only blame her, and she wasn’t in the mood.

  The street outside the bakery’s large glass window was still dark, the sky obscured by nighttime, the world outside empty of most humans.

  Did that mean Marun was out there somewhere?

  Shut up about her already. God damn, had she always been this pussy-whipped?

  Yes.

  After slicing the top of the last of the raw baguettes ready for the oven, she dropped the knife to the counter with a clatter and headed over to the oven. She twisted the knob to the right temperature and then hefted the tray of raw dough to the nearly full baker’s rack nearby.

  A sudden bellowing voice and a shout of pain almost made her drop the heavy pan of unbaked baguettes.

  The pan rattled against the edge of the baker’s rack, missed the groove altogether, and slammed down onto the knee she raised in reflex.

  “Dammit…”

  A hiss of pain slid between her teeth.

  “What the fuck was that?” someone gasped, a ripple of unease rolling through the kitchen as Izzy fought with her raw baguettes.

  She righted the pan and slid it onto the rack when the swinging doors flew open with a bang. She jumped, a flash of instinctive fear swinging her toward the sound. A sizzling pop came from above her and then a shower of sparks, as a man appeared in front of the double doors.

  He was massive, a beast of a man with shoulders nearly spanning the entire doorframe, all of him one huge slab of muscle. His eyes swirled with bright golden fire.

  Her heart jumped into her throat as the fear turned into terror. Behind her, she heard things fall, the sound of people bumping into things as they tried to run. Fear froze the blood in Izzy’s hands and feet, the breath in her lungs. She started to back away.

  “You!” He pointed right at her.

  Someone behind Izzy let out a squeak and, trembling with fear, Izzy almost breathed a sigh of relief when his strange eyes left her to seek out the source of the sound. “Get out!” he roared at whoever was behind her.

  In that moment, the entire kitchen seemed to fill with an immense pressure. Her ears popped. Her eyes watered. Th
e taste of fear was bitter at the back of Izzy’s throat and she swallowed desperately, wanting to cry out when one of the women raced past her, feet slipping against the tile in her rush for the door.

  The hydraulic mechanism of the door sighed in the silence as it slid shut.

  Unkillable, Marun had said. Shit.

  Oh my god, I’m going to die.

  “I never thought it would be this hard to get rid of one little human,” the man rumbled.

  He moved toward Izzy, gliding in an oddly graceful way, the certainty of her imminent death a cold glow in his eyes.

  “What do you want?” she gasped, backing away.

  “I think you know the answer to that question.” His voice thundered around the kitchen leaving everything trembling, especially her.

  “Yes, but why?”

  “I think you know the answer to that too.” Then he was on her, grabbing her by the front of her shirt and lifting her up like she weighed nothing, was nothing.

  The pain from his crushing fingers dragged a cry from her. “Let me go!” Screaming at him, Izzy thrashed and kicked her legs, gasped for air, and cried out for help. Her flailing legs slammed into something a moment before pain hammered through her ankle. Then her belly hit the steel countertop and he dragged her across its crowded surface, using her body like a rag to wipe it clean. Dimly, she heard a metal bowl fall, the splash of water, the clatter of pans hitting the floor. Desperately, she tried to grasp on to something, anything, and hold on.

  Something cold and sharp bumped into her hand and she clutched at it. Pain sliced into her palm and she screamed, chest heaving, as her skin slicked with blood. It was a knife. The same one she’d used to cut into the baguette dough.

  It hurt. Fuck, it hurt so bad. But she didn’t let go of the knife. Even as her fingers slipped against the blade now wet from her blood.

  She only clung harder to the knife as the man dragged her over and off the counter, her feet slamming into the hard floor. He was yanking her toward the industrial sized oven.

  Panic clogged her throat. “No!”

  Desperate and gasping for every breath, she clutched on tight to the knife blade and swung it around, plunging wildly.

  Her whole body flushed with panic, the blood rushing through her veins like a storm-tossed river. She screamed, her body twisting and contorting, wild with panic.

  She was fighting for her life and her adrenaline-driven body knew it.

  Marun.

  This was all her fault.

  Izzy’s throat hurt, and she realized she was shouting Marun’s name as she flailed in the giant man’s grip.

  “Shut up. She’s not going to save you.” He yanked her across the floor and grabbed the oven’s door release, flicked it open with no effort at all. The same lack of effort it would take him to burn her alive.

  She twisted desperately one last time and struck the knife high and fast toward his face. With a liquid squish, the blade sank into his eye, and stayed there. He roared, a hot breath that scorched her forehead, and stumbled back, bracing a hand on the edge of the oven. His hold on her loosened, thick fingers only tangled now in the front of her apron.

  She couldn’t afford to stop. A wild yell vibrated her throat and she twisted out of the apron, crying out in pain when she landed hard on her butt.

  “Why don’t you just die already?” He crouched down to grab her again and she screamed.

  “No!” Izzy kicked high, aiming for his balls with her Clarks slip-ons and gasped in surprise and relief when he actually stumbled back with a curse, a palm cupped over his crotch.

  Izzy slid back across the floor, bumping into metal bowls as she scrambled backward like a demented crab, but the man was coming back for her.

  “You’re just making this more painful for yourself,” he growled, straightening to his full height, but with his hand still on his crotch. “I don’t mind that.”

  Suddenly, he was right there and reaching out for her with both hands, his fingernails transforming into sharp white claws before her eyes. Izzy’s back slammed into the counter.

  “Okan! Stop!”

  Marun’s unexpected shout rattled the kitchen. Then she was at Izzy’s side, her eyes wide and terrified. And furious. Crouching low, she slid Izzy behind her and shoved out a hand glowing with bright-blue flame.

  Terror clutched Izzy by the throat as she stared between the man and Marun’s fiery hand. A frown carved a deep crease into his forehead while his flat gold eyes promised to tear Izzy apart as soon as he got the chance.

  Tremors took her body and she clung to Marun’s back, desperately happy to see her ex, and on the verge of a fucking heart attack.

  “Marun, stay out of this. You should have let me take care of this pestilence years ago. You need to be with us. Our people. What you’re doing with this human is an abomination.”

  “Fuck you,” Marun spat.

  Izzy heard a tremendous sound, like a colossal storm wave rolling toward land. The noise vibrated in her head, too loud, and she slammed her hands over her ears just as a boiling swell of hot blue flames shot out from Marun’s outstretched hands. The fire rammed into the man, swallowing him and everything nearby. Heat blew back into Izzy’s face and she whimpered in fear, ducking down behind Marun.

  Then the destroyed kitchen blurred. Izzy heard a roared “Come back here!” before the familiar restaurant disappeared altogether and suddenly, they were somewhere else. Somewhere she’d never been before in her life.

  Chapter Eight

  Izzy drew a gasping breath as nausea roiled in her stomach and her head spun.

  She only had moments to register where they were—a public bathroom, and not the one at the bakery—before Marun’s face, creased with concern, blocked her sight. Her eyes, flickering with gold fire, glowed down at Izzy.

  Sudden and overwhelming fear propelled Izzy backward. Gasping, she slid frantically across the dirty bathroom floor until her back crashed into the closed door of a bathroom stall. It was too much like what just happened in the restaurant. Her heart punched frantically against her chest wall and her gasping breaths were loud in the large, tiled bathroom.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “It’s just me, love. It’s okay. It’s Marun. You know me, right?”

  But the Marun she’d known wasn’t this same creature kneeling in front of her in a strange bathroom with eyes like a whirlpool of liquid gold. Then Marun blinked, as if she suddenly realized what her eyes looked like, and the gold disappeared to become that unfathomable darkness Izzy had fallen into years ago and never managed to escape from.

  It was a superficial change, she knew, but one that made her feel better. A little.

  “You know damn well nothing will ever be okay again.” She drew in quick, burning breaths, her hands held out in the classic “keep away” position. Her palm throbbed with a sharp pain, but she couldn’t look at it yet. Looking at it would mean reliving part of what just happened. Remembering she buried a knife in a man’s eye and that had barely slowed him down. Oh god. “Marun…” Her chin wobbled. She couldn’t say anything else.

  “You’re hurt, love,” Marun said softly. She lifted a brow, a silent asking of permission.

  When Izzy nodded, Marun took her hand and Izzy looked down at her limp palm, noticing for the first time that it was bleeding. A lot. Marun’s fingers traced the multiple deep cuts that ran diagonally through her right palm and into part of her wrist. Cold. Her fingers were cold against Izzy’s skin. “I wish I could kill that little bastard,” Marun spat out, the words granite hard while her touch stayed gentle.

  “Your brother is an asshole.” She spoke past the tremor in her voice, her whole body shaking.

  “Yes, he is.” Marun’s lips twitched with a weak smile. She lightly probed the cuts, and each touch made the sluggish blood start to flow again. Izzy bit back a whimper of pain.

  “I’m so sorry, love.” Still cradling Izzy’s throbbing hand between hers but keeping it elevated above Izzy’s he
art, Marun slid closer. Her warmth was like a blast furnace on a winter day, washing over Izzy and sheltering her from the cold reality outside the bathroom’s doors. God, she looked so clean and perfect. Nothing like Izzy did now. “Let me take care of this, okay?”

  “Okay.” Izzy sighed.

  She was exhausted. The adrenaline from the unfair fight in the bakery had drained from her, leaving her weak and shivery. Even with the memory of Marun’s strange, gilded eyes, she just wanted to climb into her wife’s lap and go to sleep.

  “Okay,” she said again, even softer this time, and sagged back against the flimsy stall door.

  At the first touch of Marun’s lips on her hand, she jolted upright in shock. Her whole body went stiff and she instinctively tried to yank her hand back, but Marun’s grip was strong. Fresh blood welled up from the cuts and she gasped from the rush of pain. In the stark, fluorescent light of the bathroom, she saw clearly Marun’s fingers curled around her hand, the diamonds in her ring flashing, her mouth red from Izzy’s blood. A long tongue lashed the blood from her palm and, though it should have disgusted her, a low sigh of relief left Izzy’s lips and her spine went liquid again. Most of the pain was gone.

  “What—what are you doing?”

  “Taking care of you.”

  Through the lush thicket of her eyelashes, Marun watched her, the touch of her gaze more intimate, that penetrating look of hers sliding into Izzy, soothing and calming her the same way her tongue soothed her cuts, lapped up the blood, and stopped it from flowing.

  It should be wrong. It was wrong. But Marun kept going, her tongue sweeping over the cuts in Izzy’s palm in slow and deliberate licks, down to the wrist, gathering blood and erasing the pain with each touch. The pain was gone, but in its place was a different feeling. Pleasure. Another sigh swept past Izzy’s parted lips and her head fell back against the door. Her eyes closed.