Embraced by Blood

by Laurie London

  “Food for zombies?”

  He laughed and his eyes crinkled up, his dimple punctuating one cheek. The sound filled the room and she found herself laughing along with him.

  “Yeah, just wait and see. It’s not pretty.”

  Like a couple of youthlings, they sat cross-legged on the floor with their backs against the sofa. The only things missing were the beanbag chairs and a bag of chips. While he navigated BloodySunday through an apocalyptic cityscape with overturned buses and burned-out cars, she rested her arm on the couch behind his head in order to see the small screen better and didn’t realize until later that her breast was pressed against his biceps. It’d draw more attention to move, so she stayed where she was.

  “Careful, there’s a zombie hiding behind that corner. Oh no, run!” She clapped her hands when he found another vial of Bleed and staved off another attack.

  After expending an inordinate number of lives—yeah, he definitely wasn’t a gamer—BloodySunday successfully made it through the zombie horde hiding in the catacombs beneath the city and advanced to the next level.

  “You’re right. That’s pretty gory.” She rubbed her hands together. “But I love it. Can I try? I love killing zombies. Just promise me there aren’t any clowns popping up anywhere. I hate clowns. And spiders. Oh, and talking dolls.”

  He chuckled as he handed her the controller. “Go for it. As far as I can tell, no clowns or spiders. Just various kinds of killer zombies who want to eat your brain. But then again, I haven’t gotten far.” He lowered his voice for effect. “Maybe the clowns come in the next level.”

  She knocked him playfully on the arm. “Don’t say that.”

  “And what’s the deal with the dolls? I thought all girls loved dolls. Dressed them up and played house.”

  She groaned. “Not me! They freak me out. I only buy Zoe stuffed animals. And Hello Kitty things.”

  BloodySunday walked to the wrought-iron gate of a cemetery and paused. Through the bars, past several leafless trees that looked like tangles of long-legged, knobby-kneed spiders, a mausoleum sat ominously in the distance.

  “Dolls freak you out? Why?”

  She put the controller in her lap and angled toward him. “A few years before my Change, a friend of my father’s brought me and my brother gifts from his travels. I don’t remember what Will received, but I got one of those porcelain dolls from France. I can still see her. She wore what all the fashionable girls were wearing in Paris that season—a purple skirt with a black lace overlay, tiny black boots and a large black velvet bow on the back of her head. But her eyes…” Lily shivered. “She had these eyes that used to follow you around the room, and, I swear, I’d find that doll in a different place each time. Like she had moved there herself. I used to imagine her with a silver knife in her hand leaning over my bed when I slept. My mother finally had to keep her in a locked glass curio cabinet in the sitting room on the first floor because I couldn’t sleep. I kept asking her to get rid of it, but she wouldn’t. She said it was too valuable to sell or give away. Given her love of antiques, I’m sure she still has it somewhere.”

  “I’ll bet you money that your brother was behind it.”

  She looked up at him, bewildered.

  “It’s what brothers do. It’s in our DNA.”

  “No, Will wouldn’t— Oh God, you’re probably right.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’d be just like Will to have done something devious like that. I can’t believe I never thought of that before. Or that my mother didn’t figure it out.”

  “Boys are devious. Trust me.”

  She laughed. “You sound like an expert. What did you do to your poor sister?”

  He stretched his arm across the sofa behind her and his hand grazed her shoulder. He didn’t move it away. “Well—and this wasn’t my idea but Dom’s—I was simply the one who carried out his evil master plan.”

  “Oh no, this doesn’t sound good.”

  There was that mischievous dimple again. “For the longest time, I used to sneak into Catalina’s room and hide in a trunk at the foot of her bed, waiting for her to fall asleep. Then, when I was sure she was sleeping, I’d start making these scratching noises. Sometimes I’d growl.”

  “No, you didn’t.” She slapped his arm. “That’s awful. Your poor sister.”

  “I know,” he said, laughing. “Terrible, huh? I’d hear this whimpering sound, and sure enough, she’d shoot out of bed, run into our parents’ bedchamber like she was being chased by a ghost and climb into bed with them. By the time they got around to returning her to her room, I was back in my own bedchamber, where Dom and I laughed our asses off.”

  His voice had an easy, carefree quality to it when he spoke of his family. She could listen to him all day.

  “My God, you two traumatized her. How long did that go on?”

  “It stopped as soon as the governess started sleeping in her room. So, yeah, I’m betting your brother had something to do with that doll.”

  The ends of his hair flared out playfully around the edge of his jaw. She absently reached up to brush away a thick strand that curled on his cheek.

  He moved the computer and game controller away and twisted his body to face hers.

  “I didn’t mean for you to stop talking. I love hearing about your—”

  When his lips came down over hers, it took her breath away, although they were soft and undemanding. She didn’t have to tell her arms to slip around his neck; they just did.

  He kissed her with the gentle familiarity of a longtime lover, slowly, easily, stretching each second into an eternity. When he finally pulled back, the painful fissure in her heart, which had never really gone away, reopened like a fresh wound.

  “You know, you could’ve made love to me and taken my blood back there,” she said, her voice a little huskier than normal. “I wouldn’t have minded. Unless, of course, you didn’t want to.” She prayed that wasn’t the case, but prepared herself nevertheless.

  He held his cheek against hers, his breath ragged and heavy in her ear as he seemed to gather his thoughts. “God, Lily, that’s not it. Not at all. My needs, my desires have nothing to do with my decision not to make love to you. God knows I’ve wanted to. I’ve never wanted to stop.”

  She felt the tension in his face, in the muscles of his arms as they wrapped more tightly around her. “Then why, Alfonso? Why didn’t you? It feels as though I’ve been rejected. Again. And I’m really getting tired of that feeling.”

  He pulled away from her until his eyes peered straight into hers, the warmth from his breath heating her lips. “My refusal to take your blood has nothing to do with how much I care about you. In fact, it’s because I desire it from you so much that I broke things off in the first place.”

  She didn’t understand. He was talking in circles. “Do you think it makes you vulnerable or weak to want something that much?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his dimple and lighthearted expression gone, replaced by something dark and wounded. “Not vulnerable or weak. The opposite, actually. With your blood, I always felt…stronger, better. I couldn’t be around you because I couldn’t trust myself not to take your blood as much as I had been.”

  “So what changed? We used to share blood often. I…I loved that part of our relationship, loved how it made me feel knowing I had a part of you inside me when we weren’t together. It’s been hard since we’ve been apart. Did I…do something to make you change your mind about me?”

  He cupped her face in his hands. The vivid blue of his eyes drew her in like iron to a magnet, until she imagined she was looking straight to his soul.

  “God, no.”

  He still cared about her in that way? “Then why did you tell me we couldn’t be together? That you didn’t love me?”

  Hurt shadowed his eyes, tiny lines forming between his brows. With an agonizing slowness, he lowered his head and his lips came down over hers, as if he wanted to savor every sensation as much as she did. Although the
kiss was tender, she felt the passion, the hint of urgency beneath it. The sadness.

  A year and a half’s worth of pain began to slough away. He had spoken the truth. He did still want her. Her heart felt lighter, making room for the dozens of butterflies in her stomach. But why had he ever left?

  LILY’S HAIR FELT LIKE SILK in his fingers as he kissed her, trying with every ounce of willpower he had not to get carried away. He could lose himself if he wasn’t careful.

  His heart ached with the knowledge of how much he’d hurt her, how he’d caused her to doubt herself and his feelings for her, when all he had wanted to do was protect her from a fate she didn’t deserve. What had he expected? Of course, she’d be hurt. Of course, she’d be angry. God, how he wished things could be different. Then, now and in the future.

  He pulled her to his chest.

  Face-to-face, he couldn’t completely lie to her, feed her the same bullshit he had when he’d said he’d fallen out of love with her. But she didn’t need to know all the details. Hell, he could barely accept them himself. He’d rather see her expression turn to anger than loathing and disgust. Anything but that. He’d seen that look on his father’s face as well as his brother’s, though even they didn’t know the whole truth. He didn’t know if he could bear to have Lily think that way about him, too.

  But holding her, hearing how much pain he’d caused her, tore at the rigid walls he’d constructed around his heart. It was one thing to torture himself, but quite another to torture her.

  “I wanted to come back, Lily, start a life together like we’d talked about. It needed to appear as though I had died in the fire, because only then could I live without my past catching up with me.”

  “We all thought you had died. Your plan worked. What changed your mind?”

  “I didn’t change my mind about you, Lil, but it became clear to me that we didn’t have a future.”

  She pushed away from him, confusion and anger in her eyes. “Are you saying that you lied to me about ever loving me?”

  Hell, he’d been lying his whole life. The only time he’d ever been truly honest was with Lily. Until he had to lie to her.

  He stood and walked to the fireplace, refusing to limp even though his knee was killing him. Blue flames hovered deep inside the tangle of logs, barely moving yet burning hotter than the rest of the fire. Although the warmth from her body lingered on his hands, he felt cold. Absently, he rubbed his palms on his jeans.

  “The Alliance discovered I was the mole, and for a short time, they thought I had died in that fire. But if word got out that I’d survived, everything would change. I had to be very careful.”

  “You could’ve at least told me.”

  “I didn’t want to talk to you then. I didn’t want you to see me like that—my knee shot and in need of a complete regeneration.”

  She marched over to him and got in his face as if there wasn’t such a large height difference. Her eyes blazed with such anger that her fangs had to be coming down. She jammed her finger at his chest.

  “And you thought that would’ve mattered to me? After all we’d been through? That I was that damn shallow?”

  No, he didn’t think it would’ve mattered to her, which was exactly why he hadn’t wanted her to come. Shit. She’d have seen right through him then, just as she was doing now. But how could he admit that he was worried about being able to defend her? She would’ve argued that she was able to take care of both of them.

  “It matters to me,” he said.

  There was no way in hell he was going to let her take that chance.

  Not then and not now.

  Not when it involved his blood assassin.

  That was why he had to lie to her then and that was why he had to continue lying to her now.

  “I was and still am broken.” He clung to this truth as if it was all he cared about.

  “Bull. You’re lying.”

  “You think I’m joking?” He tore away from her. “You think I’m exaggerating about what happened to me?” He yanked up the leg of his jeans, ripped the Velcro straps off his knee brace and pulled the bandage with one sharp jerk. Although the silver blade had been made from a weak alloy, the DB had managed to stab him right in the middle of the angry red skin, through the weakened part of his knee still trying to regenerate. Despite the butterfly bandages, the wound gaped, revealing white tissue.

  Lily sucked in a breath.

  “Yeah, it’s fucking mess, isn’t it?”

  She dropped to the floor to examine it, but he turned away and covered it up again.

  “My God, Alfonso, that’s not a nick. The whole thing is messed up. Why didn’t you let on it was so bad?”

  “So now you know what I’m talking about. And I don’t mean the little jab I got at the DB cabin. You deserve someone whole. Not someone like this. Not someone damaged beyond repair.”

  “You’re so full of shit.”

  He jerked his head to look at her. With her eyes narrowed to slits, he could see that she was working through everything he’d told her in her head, combing over every little nuance, checking and cross-referencing the knowns and unknowns. Goddamn it. That was why he hadn’t wanted to confront her face-to-face like this in the first place. He was a hostile witness and she was the skeptical prosecutor.

  “You said you originally wanted to come back after you were hurt, and that they needed to know you died in the fire.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “At first, Darkbloods did think you were dead. You could’ve come back or called at that time, but you didn’t. I want to know why. And don’t give me that bullshit about your knee. An injury like that can take months to regenerate, but it’s not impossible, especially when you follow the treatment. A knee injury isn’t a head injury. Knees regenerate. Heads don’t. Something else prevented you from calling me and I want to know why.”

  A noise sounded from the doorway. Alfonso turned to see Kip stumble into the room. “What is…going on in here?”

  “Oh, Kip.” Lily rushed to the young man’s side. “I’m sorry. Did we wake you?”

  Thank God. Let her focus on her trainee for a while. Alfonso brushed past them, patting Kip’s shoulder. “Good to see you up and about, my man. You’re looking better than the last time I saw you. Let me get you something to eat. We’ll leave for Region at sunset.”

  THE BLAST OF COLD AIR that blew into the bar should’ve felt refreshing.

  Mel shivered despite the fact that less than an hour ago this place had been a virtual sauna, jammed wall-to-wall with football fans. Given the last few dismal seasons—pro and college alike—a home team win had deserved some major celebrating.

  For Pete’s sake, she thought she’d locked the door. She needed to finish up and get home to let out Hogan. He’d been cooped up all evening.

  “Sorry, we’re closed,” she called over her shoulder as she removed the last of the glasses from the steam washer below the counter and stacked them on the shelf. “You’ll have to come back another time.”

  “I am not looking for a drink.”

  She spun around to find a man of medium build, with slick coal-black hair and a prominent, aristocratic nose, standing near the waitress station. How did he get here from the door so quickly?

  At first glance she thought he was a pastor, given the black jacket and mandarin collar, but something about his flat, unblinking eyes and granite expression told her that he wasn’t. Besides, she doubted a religious guy would come to a bar this late at night and stand in a power position, blocking her exit. Something wasn’t right.

  Apprehension pricked at the little hairs on the back of her neck. She glanced toward the back room, hoping Arnold was still there, but the light was off.

  “What can I help you with? If you’re looking to save a few souls, we’re fresh out for the night. They’ve all gone home.”

  He paused a beat, then laughed. It sounded forced and didn’t reach his eyes. Like a robot preprogrammed to give a specific response, he c
learly was going through the motions and had another agenda.

  Panic snaked its fingers around the passageways of her lungs and tightened. No. Not an asthma attack. Not now. She sucked in a wheezing breath and tried to remain calm. He probably just needed something simple. Directions maybe. This was a confusing part of town, with one-way streets, roads spiraling out every which way. Seattle’s infrastructure wasn’t built on a grid system, confusing many people visiting from out of town. Although she couldn’t put her finger on it, she got the impression he wasn’t from the area.

  The man’s arms hung stiffly at his sides, and in the dim overhead lighting, something glinted in his hand. Oh Lord, a weapon?

  Casually, she flung her towel over her shoulder and slipped a hand under the counter, her fingers desperately searching for the silent alarm button.

  “Can I get you an Irish whisky or maybe a shot of bourbon, Father?” She didn’t know what priests drank, but he obviously wanted people to think he was one. And she sure as hell wasn’t about to call his bluff. “Although technically we’re closed, I suppose I can bend the rules a bit for you. I was raised Catholic, you know? Haven’t been to mass in a while though, I’m sorry to say. Or maybe you’d like a glass of wine?”

  She was rambling, but as long as she talked, she was alive and functioning. Where was that damn button anyway? The tips of her fingers splayed under the counter, but all she felt was the roughness of unfinished wood. Her mind drew a complete blank. Was it on the other side of the cash register? Damn. She had even been here when Arnold had it installed a few years ago. Think. Think.

  Sweat formed on her upper lip, while the back of her neck sweltered underneath her hair. The air inside Big Daddy’s Brew/Pub became as thick as it had been an hour ago, but this time it wasn’t due to a hot flash or a bunch of raucous sports fans.

  “I am not here for a drink. Just some information.” His voice had an odd, almost lyrical tone, the vowels drawn out, each word perfectly enunciated with the cutting precision of a brain surgeon. American English definitely wasn’t his native language.