Ascension

by Felicity Heaton

  She sighed.

  Was sorry a strong enough word to erase everything he had ever done to her? If it was, he would say it a thousand times over so she knew just how sorry he was, and then he would say it a million times more. He didn’t mean to push her away but years of resentment lingered inside him and it had turned him bitter, and now he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

  Except love her.

  And believe that she loved him.

  One he could easily do, the other seemed so impossible.

  Lealandra kissed the hand he held her shoulder with and then ran her fingers over it.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered and leaned back into him.

  He sighed this time. How was it she could find the strength to apologise and he couldn’t? His heart said it was her humanity. A demon like him didn’t know how to behave in such a way.

  Lealandra turned in his arms and looked up at him. He ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. The moon made her pale and beautiful. Her eyes were so wide and open, so full of calm acceptance. A part of him said that he could apologise, that a demon knew how to behave just as a human did. It was the man in him who couldn’t bring himself to admit that he had been wrong.

  It was his human side, not his demon one.

  His demon side had only one thing it wanted to say to her and it was something neither man nor monster had ever told her.

  He loved her.

  CHAPTER 10

  The bar was dark and empty. The long batwing-tipped hands on the ridiculously oversized and cliché gothic clock on the deep red wall above the bar announced that it was gone four in the morning. The sun would be rising soon. Most of the patrons of the club seemed to have known that and had disappeared a few minutes after Lealandra and Taig had arrived. They sat in a booth near a fire-exit to the left of a stage. The thin black and red hangings obscured Lealandra’s view of the rest of the club. It was nothing short of a Goth’s wet dream. Red velvet covered everything. Gilt candle sconces adorned the black walls, their fake-candle bulbs flickering away. The tables in the bigger booths were mahogany coffins on legs.

  And the thin dark haired man opposite her was a vampire.

  Taig was talking calmly to him. Lealandra didn’t bother to listen, knowing that it was all business. He held the ring out and the vampire raised one fine plucked black eyebrow at it. His black-ringed pale irises moved to her and then back to Taig. He didn’t seem to like the fact that Taig had brought company. She had offered to wait outside but Taig had been insistent and it was impossible to change his mind when he thought she was in danger.

  She didn’t think that hanging around outside this club would prove that dangerous for her. Most demons wouldn’t be seen dead somewhere that catered so openly to human fantasies of what life as a vampire was, rather than the slightly more grim reality of having to live on blood and being unable to go out in the sun.

  Blood.

  Her power whispered to her, speaking of Taig’s blood and her need for it. She was still hungry. The small amount Taig had given to her had only soothed her power a fraction. She needed more to get it back under total control but she had the feeling he was being serious when he said it would cost her, and she knew the price he had in mind.

  Her heart.

  Lealandra had come to realise that he wasn’t really after her body. He wanted her heart, wanted her to be his and only his, for the rest of his life.

  She wondered if he knew that was what he wanted and whether he would accept it if she dared to offer.

  “Seems genuine enough,” the vampire drawled and then thoughtfully ran his thumb across his lower lip as he examined the ring. “It is a shame you couldn’t bring the body back.”

  Lealandra frowned. The vampire had wanted the immortal’s blood. She had heard that immortal blood had potent aphrodisiac qualities. Was the vampire after a strong fix or the bloody form of Viagra?

  The vampire tossed a thick manila envelope onto the shiny black table. It landed in a wet ring left by the glass now held in Taig’s hand. Taig necked the whisky and then casually took up the envelope. Lealandra hid her surprise when Taig opened it and thumbed the wedge of cash tucked inside.

  That was a lot of money.

  “It’s all there.” The vampire leaned back into the red velvet bench. Lealandra shifted uncomfortably on her chair. She was getting tired and restless. The hunt had taken most of the night and she just wanted to get back to Taig’s place and sleep since he had spoiled her fun in the graveyard. The vampire glanced at her again and then back at Taig. “I have another contract you might be interested in. Fifty large.”

  Lealandra’s eyes almost popped out of her head. She blinked at the vampire and then at Taig. He didn’t seem at all fazed by the amount of money the vampire had offered him to do a job.

  “I have another contract already,” Taig said and the vampire raised an eyebrow before shrugging.

  “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

  The sum of money the vampire had paid Taig for the job tonight and what he had offered for another, made it clear that Taig wasn’t helping her for the cash. She had offered him such a tiny amount in comparison and he was making a fortune by hunting. Things hadn’t paid this well back when she had hunted with him. He must have worked hard over the past six years to build a reputation worthy of that kind of payment.

  The vampire’s icy gaze fell on her again, sending a shiver of awareness through her that reached right down into her bones and froze them. His eyes lightened when hers met them, almost glowing in the low light of the club. A strange calm broke over her. Warmth chased the chill away and she relaxed in the seat, feeling oddly at peace.

  Taig slammed his fist against the table, cracking it straight down the middle and making her jump. The chill returned when she looked at his hand where it pressed into the shiny black surface and the calm lifted, leaving her feeling as tense and tired as she had been before she had looked into the vampire’s eyes. Taig’s glass rolled off the table and smashed on the floor.

  “You dare look at her again.” Taig stood, leaning over the table and glaring at the vampire.

  The shine left the vampire’s eyes and he stared up at Taig, somehow managing to keep the fear she could sense in him out of his expression. Taig’s power rose and swept through her. Her magic reached for it, hungry for the connection, and abated the moment they met, subdued by the strength of his and satiated.

  Lealandra touched Taig’s hand, sliding her fingers over his palm and pressing her thumb against his knuckles. He needed to know that she was here and she was fine. His fingers closed around hers, tightly holding her hand.

  “Dare,” he sneered and the vampire turned away, “and I will personally see to it you’re the first vampire to die in this city this century.”

  Her heart missed a beat and intense heat suffused every inch of her. She loved Taig’s possessive streak. He had always been like it, refusing to let her out of arm’s reach in the company of other men, staking his territory by kissing her breathless, but he had never threatened a man for merely looking at her.

  It was one hell of a turn on.

  But one she wasn’t about to reveal to him.

  Lealandra stood and sensed the vampire’s intent to look at her. He would be double dead meat if he did. Taig wasn’t the kind of man who joked about killing and he was perfectly capable of taking out the vampire.

  Not wanting to witness the kind of brutal violence that would happen if the vampire did dare to look at her, she lured Taig from the booth, away from the vampire, and headed for the door with him. His hand remained locked around hers, holding it so tightly that she almost smiled.

  “Now that the mark is out of the way we can focus on those demons,” Taig said as they broke out into the fading night.

  Lealandra yawned and nodded. Trying to keep her enthusiasm rolling was impossible when she was tired. She knew that she should be more concerned about the demons who were after her but she f
elt so safe with Taig at her side that it was falling to the back of her mind. She didn’t feel as though she was in danger. Everything felt as it had done six years ago, before she had left him. She was even beginning to forget that her ascension was imminent and she didn’t have a clue how to survive it without the coven and her Counter-Balance.

  Her fingers idly traced her chest.

  “Thinking about the ascension?” There was a grin in Taig’s voice. “Or how quick your little heart was pitter-pattering back there when I read the riot act to the vamp?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You scared the crap out of me. What else was my heart supposed to do when you go breaking things like a caveman?”

  He grinned ear to ear. She tried to contain her smile but couldn’t.

  “What did he do to me?” she said.

  Taig’s face fell and the air around him turned cold. “I don’t follow.”

  “In the club, when he looked in my eyes, I felt… strange.”

  Taig’s irises burned red and he turned around, heading back towards the club. He growled. “I’m going to kill the bastard.”

  Lealandra bolted after him and grabbed his arm, pulling back on it in an attempt to stop him. She had thought that was the reason Taig had stepped in. He hadn’t known that the vampire had been trying something on her, something that had made her feel incredibly compliant.

  “Whoa!” She yanked on Taig’s arm and he spun on his heel to face her. The darkness in his eyes and the power she could feel running through him warned her to back off for her own sake. She held her ground, refusing to let him intimidate her, and stroked his arm. “Let it go… you stopped him. If he was trying to control me, it failed… I’m not his.”

  Taig stepped into her, so his hips grazed hers. She swallowed and stared deep into his eyes as he towered over her, dominant and emitting an aura of danger that lured her to him. Her lips parted and her heart pounded at the feel of him, at the outcomes her mind raced to imagine. She tried to keep her gaze steady but it flickered between his eyes and his lips, betraying her desire to kiss him.

  He lowered his mouth to hers and whispered against her lips, “Just whose are you?”

  Lealandra swallowed again, trembling on the brink of admitting that she was his if he would only come and claim her. Her breath bounced back at her from his lips. So temptingly close. She would only have to move a fraction and they would be kissing. Just a fraction.

  It was so easy and so hard at the same time.

  She couldn’t bring herself to go through with it, to give him such a clear sign that she was his.

  “No one’s.” She turned and walked away, heading down the dark empty street towards the car. Her heart leapt into her mouth and her voice trembled when she added loud enough for him to hear, “yet.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The couch felt too wide with Taig sat at one end and her at the other. The television seemed too loud in the silence between them. Lealandra toyed with the ties of her black skirt, jingling the little bells that hung from their ends. Taig stared at the television.

  They sighed at the same time.

  She wasn’t sure how to act around him now. When they had been together, a quiet time like this wouldn’t have happened. They would have been all over each other the minute they had made it through the apartment door, if not a little before. A part of her wanted that time back, wanted to fall into a relationship with him again, but another part of her was wary, worried about the possibilities of him leaving her or hurting her.

  So they both sat there, hands in laps, unsure of what to do and what to say.

  She knew Taig was in the same boat as her. He kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye and when she had found her voice to ask him what the television programme was about, he hadn’t known. He was thinking too.

  She had to say something.

  He had asked her about her mark when they had left the vampire’s club. She touched it again, sending it shimmering.

  “Is it bothering you?” Taig whispered.

  Lealandra kept her eyes fixed on the ascension mark on her chest and shook her head, and then said, “A little.”

  “Do you know what it means?”

  He didn’t resist her when she took hold of his hand, brushed his fingers against her chest so he could see the ascension mark and then folded them over, keeping his index one extended. She pressed it to his symbol.

  “This is you.”

  Taig smiled. His eyes shone with warmth and amusement. He was so handsome when he smiled that way, and so much more like the man she used to know and wanted to know again. “I know that.”

  She touched the mark opposite his near her left breast. “This one is conflict. I thought it meant we were going to have to fight our way out of the coven but I was wrong.”

  “What’s this one?” Taig touched the mark to the left of conflict.

  “Danger.” She touched it and then the one to the right of conflict, nearer to Taig’s mark. “Blood.” She pressed his finger against the one between that and his mark. “Betrayal.”

  “Anything nice in there besides me?” He grinned again and she could see he was trying to cheer her up. When her ascension mark had first appeared, she had recognised most of the symbols. It had frightened her to see that so many negative things would happen in her path to ascension, but there were positive things too, like Taig’s mark.

  She brought his hand down, to the mark at the bottom of the circle and looked into his eyes. “Love.”

  Long silence stretched between them. Taig’s finger remained against the symbol, his gaze fixed there. The red light from her ascension mark lit his face and reflected in his eyes, so he appeared as though his demon side was on the brink of making an appearance. She wished he would say something. His finger pressed harder against her chest and then his hand came to rest on her breast. She swallowed and stiffened, waiting. The weight of his hand on her breast was divine but something told her that he wasn’t going to do anything. He was thinking and whatever left his mouth was bound to be nasty. If he mentioned Charlie, she was going to kill him. There was only one man in the world that she loved, and she had loved him for over six years.

  His eyes finally rose, slowly coursing over her body until they reached hers. He stared deep into them and she lost herself in the endless depths of his black irises, mesmerised and entranced by the hint of warmth that flickered in them. It felt as though she could see right down into his soul. The soul he claimed he didn’t have. Just as quickly as he had let her in, he shut her out, the barriers rising and his eyes losing the spark of affection.

  “I know this one.” His fingertip caressed the symbol beside the one for love. It sat between it and Taig’s mark. She knew that one too. The room suddenly felt cold. “Death.”

  “Taig, I…” She wasn’t sure what she had wanted to say. That she thought the symbol for love was about him. That she was sorry she had left him all those years ago. That she often wondered how she had messed things up and why he had let her go. That she needed to know if he loved her and if he would believe that she loved him, all of him, if she said the words. In the end, she said none of the things that she wanted to. She left Taig hanging a moment longer and then said, “I know someone who can help me decipher the mark.”

  His hand fell away from her, back into his lap, and a hint of disappointment touched his eyes before he nodded.

  “We have to go in daylight though,” Lealandra said, trying to fill the silence and desperate to leave his place. They didn’t have to go in daylight at all. The person she was going to speak with would see her any time of day or night. She just needed some air and some time away from his apartment so she could get her head straight. When they were here, she wanted to kiss him, she wanted to make love with him and forget all the terrible things that were happening. She wanted to bury her head in the sand and lose herself in him.

  “Fine by me,” Taig said, a sharp edge to his words. He turned off the television, stood, grabbed his
leather jacket off the back of the couch and stalked into his bedroom.

  Lealandra sat on the couch, staring at the open door. Had she done the right thing? She should have been braver and told Taig everything that she wanted to because he wasn’t going to make a move. She looked around his apartment. Stark. Lifeless. Defended. He had moved into this building and surrounded himself with humans, but hadn’t allowed any of them into his home. Her heart went out to him again and she looked over her shoulder at the picture of his parents. He was right. She had to be the one to make a move on him, to show him that he was worthy of love and that his demon was an intrinsic part of him. It wasn’t something to hide or be ashamed of, and it didn’t mean that he didn’t belong in this world. He did belong here. He belonged here with her because she loved him—all of him. Without his demon side, he wouldn’t be the Taig that she had fallen in love with.

  “Let’s go.” The sudden sound of his voice startled her.

  She turned and looked at him as he walked to the door. His jacket and t-shirt were gone, replaced by a smart black shirt similar to the one he had worn the other night. He didn’t like daylight. No demon did. While it wouldn’t affect him physically, he always liked to cover up and spend as much time as possible in the shadows. She had never grasped why, and neither had he. When she had asked him about it, he had thought long and hard and then said it was just something he had always done.

  Lealandra suspected that it had come from his father. A purebred demon would have felt a distinct reaction to the sunshine. Nothing like a vampire experienced, but enough discomfort to make them avoid it. Lesser demons weren’t affected. Mixed-species like Taig had a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting the reaction. Taig hadn’t.

  She smiled.

  He frowned. “What’s that smile for? This person we’re going to see another one of your blokes?”

  She frowned too now. She didn’t remember Taig being this jealous. In a way, she liked it because it made his desire for her blatantly obvious, but it was getting damn annoying at the same time.