Beautiful Danger

by Michele Hauf

  Time is up. You’ve been removed from the job. I will speak to you this afternoon at your home.

  Damn. Well, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t expected that result.

  She glanced over her shoulder to the sleeping vampire, tangled in a wrap of black sheets. So peaceful. She could stake him right now. The ash would scatter over the sheets and fall into a shapeless heap. On to number seventy-three.

  Lark shook her head.

  That scenario had become a mad fantasy. She no longer wanted to harm this man. He was not a danger to her or mortals. He might be dangerous to werewolves, but the dogs could go screw themselves. This was not a mission she wished to complete.

  And really, when had the Order started working for werewolves? It felt...more wrong than a hunter making love with a vampire.

  Sighing, she put Rook’s message out of her mind. No way to start a morning. There would be plenty of time later to deal with the fallout of her decision.

  Tiptoeing to the window, she pulled the heavy drapery aside. Gorgeous sunlight flooded her skin. After the rain they’d been having—

  A man yelled and she heard a thud.

  Lark scrambled around the foot of the bed to find Domingos crouched on the floor, the side opposite the window, shuddering. The skin on the back of his shoulder smoked and he covered his eyes with his palms.

  “Oh, hell, Domingos, I’m so sorry.”

  She bent down by him but remembered the sunlight. Closing the curtains, she then rushed around to hug him, but he resisted her efforts and even growled when she accidentally touched his smoking shoulder.

  How could she have been so cruel? “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I’m...” So not equipped for this kind of relationship.

  It wasn’t a relationship. Couldn’t be. Why? She had no idea. She’d figure that out later, as well.

  Domingos tucked his head against the side of the mattress. She thought to brush away his hair and touch his skin, which had stopped smoking, but she couldn’t bring herself to cause him more pain. After they had shared such tenderness last night, this must truly be a slap in the face to him.

  “Can I get you a cool towel? Will that make it better? You should have some ointment, something for the burn?”

  “Nothing stops the hurt.”

  Biting her lip, she looked aside. They had spent an amazing night together. And a wrong night together. A knight of the Order sleeping with a vampire? If any knight learned about this and went to Rook with the information, she’d be ostracized, if not terminated in the most final way possible.

  You weren’t going to think about it, remember?

  “I’ll get some cool water.” She stood, but he clasped her hand and pulled her down beside him.

  “I don’t need anything but you. It was good,” he said wincingly. In so much pain, yet trying to be strong for her. “Last night?”

  He needed reassurance.

  “Making love with you was amazing, Domingos.” She kissed his forehead, then touched her lips to each of his eyelids. Finding his mouth, she burnished a slow and lazy kiss there, tasting his tongue and quickly dashing each fang. “The curtains—forgive me?”

  “You didn’t know. The pain has already subsided. Just—” He pounded his head against the mattress, and that horrible laughter burst out.

  “The noises in your head?”

  He nodded, squeezing his eyelids shut, and pounded again. Fingers clutching the sheets, he growled and shook his head.

  “I wish I could take away whatever it is that torments you. I mean that. I’d do anything to make life better for you, Domingos. You deserve better.”

  “I have better.” He slid his hand into hers and, even as he fought against the voices, held her tenderly.

  It was difficult to watch. Helpless, without a means to stop his interior foe, Lark stood and swept his hair into her hands. Like molten hematite it flowed over her fingers, too dark, beyond blackness, but so soft and comforting when splayed across her skin.

  “You got a phone call?” he asked.

  “A text message from my superior.” She stood and plucked one of her stockings from the end of the bed. “He wants to see me.”

  “And then it’s back to slaying?”

  She smirked as she pulled up her hose, followed by the leather pants, then sought her abandoned shoes. “I’m not sure anymore. I received an ultimatum yesterday. If you weren’t dead by midnight, then I would be taken off the job. It’s close to noon now, so you can guess what that means.”

  “You are no longer my death?”

  “I don’t think I ever was.”

  A wistful glance to her lover confirmed what she’d guessed—that she could never have harmed him. The man had gotten inside her, perhaps brushed her soul. She liked the feeling, and didn’t want it to end.

  But she couldn’t ignore the real world or the vows she had made to the Order.

  “I should probably head home.” To find those birth control pills. “And please, don’t follow me today, Domingos. My superior is meeting me at my apartment. The last thing either of us needs is for him to discover our liaison. Such information could prove deadly to us both.”

  He nodded and smiled up at her. “You made me whole again last night. For a few blissful hours the madness receded.”

  She stroked the side of his face and he rubbed into her palm as if he were a purring cat. “You helped me forget the bad things, too. Thank you for sharing you with me. All of you, even this stuff that haunts you now.”

  “It’s not bad when I’m in your arms. It’s become background noise again. Your voice wins against the screaming cats.”

  Lark managed a chuffing smile, then tapped his skull. “I’d like to know how cats got in there.”

  “Me, too. Why couldn’t it have been owls? I like to listen to owls hooting in the night.”

  “Now, that would be plain spooky. I’ll be in touch.”

  He made a reluctant, silent nod, which she felt wasn’t so much agreeing as accepting. They stood on opposite sides, yet last night the line between them had been peeled away, only to be placed back on the ground in a circle that encompassed them. It felt right.

  And yet Lark had betrayed not only her husband’s memory, but Rook, pack Levallois and the entire order of men who had vowed to protect the world from evil.

  Domingos wasn’t evil, but she would have a tough time convincing any in the Order of that.

  “I do like a challenge,” she whispered as she tugged on her shirt and left her lover sitting beside the bed.

  * * *

  As the hunter walked out of the bedroom, Domingos listened to her boot heels sound with dull thuds across the wood floor, stop at the front door, then exit. The door closed with a click, and the mansion was so silent he thought to hear the falling dust particles in the vicious sunbeam that entered in a thin slice down the center where Lark had not drawn the draperies tightly closed.

  He stared up at the tin-tiled ceiling, painted black because he preferred the dark—needed it. For a few blissful hours while he was wrapped in Lark’s embrace, the madness had retreated. He had felt whole. Lost in a place in which he never wanted to get found.

  And now she was gone. The wholeness shimmered away into the shadows that controlled his life.

  And the torturous music began.

  Chapter 11

  Rook arrived at Lark’s apartment ten minutes after she had showered. Flipping her loose wet hair over a shoulder, she directed him into the living room and asked if he’d like tea or coffee, neither of which she had, but it was polite, and she suspected he’d refuse.

  “I’m not here for a chat,” the Frenchman said. “You’ve been taken off the job.”

  Nothing new to her. She was surprised he’d even repeat himself like that.

&nb
sp; “I got the text message. Gunnar replaced me, then?”

  “He’s promised to make Domingos LaRoque dust before midnight.”

  Doubtful, Lark thought to herself. And then she prayed Domingos kept a low profile, and knew he would not, for pack Levallois was not yet extinct.

  “Since when has the Order set time limits on its marks?” Lark dared to ask. Rook deserved respect, but she’d always toed the line between his authority and her subservience.

  “Since when does one of our best knights completely botch the job assigned her?”

  He strolled before the window, eyeing her sharply. He had a certain look that crossed propriety and touched lecherousness. He’d never made a move toward her, but Lark suspected he moved all over her in his mind. The little she knew of him outside the office walls told that the man indulged dark, dangerous passions best exercised in the privacy of his own home.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Lark. Your husband would be, too.”

  He knew exactly how to plunge the stake deep into her heart. A heart that had been shattered the moment she’d had to jam the stake into Todd’s chest.

  Yet recently, something had occurred to rearrange those pieces of her heart, just a bit.

  “I always give the Order one hundred percent,” she tossed out, yet cringed inwardly. She wasn’t sure she had this time. Well, she knew she had not. “The mark was elusive.”

  “But you said you had him in sight once.”

  “And then was distracted by werewolves.” Poor excuse, Lark. Would she allow the exhaustion of emotion to drag her into lies? “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  “Not at all. I have much faith in Gunnar.”

  The rumor Lark had heard about that knight was that his wife had once had an affair with a vampire. Gunnar had slain the vampire, and then his wife.

  “So, you know you must pay penance for letting down the Order?”

  She nodded. This again? How many times had she done the same when in training? Too many times to count. Because of that, she was an old pro.

  “Bring it on,” she said. “Just let me get my shoes.”

  “I have a car waiting below to bring you to the chapel.”

  The chapel. Which really was an old chapel in a cathedral the Order had retrofitted to serve as headquarters. An appropriate place for penance.

  * * *

  It wasn’t difficult to track Lark through the city. Domingos used the rooftops as a highway to follow the black limo, dashing from roof to roof, navigating the slippery tiles with ease. Yet the sun threatened to pop out from behind the thinning clouds.

  It was midafternoon. He wore the goggles and gloves and had tied a scarf about his neck and pulled the jacket hood over his head. A smart vampire would have a special suit made up for traveling during the day to keep the UVs in check.

  He knew Truvin Stone had designed DragonSkin armor years ago for vampires to wear as protection when witch’s blood had proven poisonous to them. Yet he hadn’t traversed the roofs during the day so often until he’d met Lark. If his rooftop excursions were to become a habit, he’d have to give Stone a call.

  He suspected the place the man—who he guessed was the Order supervisor—took Lark to served as base for the Order of the Stake.

  “Interesting,” he muttered, knowing such information would be valuable to other vampires. If he were a shady sort, and had a need for money, he could sell the information to the highest bidder.

  He’d keep it under consideration.

  Half an hour later, Domingos lay on the roof of an old cathedral, palms flat to the ceramic roof tiles. From his initial reconnaissance through a stained-glass window, he’d determined Lark had been brought into the chapel. She’d entered, had prostrated herself stomach-down on the cold slate floor and now lay still, arms out and cheek to the hard surface as if a monk.

  Must be some kind of punishment. For not killing him?

  He smirked. Such a wily creature he’d become, and not even in full grasp of his faculties. What a coup to give the infamous Order of the Stake the slip! And if they knew he’d fucked one of them? Ha!

  Yet another juicy piece of information to keep tucked close to his vest.

  The triumph was brief. Domingos kicked the damned phoenix coursing through his veins in the ass. It wasn’t like him to take joy in the suffering of others. And to know it was Lark, the one woman in this world he...

  Breathing out, Domingos closed his eyes behind the goggles.

  The one woman he what? Loved? He wasn’t sure what love was. The one woman he trusted? Part of him trusted her, but an even bigger part, a part that liked to rage and claw at his insides, would never again trust another living being, and especially not one who had been trained to slay his breed.

  He pressed his palms flat to the tiles, which were cool thanks to the overcast sky. It wasn’t difficult to pick up her heartbeat many stories below. Though his body was damaged and broken, his senses were still sharp. He wanted to be in the room with her, lying alongside her, sharing her discomfort. Could his presence spare her some pain?

  You’re not capable of such selflessness. You were only following the hunter, getting close to her, because you’ve put it into your brain a woman would never be able to kill you if she spent a small amount of time with you.

  No one could kill someone he knew without regret. And she had emotions. Women were always compassionate.

  Maybe. Though he found it hard to believe he’d be so callous. Again, was it the phoenix? It didn’t own a part of him as if it were another entity or some kind of demonic possession. Or was it becoming more whole, claiming yet another section of his brain with each tirade, each fight against the noise and the madness?

  Domingos did not care. Just as he didn’t care when he plunged his fist through a werewolf’s chest to rip out the beating heart. They all deserved to die for the heinous crimes against him and his fellow breed.

  So now you’re including the rest of the vampires? Since when did you become so magnanimous? Doesn’t that sound similar to Lark’s blind quest for revenge? Thought this was a personal crusade.

  He could not have walked by the burning warehouse. It would have been unconscionable.

  Only five years he’d been vampire. Changed against his will one night by a woman he’d not known, and had never seen after. Zara Destry had been her name. She’d come to him, frilled in pink with pouting red lips, praising his artistry after a local concert at the Opéra. He’d taken her home and slept with her, but had decided he’d not been interested in a second liaison. One-night stands were fine, but a relationship had always seemed like too much work when music had demanded his attention.

  Zara had retaliated against his dismissal of her by biting him. And then she had stormed out of his life, laughing much like his maniacal phoenix. And he’d not known then what he knew now, that he could possibly have stopped the transformation to vampire if only he’d found his blood master and killed her, or had not taken mortal blood before the next full moon.

  After being taken in by Truvin Stone and later, tribe Zmaj, Domingos had learned that when a mortal was bitten by a vampire, he could fight the transformation by not drinking blood before the full moon. If that was possible, the vampiric taint would pass through the mortal, and he would not change. Of course, fighting the full moon was literally impossible, and was rumored to drive the mortal insane.

  One way or another, Domingos had gotten the wrong end of the crazy stick.

  It was a powerful pull, the blood hunger. Admittedly, he liked the taste of blood. It was his comfort, or had been. Yet now, since he’d escaped from the pack and daren’t return to Zmaj—for he didn’t wish to inflict his crazy upon them—every time Domingos drank from a mortal the images filled his brain. Images of the heinous blood games. Of being shoved into the circular cage, pitted agains
t another blood-starved vampire, and of struggling to survive. He’d been so animalistic as he sought the sustenance he’d been denied. When in captivity, he had drunk many times from a fellow vampire—to the death.

  When a vampire drank a mortal to death, he experienced the danse macabre, a vicious replay of the mortal’s nightmares, over and over. Now, having drunk his own kind to death, he experienced the nightmare daily.

  Swallowing, Domingos tucked his forehead against his elbow and beat a fist against the roof.

  * * *

  Lark stirred minutely at the sound overhead. Too loud for a bird. Had someone thrown a rock onto the roof?

  Instinctually, she knew it was neither. Her body stiff and cold, and her muscles aching after countless hours of immobility, her sense of sound and smell had surged to the fore, and she had known the moment he had stepped onto the roof with his bare feet. The landing had been more graceful than a bird’s.

  He must have a homing instinct toward her. She only prayed the clouds did not move away from the sun.

  Hours later, her thoughts had not reverted from the one focus that made this punishment bearable. Domingos should be hunting werewolves. Yes, she now advocated his revenge, only because she was angry at herself and at the Order. Why must every vampire be marked for death?

  Okay, she knew not every one was marked and in the Order’s crosshairs. They only went after those vamps who presented a threat to mortals, which could be construed as all of them. She suspected each knight possessed his own gauge of threat level when it came to vampires and very likely had varying scales of moral compass. Herself, she had never blinked an eye if the vamp had been female. If she’d encountered a woman vampire gnawing on the throat of an unfortunate victim, the stake had come out and she’d dusted the bitch.

  Yet Lark had her limits. What of a child vampire? If inborn—meaning the child had been born of a mortal female and vampire male, or even bloodborn, which meant born of two vampire parents—the child only came into fangs and bloodlust at puberty. Lark reasoned that the child knew nothing else and had learned to reason in favor of its survival, and so was thankful she’d never come face-to-face with one so young.