Desire After Dark: Lords of Pleasure

by Jo Carlisle

“Don’t be. You’re her mate, and there is nobody who feels a loss as acutely. No one can understand, except another who’s lost one as well.”

  Luc searched his face carefully. Yes, there was a deeper grief there than what he felt for Kass. A loss even more profound. “Who was your mate?”

  “Valafar.”

  “What?” Luc’s mouth fell open. “I never knew Val used to have a mate. But…both of you are still alive and well.”

  “The loss of a mate is a death in its way,” Legion said quietly. “We are alive, but our bond is every bit as broken, and we are very much lost to each other. There’s no fixing the past, and there is no future.”

  “You sound as though you still love him very much.”

  “I love him with all my soul,” the demon said, his voice trembling. “But we were a toxic combination. After a few years of what I thought was happiness, it became apparent he had needs that I was too blind to see, and he was too proud to admit. All that matters is that I lost him.”

  “Saints, I’m so sorry,” he said with feeling. “What keeps you going?”

  “Why haven’t I ended my miserable existence?” His smile was rueful. “I’m not sure. Maybe some part of me still fantasizes about how it could be if we had another chance. I can’t let go, even though it’s futile.”

  “But if you could let go, you would?” he pressed.

  “Yes, in an instant. But that’s just me. I understand what you’re really asking, my friend, but I can’t make that choice for you. And I can’t stop you if you really want to end your life. No one can. I do ask you to stay, because there are people here who love you and who will be devastated.”

  “I know it’s selfish to be ready to go when it will leave Aldric, Soren, and my friends grieving. Including you.” He swallowed hard. “But her loss has left a hole in me that will never be filled. I can’t be with her because she’s been taken from me permanently, and there’s no coming back from that. It’s not like you and Val. Kass is dead.”

  The demon took his hand. “I get it. I do.”

  “Do you have any idea where her spirit has gone?” he whispered. “Is she in the Fade, or is she with Odin?”

  “I wish I knew. Her sisters won’t speak to me. They’ve never liked me, and Kass’s being gone was the perfect excuse to bar me from their palace. Without them I have no way to find out more from Odin or anyone else in Valhalla or on Olympus.”

  Luc sighed. Unbidden, the memory came of the light in the night sky, a heavenly cavalry descending to rescue them all. And one brave warrior who for all her skills and many battles won, proved to be flesh and blood, dying with a sword thrust through her heart.

  The loss was too much. She was nowhere he could reach, not while he was alive.

  But if he died, maybe he could find her again.

  “Don’t do anything rash without talking to me first,” Legion said. “Please.”

  “I won’t.”

  Whether his friend could smell the lie, he wasn’t sure. But if he could, he didn’t call Luc on it.

  “That’s all I can ask.”

  He vanished from the room, leaving Luc to his dark thoughts and to the certainty that there was only one way to be close to his love again.

  Decision made, he sat up, giving himself time to get oriented. The IV line on the back of his hand had to go, so he peeled off the tape, wincing when the tube slid out. A bead of blood formed, and he licked the wound to seal it, surprised that the taste of it didn’t give him any fierce hunger pains even when he hadn’t had anything but synthetic nourishment in days. It hit him that he wasn’t hungry because he didn’t care. Why bother to eat?

  Then he stood, took a step, and his knees almost buckled from the pain his movements caused and from his weakened state. He had to find clothing and get out of here. It was going to be damned hard to do that with all the hospital staff hanging around. Not to mention his brothers, who’d be back anytime.

  Moving carefully, Luc wobbled over to the cabinet used to store the patients’ and visitors’ personal items. A search of the inside revealed some snacks his family had stored during their long vigil, a pillow, and a small sack with toothbrushes, shower gel, and deodorant. A larger plastic sack held warm-up pants, a T-shirt, socks, and underwear. Luc’s tennis shoes were sitting on the floor of the cabinet. They’d thought of everything in preparation for when he was released.

  No doubt, they hadn’t planned on his leaving so soon.

  Staring at the personal hygiene items, he became aware that he needed a shower, badly. Was it stupid to want to be clean when he planned on leaving the world behind? No, he didn’t think so. If one believed in gods, monsters, and the afterlife, then he wanted to be showered when he went to find Kass.

  Hurrying into the tiny bathroom, he took the fastest shower ever, aware that his window of escape was narrowing. Then he dried off, keeping an ear open for the nursing staff or his brothers. Dressing quickly, he finger-combed his damp hair and brushed his teeth, wincing at the sad, pale creature staring back at him from the mirror.

  There was no more time for regrets. He’d spent ten minutes getting ready and was shaking with exhaustion and pain. If he didn’t leave now, he’d be caught. And then he’d never be able to stray from his brothers’ sight again.

  At the door, a check of the corridor revealed one nurse, who ducked into a different room. He wouldn’t get a better chance.

  He walked out, his steps slow and casual, head down. If anyone stopped him, he’d lie and say he’d just visited his brother Luc, who happened to be his spitting image.

  But no such challenge was issued. He walked right past the nurses’ station, where two were gossiping about their latest dates and a third was texting on his phone. They probably deserved the trouble they’d get into for a patient walking out while they were oblivious, but he hoped they didn’t get fired.

  Then he was out, shuffling toward his destination. It would take him a while to walk the distance, weak as he was, but he was on his way and no one would stop him.

  He had one more stop to retrieve something important, and then he’d let go.

  And he knew exactly where he would take his last breath.

  14

  The wait was interminable.

  At Odin’s insistence, Kass picked at the sumptuous food that she didn’t taste, sipped at the wine that wasn’t nearly potent enough to wash away her fear on a tide of oblivion.

  When the door finally swung open, she leaped to her feet, her hand going to her throat. She was hardly aware of the little crystal plate that fell from her grasp and shattered, sending fruit and cheese everywhere.

  “Zeus requests your presence in the hall once more,” a young woman said. Kass could read nothing on her face to indicate how bad the news might be. “Come this way.”

  She and Odin shared a look, but they didn’t speak as the woman led them into the hall. All twelve of the Olympians were standing, their expressions set in stern lines. Most of them, anyway. A couple of the more approachable ones were gazing at her in sympathy. Kass felt light-headed with trepidation.

  Once she and Odin were seated again, the gods did the same, Zeus sitting last. He was at his imperious best, drawing out the tension to almost unbearable levels before speaking.

  “Kassandra of the Valkyries, you have admitted to a serious offense: ignoring your duty to Odin in order to save the vampire, Luc Fontaine, and thus keep him for yourself. Have you changed your mind regarding your guilty plea?”

  “No, my king.”

  “You still have nothing to say in your defense?”

  She swallowed. “No, nothing.”

  “Then I will give Odin the right to defend your actions if he’s so inclined.” He looked to her friend. “Well?”

  Kass was surprised, and more than a little thrown. She hadn’t been expecting this, but Odin didn’t seem to be nearly as taken aback. In fact he seemed relieved as he nodded and took a deep breath.

  “Yes, I would welcome the opportunit
y to speak for Kassandra since she stupidly won’t do it for herself.”

  “Odin, what are you doing?” she whispered.

  “Silence, Valkyrie,” Zeus scolded. “You’ve had your chance to speak, so you’ll refrain from interrupting now. Odin, tell us why one of our most respected warriors would take a course of action that she had to know would get her into trouble.”

  “Luc Fontaine is Kass’s mate. We all know that for one of us to find our true mate is a rare and precious thing, and Kass has been alone for centuries.”

  Zeus sat back on his throne, and his eyes widened the barest fraction. So he truly hadn’t known. He glared at Kass. “This explains quite a bit. Why didn’t you tell me this when I asked for your side of the story?”

  “What happened to Luc is my fault,” she said, her heart breaking all over again. “I interfered with his destiny and ended up causing him many times the pain I’d intended to spare him. And I did it for selfish reasons. I wanted my life companion at my side, and I didn’t consider the consequences.”

  “And what were those? What further pain did she cause?” Zeus asked Odin.

  “I went to see the Fates to learn how Kass’s actions had altered things and what she would have to do to correct it. Lachesis cut two new life threads, one short and one long. Kass was told to choose one for herself, and one for her mate.”

  “I begin to see the problem,” the king of the gods said sagely. “Let me guess—thinking with her woman’s heart and not that of a warrior, she chose the short thread for herself.”

  “Yes, never considering that Luc would not want to live without her, and that she had consigned him to a living hell,” Odin affirmed. “He is, even now, taking steps to ensure that his life will soon end. His spirit will go into the Fade and he will cease to exist.”

  “Oh no!” Bolting to her feet, she glanced wildly around the hall. “I’ve got to stop him! I can’t let him do this!”

  “How will you do that, Valkyrie, if I do not allow it?” Zeus asked. Something in his tone made her believe he already knew whether he would or not, and was toying with her.

  “Please,” she begged. “I have to be with him, if only long enough to convince him not to take his own life.”

  “How do you think you’ll be able to convince him of that, if he cannot have you?”

  “I—I don’t know.” The god had to let her try. It he didn’t, she’d go insane.

  “Should I let you go to your mate, there’s still the matter of your punishment for your original offense.”

  Kass felt sick. She needed to get to Luc, but rules stood in their way, just as they had from the beginning. No wonder Legion hated politics so much. “I’m ready to receive it, my king.”

  He wasted no time in delivering her sentence, apparently having given this matter much thought before calling her into the hall again. “Kassandra, for ignoring your duty to escort Luc Fontaine to Valhalla, you are hereby stripped of your title of Valkyrie forevermore.”

  A fierce pang of regret speared her. She’d always been a Valkyrie. She didn’t know how to be anything else. But she’d lost her taste for the job quite a while back, otherwise she wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place. It wasn’t the title she’d miss. What bothered her was being stripped of it, forced to leave in shame instead of retiring with her head high.

  She wasn’t sure what response, if any, Zeus expected, so she held her silence, nodding instead. This seemed to please him, and he went on.

  “Now there is the issue of righting this wrong you have done to your mate.” He sighed deeply, as though this was the biggest pain he’d dealt with in ages. “I am going to allow you to attend to your vampire in his realm.”

  “Thank you,” she said, trembling. She was frantic to go find him.

  “Under one condition,” he warned.

  Wasn’t there always a catch? She shivered in dread.

  When she heard Zeus’s condition, Odin had to catch her and lower her back to the bench before she fell.

  Almost out of strength, Luc staggered into the secret room that held the Fontaine treasures. He was exhausted, but he had one last task to complete.

  On a table, cleaned and put away lovingly in its case, was Luc’s enchanted sword. The one that had seen him through many a battle and would now see him through his last.

  Removing it, he studied the beautiful blade, the intricate carved handle set with precious stones. “You’ve served me well. Just once more, and who knows? Maybe Soren and Harley will have a son who’ll make you his.”

  Yeah, he was pathetic, talking to his sword.

  He left the room, locking it behind him. Then he crept out of the house the same way he’d gotten in—through a ground-floor window behind a row of hedges. He waited, being careful not to be spotted. It was still daylight, and plenty of people were around. He didn’t need his brothers hearing a report of a crazy man in sweats carrying an ancient weapon.

  He made it past the pool area without incident, but he was almost seen by a guest on his way to the back lawn. He pressed himself to a tree, and the woman went by, unaware of him hiding on the other side.

  Then he was home free, disappearing into the edge of the woods.

  Heading for the place where the end had begun.

  Kass was almost in a full-blown panic. In confusion, she glanced up and down the dirty area called Bourbon Street. Early-afternoon revelers sipped fruity drinks at the street-side bars, and some partied in the middle of the street itself.

  This wasn’t where she needed to be, but this was where she’d been dumped—without her powers or any way to figure out where to go. Except one. And Zeus didn’t know about her ace in the hole. If he had, he might have made things more difficult just for grins.

  “Legion!” she shouted. People must make lots of noise here all the time. No one even looked at her twice.

  Immediately the air around her crackled, but her friend had barely materialized in front of her before he grabbed her hand and teleported them away. They ended up in a long driveway. She wasn’t sure whom it belonged to because she was too busy trying not to throw up. Teleporting didn’t agree with her system anymore.

  “Sorry, I had to get us away from the crowds,” the demon said, then shook his head. “Shit, where have you been? And how did you end up in downtown New Orleans?”

  “My punishment for saving Luc is that Zeus has stripped my title of Valkyrie, along with my powers. There’s more, but I want Luc to hear it first.”

  “Well, you’re just in time! Luc was gravely injured during the battle, and he’s had a very tough recovery. He hasn’t gotten over you, and he was saying some things to me earlier that really had me worried. I knew it would piss him off, but I went looking for his brothers and told them my fear.”

  “That he would take his life.”

  “Yeah. We got to his hospital room, but he was already gone. We’ve split up to search the city for him.”

  “What about the resort?”

  “That was the first place we looked, but he wasn’t there,” he said, worried. “He’s despondent, so where would he go?”

  She thought about that. “Nothing seems to mean more to Luc than his family. I can’t see him going very far from home to do what he’s planning. He’d want to be found and laid to rest, I think.” The thought chilled her to the bone. That wasn’t going to happen if she could help it.

  “We’re going to find him. Think. With that in mind, is there a place hidden from the resort and main house, yet easily found if they expand the search area?”

  Frowning, she considered the question. What was around the resort, she didn’t know. The only time she’d ever been on the grounds was when she…

  “Oh gods!” she exclaimed. “I think I might know where he’s going. There’s a clearing in the woods on their property where I saved his life. It’s where we first met.”

  “And where everything was set in motion.” Legion’s body tensed. “That makes sense. If I was going to
kill myself, I’d pick someplace meaningful, too.”

  “I’ve told you before—don’t even think of doing anything stupid, or I’ll kick your ass.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m far too conceited to harm my beautiful self.”

  Kass rolled her eyes. “Good, make sure you stay that way. Now transport us, because I can’t do it anymore.”

  “You’ll have to send me a mental image of the exact spot, since I’ve never been there. I’ve spent some time at the resort but haven’t ventured far from the main house, except for the skirmish with the wolves.”

  There was a horror she didn’t want to remember, but she couldn’t help it. She’d never forget Luc’s body on the ground, run through with the sword, blood pooling around him. She hadn’t been able to fathom the agony such a grave wound had caused—until she’d been skewered as well.

  Pushing that from her mind, she concentrated on forming a picture of where she’d found Luc that day. A clearing with trees all around, dappled with sunlight, a fallen tree lying nearby—

  Then Legion caught the image, and they vanished.

  Luc stumbled into the clearing and stopped, studying his surroundings. This looked like the right clearing, and ahead was a large fallen tree he thought was there before. The trunk would be perfect for what he needed, heavy and sturdy, and he walked slowly to it. He stood and stared, unseeing, as a wave of sorrow drowned him in an icy lake.

  He couldn’t stop seeing Kass’s face. Her shock and anguish, the bloodied tip of the sword thrust through her chest, the light fading even as she fell. Just that quickly, she’d been taken, leaving him bereft. Heartbroken.

  He couldn’t live with this another day, much less forever. His brothers would have to understand. Perhaps they’d think of him fondly, long from now, when the passing of the centuries had softened their loss and anger.

  Lowering himself to his knees in front of the tree trunk, he dragged the sword in front of him. Using the trunk for leverage, he wedged the hilt between the ground and the trunk, the point out toward him. Not bothering to take off his shirt, he positioned the sharp tip just below his sternum, angled toward his heart. Piercing through flesh and muscle would require very little effort.