Night Reigns

by Dianne Duvall

  Her hair was its usual mop of fiery curls, a fetching contrast to the elegant formality of her gown.

  Marcus swallowed. She had left it natural for him. He much preferred it to stiff, hair-sprayed perfection and had told her often how much he enjoyed burying his face in the silky tresses and combing his fingers through it.

  The black gown left her slender shoulders bare. He had chosen black to reinforce her inclusion in their makeshift family, and it offered a beautiful contrast to her pale, perfect skin. The bodice molded to her full breasts, providing only a hint of cleavage. (More than once, she had expressed her astonishment over how much flesh women routinely exposed here on Earth. On Lasara, women’s clothing was far more conservative, tantalizing without exposing the goods, as she put it.) The dark material hugged her narrow waist, clung to her hips, then flared out in a wealth of material that fell to her ankles, giving him only a glimpse of the black, high-heeled shoes Seth had fetched for her.

  She was so beautiful Marcus couldn’t find his voice.

  Ami had to work hard not to gape when she reached the study. Marcus, Seth, David, and Darnell all wore stunning black suits, black shirts, black ties, and black dress shoes. David’s long thin dreadlocks were drawn back with a leather tie into a soft mass that fell to his hips. Seth’s wavy tresses were similarly bound, the ends brushing his waist. Darnell’s smooth-shaven head gleamed beneath the overhead lights. And Marcus ...

  Marcus’s hair was tamed and confined in a tail, too, the sable softness shining against the material of the jacket he had donned since leaving her. A tie lay neatly knotted at his collar.

  He was nothing short of gorgeous. All of them were. If they went out like this, they wouldn’t be able to hunt vampires because they would be fighting off the women in droves!

  But Marcus most of all. He was the one who sent her heart soaring and sped her pulse. He was the one who had sparked white-hot passion within her, inspired her to find a strength she had thought never to possess again, and lit her life with laughter and teasing.

  His eyes met and held hers, glowing faintly with such fierce love she thought she might weep.

  “Hi,” she said, emotion choking her.

  Marcus crossed the room with a smooth, prowling gait that made her think of balmy nights and beds with rumpled sheets. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured as he stopped in front of her.

  Heat flooded her face. “Thank you. So are you.”

  He raised a hand to her cheek, offered a featherlight caress.

  “Are we going out?” she asked, curious about the formal wear and, frankly, trying to distract herself from the rising need to launch herself into Marcus’s arms.

  “No.” Taking her left hand in his, he slid his right arm around her waist and escorted her over to the others.

  They seemed pretty somber, but ... she didn’t feel any kind of trepidation radiating from them that might warn of bad news.

  What was going on?

  “Ami,” Marcus said, drawing her attention once more, “I know, from the stories you’ve told me of your world, that Lasaran society is guided by rules and traditions that, in certain areas, are not unlike those of the time in which I was born. And I wanted to do this right, in a way that would best emulate the customs we would follow were we on Lasara.” He drew her hand to his lips for a kiss. “Your own family is distant. I regret that I cannot meet them in person. At least, not yet.” He motioned to his brethren. “But Seth, David, and Darnell have become your family here on Earth.”

  “Joyfully,” David added in his deep, warm voice.

  Ami smiled. She did consider them family.

  “For this reason,” Marcus continued, “I have brought you before them to profess my deep, profound love for you, my desire to keep you by my side always, and to ask their permission to marry you if you are willing to so honor me.”

  Ami’s chest swelled. With a happiness so great she wondered that her feet still touched the floor. With sorrow that this man she so adored would never meet her father, mother, or brothers. And with thanksgiving that she had found such a loyal, loving new family here.

  Her vision blurred with tears. Ami bit her lip, blinked the moisture back, and smiled. “I’m willing. I’m very willing.”

  Eyes flaring bright amber, Marcus ducked his head and brushed his lips against hers in a tender kiss, then turned to the others. “Seth, David, Darnell ... I respectfully ask your permission to wed Amiriska, your daughter, your sister,”—he met each of their eyes in turn—“and give you my word that I will love and cherish her always, put her happiness before my own, and protect her with my life forevermore.”

  Seth held out his hand. “You have my permission, Marcus. I wish you both every happiness.”

  David offered his hand next. “You have my permission as well and my congratulations on losing your heart to a woman unequaled.” He smiled at Ami. “You’ve chosen an honorable man, Ami. I could not be happier for the both of you.”

  Darnell pulled Marcus into a jubilant hug. “Welcome to the family. This has been a long time coming.” He grinned as he stepped back. “Apparently you were just waiting for the perfect woman.”

  Then it was Ami’s turn to be enclosed in large, muscled arms and passed to the next set as her surrogate family expressed their pleasure over her finding so much happiness after enduring such a horrific initiation to this world.

  Ami wiped her damp cheeks as she turned back to Marcus.

  Marcus kissed her again, then dropped to both knees. Slipping one hand into his pocket, he withdrew a ring. “Most women in our society prefer gold and diamonds,” he began, uncertainty creeping into his expression and dimming the happiness there. “But, knowing what I do of your world, I wanted this to be not an expression of wealth or status but a true symbol of our union.”

  He held up a small, wide silver band whose only ornamentation lay in a dark inscription of some sort. “While gold is weak and malleable, silver is strong.”

  She smiled. “Like the love we share.”

  A hint of relief touched his returning smile. “Yes.”

  She pointed to the dark markings etched into the gleaming metal. “I don’t recognize these symbols.”

  “It’s Hebrew. The Scripture of Ruth, taken from the Bible. Loosely translated it means: Where you go, I will follow. Your home will be my home. Your family will be my family. Your people will be my people. And I mean that, Ami. I never want to be parted from you again. Should you at some point in the future find a way to return to Lasara, I will abandon my life here without a single regret and accompany you.”

  “Marcus ...”

  “Until such time ... my home is your home, Ami. My family”—he glanced at their smiling audience—“is your family. My people are your people.” He took her left hand in his and slid the heavy band over her ring finger. “Will you marry me?”

  Overwhelmed, she nodded. “I will.” Throwing her arms around his neck, she buried her face in the warm skin above his collar. “I love you so much.”

  His strong arms squeezed her closer as he rose. “I love you, too.” He sounded as choked up as she felt. “I’ve waited so long for you, Ami.”

  After a long moment, Darnell cleared his throat and murmured, “Come on, guys, don’t make me cry, too.”

  Ami laughed and released her hold.

  Marcus took her hand, iridescent eyes glistening, lips curled in a happy smile.

  “Thank you for this.” Ami motioned to the nattily-garbed men and the floral plants in the room. “And for this.” She held her hand out to display the ring. “I love it.”

  “I know it would’ve been very different on Lasara, but ...”

  “It was perfect,” she vowed and meant it.

  “I’d like to include as many Lasaran customs as we can in the wedding ceremony.”

  “Thank you, Marcus.” Happily, she swung his hand between them as she eyed her family. “All of you, thank you.”

  Seth grinned and rubbed his hands toget
her. “Well then. Let’s celebrate, shall we?”

  Cheers and eager agreement ensued.

  Seth and David suddenly turned their heads toward the front of the house. A couple of seconds later, Marcus did as well.

  Seth sighed. “One evening! Can’t we have one evening off?”

  Ami heard the front door open.

  “Reordon,” Chris called from the foyer, announcing his entrance. “Hey, where is everybody?”

  Since none of the men seemed inclined to answer, Ami called, “In here, Chris.”

  The thump of boots hitting bamboo flooring preceded his appearance in the doorway. As soon as he saw them, his eyebrows shot up. “What’s going on?” His gaze met Ami’s. Concern flared. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  She laughed and swiped at her damp cheeks. “Marcus proposed to me. We’re getting married.”

  His rugged face lit up. “Hey, that’s great!” He strode forward, clasped Marcus’s arm, and pulled him into a man-hug. Then he turned and gave Ami a bone-cracking embrace. “Welcome to the family, Ami.”

  Chapter 19

  Marcus struggled not to growl as the other man hugged Ami. He hadn’t experienced this jealousy with Bethany. Probably because he had always thought of her as Robert’s woman. But with Ami, it hit him fast and hard whenever another man touched her or smiled at her or leered at her.

  Not that Chris was leering. But Marcus had seen other men do it. Ami was a beautiful woman.

  When Chris backed away, Marcus wrapped an arm around her and drew Ami into his side. She smiled up at him, glowing with happiness. Damn, he loved her. He always wanted her to be as happy as she was in that moment.

  “So,” Chris said, “I couldn’t help but notice the fancy spread in the dining room. Don’t suppose I could join the celebration, could I?”

  “Of course you can,” Ami said.

  Marcus met Chris’s gaze over her head. Though he seemed jovial enough, the man’s eyes revealed that whatever had brought him here tonight did not entail good news.

  Well, screw that. The next crisis could wait. Tonight was Ami’s night.

  Marcus pressed a kiss to her soft curls and led her from the room. While Ami had slept, he and the others had worked their asses off preparing a sumptuous feast they had then laid out on the long dining room table while she showered and dressed.

  A formal white tablecloth had been added, as well as their finest dinnerware, which wasn’t terribly fine. Crap tended to break a lot around here. Large men and dainty china didn’t mix well. But Darnell had dug up decorative napkins and other little adornments from who knew where that left the presentation looking damned good, if he did say so himself.

  “Oh my,” Ami breathed. “It’s beautiful. And there’s so much food! Will others be joining us?”

  “No,” Marcus said. “It’s all ours.” And they did their damnedest to eat every crumb.

  Seth took his usual place at the head of the table. Marcus and Ami sat close together on one side, thighs touching, arms brushing. David, Darnell, and Chris seated themselves on the other.

  Laughter and teasing abounded as platters and glasses emptied.

  “So, Chris,” Ami said, when much of the meal had been devoured, “tell us what brought you here tonight.”

  Chris choked on the forkful of salad he had just shoveled into his mouth. His eyes met Marcus’s and caught the warning in them. “What?” he asked and took a long drink of tea to stall. “Oh. I was just dropping by to ... hang out.”

  “It’s bad news, isn’t it?” Clearly, she didn’t buy it.

  “No,” he hedged.

  Marcus hoped he lied more convincingly as a cleaner, because right now he was about as convincing as Ami was when she lied.

  “Come on. Let’s have it,” she persisted.

  Chris met those pretty emerald eyes of hers and crumbled. After tossing Marcus a what-can-I-do look, he said, “You all know I have contacts in ... unusual places. Men and women in certain agencies whose jobs are so highly classified that even their spouses don’t know what their true professions are.”

  “That’s what makes you so invaluable,” Seth pointed out.

  Chris nodded his thanks. “Well, I went to all of these contacts as soon as we had the commander’s name, trying to find out as much as I could about Emrys and his soldiers, how far his reach extends, if he really is military, anything that would help us plot a course of action for stopping the group in its tracks and doing major damage control.”

  “What did you find?” Ami asked.

  He shook his head. “They’re gone. Disappeared without a trace.”

  “That’s not terribly surprising,” Marcus said. “Montrose Keegan is a civilian, and he managed to disappear and stay off the grid for—what—a year and a half?”

  Darnell nodded. “If these guys are some shadow branch of the military, they have the kind of connections that could keep them off the grid permanently, even shielding them from your moles in the agencies.”

  “That isn’t what he meant,” David said, “is it, Chris?”

  Chris sighed. “No. The commander and his shadow army aren’t gone. Or they could be, I suppose. I don’t know. I couldn’t find out anything about them because my contacts are gone. They are the ones who have vanished without a trace.”

  Everyone lowered their utensils and stared at him.

  “They’re gone?” Darnell repeated. “All of them?”

  “And their families.”

  Darnell looked at David, then back at Chris. “Is there any way whoever got to them can link your contacts to you?”

  “No, I’m always careful not to leave either a paper or a cyber trail. And all calls go through heavily encrypted lines. They have nothing at all that would give them any indication of my identity.”

  “What if your contacts are tortured?” Ami asked softly. “If the people who held me captive are the same ones who took your contacts ... You’ve read the files, Chris. You know what they did to me. They’ll make your friends talk.”

  Marcus scooted his chair closer to her and wrapped his arm around her.

  Chris looked sick at the idea of his agency friends suffering such a fate. “We didn’t use our real names. And they never initiated communication. I left a prepaid cell phone at a designated drop spot, then called them from another that couldn’t be traced.”

  No one spoke for a long moment.

  Seth cleared his throat. “This only confirms our suspicions that we are facing a far more sophisticated enemy now than we ever have before, one who can use technology and black-op forces to hunt us down.” He looked at Ami. “To hunt you down. It isn’t safe for you to remain here, sweetheart. I think you and Marcus should leave the country.”

  Ami stiffened. “You make it sound like I’m the only one they want. If that were true, they wouldn’t have drugged the immortals the night the vampire king captured me. They would have killed them. The last of the vampires just stood there, waiting for Marcus and the others to lose consciousness. Then they were going to move in and take them prisoner.”

  “Keegan wanted the immortals,” Seth stated. “This commander wants you.”

  She huffed in disbelief. “Do you honestly believe, after seeing the tape of the battle, that this man doesn’t want to get his hands on every immortal he can? Immortals are just as much of an anomaly as I am.”

  Marcus spoke up, his desire to defeat their enemies trounced by his need to keep Ami safe. “I’m sure he would like to get his hands on us, Ami. But we aren’t as vulnerable as you are. We’re immortal.”

  Her chin jutted out stubbornly. “Yes, you’re stronger. You’re faster. But, you’re conveniently forgetting just how hard it is to kill me.”

  Marcus stiffened.

  “You haven’t had a chance to read the files Darnell decrypted, the ones that detail the experiments they performed on me. If you had, you’d understand that I’m damned near as immortal as you are.”

  “I don’t want them getting their
hands on you,” he gritted out. He couldn’t stand the idea of her being tortured again and feared what it might do to her emotionally and psychologically.

  “They won’t,” she insisted.

  “You know we can’t guarantee that.”

  “If they catch me, you’ll rescue me.”

  He damned sure would. But what would happen to her before he found her?

  Marcus looked to the others for help.

  Darnell leaned forward, his face earnest. “The one fear you’ve been unable to overcome, Ami, is your fear of doctors and labs. It’s still nearly paralyzing in its intensity. Are you really prepared to risk ending up in one of their labs again?”

  Damn. Marcus was glad he hadn’t been the one to ask that question. Ami loathed the fear the butchers had instilled in her and would not appreciate its being pointed out to her.

  “Yes,” she said. “I would.”

  Marcus stared at her in bewilderment. “Why?”

  She smiled and held up her left hand, the silver ring gleaming. “Have you forgotten so quickly? I go where you go, Marcus. Your family is my family. And family members don’t take off running to ensure their own safety and leave the others to fight when danger strikes. They stand together.”

  “Roland would dispute that,” Chris commented dryly. Ami smiled. But when she next met Marcus’s gaze, her pretty eyes turned flinty. “Besides, I want to help you catch the monsters who hurt me. And when we do ... I want to make them beg for the mercy they denied me.”

  He hadn’t thought of that: her need to seek and obtain justice.

  “We can’t deny her vengeance,” David stated.

  The other men nodded.

  Marcus didn’t like it, but had to agree. It was her right.

  Chris shook his head. “Brave as hell. Stubborn as a mule. Thirsty for revenge. She’s definitely one of the family.”

  Ami laughed with delight.

  The tension in the room eased. Hands reclaimed utensils and once more began carrying food to hungry mouths.

  Marcus touched Ami’s chin, drew her gaze back to his. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Are you angry?”