by J. R. Ward
He didn’t blame her.
18
WHEN NIGHTFALL FINALLY CAME, unhurried but on time, Ahmare was dressed and ready to go, standing in front of the way out, her weapons holstered around her body, her hair yanked back in a rubber band, her boots laced up and prepared to cover ground.
Behind her, on the far side of the partition that hid the toilet, Duran was emptying his bladder, something she had just done.
Odd, to feel like she was intruding on a private moment of his given that she couldn’t see around the partition, and hello—they’d had sex.
She closed her eyes and tried not to think of how it had ended. How they had awkwardly separated their bodies and then lain together on the cold, hard floor, the fit that had seemed so perfect, so seamless, now marked with knees and ribs, elbows and chins.
Are you okay?
Yes, are you?
She couldn’t remember who had asked and who had answered. But she recalled returning to her bunk and him going back to his place on the floor across the way, their clothes hastily pulled on, Wite-Out to take care of a blunder at the typewriter.
Which blunder, though? Not the sex. She had no regrets there.
Are you okay?
Yes, are you?
Who had asked that first? Maybe it had been at the same time, and as for answers, were they both lying? She had been—she hadn’t been okay and wasn’t now—but the last thing she wanted was for him to feel compelled to take care of her.
As it was oh so very clear he was the one who needed to be looked after.
Maybe Duran was right. Maybe she was a healer at her core and so the idea that he’d had to hurt himself to orgasm made her heart ache.
Or perhaps her compassion was less to do with who she was than how she felt about him. Somehow, in the quiet moments in the bunker, she’d gotten attached to Duran, proof positive that emotional ties could strengthen in two ways: amount of time together or intensity of experience. And no one could argue they weren’t in that second bucket of relationship building.
“You all set?”
When he spoke behind her, she jumped—like he might read her mind and know what she was thinking of. Covering her tracks, she made a show of turning around and facing him head-on, as if she didn’t have things she wanted to hide from him, things like how she was worried about him. As well as sad, heartbreaking questions about what those guards might have done to him—
Oh, to hell with that, she knew what had been done to him. He’d told her he wasn’t a virgin, and she feared that was only partially true. The wonder and surprise he’d shown when he’d entered her had clearly been because, at least in that way, it had been his first time.
Are you okay?
Yes, are you?
As their eyes met, everything about Duran was remote, his expression, his stare, even his big body, which somehow seemed totally self-contained. He’d cut off his hair—his lush, beautiful hair—in a series of hacks with her hunting knife, and she had to ignore the way the lengths lay on the floor like trash. Like they didn’t matter. Like they hadn’t been a part of him, grown from him and now ruined.
Then again, the circumstances under which—
“Are you ready,” he prompted again.
She cleared her throat. “Yes, I am.”
He nodded and entered a code on a panel. There was a hiss, and her nose tingled as the smell of the cave, of wet dirt and old mold, entered like it had wanted to come inside all along and conquer new, previously denied territory.
Ahmare went first without waiting for a plan from him. She just needed some fresh air, and she almost made it all the way through the tight-squeeze of the cave. Before she was out, though, Duran caught her by the shoulder, dropping his hold the second she stopped.
“I need to go first,” he whispered. “If you get killed because Chalen’s guards are waiting for us, or the Dhavos knows we’re here, no one’s saving your brother.”
“And if you get killed, I have no clue where I’m going.”
“I’m going first. Wait for my signal.”
As he pushed past her and stepped out into the humid night, she stuck right on his heels, a gun in one hand, her knife in the other. That trigger box, which she now hated, was holstered at her waist. She’d thought about leaving it behind because she was not worried about him turning on her. Still, he might run off, or at least try to, although she didn’t want to think about dropping him to the ground just to keep him with her—
Duran stopped short and glared at her. “What the hell are you doing?”
Even though he was talking softly, his expression put plenty of volume in his words.
“I’m not getting left behind.”
He pointed over her shoulder. “Get back in there.”
“No.” She met him right in the angry eye. “And PS, I’m not some young for you to order around, so you can cut that attitude right now.”
“You think I’m going to take off on you.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You’re lying. And I gave you my word.”
You told me you wouldn’t hurt me, she thought. Not the same.
“I need you,” she said. “That’s my reality. You want to talk about trust? Then tell me where we’re going—”
Abruptly, they both looked up the mountain flank at the same time. The scents of three males were obvious in the descending breeze.
The prisoner took her arm in a hard grip and pulled her behind a hemlock tree. “You get your ass back in there and let me take care of this.”
“No.” She glared at him. “I’m a helluva shot. You need me even if your ego says you don’t—and spare me the he-man bullcrap.”
Tension crackled between them, made worse because there were so many things unsaid.
“I’m not arguing with you,” he said.
“Good, the less we talk, the better.”
He clearly meant it in the other way, as in there was no discussion because he was right and that was that. But surprise! Free will applied to females, too—
“Hold on,” she said as she refocused on the trees ahead. “They’re shifting their positions.”
Duran got quiet, narrowing his eyes even though his nose, like hers, was what was doing the work.
Sure enough, the scents were coming at a different angle now and not because she and Duran had jumped behind the hemlock.
“You said Chalen tried to get the location of his beloved from you.” She kept her voice down. “So assuming they’re his guards, they’re just tracking us. They’re not going to kill us—at least not until we lead them where Chalen wants to go himself.”
Fury darkened Duran’s stare. “There’s an easy solution to this.”
He took off at a dead run without any warning, his powerful body bursting out from behind the tree so fast, there was no way she could have grabbed onto him—not that she was strong enough to hold him back anyway.
With a curse, Ahmare dematerialized and triangulated a short ascent that put her directly behind, and upwind of, the trio of males. Sure enough, they were dressed in Chalen’s uniform, and taking cover behind a group of boulders. No weapons out, but there were knives all over them.
The second she resumed form, her scent registered to them, and the guards wheeled around.
“I can’t have you with us, boys.” She shook her head as she pointed her gun at them. “Please don’t make me have to take care of this problem—”
The crashing and crunching sounds of something huge barreling through the forest got loud and grew louder, Duran’s approach like a tank crushing all that was in its path.
She spoke faster. “I’m going to ask you to leave. If I find you anywhere near us again, I will take it as an attack even if there are no weapons in your hands. Do you understand me?”
They didn’t have time to respond. Duran arrived with a roar, and as he went for the guard on the right, Chalen’s males palmed daggers.
Their former prisoner was too fast for them.
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Duran picked up the first guard he came to and spun around, going discus on the male, slinging him into a tree. As a terrible crack sounded out—like the trunk split from the impact—he smiled like pure evil at the other two, fangs descending.
“I know you,” he growled. “Both of you.”
His attack on those who had hurt him was vengeance in motion, payback for suffering he had endured, and it was bloody and ugly, limbs bitten clean through, bones broken, heads split on knee and by elbow. The damage was one-sided. All one-sided.
Ahmare shrank back from the fight, especially as Duran killed one by twisting the head so far around that bloodshot, bolt-wide eyes stared out over the guard’s own shoulders. It was too close to Rollie. But there was no looking away or leaving, even as the second guard tried to drag himself out of range, his hands clawing at the fallen pine needles and the loose, muddy earth to put distance between him and his previous prisoner.
The male didn’t have a chance.
As Duran shoved the loose, dead body of the guard with the over-the-shoulder stare aside, he roared, the animal Ahmare had first witnessed in that cell not only out of its cage, but free of any restraints of decency that civilized vampires held.
There was no stopping him—but she didn’t even think to, and not because she was afraid of being collateral damage. His violence made her think about that trigger box and how he’d had to use it to orgasm. How he’d strained and concentrated and tried to find that which should have been a natural and beautiful consequence of making love . . . and in the end, had needed pain to find his release.
It was because of what these males had done to him.
Are you okay?
Yes, are you?
And now, I know you. Both of you.
Healer she may have been, but she didn’t feel the need to save people from the consequences of being evil and doing wrong. And this was so personal, so visceral, that all of Duran’s weapons stayed holstered. This was blood for blood, pain for pain, not a bullet shot from an arm’s length away, not a quick-and-it’s-over stabbing.
Duran launched himself in the air and pounced on the clawing guard’s back. Grabbing a fistful of hair, he yanked back, bared his fangs, and bit into the throat he’d exposed. As he tore flesh away, an arc of arterial blood soared into the air before falling on the ground like paint splashed.
Now Ahmare turned away and put her hands over her mouth. She wasn’t sure what she was holding in. Screaming. Crying. Cursing.
So much to choose from.
God, she didn’t know how much more she could take.
19
SILENCE.
No, there was breathing, Ahmare realized dimly: Her own, which was high and quick, just the top of her lungs doing the work, and Duran’s, which was deep and ragged. She was still wrenched away from him, still with her hands up to her mouth, still . . . with a feeling that she couldn’t handle much more.
To get rid of a wave of light-headedness, she forced a long inhale, and that was when the meaty smell of fresh blood and flesh really hit her. Dropping her palms, she knew she had to turn back around so—
Dearest . . . Virgin Scribe.
In the midst of Duran’s fang attack, he had flipped the body over, and the carnage was . . . you couldn’t even tell what the anatomy had been before his canines had struck. And even now, when there was no more life, at all, in the body of that guard, he was still crouched over his kill like he was waiting for reanimation.
“Duran?” she said.
With a jerk, he looked over at her, his wild eyes unfocused and unblinking, his lower face dripping with blood, his teeth stained red.
“He’s gone,” Ahmare choked out. “He’s not . . . alive anymore.”
Duran blinked a number of times. Then looked down at the male underneath him. There was a strangled curse, and Duran fell off to the side, his body landing on his shoulder so that he and the corpse met eyes, one living, one dead, both fixated on the other for two totally different reasons.
Duran put his hands up to his face and rolled onto his back. Then he was twisting again, moving away from the body and onto his hands and knees. As his head hung, she thought he was going to throw up. He did not.
He reminded her of the way she’d been after Rollie. In shock. Horrified. And it brought her even closer to him. His reaction meant that even though he’d lost it, he hadn’t lost himself. Not permanently, anyway. People should be affected by death, especially if they’re responsible, no matter the reasons, no matter the justifications.
“Get their weapons,” he said hoarsely. “We can always use more.”
“Okay.”
She was glad for the job. At least until she realized she would have to get near the dead bodies. Steeling herself, she found three daggers, two in the blood-soaked ground, and another on the guard that had had his neck broken. There was no way she was going to pat down the guard that had been savaged. Her stomach was fisting up already—
There was one more to check.
The male who had been thrown against that tree was still alive. Even though he’d hit the trunk like a car that had lost traction on a winter’s turn, he was not just breathing, but aware enough that he shrank back against the pine that had nearly paralyzed him.
Beneath a smudge of red hair, his face was young, and his terrified expression suggested that he’d never seen anything so graphic or violent in his life. His mouth was gaping, little clicking noises coming out as his tongue worked against his teeth, but without a voice box, he could not audibly beg for mercy.
He reminded her of Ahlan: Over his head. Drowning.
About to be killed.
Ahmare approached him with caution, her gun pointed at his chest. “Give me your knife.”
As soon as she gave the order, he fumbled with the weapon on his belt, dropping it. Picking it up. Offering it to her hilt down.
“Toss it to my feet,” she commanded.
He complied, and she bent over and picked the weapon up, keeping her muzzle on him.
“Any guns?” Duran asked roughly.
In the periphery of her vision, she saw that he was sitting cross-legged now and had wiped his face on his sleeve, his cheeks and chin cleaner, his shirt no different because so much blood had been spilled by him.
“Only knives.” She kept her focus on the remaining guard. “One each.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No.” She glanced over. “Why is that a surprise?”
“Toss me one.” When she sent the one she’d picked up over at him, there was a pause. “Sonofabitch. They’re not working for Chalen.”
“What?”
Duran’s voice was getting clearer, calmer and closer to normal with every word he spoke. “Chalen keeps careful control over all weapons in his compound. I can remember when they would work on me, it was always an issue about where to find a blade or a gun or a sword on the fly without having to ask the conqueror. They’d get frustrated by this. The only guards who were regularly armed were the ones who monitored the exits and the arsenal.” He held up what she’d thrown. “These are handmade shanks. They made them on their off-duty time, probably from cutlery they stole from meals. They are working independently or they’d have better daggers.”
“Is this true?” she asked the remaining guard.
The male nodded.
“So you decided to follow us on your own,” she prompted. When he shook his head, Duran started to speak, but she talked over him. “You’re not the only ones following us.” This got a nod. “And you want to stay away from the official trackers because if they find you, you’re dead.”
“He’s dead anyway,” Duran said grimly. “I’ll see to it myself—”
“Wait,” she cut in as Duran got to his feet. “Hold on. Do you recognize this guard?”
Duran came over, his bulk making her feel like she had no control over him—no, actually, that was his mood, not his size, the threat of deadly violence returning to the hard cut of
his jaw and the clench of his fists.
“I don’t,” he said after a moment. “But that doesn’t fucking matter—”
“Yes, it does.” She refocused on the guard. “Can you stand?”
The young male nodded and got to his feet. It was obvious one of his legs wasn’t working right, but other than that, he seemed relatively fine.
“Go,” she told him—
“What the fuck!” Duran exploded.
She didn’t acknowledge the curse. “Dematerialize now and do not follow us anymore—”
“I’ll kill him before—”
Ahmare slapped her palm onto the center of his chest and wadded up the front of his bloodstained shirt. Jerking him down from his towering height, she put herself between him and the guard.
“If he didn’t hurt you, let him go.”
Duran bared his fangs. “He works for Chalen. You remember, the warlord who is going to kill your fucking brother!”
Ahmare shook her head. “No deaths unless absolutely necessary. In the event I live through this, I’m going to have find peace with what we do for the rest of my nights. And I will not abide killing for the sake of killing. If he didn’t hurt you, if he wasn’t one of the guards who was in that dungeon with you, you don’t get to take his life. That’s not revenge. That’s evil and no different than Chalen. I will not be a part of it.”
She kept hold of Duran and pivoted back toward the guard. “Go now. If I see you again, or if he does, I will not stop what comes to you. Do you understand me. This is your warning. I will not step in again and save you.”
The young guard nodded. Took a deep breath.
And dematerialized.
As he left, Duran shoved her away and stalked around. When he stopped, it was on the far side of the guard he’d destroyed.
“This is what they’re going to do to your brother.” He jabbed his finger at the corpse. “And you just sent a guard back who knows exactly where we are—and may even know where we spent the day if he saw us come out of hiding.”
“I have no regrets.”
Duran leaned over his kill, hands on hips, chin tilted down so his eyes glowed under his prominent brows. “You will. I promise you, you are going to regret what you just did, and more than likely, your brother is going to pay the price for your misplaced compassion.”