by Lisa Olsen
“It was a bloody terrible risk. You didn’t have to do any of that. You didn’t owe him Sanctuary. You could’ve closed your door and let him clean up his own mess. And to call attention to our… our bond… that was foolhardy at best.”
“You’re wrong, I absolutely had to do those things.”
“Why? Don’t you realize what you done?”
This time I didn’t let him turn away from my touch. “I fought for what’s mine.”
Rob kissed me fast and hard as if staking his claim over me. I made a sound in the back of my throat and he shushed me with his possessive mouth even as his touch devastated my self control. A zip, a strategic shift, and he surged into me, his low growl of satisfaction telling me he was just as lost as I was. This time I pierced his flesh first as my legs wrapped around him, and he didn’t waste any time doing the same. This was the exact opposite of the soft, torturously slow pace we set in his bedroom. There was nothing soft or slow about the way he rammed into me again and again, and I reveled in it, his desperate need feeding my own. Trapped between the hard wall and the press of his body, his hips tilted against mine in jolts of pleasure that curled my toes as I pulled him deeper and harder against me.
It ripped through me in the space between one breath and the next, our bodies so attuned I felt him shudder and spasm within me as the first throb of my release hit. I was drowning in him, breathing him in, tasting him, losing myself so completely I thought I might never be the same again and I never wanted it to end.
Gradually I became aware of the fact that we’d somehow made it to the bed, though I was still coiled tightly around him. “We can’t keep doing this… it’s madness,” he breathed heavily, burying his head in my neck.
“I’ll take that kind of madness any day,” I sighed, unwilling to give up the bliss yet. “Jakob’s not here, Maggie already knows how we feel about each other and you trust Lee, don’t you?”
“I do, but we can’t be together openly like this, not if we expect to live for very long. There’s others in this building, I can feel them below us.”
“Nobody has to know what goes on behind closed doors. Besides, you know they’re all assuming we’re doing this anyway, right? You saw Jakob’s face when he found out I’d turned you. Certain things are assumed between Sire and progeny.”
I could see him turning that over in his head. “Still, I think we should keep our distance.”
I pulled back to stare at him in shock. “You don’t mean that. I know you want to be with me and we finally have our chance to be together. Nobody has to know it’s more than physical between us.”
“Still, when we’re in public you ought not to treat me as more than your employee.”
Ugh, were we back to that again? “I think you have some sort of fetish for calling me miss. That’s what this is, isn’t it?” I teased. “Rob, everybody knows you’re more than an employee to me already. At the very least they know we’re friends, and everyone knows I’ll do anything for my friends.”
“Anything?” His brows rose as he leaned down and kissed my shoulder.
“I’m open to suggestions,” I grinned back, flexing inner muscles that made the hunger come back into his gaze, but he tamped it down just as quickly.
“Then agree to keep it simple between us in public.”
That didn’t sound too bad. As long as he was done fighting me while we were in private. “It’s not what I want, but I can understand what you’re saying. If you want me to play it cool while we’re in public that’s fine, for now.”
“This ain’t about what we want, it’s about staying alive long enough to get to where we can be with each other as we please.”
“Do you really think we’ll ever get there?”
“We have to.” His face softened as he brushed his knuckles across my cheek with longing. “Otherwise… what’s the point of all this then, yeah?”
I nodded, running my hands through my hair as I laid back against the pillow. I felt awfully mussed, even though I couldn’t see myself in a mirror. “Alright. We’ll keep up the act – for now – whenever we’re out and about. But when we’re alone…”
“Then there ain’t a power in the ‘verse can keep me from you.”
God, I loved that man.
*
The sun felt warm on my limbs, lulling me into a drowsing state. I knew I should go inside before I started to freckle, but it felt so pleasant, I couldn’t bring myself to move. A figure stepped into the path of the sun, casting me in shadow and I opened my eyes to see a golden halo of hair set over broad shoulders.
Jakob? “Good afternoon, may I help you?” May I help you? Why had I said that? What was I doing lying on a chaise lounge in the garden covered from head to toe in muslin and lace? What the heck was going on?
“I certainly hope so,” Jakob purred, his teeth dazzlingly white and I lifted my eyes to shield them from the glare.
Why couldn’t I move or say what I wanted to? It was almost like I was watching a movie, only trapped inside one of the actors. “I’m sorry, do I know you, sir?”
“No, but I am well acquainted with your husband.”
I felt her smile, instantly easing. I had to think of her as a her and not me, since I didn’t feel at all like me whenever she spoke, despite the fact that we were both trapped in the same body. “Shall I send one of the servants to fetch him?”
“No, I think I can manage to get his attention on my own.” Jakob seized me by the throat, hard enough to make me gasp in surprise, only I couldn’t draw in any air. Panic set in at once as my hands scrabbled ineffectively at his arm. Where was my strength? My training? I flailed about kicking and scratching like a feral cat but it didn’t do a lick of good.
“Lodinn!” he thundered. “Come to me now and fight like a man and she may yet live!”
Lodinn? This was about their stupid grudge match? Wait… was this about when he killed her? Did that mean he was about to kill me too? Bright pinpricks of light swam in my peripheral vision as my body started to feel the lack of air. “Please…” I gasped in little more than a croak. “Have mercy…”
When the pressure didn’t ease I thought at first that Jakob hadn’t heard my protests, but his expression told another story. “I will show you the same mercy he gave our kind,” he growled, his face dark with fury as he gave me a terrible shake. There was a crunching sound. It was loud, obliterating the birdsong, the breeze, and then all I could see was the sky. My body went slack, or at least I thought it did. I couldn’t feel the weight of it any longer.
There was no pain, but I felt his cheek against mine, the curious sensation of his long hair falling across my field of vision as he bent his head to my neck. Those golden strands cast shadows across the pale blue heavens that grew deeper and darker with every pull on my throat. She couldn’t understand it, but I did. She no longer felt the terror of strangulation, only a sad confusion that grew as she realized Lodinn had not come. He’d abandoned her to this strange fate. When the darkness came she welcomed it, slipping into oblivion without a fight.
Wrenching free from her body, I hovered midair as Jakob howled his frustration into the tranquil afternoon sky. I could see her clearly now, mahogany ringlets in disarray, her head lolling at an odd angle. Her neck was brutally savaged, gaping and bloody but her beautiful face was a mask of perfect serenity in death.
“That’s how he killed her.” Lodinn’s voice came from beside me as everything around us froze and I found myself in my own body, in control of my own movements again. He stared down at the pair, his face impassive.
“How did you… is this a dream?” It was perfectly rendered in startlingly crisp detail, from the scent of lilacs in the air to the blades of the grass under my bare feet.
“It’s more nightmare than dream, but you can call it that, yeah,” he replied softly, approaching the pair at the chaise lounge. “Do you know what that bastard did next? I’ll spare you the mental picture, I wish like hell I could un-see it.”
To my surprise the shine of tears appeared in his eyes and I tried not to guess what horrors he’d hidden from me. Jakob had made it sound like he’d accidentally shot Lodinn’s wife while hunting him down, but there was nothing accidental about this. If any of it was true. Was Lodinn capable of such deceit? The pain in his face told me no, until I realized a flaw in the scene.
“But… you weren’t there. You don’t know what was said, or how she felt. This isn’t a real memory. Maybe this isn’t how it happened at all.”
Lodinn whirled on me, his face twisted with rage. “This is how she died. Every terrified moment waiting for me to come and save her, every last horrifying second while he choked the life from her.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I’ve seen it again and again in my nightmares.” He made a swiping motion and Jakob disappeared from sight, leaving only his wife’s ruined corpse. “This is how I found her, the rest I pieced together from the frightened servants,” his voice trembled as he sank down on the grass beside her body. “This is Jakob’s legacy.”
I didn’t fully understand what had happened at the beginning of the dream, but I knew it didn’t match his perception. “She didn’t… I didn’t feel horror at the end when I was with her. She didn’t understand what he was doing to her and she missed you, but she wasn’t in pain at the end.”
“Don’t try to make it less than it was,” he said dully. “You don’t know what she felt.”
“You’re right, I don’t know what she felt, I only know what I experienced when you brought me here,” I allowed, looking around when he ignored me. I had no idea what part of the world we were in, only that it was a flawless, sunny afternoon and the grounds were well maintained but I couldn’t see the house. “Your wife was human?” Somehow I’d thought she would be a vampire or maybe even another Ellri, but she’d been far too weak and fragile. “She was beautiful.”
“That was just her outsides. She was… perfection.” His hands were gentle as he set her head at a more natural angle, laying her hands to clasp above her abdomen, tugging down her dress. “I know I’ve done things, violent things. Maybe I even deserved Jakob to come after me the way he did. But I didn’t deserve this.”
“No one does.” I felt a stab of pity for the man, until I remembered he was no better than Jakob in his quest for revenge. “Can’t you see you’re doing the same thing? First Carys, now me… using us to get to Jakob isn’t the right thing to do.”
“Ah, the lovely Carys.” His lips twisted into the familiar smirk as he straightened, pushing up to stand beside me. “And here I thought you of all people would be glad to see her go. I did a favor to the world in keeping her from it.”
Okay, so maybe Carys deserved what she’d gotten, but I didn’t want to go down that path. It was way too hard to draw the line the moment we started debating who deserved to live and who deserved to die.
“This won’t bring her back, you know it won’t.”
“But it will set her soul at peace.”
“Do you actually think it would make her happy to see you so twisted and tortured after all these years?”
“There is no such thing as happiness.”
“You know that’s not true. Think of your time with her.”
“That was just a lure, on the road to more pain.”
“No, you’re looking at it the wrong way.” I turned him away from her body to look him in the eye. “Those are the moments that make life worth living, not revenge.”
A smile stretched across his face, but not because he’d seen the truth in my words. “God, you really are a Pollyanna, aren’t you? What’s next? Do you want to play the glad game?”
“Lodinn, I’m begging you, let us go. Move on and live the ultimate revenge – by finding happiness.”
“Sorry, Polly, no can do.” Lodinn backed away from me, his hands coming up in the shape of mock guns which both pointed at me. “Find Jakob for me before I start to lose my patience.”
Chapter Eighteen
Only one thing could’ve ruined the unfamiliar but sweet feeling of waking up next to Rob, and that was the dose of reality flashing on my phone. Three missed calls, two voicemails and one text. Somehow, I knew they couldn’t be good.
The missed calls were all from Jakob, so were the voicemails. The first one ranting about how it was unacceptable for me to have disappeared like a thief in the night, which only made me glad I’d made the decision to leave. Living with him would’ve been insufferable. But the second message surprised me, as a very contrite and controlled Jakob apologized for his previous outburst and made a respectful plea for me to come home where it was safe. Had someone sprinkled Xanax on his røkt laks?
I half expected the text message to be from Jakob too, but instead it came from Lodinn, reminding me that the strange dream I’d had the night before was less my own imagination as it was his not so subtle way of trying to sway me to his side. But there was no attempt to woo me in this message. It simply read: Bring him to me, my patience is growing thin. I’d hate to have to make another example. It included an address and the final words – Notice how I’m not hiding one little bit?
More than anything I wanted to talk things over with Rob, but I knew he’d still be out cold for at least an hour. So instead I took a long, hot shower and went into the kitchen to make myself some tea. I could hear Maggie up and on the phone in one of the other rooms, keeping busy as usual, and Lee sat sprawled on the sofa scanning a newspaper.
“Any good news in there?” I asked, folding myself into a nearby chair.
“That depends on where you’re lookin’.” He slid a folded section across the coffee table to me. “That Beetle Bailey’s a hoot and a half, ain’t he?”
I smiled, picking up the funny pages to glance over them. Ordinarily I enjoyed reading the comics, but there wasn’t much to laugh over that night.
“Don’t you fret, darlin’, these things have a way of workin’ themselves out,” he said after I tossed the pages back on to the table.
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d had your head invaded last night.” Then again, maybe he couldn’t understand the feeling at all. From what I understood, it was rare for a vampire to be able to compel a shifter, so maybe he wasn’t used to having to worry about stuff like that. “Can you do that amongst yourselves, by the way? Do werewolves have any of the mental powers that vampires do?”
“Nah, we’re more primal than that. We ain’t got no use for mind games.”
“That sounds refreshing. You know, I don’t actually know all that much about you guys. I don’t suppose you’d mind answering a few questions?” Maybe it would help keep my mind off of things until Rob woke up and we could make a plan.
Lee folded up the paper and laid it across his knee, his scruffy cheeks stretching into a wider smile. “You go right ahead, I’m an open book.”
Man, I wished I had my list of questions but it was back at the house. Still, enough popped into my head that I wasn’t lacking for what to ask first. “Is it a thing you have to be born into or can you turn a regular human into a werewolf?”
“Mostly it follows the bloodlines. It ain’t a guarantee they’ll end up a shifter neither. It ain’t unusual for some members of the same family to shift while others never develop the ability. Take my daughter, she’s as human as they come, ‘cept to someone who can smell the difference. But yep, sometimes a human survives bein’ bit and they’ll change come the moon, but mostly they just die. Maybe it has to do with if there’s any shifter buried in their lineage?” He shrugged.
“And what happens if you bite a vampire?”
“That all depends on if you let go or give him a shake,” he said with a wolfish grin. “He gets mighty belligerent, but there ain’t no changing a vamper into a shifter or any silliness like a hybrid critter if that’s what you’re askin’.”
It was, and I did feel silly for asking it, but how else would I find out? “Do you all shift into wolves or is it a bloodline thing wh
ere some of you turn into bears or ferrets or something? Or can you turn into other things too?”
“It’s a bloodline thing, wolves bein’ the most common for some reason. On a rare occasion you’ll find a shifter who ain’t limited to one form, but it ain’t common at all. Ain’t never run into no were-ferret, but I’ll keep my eye out,” he winked.
“Do you have to change whenever there’s a full moon?” I had visions of Scooby-Doo cartoons in my head, the cloud cover obscuring the moon long enough for the werewolf to shift into a normal person (clothing included) only to change back again once the clouds parted.
Lee chuckled low and deep. “The young pups do, but most of us learn control after a few cycles.”
That was handy and cut back on my plans to install a dungeon down in the basement to chain him up once a month. “Can you change any time you want or does it have to be at night?”
“I can change any time I want. It don’t have to be a full change neither. Take a gander at this.” He held up his hand which shriveled into itself, fingers shrinking closer together and stubbier as dark fur covered the top of his hand. His nails thickened and turned black until an enormous paw sat at the end of his arm, quick as anything.
“Sweet sassy molassy… That’s…” It had to be the creepiest thing I’d ever seen, but I didn’t want to offend him, he looked so proud. “Does it, um… hurt?”
“A full change does, but that ain’t more’n a tickle.”
I didn’t know what to say, all I wanted him to do was change it back so I could stop looking at it. “Ah, thanks for showing me, it’s really neat.” Something must’ve shown in my voice because he chuckled again as he willed the change back to a normal hand.
“Any time, darlin’. I’d strip down and show you proper, but I don’t like to show off overmuch.”
As much as I wouldn’t have minded seeing that, he said it’d hurt, so I kept myself from asking, coming up with another question instead. “Can vampires drink shifter blood?”