Tara

by Jennifer Bene

  “Why do you say that?” He wanted to run his hands through it like she did, and he wondered if it was as soft as it looked. If the weight of it was what he imagined.

  “It’s been a very long time since anyone turned me down, even longer since someone turned around when I undressed. And with Dreamland in your pocket?” She smirked and shook her head, sending those waves over her shoulders. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone who would have passed up the opportunity. Not in centuries.”

  “I told you I won’t touch you.” He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to stop talking, “And I’m so sorry about the handcuffs. I didn’t know if you’d stay put last night, but I saw what they did to you. I’m just sorry. I won’t lock you up again.”

  “Promise?”

  He nodded against his hand before dropping it. “Yes.”

  She leaned across the shifter and pressed a quick kiss to his lips, one of her hands cupping his cheek where he knew the faint shadow of stubble brushed against her palm. He was so shocked he just sat there when she leaned back. Her cheeks had a bright blush as she whispered, “Thank you for that.”

  That clean smell of milk soap was floating in front of him like an aura she had left behind, shorting out his ability to think straight. He was pretty sure the smile on his face wasn’t his usual controlled smile though. “I won’t use the – the Dreamland either. I’ll throw it out when we get upstairs.”

  “You don’t have the other ones right?” She was touching her lips and it was incredibly distracting. Would it be wrong to kiss her again? Yes. He answered himself and then tried to focus on her question again.

  “What other ones?”

  “Oblivion and Torment?” She said the words so quietly it was like she had breathed them.

  “I don’t know what they are.”

  “Good. Please don’t take them if they offer them to you.” She looked back down at his phone and slid it into his messenger bag.

  “I promise I won’t, but will you tell me what they are? Just so I know. I’d never heard of Dreamland, but I know it’s a sedative.”

  Tara took a shuddering breath and stared at her lap, her hair falling in a curtain around her face. “Yes, Dreamland is a very strong sedative, it’s meant for non-humans. It’s always blue, and always injected.” She was toying with the edge of her skirt and then she seemed to make a decision to keep talking. “Oblivion is a clear liquid, and it can be put in food and drink. It’s tasteless, and it works on humans and non-humans. Let’s just say that Oblivion guarantees the person on it won’t say no, and even if they do, it won’t be much of a fight.”

  “And someone has given you Oblivion?” The rage that filled him made his hands shake.

  “Many times. It’s… popular.” Tara cleared her throat. “Torment is injected as well. It looks a little like silver clouds, if that makes sense. It lives up to its name though, it’s just pure pain.”

  “You’ve had that one too?” He felt sick to his stomach. If Luca had access to Dreamland, did he have those as well?

  “Only a few times, I try not to make my masters angry.” Her voice was so small, and he wanted to hold her and promise it wouldn’t happen again, but he was going to hand her over in just a day or two to someone who might have all three drugs. Who might use all of them.

  Alaric strongly considered being sick out the car door.

  “No one deserves that,” he said, and she looked up at him.

  “Does that matter?”

  She asked it so plainly that he wanted to shake her. He raised his voice, his temper getting the best of him in the moment, “Of course it matters! You’re not some object they can do whatever they want with, you’re a person!”

  “You actually believe that?”

  “Of course I do! What kind of person doesn’t?” He asked it a little too loudly, and then realized there was no reason she would think of him differently. He was a murderer. He killed people for money. He’d kidnapped her for money. He was exactly the type of person who would hurt her like that. “Despite my job, I would never use anything like that on you, or on anyone.” When he finished talking he felt exhausted, but she took his breath away with the small smile she gave him.

  “Your job doesn’t bother me, and while it surprises me that I do, for some reason I do believe you. Would you like to go inside?” She reached down and picked up his messenger bag, which went with him almost everywhere. The small laptop, his phone, one of the handguns, a garrote, a knife. Had anyone come for her while they were out, he would have killed them. Not because someone was paying him, but because he wanted her safe.

  You shouldn’t have taken this contract.

  Shut up, Alaric.

  “Yeah, let’s go in. We can order something for dinner before we go to meet Claude.” He took the messenger bag from her and opened the door. She kept her hands in her lap and he walked around to open the door for her. “You don’t have to wait for me if you want to get out.”

  “It bothered you last night, and it doesn’t bother me to wait.” She looked up at him as she got out and he shut the door. “I want you to trust me.”

  And he did. That was part of the problem.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tara was sitting on the couch watching something on the television with her iPod in her ears. She couldn’t hear the show with Linkin Park drumming in her head, but it was interesting to watch the actors interact with each other. Little mockeries of a so-called normal life – surprising situations, funny misunderstandings, cue the laugh track, roll the credits.

  She was trying not to stare at Alaric who was sitting with one ankle thrown over his knee to create a ledge to set that tiny laptop on. He was typing away, checking email, pulling up maps.

  “Where is he? My new master?” She asked it out loud as she was tugging one of the headphones out of her ear. Alaric practically flinched at the second question, but he answered her.

  “Morocco. I don’t know if we’ll have to go there or not, but Luca told me to be ready.” He looked up at her for a moment and then returned his eyes to the screen.

  “Who is Luca?” With a swipe of her thumb she turned off the music and he dropped his head back in the chair and cursed under his breath.

  “I can’t believe I said that name to you.” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, his fists clenched tight.

  “You’ve said it before, I just didn’t ask who he was, and it’s not like I’ll be able to tell anyone about him.” Curling her legs to her side she watched him sigh heavily.

  “He’s my boss.” Alaric ground his teeth together for a moment and then he looked at her. “But, honestly, he’s more than that.”

  “What do you mean?” Tara couldn’t keep track of his eye color, right now it was a darker green-brown, and his pupils were dilated in the dim light of the room.

  “He rescued me when I was in a really bad place. He gave me a place to sleep, a job to do, finished my education on his terms, which meant I wasn’t held back by the speed of the other kids. He’s one of the reasons I know so many languages.” Alaric minimized the map he had up on his screen, and then continued. “He basically adopted me.”

  “What about your parents?” She couldn’t help but be curious about him, and his life. She had been curious since he’d told her his job had started when he was twelve. She just wanted to know about him.

  “They’re both dead. Luca is all I’ve had since then… my sister lives with my aunt. She’s seventeen, but she doesn’t really know me.” He was staring down at the laptop, and she was shocked he’d told her any of it.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Catherine. Never Cat, or Caty. Catherine.” The edge of his mouth tilted up when he talked about her. His eyes met hers again. “Do you have family?”

  “I have about a hundred sisters in the Faeoihn across the world, but I don’t know where they are, or if they live.” She shrugged, because she had long since come to terms with that. “Eltera, my goddess, basically adopted m
e as well when I was offered to her. I had a big family though. Before Eltera.”

  “Offered to her?”

  “We were sacrificed to her so she could remake us into…” Tara gestured at herself. “…this.”

  “Whoa, sacrificed?” He sat up in the seat. “What do you mean?”

  Tara laughed and it felt good. Combined with having the chance to play the violin that day she hadn’t felt this relaxed in years. The concern on Alaric’s face was endearing. “This was a long time ago when the gods dealt in blood. Your modern gods seem happy with temples and churches. Eltera was – is – a goddess of nature, and when she wanted an army to bring peace to our lands she asked her faithful to sacrifice their daughters. We had to die for her to remake us – to make us immortal, and stronger, and faster. So we could fight for her.”

  “How did you die?” He was leaning forward in his seat, and she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had wanted to know any of this. Especially when they didn’t want something else from her.

  “My father slit my throat with one of Eltera’s stone blades.” Tara touched a hand to her neck as the memory flooded back. Her father’s long blond hair, the braid at his temple, the smile on his face when he’d kissed her cheek and told her how proud he was that Eltera had chosen her.

  “Your father?!” Alaric almost shouted, and she smiled again. He was so upset about something that had happened so long ago.

  “It was a great honor, and I went willingly. Very willingly. I had two other sisters, and she specifically told my father she wanted me. He dreamed it.” Tara smiled to herself when she remembered the shock on her younger sister’s face. “I am still proud to be Faeoihn, Alaric, and I’d pledge myself again if she asked.”

  His mouth opened and then he shut it, rubbing a hand over his face as he sat back in the chair. “I couldn’t imagine.” He stumbled over his words. “Not that you’re proud, you are incredible, you should be proud, I just couldn’t imagine dying that way.”

  She blushed a little. Incredible? He barely knew her. “Uh, thank you. But, it only hurt for a moment, and when I woke up I was immortal, and I was one of Eltera’s chosen. I was a warrior.” For a moment Tara felt the same pride she had when she’d stood on a battlefield with her sisters. Brave and brazen and powerful. Ready to meet whatever the world brought.

  “So, you can fight.” He stated it like a fact, not a hint of doubt in his voice. He believed her. She couldn’t stop smiling, and it was a real smile. Not one of the fake ones she’d practiced over the centuries.

  Alaric was unique. He was actually listening to her, and he was looking at her as if she were someone real, someone special. He had said he didn’t think of her as an object, and he’d apologized for the handcuff, and he’d lied to Luca about sedating her. That lie, to the man who was apparently like a father to him, surprised her the most. He’d chosen to protect her over his own loyalty to that man.

  No one did things like that for her.

  Not since Leonidas.

  Her heart pounded for a moment and she remembered the feel of his lips against hers in the car when she hadn’t been able to express her thanks in any other way.

  Why couldn’t he just keep her?

  Foolish wish.

  “Yes, I can fight.” She smirked before she continued. “I took down one of Gianni’s guards at the house when he tried to get me to go with him.”

  Alaric looked confused. “When?”

  “When you were going to the front door and I was in the hall with Sebastien’s body.”

  “You didn’t say anything about someone trying to take you, and, wait, you knew that guy I killed?” He looked so guilty suddenly. She’d long ago lost the tendency to feel guilty, after all, they would just as quickly have killed him.

  “Why would it have mattered if I told you? He was dead. And I knew everyone in Gianni’s security detail. I was there for six years, and trust me, Sebastien was a bastard and he deserved it. You shouldn’t feel guilty about it. He would have killed you too.” Tara coiled the headphones around the iPod and gripped it, remembering what it had taken to get it back.

  “Did he –” Alaric cut himself off and turned away.

  “I don’t think you want the answer to that.” Tara stared down at the white cord, flattening out the coils around the iPod and then letting them go again.

  “If you can fight, then why don’t you fight them? Why are you so –” He groaned. “- so okay with all of this?”

  “I can’t fight them,” she muttered. Alaric let out a frustrated shout and stood up. He dropped the laptop on the coffee table before interlacing his fingers behind his head, growling as he fumed and paced across the room.

  “Why, Tara? You have to give me more than that.”

  The only reason she even contemplated answering him was that he seemed to really care. The answers would only make everything harder for him, would only complicate his job, would only complicate everything.

  But… for some unknown reason she was going to answer him.

  “You’ve seen the good half of what I am, Alaric, the immortality, the way I heal every morning when Eltera sends her power out to me and I light up.” She laughed a little to herself, suddenly at a loss for words.

  How could she explain Gormahn’s curse? What words existed to make this mortal understand powers that hadn’t showed themselves for so long?

  Fuck it.

  “The other half of what I am is the curse, and when I have a master the curse shows itself as bands of light around my wrists. If I disobey, or even just piss them off, they activate and the pain is indescribable. Like fire and breaking bones and drowning all at the same time.”

  He stared at her from across the room and she untucked her legs and leaned forward.

  “I used to fight them. I used to fight the curse. I used to foolishly try and fight the power of a god. And then someone I loved died because I was too proud to accept who I am.” Tara winced. “I’m a slave, Alaric. No one can save me from that, it is what I am. And unless Gormahn decides to release all of us, which he’s never going to do, I will be a slave forever.”

  “But -”

  “Alaric, you’re only making this worse for yourself. I came to terms with it. I accept it, and it’s your job to deliver me to my next master. Neither of those facts are going to change.” She smiled bitterly, and he shouted a curse and walked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

  She didn’t know why after the conflict she felt so warm in her chest, even though it ached at the same time. No one had cared enough to get angry on her behalf in centuries, but while it was sweet of him, it didn’t mean anything.

  She might as well have been any nameless object, and he was the delivery truck.

  A handsome, kind, gun-toting delivery truck.

  May the gods damn it all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Alaric leaned on the counter in the bathroom trying to calm down as her words replayed in his head over and over.

  She was a slave. This was his job. Neither of those facts are going to change.

  As much as he wanted to ignore those things, Tara was right about one thing. He didn’t know a thing about gods and goddesses, and if they had the power to do everything she said? He couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t help her, and he had a job to do, and his job wasn’t one you just walked away from. Not without a bullet in your head.

  For about the hundredth time he wished he hadn’t taken this contract. He wished he’d turned Luca down. He wished Luca hadn’t even brought the job to him.

  Alaric turned and punched the wall, which did nothing more than bruise the hell out of his knuckles and make him curse again. He hadn’t lost control of his temper like this since he was a kid, Luca had taught him how important it was to be calm and collected all the time. To be blank, controlled, ready to act. He turned and leaned back against the wall.

  He wasn’t this guy. He was not the guy who just let bad things happen to women. He had promise
d to never stand idly by again.

  His mother’s features flashed in his mind and he covered his face with his hands.

  “Stop it. Get control of yourself.” He breathed the words against his palms and cringed as memories flooded in.

  There was no compartmentalization right now. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. His emotions were all over the place. He was in the past and the present, and both situations were equally messed up.

  There was a soft knock at the door. “Alaric?” God, her voice was lovely.

  When he lifted his head he realized his hands were damp. Shit, he was crying. Alaric knocked his head back against the wall. Get control.

  “I’ll be out in a minute. Everything is fine.” Liar, liar, liar. But Luca had always said he could lie through his teeth and maintain a smile. In fact, Luca seemed proud of that fact.

  Alaric pushed himself off the floor and sighed when he saw his red eyed, flushed face. Leaning on the bathroom counter again he realized he’d split one of his knuckles and shook his head at his reflection.

  “Idiot.” He muttered to himself as he turned the hot water on and cleaned up his hand before washing his face and shoving his hands through his hair.

  Time for a pep talk.

  Alaric met his eyes in the mirror, still red, but that would fade. He was going to meet Claude tonight, and get her papers started so he’d have them tomorrow. He’d update Luca with the progress. He’d keep her distracted, maybe take her back to the music shop. Then in a day or so he’d deliver her to the client, and then get completely drunk, and then maybe visit South America.

  He’d forget her. He would.

  Eventually.

  When he stepped out a few minutes later he’d calmed himself down, all his memories were neatly tucked away again, he had his plan in place and knew what he had to do. Tara was, of course, calm and collected, but now she was sitting in the chair he had been in, and she was looking at the laptop scrolling through it.

  Shit.

  “What are you doing?” The question came out harsher than he meant it to, but it was hard to maintain the cold composure when he had just put it back in place.