If this was Mila’s last day, I wanted to make it the best ever. After, I took her back to the penthouse and we made love for hours. Slow, sweet love that turned me inside out until it took all my self-control not to beg her to change her mind.
But she’d convinced me this was what she wanted. Now, difficult as it was, I tried to respect her decision.
Thursday evening, we flew out to Long Island along with my parents. I’d called ahead. My people had already dug a grave for Mila on a cliff overlooking the ocean.
As we exited the helicopter, I placed a hand on her lower back. “I bought this house for you, you know.”
“I knew it.” Her eyes shone up at me.
“There’s even a couple of acres for you to start your organic flower farm. You can sell them right here on the island. People in the Hamptons will snap them up.”
“Oh.” She drew a ragged breath, and then elbowed me in the side. “Don’t make me cry, damn it.”
I just gathered her closer and ignored the sting in my own eyes.
Tradition calls for a transition candidate to wear a shade of red. We’d bought Mila a pretty summer dress at an exclusive Manhattan designer. While I got dressed in my suite, my mom helped Mila change in the rooms next door.
A little before sunset, I knocked on the door. “Ready?”
It was Mila who opened it. My lungs compressed. I barely noticed my mom standing behind her, smiling mistily at us both.
“You look…beautiful.”
“You think?” She grinned and twirled in a circle.
“Oh, yeah,” I said thickly.
The delicate coral silk clung lovingly to her upper body, baring her shoulders and cupping her breasts before widening to a flirty little skirt. A rosebud was tucked in her wavy brown hair, and on her wrist was the ruby bracelet I’d special-ordered for her from Tiffany’s.
I wore a black T-shirt beneath a slim black suit. I smoothed down the coat to hide the fear raking me like giant claws. If Mila didn’t make it, I might as well plunge a stake in my own heart, because I’d be dead inside.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Mom said. She gave me a quick kiss. “We’ll wait on the cliff.”
I nodded without taking my gaze from Mila. When we were alone in the suite, I removed a ring from the inner pocket of my suit.
She tilted her head, curious. “What’s that?”
“Your ring. The one I bought you five years ago.”
“You kept it all this time?” Her eyes widened.
“Yeah.” Taking her right hand, I slid the ring on her finger. It was a small yellow diamond surrounded by five petal-shaped white diamonds.
Her breath sucked in.
“It’s not big,” I said a little apologetically. “I figured you’d hate a big ring.”
“It’s a daisy.” Her lower lip trembled, and then she threw her arms around me. “And it’s just perfect. I love it.”
Her mouth sought mine. I dragged her up against me, and we kissed, long and hard and desperate. I knew she was thinking the same thing as me. That this might be the last time we ever kissed.
At last, I dragged my lips from hers—and caved. I couldn’t stop myself from trying one last time.
“You don’t have to do this. We can still leave for that island. Vampires hate the tropics. It’s the last place they’ll look.”
“Gabriel. Stop trying to change my mind. I’m doing this—and I will survive.”
“Yes.” My fingers tightened on her shoulders. “You will. You have to.”
As if speaking aloud would somehow make it true.
Her mouth quirked in a brave attempt at a smile. “Besides, I can so see myself as an ass-kicking dhampir.”
I forced myself to smile back. “I’ll teach you all my best moves.”
“Deal.” She stuck out her hand and we shook on it.
Then I enfolded her fingers in mine and together, we walked out of the beach house. That’s when I saw her bare feet. Never once, in the half-dozen transition ceremonies I’d witnessed, had the candidate been barefoot.
This time my smile was genuine. By the dark gods, I loved this woman. I raised her hand to my lips and told her so.
Her eyes were luminous in the dusk. “I love you, too. So much.”
My parents were waiting at the site we’d chosen, both of them all in black. Mom’s hair fell in a dark waterfall down her back, and like Mila, she had a red rosebud tucked into her hair. My father wore a pin-striped suit and a rose boutonniere. The setting sun painted their faces golden.
Nearby, a canopy had been erected over the open grave I’d ordered dug in the sandy soil. I’m not squeamish about death, but I shuddered as my gaze locked on the shadowed rectangular hole.
As we approached, Mom broke into a smile. “You’re beautiful, ma p’tite. Inside and out.”
Mila smiled back a little shyly. “Thank you.”
My father took her hands. “You honor my son with both your beauty and your courage.” For Karoly Kral, that was like welcoming her to the family with open arms.
Mila blinked. Then she inclined her head like the future princess she was. “Thank you. I’m a lucky woman,” she said with a sidelong glance at me, as Mom beamed, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
“Remember what I told you, honey,” she said.
Mila nodded. “Don’t fight it,” she repeated. “Breathe, and let the blood take me where it wants me to go.”
The sun was sinking fast. It bobbed above the deep-blue ocean, a burning ball in the wash of purple and pink and orange. As night spread its dark wings across the cliff, my shoulders tightened.
“It’s time,” said Father. He sliced open his wrist and offered it to Mila while I watched, hands fisted at my sides.
She didn’t hesitate, simply stepped forward, set her mouth to his wrist and drank.
“More,” he urged. “More.”
I had to turn away.
“It’s begun,” Mom murmured.
I swung back. If Mila was brave enough to go through with this, then the least I could do was stand as witness.
She straightened away from my father. She gave me a wobbly grin, and then groaned. I felt her agony clear to the center of my being. Her breath scraped in and she sank to the ground, shivering.
I grated out her name. My fingers opened, closed. I ached to hold her, to soothe her. I even took a step forward, although I knew I shouldn’t.
“No.” Mom gripped my arm. “It will just hurt more if you touch her.”
My stomach knotted, but I remained where I was.
“Gabriel,” Mila croaked.
I crouched next to her. “What, cher?”
“Nothing.” Her lips lifted in a painful imitation of a smile. “Just…Gabriel.” She groaned again, and then her eyes shut. She curled into a shaking, shuddering ball.
I dropped my head back, stared at the navy sky. The first stars pricked out, cool and bright.
Inside, an anguished howl pressed against my throat, fighting for release until I could barely breathe. I clamped down on it. I wouldn’t add to Mila’s pain by letting out my own.
“Leave us,” I told my parents. “I’ll be all right, I promise. She asked that I be the only witness.”
Mom searched my face. “If you’re sure…”
When I nodded, she opened her arms. I stood up and she gave me a hard hug.
“It won’t last long,” she murmured. “In a little while, she’ll pass out.”
I nodded, tight-lipped. “I know.”
Our eyes met. Because soon after that, Mila would die.
On the sandy ground, she curled more tightly into herself, making low, animal-like sounds that made my bowels clench.
I closed my eyes and rested my cheek against my mom’s. “Gods, she’s hurting so bad.”
Mom squeezed me again, and then released me. “It will be okay, cher. I know it.”
My father stepped forward to give me an awkward pat on the back. “Your woman will make it. My
blood is strong.”
I nodded. For once, my father’s arrogance didn’t piss me off. I just prayed he was correct.
I took a deep breath—and then my arms came around him, and we were hugging for the first time since I was a kid.
“She will make it,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
Watching Mila die, then burying her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
In the week that followed, I refused to leave her side for more than an hour at a time. When I did leave, I left Daisy and Diesel watching over her grave.
My father came and went. With Tomas missing and me out of commission, he had to put in facetime at the Syndicate. But my mother stayed for the entire seven days. At times, she would sit with me, make sure I was eating and talk about nothing much.
A tropical storm blew in from the south. The canopy was no match for it. I barely noticed the wind and rain, except to pull off my jacket and put on the dry clothes Mom brought me when she saw I was soaked to the skin.
Midway through the week, Lougenia took a turn sitting with me. I apologized for doubting her loyalty, but she said she understood.
“The evidence against me was bad,” she said. “What else could you do?”
I shook my head. “I told Lieutenant Mraz it was impossible. But I couldn’t take the chance.”
She patted my hand. “Stop worrying yourself. It’s okay. Now eat.” She handed me a steak sandwich. “Your Mila’s going to need you when she breaks out of that grave.”
I looked at the sandwich as if it were something foreign, but I made myself eat every bite, and then downed a glass of blood-wine as well.
A short time after Lougenia returned to the house, Airi appeared on the cliff with superhuman speed. She thrust a cell phone at me. “You need to take this.”
“Later.” I brushed her hand away.
“It’s Zaquiel,” she said.
My gaze snapped up to her face.
“No,” she said, seemingly reading my mind. “No one else knows. Zaquiel said he’d talk only to you.”
I nodded. “Good. Keep it that way, okay?”
“Of course.”
I clicked my fingers at the wolfdogs, ordering them to stay with Mila, and strode with the phone to the edge of the cliff. “Zaq. Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Relief swamped me. But—“Then where the hell are you? Father’s been look—”
He blew out a breath. “Shut up and listen. I don’t have much time—they could trace this call any second. We’ve been on the run for the past week.”
We? “Who’s we?” I demanded.
“Listen, damn it. The short version is I was kidnapped by the slayers.”
“We know. But who’s we? And where are you now?”
“I can’t tell you. Not over the phone.” There was an odd scraping sound. “Fuck. I have to go.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Tell Father to call off the hunt. I’ll be in touch. And bro?”
“What?”
“You and Rafe be careful. They’re gunning for all three of us. Whoever’s behind this wants to bring Father to his knees.”
“Hell. You have to give me more than that. Zaq?”
But he’d already ended the connection, leaving me staring in frustration at the phone. Then I growled. “Fuck.”
Because I hadn’t warned him about Tomas. On the other hand, if he was concerned about who might be listening in on our conversation, maybe it was for the best.
Father had returned to the beach house earlier that day. I texted him and he arrived on the cliff within a minute. Meanwhile, I tried to get in touch with Rafe with no luck. I was beginning to worry he’d been kidnapped, too.
Father took the news of Zaquiel’s call with a grim nod. “Jessa was just the start. I’ve learned enough to know that Slayers, Inc. is going to try again. They won’t rest until I’m broken. Slay you three, and everything I’ve worked for was for nothing.”
I eyed him. This past week, we’d grown closer, and I heard what he was too proud—or stubborn—to admit. Not just Mom would be heartbroken if the Slayers sent me, Zaq and Rafe to our final deaths.
“Fuck that,” I growled. “We’re going to fight them with everything we have. I’ll be damned if I let them win.”
Father’s face was stark. “But how do we separate our enemies from our friends? Because if Tomas—” He broke off, shook his head.
I didn’t hesitate. “We stand together,” I said, and held out my hand to him.
He swallowed hard and gripped it. “Yes. We stand together.”
And as we stared down at Mila’s grave, for the first time I understood why he’d stood back and allowed the other spawn to bully us. We’d never have survived this long otherwise.
But if Mila survived, I was going to do my damnedest to see that my own kids didn’t have to go through the same thing.
And then, at last the week was over.
I’d asked to be the only person at the graveside. As the sun began to set for the seventh time, I lurched into motion, pacing back and forth on the cliff, my eyes glued to where the sandy soil covered Mila.
My love.
My life.
29
Mila
There are no words to describe the agony I went through.
Picture your bones, your organs, your very skin melting down, morphing to some new creature, and you might come close to imagining it. But even then, you can’t really know unless you went through it yourself.
I tried to follow Rosemarie Kral’s advice. “Don’t fight it,” she’d said. “Breathe into it. Let it take you where it wants you to go.”
But breathing was impossible. The pain was all-consuming, like being dropped into a burning pool of lava.
I groaned—I may even have screamed—until I had no mouth or throat or tongue to make sounds with. But still it went on. Until when at last the darkness beckoned me, promising oblivion, I willingly threw myself into it.
For a time I knew nothing.
I floated in the blackness, Mila and not-Mila, in a sleepy sort of peace.
From far away, I sensed Gabriel. His love was my tether, the only thing that kept me from floating up to the stars and taking my place in the endless midnight sky.
I grabbed onto it and held tight like the lifeline it was.
It was the hunger that woke me.
At first, it was a low-level, easily ignored emptiness. But it ratcheted up, became all-consuming. A craving I had to feed, or go mad.
I groaned, shifted my position.
Blood.
“Hungry,” I whispered. Sand fell into my mouth. I tried to wipe it away, but my arms were trapped by my sides. More dirt encrusted my eyes.
And I needed air—now.
I clawed at the sandy soil, desperate to emerge. Twisting and kicking and shoving at the fine, smothering grains until my hand shot out of the darkness into the air.
“Mila.” A man’s voice.
Fingers closed on my wrist, dragging me up into the daylight. After the blackness, even the fading sunlight was too bright. I blinked, trying to see from beneath my dirt-encrusted eyelids.
The man’s eyes blazed into mine, the green surrounded with a brilliant blue.
Gabriel.
I tried to say his name, but my voice came out as a croak.
He set me on my feet and then his hands were all over me, brushing away the sand and dirt, while his mouth was against my face, saying a guttural prayer.
“I need—” I wheezed. My fangs elongated in my mouth, cool and sharp.
He nodded against my cheek. “You’re hungry. Here.”
He drew my mouth to his throat. His musky forest scent was strong, familiar. I needed to taste him like I needed my next breath.
I opened my mouth wide—and fed. Blood flooded my throat, rich, life-giving. I drank deeply while he stroked my nape, murmuring broken words of love.
Energy surged through me. When I lifted my head, his
beloved face was incredibly clear and detailed, like someone had turned on a thousand-watt light.
I set my hand on his chest. “I can hear your heart,” I said, awed. “Beating. And”—I darted a glance around—“a seagull. There.” I flung out my hand to point far offshore where the setting sun sketched a crimson slash across the twilight sky.
“Mm-hm.” He smiled down at me, eyes wet with tears. “You—” He broke off, shook his head.
I stepped back and flexed my fingers. Stretched.
It was my body, and yet different. Stronger, more flexible, more aware.
“I’m a dhampir?” I raised my eyes to his, equal parts stunned and thrilled. “I did it?”
“Yes.” He lifted me into the air, swung me in a circle. “You did it, cher. You. Fucking. Did. It.”
I tilted my head to the sky and let loose with a loud whoop. When he set me back down, I crinkled my nose. “I smell something. Something rank.” I glanced at the wolfdogs, who sat five yards away, eyeing me with interest. “Daisy and Diesel—they rolled in something, didn’t they?”
He chuckled. “Yep.”
“Dead fish.” I rubbed my nose. “Jesus. Is it always like this?”
“You learn to focus on what’s important,” Gabriel said. “The rest you ignore, like you did when you were a human.”
I brushed at my filthy dress and wrinkled my nose again. “I think I’m smelling myself, too.” I reached behind myself to undo the zipper. “I’m going into the ocean.”
“Now? But my parents are waiting to congratulate you. I think Mom has a little party planned.”
“Now. You can tell them I had to clean up first.” I dragged off my dress, held out my hand. Beneath, I wore nothing but the tiny red bikini that he’d bought me that first day in Montauk. “And later?” I leaned close. “I brought that red-mesh thingy. Just in case.”
Pursued: A Vampire Syndicate Paranormal Romance (The Vampire Syndicate Book 1) Page 24