by Nell Stark
“She probably thinks we’d be better off with someone else.” I released Solana and began to pace, my panther urging motion in the face of frustration.
“You’re right,” Foster said into the silence. “Me.”
“You?” Solana echoed in confusion.
“An hour ago, she told me that I’ll be named her successor in the Order of Mithras.”
I stopped in my tracks. “Doesn’t her successor also have to be a Sunrunner?”
“Yes, I am. Helen was the one who turned me.”
I flashed back almost a year ago to the sight of Foster lying motionless on the floor of the Missionary’s warehouse. We’d surprised him as he fed, and I knew I would always remember the sound of Foster’s blood trickling from his chin onto the floor.
“The Missionary fed from you. I saw it.”
“So I’ve been told.” She shrugged, no longer fazed by such matters. “But Helen was the one who ultimately turned me.”
I began pacing again in an effort to digest this new information. It seemed folly for Helen to appoint Foster, who had been a vampire only a year, to a post of such importance. If the rest of Val’s clan hadn’t been dead, she would never have been made Missionary so soon after being turned. Had Helen been grooming Foster for this purpose all along?
Solana slumped to the floor, her back to the wall. “Then she truly has given up all hope. No wonder she can’t be persuaded to take any other course of action.”
“Wait,” I said, suddenly inspired. “What if we let her do what she wants, but we do what we want?”
When they both stared at me blankly, I forced myself to stand still. “We let her walk into the hotel. But we have a plan—or several—to get her and the delegation out safely.”
Foster’s eyebrows shot up. “You want to countermand her orders.”
For the first time since Solana’s frantic call, I smiled. “Of course I do.”
The door opened, then, and Valentine emerged. She looked weary, as though the weight of the world had been placed on her shoulders. With all three of us looking at her expectantly, she suddenly bared her teeth.
“I’ll be damned if I just sit idly by while she lets Brenner get the upper hand.”
Foster barked out a laugh. Solana smiled tremulously. Val looked very confused until I threaded my arms around her neck and leaned in for a kiss.
“Great minds think alike, love.”
“I want to help,” Solana began, “but I don’t want to leave her alone.”
“Go. We’ll fill you in later.” I looked to Foster. “Who else?”
“Leon Summers. Constantine.”
Val was nodding and her eyes were bright again. She looked at her watch and her jaw tightened. “We have just over twenty-four hours. We’re going to have to move fast.”
“We can assemble in the War Room,” said Foster. “Once I arrange for additional security up here, I’ll join you.”
She disappeared back into the antechamber, leaving Val and me alone. Val held me tightly, sliding her hands along my ribs as she stared into my eyes.
“We might not be able to pull this off,” she said.
“I know.”
“We might start an all-out war.”
I thought about that for a few seconds. “Also true.”
“I love you.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind my right ear. “Thank you for saving me.”
“You’re mine. I’m always going to save you.” I thought back to the summer, when she had discovered the cure for the deadly virus that Brenner had unleashed during his first power play against the Consortium. “Just like you’re always going to save me.”
She smiled at me, a bright, uncensored, fully human smile. The smile that was mine and only mine. The smile only I would ever see. And then she pulled back, but only far enough to take my hand.
“Let’s go be superheroes, baby.”
“Yes,” I said as we walked toward the elevator. “Let’s.”
Epilogue
valentine
The rifle grip had long since warmed from the heat of my palm. My skin was normally cool to the touch, but just before we’d parted ways two hours ago, Alexa had pulled me close and brushed the hair back from her neck. The gesture had been a clear invitation. If Foster and Constantine hadn’t been watching, I would have pushed my hand down the front of her tight black jeans and taken her where we stood. Instead, I had swirled my tongue against her skin as I claimed her with my teeth. Desire swept over me at the remembered sensation of her fingertips massaging my scalp while I drank. Arousal pulsed in time with the beat of her blood in my veins, but I refused to allow my breathing to accelerate. Helen’s fate might depend on the steadiness of my hands.
The carpeting beneath me was comfortable in its lushness, but I wished for hardwood. This luxurious corner office in the Seagram building had only a small angle of correspondence with the eastern window of the Ty Warner suite, but it had been the best of our viable choices. My grip on the sniper rifle was firm and my body immobile, but the slight give to the carpet fibers had the potential to sidetrack my shot.
I peered through the scope, listening intently for any word from the extraction team. They had gone dark half an hour ago, and I told myself that their silence was a good sign. At the first hint of trouble, they would reopen communications, and that would be my signal. I was the insurance. Either I’d manage to create enough chaos to help them free Helen, or I’d have to perform a mercy killing as the sun rose.
The suite’s lights were on, and I could see her clearly through the scope. She sat regally, as though she hadn’t been bound to a chair and forced to stare at the gradually brightening sky. Her expression was serene. Peaceful. She had given up.
Anger washed over me and I focused on maintaining even breaths. Helen wanted to die a martyr, a choice I would have respected only if it had been her last possible recourse. In refusing to fight, what did she hope to gain? Especially now that Solana was back in the picture. They looked at each other as though they could fall in love all over again, and yet Helen had insisted on walking directly into the jaws of death. I had been that stupid once, and Alexa had talked me down from the ledge. Since Helen wouldn’t listen to reason, we were poised to forcibly drag her off her own metaphorical cliff.
A flicker of motion drew my attention back to the tableau visible through my scope, and not for the first time, I wished I could hear what was going on inside the room. I’d been in position for almost two hours, but Balthasar Brenner had yet to cross into my field of vision. If he did, I would take the shot without hesitation, but I doubted he would make that kind of mistake. He hadn’t lived almost five centuries by being reckless about his personal safety.
My breath caught as a familiar figure moved into the space between Helen and the window. Sebastian.
Mind racing, I struggled to keep my body under control. Why on earth would Sebastian show up at his father’s suite now? He stopped with his back to the gray sky and crossed his arms over his chest. His lips moved, but I couldn’t read the words. Was he in collusion with his father after all? Or had he come to try to bargain for Helen’s life?
And then my earbud crackled to life in a cacophony of snarls and the staccato of gunfire.
“Val, do you read?” Foster sounded breathless.
“Yes. What the hell’s going on?”
“Game’s up. We’re cornered.”
A low, animal groan followed on the heels of her words, galvanizing my heart into overdrive. Was that Alexa? Had she been wounded? A fresh salvo of gunfire erupted even closer to Foster, and I fought the impulse to cover my ears. Foster was cursing colorfully, and I could hear the slap of her boots against the floor as she ran—whether toward or away from the spray of bullets, it was impossible to say.
“We’re out of time,” she rasped. “Take your shot, Val!”
The connection snapped, cutting off an eerie canine howl and plunging me back into silence. My heart thudded painfully against my ribs
as the image of Alexa, wounded or worse, haunted my mind’s eye.
No. No distractions. I had no margin for error. She was alive. I had to believe it. The sooner I fulfilled my mission, the sooner I would be able to join her. And if Brenner’s mangy curs had so much as laid a claw on her, I would tear them apart beyond any hope of regeneration.
I took in a deep breath and expelled it. Another. Then another, and another, until my body was steady and my mind was empty and all I could see was Sebastian and Helen. Helen’s expression had not changed, but Sebastian’s neck was flushed and his jawline sharp as a knife. He was furious.
In that moment, the sun broke free of the horizon. Beams of light streamed into the suite and scattered as they hit the crystal chandelier. Tiny rainbows blossomed on the wall and floor, scintillating like ethereal flowers.
I did not wince. I did not blink. No apology rose to my lips, nor tears to my eyes. Beyond thought or emotion, I pulled the trigger.
About the Authors
Nell Stark is an Assistant Professor of English and the Director of the Writing Center at a college in the SUNY system. Trinity Tam is a marketing executive in the music industry and an award-winning writer/producer of film and television. They live, write, and parent a rambunctious toddler just a stone’s throw from the historic Stonewall Inn in New York City. For more information about the everafter series, visit www.everafterseries.com.
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