by Kallysten
“Blood?” he asked almost hopefully.
Marc stood and picked up the tray from the desk. “Blood,” he confirmed. “And coffee. And something the kitchen assured me was toast but I’m still not convinced about that.”
He sat at the foot of the bed—much too far—and waited until Kate and Blake were sitting up before he set the tray down. He picked up a mug and held it out to Kate, who took it gratefully. The aroma of the insta-coffee was already invigorating her brain. She took her first sip while Blake accepted the second mug from Marc. The smell wafting from that one was entirely different, but it had never bothered Kate.
“Where were you?” Blake asked almost diffidently before he started to drink.
Marc shrugged. “Out. I had a lot to think about. And I figured you’d sleep better if I wasn’t there.”
Kate’s eyes went back and forth between her two lovers as she tried to read between the lines. She had figured the previous night that something had taken place between the two of them, something dark and unpleasant, but she didn’t know if she should ask about it. However much they both loved her, their history together had begun before she was even born, and she didn’t want to pry. At the same time, though, she didn’t like feeling left out.
“Is the coffee bad?” Marc asked, and Kate realized she had lowered her mug as she thought.
“No, it’s good,” she said, taking a sip as though to demonstrate. “I’m just wondering what I missed last night when I didn’t join you two.”
They both went very still, and Kate swallowed a sigh. They wouldn’t tell her.
“I was wondering the same thing,” Marc said, a twisted smile pulling at his lips to soften his words. “You two look like you had a good night.”
Kate translated that as a night without Blake having an episode, which indeed was good. Episodes like the one he had experienced on the battlefield were often followed by more of the same. Although the way he had stormed out of Jen’s interrogation could be seen as an episode, too. What had happened after that? Why had Marc been gone for the rest of the night?
“Did you get any rest?” she asked, taking another slow sip of coffee.
Marc’s shrug could have meant anything. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” He glanced at the clock and nodded toward it. “Daniel called a squad meeting in the ballroom in twenty minutes. Go ahead and finish your breakfast. I’ll take a quick shower.”
A knot tightened painfully in Kate’s throat, and it had nothing to do with the coffee. Why did it feel like he was running away from them? Why, when one of the men she loved was finally allowing her to get close again, was the other one pulling away?
“I hurt him last night,” Blake murmured into his own mug.
Kate turned to him more fully, taken aback by this sudden confidence. “Hurt him?” she repeated just as quietly, hoping that Marc wouldn’t hear over the sound of the rushing water. “You mean, you hit him?”
A grimace crossed Blake’s features. “I did, yeah, but that’s not what I mean. I…” He closed his eyes for a moment, and Kate stroked his fingers lightly. “I told him he should have found a way to come get me.”
A pang resonated through Kate, deep and shattering. It was all too easy to imagine the words being thrown at her, too.
“He couldn’t,” she whispered. “None of us could. We didn’t know where—”
Blake pressed two fingers to her mouth, and she fell silent.
“I know that. I do. I know there’s nothing anyone could have done. I know I was unfair when I accused him of giving up. But I just…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t help myself. I…”
His next words were so raw that tears prickled Kate’s eyes.
“I was hurt, so I hurt him. I didn’t mean…”
Only when he stopped and turned to Marc did Kate realize the shower had stopped running. Marc stood there, wearing a fresh pair of pants, his shirt unbuttoned. Kate watched the two of them with a heavy heart and wished that she knew what to say to make things better.
“It’s fine,” Marc said, his voice low and a little rough. “We’re fine. If you let go of just a bit of pain, then it’s better than fine.”
One of these days, Kate thought with no small amount of bitterness, they would all have to stop using the word ‘fine’ altogether; it had long ago ceased to carry any meaning. Judging from Blake’s blank expression, he wasn’t buying it, either.
“Come on, finish your breakfast and get dressed,” Marc added a little more lightly now. “I want to hear what Daniel has to say.”
The toast had no flavor, but at least the coffee was decent. Blake finished his breakfast before Kate did and was already dressed by the time she retreated to the bathroom with her toiletries and a change of clothes. She closed the door but listened intently, wondering if they would talk while she was out of the room; they didn’t seem to, and she didn’t know whether that was a good or a bad thing. They needed to talk; God only knew how much they all did.
* * * *
The meeting was like every squad meeting Blake remembered attending: dull and far too long. Honestly, how many words did it take to inform the squad that they would return to the breach for Simon to run more tests, and that Daniel’s superiors were still evaluating the intelligence offered by their prisoner? Blake interpreted that second piece of news as meaning at least someone thought, like he did, that Jen was not to be trusted, and he felt slightly vindicated.
He fidgeted in his seat, feeling restless and wishing he could leave the reception hall already. Kate and Marc were sitting on either side of him, however, and they would both be alarmed if he left for no apparent reason. They knew how easily he got bored, but still he was ready to bet they’d assume he was falling prey to another memory, and he didn’t want to alarm them now.
He didn’t want to worry Kate, not after the lovely night they had spent together; he hadn’t thought it possible to share such a quiet, gentle time with her anymore, and he was glad they could—both for himself and because he could still give her some of the things she wanted from him.
He didn’t want to worry Marc, either, although for entirely different reasons. Blake was sorry he had lashed out at Marc the previous night. With his nerves still raw from recognizing that demon on the battlefield and from Jen being allowed to spew her lies, Blake hadn’t been thinking when he’d flung those hurtful words in Marc’s face. Blake had only wanted to wound Marc, the same way Blake himself was wounded. He had done the same thing in the past, and afterward he and Marc had always made up with sex and shared blood. It seemed unlikely to happen that way now, so how was Blake supposed to show he was sorry?
As Daniel, at the front of the room, continued to go on and on about the plan, Blake allowed his gaze to drift over the audience. Daniel had once had more than a hundred soldiers under his command, but now there were only a dozen and half. Blake wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that Daniel was a vampire. When Blake and Marc had first joined the squad, some soldiers had been cool toward them because of what they were.
Blake found himself frowning at the memory. He would never understand why he could recall some insignificant things so easily when other, more important memories were unclear, as though smudged by what had happened in the demon dimension.
“Everything okay?” Kate whispered the words so close to Blake’s ear that he could feel her warm breath against his skin.
“Just bored,” he murmured. “Daniel really likes to hear himself talk, doesn’t he?”
Marc made a tiny sound in his throat that might have been a stifled laugh, and Kate couldn’t restrain a smile. Neither said a word, but they both relaxed, apparently convinced, at least for now, that Blake was all right.
For once, it wasn’t even a lie.
As Blake’s mind drifted again, his eyes focused on Simon, seated a little ahead on the far left side. His shoulders were hunched and he was squirming every so often. He seemed downright miserable. Was he feeling bad for not figuring out wha
t was keeping the breach open? He could sometimes be very touchy about his magical abilities.
When the meeting finally ended, Kate said that she wanted to talk to Daniel. Her gaze flicked between Marc and Blake.
“I’ll go with you,” Marc replied, and they both looked at Blake.
“I’ve heard enough,” Blake said, shaking his head. “I’ll pass on the second round. See you both later.”
And before either of them could change their mind and decide to stay with him, he hurried out of the room and after a gloomy Simon. He caught up with him in the hotel lobby as Simon waited by the elevators.
“Going back to your room already?”
Simon jumped, clearly startled, and turned to look at Blake. “Oh. Hey. Yeah, I didn’t get much sleep, so I figured…”
He shrugged but didn’t finish. There was something vaguely hopeful in his eyes, though, and Blake remembered what Simon had said on the roof about them never getting a chance to talk without someone standing guard nearby. Blake hadn’t realized it until then, but he hadn’t really been out of sight or hearing of Kate, Marc, or both in weeks, if not more.
“I was going to see if I can find some insta-coffee somewhere. Would you like—”
“Sure!”
In the face of Simon’s suddenly beaming grin, Blake couldn’t suppress a smile of his own. They hunted down the kitchen together, and while a couple of soldiers were already working at putting lunch together, they pointed to a pot of coffee to one side of the room and a row of mugs on a tray. Blake and Simon helped themselves and took their mugs out into the dining area. A couple other people were chatting over coffee or a late breakfast, but Blake didn’t recognize any of them. They must have been the town’s soldiers, the fighters whose job it was to keep the demons out of their town until the squad could finally close the breach.
“Ready for tonight?” Blake asked as they sat at a nearby table.
Simon froze, his mug halfway to his lips. He set it down again without taking a sip. “Tonight?” he repeated. “You mean…”
Raising an eyebrow at him, Blake wondered if he should have let Simon go get some more sleep. “Going back to the breach to figure out why it won’t close?”
“Oh!” Simon looked relieved for some inexplicable reason. “That. Yes. Sure. I mean, I don’t know what I can do differently.”
Blake couldn’t help but shake his head. “Do you ever? Seems to me, your best spells are the ones you make up when you need to.”
Simon’s gaze lit up for a second—but it soon darkened again as it dropped down toward Blake’s lap, visible through the clear-top table. Blake looked down as well, and was surprised to find himself scratching his thigh. The gesture could have been entirely innocuous, but they both knew what hid under Blake’s jeans, inked into his skin by the demons.
“Sometimes,” Simon said absently, now looking into his coffee mug as though looking for answers in its depths. “And sometimes I need a little help. But I will figure it out.” He looked up again, and when he met Blake’s eyes, there was no more hesitation in his gaze, only determination. “I swear, I’ll fix it.”
Blake didn’t know whether he was still talking about the breach. He also didn’t know what to think of it.
Chapter 15
As Kate followed Marc out of Daniel’s office, disappointment and anger raged through her, a storm that slammed the office door shut in its wake. The banging noise wasn’t half as satisfying as it should have been.
“Are you okay?” Marc asked, his hand rubbing slow circles into her back.
“I’m fine,” she snapped, and oh, how well she now understood why Blake grimaced when he gave that meaningless reassurance!
She regretted her outburst at once. It wasn’t Marc’s fault, after all. She leaned against him as they walked, a tactile apology to accompany her words. “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. It’s just…” She didn’t know how to finish. It was all so stupid and senseless! She let out a grunt.
A soldier who was standing guard in the corridor in front of Jen’s improvised cell gave her a startled look, and she glared at him, then at the locked door. It wasn’t Jen’s fault, either; she had only reported what she knew. If she hadn’t been a traitor, everything might have been different. Daniel’s superiors might not have been so diffident. The poor people in the demon prison might not have been doomed.
“I know,” Marc said, his hand still offering a comforting touch. “It’s hard to accept. Although it can’t be the first time you’ve gotten an order you didn’t like.”
They had reached the elevators. As they stood there, waiting for the silver doors to open, Kate snorted.
“No, it’s not,” she conceded. “But Daniel used to be very good at finding a way around the orders he didn’t like. This time he’s not even going to try to change their minds. They said no, and that’s all that matters to him. I don’t get it.”
“Don’t you?” Marc asked. “They kicked him out of the squad once. Is it so hard to imagine he doesn’t want to lose his place again?”
Kate only needed a second to think about it. “Yes, it is hard to imagine,” she said defiantly as they stepped into the elevator. “Daniel and me, we both joined the squad for the same reason: help people and fight demons. What’s the point if our superiors won’t let us do that? Maybe it’s time to quit and fight on our own.”
She looked at him, expecting to find support; after all, he had fought demons on his own—with Blake—for years, maybe even more than that, without the support of a hierarchy, joining units he found on his way and leaving them again after a few days or weeks. The only reason they had stayed with the squad for so long—Kate was acutely aware of it—was because of Kate herself. But Marc remained as calm and impassible as he had in the office, a simple observer while Kate had argued with Daniel and tried to get him to see reason.
“You don’t mean that,” was all he said before stepping out of the elevator again.
Kate was startled enough by his reaction—or rather, his lack of reaction—that she failed to get out, and the doors started to close again before she finally moved. She raised a hand to stop the closing doors and followed Marc, joining him just as he reached their room. She swiped the card in the lock, and Marc opened the door for her. Kate inclined her head in an absent thank you when she passed him, her mind churning and trying to figure out what was going on with Marc.
The previous night he had seemed to agree that they had to do something about the prisoners. Now, he appeared untouched by Daniel’s revelation that their orders were to close the breach and nothing more. She sat on the bed and watched him approach, noticing that he didn’t quite meet her eyes; he hadn’t done so in hours, not since he had woken her and Blake after spending the entire night…where? What had he been doing? Who had he been with? When she had last seen him, he had been about to talk to Jen. What had she told him?
“There’s something you’re not telling us,” she said, her voice remaining even despite the betrayal she couldn’t help feeling. “You’ve got something in mind, don’t you?”
When Marc looked away, it was as good as an admission.
Kate took his hand and linked their fingers together, waiting until he finally looked at her.
“Tell me,” she asked quietly. “I want to know.”
* * * *
Marc had made up his mind not to tell anyone who wasn’t part of the mission. It was his decision; he knew what the risks were and accepted them. That was why he hadn’t tried to sugarcoat anything when he had asked Simon.
But when Kate sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at him with those clear eyes, all he could think of was how devastated she had been when Blake had been taken from them without warning. He couldn’t do that to her again. He still didn’t want her to come along and risk her life, but he could tell her about it. Just as long as she made a promise to him first.
“You can’t tell Daniel,” he said softly as he sat next to her.
Her eyebro
ws rose, and he could already tell she was about to object. Despite her ramblings in the hallway, her loyalty to the squad was only second to her loyalty to Daniel himself.
“Do it as a favor to me,” Marc said. They were still holding hands, and he cradled hers between both of his. “I don’t want it to turn in a contest of wills between Daniel and me. Because if it comes to that, I’ll win. And he really won’t like the way I do.”
Kate grimaced, and Marc was sure she knew what he meant. When Daniel had been struggling with his new life as a vampire, Kate had understood that Marc—his Sire—was the one person who could help Daniel; the one person who could force him to drink as much blood as he needed despite his reticence.
“All right,” she said slowly. “As long as it doesn’t endanger anyone.”
He squeezed her hand gently. “There are risks, I won’t deny it. But both Simon and Jen understand that, and they’ve accepted the possible fallout.”
“Simon and…Jen?” Kate repeated, sounding only a little more surprised than reproachful. “What can you possibly…”
He could see the moment when she understood. Her fingers tightened around his, and her mouth fell open. She was smart; he had always liked that about her.
“Yes. We’re going to the other side. Jen will show us to the prison. Simon will disable whatever magic prevents us from closing the breach, and I’ll release as many prisoners as I can.”
Freeing all of the prisoners was his goal, but even one might help—one, to make up for his failure to save Blake.
Kate remained silent for a while, and as the surprise drained from her face, determination slowly replaced it.
“I’m coming,” she said at last.
She wasn’t asking, Marc noticed at once. Her decision was made, and she was merely letting him know. Unfortunately, that wasn’t how it worked.
Leaning forward, he pressed a soft kiss to her lips in apology before he said, “You can’t, I’m sorry.”