by Maggie Walsh
Soon, my love. Soon we'll be together. I am almost there. Please let me hear from you so that I know you still love me.
-O
“‘Heart’s Battleground’ and ‘My One and Only’? Those were written for…him. He’s not the type of man who would do these things. There is no way this is…” Dax said out loud to himself and ran his hand through his hair, and then froze, remembering the picture and suddenly feeling eyes on him. Whoever this was, they were watching him. He needed to be careful. Could they hear him too? If he said his name out loud, would he now be in trouble from this psycho? There was no way it was his mate. Never in a million years would he believe it was.
Shit, he need to show these last messages to the guys and let them know he was being watched. Dax slowly stood, and as casually as possible, he walked from the room. Once in the hallway, he ran toward the kitchen where he could hear Harley and Falcon talking as they cooked. He raced into the kitchen, and both men turned to look at him, concern visible on their faces.
Dax stretched his arm out, phone in hand, and thrust it toward Harley, who stood at the counter. “He can see me,” he said in a hissed whisper.
“What ya be talkin’ bout?” Harley asked as he took the phone from Dax and looked at the screen.
“He just sent me a picture of me lying on the bed in the room. He can see me.”
“Shite, Falcon. Dax be right. Look.” Harley held the phone out for Falcon to see.
Falcon studied the image, and his eyes filled with anger as his jaw clenched. He immediately reached across the stove, shut off the burners, and then turned back. “Leave everything. Let’s go.”
Harley dropped the knife he had been holding and grabbed Dax’s elbow, moving him in behind Falcon as Harley took up the rear. They exited the kitchen through the door that led to the garage and Falcon climbed behind the wheel of the SUV they used, as Harley joined him in the backseat.
“Both of you get down as far on the floor as possible. If this fuckhead is watching, I don’t want him to see that either of you left with me. If he has cameras all over the house, then he already knows, and who knows what he’ll do,” Falcon instructed as he turned the car on and put it in gear.
He hit the garage opener, and the door began to rise. Just as the door cleared the roof, Falcon pressed on the gas and pulled out. A bullet pinged off the windshield, and Dax tried to flatten himself against the floor even further than he already was.
“Stay down!” Harley yelled.
* * * *
Nicco drove toward town with Zane sitting beside him in the passenger seat. Neither spoke, but Nicco could feel the turmoil twisting inside his friend. Nicco and the others had tried many times to get Zane to open up about what was bothering him, but he always stayed tight-lipped or would answer that he was just tired, and everything was fine.
He felt the tension increase in Zane when they stepped into Papa Angel and Evan’s kitchen, but didn’t know why. Then when they went to leave, he got the feeling that Zane was extremely sad and got a sense of longing coming from him. Nicco really wanted to ask Zane what was going on and if everything was okay, but he knew the witch wouldn’t open up to him. Nicco would have to talk to Rory or Slade about this. Zane’s look-a-like cousin might be able to use some of his witchcraft to get Zane to speak.
“So when are you going to get a new car, Nic? This thing is ancient,” Zane suddenly broke the silence.
Nicco’s jaw dropped, and he looked away from the road to Zane for a moment before turning back. “My baby is not old. He’s only a 2005. And he’s a Ferrari Spider F430 convertible, thank you very much. You don’t just put one of these baby’s out to pasture after two to four years. You savor them and take care of them forever, man.”
“You bought this thing brand-new off the showroom floor, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
From the corner of his eye, Nicco could see Zane shrug. “At least I have a car,” Nicco grumbled under his breath.
“Which I still don’t understand seeing as you can disseminate wherever the hell you want. And I don’t need a car. With my magic, I can just go where I want, too.”
Things got quiet in the car again, and Nicco’s mind started to wander.
“Why don’t you have a car, Nikolai?” Thad asked.
He and Thad sat side by side on the edge of the lake, their knees just barely touching, as Thad tossed small pieces of bread to the ducks that swam by.
“I have never really needed one. If I need to drive anywhere, I borrow one of the company cars.”
“But what about when you aren’t working? How do you get around then?”
Nicco turned his head and looked to his mate. “Vampires have special abilities, Thaddeus.”
Thad’s arm froze in midair, and his head snapped in Nicco’s direction until their gazes met. “They do? So what special abilities do you have that would help you go from point A to point B without a car?”
“All vampires over a certain age can do what we call disseminate. I just think of where I want to be and poof, I go there.”
Thad’s eyes filled with wonder, and he turned to fully face Nicco. “You mean like magic?”
Nicco smiled at Thad’s exuberance. “Yes, like magic.”
“Would you show me?”
Nicco wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. Yes, Thad knew about vampires and had been fine with it since the moment they met, but knowing it and seeing the things his kind could do was different. And if Thad knew all the special things Nicco could do, it might send his mate running from him instead of to him. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Thaddeus. We’re out in the open, and someone may see me.”
Thad looked around at the deserted park and then back to Nicco. “It’s the middle of the night, Nikolai. There’s no one here but you and me. Please,” he pleaded.
Nicco found it very hard to turn down his mate. Although he couldn’t claim Thad yet, the pull to be near him and make him happy was still there. Nicco looked around the park, using his vampire sight to look deeper into the shadows for any movement. After looking in a complete circle and finding no one, he looked back to his mate. Nicco held out his hand and was thrilled when without hesitation, his Thad placed his smaller one in his. “Where to?”
“Um, I don’t know. Oh, how about the pyramids in Egypt? Can you go there?”
Nicco smiled. “Yes, I can, but that may not be a good idea right now. It is daytime there after all.”
“Shoot, that’s right. Okay, well, how about…is Vegas good?”
Chuckling, Nicco answered, “Yes, Vegas is safe, but we have to be careful of the many people roaming around there. Here, hold on tight, I know where to go.”
Thad tightened his hand around Nicco’s, and Nicco disseminated, taking them away from the park and landing on a beach. The moon reflected off the ocean waters, creating the appearance of a million little diamonds twinkling before them. A slight breeze blew by, ruffling Thad’s hair, and Nicco was mesmerized. Thad’s face lit up with pure joy, and his eyes filled with excitement as he looked around. His mate looked like an angel, and Nicco’s heart filled with happiness.
“Where are we?”
“Venice, California.”
“It’s so pretty. I never saw the ocean before. It’s so big and powerful, you can actually feel it.”
“This is one of my favorite places to be. I love coming here and just watching the waves roll onto the shore and listening to the crash as the wave hits. It’s very relaxing.”
“It would be wonderful to live here, don’t you think?” Thad asked.
“Yes, it would.”
“Should we go back now? I don’t want my foster parents to know that I sneaked out. They’ll be really mad if they do, and I’m afraid they’ll send me away,” Thad said nervously.
Nicco turned to fully face his mate and looked deeply into his eyes. His gut twisted at the thought of something bad happening to Thad. “Will
they harm you?”
“No, but I only have another nine months before I age out of the system, and if they don’t want me, then the social worker will most likely put me into one of the state facilities, and trust me, that's one place you don’t want to be.”
“Okay, I’ll take you home. You would tell me if someone were treating you poorly, wouldn’t you?”
Thad gave him a sweet smile. “Yes, Nikolai, I would tell you. Would you mind if you just took me back to the park though? I can walk from there.”
Nicco smiled. “I will take you back to your home. I want to make sure you get there safe. That’s one good thing about disseminating—it’s silent. If I had a car, they would be able to hear the engine.”
“True, but I still think you need a car. It would be great taking rides, and we wouldn’t have to worry about people catching us together.”
Nicco gave him a warm smile. “I will think about it, on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“If I do decide to get a car, I want you to come with me to help me choose.”
Thad’s eyes went wide. “Really? You would let me do that?”
“Of course I would, Thaddeus. I would give you anything.”
The smile fell from Thad’s face and was replaced with a confused look as he tilted his head slightly. “I still don’t understand why you are so good to me, or even spend time with me.”
“You are very special to me, Thaddeus, and someday I will explain it to you. For now, let’s get you home, and you can start thinking about what kind of car you would like for me to get.” Nicco tightened his hold on Thaddeus’s hand again and then disseminated.
“Maybe you’re right, Zane. Maybe it’s time to get rid of it and move on,” Nicco whispered.
* * * *
The SUV didn’t stop, and Dax could feel it make a quick right turn. Another bing hit the door by his head, and Dax clenched his jaw. He was terrified.
Falcon pressed down harder on the accelerator, and the vehicle sped up. “Remember, the vehicle is bulletproof, but stay down anyway to be on the safe side, and hold on. A black Escalade is tailing me. I’m gonna try to lose him.”
Dax was getting really tired of this. He just wanted to go back to his life. He wanted to sleep in his own bed, be in his own home, and just…no. That’s not true. Although his own bed would be nice, he didn’t want to go back to that life. He loved singing in front of the crowds, but that was about all he loved about his life. He hated that cold, lonely fortress he called a home. He hated dealing with the press and the record company, and not being able to be himself because of them. He hated doing the music they made him do. He didn’t like talking bad about the dead, but the guys had all been a bunch of whiny assholes since the moment they started their first tour all those years ago. Always demanding things and acting like the stereotypical rock stars that people heard about. They played hard rock, but the guys walked around like pampered pussies and spoiled brats. It might have been the ultimatum they gave him that put the initial wedge between them, but it was their attitude and the size of their heads that kept getting bigger, forcing that wedge in deeper, making the chasm wider.
That first tour had taught him that he and the guys really had nothing in common besides playing music. On that first album, they had recorded the two songs he had wrote, and to this day they were still their biggest hits. “Heart’s Battleground” and “My One and Only” had been considered rock anthems, and the record company said every hard-rock band needed at least one anthem, but after that, they wanted their sound to get harder, more heavy metal sounding. Not that Dax didn’t like metal, but it just wasn’t him.
He loved music. All music, and he liked singing rock, but the guys all stuck to metal and metal only. When they weren’t playing it, they were listening to it constantly. Dax would lock himself away on the tour bus just to get away from it. Every time he tried to get them to shut it off and just have some damn peace, the guys would say four against one and he was overruled, and then blast the shit louder. Then the chasm would grow. The more time he spent away from them, the more they accused him of being a prima donna. The more fame he received and the more groupies that yelled for him or threw themselves at him, the more resentful the guys had become. And he couldn’t even do anything with those groupies. The girls would offer him their bodies freely, and he wanted nothing to do with them. Then the guys would get mad at him. They would get pissed at all the female attention he received, but then get angry because he refused to take any of those chicks back to his hotel room, or the tour bus, and fuck their brains out. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.
Then once, when he started flirting with this really hot biker dude in a bar they stopped at, the guys and Jonas really blew a gasket. The queer jokes started after that, and when Dax got pissed, they would always claim it was just a joke, but he knew it wasn’t. He had even tried to call in a gay escort once to come to his home privately, and fucking Jonas found out and stopped that. What if there were paparazzi hanging around and caught the whore going in or coming out? Oh no, he couldn’t tarnish the band that way. So Dax had spent most of these years alone and only using his hand for release. Yay, the life of a rock star. God, he could really go for a shot of tequila right now, or a fucking hit of coke, but Falcon and Harley would never go for that. The tequila maybe, but the drugs, no way.
The SUV jolted right on a sharp turn, sending Dax left against the door, as another shot pinged against the rear window. There was no way, even being bulletproof, that the window would keep standing up against all the bullets flying at them.
“Falcon, we nade ter git goin. Ya know what we nade to do,” Harley hissed between clenched teeth.
“I know, man, but how in the hell are we going to do that with Dax? Just chill out and let me lose this asshole.”
“Aye, but yer ’enny ’ad any luk in dat yet.”
Dax chuckled at the two. He knew this was a bad time to be laughing, but he noticed that the direr a situation, the thicker Harley’s Gaelic brogue came out, and no one understood what the hell he was saying. Which Falcon obviously agreed with if his response was anything to go by.
“Fuck, Harl, speak English, man. Your brogue is coming out.”
“Speak English, yer man says. ’Oy aboyt oi spake English whaen yer learn ’oy ter, yeah?”
“Shit, you two. Get us the hell out of here, Falcon,” Dax yelled.
“Thar’s only one tin’ lef ter chucker, mate, an’ yer nu it.”
Falcon started laughing and slapped his hand on the steering wheel. “It’s a damn good thing I know you, asshole, or I would think you just insulted me.”
Harley slid up onto the seat and opened the window beside him, and then drew a large gun from his waistband as he glared at Falcon. “I’ll feckin insult yer, yer arse. Whaen oi insult yer, you’ll nuit, yer bollix.” Then Harley turned and shoved his top half out the open window, facing backward, and started shooting at the car behind them.
“I love when you talk dirty to me, buddy!” Falcon laughed and made a hard left turn.
Harley almost fell out the window, but caught himself and slid back in, glaring at the back of Falcon’s head. He then looked down and met Dax’s gaze. “’Tis gran’, Dax. We’ll git yer oyt av ’ere in one piece. Even if Falcon is bein’ a gobshite.”
“I have no fucking clue what you just said, Harley, but do whatever you need to do to get all of us the fuck out of here.”
Falcon slammed on the brakes, the tires squealed, and Dax was thrown forward against the back of Falcon’s seat. “You heard the man, Harley. Do whatever we gotta do. Make the fucking call, and we’ll deal with the rest later!”
“Shite!” Harley hissed and pulled his cell from his back pocket. After sliding his thumb across the screen, he tapped it twice, and Dax could hear ringing.
After two rings, a deep voice answered, “Viktor.”
“Hey, Vik, we’ve got a shooter on our ass and too many innocents around
. We need a tunnel out because I can’t pull a genie. I can’t shake this fucker,” Falcon responded before Harley could. Dax had no idea what Falcon was talking about with a tunnel and a genie, but with Harley’s accent getting thicker, he sure hoped the others knew what Falcon was saying.
“Where are you?”
“I just got on the service road of I-495 headed east. Sign says Route 110, Farmingdale.”
“Hold on,” Viktor answered and then went quiet.
“Where the hell are we?” Dax asked.
“Long Island, buddy. But with any luck, we’ll be out of here in a few seconds,” Falcon replied.
“Long Island? Shit.”
Harley raised his brow questioningly. “Yer got a problem wi’ de islan, Dax?”
“Nope. Love playing here. Good people. Just didn’t realize we were so far from Cali.”
“Falcon, Harley, get our client out of there now. Locals are on their way to you. Dozens of calls going in about the chase and the shooting. Harley, grab him and jump. Falcon, take the 110 south and turn left at the first light into the industrial park. You should be able to lose him in there. I have Colby coming to you. Once you’re clear, he’ll get you out,” Viktor instructed.
“What about the client, Vik?” Falcon asked, and Dax could hear the hesitancy in his voice.
“Don’t worry about that. Harley, get him out now, and come right to me.”
“Yes, sir,” Falcon replied.
Harley ended the call and put his phone back in his pocket. All of a sudden, a bright light engulfed the front of the car and a large man appeared in the passenger seat through the little spot Dax could see into the front. He nodded at Dax, then turned and smiled at Falcon. “Having fun?”
“Go, Harley!” Falcon said, just as a barrage of bullets hit the rear window and it finally gave, glass raining in on top of them.
Harley grabbed his arm as Dax lifted it to cover his head and closed his eyes. Then everything was quiet and still. He realized he wasn’t moving anymore. Harley released his grip, and Dax slowly lowered his arm as he raised his head. Opening his eyes, they went wide when he found himself on the floor of a luxurious home, with sunshine pouring in the windows and sheer white curtains billowing from the warm, soft breeze blowing in. He turned his head, and his gaze landed on the imposing man in a white suit, smiling down at him. Shit, he hadn’t seen this man in almost eleven years, but he didn’t look a day older. Dax slowly stood, his gaze never leaving his old friend. “Vik?”