by K. L. Kreig
Ren was very perceptive. Too perceptive. It’s almost like he knew…
“Well, it’s your lucky day, then. I’m all fresh out of giving fucks about what you want. You’re going to listen to me even if I have to sit on you.”
She laughed. “I’d like to see you try.”
Pulling up a seat next to her, he removed the death grip she had on her liquor-filled tumbler, taking her hand in his. “Why are you fighting this, Elle? As much as that human gets on my last fucking nerve sometimes, he’s a good male. And I think he’s good for you.”
I think so too.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because he actually makes you feel. And you haven’t done that in a very, very long time, baby girl.”
She eyed him, trying to drum up hostility she didn’t really feel anymore. “Where’s your vestment?” But sarcasm still stood at the ready. It always would.
“At the dry cleaners,” he deadpanned evenly.
Sighing heavily and not quite up for confession yet, she hedged. “He makes me feel a lot of things.” She meant it acerbically, her tone acidic, but realized after she said the words, they could be taken multiple ways. But Ren would take it the way it was meant. She was confused, torn. A war raged inside.
Ren was the only person Giselle could ever open up to, but it took years before she could trust him. Before she could trust anyone, for that matter. Even Dev. But she could never talk to Dev the way she could Ren. He was a true friend in every sense of the word. He’d saved her ass—and her life—on many occasions, including from Xavier.
“I just…I don’t know if I can let someone in that way, Ren. I don’t even know if I’m capable.”
“That’s a fucking bullshit cop-out and you know it. The way I see it, you’re intentionally sabotaging this, hoping he’ll just bail so you can have someone besides yourself to blame this failure on.” She bristled. He was hitting far too close to the truth. “Here me out, tiger. You are not that same emotionally scarred young woman who stood in front of Dev and me, not begging for your life, but the lives of so many other females you knew could be saved if you’d only succeeded at killing that preying sick fucker, Siobhan.”
Her shame-filled gaze dropped, but Ren hooked a finger under her chin and lifted to connect their eyes again.
“I never told you this—I didn’t want you to think I felt sorry for you when the only thing I ever felt was awe for what you’d lived through and how you got out, but you have the mental strength of ten vampires, Giselle. You are a firestorm, burning up anything in your path that stands in the way of your end goal. Turn those flames up a thousand fucking degrees and ash this shit for good. No looking back. Don’t let your past pave your future, baby girl. Then, they win. Don’t. Let. Them. Win.” He peppered the last four words hard. “That human wants you. He loves you and you can deny it until your face turns purple, but I know you feel the same way about him.”
She had no comeback, so she diverted. “I have unfinished business.” Ren knew all too well the personal vendetta she’d undertaken.
After all this time, Siobhan had never been found. Another reason she felt she couldn’t move forward with the detective. How could she tie his life—literally—to hers only to take it if she didn’t make it through the battle with him? Because there was no fucking way she’d ever let that go. She would hunt him and kill him, even if that meant giving her own life. With the shit storm Xavier had stirred up lately, revenge had taken a back seat, but it was by no means over. It would never be over as long as his heart beat.
“Excuses are like assholes, Elle. Everyone’s got one.”
She smirked. “Where’d you get that line from?”
“I may have poached it from Sarah. Pretty good, huh?” His brows wagged in smug pride.
Her smile was fleeting before she sobered again. “I’m scared,” she finally choked. God, that was hard to say. Fear made her feel exposed. Admitting it, however, was akin to splitting herself open for all the world to see her foul, fucked-up insides. Her black heart. She had spent the last one hundred twenty years hardening herself to stone so she’d never be hurt again. Giselle wasn’t scared of anyone or anything.
Except for Mike fucking Thatcher.
Damn him.
Putting his arm around her, he pulled her close. “I know. Elle, you’ve been evading anything that resembles a relationship since I’ve known you. It’s time.”
“Time for what?” Her voice sounded small and meek. Not at all like the self-assured witch she worked hard to build and maintain. She felt as if she was losing herself piece by small piece.
“Time to stop running. Time to be happy.” He paused a few moments, speaking softly in her ear. “Time to let yourself be loved by your Fated, baby girl. You deserve it.”
He knew.
Of course, he knew.
Tears, those traitorous bitches, stung her eyes, burned her nose. She hadn’t cried since she was twenty. Now she’d broken twice within the span of a month. Every part of her body betrayed her mind, including her heart. She was going soft. There was no other explanation.
“He can’t know. He can’t know what happened to me, Ren. He’ll never look at me the same.”
There it was. Her deepest fear now out in the open.
Wrapping her tightly in his arms, he whispered, “I think that’s exactly what needs to happen, Elle.” She tried breaking free but he pressed her closer. “No. Listen to me. He’s your missing piece. His love can heal you if you let it. And a mate’s love is unconditional. It will never change what happened to you, but he can help you make new memories, good ones, that eclipse the bad. It’s already happening, I can tell. Stop pushing him away.”
Fisting the back of his shirt, she sank into his optimism. She didn’t want to acknowledge anything he said, so she deferred to the classics. “And what do you know about love?”
As soon as it left her mouth, she felt remorse. The chuckle in her ear was warm and comforting, though. He’d let the slam roll off his back the way he usually did. “If you’d open your eyes, you’d see its magic all around you.”
He was talking about the Lords and their mates. How each had healed the other in some way. Dev was definitely the least fucked up of the three, but she could see Kate completed him in ways he hadn’t been before.
It made her ache. It made her green with gut-rotting, slimy envy.
“I’ll think about it.” That’s the most she could commit to at the moment.
Pressing a kiss to her head, Ren rose and slid the nearly empty container back into the fridge. “Don’t wait too long. Sometimes, things slip away because we didn’t have the guts to go after them when they were ours for the taking. Don’t let regret shackle itself to your feet like dead weight. You’re already carrying too much shit around behind you.”
Her forehead scrunched. Ren brandished his fun-loving, easygoing-but-pompous attitude like a ribbon. It was fluid, always controlled and if you didn’t watch close enough, it created illusions you could mistake as reality. “If I didn’t know better, that sounds like experience talking.”
A shoulder shrug, accompanied by a vague, “We all have regrets, Elle. All of us. Some just weigh more than others,” was all she got before Ren left her alone in the darkness with her own tumultuous thoughts once again.
5
Giselle
Mike’s house was dark again, but this time, she helped herself inside to scour for clues about where he might be. Standing in the darkened living room she was able to see with perfect clarity as if it were midday. Gazing around, the house was unusually messy, as if he’d left suddenly. There were dirty dishes in the sink. A half-empty bottle of soda on the counter. A blanket that was usually draped over the back of the sofa was rolled into a ball and rested on the cushion at one end as if he’d used it for a pillow.
On the desk, his laptop was open and there was a notebook scrawled with information from their research to track down Sarah’s lineage. She noticed an addres
s in Des Plaines, Illinois and wondered if he was actually successful at finding something. Flipping through the sloppy pages she could see he’d kept going in her absence. That thought made her unreasonably happy.
Goddamn him and his ability to make me feel anything but indifference.
She couldn’t get Ren’s words out of her head. “Because he actually makes you feel. And you haven’t done that in a very, very long time, baby girl.” She hated that he was right. She’d functioned for well over a hundred years wielding apathy like a coat of impenetrable armor. She had no use for kindness, sympathy, or longing. Those were fool’s emotions that clouded one’s vision and erased sound judgment.
Walking back to her Fated’s bedroom, the messy, twisted sheets made her body tingle as she remembered how he’d demanded she come again and again by his hand the night she’d snuck out. How she wanted more, but denied them both out of fear and shame.
Suddenly, profound loneliness overtook her and she found herself lying in his bed. Curling his pillow into her chest, she inhaled his unique scent, fighting the hunger she felt for him everywhere. She lost track of how long she lay there, pondering her next move, but she couldn’t stop memories assailing her from long ago when her life changed forever.
* * *
“I don’t want your pity,” she responded flippantly. The Vampire Lord had just spared her life, yet she was lipping off to him like a petulant child. She’d expected—wanted—immediate death and was confused at this outcome and what it meant for her future. If he thought she had escaped one hell to be dropped into another, he was sorely mistaken, Vampire Lord or not.
“I don’t do pity,” he replied impassively.
“I’m not going to fuck you.”
His deep laugh was comforting, more than it should be. “You’re not my type, female.”
This was a situation she had not even considered. She’d expected swift judgment, followed by a painless death. She was owed that, dammit.
But sympathy? Pardon? Freedom? None of it made sense. The Vampire Lord she’d heard rumors of was benevolent, yes, but he also followed the letter of the law. They did not kill humans. It brought too much attention to them. Unwanted attention. And unwanted attention led to snooping and snooping led to questions. Questions that would lead to more death. No. Their two laws were steadfast and absolute. And regularly enforced for a reason.
“There will be anarchy. They’ll want my head.” She’d left human females husbandless. Vampire mates would die. Children would be fatherless, in some cases losing both parents. The Vampire King would be hunted and strung up for keeping her alive when she’d killed so many others.
“Let me worry about that,” he replied smoothly, as though it mattered not when it did.
“What am I to do now?” she mumbled to herself, but the Vampire Lord answered her.
“You will stay here.”
Her head snapped up. “Stay? With you? How will I earn my keep? I’m not a charity case.”
“Such spirit,” he said lowly, contemplating. “What is your skill, Giselle?”
What he really meant was how did she, a lone, untrained female, manage to kill so many without assistance? Humans were easy to kill, their fragility making their lives literally one wrong step away from mortality. Any vampire, even a young one, could kill a human as easily as snapping a dry twig in half between two fingers.
But it took one with skill and savvy to end another of their kind. The only way she was able to slay half a dozen old and powerful vampires was because of her skill and the stealth it brought her. Human minds were easy to break. Child’s play. She couldn’t use her skill on vampires, but it only took one weak human whom her brothers placed too much trust in to bring down six of a more powerful species, more powerful than her.
Her lips clamped shut. No. This was a secret she’d kept hidden from even her own family. No way was she divulging it to someone she didn’t know or trust.
“Your skill,” he commanded silkily, drawing the words out of her like they were connected to an invisible rope to which he held the end. And pulled. Her resistance was futile.
“Mind sifting.”
He nodded coolly as if that unique talent was irrelevant. But it wasn’t. She could draw out any thought, any memory, no matter how far buried in the human mind. Even though skills were passed down through bloodlines, hers had a unique twist: when she was sorting through someone’s memories, the other party couldn’t detect it. Her brothers had not possessed that particular ability and she always wondered if her “XX” chromosomes had something to do with it. She knew no other female vampires to ask, so she’d only ever been able to make assumptions.
“Ren.”
“Yes, my lord.” The one he referred to as Ren came to stand by the Vampire Lord’s side. He was the one to gently guide her out of the bar yesterday. God, he was beautiful. One of the most gorgeous vampires she’d ever seen.
“Giselle is your responsibility. Find something…useful for her to do.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“I’m not going to fuck him either,” she spouted. She wouldn’t do that with anyone ever again as long as she lived.
The Vampire Lord rose from his seat and came to stand directly in front of her taking her hands in his. Damn he was intimidating. His presence was imposing, his eyes piercing. Seeing things no one else had. She was skittish and wanted to pull away, but his intense gaze had her frozen with fear. Maybe she’d run her mouth once too much.
But his gentle and sincere voice nearly broke her on the spot. No one had spoken to her as if they actually cared. Ever. “Giselle, no one will ever hurt you or make you do anything you don’t want ever again. And if they do, they’ll have me to answer to. You are under my protection. Do you understand?”
Annoying tears welled in her eyes. She could only nod, spilling a few down her cheeks. At twenty and fully blooded, she was a grown female vampire, but she’d never felt more like a child before.
“You are safe now.” Then he did something totally unexpected and at odds with the ferocity that rolled off him like whitecaps. He took her in his arms and held her while she sobbed.
* * *
Giselle remembered how uncertain she’d been during the early days with Dev. She kept waiting for him to go back on his word…to violently use her as the others had. But he never did and slowly, ever so slowly, she began to trust again. In the Vampire Lord. In Ren, his second. And now, in the detective.
Frustrated that she waffled like a teeter-totter, she rose from the bed and began wandering—fine, snooping—around Mike’s room. Dirty clothes lay on the floor by the overflowing hamper. Extra change, a few crumpled bills, Chap Stick, and three crinkly gum wrappers littered his nightstand. Freshly folded towels sat in a chair in the corner of the room, needing to be put away. His bedroom was different than the rest of his house. Lived in. Messy. Imperfect. She liked that.
Absently, she opened a drawer. Loose socks sat beside folded boxers. She closed that one and pulled out the next. T-shirts were haphazardly shaped into squares, but the one on top caught her attention. It was a navy tee with white Milwaukee Police Department in big block letters across the chest. The one she’d worn the first night she spent with him.
She ran her fingers over the soft fabric remembering how good it felt to have his fingers bring her to orgasm, breaking her long self-imposed seal. If she concentrated hard enough, she could still feel the tingles that started at her core and spread like wildfire through her limbs, burning the ends of her fingertips and toes. She could still smell the mint on his breath when he told her to come and see the flames of his own desire dancing in his clouded eyes as he released on her heels.
Lifting the cotton garment, she brought it to her nose and breathed deeply. It smelled snarky and stubborn and faintly of his spicy cologne. Jesus, she missed him, the pain in the ass. Putting it back, she arranged it just as before and shut the drawer.
She intended to leave before she did anything else stup
id—such as sniff a pair of boxers or gouge the eyes out on any photos of girlfriends past—when her eyes lifted and caught her reflection in the mirror.
She froze at what she saw.
Cheeks bright with a blush.
Lids hooded in desire.
Lips parted on a slight pant.
She looked desirable, bewitching, alluring. Every much the predator she was.
For a long time, she stood there, staring at the woman looking back.
Giselle was beautiful. She knew it. Males knew it. It wasn’t conceit. It couldn’t be conceit if it was true. But she loathed her beauty. Detested it. Oh, she exercised it expertly. That’s one of the skills she’d honed and perfected. Males, regardless of species, thought with their dicks first, their brains a distant second, and she’d used that to her advantage thousands of times over the years. But each time she lured them into her finely spun web, she hated herself a bit more because it reminded her of ghosts of the past.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” the rutting male whispered from behind. Instead of listening to his words, she plotted. Planned to cut out his tongue and feed it to him right before she slit his throat.
She’d heard it often and the more it was spoken, the more she knew the opposite to be true. Externally, her face may be striking, her curves just the right proportions, her sultry voice enough to lure any man to his untimely death. But that was at odds with what churned underneath the superficial surface. She was a twisted-up knot of hate and revenge. And everyone knew hate was vile and ugly. How they couldn’t see the repulsiveness underneath her skin confounded her.
Regardless of the arrogance she outwardly portrayed, Giselle had lived with self-loathing her entire life, always believing her inner hideousness eclipsed anything else. Her soul was corrupt. Her heart a black pit. Her body a used vessel.
But her Fated changed all that.
He was the only person who had truly made her feel beautiful on the inside, who’d chipped away at that thick black hate with every barbed word, each rough kiss.