Deadrise (Book 7): Bloodlust

by Brandt, Siara

  She didn’t tell her daughter how seeing Eymann had suddenly brought it all back. All the condemnation of the past years. All the bad feelings. Or how the letters had driven a wedge between them. The letters weren’t friendly missives. They were reprimands. Somewhere along the line, she had ceased being Eymann’s sister and became more like a child being scolded by an abusive, disapproving parent. As a consequence, they had drifted so far apart that they were little more than strangers now. Eymann didn’t know anything about her or her children. He had never bothered to ask. He had been too busy finding fault with them. Maybe without the influence of Helice, there might be hope for him yet, but she wasn’t counting on it. For the moment, they had enough to worry about and she had no intention of reliving the past. But if he started in on what he perceived as her failures again, or worse, if he started in on her children, she didn’t know what she was going to do.

  “I hope that since he’ll be living with us, he’ll agree to respect our boundaries,” Maddy said. “And for your sake, I will try to get along with him. But I swear, if he picks up a pen just once and thinks he’s going to preach to us in a letter, I’m warning you right now that I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

  Neither will I, Lauryn thought to herself. Neither will I.

  Chapter 17

  Rafe suppressed a groan, trying to block out the woman who was quickly becoming the bane of his existence. How could she find so much to talk about? She went on and on about the food situation, and the best way to get to Ashford, while she complained about how stupid people were about the undead. And about protecting themselves. And, oh yeah, the shoes they’d finally found for her. They didn’t fit right, even with the heavy wool socks that she had told him over and over again made her feet itch and sweat.

  He did what he always did. He prayed that the meal would be over soon. He looked up from his plate and contemplated her in silence for a moment. Was she ever going to shut up?

  “Are you through?” he finally asked when she paused to take a breath, knowing the last thing he should do was to let her know how much she was getting to him, but he had weakened for a moment.

  “Through?” Her head went back and forth like an outraged hen who doesn’t want to give up her eggs. And then she started clucking again with a malicious glint in her eyes. “I have already figured out that you’re one of those men who likes to hear himself talk, but heaven forbid a woman should open her mouth in your royal presence.”

  He already knew where this was going. He got up from the table and turned to go.

  “Don’t you have some orders to issue before you go to wherever it is you think you’re going?” she asked imperiously.

  “Actually I do. Be ready to leave in half an hour.”

  “Oh, you have finally decided to include me in your plans. This must be a special day.”

  He stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned to face her again. “Let’s get something damned straight. I don’t need to ask your permission for any decision that I make. And I don’t care about you berating me every time you open your mouth while we’re here. But out there, you keep your mouth shut.”

  She sat there as calm as lake water and asked, “Are you even able to talk without profanities being involved?”

  “Hell, yes,” he replied sneeringly.

  “Then do that, please,” she said curtly. “When you can stop acting like a child.”

  His mouth tightened briefly at the corners. The woman was maddening. Truly maddening. “Anything else before I go?”

  She looked like she was thinking it over, but she went back to eating her meal in silence.

  Muttering a curse under his breath, Rafe stalked off, needing to put distance between them. When Liam found him, he was still muttering under his breath, but Liam could only make out a single word that sounded like ‘gag’.

  “I see she’s got you riled up again.”

  “Has she always been like that?” Rafe asked.

  “As long as I can remember.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me your name?” Rafe wanted to know.

  Liam shrugged. “It never came up.”

  Rafe looked back over his shoulder because he could still hear Helice’s voice as she harangued Ren. “So your Uncle Eymann has lived with that all these years?”

  Liam nodded. “All these years,” he confirmed. “I don’t ever remember any real affection between them, just the snide remarks. Eymann was like a whipped dog. My mother and Helice have never gotten along, either. As you can see, Helice doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.”

  Rafe stared thoughtfully at the garrulous woman. And then he cringed visibly as he heard her laugh for the first time. It was a dreadful laugh, all deep and hoarse and nasally, a sound that set his teeth on edge.

  Helice could feel the strange sensation slipping over her again. It centered not only in her chest, but lower down as well, taking her by surprise. It was not, she found, an unpleasant sensation. In fact, she secretly reveled in it.

  She watched as Rafe ran his hand through his long black hair. She had never seen a man quite like him before. From every angle, his body was sculpted in hard muscle. She could not keep herself from staring at him with his raven-black hair and his eyes that were as mercurial as quicksilver. The manly silhouette of him was a vision against the setting sun. He was a big man, strong and powerful looking, with broad shoulders, muscular arms and a flat, washboard stomach. She could not get enough of looking at him.

  She watched the sensual curve of his lips as he smiled at something Liam said. Was he a good kisser? Yes, he had to be. She couldn’t imagine him not being good at that. Or anything else.

  She felt her cheeks grow warm from the images she couldn’t keep from summoning up. The slight wind was pressing his shirt against his muscular chest. It was a pale blue shirt today that she found extremely sexy. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing his strong forearms, something else she found incredibly appealing without knowing exactly why.

  He had a powerful effect on her. She acknowledged that, and that effect had brought her to the brink of a passion that in the old world would have been unacceptable. But now? Now so much had changed. She admitted, at least to herself, that she yearned for the touch of his hands and that she fantasized about his kisses. And more. So much more. Just the thought of the hard pressure of his body made her breath come faster. She closed her eyes, giving in to the fantasy, envisioning the passion that she sensed in him, the passion that she imagined lay just beneath the surface only waiting for the right opportunity to be unleashed.

  Feeling as she did, it was difficult these past few days to be around him. It was almost impossible to maintain an attitude of aloof indifference and hide her real feelings, because a mere look from the man had her stomach doing all kinds of shivery things. It had started when his hands had brushed her casually while he had bound her feet. That was her first real sexual awareness of the man.

  There was no wedding ring on his finger. She had already taken note of that. She was still married to another man, but it was entirely possible that she might never see Eymann again. The old rules had changed. Nothing was legal or illegal anymore. There was no law, therefore there was no marriage under the law. Would it be so terrible, if, just once, she gave in to her desires? Especially in such an uncertain world?

  Rafe had something that Eymann couldn’t give her anymore, if indeed he had ever been able to give it to her at all. She had never, ever felt this outright lust with Eymann.

  She had no experience seducing men. At least not overtly. She knew nothing about the feminine wiles that seemed to come naturally to other women. She had always thought she was above all that and she had always felt contempt for any woman who would use them.

  But she had never met a man like Rafe before.

  They were headed for Ashford. Eymann would probably be there by now. If he had made it. There were no guarantees about that. But she knew she had to make a move now, before things becam
e more complicated. And so she made up her mind. She would just make him notice her. She would make him aware of what she wanted. Not with words exactly, but by using her feminine wiles. She must have them. Maybe with a touch, or a look, so that there would be no doubt in his mind.

  And when he came up to her, she got to her feet and stared up at him, experiencing a little breathlessness because his nearness had such a profound effect on her. In fact, her entire body was aching with need. And yet, at the same time, she was terrified at what she was about to do.

  “I want . . . ” she began, but she never finished.

  She couldn’t because he cut her off with: “I thought you would be ready by now. We need to get a move on.”

  Get a move on.

  Even his choice of words was something she found appealing.

  He was the first man that could make her feel so tongue-tied. She could only nod, while Rafe was thinking it was the longest silence he had heard from the woman yet.

  Chapter 18

  Lauryn stood staring at the weed-grown fields in the distance. In the old world, the fields would have been planted a long time ago as far as the eye could see. She turned now and surveyed the long rows behind her with satisfaction. At least the garden was coming along nicely. Luckily, she’d had plenty of seeds left over from last year. She wiped her callused palms against her jeans.

  The garden gave her something positive to do. Something that held a promise of hope for the future. She did everything she could to stay hopeful, but every day that passed without Rafe and Liam-

  She stopped those thoughts short and wiped at a bead of sweat that trickled down her temple. She had tied her hair back from her face that morning, but by now straggling wisps of hair had fallen loose.

  She went in the house to get a drink. Otis followed her inside. She set her glass down and looked at Otis who had gone still and was staring intently at the back door. He wasn’t barking. He had been trained not to, but he was definitely aware of something outside.

  At first she thought about alerting the others. But there wasn’t even time to do that because as the back screen door opened, she almost sobbed out loud with relief.

  Rafe!

  She had waited so long for this moment. With tears brimming in her eyes, she saw another man come through the screen door behind him. And then she did start sobbing.

  It was Liam. Her son was home.

  She didn’t even question how they could be there at the same time. She ran straight into Rafe’s arms, immediately let him go and ran into Liam’s embrace.

  “What took you so long?” she asked both men, wiping at the tears that were falling freely from her eyes.

  Without waiting for an answer, she again hugged both men like she was never going to let them go.

  Rafe gave her a crooked grin. And then his familiar masculine voice, the one she had waited so long to hear, said, “I thought you would be happy to see him.”

  Happy? Happy didn’t even begin to describe it.

  She lifted a hand and gently touched the red scar running along Rafe’s bearded cheek, wondering what had happened to him, and said, “You need a shave.”

  He agreed. “A shave, a meal, and a comfortable bed. I probably haven’t had a good night’s sleep since this whole thing started.”

  Turning towards the window, Lauryn stopped in her tracks. Out in the yard, she saw Helice talking to Eymann. She turned to the two men with a question in her eyes.

  “I didn’t get to tell you yet,” Liam told her. “We’re not alone. We found Helice.”

  Hours later, Lauryn and Rafe were sitting alone together in the barn. Her hands were clasped tightly together in her lap. Lauryn had always seemed so strong and independent, but she had looked so fragile earlier when she had been crying.

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “How did you end up together, you and Liam?”

  “That’s an even longer story. We can talk about that sometime, but that’s not what I want to do right now.”

  She gazed up at him with searching blue eyes. “What do you want to do right now?”

  “I don’t want to talk. I just want to look at you, because that’s all I’ve thought about for the past few weeks, seeing that same look in your eyes that I always used to look forward to, the one that says you’re glad to see me.”

  “I am glad,” she said with a slight catch in her voice so that he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t start crying all over again.

  He ran his hand lightly, almost reverently, down the side of her cheek. He was thinking how beautiful she was and how a zombie apocalypse hadn’t changed that. Part of her hair, piled so carelessly on top of her head, had come loose and was tumbling about her shoulders. He couldn’t get enough of looking at her. If he had lost her-

  “I worried about you day and night,” he said softly.

  She could only shake her head because she couldn’t find the words to tell him how worried she had been about him.

  Neither one of them could know what had happened to the other. And now- Rafe was a little overwhelmed to realize just how afraid he had been.

  “We need to start thinking about better security,” he said to distract himself from the emotion suddenly flooding him. “Make sure we’ll have enough food and water to feed all these people. We’ll have to rethink and reconsider everything that we’re going to need for basic survival.”

  She wasn’t worried about that at the moment. Not with Rafe here. And Liam. By herself, yes, it had been at the top of her list, and, alone, she had felt a little overwhelmed. But not now.

  “So you met Helice,” she said.

  “Oh, I met her.”

  “I’m going to have to talk to her eventually,” she said. “I’m just not looking forward to it. We’ve never gotten along very well, and- And if the way she looked at me when she first saw me is any indication, she hasn’t changed her feelings toward me at all. Even now.”

  He closed his fingers around her chin and gently lifted her face. “You realize, don’t you, that the trouble between you isn’t about you. It’s about her.”

  “I know you’re right, but- But it’s always been so emotionally draining to be around her.”

  “Tell me about it.” His hand fell away and he said, “When you’re ready to talk, then do it. I’m here to listen.”

  She shifted her gaze away from him and drew a deep breath. “I want to try and leave the past where it belongs. We have enough to worry about without dredging it all up again. But I’m afraid all the old feelings are going to flare up again. I moved here because I wanted to get away from the bad feelings and find something better. And I did. With my children, at least. I don’t want to find myself, or anyone else, becoming a victim to Helice’s anger again.”

  “A lot has changed,” he reminded her.

  “Some things don’t change,” she began doubtfully. “I saw the look in her eyes.”

  He didn’t tell her that he had seen it, too, and it had taken him aback.

  “I gotta admit, it is kind of hard for me to believe you’re actually related to those two.”

  “Eymann I can deal with, but Helice- ” She shook her head.

  He crooked one corner of his mouth and admitted, “She even makes me nervous.”

  “Helice has always been difficult.”

  “Yeah, well, I figured that out long before we got here.”

  “The truth is, I had almost forgotten just how vindictive she can be. But when she looked at me, it made me remember how many times I had told myself that I would rather spend my time in a nest of vipers than with her. And Eymann- I see very little has changed. He hasn’t got a clue what’s going on around him, or how to deal with her.

  “I don’t want to be always walking around on eggshells with her around,” she went on. “You’re probably thinking that I’m being petty and just borrowing trouble.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her and got that fighting look
in her eyes. It was her defiant pose. He knew it well and he’d always thought that she looked completely adorable when she did that.

  “The part that really confuses me is that I’ve never done anything to her.”

  “She’s jealous of you,” Rafe said. “It’s just that simple. Which means that deep down she feels inadequate in some way.”

  Lauryn shook her head. “She has no reason to be jealous of me. But whatever is driving her, I am not going to let her get to me. And I am not going to let her push my kids around. That’s where I draw the line. She can throw all the temper tantrums she wants with me, but she is not going after Maddy or Liam.”

  He nodded, silently agreeing with her. In fact, he would help her inforce those boundaries. But Helice was the last thing on his mind at the moment.

  “I won’t let her attack or disrupt the family I have spent years building here,” she was saying.

  “No, we can’t let that happen,” he agreed. “You contrive to disrupt my peace of mind enough already.”

  She stared back at him.

  “I’m disrupted right now,” he confessed.

  “Are you.”

  “Very disrupted.”

  “You’re incorrigible, do you know that?” she said as she shook her head, but a small smile began to curve the corners of her lips.

  He pulled her into his arms, held her tightly for a few blissful moments and then pulled far enough away to look down into her eyes.

  “How much did you miss me?” he asked.

  “There aren’t even words.”

  “I can understand that because I couldn’t think about anything but getting back to you the whole time I was away.”

  “And I kept waiting for you,” she said, closing her eyes, afraid the tears would begin to fall again. “Every minute of every day and every long night that seemed like an eternity.”