by Lynsay Sands
Divine didn’t spend a lot of time around her son and his sons. She hadn’t since he became a man and struck out on his own. She had visited with him more often at first. She’d even raised several of his boys in the early centuries when the birth mother didn’t want to be bothered, but had found it too heart-wrenching when one or another of them had been caught by one of Uncle Lucian’s scouts and killed. It had actually been a relief when Damian had stopped asking her to raise them.
The last time she’d spent more than a half hour or so with Damian had been when she’d had to rescue him from Uncle Lucian up in Canada. She’d moved as quickly as she could when she’d got the message from Abaddon that her son might need her. Fortunately, the carnival she’d been traveling with at the time had been in Michigan and she’d got to Toronto quickly enough. She’d checked into a hotel and had immediately tried to contact Damian. When she hadn’t been able to reach him, she’d reluctantly tried to contact Abaddon with no success. She’d paced her hotel room for two days, trying repeatedly to reach either of the men. Just as she was about to give up and head back to Michigan, Abaddon had called in a panic. He’d told her Leo was holed up in a hotel in downtown Toronto and Lucian and his men were there searching for him.
Divine had ground her teeth at his calling Damian Leo, but had merely snapped out, “Which hotel? What room is he in?”
The hotel hadn’t been far from her own. Still, by the time she’d arrived, slipped past the men her uncle seemed to have streaming through the building, and got to the floor Damian’s room was on, she’d been too late. They’d found him, and Damian was lying on the floor in the hall, several bullets in his chest and an arrow protruding from his heart.
Shocked and horrified, Divine had scooped him up and started to turn away with him, but a small sound, perhaps a gasp, had made her swing back toward the room Damian had lain outside of. A petite brunette was trying to help a dark-haired man to his feet and had spotted her. The woman was opening her mouth to scream when Divine had taken control of her mind, stopped her from making a sound, wiped her mind, and put her to sleep. She’d then rushed off for the stairs with her son, carrying him up rather than down and then leaping from the rooftop of that building to the next, and then the next after that before stopping to remove the arrow from his heart. He hadn’t miraculously gained consciousness right away, of course. Besides the arrow, he’d taken several bullet wounds and lost enough blood that he would be out for a while. She’d waited an hour, though, before moving.
Not knowing what else to do, Divine had left him there while she went for her RV. It hadn’t taken long . . . even so, Damian was gone by the time she returned.
In a panic, she’d called his number only to have a strange voice answer. Suspecting it was one of Uncle Lucian’s men, she’d hung up at once and called Abaddon instead, telling herself that just because they had the phone didn’t mean they had her son. Her calls to Abaddon had again gone unanswered. Divine had stayed in town for another full day calling again and again, and then had packed up and headed for the border, intending to get as far away from Canada and her uncle as possible.
The next weeks had been stressful as she waited to learn whether her son had managed to drag himself off that roof on his own, or had been caught. She’d also changed carnivals at that point, moving to the Hoskins Amusements, and she’d dialed Abaddon’s number so many times she’d started to dream about dialing it. And then she’d finally got a call, not from Abaddon, but from her son. He was alive, well, and wanted to thank her for saving his life. Seriously, that’s what he’d said. Divine had flipped. All that anxiety and fear and he finally calls her up cheerful as a chimp to say thanks? Divine had demanded to know where he was and when she found out he was holed up not far from where the carnival was, she’d left at once to go see him.
Her temper hadn’t improved any once she’d arrived at the dilapidated building he’d taken shelter in. He deserved better than the holes he chose to inhabit, and she didn’t like his choice of companions either. Not the women. They were all emaciated drug addicts, every one of them high as kites, either passed out and blank-brained or so strung out their thoughts didn’t make sense when she tried to read them. She hadn’t been any more pleased to find her grandsons just as high from feeding on them. She’d ignored that at first, too intent on seeing for herself that Damian was all right to care what her grandsons got up to. Once she’d seen for herself that he was alive and well, Divine had demanded an explanation and Damian had explained that Abaddon had carried him off the roof and got him away when she’d left him there.
That last part had been said with a wounded note that suggested she’d abandoned him, and that was when Divine had let her temper rip. She’d explained in no uncertain terms that she’d left him to fetch the RV and came back to find him gone.
“Says you. You were probably off fetching the Rogue Hunters to come get Dad,” Rufus had sneered, his words slurred with the effects of the drug-soaked blood he’d consumed. Divine hadn’t even thought; she’d picked him up by the throat and thrown him up against the wall . . . only he’d gone right through it, crashing to the floor in the next room. Divine had followed to make sure he was all right, and then to warn him to watch his tongue if he didn’t want to be tongueless as well as fangless. It had been an empty threat, but effective. He’d said “Yes ma’am,” and nodded repeatedly as she’d turned and stormed out.
Damian had followed her, but when she’d asked how Lucian Argeneau had tracked him down, he’d been infuriatingly vague about the whole ordeal. He’d claimed that a couple of the boys had taken some risks they shouldn’t have and behaved stupidly, and that he’d tried to clean up their mess and got himself caught. Damian had refused to explain what those risks had been, however. He’d also avoided her eyes the whole time, which had made her suspect he was lying to her about something, though she couldn’t tell which part of the tale was a lie.
“What risks?” she’d demanded. “What stupid things did they do?”
“They’re my sons. I’ll handle it,” he’d said, refusing to explain.
Divine had let the matter go, too emotionally exhausted from weeks of worry to have the energy to fight with him. But she’d taken the time to warn him in no uncertain terms to lie low and avoid trouble for the next little while. Lucian didn’t like to lose, wouldn’t be happy about losing him, and would have his people out in force looking for him. She’d emphasized it by pounding at him until he’d assured her he’d lie low for a while.
The moment he’d made that promise, she’d mounted her motorcycle and left. Divine always came away from visits to Damian’s chosen shelters feeling slightly dirty. She blamed it on Abaddon and some of her grandsons. She had always found Abaddon loathsome, but while she disliked admitting it, some of her grandsons left her feeling the same way. As a rule they avoided her as much as possible, and were mostly quiet and polite when they couldn’t avoid her, but it didn’t matter. Divine always left worried about what they were up to and feeling like she needed a bath. It was why she didn’t go out of her way to see her son. In fact, she hadn’t seen him more than half a dozen times over the last century, and four of those times had been over the last two or three years, twice when she’d had to save him from Lucian and then had visited him after, and twice the last couple of days.
Marcus moaned from the depths of his unconsciousness and Divine turned her attention to the man she was squatting over. She supposed she couldn’t just leave him lying there on her floor. Well, she could, but it could get awkward if Madge or someone came along for a visit and peered through the window.
Clicking her tongue against her teeth, she picked up the man and carried him to the bedroom at the back of the RV. After laying him down there, she debated stripping him so he’d be more comfortable and then shook the thought away. Seeing the injury she’d done him would just make her feel guiltier and she resented feeling guilty at all. She shouldn’t. He had entered uninvited. A man could get shot for something like
that.
Mind you, Divine supposed he might prefer getting shot to whatever had happened in his pants when she’d hit him. She’d lived a long time and never seen a man actually turn the different colors he had with pain. At one point he’d actually turned green.
Grimacing, she quickly covered him with a blanket so that she didn’t have to look at the evidence of what she’d done Divine then returned to the other room and surveyed the mess. After a sigh, she collected the remaining bags of blood and tossed them in her refrigerator, then set to the task of cleaning up the blood that had dried on her floor. Fortunately, she didn’t favor carpet and her RV was floored with a laminate that looked like hardwood. Everything in her RV was easily cleanable, which came in handy at times like this. Not that there were many times like this. Actually, this was the first. But she had no doubt there would be others in the future before she traded this RV in for another. Life could get messy.
It didn’t take long to finish her cleaning. Once done, Divine walked to the door to the bedroom and peered in at Marcus again. She’d nearly covered his head with the blanket when she’d tossed it on him, and he was lying as still as death under it, nowhere near regaining consciousness. In her experience, if he weren’t very deeply under he’d be moaning and thrashing. Healing was often more painful than the injury that brought it on, which was something she’d learned well at an early age.
Not wanting to think about that, Divine turned away and headed for the door. She needed to head into town and find a meal. She needed blood. The throbbing in her head had got steadily worse as the day had progressed, and then it had begun to spread. A sure sign she needed blood. She wasn’t too concerned about leaving Marcus here alone. There was nothing here for him to find that would tell him her identity. In fact, there was nothing here to tell him much of anything about her. Divine had learned long ago to travel lightly. She never knew when she might have to move again, and possibly do it with nothing but the clothes on her back. She’d done that many, many times over the years.
Stepping outside, she sucked in a breath of fresh air, peered up at the starlit night, and then went to get her motorcycle.
Seven
It was hunger that woke Marcus. His stomach was cramping with it. That awareness was followed by the realization that he was lying on a bed, under a blanket. A glance around told him where he was and reminded him what had happened. It also explained why he was so hungry. The one bag of blood hadn’t been enough to make up for the blood his body had used healing his balls.
Grimacing at the thought of the injury he’d taken, Marcus reached down to feel gingerly around under the blanket. His jeans were hard and crusty with dry blood around the groin, but there was no longer any pain down there. He’d healed. Great. Now he just had to get up, get out of here without his oh-so-lovely hostess busting his balls again, literally, and get back to the SUV to find some blood. Unless, of course, the blood he’d brought here was still around. From the disgusted look on Divine’s face, he doubted she’d consumed it. She’d acted like it was skanky week-old roadkill he’d offered her. Here he’d been trying to do something nice and she’d beaten the crap out of him and sneered at his offering.
“Women,” he muttered under his breath, and was about to shift the blanket off himself and get up when a sound in the other room made him pause. He supposed he should have assumed it was Divine. It was her RV after all, but there had been something furtive about the sound. He lay still, ears straining, and then stiffened and closed his eyes to feign sleep as he heard the bedroom door slide open.
It was barely opened when it closed again, but the sound came with a smell that told him the person at the door wasn’t Divine. She smelled like wild roses and vanilla, a surprisingly potent combination that made him think of cupcakes in the garden. It made him hungry.
However, the smell that had slid into the room when the door was opened was musk and male sweat. Marcus opened his eyes to find the room empty. Surprised by that, he eased the blankets aside and carefully sat up, relieved when the action didn’t add to the pain his lack of blood was causing. He was weak though. He needed blood.
The distinct whoosh of the RV’s screen door closing made Marcus get to his feet and head out of the room to investigate. Even if he only caught a glimpse of whoever was walking away from the RV, it was something, he thought.
Marcus was halfway across the lounge area when flames suddenly exploded outside the windows on either side of him. Freezing, he glanced from one window to the other and then continued forward, running now. He pushed through to the curtained-off area with the table where Divine did her fortune-telling, noting that there were flames outside those windows as well.
Muscles tightening, Marcus reached the door and tried to open it, not terribly surprised when the doorknob turned but the door didn’t budge. Why set the RV on fire and leave the door open for the person inside to escape? And it had to have been deliberately set on fire. Flames were shooting up at every window. Natural fires did not start that way. Besides, he could smell gas. It must have been used as an accelerant. Put that together with the attack that had left Divine and the RV bloodied last night and it appeared someone was out to get her.
Grinding his teeth together as the doorknob grew hot in his hand, Marcus stepped back and then threw his weight at the solid panel. That would have done it on most doors he’d encountered, but all it did here was crack the solid inner door in a couple spots. The center held fast. They must have jammed something up against it inside the screen door, he realized.
The fire was growing quickly. Judging by the way the fire had erupted, they must have poured the gasoline all the way around the RV and then set it on fire. It was the only explanation for the way the flames had popped up at every window. But the fire was quickly taking hold now, eating into the fiberglass and whatever else the RV was made of, and the heat inside was quickly becoming like an oven on broil. Immortals tended to be highly flammable and Marcus knew he didn’t have long.
Giving up on the door, he turned and glanced from one window to another and then hurried back into the lounge area. After a brief pause, he settled for the window above the couch. It was bigger and he could use the couch as a launching pad, he decided, and ran for it. When he hit the couch and leaped up, Marcus raised his legs, drawing them close to his chest even as he curled his head down and wrapped his arms around it, trying to make himself as small as possible as he crashed into and through the window. It was only as the glass cut into him that Marcus considered that he should have thrown one of the kitchen table chairs through it first to clear away the glass, and it was only as the flames licked at him that he thought he should have dampened the blanket on the bed and wrapped it around himself before leaping out.
Hindsight, however, was as useless as it was perfect, Marcus thought grimly as he felt his skin catch fire on his back and arms as he passed through the flames. He crashed to the ground with a jolting thud what seemed like hours, but must only have been seconds, later. Despite the pain radiating through every part of his body, Marcus began to roll away from the RV as soon as he hit dirt. He rolled once, twice, and then crashed into the cotton candy stand stationed on this side of Divine’s home.
Pausing then on his back, Marcus raised his head to peer along his body, relieved to see that he didn’t appear to be on fire anymore. Sighing, he let his head drop briefly, took a deep breath, and then started to get up, only to groan and fall back as his body complained strenuously. He might not be on fire now, but he’d obviously not got away unburned. His skin was tight and painful in several places, his back, legs, and arms bearing the worst of it. Immortals were very flammable, human kindling. He was lucky that rolling had put out the flames.
Sighing, Marcus closed his eyes, but immediately blinked them open again as the sound of voices calling out in alarm told him that the fire had been noticed and the carnies were coming to investigate. He suspected that since he was a newcomer and no one had seen him crash through the window, he’
d be suspect number one for who had set the fire. The thought was enough to make Marcus move, pain or no pain. He was in no shape to control the minds and thoughts of a large crowd of people. Hell, at peak health, he couldn’t do it.
Pushing himself to his feet, he leaned against the cotton candy stall and stumbled forward along it, wincing as his shoulder and upper arm rubbed against the wooden surface. After a couple of feet, Marcus gave that up. He was moving too slowly and his legs were wobbling, threatening to collapse under him with every move. There was no way he was going to make it back to his SUV and the blood waiting there.
Marcus swallowed and took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind and figure out what to do. His brain was presently a chaotic mass of pain and confusion and his thinking was definitely less than optimal or it wouldn’t have taken him as long as it did to notice the door next to him. Once he did notice it, however, hiding inside the cotton candy stand he was leaning against seemed the best option. If he’d had the energy, Marcus would have cursed at himself for being so slow. Instead, he merely turned to the door, closed his hand around the padlock, and pulled once, hard.
He was rather amazed when it jerked open. Marcus hadn’t really thought he’d had the strength in him. But perhaps adrenaline was making the difference. There was definitely a ton of adrenaline coursing through him as he listened to the sounds of people rushing this way. Pushing the door open, Marcus slid inside the stall, closed the door, and then dropped to the floor like a stone, the last of his energy spent.