She was probably being paranoid, but Fen was one more person she didn’t know. And after the last nine months, that meant more people she didn’t trust. In Penton, trust was now a rare commodity. She resented like hell what had been done to her town; she resented all the bad things that kept happening to people she cared about.
And she, Melissa Calvert, former familiar of Aidan Murphy and wife of Mark Calvert, sat here with fangs, at midnight, afraid, not sure who she was anymore. Cage, Aidan, Krys—they all kept telling her she wasn’t a monster, that she was still the woman she’d always been.
They were right on one count; she wasn’t a monster. She’d been around too many kind and honorable vampires to believe that lie.
But she had changed. She’d turned from a naively fearless human into a cowardly, fanged night crawler, like those big, stretchy worms she’d dug up as a kid to use as fishing bait.
The worms were slow, rubbery creatures that instinctively hid from anything that came too near, seeking out the comfort of earthy darkness in which to burrow and hide. That was her. What Melissa Calvert had become. Or had reverted back to—just like when she’d been Melissa Williamson, before meeting Aidan. The young woman who had gravitated to abusive relationships like iron filings to a magnet. The woman who sank so deeply into her mother’s trap of depression that she couldn’t climb out and thought a bottle of pills was her only escape.
Aidan had saved her that time. Turned her into a new person. And Mark had completed her.
Now, she felt the depression threatening to take her down again, and damn it, she didn’t want to resurrect Melissa Williamson. She didn’t want to wallow in a paralysis of sadness and fear. She didn’t want to be a blind, light-fearing night crawler that could function only in mental darkness.
Cage had been the light that tried to lead her out of it after Matthias took her, but she didn’t want to rely on him again. Or on anybody but herself.
Another hour passed, and finally, just before midnight, Mirren’s Bronco stopped in front of Aidan and Krys’s house. A wave of relief washed through Melissa when Mark slid out of the backseat; her tense shoulders released, a shaky breath escaped. He had a bandage on his left temple, but no other visible injuries.
Her relief died a quick death, though, as she watched Mark walk up the sidewalk. His movements were slow and stiff, and he half-pulled himself up the short set of steps to the porch by grasping the side rail.
She recognized the gait. Chronic back pain had turned him into a heavy user of oxy 80, which led to a string of petty thefts when the doctors cut him off and he needed money for black-market buys. Then heroin, cheap and plentiful on the streets of Atlanta, had claimed him. None of it helped him move any better; it simply made him care less.
Melissa swallowed down the dark thoughts that threatened to overwhelm her. She stood up once she saw Aidan, Mirren, and Max getting back into the Bronco, leaving Krys behind. Krys was a doctor, but she might not know all of Mark’s history. Melissa could help.
She walked out of the house without stopping to think about what she was doing. Otherwise, she’d chicken out. Since she’d been turned, Mark had made her feel guilty with his need, his love, his patience. He would wait for her, he said. He’d love her when she was ready. They’d try again, as soon as she felt comfortable feeding from him.
Instead, she had turned away. She’d turned to Cage out of fear. She’d broken Mark’s heart, even though she’d done it for both of them.
Oh, Mark would be honorable. He’d try to make it work. She loved him so much her heart felt big and ungainly behind her ribcage, as if it might swell and burst whenever she saw him. But eventually he’d reject her, and as selfish as it would seem to everyone else, she had to protect her own heart and walk away before he had the chance. She couldn’t survive his rejection.
Krys stepped out the front door and onto the porch, closing the door behind her before Melissa cleared the stairs. “I’m glad you’re here. Mark needs sleep, but his medical records were stored in the part of the clinic that burned.” She sat on the top step and slid over for Melissa to sit beside her. “I know about his problem with heroin, but it started with painkillers, didn’t it? He injured his back again. Wasn’t that his problem before—his back?”
Melissa stared out at the street. She knew Mark’s story as well as she knew her own. “He was a financial analyst—did you know that?”
Krys nodded. “He told me a little of his story when I first came to Penton. There was an accident, right?”
“Multiple spinal fractures, courtesy of a drunk driver.” Melissa traced the edge of the step with the toe of her sandal, stopping when she remembered Mark had surprised her with those sandals one time after a business trip to Birmingham for Aidan. He’d thought they were sexy. She should take them off before going inside. If she went inside. “The doctors couldn’t do much for him, and they were afraid surgery would make it worse.”
“So he tried to kill the pain instead. It happens a lot.” Krys sighed. “I just shot him up with enough morphine to take off the worst edge of the pain; I was afraid to give him more. Maybe he’ll be able to sleep, though. I’ll see if Glory can stay with him during the daytime and get someone else to run the kitchen. Aidan’s finding a substitute feeder in the meantime. We’ll reassess tomorrow night.”
Melissa slipped out of the sandals and set them aside. “What about Max? He’s just got Cage and Hannah to feed, and he could stay here during the day.”
“He’s also got the new guy, Fen.” Krys looked at Melissa’s bare feet and started to say something. Finally, she just shook her head. “Plus, I think Max will want to take Rob’s body home, so we’re going to be short on feeders. How are you doing?”
Krys had always been too perceptive for her own good, but she was Melissa’s best friend now that Mark no longer held that title. “I’m fine.”
Her friend didn’t answer, and again Melissa could practically hear her biting her tongue. “Go ahead. Say whatever you want to.”
“Why are you here, Mel?”
Talk about a loaded question. Why was she saddled with this strange new life? Why was she still in Penton? Or why was she sitting here on the porch of the house where Mark lived, unable to stay away from him?
Melissa figured she knew which “why” Krys was after. “I thought you might need Mark’s medical history, and I could tell you what you needed to know. Probably more than he can.”
“Uh-huh.”
Melissa sighed. When Krys had been agonizing over her relationship with Aidan, Melissa had given her friend a lot of tough love; she suspected she was about to get a shot of her own treatment handed back to her. She waved her hand in a rolling motion. “Go ahead.”
“Here’s what I think.” Krys turned sideways on the step to face Melissa. “Deep inside, you still love Mark, but you don’t know your limits yet and he scares you. Cage, on the other hand, is safe.”
Melissa laughed; talk about being off base. “Cage Reynolds is not safe. The man was a soldier for hire, for God’s sake. You should hear some of the stories Fen was telling last night about their years as mercenaries in Nicaragua.” She paused, hesitant to say what she hadn’t even told Cage. “Besides, I’m not with Cage. I’m not going to be.”
Krys smiled. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that.” She leaned back against the top step, propping on her elbows. “Don’t get me wrong. I like Cage a lot, and I know Aidan does, too. Even Mirren. But . . .”
“I know.” Melissa stared down the block at Cage’s house, wondering when she’d get to tell him all of this and how he would take it. Wondering if she’d be disappointed if he didn’t care. She had no idea how the man felt. “I’ve watched you and Aidan together, and Mirren and Glory. I just don’t have that kind of connection with Cage.
“I held onto him after I was turned for the exact reason you said, out of fear. But wha
tever that bond-mate reaction is that vampires get? I don’t have it, and I don’t think he does, either.”
“Have you told Mark that?”
Melissa shook her head, opened her mouth to respond, but realized she didn’t know what to say.
“You’ll figure it out.” Krys threw an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “Speaking of Cage, I’m going down the block to meet his Irish buddy. Aidan wants my take on Fen.”
“I’m not sure they’re buddies at all. I am sure Fen Patrick is kind of a sleazoid with the one-liners.” Melissa was relieved to veer the subject away from her love life. “I don’t much like him, but it might just be because he tries so hard to be charming. It feels desperate.”
Krys nodded. “Yeah, but if he’s starving—and Aidan said he was really thin—he probably is desperate. He wants to find a place here.”
Maybe, but Melissa still didn’t like his vibe. “Meet him and see what you think. He left the house a while back, walking down toward the old mill. I don’t know if he’s back yet, so you might have to wait.”
At the mention of the old Southern Mills building, a shadow crossed Krys’s face, visible even in the dim light of the porch. She’d almost died at that old hulk of a rotting building—more than once. Shame filled Melissa’s chest at the bolt of jealousy that shot through her. Krys had been turned vampire, but Krys’s and Aidan’s love for each other had survived it. Of course, Krys had mated with Aidan when she was still human. That choice hadn’t been forced on her.
“I haven’t been down there since . . .” Krys didn’t need to finish that sentence.
“If he’s not at the community house, come back here and catch up with him later.” Melissa couldn’t imagine going back into that building where so much fear and hurt had taken place. Most of the clinic subsuites had collapsed, and there was no need for her to revisit the place where Matthias had held her captive. “No need to put yourself through seeing it again.”
“Nope.” Krys got that determined look, and there was no point arguing with her once her jaw had clenched into that firm set. “I need to go back there and face it. Besides, I want to meet this guy. What happened to Mark and Robbie was no accident, and he’s the newest person in town.”
A familiar and unwelcome tingle of fear streaked across Melissa’s scalp. “It was deliberate? Are you sure? Who would want to hurt Rob? Or Mark or Max, for that matter?”
“Mirren’s sure of it, and that’s good enough for me.” Krys had walked a good half-block toward the mill before she called out over her shoulder, “By the way, stay with Mark until he falls asleep, would you? Sure you would. Thanks!”
Damn it. Melissa hadn’t even decided whether or not to go inside, much less babysit Mark until he fell asleep. But she climbed to her feet and walked onto the porch. Her hand wavered over the knob to the heavy front door; it felt like some kind of stone that, if rolled away, would let all of her guilt and fear come spilling out.
But Mark had been hurt, and she had failed him. Two facts. If he needed to lay a little guilt on her tonight to feel better, she could suck it up and take it. She owed him that much.
CHAPTER 7
Krys meant well with her little morphine shot, delivered in a low dose as a nod to Mark’s history of addiction. What she didn’t realize was that his junkie days were recent enough that he wasn’t likely to keel over into unconsciousness from anything other than enough morphine to fell a rampaging rhino. He’d probably always have a high tolerance to any kind of opioid.
Opioid. A good vocabulary word. Maybe if he ever had a kid, that would be its name. Melissa couldn’t have children, but deep inside, he’d thought they would leave Penton someday and adopt kids—although they’d need Aidan’s help, given their shaky personal histories. He doubted any adoption agent had ever uttered, “Sure, we’ll be happy to turn over this child to the depressive with suicidal tendencies and the overeducated junkie.”
Didn’t matter now. He could kiss that little domestic daydream good-bye.
He’d told Krys not to give him anything for pain, said he could tolerate the clench of muscles in his back and the pain that knifed in sharp bursts all the way to his knees. But when he broke into a cold sweat after the twenty or so steps from the car to the house, she knew he’d been lying. He couldn’t tolerate that much pain, not gracefully. It sliced through his back like a heated blade.
After the shot, it still hurt like a sorry bastard, but the tentacles of agony stayed rooted in his lower back instead of racing up and down all the nerve endings in his hips and legs.
Better living through chemistry. It had been the only motto he’d lived by for most of his late twenties, years whose details had blended into a big, drug-addled fog.
Krys had left a few minutes earlier, but Mark still heard her soft voice outside. He pulled the dark curtain aside a fraction to see her on the porch, talking to someone.
He moved the curtain farther. Not someone. Melissa.
Mark waited for the familiar twinge of heartache the sound of Mel’s voice usually brought, but it didn’t come. Maybe he was over her.
Or maybe he’d had enough morphine to kill the heartache kind of pain.
Whatever the cause, the rise and fall of her voice made him angry instead of sad, and he welcomed the anger like a beloved friend. He deserved to be angry, damn it. He should’ve been angry a long time ago. Ever since Melissa had been rescued from Matthias and attached herself to Cage Reynolds as if he were a six-foot security blanket with abs, Mark had turned into a pathetic sap.
Anger was a welcome change.
Hopefully, Krys was telling her to get lost. Maybe he’d climb into bed and feign unconsciousness in case she came in anyway, because Melissa usually did what she wanted. He doubted becoming a vampire had curbed her pigheadedness. Once she decided to do something, changing her mind took an act of God Himself. Or, at the very least, Aidan Murphy.
Yep, faking unconsciousness was an excellent idea.
Mark turned in a slow, stooped swivel, stopped a few seconds to see if the pain worsened or sent him to his knees, and shuffled like an old geezer toward his bedroom. He’d toed off his shoes when he came in the house, so his socks slid across the dark bamboo flooring. One small slip and he’d be on his ass again. If that happened, he probably wouldn’t get up this time, opioids or no opioids.
The flooring had cost a small fortune; Mark knew because he’d organized the purchase. Will had gone high-end on designing these houses, trying to make them feel like real homes instead of barracks.
And barracks reminded him of Rob.
Damn it, they’d been careful with that construction. He’d gone over and over the scene in his mind, wondering if he’d be dead had Rob not shouted out a warning. It had prompted him to turn, and then instinctively throw himself clear. If Rob had been on the ladder instead of him, Mark would have died and Rob would have been spared. The world would no doubt be better off with a live Rob Thomas, war hero and all-around good guy, instead of a live Mark Calvert, former junkie whose vampire wife wouldn’t get her fangs anywhere near him.
And who’d apparently stepped off the abyss into a deep chasm of pathetic self-pity.
Mark grabbed the edge of a table when his left foot skated a few unplanned inches on the shiny dark wood. Enough already, idiot. Pay attention. By God, this wallowing would not continue. He was even sick of himself. From now on, he’d live in a no-wallow zone if it killed him.
He turned too fast going into the bedroom, twisted the back he’d been trying to hold rigid, and held tight to the door facing for a few seconds, waiting for the pain to settle back into a dull throb.
“Here, let me help.” A strong arm wrapped around his waist, and he closed his eyes at the scent of vanilla and cinnamon. Melissa’s scent. Her warm touch. Her . . . muscles?
“Damn, Mel. When did you get so strong?” She could probably pick him up.
And he hadn’t heard her come in. Sneaky vampire.
She took more of his weight than she had to as she eased him toward the bed—just to prove a point, no doubt. “I got that strong when I died, Mark. Because I look the same, you keep thinking I am the same. But vampires are strong, remember?”
“Oh, believe me, I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgotten anything.” He turned with more help from her than he wanted, and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. Maybe the morphine was doing a better job than he’d thought, because his back felt as if only a match had been set to it and not a blowtorch.
While he gauged his ability to lie down without help—because he’d be damned if she was going to put him to bed like a baby—Ms. Strong and Mighty Vampire stacked pillows against the headboard.
Then she reached for him. “Let me help you—”
“No.” Mark pushed her hands away. “I can do it.” He used his arms to lift himself, slowly pivoting his hips into the middle of the bed and lifting one leg at a time. Finally, he eased back against the pillows. He’d feel a lot prouder of his independence if he weren’t sweating like a pig under a heat lamp. He might also be breathing like a water buffalo after a two-mile stampede. He could probably keep going with the wildlife metaphors if he tried hard enough.
Melissa had watched his slow descent with a deepening frown line between her eyebrows. He knew that look. That particular crease said she had an opinion and wouldn’t rest until she shared it.
“Krys said she gave you a shot of morphine but was worried about giving you too much. She shorted you, didn’t she? It didn’t work.”
“Sure it did. Pain’s not bad at all.” Especially if he kept his teeth clenched.
“Pants on fire.” She smiled when she said it, her hazel eyes lighting up like they used to before all the shit happened. Then they both froze in awkward silence.
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. It had been a silly little game with them. She’d say it, and he’d answer with a suggestive comment on what actually would set his pants on fire, and they’d eventually end up in bed. Maybe they’d tease it out for hours, flirting and verbally sparring, but they always ended up between the sheets.
Allegiance (The Penton Vampire Legacy) Page 7