Roaring Dawn: Macey Book 3 (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 10)

by Colleen Gleason

  What a fool. What fools they both were.

  “Help me get out of this thing,” she said, matching his look with her own avid, promising one. “I need to feel you against me…and inside of me. Please, Grady.”

  That was all he needed—and his clever, clever fingers made short work of the Capone contraption as she yanked his shirt apart. Buttons flew, bouncing everywhere, and as the prison of her corset fell away, she had the pleasure of sliding her hands up over his taut, lightly haired chest, carefully avoiding the scores and cuts from his vampire battles.

  At last they were completely naked, sliding and easing against the other—muscle to curve, rough hair to smooth skin, legs twined, mouths engaged, hands everywhere. Grady breathed something in Irish against her lips as she guided him between her legs, raising herself to take him in.

  Oh, yes. Macey closed her eyes and held him, lifting her hips in easy, slow movements to match his, reveling in the beauty of this age-old rhythm that could bespeak such love and passion. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes—tears of grief and joy, tears of pleasure and comfort.

  And when their movements became more urgent—deeper and harder and faster—she forgot the tears and the grief, and settled into the joy and pleasure building inside her. Macey cried out, arching up into him, pulling him close and hard as she came. He groaned her name with his final stroke, and she dragged her hands through his thick, wild hair, looking up at her love as his face went slack with pleasure and release.

  Then, swimming back to reality, her body still humming and hot, her mouth settled on the warm, salty skin of his shoulder, tasting Grady…feeling at last as if she was no longer alone, and would never be alone again. He lowered himself so their damp bodies touched, then eased off to the side, pulling her close with him.

  Some time later…much later, after another hot, passionate interlude and another doze…Macey realized sunlight was pouring into the room.

  It was morning. And, for the first time in weeks, she’d slept beautifully.

  Out of habit, she dragged on a robe and slipped down the hall to the bathroom to freshen up, then down to the kitchen to find something to eat. All of a sudden, she was hungrier than she’d been for a long time.

  She was in the kitchen, making a tray of food from the slim pickings in Grady’s fridge—a boiled egg, some good Irish cheddar, some apples, and a half loaf of bread that was almost stale—when she heard the stairs creaking.

  “There you are,” he said, coming into the kitchen. When she saw his face, she realized with a sharp pain that he’d been afraid she was gone.

  It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  “Grady,” she said, setting the tray aside and walking into his arms. He folded her against his strong, naked body and she sighed, bumping her nose gently against his skin as she drew in a deep breath of his scent. “I’m not going to leave—unless you want me to.”

  His arms tightened, and he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Not until I’m quite finished with you,” he replied, a smile in his voice. “And I’m thinking that will be a while, a rún.”

  “What does that mean? A rún?” She looked up at him.

  “It means, literally, my secret…as in, the secret of my heart. The deepest, truest secret of my heart.”

  “Oh. But…you called me that…before.”

  His expression took her breath away more effectively than even the kisses they’d shared. “Yes. But now it’s even truer, is it not?”

  “You never forgot me, then, did you?” She shook her head. “Your memory wasn’t…well…” She couldn’t even put into words the travesty of what she’d tried to do. Her stomach felt like a lead balloon had settled in it, and suddenly she was no longer ravenous.

  “Wayren gave me the choice.”

  “I see.”

  He nodded gravely and stepped back a little. His eyes changed, turning to wintry Lake Michigan instead of warm blue sky. “She gave me the choice of living in oblivion—and safety—or staying as I was. When she told me you’d— Well. It wasn’t a difficult decision—I didn’t hesitate. But I’ve been unspeakably angry with you, Macey. I don’t deny it.”

  “As well you should be.” Her heart gave a little awkward ka-thump at the thought that he might still, and always, deep inside be unspeakably angry with her. That he might never trust her again. That, despite the last hours of the most beautiful and passionate lovemaking she’d ever had, they might never be the way they once were…or could have been. That it could be the last time they were together thus.

  “I tried to understand, but how could I? After what we’d been through?” His voice was hard, and he looked away, curling his fingers over the edge of the kitchen counter. “After all of that, you’d still rejected me.”

  Macey’s throat closed up and she couldn’t speak. Tears obliterated her vision and she found she needed a damned handkerchief again.

  He sighed and groped in a drawer, then handed her a kitchen towel. “For a lethal Venator, you’re certainly unprepared at times.”

  “What I did was inexcusable. I know that. I-I was just trying to protect—”

  “Me?” His voice was like flint.

  “No,” she whispered. “Me. I was trying to protect myself from having to go through what my father did. From—from being in a situation where I’d have to make a choice about whether to save you or to save the world. From having to live every moment in fear that it might happen, that someone would take you from me. From doing what Victoria Gardella did, when she married Philip de Lacey.”

  He was silent for a moment, but his strong, dark hand moved to touch hers in a brief squeeze. “Savina said the same thing.” He looked at the tray and picked it up. “I’m hungry. Let’s sit down.”

  Macey released her breath. Now she understood how he felt, walking into the kitchen to find her there—discovering that their passionate interlude was not just a flash in the pan, not just a short, false interval. That they were going to talk, and hopefully heal what had gone between them.

  “Savina knew?” Macey asked as she sat on the sofa. He’d set the tray of food on the table next to them.

  “She figured it out. We spent a lot of time talking on Sunday—that horrible rainy day. That day you came here.” He looked at her, and Macey blushed, turning away.

  “Savina didn’t recognize you, but I did. Why did you come? It made me— It disturbed me. I’d been doing…all right. Even after seeing you at the photo exhibit the night before. That was…impossible. I hadn’t expected you to be there, and there you were. And you looked…” He shook his head. “I thought I was never going to recover.”

  Macey needed a handkerchief again. What a damned fool she’d been. Was there any way to turn time backward? To fix this somehow?

  “But I made it through that night—I was glad you left the photo show early, you know. I might not have been able to… And then there you were, showing up here the next day, in the rain, looking so forlorn and lost and sad under that blasted hat you were wearing. And after that, after you were gone…well, I said too much, asked too many questions of Savina about your father, and their relationship…and she figured out that you and I had…that we’d been together.”

  “She’s quite clever.”

  “Your father is mad about her, you know. I suspect very soon she’s going to be your stepmother.”

  Macey smiled. “I think I’d like that.” She settled back against a pillow, nibbling on a piece of cheese. Her appetite was slowly recovering. “About that…about my father. Obviously, you know him…but how? When?”

  “During the war. We met through Houdini. I was good friends with him, and your father was taking some of the training he did for the soldiers in England. I hadn’t moved from London to Chicago yet, and that’s how we met.”

  “Is that how you learned about vampires? Because you’ve always known, ever since I met you.”

  He nodded. “Right. I didn’t know for certain for many years, but I suspected after I saw
Max stake one in an alley once. I wasn’t really certain what I’d seen, and he wouldn’t answer any questions—but I’d read enough literature about the undead that I was suspicious. And then when I moved here and Linwood and I started talking about some of the injuries on bodies they found…well, it became a certainty. Once I read The Venators, my suspicions were confirmed.”

  “Max and Savina were staying here…so it wasn’t an accident that you were involved at the Beedle school?”

  “That part was an accident, though I would of course have helped if I hadn’t been involved otherwise. Max needed a place to stay when he came to Chicago, and he didn’t want to take the chance of being seen or recognized by any undead. Though he never mentioned anything about you at first, I guessed you were his daughter—I’d suspected that since I saw the photograph you had in your flat of him and your mother. I never had the chance to ask you about it, because—well—you weren’t really talking much to me, were you? About all of this?”

  “No. But that’s how it’s supposed to be,” she said weakly. “With non-Venators.”

  He snorted. “It might have saved some grief if you’d been more forthcoming, Macey, lass.”

  “But you never told Max that we—that we knew each other.”

  “By the time he got here and contacted me, we weren’t supposed to know each other. And so I… Well, you’d made your choice. Who was I to go against your decision?” The bitterness was back, and Macey’s belly pitched down once more.

  Could they ever get past this?

  “And then, all indications were that you and Woodmore were together,” he added in that same voice.

  Right. Because she’d told him that. “Chas and I are…friends. Good friends… We’ve been… We have a lot in common. Nothing more.”

  “Nothing more.” He lifted his brows.

  She shook her head. “I don’t love him, Grady. I’ve only ever loved you…and I hope some day you can truly forgive me for what I’ve done.” She wiped her eyes once more, silently damning herself for being such a waterworks.

  “When Flora shot you—right in the chest, right there—and I thought you were dead, I realized right then that I’d forgiven you, a rún. And I thought I was too late.” His voice was rough and broken. “Savina…well, she’d helped me to look at things in a different way.

  “It wasn’t that she was trying to convince me of anything. I think she was actually trying to convince herself that she and I don’t really…that we can’t fully understand what sort of life, what sacrifices you and your family are required to make.”

  He sighed, looked at her, took her hands. “What you did was horrible, Macey, but I understand now it wasn’t out of malice or selfishness—well, maybe a little bit of that, of protecting yourself,” he added with a harsh laugh, “but it was mostly for love. And that, my heart, is a very noble cause.”

  She smiled at him through watery eyes. “Thank you. I’m so glad Wayren didn’t do what I asked. And that she gave you a choice.”

  “There is one thing you’re going to have to do for me, though, lass. To help me get past all of this angst.” The quirk of a smile—the first real hint of humor and teasing she’d seen in days—curved his lips.

  She held back a relieved grin of her own. She thought she knew what he was going to say—he was a man, after all. And make-up sex was particularly satisfying, as she’d so recently discovered.

  But he surprised her.

  “St. Patrick’s,” he replied, reaching for a slice of apple.

  “What?”

  “We’re getting married at St. Patrick’s. Where you spent an awful lot of your time—and Sebastian Vioget too.”

  “But I’m not Catholic,” she protested…yet she loved the idea. To be married—married?—in the same church where she’d lost Sebastian, where he’d found his salvation and completed the long promise with his own beloved Giulia. She couldn’t think of anything more fitting.

  “I know a priest,” Grady said with a little chuckle, then pulled her over to cover her mouth with his. He tasted like apple, but she didn’t mind. “I’ll take care of it. As long as you promise to be there, in a lacy dress and with a flower in your hair—like you wore that first night at The Gyro. You will make an honest man out of me, won’t you?”

  “Nothing would make me happier,” she told him. “A rún.”

  EPILOGUE

  ~ Endings & Beginnings ~

  Thirty days later

  Santo Quirinus was a tiny, unassuming church in a very old part of Rome. Hardly noticed by passersby and completely ignored by tourists, the minuscule cathedral nevertheless acted as the threshold of a very special location.

  If one walked through the tiny worship space—which was stark and simple in comparison to the other architectural wonders of Rome—and found a certain confessional booth, and pushed a certain lever…the screen between the priest and confessor opened to reveal a secret staircase.

  And if one descended those curving steps—taking care to avoid certain ones that would set off an alarm below—one would soon find oneself in an underground chamber quite different from the other catacombs of Rome.

  In the center of the entry chamber was a large fountain that gently bubbled from a center spire, with water that spilled over in a constant stream. In the bottom of the pool, if one looked closely, one would see not coins, but tiny silver crosses fastened to the small hoops that had once been pierced through the flesh of some fearsome Venator.

  From this main chamber, several entryways led off into a warren of corridors, saferooms, and laboratories.

  This was the Consilium, the heart and center of the Gardella family of Venators—and all those who wore the vis bulla or fought alongside them in an effort to eradicate the evil of Judas Iscariot’s vampire race, as well as other forces of malevolence.

  On this day in particular, the usually quiet and empty church of Santo Quirinus was filled with a small crowd of people. But today was an unusual day, for the Summas Gardella was getting married for the second time…and everyone was rejoicing that he had at last found love again.

  Macey stood by, holding Savina’s bouquet as the lovely woman vowed to always love and honor and respect (but not necessarily obey) her husband, the fierce, intense, and charming summas.

  Standing across from Macey was her own deliciously handsome husband, looking slightly harassed as he fumbled through his pockets for the rings with which Max had entrusted him.

  As planned, Macey and Grady had been married at St. Patrick’s a little more than two weeks earlier, with the affable priest in attendance—as well as Max Denton, Savina Eleaisa, Jameson Linwood, and others. The bride had worn a silver-gilded white rose in her hair and a silvery-pink frock, and her wedding ring had belonged to the groom’s Aunt Camilla.

  Now, as the former groom and current best man to the Summas Gardella looked up in dismay at the couple currently being married, he saw that the groom, with a broad, cocky grin, was holding the two rings he’d pickpocketed from Grady.

  “I’ve been practicing,” Max murmured to his best man before turning back to the incandescently beautiful woman who was becoming his wife.

  Once the vows were exchanged and the wedding ceremony was over, the guests made their way down to the main chamber of the Consilium to celebrate the nuptials, as well as a memorialization of Temple Deveraux and Sebastian Vioget.

  Macey, who knew both of the fallen better than anyone present, spoke briefly about them.

  “Sebastian acted as both a father and a mentor to me during the year I knew him,” she said. “And when he was reunited with his Giulia, it was one of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever witnessed. It came after a terrifying, horrible event, and through it all, he remained strong and cognizant—even when tested to his limits. Even then, I could see the Venator strength burning in his eyes. Though an undead himself, he has always had a place reserved in the gallery in the library, to have his likeness hung there, along with Max Pesaro, the famous Brim, and, of cour
se, Kritanu.” She’d boned up quite a bit on her Venator history in preparation for the visit to the Consilium.

  “Temple Deveraux was one of my closest friends during a most unsettling year. From the first time I met her—when she dragged me out of a dance club during a vampire raid—I was impressed by her strength of body as well as her heart and mind. She taught me everything I know about how to wield a stake, and what to do with my arms and legs, and even my forehead, when faced with a vampire—or anyone else trying to back me into a corner.

  “She was filled with advice on everything, from how to wear a fascinator to how to perfectly clean the bar counter of every bit of sticky ale, to where my strengths and weaknesses are when training in the kalari. She showed me how to read texts that seemed too faded to see, and she always had a wise comment when I needed to be brought back to reality.” She glanced at Grady and her vision began to swim. “I’m going to miss her so much, and I’m mostly saddened that she was cut down in the midst of a great love affair—the only time I ever saw her truly happy. I hope the sister of my heart and her Dr. Joseph are happily together in the same place Sebastian and Giulia are.”

  Everyone clapped, and when Macey went back to her seat, Grady had a cream-colored handkerchief ready for her. But this one had her initials—MDG—embroidered on it, along with a delicate shamrock design in ivory. A set of them had been one of her wedding presents from him, and he’d stashed them all over the house and always carried one on his person.

  Max rose and moved toward a pair of shrouded paintings. He whisked away the coverings to reveal Temple’s and Sebastian’s portraits, which would hang in the library.

  “In honor of two of our own,” he said, standing tall and handsome in his dark suit, “let us have a final moment of silence.”

  After that, the somber mood of the guests broke up into one of celebration. After all, Nicholas Iscariot was dead, Rekk’s Pyramid was destroyed, Rasputin’s amulet was safely locked away…and their summas was back in Rome…along with the daughter most of them had never met. Thus, as the heir apparent to the Gardella legacy, the new Mrs. Jameson Grady was even more popular than the bride and groom.