Nicholas’s green-gold eyes finally seemed to focus. He still had one hand on his head. “Imogene. Please.” He closed his eyes for a moment before looking back at her. “Don’t end it like this.”
She stomped to within inches of his cage. “You once said your heart was burned out of you. Now, it’s time for the rest of you to go.” She spun away without waiting for his response and clomped down the steps from whence she came. She clenched her jaw until the tears stopped burning the backs of her eyes.
Downstairs, Imogene grabbed Dean’s bottle of scotch from the vanity near the kitchen table. She took a swig and then messily poured a glass of Dr. Savage’s shitty health-food blood into the bottle, and chugged some more. She wandered away from the dining room and into what she assumed was the living room, although it didn’t look like anyone “lived” there. The leather furniture was showroom ready, and there wasn’t a spot of dust—not even under the huge ceremonial mask on the thick, wooden coffee table. (Imogene checked.) She sat and stared at the dead-eyed mask while slurping her scotch-blood mix.
Soon, footsteps broke the silence, but she didn’t respond when Celia called her name from the kitchen. She waited for them to find her, which they did—Celia and Ian, at least. Dr. Savage and Dean whispered to each other in the kitchen.
“Imogene?” Celia stood next to the coffee table, wringing her hands.
“What?”
Celia, even in her pregnant state, crouched down in front of Imogene at eye level. “You need to talk to him.”
Imogene took three long gulps from the bottle and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Imogene—”
“I have nothing to say to that turncoat. And why the fuck do you care? He’s here to steal your baby, Merk.”
“Not anymore,” Celia whispered.
“You’re damn right, not anymore. Not when he burns up at sunrise.” She stood and pushed past her friend, only to be stopped by Ian’s hand on her wrist. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. She glared up at him.
Ian cleared his throat and glared back.
“Baby robber,” she said. “That’s a baby robber on the roof.”
“I know that,” Ian said. “But if I’d majorly messed up with the woman I love, I would at least want to say I was sorry.”
She scoffed. “You think that asshole is going to apologize if I go up there?”
Ian shrugged. “I don’t know what he’ll do. I’m just saying…” He ducked his head. His shoulders slouched. “I think you’ll really regret it if you end it like this. With Nicholas. You love him.”
“I don’t.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “Yes, you do. Two days ago, you texted me about the way his forehead wrinkles when he sleeps.”
Imogene prepared a rebuttal.
“For two paragraphs,” Ian continued. He lowered his voice. “You love him, and I know that scares the heck out of you, but if you don’t at least say a real goodbye, I’m worried you’ll never be you again.”
Imogene looked up to find his eyes wet.
He sniffed and gestured toward his wife. “I’m sorry. It’s her hormones.”
Imogene smiled. “That’s not how it works, dumb-dumb.”
“Sure feels like it.” He used his thumb to wipe his eyes.
“At least you’re not vomiting.”
He chuckled.
“Fine. I’ll go up there. But this doesn’t change anything. He’s still a psycho murderer who deserves to be reduced to ash.”
“Okay, Imogene.” Celia folded her hands in front of her.
“Don’t give me that tone, Merk.”
“What tone?”
“The ‘you’re making a huge mistake’ tone.”
Celia lifted her chin. “You’re projecting.”
“Shut up, Dr. Phil.” She took a gulp of scotch-blood and took it with her as she walked past Dean, Dr. Savage, and Vixen, back to the hidden staircase that led to the roof. She kicked the door to the roof open.
Nicholas sat in the middle of his cage. He’d removed his suit coat, vest, and tie, untucked his shirt and taken off his shoes and socks. All his fancy trappings were strewn about the edges of the cage, mostly singed, as if he’d been testing the electric current he knew ran through the thick bars. His bare feet were flat against the rooftop, his knees bent. Elbows resting on his knees, he held his head up in the palms of his hands and stared at the horizon.
He didn’t look at her but sniffed. “What is that? Twenty year scotch?”
Imogene glanced at the bottle. “Eighteen.”
“Good choice.”
She took a sip. “Celia and Ian said I should come up here.”
“And do what exactly?”
“Talk to you.”
“Mm.” He bit his bottom lip but still didn’t look at her. “What would you like to talk about?”
“Ian said you might want to apologize.”
He laughed quietly. “Did he?”
She leaned against the half open door that would take her back downstairs, away from him, away from the way he looked—resigned and jaded. “I assume you don’t feel like apologizing.”
“I’m not really the type.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
“Imogene. When this is all over, when I’m over, I don’t want you to feel guilty.”
She spit air through her lips. “As if.”
“I’m serious.” He clasped his hands around his knees. “It’s not easy giving someone a death sentence.”
“I didn’t have any regrets after popping the head off that midget drug dealer last spring.”
Nicholas sighed. “Yes, well, you didn’t love him.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t love you right now.”
“I know. But that doesn’t mean you won’t love me when I’m dead tomorrow.”
She shook her head and looked out into the Gulf.
“It doesn’t just go away,” he said. “You hate me right now, of course, but eventually you’ll go home and your house will smell like me, and it will hurt. It might hurt for a very long time, but promise me you’ll move forward. I do not intend to ruin your life.”
“Trust me, baby, I’ll be fine.”
He chuckled, which made her look back at him—a flash of white teeth, a glint of golden-edged eyes. “Just like you were with Mule?”
“Mule wasn’t planning to steal my best friends’ baby.”
He jumped to his feet with the grace she’d witnessed countless times in the bedroom. “I’d like you to think for a moment.”
“About what? How you’re an asshole?”
“What will you do to save your friends with me gone, Imogene? Think you can handle Amora on your own, or Olivier, for that matter?” He walked close to the bars, eyes squinted in study. “Do you have any idea how much stronger they are than you? How much older? A pair of garden shears might not be enough this time.”
Imogene stood tall and lifted her chin in challenge. “I have help.”
“Rain is terrified of the SL’s power, and Dean will be hopeless in this fight. I’d put my money on you before them. Your temper alone could blow up buildings.” He smiled and shook his head. “It’s truly a shame we never got the chance to work on your glamouring. You’ve seen what I’m capable of, and I’m not half as powerful as you in the mind control department. Too bad no one ever taught you to harness the ability for more than cheap drinks and easy sex. You could have maybe even saved your friends—with my help.”
“Fuck you.”
“You did very much enjoy that.”
She turned away and held up her middle finger, but before she could open the door and head back downstairs, the door swung open and almost whacked her in the face. Everyone stood there, a huddle of faces: Celia, Ian, Dean, Dr. Savage, and a nervous-looking Vixen.
“What do you want?” Imogene shouted.
“We can’t kill him,” Celia said.
“Yes.” Imogene tried to shove past her friends. “We can.”
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“No.” Celia grabbed her shoulders. “We can’t.”
Imogene smacked at her hands until Celia gave her one strong shake.
“Listen! If we kill Nicholas, the bad people will know that we know what’s going on.”
“What?”
Dr. Savage pushed through the crowd and arrived on the roof near the cage. “Nicholas. Amora and Olivier are here right now to make sure you go through with the kidnapping. She was murdering men who looked like you to get your attention and remind you of your job. Correct?”
He tilted his head and put his hands on his hips. “Amora obviously believes my resolve is faltering.”
“Which it is,” Dr. Savage continued. “Which it has. You just confessed everything to us. You no longer plan on stealing Celia’s baby. Correct?”
He nodded. “Correct.”
Dr. Savage turned to face Imogene. “We have to keep him alive. We have to keep a façade of normalcy, or Olivier is liable to take Celia before the baby is even born. Nicholas’s continued immortality is the only thing keeping us safe right now. If he dies, they’ll know we know, and they’ll most likely kill all of us because we are not strong enough to take down two of the oldest vampires in known history. The only person here able to do that is Nicholas.”
“And I’m not even sure I could take both of them. Not without Imogene’s help.”
Dr. Savage spun on Nicholas. “Imogene’s help?”
“With the proper practice, I think she could be able to glamour vampires.”
Dr. Savage’s eyes went wide. “You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “I’m not.”
“And who’s gonna train me?” Imogene spat. “You?”
“Yes,” Nicholas said.
“Oh, fucking peaches.” She threw the bottle of scotch from the roof when she realized it was empty. It didn’t make a sound as it landed in the sand below. “How do we know he’s not just gonna run to his masters if we let him out, huh?”
“I’m on your side now,” he said. “I thought that was clear via my earlier confessions.”
“Which could all be bullshit,” Dean added.
Imogene pointed her hand at him in agreement.
“But probably isn’t,” Dean said, “because why would he admit to the whole baby-stealing conspiracy if he still planned on going through with it?”
“Traitor,” Imogene muttered.
Dean shrugged. “I’m being rational. As much as I think he’s a tool, we need him to stay alive.”
Imogene covered her face with her hands and spoke in Nicholas’s general direction. “You knew you weren’t going to die up here.”
“I had hoped someone would come to their senses.”
“And you knew it wouldn’t be me,” she said from behind her hands.
“Your emotions were blinding you to practicalities.”
“My emotions?” she howled, hands now in the air like claws.
“Okay.” Dr. Savage glanced toward the horizon. “Imogene, you need to go home and get some rest. Nicholas will stay here tonight. Celia and Ian—”
“I’ll sleep at their place,” Imogene said. “I’m not leaving them alone right now.”
“Fine.” Dr. Savage nodded to her boyfriend. “Dean?”
He opened the metal panel by the roof door and pushed a couple buttons. Nicholas’s cell popped open, but he didn’t step out, eyes on Imogene.
She took Celia’s hand in hers and pulled. “Let’s go.” She dragged her best friend behind her, and Ian’s scent followed. They drove back to the homey beach shack in a car caravan, and Imogene turned on the security system as soon as they were all inside. She tossed and turned on their couch and punched pillows. She did want to protect her friends, of course, but Nicholas had been right: she couldn’t stand the thought of going home to a house that smelled like him.
Chapter Sixteen
When Imogene left Celia and Ian’s that night, she commanded they keep the security system on at all times and—under no circumstances—be alone with Nicholas. She went home to wash up, and as soon as she opened the door, she knew it: Nicholas was gone. Although they’d started sharing the same sleeping—and sexing schedule—he had, once upon a time, woken earlier than her, which seemed to be the case that night since, when she walked into her guest bedroom, it was empty beyond a ghost of his scent that floated somewhere near the air conditioning vent. She swiped her hand at the invisible smell like it was a cobweb. Then, happy day, Imogene received a text message from Dr. Savage spelling out the importance of her arrival as soon as possible to begin her “training.”
“Yep,” Imogene muttered, hands on her hips in Nicholas’s empty bedroom. “Shaping up to be a fucking red letter day, let me tell you.” She blew some curls from her forehead and disrobed on her way to the shower. No need to keep a clean house anymore, what with her guest turning into a traitorous, murdering son of a bitch.
She queued up the loudest Joan Jett possible and climbed into the shower. Only once she’d turned on the water, full-blast cold, did she notice her hands shook. A tremor shuddered through her chest and evicted one loud, painful sob that turned into a cascade of tears—salt water washed away by shower spray. She turned her sorrow into wrath and howled. She punched the artful grout in her fancy, modern shower, and tile shattered around the drain. Hand still quivering, Imogene’s fist bled and then quickly healed.
Why the fuck won’t my heart do the same?
Music loud and Imogene screaming, she showered until she was half deaf and squeaky clean. She tossed on the smallest black dress she owned—a swatch of fabric that wouldn’t keep a Chihuahua warm—and put on enough makeup to hide how much she’d been crying. She went to the kitchen, where she slowly, calmly sipped a bag of blood just to piss off the people waiting on her. She’d gotten three text messages by then, and although the text was the same, it was like the messages kept increasing in volume.
“Please come to my house.”
“PLEASE come to my house.”
“PLEASE come TO my HOUSE.”
She pretended she was annoying Dr. Savage, but really, she didn’t want to consider seeing Nicholas, knowing she was supposed to hate him.
At ten p.m., Imogene finally acquiesced. She rolled into Dr. Savage’s driveway, spraying up rocks and sand on the turn that plunked with pleasing savagery against the palm trees in the front yard. She stomped to the front door.
As soon as she stepped inside, she sniffed twice. “What was the rush, doc? Nicholas isn’t even here.”
Dr. Savage appeared at the end of the foyer with her arms crossed. “Well, he was, but you took too long to get here, and he was hungry.”
She snickered. “Your Shaman-Blessed Shit not doing it for him?”
Dr. Savage rolled her eyes. “It has herbal enhancers.”
“Yeah.” Imogene stomped past her. “Got any whiskey? Or, better yet, a rum punch?”
In the dining room, Dean sat on the floor in front of a kitchen table covered in a conglomeration of dismantled gun parts, which he shined with a dark cloth.
“Since when do guns kill vampires?”
Dean kept to his work. “They don’t. Just slows ‘em down.”
Imogene studied the room, lit by overhead lights and, although not set for a fancy party, still spotless. “Where’s Vixen?”
“She’s upstairs. Reading.” Dr. Savage pulled a bottle of rum from the liquor cabinet near the kitchen.
“I’ll bet.” Imogene stepped over the table—and Dean—to grab the rum from the doc’s hands. She rifled through the fridge until she found organic peach juice. She lifted the bottle in Dr. Savage’s direction. “Organic?”
“It’s good for your health.”
“I’m dead,” Imogene said but made the drink anyway, minus her beloved strawberry-banana juice, but hey, desperate times.
They all froze when the front door opened, and Imogene had to subdue the aroused moan that started somewhere near her groin, traveled up her intestines, th
rough her chest cavity, and banged against her tonsils. Dr. Savage wasn’t as prepared, because she let out a fountain of obscenities that poured like the Nile down her chin and fell in deafening puddles at her feet.
Dean stood immediately and cocked the gun in his hand.
“No,” Dr. Savage panted. “It’s nothing. A reflex. Nothing.”
“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” Dean growled.
Nicholas swept into the dining room. He wasn’t in a fancy suit. He was actually wearing one of Ian’s hand-me-down forest green sweatshirts, a pair of jeans, and sandals. Imogene had to look twice at his feet to confirm the probable hallucination. She would have made a joke about casual Friday, but his scent pumped from his cold, pale skin until she made a “nugh” noise.
Desperate for distance, she held her hand out and shouted, “Stay the fuck over there.” She tried to catch her breath and cross her legs while standing, which made her bend forward at the waist and look like she might hurl. She groaned. “What in the name of the Goblin King have you done to yourself?”
“He fed.” Dr. Savage moaned. She fanned her face and leaned back against the nearest piece of furniture, eyes tilted anywhere but at Nicholas or Dean. She looked sunburnt.
“No,” Imogene said, “I’ve smelled him after he’s fed.”
“From blood bags,” Nicholas said and shoved his hands in hoodie pockets.
“Humans. He just fed from… Oooo…” Dr. Savage kept fanning herself.
“Humans?” Imogene put her hands on her knees and dropped her head toward the floor. “You don’t feed from humans.”
“It’s currently a necessity. I need to get my strength up if we’re going to stand a chance.”
He took off his sweatshirt, and the scent of a fresh garden, peppermint, and, oh, just plain filthy, lewd sex only increased.
Dr. Savage rushed for the back patio, and Dean followed.
Imogene managed to stand up straight and look at her ex-fuck buddy, but that didn’t help, because under the sweatshirt, Nicholas wore a tight blue jersey t-shirt that stretched and pulled in all the right places. His auburn hair stood up in spikes, and he looked to be glowing—literally, glowing like some kind of bioluminescent fish.
Bite Somebody Else Page 20