by Jeya Jenson
“Always.” He didn’t bother with the smooth-talking phrases she most likely heard. He wasn’t here to flatter her. He needed to feed. Soon.
“My place, around the corner.” She tilted her head toward the end of the block. “Give me ten minutes.”
He nodded tersely. “Okay,”
Knowing the score, she turned and walked away. Confident in her abilities, she didn’t glance back. If he didn’t show, that was his problem. She’d be back out on the streets hustling another john. It was nothing more than business, pure and simple.
Adrien smashed the gearshift down into first and eased back into traffic.
The hunger was gnawing.
Time to feed the beast.
Chapter Four
The door to his office opened just as he was about to launch into his prepared speech. Rosalie stuck her head inside. By the look on her face, she was expecting to find poor Devon spread out on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Relief was written on her wrinkled face when all that met her eyes was two men talking quite amicably. He didn’t fail to notice that it’d taken her ten minutes to decide whether or not to open the door.
Rosalie’s suspicious gaze raked over the stranger “Is everything all right, Devon?” she asked. Just in case he was being held hostage against his will—like there was anything she could do.
“Everything’s fine,” he said, then hurried to fill in. “My friend here was expected. I simply forgot to mention that he would be arriving late.
Rosalie’s pursed lips said that his friend was quite rude in announcing his intentions. “Shall I get you and your guest something to drink? A cup of tea, perhaps?” She was giving him one last chance to scream for his life before she sent security in with guns blazing.
“That will be fine.”
Morgan winced, lighting a second cigarette off his first but saying nothing detrimental. An English style tea was definitely not his preferred beverage.
Devon threw him a look begging him to be kind. Saint-Evanston was rarely polite or kind to most humans. Like children, he tolerated their presence, believing that they should be seen but not heard, if at all.
Trotting into the office on fat little feet shoved into pumps two sizes too small, Rosalie busied herself with the business of preparing a tray. Her pudgy little fingers set out delicate cups and saucers, spoons, cream and sugar without making hardly a sound against the silver platter.
The Earl Grey tea she poured was strong, hot and black as tar. She was a terrific manager, gave no slack to lazy employees. But her skills as a beverage hostess left a lot to be desired. Age hadn’t slowed her down one whit, nor had her diabetes. At almost seventy years of age, she was still blowing and going. Devon treasured her loyalty and no-nonsense attitude. In fact, his wife almost hadn’t gotten past Rosalie’s screening. Needing a job, though, Rachel had worn the old woman down with her own immovable will. He treasured both the women who were the backbone of his life; one guarding his business interests, the other his personal ones.
Tray balanced regally, you would have thought that she was serving the queen of England. Attempting her own smile, prickly as it was, Rosalie grandly handed Devon’s guest a cup.
Morgan had the good graces to take it. “Thank you, darlin’,” he said, thickening his brogue and putting on the Irish charm that could lure birds from the trees. He waved off an offer of further enhancements as Rosalie blushed like a twelve-year-old schoolgirl, something Devon thought her incapable of. There was something new to be learned every day.
Devon accepted his own cup, taking it as he normally would, loaded with cream but no sugar, but did not drink it. “Thank you, Rosalie. That will be all. Please see that I am not disturbed for the rest of the evening.”
“You’re quite sure?” she countered. It was apparent that she expected to be asked to stay.
Devon made it clear that he wanted her to go, giving a dismissive wave of his hand. “Yes,” he stated firmly, then hammered in, “I will call you if need be.”
Rosalie reluctantly headed toward the door. “I’ll be just outside, Devon.” She shut the door behind her when she left.
Morgan made a violent twisting motion with his hand. The lock on the door snapped shut. Balancing the cup on its saucer, he remarked. “Charming woman.” To be polite, he sniffed the tea but did not drink it, unceremoniously dumping it into the ivy plant sitting on the table beside his chair. “This stuff looks like asphalt,” he muttered in an aside. He held out the cup. “As I have said, Devon. I will have a drink.”
Devon set aside his own cup aside and headed toward the small wet bar. His private offices offered every convenience—testament to the many late nights he’d put in at work. There was even an adjoining bedroom and bathroom suite. He spared himself no comfort. His work and his family were all he thought about.
Amazing how his attitude had changed through his years. There was a time when he’d lived only for his own selfish wants and needs. Pleasure was living well. Good wine, good horses, good fucking—everything else was trivial. Pleasure was having enough money to do what one wanted without a stingy old man questioning his every expenditure. Pleasure was having any woman he desired. Could he be blamed? It was in his upbringing.
His mother, the former Lady Leticia Bayridge, adored her only son and had spoiled him rotten by denying him nothing. She and his uncle Edward were at constant loggerheads, but the old Earl could make no headway with her. Leticia simply wheedled and whined until Edward relented. She was the sole weakness in the old man’s heart, for Lettie had once confided to her son that Edward was once a young swain come a calling himself. But he had been too staid and stolid for the young Lettie, almost twenty years her senior. She’d instead married his younger brother—whom it turned out was not to be long destined for this life. Uncle Edward had regularly reamed his ass for his losses at cards and his looseness with the ladies. It was, the old man predicted, going to lead him to a bad end.
If only the old man knew the real truth of what had become of his wayward nephew…
Cracking open a bottle of good scotch, he filled two glasses and delivered one to its destination.
Morgan knocked his drink back in a single swallow. “You always were tightfisted with the booze, Devon,” he remarked dryly.
Devon refilled the glass. “I’m not paying you to sit here and drink up my good scotch,” he countered, half in jest.
“Who says you have enough money to afford me anyway?” Morgan shifted in his chair and lit a third cigarette. White tendrils of smoke played around his head, forming a strange opaque halo. “Besides, I have yet to hear your story. Death never delivers without a reason. Give me a reason.”
His hand tightened on his own glass. “I’ll give you two reasons: my wife and children. They are the ones I need to protect, not myself.”
Morgan’s left eyebrow shot skyward. The news registered on his face like an 8.0 earthquake. “You? Married with children? Surely, you jest? The idea of marriage used to curdle your blood. Still curdles mine, come to think of it.”
Devon nodded, unable to keep a small smile from turning up the corners of his mouth. “I once would have believed such impossible. I never thought I’d find a woman I wanted to settle down with.”
Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “You mentioned children. I thought your kind did not reproduce.”
“That is what makes my union with Rachel so wonderful,” he said with unintended enthusiasm. “She is my true she-shaey, my blood-mate. She even bears a mark that completes mine. What has happened between us is a rare and wonderful thing—a new way to continue our species. I am sure I don’t have to tell you that the Kynn are few and far between these days. The children we have could mean that our race is beginning to evolve.”
“By your earlier words, I take it there is someone who wishes to prevent the birth of your children.”
Devon swallowed his own drink, surprised how easily the whisky went down. The sting on the back of his throat helped center his nerves.
He was not—never had been—a man of violence. A lover, not a fighter, was his motto. But he’d defend his territories like a junkyard hound.
“I have an enemy,” he said. “One who could cause me a lot of grief. I want that grief to end.”
“We all have enemies, Devon. It is part of the package that goes with long life and success.” He was being a condescending smart-ass. Part of his charm. No one would dare suggest to Morgan that he rein in his mouth, and he knew it.
“Please. You mock me by telling me something I am well aware of. This threat comes not from mortal ranks. If it were just that, it could be easily handled.”
Morgan put his glass aside. This was where his expertise came into play. He was all attention now. “I see. Then the trouble is on our side?”
“Yes. It comes from one of my own.”
“Someone not pleased that your wife is with child?”
“Exactly. His name is Adrien Roth. He is an Amhais.”
Another look of surprise from Morgan. Just when he’d believed that he’d heard it all. “A shadow-stalker?”
“One who hunts us, to eradicate our kind from this earth.”
“As if that were possible.”
“It could be. Our numbers are thin.”
“So let me get this straight,” Morgan said. “Roth, who is a slayer, is also Kynn?”
Devon poured another round of drinks. He was going to need some liquid fortification to explain this one out. “Roth was the man who slaughtered Ariel,” he answered bluntly. No use to beat around the bush. The truth was going to come out soon enough.
“Ariel was slain?” There was no distress in Morgan’s voice. Just the facts, please. He wasn’t the kind to invest a lot of emotion in the past. “When did this occur?”
“It was after the scattering, if you were sober enough to recall any of it,” Devon said. “Roth’s people were the ones who burned the dens.”
Morgan’s brow furrowed, then smoothed. “Ah, I remember. It was best to get out of London then, before they had all of us burned as witches. Distasteful business.”
“Distasteful. Yes. Quite,” Devon agreed. “Anyway, after you left, the hunt became more intense. Ariel was taken soon after. Her death…” He choked up, unable to go on. The pain and anger he thought he’d mastered a long time ago welled up inside him, a rancid acid threatening to eat right through the walls of his very heart. The revenge he and Lilith had taken on Roth all of a sudden was not enough.
Attempting to regain his fading composure, Devon cleared his throat. “They took her, and held her captive, tying her down and keeping her from the things she, ah, needed to survive.”
Again he had to stop his narrative.
Because he and Ariel had still been mates, they had still been psychically linked. Everything the men did to her, he saw in his mind’s screen. Disarming her supernatural strengths with a sigil of etched silver, they’d tied her to a bed, naked and defenseless. Through a week they’d treated her as little better than an animal, a freak of nature, keeping her in a heightened state of arousal—without giving her the relief of the feed. The Amhais claimed to be men of God, yet the things they had subjected her to were frankly obscene. And when she’d grown too weak to perform or amuse, they’d murdered her by driving a stake of pure ash through her heart. It was hardly necessary to use such force or an archaic means to deliver death, but the Amhais clung to the old Eastern European vampire legends like children clutching their mother’s skirts.
“Keep the details to yourself, Devon. I get the idea.” Of course he would. Morgan had put that ash to work more than once. “So, you are telling me that Roth betrayed his own?”
Devon tightened his grip on his glass, tracing the smooth edges of its rim in circle after circle. “The pieces don’t fit together that way,” he admitted. “Roth was human when he took Ariel’s life. To avenge her, Lilith and I devised the plan to torture him and bring him across. By making him a part of the clan, we had hoped—perhaps foolishly—that he would see that we were not such dreadful creatures.”
“And he did not quite see it that way?” Cigarette clenched between his teeth, Morgan began to clap, albeit sarcastically. “Oh, brilliant, Devon. Make him the thing he hates and hunts—plus give him all the abilities of a Kynn minion.” More clapping. “That is akin to handing him the keys to your house and asking him not to rob you.”
Devon took the admonition as gracefully as he could, which was not very. “It was a mistake, I admit. Perhaps in my grief I was not thinking right. I just wanted him to see that what he was destroying was not all evil.”
Morgan rose and refilled his glass. “Not all are as eager to embrace the cultic life as you were. It is true most fear what they do not understand, hate what they think is hell-spawned evil. That evil is us.”
“So is it fair that even as they hate and destroy us that we must preserve them?” he demanded. “They are the lesser species.”
Morgan considered the depth of his glass and sighed. “At my age, I have questioned that wisdom often. But we are not here to debate the old philosophies or the sides we have chosen. You asked me to come here for a reason. This Roth—you want me to kill him?” He said the last words matter-of-factly, as if Devon were asking nothing more than the time of day.
Weary, Devon set his glass aside and ran his fingers through his hair. The hour was late and the pressure behind his eyes was tremendous. This matter had harried him for too long. He was ready for resolution. At any cost.
“Yes.” Then, as if to justify why he was putting out an order of execution, he hurried to explain, “I don’t intend for my children to live in fear of what may come from the shadows of my past into their futures. They have the right to survive, to grow and to thrive, if they can.” He drew a sharp breath. “Adrien has made threats on our lives, threats I do not intend to let him carry out.”
“I see.” Morgan nodded thoughtfully. “He can threaten all day. Question is—do you think he will follow through?”
“I know he’s serious—dead serious.”
Abandoning the bar, Devon walked to his desk. He opened the bottom drawer, setting out a stack of letters, along with a rather large hatbox. “He’s sent these vile things outlining what he intends to do, to my wife and children. Going to the police is not an option, of course. Roth’s letters reveal too much about the Kynn and the underworld we exist in. Even if Adrien were deemed a lunatic and captured, the truth would too soon come out.”
“He obviously knows that,” Morgan commented. “But letters can not do any harm.”
“No?” He indicated the box on his desk. “Then what about this?” He pushed it to the edge. “Go ahead. Look inside.”
Morgan sauntered over. Drink in one hand, he lifted the lid with the other. He cut a quick glance to Devon, who nodded, then back to the box. Shock did not register on his face. Surprise, yes. Letting the lid drop, he cleared his throat. “Lilith?”
“Yes—what’s left of her.” There wasn’t much left; a mummified skull with a few hanging wisps of black hair. The identifier was in the silver charm cleaving the center of the forehead. That charm was Lilith’s. She’d had several of them made—had even given him one in an earlier time. The gruesome part of his mind led him to wonder if the charm had been introduced before—or after—her death. Either way, the vision wasn’t a pleasant one and he tried not to entertain it longer than necessary.
“Got her comeuppance, I see.”
Devon sat down in his chair. Elbows on his desk, he cupped his forehead in one hand. “He must have escaped her, somehow freed himself from imprisonment.”
“No doubt.”
“It was a mistake to let Lilith keep him—but how could I refuse her?” He moaned. “I thought she could control him.”
His words seemed to annoy his visitor. “I think you had better do some explaining about the control part. Your story is taking on unexpected elements.”
Devon leaned back in his chair. “She kept him in chains, like a pe
t of sorts, for her own amusement.”
“I recall well Lilith’s idea of amusement.” Morgan peeked into the box again. “She had an, ah, perverse sense of amusement. Even I found her trying at times.”
Another long groan. “I know… everything she did to him is in those pages… I was ashamed to read them.” He raised his head. “I swear that didn’t mean for things to go that far—tormenting another being to the point of madness.”
Morgan let loose of his glass and opened a few of the letters. He paced slowly as he read, going through each with care. The only motion that gave away his personal thoughts was a thinning of his lips as he mentally absorbed the long saga of abuse Adrien Roth had carefully and completely documented on paper. He clearly was not happy with what was learning; the letters cast Devon and Lilith as the villains. He checked the envelopes, figuring out what Devon already knew. No two letters were mailed from the same place. Roth was very mobile, on the move and hard to pin down. He was like smoke in the fog, invisible in the mass population.
Devon knew the letters forward and backward. The words were imprinted on his brain. There was nothing good to be found in them; only the ranting of anger and the lust for revenge.
“Death would have been fairer,” he put in, still stinging with guilt. “Giving him the chance to die with honor and me the chance to avenge Ariel as a gentleman. I am not a heartless monster or a man of violence, but I will do anything to protect my family. Anything.”
Morgan tossed the pages back on the desk. “He seems to be of the same mind. In fact, it appears that he has every right and then some to kick your ass to Hell and back. I would.”
“I know, I know,” he admitted. “That is why I want him found and stopped in his tracks. Were I on my own, I’d not give a damn and take my chances. But a man must become more cautious when his kin are concerned. They are my weakness, but also my blessing. I so realize the preciousness in this life when I did not see it beforehand. I knew only anger when Ariel was taken. Now, with Rachel, I’ve learned to understand the value of real love. For her sake, I want Roth out of our lives forever. That’s where you come in. He’s made himself untraceable, but you have other means at your disposal.”