Runner

by Roh Morgon

  I’d been so unprepared for the harshness of his judgment that any reassurance about my commitment to finding Nicolas would’ve sounded weak and pathetic.

  And right now, I’m not sure how convincing it would’ve been.

  Because I’m no longer sure about my feelings for him. Too much time has passed, too much has happened. I’ve changed, in more ways than the one. And I’m sure he’s changed as well. There’s no telling how having his lineage stripped away has affected him, and the Nicolas I find may not be the Nicolas I lost.

  Not to mention the obstacles in my search that continue to haunt me, the biggest of which is a golden-eyed Indian who has somehow gotten so far under my skin that I cannot seem to shake him loose.

  His words haunt me as well.

  Take from him what he took from me.

  What did he mean by that? What did Nicolas do to him?

  I walk into my bedroom and stare at the pillow on my bed.

  Beneath it is a small rectangular box wrapped in brown paper and twine. I found it there when I returned home and had no time to examine it before the sun shut my eyes.

  I take it out from where it rests, from where a long-fingered hand had placed it one night while I was off rampaging in the hills.

  It’s still wrapped in its plain brown paper. Sonya is written on it in a barely legible scrawl, a scrawl I’ve seen before in a worn copy of an old travel book on Europe, its yellowed, dog-eared pages bearing tiny notes in the margins and a bitter poem about the city of Paris.

  It’s amazing how such a small package can be so frightening. Whatever’s inside is only going to cause me pain, yet I can wait no longer to open it. With a deep breath, I take it out to the dining room table and set it next to the manila envelope left by Colin.

  I stare down at the box and the envelope, unable to decide which one is more intimidating. I decide to open Taz’s first and get the most damaging of the two out of the way.

  After carefully peeling back the paper, I set the handmade wooden box on the table and take off the lid. The interior is covered with soft rabbit fur, and resting upon it is a miniature replica of a Native American flute carved from a smooth, ivory-colored deer antler. The finger holes are etched rather than cut all the way through, and a tiny bone feather on a leather lace is tied to the bottom end. The top end serves as a cap with a tight-fitting plug, though it’s loosely inserted now. A long leather thong, woven through two holes in the cap, allows the flute to be worn as a necklace.

  Picking up the flute, I pull the cap free and peer inside. Not understanding what I’m seeing, I dump the contents into my palm.

  One of the items is a small, folded piece of paper.

  The other is a clear glass vial with a rubber cap, like that used in a medical laboratory.

  Clinging to the vial, and the precious red fluid within it, is Taz’s scent.

  The memory of his passion-filled blood—wild, exotic, tasting of redwoods and sky and sunlit beaches—fills my mouth as though it happened only moments ago.

  Through the crimson blur of fresh tears, I unfold and read the note.

  Drink this, and no matter where you are, I will find you.

  The sketch of an eagle feather is his only signature.

  Regret stains my cheeks as I clutch the vial and mourn the loss of a future that is not the one I’ve chosen.

  After washing my face a second time, I return to the table and examine Taz’s note.

  I don’t understand. How does drinking his blood allow him to find me? It should be the other way around, and even then, only if the distance isn’t too great.

  Unless Nicolas lied to me.

  He’d said that me drinking his blood only allowed me to sense his emotions. He didn’t say anything about him using it to track me. I thought he could only do that through my blood.

  Nicolas.

  I’d forgotten how manipulative he is, and that he’s a Master of the Game for good reason.

  Taz, on the other hand, uses brute force to get his way. In some respects, he’s far more honest about what he wants and how he goes about getting it.

  Damn them both.

  Irritated, I put the vial back into the flute and cap it. It seals tightly, the seam hidden within a line etched into the flute body. To look at the flute now, you’d never know it’s actually two separate pieces. Or bears a secret gift too heart-wrenching for words.

  I place the flute and note back in the box, pick up the envelope, and open it.

  All I can do is stare at the photographs in my hand.

  I was wrong.

  About everything.

  This . . . this is the most painful.

  And Taz is anything but honest. He’s just as big a liar as Nicolas.

  The photos, all taken at night, fall to the table, one by one—

  —Taz’s red bike parked outside a country estate, a vineyard in the foreground

  —Taz walking out the front door

  —Taz, half-turned around

  —a women in a flowing, sheer robe, her arms reaching out to him

  —the woman and Taz, wrapped in a lover’s embrace

  —the woman, a close-up of her face as she smiles up into his

  I shut my eyes. I can’t bear to look at it again.

  But I have to.

  The woman in the photograph is Alina.

  THURSDAY

  CHAPTER 76

  Thunk!

  I walk over and yank the dagger from the post, its wood riddled with narrow slices deep into its marrow.

  Thunk!

  There’s something satisfying about the sound that follows the release of the blade, that solid, auditory proof that one has executed a move properly.

  Thunk!

  Especially when one imagines it sinking deep into a golden target, or a blue one, or a green one. Or even a violet one for that matter.

  I’m pissed at all of them.

  The Aston Martin pulls up outside. I listen as Colin gets out, my frustration eager for a fresh target.

  He opens the barn door.

  Thunk!

  The dagger lands in a new post, just inches from Colin’s blue eyes.

  He ducks, then darts to the side. His growl is echoed by mine as I drop into a crouch.

  But he’s still faster than me. Part of me isn’t surprised when he’s gripping me from behind, the dagger against my throat.

  “You should be thanking me,” he scolds.

  “For what? For sticking your nose into business that isn’t yours?”

  “It most certainly is mine.” Colin releases me and I turn around to glare at him.

  “Sunny, you’re my student. And it’s the job of any good instructor to keep their student focused on the work at hand.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  “You’re behaving like a child. I tried to warn you about him.”

  “I don’t care about him. I care that you took it upon yourself to play private investigator into my affairs.”

  “Is that what it was? An affair?”

  “It wasn’t anything. It was just another asshole Chosen trying to use me. Just like every single one I’ve met, including you and Alina.”

  Colin’s expression grows cold.

  “Get used to it. That’s what Chosen do. And as I recall, you came to Alina for help. If you haven’t figured out by now that nothing’s free, then I’ve truly wasted my time.”

  I hate this life. Why anyone would ever choose it is beyond me.

  Colin hands me back the dagger.

  “Now, if you’ve finished with your little tantrum, we have a lot of work to do, starting with repairing that hole in the wall.”

  It doesn’t take long for us to fall back into our usual balance, with Colin instructing and me absorbing and mimicking. Pounding new boards into place is almost as satisfying as throwing the dagger, until I hit a nail so hard the hammer goes all the way through the wood. Colin just shakes his head and tells me to go get another board from the sta
ck of lumber delivered earlier this morning.

  We finish up the night with a workout and sparring session. He seems impressed with some of the new skills I’d gained working with Taz and mentions I’d probably hold my own in the arena against most Chosen in my age division and weight bracket.

  That probably wouldn’t be a good idea. The way I feel about Chosen right now would likely result in me being labeled the new Executioner.

  Tomorrow Colin’s bringing Jeanette over for another French lesson. I guess that means he’s forgiven me for my perceived indiscretion. I haven’t quite forgiven him for blindsiding me with those damn photos, but I suppose he did do me a favor.

  Betrayal tastes bitter on both ends, and any feelings I thought I had for Taz are now sufficiently buried beneath its acrid taint.

  I hope.

  MONDAY

  CHAPTER 77

  It’s Christmas Eve. I grimace at the lights and lawn decorations plastering the quiet Sacramento neighborhood and wish once again I’d had the guts to decline Jeanette’s invitation.

  But she was so excited when she’d asked me to spend the evening with her and Colin, I couldn’t turn her down.

  I curse Colin, though, for not giving me a heads up about her plan so I could prepare a logical excuse in advance. He probably just saw it as another training opportunity to practice my mental agility and emotional control.

  Spotting the address, I pull into the driveway of a brown two-story and turn off the car. Blue and white icicle lights frame the eaves of the garage and house, and it makes me grin to think of Colin on a ladder putting them up while his neighbors peek through their curtained windows and wonder why he was doing so after dark.

  My grin fades, though, when I recall hanging my own lights in the dark. That year, Andrea and I were both so busy with work and school, we agreed not to bother with outside decorations. And then, on Christmas Eve, unable to stand how forlorn our little house looked among its festive neighbors, we hauled out the ladder and hung lights until midnight. We were both so tired when we finished that we unplugged them after only five minutes and dragged ourselves to bed. It was our last Christmas together.

  I take a deep breath and shove the memory away. Quickly centering myself, I grab Colin and Jeanette’s gifts and head for the door.

  A wreath occupies the center, its fresh pine branches accented in red ribbons and little white bells. The mountain scent takes me back to Colorado, reminding me of Nicolas and, in spite of everything that’s happened, how much I still miss him.

  This promises to be a rough evening. Steeling myself once more, I knock on the door.

  “You did well tonight,” Colin says as he comes back downstairs and into the living room after seeing Jeanette off to bed.

  “I think this was the cruelest thing you’ve done to me yet.”

  My body feels as though it’s going to explode from the emotional pressure pulsing through my veins and muscles. I’m not sure which was worse—the whole Christmas thing or watching Jeanette and Colin function together as a couple. Their simple touches and knowing looks, the way she kissed him on the cheek when she excused herself for the evening, were all torturous reminders of my own loneliness.

  “The best way to deal with painful memories is to build newer, happier ones.” He stops before me, hands in the pockets of his grey slacks.

  “That’s easy for you to say.”

  “Do you really think that I’ve never suffered loss?” Colin asks quietly, a faint shadow flickering in his blue eyes. “That I didn’t leave a family behind when I was faced with the Choice between death and life as a Chosen?”

  I’d often wondered about his background, but he seems so secure in who he is that I’d never guessed he might bear his own emotional baggage.

  Embarrassed by my self-absorption, I look away to stare at the hand-dyed silk scarf in pale rose and turquoise resting among the tissue paper in its gift box, my Christmas present from Jeanette and Colin.

  He clears his throat.

  “We should move to the study where our conversation will be less likely to disturb Jeanette.”

  His study is small, but adequately furnished with a modest oak desk, leather-upholstered chairs, and several bookcases. Colin gestures for me to take a seat and heads to a mini-bar at the other end of the room.

  Pictures of him and Jeanette dot the desk and walls, along with a number of framed oil canvases bearing her signature. Most of the paintings are landscapes, but two contain children, and I wonder how hard it was for her to give up the idea having any of her own when she married Colin.

  “Jeanette is not my first wife.” He sets down two long-stemmed glasses and a small bottle of wine, then adds a corkscrew from his pocket. “But before meeting her, I spent many years unattached, mostly due to the demands of my work.”

  He’s silent a moment as he takes the chair across from mine.

  “Though it would seem logical for a competitive species like ours to be solitary, our survival rate is higher when we live within bloodline-based communities. Along with providing security and companionship, a lineage shares resources, which helps ensure its members will thrive among the dangers presented by both humans and other Chosen.”

  I wouldn’t know. I was denied that benefit when this life was forced upon me.

  “The need for connection is innate to Chosen,” Colin continues. “Normally it’s satisfied through renewal with one’s Maker and bloodplay within the lineage—”

  “Bloodplay?”

  “Think of it as a Chosen one-night stand.”

  Huh. Is that what Taz was doing when he kissed me? Bloodplay?

  But his words and the emotions in his blood claimed otherwise.

  “As I was saying, for those outside a lineage, that unsatisfied need to connect can become all-consuming. And if too much time is spent estranged from others of our kind, Chosen can become quite antisocial and extremely violent.”

  Is he talking about Taz?

  Or me…

  Colin picks up the bottle of wine and studies the label.

  “When Nicolas needed me to separate myself from the lineage, it was one of the most painful periods of my life.” He pauses, pressing his lips tight. “You see, lineage members enjoy a special association with one another, through the blood of their Maker and Elders, that sustains and helps them to remain stable and in control. To relinquish that sense of family and belonging, as well as severing all connection to one’s Maker, is akin to breaking a mate bond. Or so I’ve been told. Although I’ve experienced the one, I’ve never had the misfortune to suffer the other.”

  I inwardly cringe. Even though Nicolas and I had not quite bonded, the gaping hole he left in my core as his blood faded from my system was excruciating. I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose one’s Maker, or entire lineage for that matter. I never knew mine, and what few memories I might have are locked away where I cannot reach them.

  With a deep sigh, Colin pulls off the seal on the wine bottle. He picks up the opener and I’m surprised at the sorrow he allows to crease his features. He uncorks the bottle.

  What the… ? No. No . . .

  The blood scent escaping its glass prison sends a shockwave ripping through my entire body, ending with a gut-twisting spasm deep within my core. And another. And another.

  The scent belongs to Nicolas.

  Memories of us spin through my mind, a whirling montage of heart-wrenching images. The first time I saw him, standing across the street, watching me. Our first hunt together, and the way he flowed across the ground, a lean black leopard loping through the shadows of the pines. His first sharp caress on my throat, and the deep rumble of his impassioned growl. And our first sharing as we washed away the aftermath of Katarina’s brutal massacre at his club, and the ecstasies of each fiery sharing thereafter.

  My hand can’t contain the ragged gasps tearing from my mouth and I look up at Colin through a haze of scarlet tears.

  His own eyes reddening with emotion, he pours
a small amount of the wine into a glass and offers it to me.

  Horrified by the pain and longing it will bring, I shake my head no, even as the blood calls to me and triggers a yearning for Nicolas I haven’t felt in months.

  “I will not share blood with you,” Colin says. “But I will share Nicolas’s. Please, take it. It will provide some relief to the isolation to which you’ve been subjected these many months, and in fact, most of your Chosen life.” He holds the glass out a moment longer, then sets it in front of me and pours more into the second glass.

  “You see, I miss him, too. And now that I’m with Jeanette, I have no desire to share blood with anyone, even though my sense of alienation from our kind can be unbearable at times. So when I feel my breaking point approaching, I drink a little of Nicolas’s special wine and remember what it was like to have my Maker’s reassuring presence in my life.”

  I stare at my glass, at the crimson essence which seems to curl through the ruby wine like smoke from a lazy fire. Knowing it will only increase the renewed pain of separation, I pick it up anyway. My eyes close as I bring the glass nearer to my nose and slowly inhale. The scent molecules light up every surface as they stream by and a shudder ripples through me, ending in my gums as my fangs descend. I breathe in and out, immersing myself in his smell and my memories.

  But it’s not enough. I want more of him, need more of him.

  When I open my eyes, Colin’s watching me.

  “You just erased any doubts I may have harbored about your motivation to find Nicolas.” He leans back and, raising the glass to his nose, takes in the heady aroma. The muscles in his face twitch, the only evidence of the blood’s effect upon him.

  Wanting to delay the first sip as long as possible, to savor the anticipation beginning to overshadow the dread, I set down my glass.

  “Why did Nicolas ask you to leave the lineage, knowing what it would cost you?”

  “Our enemies were growing stronger. We needed to monitor their activities undetected. Apparently he felt I was the only one he could trust enough to release from the restraints of the lineage. Though he warned me of the price, I willingly accepted the assignment. As any good lieutenant would.”