“I know,” she said softly, her words sending shivers down my spine. “You started to smell differently. Not a lot, but enough that I knew something was up. We all noticed, Sar.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” I said shrilly. “Danial and I didn’t notice it until Stephen read us the riot act.”
“What could we say, don’t heal her?” Cia said quietly. “Danial didn’t do it on purpose. Those first months you were pregnant he had to give you his blood for healing.”
“I know that. That pain in the ass Lust made sure of that.”
“You probably couldn’t have had Theoron without being half turned,” Cia said. “Most women who get pregnant with a vampire’s child die, or so I heard.”
“I know. Danial told me.”
“Then why are you upset?” Cia upbraided me.
“Because I didn’t notice it happening. I didn’t even consider the possibility,” I said finally, closing my eyes. “And because I don’t know how long it will take me to go back to normal.”
“Does it matter?” Cia said. “The problem’s solved. You’re with Theo now, not Danial. You won’t be giving him any blood, or taking any of his, or bedding him.”
I blushed, and she laughed.
“Has he made any vampires?” I asked suddenly. “He never talked about it with me. And he was so adamant about wanting that power.”
“Yes,” Cia said, looking uncomfortable. “Just one though.”
“Who?”
“It was an accident,” Cia said. “A few days after the night Terian and Theo rescued you and Danial became Ruler.”
“What happened?”
“He was feeding from a woman, one of his regulars. He’d fed from her a few days before and taken a lot. He needed a lot of blood in those first few days, either from missing you, or the blood exchange with Devlin. The woman came back a few nights later, again to give him her blood. She’d been able to do that before with no problem. She was very strong and healthy. Again, he took too much, and this time she lost consciousness. Without thinking about it, he gave her some of his blood to heal the wound. She woke up and kissed him, and in the kiss he felt her fangs.”
“What happened?”
“It was terrible.” Cia paused, sorrowful. “She was so happy, Sar. She said she had always hoped for it, and now he’d finally turned her. She said she wanted to be with him. That now she was like him, they could be together forever. Danial apologized to her. He said that he hadn’t meant to do this to her, but that he’d help her to embrace her new life. Then she saw that he didn’t want her the way she wanted him.”
“What did she do?” I said breathlessly.
“She attacked him, and in his anger, he threw her away from him into the nightstand downstairs, breaking off all the legs. She attacked him again with one of the table legs. When he stopped her from putting it through him, her momentum put it through her instead. She died in his arms, choking on blood.”
“God, that’s awful.” The women who gave Danial blood were more to him than food. He didn’t love them, but they weren’t disposable.
“He hasn’t made another vampire since then, at least that I know of,” Cia said quietly.
Trying to think of a new topic, I suddenly remembered why I’d come. “Is Theo here? I have to run home with him for the dogs and then get back here for the funeral.”
“He’s in the inside shooting range downstairs,” Cia said. “With Terian.”
Great, I would be lucky if they weren’t shooting each other. “Thanks,” I said, rising. “We need to get moving, so we can be back in time.”
“Tell me what days you’ll be here next week. I’d like some kitchen time, if you have a few hours to spare. It’s been a while since we spent time together like that.”
“It’s a deal,” I said warmly, giving her a hug. “I missed you, too.”
I left the common room, went down the stairway and turned, going past the walk-in freezer that housed the emergency meat rations. Danial built it in case of siege, or so he’d told me. Disturbed by its possible impending use, I walked down a few doors to the basement shooting range. The light was on above the door, indicating that the range was in use.
I pushed the intercom button and said “Hello, Theo?”
“What is it, Sar?” he said back through the intercom. A shot rang out behind his voice.
“I need to run home, to let out the dogs. The funeral is in a few hours, and I need to change, too. I need either you or Terian.”
“Okay, wait for me there,” Theo said.
I waited, and a few seconds later, he appeared.
“Ready to go?” he said, irritated.
“If you are.”
He gave the door a dark look. We walked outside, heading across the grounds toward the truck.
“What’s the matter?”
“I was trying to talk some sense into Terian,” he said gruffly. “He said that he didn’t like how he felt after killing. I told him it would get easier over time.”
That was a little chilling. But I’d said the same words to Terian, hadn’t I? They’d sounded like truth when I’d said them, but I understood now why Terian had recoiled from me as he had.
“And?”
“And he said he didn’t want it to get easier, Sar. That he didn’t want to be cold like me.”
Asshole. “He hasn’t seen what you have.”
He stopped still and faced me. “What are you saying, Sarelle?”
“He hasn’t lost anyone because he failed to kill.”
“Danial told you about Rebecca?”
I hadn’t known her name, but that didn’t matter. “Yes,” I said, reaching out for his hand.
Theo rubbed his forehead, then clasped my hand in his. “Let’s go.”
The trip back to our house went quickly, my mind moving from problem to problem. Theo also was quiet, lost in thought. Ghost and Darkness picked up our mood, and were anxious on their walk, needing reassurance half the time and discipline the other half. After giving them their Cheweez, Theo and I changed into black clothes. I had just let Cavity in and was taking a breath to call for Theo when something moved in the bushes behind the house. Something big.
“Saaarrrr,” the wind whispered.
“Hello?” I said hesitantly. “Is someone there?”
A gangly figure stumbled from the trees, shambling toward the house.
“Theo!” I screamed. “Come quick!”
Theo was at my side in three seconds, his gun drawn. “Suri,” he said quickly, then took off at a run. I followed him.
Suri lay on the back lawn, badly hurt. Her front half was human, but her bottom half was only partially transformed. We made it to her side, and Theo grasped her torso, turning her over.
She was moving feebly.
“Saaarrr,” she rasped, looking up at me weakly.
“We’re here,” Theo said to her, his eyes scanning the nearby trees. “You’re safe.”
“Not...safe,” she rasped at him, then looked at me. “Saarr...”
“Stay with her,” Theo said, leaping to his feet. “I’ll check to make sure no one is around.” He moved into the trees.
“Saarr,” Suri said again and choked. Some blood ran out of her mouth.
“Shh,” I said, grabbing her hands in mine. “Don’t try to talk. We’ll get you to Danial’s.”
“Too laate,” she said, managing a painful smile.
I grabbed her close to me and hugged her, tears of frustration and panic leaking from my eyes.
“Don’t trust,” she gasped urgently, her eyes suddenly wild. “Don’t trust...”
“Suri, save your strength,” I urged. “Hold on!”
Her eyes looked into mine with desperation and then, suddenly, they went blank. Her body abruptly relaxed in my grip.
“Suri!” I screamed. “Suri!”
“Sar!”
Theo loped across the lawn to me, kneeling down beside us. He put his fingertips on Suri’s chest and then
her neck. “She’s gone,” he said softly.
Chapter Eleven
Theo gently moved me back from her, then picked up Suri’s body and carried it into the garage. “Get a tarp. We’ve got to get her to Danial’s unseen.”
I got a tarp from the paint supply cabinet and helped him wrap her in it. Together, we lifted her into his truck and secured the tarp with cargo netting. I brushed back tears at tying my dead friend down like a load of wood, but Theo was right, we had to get her to Danial’s. If someone saw her in her half-changed state, there’d be a media frenzy.
After hurriedly locking the house up tight and setting the alarm system, Theo and I drove to Danial’s, my hand tight in his the whole way. By the time we arrived, it was dusk.
Theo went directly to Danial’s bedroom and knocked on the door hard. “Danial, Suri’s dead. She showed up at Sar’s badly wounded—”
Danial came out at once, dressed in a black silk suit. “What happened?”
“I heard her,” I said, wiping my eyes. “She was in the backyard, hurt badly.”
“She’d been shot multiple times, likely tortured,” Theo said. “She’d probably been there most of the night, too weak to move. When she heard Sar calling the cat, Suri used the last of her strength to try to make it to her.”
I broke down crying. Danial grabbed me quickly, holding me in his arms. “Shh, sweetheart.”
“Suri was shot close to Sar’s home,” Theo growled. “The wounds were from an explosive bullets gun.”
“She went for Sar’s house because whoever took her probably had the routes back here watched,” Danial said to Theo as he patted my back. “Did she say anything?”
“She was hurt too badly to transform fully,” Theo said gruffly. “It was hard to understand her words. Sar might have heard more than I did.”
The growling wasn’t just grief; Theo was upset I’d embraced Danial and not him. “She said we weren’t safe,” I said, wiping my eyes and stepping away from Danial. “She said not to trust.”
“Not to trust who?” Theo and Danial said together. They glanced at one another and then back at me.
“She didn’t say,” I said raggedly, grabbing the nearest box of tissues. “She died.”
Danial called Terian from his cell phone. “Terian, it’s Danial. Can you move earth quickly?” He paused. “Then we need another grave, as fast as you can make it.”
Danial shut his phone and put it in his pocket. “Theo, will you help me with her? We’ll have a double funeral,” he said heavily.
“You’re going to ruin your suit,” Theo said, glancing at Danial. “I can carry her.”
“She died trying to warn us. My suit can be cleaned or tossed out,” Danial said flatly and headed outside. Theo and I followed him.
Together, they carefully lifted her out still wrapped in the tarp, then Theo helped Danial heft her. He carried her to the graveyard, Theo and I following.
There were a few graves scattered here and there, marked with carved wood or rock, but not many. In the center of them was a massive maple tree, easily a hundred and fifty feet high, its branches spread in a canopy over them. The graveyard wasn’t a churchyard; it was just a secluded spot in Danial’s forest about a half-mile or so from his house. He had taken me there once, when I’d asked about Lander and then later on for Theo’s funeral. Some of Danial’s fallen guards had families. In those circumstances, the body was sent home, and a simple memorial service conducted here. But for others, like Lander and Theo, Danial and the other werefoxes were the only family they had, and his was the only home they knew. He had once told me that they belonged here where someone who knew them would remember them.
Discreetly, I looked over at Theo’s headstone and saw it had been removed. Unbidden, my eyes lingered on the other graves, looking for the grave of the woman Danial had accidentally turned. Then my eyes found Terian. He was standing with his back to us beside a freshly filled grave with a headstone on one side, his left hand outstretched. On his other side lay a deepening hole, a tornado whirling the dirt up and out to deposit it in a neat pile nearby. As I watched in wonder, the last of the earth fell in clumps and the whirling air dissipated into nothingness.
Terian put his hand down at his side and turned to us. “I’ve told the others she’s dead.”
Danial nodded to him. “Thank you. Let me put her in, then we’ll cover her. She would not have wanted to be remembered as she looks now.”
Theo jumped lightly into the hole. “Hand her down to me.”
Danial lowered her in carefully until Theo had hold of her. He laid her down in the hole and then Terian grasped his hand and helped him out. Together, the four of us pushed in enough dirt over her to cover her. Once we had, Terian used magic again to redeposit the earth, filling the grave. As the last dust sprinkled down, the foxes began to appear.
Terian turned to Danial. “I’ll be at the house guarding the children with Cia.”
Danial nodded, and Terian walked off quickly toward the house. As he did, the last of the foxes assembled.
Ivan stood up before all of us, fighting tears before he even spoke. “Demetri was my pack brother,” he managed finally. “Suri was my friend and lover. I loved them both. Seeing them together tore me apart, but I wanted them to be happy. I know that in the brief time they had together that they were. It is fitting that they rest here, side by side.”
He knelt by Demetri’s grave. “Farewell, brother. The world is a colder place for me now that you are gone. But I take comfort that you are at peace and that Suri is with you. I will see you again.”
He did not go to Suri’s grave. I surmised that was not because he cared for her less, but that her loss was so new.
After a minute, he got to his feet, to stand in front of us again. “I have fallen,” he said.
“Our sister and brother have fallen,” everyone said back. I bit my lip awkwardly. They hadn’t done this at Theo’s funeral. Theo put his arm around me, whispering it was okay that I didn’t know the right words.
“I have left you,” Ivan said.
“They have left us here in this life to go on before us,” everyone said, Danial and Theo included.
“Yet I am still with you,” Ivan said.
“They are still with us in our hearts and our memories.”
“Until we meet again, remember me,” Ivan intoned, tears running down his face.
“We will remember you, Suri. We will remember you, Demetri. We will see you again when the path of our life ends at The Forest’s Edge. Dwell forever there in spring until we rejoin you. Be at peace.”
Tears were streaming down my face, and I wiped them with a tissue. Everyone was crying, the sound of sniffling and blowing noses frequent. I handed a tissue to Theo to wipe his eyes and then turned to Danial. He was already using his own handkerchief. Taking my hand, Theo led me back toward the house, leaving the others behind.
“Shouldn’t we stay?” I asked.
“No,” Danial answered, coming behind us. “Now the foxes will shift and run in the forest, all of them together. It’s tradition.” He paused. “Theo, did you want to go? Sar can stay with Terian and me, if you’d like to.”
“No,” Theo said. “I’m not a fox, and this run is really their tradition. They would welcome me if I came, but they won’t be sorry I’m not there. Besides, we need to get home. I won’t feel calm until I’d checked over the house and grounds.”
His tone was stiff, but whether from jealously or grief I couldn’t determine. I kept silent.
* * * *
The ride home was hushed. Worry and fear hung over everything, even my grief.
Theo checked the house over carefully inside before he let me go in. “Go ahead in,” he said finally. “Lock the doors, all of them. It may be an hour or two before I come back. I want to find her trail, if possible. It may point us to what direction she came from.”
“Do you want me to fill the tub?” I ask tiredly. “Maybe it will help us relax.”
“I want you,” Theo said possessively. “I feel like death has been hanging over us since we got back. I need you, Wife. Do whatever you like, but please don’t go to sleep.”
“I understand that completely,” I said, giving him a smoky look. “If I’m asleep, you had better wake me.”
Theo shot me a quick smile, then headed off into the brush. I let the dogs out, got them ready for bed, locked up and then hurriedly ran the water and lit some candles.
Theo was right; we’d been under a dark cloud since we’d made our way back from out West. We needed something to make us feel hopeful, something special... An idea dawned suddenly. Yes, I’d wanted to change the sheets anyway!
I hurried to the cellar, pulling out a plastic storage box. I’d ordered a complete bed set of green satin back when Theo and I were together. It had come too late that horrible summer he’d been taken to use, and I’d left them in storage ever since, unwilling to use them with Danial. They would be perfect.
The set was still in the original packaging. I hauled the bag upstairs, made the bed up and then dumped the dirty sheets in the laundry room. Returning to the bedroom just in time to shut off the water, I stood back and admired my effort. The satin glowed, almost shimmering in the candlelight. There was only one more thing needed for perfection: an outfit. I went to the closet and hastily dug out the matching satin nightie, stripping off my clothes and slipping it over my head. It fit well, to my relief. I stripped it off and left it on the bed, grabbed my discarded clothes and put them in the hamper and then eased into the hot tub, letting out a sigh of pleasure.
Theo came in a minute later. Without preamble, he stripped off his clothes and sank into the water. “Ahh,” he groaned. “This is great.”
I turned the jets on for us, and we sat back in the water, relaxing. Soon, my tight muscles gave up their tension to the pounding water. As soon as they had, I got out carefully, lifting myself with my arms. Grabbing a towel, I dried myself off, unbinding my hair.
“Why are you leaving?” Theo asked grumpily.
Taken For His Own Page 14