I stood, draining my glass once again. I bored my eyes into him until it felt as if I would tear a whole through him with my gaze. “Thank you for the truth…finally,” was all I could manage. The wine was making me fuzzy and I couldn’t risk saying the wrong thing. I looked down and realized I’d finished off the bottle alone. So, without another word, I turned and headed to my room. When he moved to follow me, I held a hand up and shook my head. I needed it clear, so I could think. If he’d followed me just then, I would have put all the information he’d given me to the side, and done what I’d been waiting to all night. No, the time for that was not now. Later, that would need to be much later.
Chapter 17
Massimo
I’d told her as much as I was willing to. The rest would come to her eventually. She was nothing like the woman I remembered. Nothing like the docile woman I fell in love with so long ago. I couldn’t just tell her the truth. It would just confuse her. She needed to come to it on her own. Just as I had.
I laid in my bed, staring at the ceiling. The sun would be up soon, and I needed to sleep. Red could have wanted to start over again when the sun set, or she could end up changing her mind altogether, and I didn’t want that. Now, more than ever I wished I had taken Emerick up on his offer. If I had known she would refuse me because of who I am, I would have taken that concoction in a heartbeat.
No, not who, but what. It was the only thing she had from her true life. The memory so embedded in her mind that she knew without a doubt that she needed to be repulsed by the part of me that was more demon than a hunter.
The dream came swiftly. Always the same. It’d played over again in my head almost every sleep for the last year. I was finally at the cusp of our existence. The part where we’d get to remember who we were and how we came to be. The real knowledge of what we were to one another.
***
I saw her. She wore a long southern-bell dress and a big hat as she and her mother walked through the market. Her brothers, all tall and thin were horsing around ahead of them. I noticed her first. Her slender nose and high cheekbones, the way the corners of her mouth rose when she saw me in the distance and the sparkle in her green eyes. I could feel the smile appearing on my face as well, as she and her mother stopped in front of me. I gave a bow to the ladies and they returned it with something far more elegant.
Annabelle’s eyes met mine as she began to speak. Her light brown hair swept up and disappeared beneath her hat. Her cheeks were rosy, and I could smell peppermint as she stood before me. “My father takes a walk at sunrise each morning.”
“Before training, then?”
“Yes. He likes to start his day with nature. It’s when he is most at peace.”
“Then, I shall ask to accompany him, tomorrow, I believe.”
“Good. See that you do.” She curtseyed and began walking before she stopped to add, “By the way, he enjoys hunting, fishing, and anyone who treats his daughter as an equal.” Then she walked on.
I laughed a little in spite of the fact her mother remained behind. I bowed my head and she turned to me. “Liam, I do believe your only task will be to earn my husband’s favor.”
“How so, madam?”
“I dare say you’ve already won hers.”
“And yours?” I asked quickly as she began to follow after her children.
“Time will tell,” she spoke over her shoulder.
I looked up at the crowd to where Annabelle met up with her brothers, and the sun moved lower in the sky, blinding my sight.
***
When I opened my eyes, the sun beamed in through the open balcony window. The drapes deliberately moved aside, and the door left open. I lifted my head from my pillow and quickly let it fall.
“What do you want?”
“Nice to see you too, brother.”
“We are not brothers.”
“You’re still angry with me?” Emerick shook his head. He’d let his dark hair grow out since last, I saw him. His green eyes showed bright with the sun beating on his face. I noticed the scar on the bridge of his nose, which didn’t set right when he allowed it to heal making it slightly crooked. He was the poster boy for a Disney prince. The white teeth, fangs hidden, as usual, a dimple in his cheek when he spoke, and the whole tall and broad shoulder thing women swooned over.
“Of course, I am. Did you honestly think I’d get over what you did to us? To her? She doesn’t deserve this life.”
“Yes, but she is so good at it. Don’t you agree? She’s magnificent. Just as I always knew she would be.”
“You said she was yours.” I rose then and sat on the edge of my bed to grab my jeans and put them on. “She wasn’t.”
“You had plans. Yes, I know. I grabbed you just in the nick of time. Look at you now, unyielding as ever.”
“What would you have me yield too? You? Being your slave again? I don’t think so, Em. I won’t let you take her either.”
“Take? No, she will beg me to return her. To her home.”
“What? How would you be able to do that? It’s been a century. Two lifetimes, that place is dust in the wind.”
“It’s what she so desperately wants. To know of her past.”
“I’ve told her of her past.” I ran my fingers through my hair and stepped lightly on bare feet to the refrigerator. I know Ravana was hinting that I should have gotten blood last night, but I was fine. I could feel the burning in my throat, however, and needed to rip open three of the bags left for me.
“You tell her of all her past?”
“No. She will learn it herself. I will not sway her one way or the other, and I beg of you to allow it to be so. She doesn’t need her judgment clouded. Besides, it won’t help your cause. She feels you abandoned her. She hates you and would rather see you dead, not as a mate.”
“She will change her mind. I promise you.” He spun around to look at me. He wore a black leather jacket with a white button-up shirt. His hands were in the pockets of his jeans and he rocked back on the heels of his work boots. He was trying too hard to fit in.
“I don’t need your promises. I don’t even need you to leave. I just need you to leave us alone.” I dropped the empty bags in the trash can and walked into the bathroom.
He moved closer to the door but gave me my privacy. “I know your memories are coming back. What do you think it would do to her to have hers flood back much more quickly? Back to the day you failed to show up. The day you left her waiting. What do you think that would do for your cause, Mo?”
I blurred from the bathroom, placed myself in front of him and held him to the wall by the front of his jacket. “I told you, leave her alone. You owe me.”
“I owe you nothing. I gave you eternity.”
“I never wanted eternity.”
I turned to finish getting dressed and when I turned around he was gone.
Chapter 18
Ravana
The weather shifted, as it usually does in Seattle. The cold bit into my flesh, although it was just a sense of cold. The way one would sense someone entered a room behind them. Vampires were never affected by weather, which meant I wasn’t either. One thing I could be grateful for. Or else I’d have to change my wardrobe.
I slide my shoes on with ease. My favorite pair of knee-high boots. I got a flash of what I was doing last time I’d worn them. Suddenly I could smell Massimo, but it wasn’t like when he was in the sweaty bathroom pressed against me. No, it was more like when he was in the middle of a fight. What was strange about it was he was still a floor below me. Thinking something might have happened with one of the Orders soldiers, I left my apartment in a hurry, barely saying two words to Delia.
When I’d made it to the outside of his door something made me stop and listen. The door was still locked and there was no sign anyone had tampered with it. There were two different voices coming from inside; Massimo’s and another I couldn’t make out through the wall. Whoever was visiting was obviously not welcome.
; Leaving him to it, I went back to my apartment to seek out my Keeper. Her nose was buried in the spine of a book, as usual. As if she were trying to make herself look anything more than boring, she attempted to style her hair. It was in a curls and sat on her shoulders.
“Someone has a crush.” I looked at her sideways. My temper rose a little at the inclination that my Keeper was trying to look nice for Massimo.
“Is it that noticeable?” she sat back shifting herself to the floor.
“I’ve never seen you do anything more than a ponytail.” I finally saw she was wearing a beige pencil skirt and a ruffled white blouse. “You got it bad.” I clenched my fists and headed for the coffee cups on the counter. There were three cups instead of the usual two.
“Oh, sorry.” She jumped up and handed me the appropriate foam cup.
“I thought we’d been over this? He doesn’t drink coffee.”
“Who? Oh…no…this is for Kelly.” Red splotches started to cover the poor girl’s cheeks and realization set in.
“Oh, I don’t think she likes me very much, at least not as much as she had when she got here. You might need to bring it to her. I doubt she’ll come up,” I pointed out.
“No, she’ll be up. I called and asked before I stopped,” she said pointing to the other cup on the counter. “She drinks it black.”
Before I could stop myself from asking, the words flew out of my mouth as I stepped into the kitchen. “So, does that mean you liked it when I walked around the apartment half naked?” I started laughing as I powered on my computer in my office area. For a second I thought I heard her growl.
“And here I thought you were starting to be nice to me.”
“Sweetheart, I’m never nice.”
I bent over to read the screen, forgoing the chair as usual. The screen blipped and changed as my email opened. A new correspondence from the Order told me I needed to stop my investigation on Emerick, and focus on a new vamp that had moved into the area. Without moving from the screen, I yelled back to Delia. “Hey, you know about this Torrid. Supposed to be a new big bad moved to town. Guess he likes rain and sunless days as much as all the rest of the undead population.”
Hands snaked around my thighs, and I was pulled back into a very male body. I felt the length of him on my backside, and silently wished I hadn’t chosen jeans. What surprised me more was I hadn’t heard or smelt him come into the apartment, even though I smelled his anger earlier.
“Oh darlin’, I thought I was the only big bad you were interested in?” he said mocking me.
“After our conversation this morning,” I said unmoving, my hands making the window on my screen close and a new one open. “I figured I needed a new plaything.”
“That hurts.” His body moved away from mine, and I couldn’t tell without turning whether or not he had taken me seriously.
“I need some time to process. Don’t act like we don’t have more to work through.”
“Sorry, I was just teasing. Too soon?”
“Yes, too soon.” I turned to look at him. His brooding eyes bore into mine and I could see the stubble on his face. His hair hung down over his eyes and I silently hoped he wouldn’t be cutting it anytime soon.
He smiled, and in an instant, it was if my mind were somewhere else. The background was changed, though not the man. He still had a killer smile, and brooding dark eyes. His hair was longer, and his black Def Leopard t-shirt was replaced with a white blouse that resembled what Delia was wearing. The background was different as well. He was standing in a clearing with trees all around in the middle of the day. The sun shone so brightly I wished I had my sunglasses to block out the rays.
I blinked once, and we were standing back in my apartment. Delia strode over to the counter and grabbed the other cup of coffee heading back toward the living room.
“You alright, love?”
I shook my head looking back at the kitchen behind him. “I think so.”
“Torrid.” I heard Kelly from the other room. “Is the new vamp from Chicago? Of course, Seattle is the vamp capital of the world…”
“What better way to make a name for yourself, than settle in Seattle and make a point to call out the biggest baddie in the city?” Massimo led me into the living room.
Everyone looked at me as I entered the room. “Ok,” I took a sip of my coffee, “I’ll bite. Who’s that?”
“You, love. Who’s the biggest vamp in this daft city besides the one who can’t be killed? You’re it. They all come to town to take out the wolf.”
“The wolf?”
“Yeah, we realized that’s your code name. An idiom of sorts.”
“An idio…wha?”
“Idiom. They call you the Wolf because of your red hair.” When I didn’t say anything she added, “Red Riding Hood, and the big bad wolf?”
“Wolf? Got it.” Though I didn’t, I just went along with it. Why would anyone think I was the biggest bad guy, or rather, girl in Seattle?
“Anyway,” Kelly continued. “Torrid is calling you out. He went after Sebastián and Kyron. Most of the bad-asses know you favor them. He sent his men after them and took a good-sized chunk out of their dens. Both got away, not surprisingly, but they both have substantial losses.”
“Are you kidding me right now? I favor them? I don’t favor them. They give me information, they get to live. Those are always the terms. Just so happens those two are the only ones with any valuable information.”
Delia looked up from her papers I hadn’t noticed she was flipping through. “Well, favor or no, they’re on the run. Also, this Torrid character is responsible for the influx of newbies.”
“Great. So, once again I have to stop searching for Emerick and deal with a new lowlife in town.” I flung my hands in the air in frustration.
“Yes, only this time, you’re not on your own.” Massimo tried to show me a silver lining.
“I don’t need help.”
“I never said you did, love. However, I say a wager is in order.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. Highest total kills tonight, gets to be on top.” With that, he strolled toward the elevator.
It seemed business, as usual, was the theme of the night. The rain had settled to a nice slow drizzle as we hunted for information on the new baddie, as Delia called him. I silently thought of how I should probably stop being the one bad guys want to take on to make a name for themselves. What better way for them to become king of Seattle than taking out the resident hunter? Nothing I could think of, that’s for sure. That just meant, as per usual, Delia was right.
The streets were busy as usual. Time of day meant nothing to the occupants. With almost constant cloud coverage and rain, it was a cesspool of bad guys. A stomping ground for those who would brave the light of day when the sun was never able to peek through for more than an hour or so.
We headed toward Trinity. The club was as loud as ever and so was the crowd waiting to get in outside. The tall dark man at the front door ushered me forward, removing the velvet rope that blocked the door. When he held a hand up in front of Massimo I could see the storm in his eyes.
“He’s with me tonight, Bork.”
“Not like you to walk in with’em. You sure?”
“Yes. Tonight, is all about work,” I said with a roll of the eyes.
Bork moved the rope and looked between Massimo and myself. “Okay, but try not to break the place. I always get stuck with the clean-up.”
“No promises,” I yelled back over the music as it assaulted my senses, the door opening in front of me. I could see the slight upturn of Bork’s mouth and knew he heard me.
The club was dark and crowded. Sliding through the menagerie of bodies to get to the very last room was almost harder than normal. It was early. Much earlier than I’d normally come by, which meant everyone had just arrived as well. Not enough drunks to loiter along the perimeter, so they were all on the dance floor, drinks in hand for the most part.
Sebastien wa
s nowhere to be seen. His table empty except for a very lively human couple making out in the privacy the table offered. Lucky for them, Sebastien probably wouldn’t be showing up.
I moved to the counter and ordered my usual, a dark and stormy. I had no intentions of drinking it until I saw the look on Massimo’s face, the one that liked responsibility and following the rules. I swallowed it hard and signaled the bartender for another. When he set it down, I grabbed his wrist instead of the glass, making him look me in the eye.
I didn’t like trying to glamour in large crowds; it almost never worked because the recipient of it had to be able to hear me. Six feet was still not tall enough to get close to the bartenders in Trinity, so I hoisted myself up on the bar and got as close as I could in no time.
“Where is your boss?” I let the magic flow through me and into his eyes; the man looked like an empty shell. One who was not privy to such information? Fine, I could work with that. “Where do you think your boss is?”
“He’s probably laying low. Word is he’s being hunted.”
“By whom?”
“By you.”
Well, shit. I didn’t see that coming.
Chapter 19
Ravana
Finding where Sebastián was hiding out became more difficult than we suspected. Making it through the city without attracting attention was even harder. I never did figure out why giving my body human blood made my hair turn bright red, but this was the first time in a hundred years that it was a hindrance. Why couldn’t I have been a brunette? Sometimes life was crueler.
Massimo and I headed to the Abortorium. The gazebo was just as deserted as the club. They were nowhere to be seen. I had to assume they’d moved underground, and unfortunately, I didn’t care enough to have learned where they called home. So, instead, I followed Massimo to the industrial district.
The building he led me to use to be a warehouse that must have been abandoned and then renovated on a tight budget into lofts. Most of the windows around the building were cracked, broken, or missing altogether. Cardboard filled the holes for the ones missing, but not all. The slate grey coloring of the walls and ground made me feel like I was about to be swallowed at any moment; sucked into the earth in one step, but the ground held firm. The rain began to fall harder against the metal roof. When I took further inspection, I realized it was occupied by several vampires.
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