by Lynne, Donya
At least in Micah's case, Katarina had been a vampire. She'd had a chance of survival. Carmen had been human, which meant she'd had no chance. The stroke that took her life was an ailment she could have avoided had she been immortalized through his venom.
If he had been allowed to turn Carmen, she might well still be with him today. Perhaps he should have done what Tristan had with Josie. She had been human, and he had broken the law to change her. And she wasn't even Tristan's bonded mate. Tristan had been punished, but look at him today. He still had Josie, and she was pregnant with his young.
That could have been his life. He could have had that with Carmen. If only he hadn't been such a stickler for following the law, Carmen would still be alive today, and he never would have mated Gina, which meant he wouldn't be where he was right now. In hell.
Malek sneered and ran his palm over his trimmed goatee as he recalled how many times he had been told how lucky he was that he wasn't a statistic for not dying after Carmen's death. Lucky? How could anyone call what he had gone through, as well as what he was going through now, lucky? If anything, he was cursed. To have to endure life without his mate was hell, even if he had avoided the worst by refusing to accept her death. But life has a way of catching up with you when you refuse to acknowledge it, and Malek's time had come.
And it was Gina's fault. If she hadn't come tearing into his life, sniper rifle blazing, he wouldn't be in this fucked-up mess right now. She had shown up like a whirlwind of temptation, and Malek had immediately felt the connection between his soul and hers, just as he had when he met Carmen so long ago. He had been enthralled with her, unable to take his eyes off her or even leave her side while she had been held prisoner at AKM, but now he wished he had never met her.
He gasped and bent forward, trying not to succumb to the calling—and to the suffering—he knew was destroying his nerves. He was without his mates—both of them. One he could no longer have, and another he refused to accept.
Who was he kidding? He hungered for Gina in a way that traced back to the dawn of the vampire race. A male needed his mate as much as he needed blood, oxygen, and the darkness to survive. He was fucked. Either way he sliced it, he was way fucked. Not just a little, and not even a lot, but on a scale so large there wasn't a way to encompass its enormity.
It's all in your head…it's all in your head.
That thought was more accurate than he wanted to admit, because try as he did, the time he spent with Gina weeks ago in her cell never left his mind.
For an assassin, she had looked so small. Almost frail in stature. But beautiful beyond description. With slim hips and a trim waist, she was a diminutive force of nature. How could someone so petite be so deadly?
He had sat for hours, simply staring at her. Her neck beckoned him. Gina's neck was amazing, a stretch of flesh and bone to be worshipped. He wanted to lift her short hair away with his fingers and simply revel in her neck's erotic beauty.
His body grew hard all over from the sight and her scent, and he wanted to bury his nose into the delicate curve below her ear and press his lips against her nape as he spread her open and sank inside…to taste and smell her wild fragrance as his body rejoiced in her fragile depths.
Make love.
Fate had delivered him an angel for a mate. An angel with a neck worthy of Aphrodite.
With a shake of his head, Malek slammed his eyes shut, grimacing at the memory as his body shivered, despite the now scalding water that spilled from the showerhead. Still supported on his outstretched arms, he bent his head down. He struggled to contain his emotions as his hair slid across his neck and washed forward to hang on either side of his face.
"Carmen." Heartbreak tortured his voice as he uttered her name, and a harsh sob wracked his shoulders. "I miss you." He choked back another sob. "I miss you so damn much." Without her, he was only half, and the bad half at that. Look at what he had done to Trina tonight. And to the others in the weeks before. He was the worst version of himself without Carmen.
Without Gina, too.
He shut off the shower. Hollow pain ranged through his muscles and deep inside his bones. He pushed open the glass door and swiped the towel off the rack as he stumbled back into the bedroom, running the towel haphazardly over his wet skin and hair before wrapping it around his waist and heading upstairs.
In the kitchen, he pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator. That, a couple of apples, and half a block of cheese were all he had left in the fridge, not counting the molding two-week-old leftover spaghetti sitting on the second shelf. But he wasn't eating, anyway, so who cared if his fridge and cupboards were on empty and growing science fair projects?
Twisting the lid off the water, he let the door close and turned toward the barren kitchen counter and the dining room table beyond, piled high with books. A shopping bag from the local bookstore sat on the floor, by the leg of the table, discarded there days ago after he had returned home from wherever he had been that day. The days all blurred together now. Between the lack of sleep, no food, all the extracurricular sex that left him feeling like a lecherous heathen, as well as the ache that throttled his chest twenty-four seven, he was lucky to remember his own name.
With a sigh, he set the bottle of water on the counter, rubbed his thumb up and down his aching sternum, walked to the table, and picked up the bag. He set it on one of the stacks, and, one by one, pulled out each carefully chosen book. He had spent hours in the bookstore, selecting what he thought Carmen would like. Even past closing time, he had wandered up and down the aisles until one of the employees told him point-blank it was time to check out. Only then did he mosey up to the cash register and make his purchase.
In the past couple of weeks, he had bought at least two hundred books, as if each one was a token or vessel that would lead Carmen back to him. The more books he bought, the greater his chances of seeing her again.
As carefully as if the books were made of antique paper or delicate crystal, he set each on top of a pile and meticulously lined up the edges as he caressed each cover with all the love Carmen deserved.
She had loved to read. Not many could in those days, but she could. She had been his breathtaking, educated beauty. He often found her sitting in the rocking chair on the porch of their cottage, her nose buried in one of her leather bound books. She read and reread each one over and over and never grew tired of them. What would she think of his gift to her now?
For an instant, he thought he saw Carmen out of the corner of his eye, but as soon as he glanced up, she was gone.
Malek…
Was that her voice or just the wind rustling the branches against the window? He closed his eyes and heard his name again.
Malek…
"Carmen?" He opened his eyes and stepped toward the opposite corner of the table, where he thought he had seen her a moment ago. "Are you here?"
Malek…
He turned, and through watery, bloodshot eyes that hadn't seen sleep in days, he saw a filmy image of Carmen shimmer and disappear just as he reached for her hand. His hand closed over empty air.
He stared at his loose fist, suspended in front of him as if he grasped her fingers, but there was nothing there. Just emptiness, a void of sorrow, his limbs robbed of movement and his soul ripped of the momentary joy he had felt by her brief presence.
Carmen had been nothing more than a sleep-deprived hallucination. A waking dream sent to torture him.
Every muscle in Malek's body tightened, and his fist clenched so forcefully that his arm shook.
"No!" Agony rent his heart, which shuddered then raced as he lunged forward in the space where Carmen had just stood and drove his fist through the drywall. If only he could die.
Images of Carmen's death threatened to overtake his mind, but he pushed them away as he pounded against the wall again, showering the floor with plaster and chips of paint.
"Stop it! STOP IT!" He turned, slammed his back against the wall, and covered his face with his hands b
efore sliding to the floor. "Carmen, oh God, Carmen!" With his eyes squeezed shut, he sobbed into his hands. His chest pumped with each hiccup of breath, and his torso contracted with every strangled wail of despair until he threw his hands to the sides and screamed up at the ceiling, "WHY?"
Silence was his only reply.
He drew his head down and blinked. Tears splashed to his cheeks. "Why?" He withered into a fetal ball on the floor, curled into himself, and covered his face once more. Hopeless despondency overwhelmed every base need and instinct. If the blinds and drapes had been open, and the sun rose, he wouldn't have been able to move to save himself.
CHAPTER 5
Gina poured another shot of Jose Cuervo and her body relaxed into her seat on Trevor's private jet.
Trevor walked back from the galley holding two bottles of Corona with lime wedges sticking out the tops.
"For me?" she said, taking a bottle.
"Yep."
"But what about Jose?" She lifted her glass.
Trevor took the glass from her and placed it on the table. "I think you've had enough of him." He sat down across from her, so that he faced her, and leaned back in his seat.
Trevor was one of those strikingly handsome males, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a smoothly shaved, square jaw. Clean-cut and refined, he oozed sex appeal and success, and drew a person in the same way a perfect sunset made you stop and stare in awe. You just simply couldn't look away and had to admire God's exquisite craftsmanship. And Trevor was a damn fine work of art.
Too bad he and Gabe had never been able to make their relationship work. They had looked good together. But sometimes things just weren't meant to be. And if Trevor had mated her brother, he might not have survived Gabe's death. And then she would have lost two brothers that night instead of one.
The two sat in silence for a few seconds, then Trevor said, "You know Searcy and Vaydon are going to come after us." Their targets had graduated from being Mark One and Mark Two.
Talk about a buzzkill. The temporary light mood the tequila had created whooshed out of the cabin. "Yeah, I know." Her gaze dropped to her lap. Not even Jose could cut through the guilt that riddled her. "I'm sorry, Trevor. It's my fault for—"
He raised one hand and cut her off. "No. That's not what I'm saying, Gina. I'm not trying to lay you with a guilt trip or anything. I'm just…" He paused then shook his head. "I'm worried about you." He sat forward. "What the hell happened to you tonight? What's with you and these panic attacks?"
Tonight hadn't been the first time she had broken down in front of Trevor since arriving in Florida. With the attacks coming more frequently, he had witnessed a few of them in one way or another. Either right before, right after…or during…like tonight.
For several long seconds, she silently held his gaze, trying to put into words the mess of thoughts in her head. But it was like a stew in there. All the filing cabinets of her mind had been opened and the contents blown around until she couldn't make sense of the chaos. It felt like a tornado had whipped through her thoughts. But then, that's what these panic attacks did to her. They destroyed the order of her mind.
Maybe the panic attacks were a result of the forced order she tried to impose as she picked up the mental pieces and tried to reorganize them into some semblance of order. Maybe her anxiety was trying to tell her she wasn't compartmentalizing her thoughts correctly…that she wasn't putting the pieces back in the right places as she pulled herself together and re-filed her thoughts. Because every time she thought she had everything where it belonged, she flipped out again, and then the process of cleaning up would start over.
Except there was one piece she refused to file away. Malek. For weeks, she had fought finding a place in her mental files for him. Where did he fit in? There was no place for him in her life.
"Gina? Talk to me." Trevor's gentle voice pulled her from her muddled thoughts.
"It's Malek, Trev."
His brow furrowed in confusion. "Who?"
She breathed out a frustrated sigh. She hadn't told Trevor about Malek, so she quickly recapped what he had said to her in her cell.
Trevor looked almost shocked. "You're mated?"
"No, of course not." She clenched her jaw, blew out a heavy sigh, and looked away. "I mean, hell…I don't know. Shit, Trev…I just…"
"Are you going back for him? Is that what this is about?"
"No. I just…" What? Just what? Now that she was on her way back to Chicago, she was more confused than ever. "I need closure on this, Trev. I just left him there. He never knew I had been awake. Or that I'd heard him. What if he tries to come after me? I need to make it clear I can't have that. I just can't accept a mate. Not after—" She cut off as her mind turned toward Armand, because Malek wasn't the only cause of her panic attacks. In a way, Armand was, too. The two males were tied to one another in her mind. "Not after…Arm—"
"I know, Gina. Relax. Calm down. Don't think about him right now. That's only going to make things worse."
She shook her head and looked up as if the overhead held the answers she needed. "What if he was wrong? Could he have been mistaken? I mean, maybe I'm getting worked up over nothing."
Trevor shrugged, a look of sympathy on his face. "I've never mated anyone, so I can't speak from experience, but I doubt it. I suppose it's possible that he was simply caught up in the moment, that there's a slim chance he was wrong or made a mistake, but I'm pretty sure a male knows when his instincts have fired up over a mate."
"But there's a chance?" She nibbled her thumbnail.
"There's always a chance, Gina." He didn't look like he believed it, though.
Great. The odds were stacking up against her.
After a moment's silence, Trevor shifted forward. "Does this have anything at all to do with Severin? Or Gabe's death?" He paused. "Or is this all about Armand and what he did to you?" He paused and held up his hands as she jerked her gaze to his. "I'm sorry. I hate bringing him up, especially since I just told you not to think about him, but I can't help thinking he's the cause of all this. Your anxiety. Your fear of accepting Malek." He sighed. "If Malek has mated you, you're going to kill him if you don't accept him, Gina. You have to know that. Whether he actually dies physically or only dies spiritually, you're going to kill some part or all of him if he's your mate. Maybe your panic attacks are your body's way of dealing with the guilt of that, because you know what a mated male goes through. And even though you pretend you don't care, I know you've got a conscience that's got to be eating you up.
Maybe Trevor was right. Sure, she was terrified of being mated, but she also hated the idea of hurting an otherwise nice guy like Malek. Perhaps her panic attacks were caused by a one-two punch. Fear and guilt.
"Yes, I know, Trev. God, I know. But I just can't be with him. Okay?" She glanced down. "And maybe what I did to Severin plays a part, because God knows I fucked up that whole incident beyond repair. And then there was Sev's father, Lakota." There were so many pieces to the puzzle. So many components that could be to blame. Malek and Armand were at the heart of them all, but she couldn't forget about Sev, Lakota, and all she had done to everyone involved.
"Who?" Trevor frowned.
She had never told Trevor about Lakota, either. "Lakota is Severin's father." She held up her hands as if to ward off the guilt brought on by remembering how she seduced Kota to get to Sev. "He showed up, and…things happened."
Trevor leaned forward and touched her wrist. "What really happened in Chicago, Gina? You've told me bits and pieces, but I don't think you've been level with me. All I know is I've never seen you so…fragile. You're not the same Gina I knew two years ago. Maybe talking it out will help."
Gina's mind bounced from thought to thought. Where did she start? She heaved a sigh and looked out the window. "Aside from what Armand did to me, everything regarding why I went to Chicago started with Gabe's death," she said. "I was there you know?" She glanced over to see him shake his head.
"No, I wasn't aware
of that." His gaze dropped to the floor, and his hands fumbled with his bottle of beer. "I, uh…I didn't want to know too much about what happened." Trevor's voice fell to nearly a whisper as he spoke. "So I ignored the news for a while…kind of kept myself isolated so I didn't hear about it."
Clearly, he still missed Gabe.
Gina reached out and took his hand, squeezed it, offered him a compassionate smile, then let go as she leaned back in her seat again. "Gabe died in my arms, Trevor. It was a raid on a cobalt distribution center. Shit went bad. Way bad. And this vampire showed up. A mixed-blood, it turns out." She looked over to catch Trevor's reaction. "It was Severin."
"No shit."
"Exactly. I thought he was a traitor. I thought he had used Gabe and was working with the drecks. After Gabe's death, I vowed I'd see every last one of those fuckers die." She dug her fingernails against the bottle of Corona and tilted her head down so that her short, dark hair fell over her face. "I was so bent on revenge that I got careless."
"And chased Sev to Chicago and nearly killed an innocent male," Trevor filled in, figuring out the puzzle by the pieces she had already revealed to him.
She nodded and took a swig of beer. "Yes."
"So, how did Sev's father factor in?"
She took a steadying breath. "As luck would have it, Sev's father came to town, trying to track Sev down. They were estranged from one another." She spit out a staccato laugh, remembering how Lakota had poured his heart out to her over what had happened between him and Sev and how he desperately wanted to set things right. No wonder she had never told Trevor about Lakota, because even now, just the mention of Lakota made her want to crawl under something. Like maybe a mountain or a falling meteorite the size of Texas.
Trevor shook his head. "And...? What happened with him?"
She bobbed her head to the side, and then looked down. "He was staying at my hotel, if you can believe that. I thought I'd fallen under a lucky star." She mocked herself and kicked back another heavy drink. Then her cynical grin faded. "I used him." She scrunched her upper lip and crinkled her nose in self-loathing. "Lakota. Sev's father. I used him to get close to Severin. I did things with him, made him trust me…made him like me." She looked away again, biting back the tears that stung her eyes. Even now, after all this time, thinking about what she had done sickened her and filled her with self-hatred. She was nothing but a whore who had used a good male, Lakota, to get to an even better one, Severin. Poor Sev had been the hardest hit by Gabe's death, because he'd had no one to mourn with, and here she came, with her high and mighty, self-righteous, revengeful idiocy, thinking she could do no wrong and had all the answers. She had nearly added insult to injury by almost killing him…almost taking him from a father who wanted to make amends, as well as from his new mate, Arion, who would have died without him.