The man stepped up next to Marex with a respectful nod before turning toward the captivated audience. His delivery came through less elegant than Marex’s but equaled in impact. “Times haven’t changed, people. But we sure as fuck have. Maybe back in the day when there was nothing else going on except pure survival, a war was what kept the lines drawn and the blood pumping. Now? With the humans outnumbering by the billions, there is a lot more we have to accomplish to keep our existence as shifters, and your existence as vampires, from becoming general knowledge. We all know what would happen if the masses found out their legends and myths were walking among them. Anarchy.” Following the agreeing nods around the space, he added, “Shifters and vampires at least have that one thing they can work on together first. Fuck the demons. They can figure it out for themselves.”
People chuckled at his candor.
Marex grinned, slapped his friend’s shoulder and shook his head. “But before we envision such a fairytale happening, my fated and I must go to the Centurias. It’s true I have a key, but as you all know, it’s not enough without an arsenal of money to back it. The UCC froze my accounts when I was apprehended, and of course I’ll never see my money again. Should you wish to contribute anything to our cause, you would have our eternal gratitude.”
Speech over. From there, Nadine gave instructions on who to see to make a contribution, and from the looks of it, nearly everyone wanted to. Including Spencer.
They were two of the last few left, which gave Spencer an opportunity to meet Daulton. He heartily shook the man’s hand like he was meeting his idol.
“Mr. Hagen. Nadine told me your contribution was, well, how can I say it? Eye-popping,” Marex joked.
Spencer gave a one-shoulder shrug. “The least I could do. I haven’t been this excited for change in decades.”
“The road is still long.”
“Is it anything else when you’re a vampire?” smiled Spencer.
Marex smiled. “Touché. Going to the Centurias as well? It’d be nice to see more than one friendly face there.”
“If I can find someone to go with me, I will.”
Marex reached for his jacket. “Good. I hope to see you there.”
“Spencer!” Nadine called. “I’d like you to meet some of our friends.”
He didn’t hesitate to make his way over.
Fitz was glad for the moment alone with Marex and shook his hand. “Good to see you.”
“Same. Have to say I’m surprised to. I thought the Centurias key was as far as you would ever go with us.”
“It was. I had no intention of doing anything more that would put my fated in harm’s way.” When Marex’s jaw clenched, he knew he’d struck a nerve. “Take no offense from that. Nadine is exceptional, you have to admit. It’s just Gaelen is…” How could he put it? “Nowhere near ready for the level you and your circle are on. She has a lot to learn.”
“Ah.” Marex nodded, leaning over and pulling the train’s doors shut. “Just hit her maturation age?”
“That would be easy. That would be nothing. You see, she…” The words wouldn’t come out of his mouth.
Marex tried to guess. “She’s not a supporter of the shifter truce?”
“No. I mean, not no, she isn’t. Just no, that’s not it.” He rubbed the back of his head. Say it, damn you. “She’s a shadow.” He watched for Marex’s reaction. To Fitz’s surprise, it didn’t faze him, though it should have. Fatebloods were meant for fatebloods. Period. “Are you hiding your shock or is it lack thereof?”
“Nothing is impossible to me anymore, McEvoy. Even things the gods proclaimed as sacrosanct.”
Part of him relieved, Fitz was eager to unburden some of his anxiety. “I was drawn to her immediately. There was no question of it. And when I tasted her blood, I nearly sank to my knees in relief that I’d found her. Is that how you felt when you discovered Nadine was yours?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Then he wasn’t wrong. “I turned her that night. But questions remain. Why was she a human if she was meant to be a fateblood? If any Vessers or the UCC find out, I’m afraid she’ll be marked as some freak anomaly. You can picture what they’d do if they knew she is essentially a shadow. I thought you could offer some advice.”
“I wish I could,” Marex said, brows drawn. “The only thing I can say is that it was the will of the gods. Since they granted your union, what is there to worry about? True, she was born a human being and not a vampire, so therefore she’s a shadow, but she’s your fated. In my mind, that overrides everything.”
“It does in my mind, too. But that won’t stop the people we actually have to deal with from shunning her and making her acceptance all the more difficult. I’ve been slowing her immersion into the dark life, but I’m not entirely sure she’ll hold her own at the Centurias. She’s not timid, or scared, but she’s still sweet, unjaded, and hasn’t seen the ugly side of being one of us yet. I don’t want to expose her to too much too fast.”
“That’s wise. Though, you have months to prepare her,” Marex pointed out, then relented when Fitz gave him a look that less than a year was not sufficient for everything there was to know about the underworld. “Then again... Well, you had to turn her, because she was meant to be with you.”
Even so… “A shadow is a shadow.”
“And fate is fate. It cannot be guided. It cannot be changed.” Marex set a hand on his shoulder, offering a sympathetic smile. “Feel fortunate you have her. The truth will be revealed when it needs to. Trust in the gods.”
“Speaking of trust—”
“You don’t even need to say it. I’ll tell no one.”
During the walk back to civilization, Spencer did most of the talking about Marex and the shifters he met, while Fitz did some hard thinking of how he was going to prepare Gaelen for the Centurias. It could design the next one hundred years of their lives. No trivial matter.
They left the subway and walked up the stairs to the street level. It was after midnight, and the sidewalks were empty.
“I mean, just think of it, Fitz,” Spencer said, turning to walk backwards to face him. “With a shifter-vampire pact, how much more we could obtain through them, learn from them. I could host a party in their honor, introduce them. They could show us their history, their culture. Their women.” He laughed.
Fitz smirked. He was getting way ahead of himself, but who was Fitz to inject bleak reality into his friend’s good mood?
Suddenly, two large hands came out from the alley and seized Spencer, pulling him in the shadows. It happened so fast, Fitz barely had to react before he was also yanked in and thrown to the ground. The side of his face was pressed to the dirty, damp, putrid-smelling cement with a heel of a boot, his hands and feet swiftly zip-tied with a sack shoved over his head, making it impossible for him to blur away. Without sight, he couldn’t make a move.
One of them spoke. “Where have you fellas been tonight? Huh?”
Even through the burlap head cover, Fitz smelled the human. “None of your fucking business. That’s where.”
He received a kick to the gut for his insolence.
“What do you want?” Spencer asked angrily.
“Shut the fuck up,” said the other, whose voice betrayed a measure of nervousness.
Fitz struggled to pull apart the zip-ties, his skin burning, but he couldn’t snap them apart, which meant they must’ve been laced with something to render him powerless. These thugs knew what they were doing.
A vehicle pulled up, its tires mere inches from his face, the choking exhaust filling his nose and throat. He was pulled up like a sack of potatoes and thrown in.
Spencer received equal treatment. A door was slammed shut and the vehicle moved.
“I’m sorry, Fitz.” Spencer spoke low. “This is my fault.”
Anger at his friend had no purpose. “Don’t apologize. I knew the risk. At least we’re still alive.”
“Who the hell are they? One stinks human, but the other i
s too strong and fast to be. I couldn’t catch his scent.”
“Demon maybe.”
Spencer made a disgusted sound. “They hate taking orders.”
“True. But it’s not impossible.” He paused, seeking to ease the tension. “Maybe he’s fairy?” he joked, and it drew a chuckle out of his friend. Male fairies were practically extinct. The few left were treated like kings among their kind, living in modern day fortress mansions, protected by magick and light.
“Gods, Fitz. I should’ve been more vigilant.”
“We both should have. Hindsight is a bitch.” Again, he rubbed his wrists, hissing at the feel of his skin raw and bleeding from whatever concoction had been put on the ties to partially numb his muscles.
Minutes later, the transport vehicle stopped, the door opened. The ties around his ankles were cut, but without sight, he couldn’t run. He didn’t even know where they were and he couldn’t leave Spencer. They had to escape this together.
The men mumbled amongst themselves before he was yanked out on his feet. There were two voices in front of him, one behind him. Were there only three?
Using his other senses, he waited and listened, determining their distance from him, their height.
“Get this one downstairs ASAP,” said one man.
Not without a fight. Fitz snapped his head back and connected with the thug’s nose, then swiftly kicked the man to his two o’clock, connecting with his soft belly, and he crumbled in pain. With his shoulder, he rammed the third into the wall as hard and fast as he was able, effectively knocking the wind out of him.
“Fitz?” Spencer called.
“I’m okay.” For a second it seemed he’d subdued them all, but victory was heartbreakingly too momentary. A mere second later, a door screeched open. Before he could defend himself, Fitz was pulled back with a piano wire around his throat.
The man whose nose he’d crushed punched him in the gut. “I told you this one would be a pain in the ass.”
Feeling as though he would be decapitated if he didn’t cooperate, Fitz walked backward to his keep his head connected to his body. “You didn’t think I’d make it easy for you, did it?”
Dragged down narrow, steep stairs, he smelled stank air and wet metal, and was pushed into a cell, the sack from his head removed, the ties around his wrists cut. They’d taken his cell phone, but he still had his watch for some reason.
Looking around, he received one answer to his many questions.
Jail. He was in fucking jail. Or so it appeared by the sloppily arranged metal desks and chairs situated around the space, the poor fluorescent lighting, and fading law enforcement posters. Had to be a human jail cell. The UCC always took their kind to their own confinement. Blurring was no good with bars surrounding him.
Though Spencer gave some resistance to the man who dragged him toward the cell, he didn’t put up a fight. The sack was yanked from his head and zip-ties snipped before he was shoved in, the bar door slamming shut before Fitz could make a move.
“Where are we?” Spencer demanded, gripping the bar cells then jerking back, his palms sizzling and burning. “What the hell?”
“I can’t tell you where you are, but I can tell you what you are,” the man sneered as he started up the steps. “Fucked.”
Seven
This is Fitz. Leave a message.
A breath of disbelief shuddered from her mouth as Gaelen hung up her call. She’d already left a message on Fitz’s voicemail. Several, in fact. Along with about a dozen slowly frantic text messages.
Fitz had been gone for five nights now, and she was hopelessly locked in full panic mode. Not one word, call, text, or message from him since he’d left.
The first night, she assumed he got caught up in whatever social thing he had to go to, and would return soon, though the dread had already started when she went to bed the next morning.
The subsequent evening—the loft silent and discomfiting without him—she’d turned on the fireplace and stared at it for hours, hoping to hear the beep from the keyless lock indicating he was home. She forced herself to dress and go for a walk, but quickly returned, worried he’d come back to an empty loft and worry about her.
It wasn’t until the third day that she truly knew in her bones something had happened to him. He would’ve never left her alone without communicating by now. Their last conversation circled in her memories, searching for a clue that forewarned this, but there was nothing. Nothing but his smile, his kiss, and his promised whisper to be home by dawn.
Day four, she’d sobbed off and on for hours, unable to sleep, her imagination shooting off in every conceivable and inconceivable direction.
Was he hurt?
Did he leave her?
Oh, God, was he dead?
Pacing back and forth in her nightgown like a mental patient, she grasped at theories to keep her sanity, but her mind was blank. She didn’t know him much at all. He did most of the talking because of her unlimited questions about the underworld. She’d wanted so badly to acclimate, there was little any discussion about Fitz himself. Yes, she knew about his parents, his travels, his humor, but who was he exactly?
She. Knew. Nothing. Tears gathered, frustration boiled, and she covered her face with her hands.
Would he abandon her? Her heart vehemently answered no, but her head asked how it could be so sure? All she knew about the dark life was what he told her. Perhaps this was the norm for a vampire, to go off and leave their supposed “soul mate” behind for days and weeks at a time.
She groaned. That kind of thinking would only make her more insane.
“Get a grip, Gaelen,” she whispered to herself. “Think about what you do know and go from there.” Hearing her own voice somehow calmed her nerves and stopped the tears from flowing. She wiped them away and sniffed, looking around for a place to begin her quest to track him down.
She rifled through papers, bills, and receipts, finding one to a salon a few blocks away. Maybe she could start there, see if his barber could point her in the right direction. He’d mentioned Kosei was a friend of his.
Friend. Spencer! He was the one who’d been meeting Fitz the night he’d left. How come she hadn’t thought of it earlier? She’d go to him, since she didn’t have a phone number to reach him.
Bolstered by this goal, she donned her black Chanel trench coat and sneakers. She remembered the address. Half an hour later, she pushed through the elegant doors to Spencer’s building, her sneakers giving a loud squeak when she caught her reflection in the mirror. Hair wild, eyes and lips red from crying, sunken sockets. She touched her cheek, not recognizing the frazzled person in front of her. Immortality didn’t mean one couldn’t look like an absolute wreck.
She spun from her visage and hurried to the elevator and punched in the code for the penthouse.
Don’t act hysterical. You look hysterical, but don’t act like it. Be calm. Be cool.
She approached Spencer’s door, unsure how she was going to start explaining her unexpected visit or the state of her dress but knew Spencer wouldn’t be so concerned with either once she told him Fitz was missing. He might laugh at her or he might offer to help. She prayed it was the latter.
With a hesitant knock, she called his name, when all she wanted to do was pound on the door and holler for him. No answer. She pressed the door chime. Silence.
She nearly sank to the floor in disappointment. He wasn’t home.
Heading back downstairs, she attempted to speak and act like everything was normal as she passed the security guard’s desk. “Hi.”
He smiled at her as though he didn’t judge her disheveled state. “Evening. You okay?” The guard exuded a sympathetic, friendly sensa.
Tired as she was, her teeth ached, reminding her she hadn’t fed on energy since the night Fitz left. She closed her eyes and drew it in, feeling somewhat better. At least physically. “I’m fine. Have a good night.”
Gone less than an hour, the loft was exactly the way she left it.
For the first time ever, she felt like a stranger walking in, suddenly seeing the space with a different view, and how utterly sterile it truly was. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed all these weeks because Fitz had been there nearly every moment, every night she had been. She closed the door.
She imagined coming out of the bathroom, wrapping a towel on his waist with a smile. Or upstairs, doing pull-ups on his bar, his back and stomach rippling with muscle and sweat, his head bent while he grunted with effort. Him sitting at the desk, checking his bank statements.
And all the many places he’d made love to her: on the kitchen counter, on the living room floor, against the wall next to the Picasso, and his head between her thighs while she grasped the stair rails.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the memories, her eyes burning to release the tears the recollections conjured. She hung up her coat and shuffled upstairs. In his closet, she found the very same jacket he’d worn the night they met.
She clutched it to her nose and inhaled. His scent was deep and all over it. She put it on, feeling somewhat comforted, as though he was closer to her now. The night that’d changed her life. She thought about when he offered to turn her the first time, and how she’d asked if he would be there with her?
He’d said no. Yes, later that night he’d mysteriously returned, apologizing, and wanting to be with her. But had his first instinct to leave her alone kicked in? Had this been his plan all along, to get her accustomed to the vampire lifestyle, get her comfortable, and leave? Was the “meant to be his fated” all a lie to seduce her to his will? Because he’d wanted to save her life?
Crippled, she bent over and let out a scream, holding her middle.
That had felt good, but only temporarily.
The doorbell rang.
She scrambled down the steps and opened the door to…Zo.
Clad in red leather pants and matching top with a stark white long jacket, she leaned in the doorjamb and looked Gaelen up and down, swamped in Fitz’s coat. “Uh, wow. Okay. Is this a bad time?”
Fitz: Immortal Forsaken Series #3 (Paranormal Romance Novella) Page 8