by K. A. Linde
Just when she thought she might throw up from the sheer vertigo, Beckham dropped out of vampire speed and ducked into an alcove. The streetlights were smashed to pieces at their feet and the darkness enveloped them.
A helicopter sounded overhead. They were so close. If they moved the spotlight one street over, she and Beckham would be seen. Beckham moved deeper into the alley, becoming one with the shadows.
She tightened her grip on him as fear pricked at her every nerve ending. She could feel his distress and the amount of pain he was in and thought she’d be sick. How could he endure it? He might think he was immortal, but eventually he’d have to stop and face the music. He was losing blood at too quick a rate. It was oozing out of multiple wounds. Hot and red, pouring down his chest and arms. She was sticky with it.
“Becks, we have to get you help,” she whispered.
“I just…need…to get the bullets…out.”
“Where can we go?”
He shook his head. “The safe houses aren’t safe.”
“Can we get to Drew?”
Beckham shook his head. “Too far away. I can’t…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He wouldn’t make it. Fuck.
“Okay. Okay. Shit.”
“We’ll just have to find a place.” Another helicopter appeared overhead. Beckham moved farther down the alley. “We’ll be caught otherwise.”
Then he was sprinting again. She could feel him searching for a place where they could stop. Knowing that they didn’t have time for this.
They moved through the shadows, avoiding the police presence waiting for him to trip up. He stopped at what looked like an abandoned convenience store and barreled through the door. He finally put Reyna down on her feet.
“This will do,” Beckham groaned.
She glanced around the shoddy shelves of potato chips and a slushie machine with an OUT OF ORDER sign on it.
“Gross.”
Beckham leaned his weight against the door and pulled the shade down. Then he yanked the keypad from the entrance by the door. This wasn’t the sort of place she’d think would have a security system, but better safe than sorry.
“Bathroom,” he grunted.
They headed down the main aisle with its meager scrapping of various candy bars and an assortment of toiletries. Somehow on the same shelf. The tile floors were rusted. The overhead light was missing the covering and one of the bulbs was burned out. This was the last place she ever thought she’d see Beckham Anderson.
She made it to the bathroom and turned her nose up at the look of the place. It wasn’t warehouse gas station disgusting, but it certainly wasn’t going to be sanitary for what they needed to do. Oh well.
“Sit,” she commanded, pushing his ass down on the toilet seat.
The fact that he didn’t argue showed her how much pain he actually was in. Though he remained stoic and silent as ever, she knew what lurked beneath. He reached into his boot and unsheathed a wicked-looking blade.
He offered it to her. She looked at it in horror. Oh God…she would have to do this. Why didn’t they have Meghan with them? A fucking nurse would help right about now.
“I should get ice or alcohol or…or something.”
His eyes were dark as they stared back at her. “Just do it.”
Reyna took the knife out of his hand. She had to do this. There was no other option. Reyna sliced down the front of his button-down and peeled away the material. Beckham grit his teeth every time it pulled on the wounds. But she didn’t stop until he was shirtless. Six bullets were lodged in his chest. One had gone straight through his shoulder. Two more were in his arms. How the hell he’d held her with bullets in his arms was beyond her. And she hadn’t even gotten to his legs.
Reyna assessed the situation and then moved forward. Beckham wasn’t human. He could sustain much more pain than the average person, but he couldn’t go on with this.
The first dig of the blade into his skin made her queasy. He didn’t even flinch as she pushed the knife deeper into the wound. Lodging the point behind the bullet, she jerked it out of the hole. Blood gushed from the open wound, now no longer obscured by a foreign object.
A soft moan escaped Beckham as pain lanced him. Reyna rushed for a paper towel to staunch the bleeding, but Beckham stopped her.
“Finish it.”
“You’ll bleed out.”
“I’ll heal,” he said.
Reyna gritted her teeth and moved on to the next bullet. She had to find a place within herself that didn’t feel Beckham’s pain, that didn’t react to his short gasps, that didn’t acknowledge the blood rushing down his perfect chest. She was calm, numb, empty. She had to be. Her emotions were always too close to the surface, and any other way she looked at it she would break down at the sight of his suffering. It was easier to be present enough to remove the bullets but otherwise be absent.
She’d never been to this place before. Her courage had always sprung from her inherent hotheadedness. She’d been trying to quell that to a degree, but it was nothing compared to this moment. She needed steely inner strength. To be fearless.
All that mattered was that Beckham healed. Everything else slipped away. She’d deal with her feelings about what she was doing at a later date.
Her hands were steady as she dislodged a bullet from his arm. It had embedded into the bone and digging it out was a feat. And when it came free, it squelched and the bullet tinged on the ground. That was the last of the upper half. She stared down at his muscular legs, solid like tree trunks. Those beautiful legs with holes in them. She let the thought drift away and started in on his thighs.
Dig in, cut, pull, blood.
Rinse and repeat.
Again and again.
Her hands were coated with sticky red blood. Her body coated in a thin sheen of sweat. Her breathing even and measured. She didn’t risk speaking.
The last bullet came out with a small pop. That was it. That was the end. Everything rushed back to her all at once. A rattling sound penetrated her sharp inhale. Reyna dropped the knife, it clattered noisily on the tile floor. Blood was everywhere. The room looked like a fucking murder scene. Blood coated her clothes, coated Beckham’s body, it was all over the floor and the walls and even the ceiling.
Reyna stood on shaky knees and moved to the sink. She turned the water to the hottest setting and ran her now trembling hands under it. She felt the burn but all she saw was blood. She washed her hands and forearms until they were raw, and still all she saw was blood red.
She turned back to face him. “We need to clean you up.”
A gurgling sound came from Beckham’s throat. That was when she noticed what her brain hadn’t been able to process before.
He wasn’t healing.
Chapter 27
“Beckham!” Reyna cried. She lifted his chin and stared down into his eyes. “What’s happening? Why aren’t you healing?”
“Slow. It’s…slow.”
“Why? Has this happened before?”
“When…I healed you.”
Reyna’s heart was torn asunder. Using his healing abilities to save her had made him weaker. It changed something in his vampire processes that slowed things down. Made him more…human.
“You didn’t heal me tonight,” she whispered in fear.
He shook his head once and then coughed as pain shot through him. Fucking bullets. What the hell could have happened that would make him equally as weak as when he healed her at Graves’ place?
Then it hit her.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I moved…fast. Like…vampire super speed fast. I think Penelope’s escort even thought I was a vampire.” Reyna’s hand went to her mouth. “You gave me your speed.” He nodded. “You need to heal. Drink from me.”
She held her wrist out to him. He glanced
at it. She watched him swallow once harshly. His fangs exposed over his bottom lip. She expected him to refuse, for them to argue about it.
Instead, he grabbed her wrist, sank those fangs into her wrist, and drank deeply.
“Oh,” she gasped.
The blood flowed from her body into his. And like winter snows thawed into spring streams, the wounds began knitting together. Blood stopped flowing. It still coated his chest, but was already drying against him. He looked strong, sturdy, and not at all like he was in danger of bleeding out.
And then the endorphins hit her from the bite. A freight train straight to her heart. The immediate rush a tidal wave as flight or fight kicked in. And yet even as she felt it, all she wanted to do was curl up into Beckham’s lap and never leave. Never see him like that again. One death was enough for her for a lifetime.
Abruptly, Beckham wrenched back. Her blood lingered on his lips, dripped down his fangs. His black eyes were ringed with light as power radiated from his very being. Their blood sang as like responded to like.
Despite the carnage around them, all she could think was that she wanted to fuck him right here in this dirty convenience store bathroom. Life-or-death situations sure put things in perspective.
“You could have died,” she accused.
“Unlikely.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Your wounds weren’t healing.”
“They would have.”
“Why do you have to argue with me?” she demanded. So much for fucking.
“I wouldn’t have died. Something as simple as a bullet couldn’t take me down. The sooner you realize that the better.”
Reyna took a step back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, since you’re doing so well, why don’t we talk about you ghosting me? Then you protect me with your life against Penelope. Say I’m yours.”
“You are.”
“I am,” she said with a sigh. “I really am. I always have been and I always will be. But I cannot function with you leaving me out of the loop or taking your anger out on me with your silence.”
So of course he was silent.
“I didn’t like seeing you with her tonight,” Reyna said, unable to speak Penny’s name right after Becks killed her. “I hated it. But I’m not running away from you because I’m jealous and uncomfortable.”
Beckham’s nostrils flared at the insinuation. He stood from the small toilet seat. His immense height eclipsing the tiny bathroom. Suddenly he was towering over her, taking back the upper hand. Still, she refused to back down just because he was half-naked, covered in blood, and looked like a scary fucking vampire.
But when his eyes caught hers, something in them softened.
“When I’m with you, I feel. Intensely.” Reyna smiled at that. “The only time I have ever felt that intensely was when I was killing.”
Her smile dropped.
“Even when I was human, I didn’t have this same passion. I was empty. You have more humanity in your pinky finger than I’ve ever had in my whole body. It’s why I have protected you and coddled you and tried to keep you alive. I never wanted to see that light go out. I never wanted you to become the ruthless killer that I was. To lose the optimism that only someone so young and human could ever feel.”
Tears pricked at Reyna’s eyes and she tried to tamp them down.
“I became a vampire by choice, because I didn’t care about my own life. I was a worthless piece of shit. A detriment to my family’s good name and a shameful fucking embarrassment. And I didn’t care. But they did.” He met her gaze head-on. “And how did I repay their feelings? I tortured Bronwyn. She was young and innocent and I was a sadistic vampire. I took everything from her that she loved, put her through immense physical pain, and shattered her mind until she was utterly insane. Then I fed her madness with brutality, teaching her the ways of war, shaping her into a proper soldier. When she could take no more, right before her whole spirit would be broken, I turned her. Then I tested her loyalty, by unleashing her on our parents. I didn’t do it myself. I thought it would be worse if she did it. I loaded the gun and pulled the trigger. She was the bullet that snuffed out their existence. She passed. I made her my own unfeeling second-in-command and gave her an army to feast her insanity on.” He tilted his chin up. “And I enjoyed it. Reveled in it. It was all I was ever good at.”
“That’s not true,” Reyna whispered.
“Oh no. It’s as true as could be. Until you. You made me want to be better, but the truth is that I am not better.”
Something cracked within Beckham. A chasm that was more than sixty years in the making. He was broken. He’d finally…broken. He couldn’t keep going with the weight of all his kills on his shoulders. And there were so many kills. Some worse than others; she could see them crushing his strong shoulders. How he must be tormented by his past.
“You are,” Reyna said. She reached out and put a gentle hand on his arm. “You are better, Becks. The fact that you feel this way shows that you’re a different man.”
“Did you not see what I saw tonight? I killed Penelope with my own two hands.” He looked down at them covered in blood. “And I felt nothing.”
“She was going to hurt me. Or you. And she had turned us in to Harrington. It was a trap, Becks.”
“It could have been you,” he said in a barely audible voice.
“Me?” she whispered. “You’d never hurt me.”
“I would!” he roared. It exploded out of him as if he’d been holding on to it for so long. “I have.”
“No. You have always been there and protected me and saved me. Even when I didn’t want to be saved.”
“Reyna, the only thing that I am is a killer. The night we saw that fucking bastard, I’d never felt so strongly in my life. All I could think the entire time driving back to the house was that I was going to kill you. I loved you so much I was going to kill you.”
Reyna stared at him, stunned.
“I was jealous and pissed because he touched you. But I worried that if I stayed with all those emotions roiling through me, the only outlet I had was the only thing I was good at. So I left. I left to keep you alive.”
“Oh Becks,” she whispered, stepping into his space again. She put her hand on his cheek. “All this time I thought that you were mad at me. But really you were protecting me. Again.”
“I’m not a hero.”
“You’re so very wrong.”
Then she pressed her lips against his. His hands landed on her waist tentatively and grasped her with vigor as the kiss deepened. Beckham was broken. He feared himself so much that he’d disappeared to protect her. And he couldn’t even see it. He couldn’t even fathom that he was the good guy in this. So shattered by his past that a moment of vulnerability wrecked him and made him think he would revert into the only thing he believed he was capable of.
“You’re not just a killer,” she whispered against his lips. “You have subdued the monster and the reason you feel like this finally…is because you are embracing the man.”
He responded by picking her up, sliding her legs around his waist, and putting her ass down on the sink. Her hands went to his pants, jerking free the remaining tattered material. His cock lengthening in her hand.
“We are connected by more than our blood. We are united through our souls. You would sooner die than harm me. I believe that beyond words.”
“I never doubted us. Just me.”
Reyna sighed at the words. “No more doubts.”
He stripped her from the waist down and plunged deep inside her body. Their souls connecting as all barriers disintegrated around them. Together they embraced the moon and landed among the stars.
Killer, savior, monster, man.
None of it mattered as long as he was hers.
* * *
—
Hours la
ter, after the sounds of the last foot soldiers disappeared from around the convenience store and Beckham had fully returned to health, Reyna and Beckham slipped outside and hooved it back to the SUV. After Beckham checked it extensively for a tracer, they left the city far behind.
Beckham reached across the console and threaded their fingers together. The stress of the evening evaporated. She leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. She listened to the rhythm of his heart and forgot the rest of the world. She’d deal with it tomorrow. Right now she wanted this ounce of solace.
It was after midnight when they finally made it back. Her eyes were drooping and sleep was calling out to her. Had it only been a few hours ago that she’d gotten the call about Everett? When Beckham had returned and she’d convinced him to let her go with him to see Penny? Every day felt like a lifetime.
Beckham parked the SUV and they moved together into the kitchen. The light was on and Genevieve was humming to herself as she busied herself about the stove.
“Hey,” Reyna said.
“Miss Reyna.”
“Who’s with Brian?”
“Master Philippé took over for a while. I can go up there to check on him if you’d like.”
Reyna nodded. “Please.”
Beckham pressed a kiss into her hair as Genevieve disappeared. “Your heart breaks for him.”
“He never wanted this. I don’t know how…how he’ll live with himself.”
“The strong survive.”
Reyna was surprised to find that her friends and much of Beckham’s inner circle were congregated in the dining room. She and Beckham exchanged a glance.
“What’s going on?” Reyna asked.
Meghan’s eyes were wide with terror. They darted between Reyna and Beckham and back to the computer in front of her. Jodie was chewing her bottom lip. Katarina had been playing with Jodie’s hair, but stopped as soon as Reyna and Beckham entered. Gabe had his arms crossed over his chest. Zoya was seated before the computer. Gerard was across the room, motionless as always, reading a book.