by Aliya DalRae
“May I ask you something?”
Martin tensed, but said, “Sure.”
“You were drunk when you came here last night.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
Merlin frowned. “You’re right. How were you drunk last night? And is that why you turned up here?”
Martin pulled away, sat up with his back against the headboard. Merlin followed suit, watching the Soldier with a wary eye. “If I answer, am I talking to Merlin my lover, or Warrior Merlin?”
Merlin liked the sound of the former but responding to that would put an end to this one perfect day he’d allowed himself, and he wasn’t quite ready for that. “I’m not a Warrior now,” he said, avoiding the lover topic as best he could.
“I came here because I wanted you. The alcohol may have given me the courage to face another rejection, but my desire was for you and you alone. As for the how, one of the Soldiers has a knack for chemistry. He’s created an alcohol that doesn’t burn through us so quickly. It’s quite affective.”
“How does it taste?”
“Like lighter fluid.”
Merlin laughed. “Any side effects?”
Martin squirmed, folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve had some memory issues, but only the first night I tried it.”
“Do you remember last night?”
Martin looked down at him, then slipped around to straddle his hips. “I remember everything.” He leaned forward and kissed Merlin, his tongue seeking access, which Merlin quickly granted. They licked and tasted each other, their kisses hot, as the fire within Merlin’s belly heated up again, his body ready for another round.
Martin pulled back, rubbed the pad of his thumb across Merlin’s swollen lips. “What is Kioshi, aishiteru?”
And just like that, the magic was over.
“Why do you ask this?”
“You said it last night, in your sleep. I woke up a little hung over, but once I realized where I was, who I was with, well, I said… goodnight… to you and that’s what you said back.”
Merlin pushed his way out from under Martin, got out of bed. “I was sleeping. Hard to say what that was about.” I love you, Kioshi. “I have to get a shower before work.” He popped the seal on the cuffs and laid them on the dresser on his way to the bathroom.
“Can I join you?”
Christ. He was like a puppy, up and ready, his cock full and swinging at the mere mention of all that hot and wet.
“I think you need to go,” Merlin whispered. Martin’s face fell and he stopped as though Merlin had punched him in the stomach.
“But it’s still early. I thought…”
Merlin covered the space remaining between them and laid a palm on Martin’s cheek. He was so damn beautiful it made Merlin’s heart seize.
“Last night was amazing,” Merlin said. “And this evening. I will treasure this time with you until the day I die. I swear this on what honor I have left. But it changes nothing. This?” he waved a finger between the two of them. “We cannot be.”
“Bullshit,” Martin growled, his eyes bright with unshed tears. Tears Merlin had put there. “You just admitted it. We’re great together, and I don’t just mean the sex.”
“Martin, please. I’m asking you to hear me. Don’t just listen, hear. I want you. More than anything I’ve wanted in a thousand years, I want to be able to claim you, to tell the world that you are mine and mine alone. That I would kill anyone, male or female, human or Vampire, who dared touch you in passion or peril. I would protect you with my body. I would die for you. But I cannot be with you. I will not… I cannot… erect another shrine to the memory of someone I loved knowing that their death is on my head. It would be the end of me.
“So, do this for me. Let me go. Find another who can share your bed and your dreams and know that I will envy them for eternity. Even so, I would rather live in envy with you alive in the arms of another, than die knowing that I was the reason you no longer lived.”
“I don’t understand,” Martin said, the pink tear in the corner of his eye threatening to fall. “I hear you, I do, and I will walk out that door as you ask, but I will never understand.”
Martin gathered his clothes and went into the living room where he dressed and walked to the door. He turned as though he would say something more, apparently thought better of it, and he left.
“I hope you never do,” Merlin whispered. He fell to his knees and the room went black as the Shade consumed him. His tears fell in red rivers down his cheeks, his black eyes pulling the illumination from the room, from the hall, from every light in the manse.
His very soul wept.
Chapter Forty-One
A very early morning turned into an extremely long day, not just for Sasha, but for the males who worked beside her as well. Once she finished with the light bulbs, Viper called in a group of daywalkers to set things up throughout the Compound. It was a very large area to cover, and Vampires with the ability to withstand the sun’s ultra violet rays were in short supply. Still, the Warrior seemed confident that his team would get the job done. Plus, the sun would be down soon, and there would be plenty of hands available to help.
With that job turned over, Viper asked Sasha—actually asked her—to look at the contacts and see if she couldn’t enhance Oz’s work. It took but a matter of minutes for her to find the spell they needed. She knew she’d succeeded, for when Viper tested them his lips curled into a sultry smile… then he barked at her to repeat her efforts on the hundreds of completed lenses strewn about the room.
She shouldn’t have let that smile affect her at all, nor the brief show of approval. It was no more than she’d earned since she’d arrived at the Compound and agreed to work with the disagreeable Warrior.
However, she couldn’t ignore the way Viper’s face softened with that one change in expression, nor how her belly tingled at the turn of his lips. Even the harshness of his many tattoos melted a little in that one look. Of course, she wasn’t surprised by its brevity, nor by the sharp way in which he went back to business in the next blink of an eye.
Still, seeing it made her realize there might be more to the male than she suspected, more than he’d chosen to show. Perhaps he was a decent fellow all along, and he simply did not like her.
She scowled at that thought and marched to the opposite end of the lab where the first lenses Oz created lay in tiny lidded cases filled with fluid. Those supplies and others were provided by daywalkers who’d been running in and out of the lab all day at Oz’s instructions.
Viper’s attention was back on the Soldier, where he did what he could to assist the process.
Sasha had the spell formed in her mind, prepared to apply it to the first lens when the lights went out, dramatically. She screamed as every illuminated bulb in the room exploded, setting them all into absolute darkness.
“What the fuck,” Oz yelled, as they all dove for cover.
“Quiet,” Viper hissed. She could hear him tapping at something, and then, without warning, the room erupted in extremely bright light.
Sasha covered her eyes as Oz cried “Jesus, Viper.”
“Good news,” the Warrior said at her shoulder.
She jumped when he placed a pair of sunglasses over her eyes, but at least she was able to open her lids again without searing her retinas. “And what would that be?”
“The lenses work.”
She looked at Oz, who had a case in his hands as he struggled to lens up.
“Bad news,” Viper continued, “that one will bring the Kurai Senshi right to us. Oz, work until I tell you to stop. Sasha, get magic into as many of those lenses as you can. Time’s up, kids. This party’s about to start.”
Chapter Forty-Two
M artin fled. Out the door and down the hall, he ran from the male he now knew was his one true mate. Bloody tears streamed down his face, and his t-shirt was twisted, his bootlaces undone. If Rachel or one of the twins saw him, there would be questions for sure, but he couldn
’t worry about that. All he knew was that Merlin had given him the best hours of his life, and for whatever fucked up reason, was still determined to keep them apart.
Fuck him.
He reached the elevators and pounded on the call button, desperate to get as far away from the place as he could. And fuck his dreams of being a Legion Warrior. Without Merlin, none of it made sense. He’d just as soon walk out that door and never look back.
He might as well return to his family and live out his days as a proper aristocrat. He’d marry fucking Susie or Sammie or whatever the fuck her name was. If he was to live a loveless, sexless life, someone might as well profit from it. Why not his uptight, judgmental family? He had no use for his life anymore, might as well give it to them. They’d always found pleasure in his misery. Their heads would burst from the thrill of it.
His fist was poised to slam the call button again when the world detonated around him. The lights throughout the hallway exploded in quick succession, and he threw his hands over his head as shards of glass showered down upon him. It was over in the blink of an eye. Martin straightened in the silence, the only sound that of glass as it fell from his hair and shoulders to land in a tinkling chorus on the hardwood floor.
And it was completely dark.
Not the kind of dark one experiences on a cloudy moonless night. This was black hole dark, pitch black, the kind where you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. For a Vampire, it was an unnerving experience, as they were never truly without some level of sight. Unless…
The parking lot had been exactly this kind of dark when the KS attacked him and his friends—was that just last night? Viper’s training sessions, the urgency with which he pushed them to learn how to defend themselves, made frightening sense now. The Kurai Senshi, with their deadly combat skills and ability to control light, weren’t some random threat to the Legion. They were looking for someone.
And the person who saved him back in Fallen Cross, who had battled two Kurai Senshi and walked away practically unscathed based on the sounds of it. He wasn’t just anyone. The two were one and the same.
Merlin.
Martin took off at a run, retracing his steps down the hall, glass crunching beneath his booted feet. He careened off a wall, knocking some decorative item or other from its perch to land in the mess behind him. A door opened to his right.
“What’s going on?”
“Go back inside,” he shouted to Rachel without waiting to see if she obeyed.
It was like a dream. The faster he tried to run, the more time seemed to slow, the hallway growing longer, his destination more distant.
Merlin.
He pinballed from one side of the hall to the other, desperation guiding his way. When the wall to his left disappeared, he made the turn down the short corridor that lead to Merlin’s suite. Finally, he reached the doorway, but then stopped abruptly, a moment of insecurity causing him to hesitate.
What would he find? Would Merlin be some crazed beast like Raven and attack him the moment he entered? Were the Kurai Senshi mindless fighters when the Shade overtook them, or were they aware of who and what they fought? Had Viper said, and Martin missed it?
None of that mattered. He knew that whatever lay inside that apartment, it was still Merlin, the male he loved.
Martin reached the door and found it ajar. With a gentle nudge, it swung inward giving a soft thud as it hit the wall.
“Merlin?” Martin crept through the darkness, feeling his way. He knocked his shin on a table he’d forgotten about, or perhaps had never noticed, and swore as his hands landed on soft leather, the sofa.
He heard muttered swearing off to the right, from the bedroom, and he worked his way to the door. When he found the jamb he leaned against it, still unable to see.
“Merlin?”
“Why did I take them off? Gods be damned, why won’t they close? Have to get them on. Have to tell Mason. I’ve killed us all. We’re all fucking dead.”
“Merlin.”
The muttering stopped and Martin could feel the other male’s attention shift to him, even though he couldn’t see it.
“I told you to go.”
“And I did. You’re one of them.”
“You need to leave, now. Not just my rooms. You need to leave the Compound. Take as many with you as you can.” Merlin’s voice was tinged with panic, but still held the command of a Warrior.
A Dark Warrior.
“I’m not going anywhere. You’re Kurai Senshi.” Martin followed Merlin’s voice, found him kneeling on the floor next to the dresser where he’d discarded those cuffs on his way into the shower. He joined him on the floor and placed his hands over Merlin’s to still his frantic fumbling. “Let me help.”
“I have to get these on, then I have to call Mason. I’ve damned us all.”
“So you’ve said. Here.” Martin took the cuff from Merlin’s hand and slipped it around the male’s thin wrist. He had no clue how they worked, but when he pressed the ends together a blue light pierced the darkness, leaving Martin with shadow images on his retinas. “The other one?” he asked, and Merlin placed it in his hand. He slipped it around Merlin’s other wrist, sealed it together with another flash, and it was like the lights came on. It was still dark, but ambient light filled the room, giving his Vampire eyes something to work with.
And what he saw twisted his heart.
He took Merlin’s hands in his own and rubbed his thumbs over those long, slender fingers. This was why Viper was so determined the Soldiers know about the Kurai Senshi. For whatever reason, they were coming for Merlin, and the Warriors were doing everything they could to protect him.
“That was you last night, wasn’t it? Back in town?”
Merlin nodded, and Martin’s heart thudded in his chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Knowing is dangerous.”
Martin reached a hand out and rubbed his thumb over Merlin’s jaw. “And what does loving you do?”
Merlin looked up, his black eyes shining in the dim light as he stared into Martin’s grey-greens. “Loving me will get you dead.”
Martin leaned forward and kissed Merlin, the action more of a statement than words could ever be. Still, he pulled away and forced Merlin to hold his gaze. “I would rather die a thousand deaths next to you,” he said, “than live forever without you in my arms.”
Merlin searched his face, but Martin knew the male would only find truth staring back at him. “You know what we’re facing. You saw it last night.”
“Yes, and Viper’s been very clear, so the others know as well.”
“Viper’s been clear about what he knows. The rest of it, as it pertains to only you and me, has not been shared with the Soldiers, not with anyone.”
“Whatever it is, it won’t change my mind.”
Merlin tilted his head as he studied him again, those black eyes delving deeper into Martin’s own, so deep he felt Merlin must see his very soul. Perhaps he did, because the Warrior nodded once. He then placed his hands on Martin’s shoulders and pressed their foreheads together.
“I believe you, and for my part I would die this time as well. I refuse to live another thousand years mourning for the male I love because I was too weak to follow him in death.”
Chapter Forty-Three
M erlin rose and held his hand out to the beautiful male who knelt at his feet. Martin took his hand and stood before him a full ten seconds before pulling him into his arms. It felt good there, safe, secure, even though Merlin knew the feelings were an illusion. If anything, they were a death sentence for both of them, but he was so tired of fighting it.
Merlin stepped out of the comfort of Martin’s embrace and retrieved a pair of sweats from the dresser, prepared to face the reality of their situation. He’d fucked up, big time. He should never have removed the cuffs, not with Martin in the room. When they made love, he’d managed to pull back from the Shade whenever he felt the cuffs grow warm, to keep it fro
m taking him completely.
He overestimated his abilities, thought he could watch Martin walk out of his life with little to no effect. He’d never been more wrong.
The loss struck him in the chest and tore at his soul, and he lost every ounce of control he’d ever possessed, surrendered everything to the Shade. It took him completely, sending a beacon through the network of Kurai Senshi, focusing on his position like a search light, and this time it wasn’t just a blip. It was an atomic blast that left echoes of his location reverberating through the Shade. He’d given them everything they needed to find him, and now that he had, it was only a matter of time before Takeshi tracked him down. That signal would have been too bright a light in the darkness of the Shade for the Dark Warrior to miss.
He felt Martin’s eyes on him as he crossed the room to retrieve his cell phone. The Soldier had a lot more fortitude than Merlin had ever possessed, his level of devotion so much more than Merlin deserved. Martin straightened his clothes as Merlin placed the call he was dreading.
Mason answered practically before the phone rang. “What’s happened?”
Merlin sighed. “Long story, but I’m afraid I’ve screwed up. We need the Soldiers on alert and should probably call the Warriors in for a meeting. It will take Takeshi time to track us here, but not much. He’s close, I can feel him through the Shade, and that signal will have been too strong for him to ignore. He and whatever army he’s put together will push through the cover we have in place at the Compound’s perimeter, and we need to be ready. Tonight. I need an hour, but we’ll meet you in the War Room at nine.”
“We?”
“Martin is with me. This concerns him as well. I’ll explain it all when we get there, but if you are all determined to die for me, you should at least know exactly what you’re giving your lives for. See you in an hour.”
The line went dead without another word from Mason. What more was there to say? There was a shit storm coming for them, and it was all his fault. They should have let him leave, and he wondered if Mason might not be thinking the same thing.