Dark Vengeance Part 2

by Reinke, Sara

“Look who’s talking. You’re about to fall over where you’re standing.” She elbowed him playfully, ignoring her brother. “Give me the keys. I’m driving.”

  “Not quite yet,” Augustus said. Straightening his shoulders and leveling his gaze—which she had to admit made him look pretty goddamn intimidating—he stared down each of Tejano’s guards in turn. “I have a message for you to take back to Miami. Valien Cadana and his corillo are under my protection from now on. Anyone who makes an enemy of them makes an enemy of me—and I will be the one they answer to.”

  The men all nodded. They’d all seen Augustus stop bullets with his mind; they were Nahual, and had sensed the tremendous power he’d projected. They had every right and reason in the world to be scared shitless of him.

  Lina and Augustus walked out of the room together and Peaches waved. “It was nice to meet you both,” she called out—at which point, Mercedes elbowed her firmly in the boob.

  * * *

  As they sped off in the Aston Martin coupe, Lina saw both the winking red glow of disappearing motorcycle taillights in the distance, and the flash of red and blue as police cruisers pulled up to the mansion. Even from a distance and in the dark, she thought she caught a glimpse of Marcus’s silver Ford Taurus among them.

  At the hotel, they managed to make their way back to the suite without making too much of a scene, despite the fact they both looked as if they’d been caught in the back-side of a category five hurricane and somehow had lived to tell the tale. By the time they crossed the threshold, they both stumbled with fatigue. Lina felt nearly dazed with exhaustion as she crumpled into bed, her eyelids so heavy, she struggled to keep them propped open as Augustus leaned over, giving her a gentle kiss on the brow.

  “Will you stay with me?” she whispered, reaching out to catch him by the hand when he turned to walk away.

  He smiled down at her. “Of course, ma chéri.”

  He stretched out on top of the comforter behind her, spooned against her as she lay beneath the blankets. He draped his arm across her waist, and she slipped her hand out from under the duvet to lace her fingers together with his. She closed her eyes, lulled by the warmth of his body seeping through the blankets, by the soft brush of his breath against her shoulder and neck, and the gentle comfort of his grasp.

  It had been so long since she’d felt safe. Jude had broken her heart, while she and Brandon had spent most of their relationship living on the precipitous edge of one proverbial razor or another. It seemed like in the last year, she had worried, cried, or mentally berated herself to sleep more times than she could count. But that night, despite all that had happened, with Augustus, Lina found rest. Her mind faded, and with it, so too did the sorrow and aching inside her heart, and as her breathing slowed, growing deep and even, and she slipped beneath the veil of sleep, she felt completely safe and at ease—for the first time in forever.

  It was because of the bullets, she realized. The ones Tejano had fired at them with his automatic rifle. As impossible as it seemed—as impossible as it should have been—Augustus had stopped them with his mind.

  He stopped them to save me.

  * * *

  He’d apparently left his cell phone sitting on the bedside table, and when it rang hours later, startling Lina from a deep, sound sleep, her eyes flew wide and she jerked in alarm. Augustus groaned and sat up as it rang a second time, a loud, insistent bleat that made Lina try vainly to bury her head among the pillows. With a grumble that she was pretty sure was some sort of French cursing, Augustus leaned across her, reaching for the table. He fumbled with the phone for a clumsy moment before hitting the speaker function at last.

  “Hullo,” he growled, propping himself up on his elbow, his long hair drooping into his face and cascading over his shoulder to tickle her nose.

  “Auguste?” asked a man from the other end of the line, his voice hesitant.

  “Benoît,” Augustus murmured, forking one hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes. “What the hell time is it? What’s wrong?”

  Lina recognized the name—Augustus’s brother. Curious, she sat up beside him in the bed.

  “I’m sorry to wake you,” Benoît said. “I know it’s early, but…there’s someone here to speak with you.”

  “At…six o’clock in the morning?” Augustus asked, pausing to glance at the bedside alarm clock. With a scowl, he added, “Fait chier.”

  “I think you’ll want to speak with the gentleman, Auguste,” Benoît said, and there was an odd enough tone to his voice that some of the aggravation drained from Augustus’s expression.

  “Why? Who is it?”

  “Just a moment. I’ll put him on the line.”

  Augustus glanced at Lina, visibly puzzled. His face softened to meet her gaze and he stroked her cheek with the cuff of his fingers. “Je suis désolé,” he murmured. I’m sorry.

  “Don’t worry…” Lina began, but then the voice from the other end of the line brought her voice—and her heart—to a sudden stop.

  “Augustus? It’s Aaron Davenant. Remember me? I’m here with your grandson—Brandon. You can thank me later, asshole.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  …and he hasn’t left the boy’s side, Brandon heard his uncle Benoît say, the tone of his telepathic voice lending itself to a fond sort of smile. I think he’s afraid if he does, one of us will find a way to hurt him somehow…some sort of vigilante justice, I guess.

  With a soundless groan, Brandon stirred. He felt a crick in the left side of his neck tighten all the more as he shifted positions in the chair he’d fallen asleep in, and wincing, he rubbed at the sore muscles.

  Benoît? he said, opening his eyes. His line of sight swam murkily for a moment as both his vision and mind cleared of sleepy cobwebs. Dimly he remembered falling asleep, or rather, telling himself he’d close his eyes just for a moment, a minute or two tops. Just enough to take the edge off.

  The clock on the nearby wall read nearly two o’clock—he’d slept a hell of a lot longer than a few minutes.

  Aaron…! Brandon thought, jerking upright in his seat. He turned to the bed to his immediate left, and relaxed somewhat, heaving a long sigh of relief to see that the other man remained just as he’d been when Brandon had nodded off—sound asleep himself (or passed out from a mix of blood loss and sheer exhaustion, more likely), tucked beneath crisp, white sheets, his wounded shoulder, wrist, and hand all wrapped with bandages.

  The door to the small room opened and Brandon’s uncle walked in. He’d been out in the main infirmary just outside, which was why Brandon had been privy to his telepathic comments. His own telepathy had been returning more and more by the minute; in his sleep, it seemed, it had nearly restored to normal capacity.

  “Well, now,” Benoît said aloud, his gentle smile widening all the more as he met Brandon’s gaze. “Look who’s awake. I have a surprise for you.”

  For me? Brandon blinked, puzzled, but his eyes widened as Augustus walked through the door behind Benoît. Brandon sprang from the chair, stumbling in his clumsy excitement. Grandfather!

  Augustus rushed forward to meet him, crushing him to his chest in an embrace. Thank God you’re alive, he gasped in Brandon’s mind. As they drew apart, Brandon saw his eyes glistening with sudden tears, despite the fact he was smiling. Then his bright expression faded altogether as he fully took in Brandon’s appearance, the fading bruises on his face, his sickly pallor.

  I look like hell, I know, Brandon said, trying to make light of it, to lessen some of the tremendous concern and guilt he saw wash over Augustus’s face. But it’s alright now.

  “He wouldn’t let me even look at him,” Benoît said. “Not until we took care of young Monsieur Davenant. It’s been ‘Aaron-this’ and ‘Aaron-that’ from the moment they showed up at the back door, a couple of half-starved, half-drowned pups.” He smiled again. “I think Brandon has a case of hero worship.”

  He saved my life, Grandfather, Brandon said, because he hadn’t missed the w
ay Augustus cut his gaze over toward Aaron’s bed as Benoît had spoken, or the way his brows had narrowed. He’s not like the other Davenants, not like Lamar. Grabbing Augustus by the sleeve to draw his attention, he pleaded, He’s my friend.

  Kid, I’m not anyone’s friend, Aaron groused weakly and when Brandon turned, he saw his eyes were open a dazed half-mast. He half-smirked as he spoke, then glanced toward the door. “Well…except hers,” he said aloud. “I…I could be her friend, yeah…”

  Brandon followed the direction of Aaron’s gaze and stumbled back in new surprise to see who had come to stand, hesitant and shy, in the doorway.

  Lina? he whispered, because it was impossible—there was no way it could be her, no way she could be in Kentucky, in the great house. For a horrifying second, he wondered if he was dreaming again—another heartbreakingly realistic, but all-too cruelly imagined dream.

  She looked at him, her eyes gleaming with tears, her smile as uncertain as his felt. Then she gasped his name and raced toward him, throwing her arms around his neck in a strangling, staggering embrace.

  It’s you. Brandon closed his eyes against the sting of his own tears, his arms around her waist as he hoisted her off her feet. Oh, God, it’s really you! You’re here!

  He set her down, seizing her face between his hands and kissing her fiercely. You’re here, he said in sign language as they drew apart, standing nose to nose together. She nodded, laughing and crying all at the same time, stroking his hair, touching his face, all as if to reassure herself that he was real. What are you doing here? he exclaimed, his fingers flying between them. How…?

  “Augustus let me hitch a ride,” she said. “We flew up from Bayshore as soon as your uncle called with the news.”

  Bayshore? Bewildered, Brandon turned to Augustus.

  “He came looking for you,” Lina said, turning Brandon’s head so he could read her lips. “We’ve all been looking for you—me, Augustus, Jackie, Valien.” With another gasp, she hugged him again, burying her face against his neck. “We’ve all been so worried!”

  As she looked past his shoulder, she saw Aaron and her body stiffened. She stepped back, her smile faltering. It’s alright, he signed. This is Aaron. He saved my life.

  Aaron started to lift his hand in a half-assed wave, then grimaced and lowered it back to the bed again. “Why…the fuck am I wrapped up like…I’m in a Boris Karlov movie?”

  You’re hurt, Brandon said.

  You’re both hurt, Benoît said. To Augustus and Lina, he added aloud, “I don’t know what they were doing to him, but Brandon’s got bruises and burn marks all over him. He also has some kind of IV ports, it looks like—maybe a dozen or so. He said they’re stuck down in the bones or something. I don’t even want to try to take them out. Julianne used to take care of all the medical emergencies around here…”

  His expression shifted, growing sheepish and somewhat distraught.

  “What is it?” Augustus asked.

  Benoît shook his head, but Brandon answered for him. Julianne helped them do this to me, he said, and Augustus wheeled around to face him, his eyes flown wide with stunned disbelief. She’s been helping Lamar all along.

  “Quoi?” Augustus jerked as if he’d been slapped in the face. What?

  They were going to harvest my blood, Brandon told him grimly. Sell it like a drug. Just like they’ve been doing with Aaron’s.

  “Because of the first blood,” Lina said softly, and Brandon blinked at her in surprise.

  Yeah. He nodded. How do you know about that?

  “It’s…a long story,” Lina said, cutting a glance at Augustus.

  Julianne and Lamar did horrible things to Aaron, Brandon said. Turning to Augustus, he caught his sleeve again. Look at his back—his scars. We can’t send him back there. Even with Lamar dead, they could still—

  “Lamar is dead?” Augustus arched his eyebrow, startled anew.

  Brandon nodded. Aaron killed him. He shot him in the head.

  Lina blinked at Aaron. “You killed your own father?”

  Aaron tried to sit up, winced again, and flopped back onto his pillow. “It’s…kind of what I do, sweetheart.”

  She bristled. “Don’t call me sweetheart.”

  Aaron nodded once, his eyes closed, his good hand flapping in a feeble wave. “You…got it, babe,” he murmured.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Lina felt so many different emotions at seeing Brandon again: overwhelming joy in one second, and nearly suffocating anxiety in the next. She’d been happy, angry, disappointed, and excited; so in love with him she could have smothered him in kisses, but then so furious with him, she could have kicked his ass—all at the same time. She’d tried to prepare herself mentally and emotionally before arriving in Kentucky, but all of the hurt, outrage, humiliation and sorrow she’d felt upon their breakup had come crashing back the moment she’d seen him. And although she’d relished the sensation of his arms around her again, his mouth against hers as they’d kissed, she’d been unable to shake the images in her mind of him kissing Pilar with the same passionate intensity.

  Brandon had been anxious to see her, to talk with her. Lina could see it in his face, the urgent, almost pleading glances he kept shooting in her direction at the infirmary. While a part of her had wanted time alone with him, too, another had been somewhat relieved when Augustus had insisted that Brandon try to rest and recuperate. Although she still hadn’t learned much about what had happened to Brandon during his ordeal, it had obviously taken a physical toll on him. He looked gaunt to her, pale and haggard, his eyes ringed with heavy, exhausted shadows. Lina was worried about him.

  And I’m still not ready to face him, she had realized. I don’t know when—or if—I’ll ever be.

  While Brandon rested, Augustus offered her the grand tour of his home. The two had spent hours exploring the great house together and she was pretty much amazed that even Augustus hadn’t gotten lost more than once, considering the mansion was so enormous, you nearly needed a trail of breadcrumbs just to find the nearest bathroom.

  During the tour, he led her to a small library that at first seemed so plain and unadorned compared to all of the other rooms she’d seen, she wondered why they were there. But then he opened a small closet and squatted down to face a safe tucked inside, and her curiosity was even more piqued.

  “I have something for you,” he told her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Not much,” he replied, punching in a quick combination of numbers into the keypad on the safe and opening the heavy door. Glancing over his shoulder at her, he smiled. “A small token of my thanks.”

  “You don’t need to thank me,” she said, surprised and admittedly delighted.

  He stood, walking back to her and carrying a small, powder-blue box in his hand. “Yes, ma chéri, I do. It took a tremendous leap of faith for you to trust me—trust in me—in Florida, and I know that. I appreciate it.” With a smile, he offered the box to her. “For you, Angelina.”

  Normally she hated it when people called her by her full name. As a rule, her mother was the only one to do so, and then, only when Lina was in some pretty serious shit. But she had grown to enjoy the way her name sounded whenever Augustus spoke it aloud; it sounded elegant somehow. It made her feel beautiful.

  She took the box from him and pretended to frown. “You didn’t have to do this.” When she saw Tiffany & Co. embossed on top of the box, her eyes widened. “You really didn’t have to do this.” And when she lifted the lid, she gasped softly. “Oh, Augustus.”

  “The pendant is fashioned in an olive branch design,” he said as she slipped a gold bracelet from the cushioned lining inside the box, her hand trembling. A small circular stone—a round, smooth, amethyst—joined the two ends of a thin, filigreed chain, held in place by tiny wrought-gold leaves and vines. “The international symbol for peace and truce. Given the history between us, I thought it was appropriate. That whole ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ th
ing.”

  He was only teasing, turning her own words against her playfully, but still, she winced. “I was wrong about that,” she said. “About you.”

  He inclined his head, his brow arched. “I’m not your friend?”

  “No.” She tried to shoot him a glower, but couldn’t quite manage. “You’re not the enemy. You…you’re a good man, Augustus. And I’ve enjoyed getting to know you…to spend time with you.”

  There was something sorrowful in her voice as she said this, as if she was telling him good-bye—which was stupid, she knew, because it wasn’t like they’d never run into one another again, or things would go back to the way they used to be between them. But at the same time, it felt that way to her, and something in her heart ached to realize just how much she would miss him.

  He brushed the cuff of his hand lightly against her cheek. “As have I, Angelina.”

  She admired the play of sunlight through the windows against the amethyst as he slipped the bracelet around her arm. The spherical stone lay against the pulse point of her wrist like a delicate lavender egg, and the gold infused with the warmth of her own skin tone, seeming to glow.

  “I guess I don’t feel so bad about this, then,” she remarked, slipping her hand into the hip pocket of her jeans.

  He smiled, curious and puzzled. “About what?”

  Hesitantly she withdrew her hand. “This.”

  She offered something to him, something she’d kept hidden in her pocket since they’d left Florida, something she’d been both wanting desperately to give to him, yet wanting with equal desperation to simply throw away, toss into a lake or river or bottomless pit, if only to keep secret the shameful truth of what she’d done.

  His eyes widened in surprise as she uncurled her fingers, revealing a small clay vial against her palm.

  “The first blood…?”

  Lina nodded, shoulders hunched, like a naughty child expecting remonstration. “I…didn’t give all of it to Valien…that night at Tejano’s place. I just…” With a sigh, she looked down at the floor. “I know it was wrong to take it. It belongs to Valien’s people. But I…I kept thinking about all of the things we could do with it. All of the things we could fix. But most of all, I thought about you…what you were giving up. A way to cure Eleanor.”