Dark Vengeance Part 2

by Reinke, Sara

  She went to the doorway he’d used and peered over the threshold. It was dark inside, with all of the lights dimmed and drapes pulled except for a pair of French doors, which stood open wide, leading out onto a narrow balcony, and through which moonlight filtered into the room. By this dim glow, she could make out the hulking shape of an enormous, four-poster bed toward the back of the room, a chest of drawers to her right, a looming armoire to her left.

  “Augustus?” she whispered, stealing into the room. The farther she ventured among the shadows, the more her eyes adjusted to the gloom. She saw the bedroom maintained in the same neat, orderly fashion as the rest of his private rooms; the walls adorned with similar framed paintings, although these all appeared to be landscapes and still life studies instead of portraits.

  Augustus lay across his bed on his back, with one arm draped across his face to cover his eyes. Benoît’s revelation about Eleanor left Lina moved with sorrow and pity for him. She remembered seeing Augustus and Eleanor together in Lake Tahoe. She had secretly found their relationship pretty remarkable, if only because it had lasted for more than two hundred years. Augustus had waited on Eleanor’s every beck and call; he’d doted on her with an attentive, adulating devotion that—although she would have been loath to admit it at the time—Lina had found endearing. At the time, she’d wished that she and Brandon might enjoy a love as strong as that, even though she knew she couldn’t hope for any nearly as long.

  Things sure have changed since then, she thought sadly.

  She paused, caught in a stripe of moonlight that filtered in through the French doors, and tried to galvanize herself into motion You’ve seen him now. He’s asleep. Let’s get the hell out of here.

  Lina turned to tiptoe back out of the room, but his voice, low and hoarse, stopped her in her tracks.

  “Angelina.”

  She turned slowly and saw he’d lowered his arm from his face. He was looking at her; she could see the glint of that same wayward moonbeam reflected in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I…I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  He sat up, swinging his legs around. His long hair spilled over his shoulder, luminous in the soft glow spilling in through the French doors.

  “I-I was just going to leave,” she stammered as he stood. “I… Benoît is already gone. He left a little while ago.”

  Augustus walked toward her, closing the distance between them in only a few swift strides. All the while, his eyes remained locked on her, dark and intense, his gaze unwavering.

  “He told me about Eleanor,” Lina said. “I’m so sorry, Augustus. I just…I don’t know what to—”

  Her voice cut short as Augustus hooked his hand against the back of her head. He pulled her forward into a fierce, sudden kiss. She stiffened, uttering a startled, muffled mewl at first. Then, as he cradled her face with his free hand, brushing his tongue urgently against the tight seal of her mouth, she whimpered softly and relaxed against him, letting her lips part.

  It was like a dam had opened, all of the desire the two had been keeping in such careful check suddenly flooding out. Augustus uttered a low groan, his tongue tangling with hers, exploring her mouth, tasting her as if she was something—or someone—exquisite to be savored. For a long moment, they remained that way, only parting at last so they could both gasp for shuddering breath.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered. “I…I shouldn’t have…”

  “No.” Lina shook her head, trembling. “It…it’s alright.”

  He closed his eyes as if pained. “You don’t know how much I’ve wanted to do that…how I’ve fought all day not to…”

  She shook her head again, pressing her hand to his face. “It’s alright.”

  “It’s just…I mean…” Opening his eyes, he looked directly at her, his expression torn. “My God, I am going to miss you.”

  Lina rose onto her tiptoes, hugging him fiercely, burying her face against the side of his throat. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

  “Every day since Michel told me about Eleanor, I’ve felt so alone…so hollow inside,” he said, a desperate admittance that nearly broke her heart. “There’s a difference between surviving and living. Surviving is…breathing and eating, marking the passage from sunrise to sunset, but living…living is finding someone to feel passionate about…something to find pleasure in. Every day I’ve struggled to find a reason to continue living when Eleanor is gone. She’s all I’ve ever really known of passion…of love. Now with Michel gone…and Sebastian…there seemed even less cause for me to stay…to live…”

  “No.” Lina drew back, shaking her head, her brows narrowing. “Don’t talk like that, Augustus. Don’t you dare. You have plenty of reasons. Brandon needs you—now more than ever. So does—”

  “But I feel like you’ve given me that reason,” Augustus interjected quietly, drawing her to complete silence. “You make me want to keep living, Angelina. Because when I’m with you, that’s how I feel inside…alive again.”

  In the silence that followed, his words from Cervantes’s house came suddenly, hauntingly to her mind…

  You still don’t believe there are portions of our nature that are incontrovertible? Because if you don’t, then what I’m left to believe is that what happened earlier between us was by choice—our free wills. That our behavior was well within our power to control or prevent…and we both chose not to.

  He’d been toying with her at the time, or so she’d thought, but the truth—then, as now—was that she had chosen not to stop herself that night with Augustus. The blood lust may have heightened her senses, but the desire she’d felt—and acted upon—had been all her own. A part of her had died when Brandon betrayed her. And in that moment, she realized something she’d known inside all along, something she’d been trying hard to deny…

  Augustus makes me feel alive again, too.

  He met her gaze, his eyes dark and intense, filled with sorrow—and longing. “I don’t want to hurt Brandon.”

  “I don’t either,” she whispered.

  “But I just…I can’t…” His voice dissolved into a low, hungry groan as she tangled her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer to her, kissing him again. Hooking the hem of her shirt with his hands, he tugged it up, pulling her arms free from the sleeves, slipping it over her head. He threw it aside as she reached for his waistband, tugging the tails of his shirt loose from beneath it.

  While she unbuttoned his shirt, he slid his arms around her back, unfastening the pair of hooks securing her bra. As it tumbled away, he took a long moment to cradle her bare breasts in his hands, to relish the warmth of her flesh. Dipping his head, he slipped her left nipple into his mouth. As he teased it with his tongue, drawing circles against her warm flesh, she gasped in delight.

  Using the edges of his front teeth, he first nipped her nipple lightly, then tugged more insistently, and she closed her fingers in his hair. With his hands, he explored her torso, caressing every contour and curve and she moaned, pulling on his hair, dragging his mouth away from her breast so she could kiss him.

  “I want you inside me,” she begged, shoving the front of his shirt open, then pushing his pants down. “Please, Augustus. Please…!”

  She unsnapped her jeans and he helped her push them down from her hips, along with her panties. He cradled her buttocks in his hands, then lifted her off her feet. Her long legs wrapped around his hips, and he pushed her back into the wall with enough force to knock a nearby framed painting askew. She felt the thick head of his arousal press against her threshold, and dug her nails into the muscles of his back, whimpering in eager anticipation. As she did, she happened to look beyond his shoulder toward the terrace doorway.

  “Augustus—!” she gasped, stiffening all at once, clutching at him in bright, sudden alarm.

  He jerked his head to look over his shoulder and saw what had startled her—Aaron Davenant outside on the balcony, his legs folded, his hand extended to balance himself as he crouched, catlike a
nd nimble, on the stone balustrade. He stared through the open French doors at them, his eyes glittering in the moonlight.

  Lina didn’t know how long he’d been there, but she dropped her feet to the ground and shrank behind Augustus, frightened. All she kept thinking was what Augustus had told her and Benoît about him:

  The most dangerous animal is a wounded one… He’s a contract killer—Lamar’s personal attack dog, sicced against any man, woman, or child who crosses the Davenant clan.

  “Banging the kid’s girl, Augustus?” Aaron asked, the corner of his mouth hooking wryly. “That’s got to be a new low—even for you.”

  “You son of a bitch…!” Augustus seethed, his brows narrowing with murderous outrage, but Aaron was gone, slipping sideways off the railing and dropping to the ground two stories below.

  “Augustus,” Lina exclaimed as he rushed across the shadow-draped room for the balcony, jerking up his pants as he went. “Wait!”

  She ran after him as he burst out onto the terrace. Gripping the balustrade with both hands, he leaned over, his long hair whipping in a sudden gust of wind. She followed his gaze and could make out a silhouetted figure cutting across the rolling plain of Bluegrass behind the mansion: Aaron headed north toward one of the grazing fields on the farm.

  “He’s on the run,” she said.

  “Not if I stop him,” Augustus said grimly. To her surprise, he swung one leg gracefully up and over the top rail of the balcony. Straddling the balustrade, he turned to her, pressing his hand gently to her cheek and leaning down to kiss her. “Stay here, ma chéri.”

  “What? Wait—!” Her heart suddenly shuddered in alarm as he leaped from the balcony. She had no idea how far it was to the ground—or how Aaron had managed to make the drop—but knew she’d break both of her legs—and probably her goddamn neck to boot—if she’d tried the same stunt. “Augustus!”

  She leaned over, eyes flown wide, and watched as he landed on his feet, as lithe as a cat. His knees barely buckled at the impact with the ground, his balance unshaken. He looked up at her.

  “Wait here,” he called. “Do not try to follow me.”

  “What are you going to do?” she cried.

  His brows narrowed. “I’m going to catch that son of a bitch,” he promised her. “And then I’m going to kill him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  A soft but insistent breeze tugged at Brandon’s hair, sending icy shivers along the nape of his neck. With a soundless groan, he shrugged his shoulder, his eyes opening. He found himself sitting sideways in a stiff-backed armchair, his legs draped over the arm. A blanket had drooped down in heavy folds around his waist, and Brandon tugged it back into place over his shoulder, blocking the cool draft that had chilled him.

  There, he thought, hunkering down and letting his eyes droop closed again. That’s better.

  Then his eyes flew wide and he jerked in surprise. Where the hell am I?

  It took a long moment before the cobwebs of exhaustion cleared from his mind and he recognized—remembered—the narrow room with its sparse furnishings: part of the infirmary at the Noble family’s great house. With a sigh, he raked his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his face, and grimaced at the cricks and strains in his legs, neck, and back as he swung his feet around to the floor again.

  His hand dropped to his shoulder, and through the thin fabric of his T-shirt, he felt the plastic access port that had been bored into his arm bone. The site remained sore, especially to the touch; they all did, and he winced slightly, drawing the collar of his shirt back to look at it.

  “We’ll need to get a doctor to remove these,” Augustus had told him earlier. Alone in his grandfather’s company, Brandon had stripped off his shirt, and Augustus’s expression had twisted with anguish and dismay to see his wounds.

  “I talked to Mason Morin,” he’d said. “He said since the ports have been set in the bone, they’ll have to be handled as sterilely as possible to avoid infections.” Cupping his hand against Brandon’s cheek, he’d added softly, “He also said you’re very lucky to be alive, from the sounds of things.”

  Augustus had drawn him in a gentle embrace, one Brandon had returned. I’m so sorry, Brandon, Augustus had whispered in his mind, stroking his hair.

  He hadn’t meant to doze off, and wondered where the blanket had come from. He had dim recollection of a dream in which Aaron Davenant had leaned over him, tucking the blanket across his chest.

  “Take care, kid,” Brandon had watched him murmur.

  But had that been a dream? The blanket was sure real enough. Brandon turned to look toward the bed beside him, where Aaron had been asleep for much of the day. He wasn’t entirely surprised to find it empty now, the sheets swept aside and rumpled.

  Goddamn it, Aaron, he thought. They were on the top floor of the great house; there was no way Aaron could have jumped or climbed down from so high a vantage, and yet when Brandon looked at the window, the thin curtains fluttered in the same light breeze that had roused him, and he saw the sash had been raised.

  Goddamn it, Aaron, he thought again as he leaned out, planting his hands on the sill and squinting as he peered down into the darkness. Two stories down, he saw the empty balcony leading to his grandfather’s suite. Two below that, and he saw the yard.

  How in the hell did he climb down from way up here? Brandon thought. He was hurt. And why did he leave?

  He knew the rest of his family was none-too pleased that a Davenant had been staying among them—especially Augustus. The animosity and rivalry between the two clans ran too deep to be easily forgotten, despite the fact that Aaron had helped Brandon. While Brandon doubted Augustus or Benoît would have done anything to Aaron, he had plenty of cousins who were both brasher and bolder. They remained young and overeager enough to want to prove themselves to the more venerable males in the clan. Going after Aaron would have been just the opportunity they’d need. That had been part of the reason Brandon had chosen to stay at Aaron’s bedside in the infirmary.

  Had Aaron recognized his own possible danger as well? Brandon doubted he would have considered anyone in the great house outside of Augustus or Benoît as potential threats, but he might have wanted to prevent any further trouble or friction between his family and Brandon’s.

  But he didn’t have to leave, goddamn it, Brandon thought as he hurried out of the infirmary. He hadn’t seen any movement from outside in the yard, no signs of life, but still wondered if he could pick up Aaron’s trail again and follow him. I don’t care what anyone else in my family thinks. Aaron saved my life—if nothing else, I owe him that.

  The hallways all appeared empty, the great house quiet and still. He raced downstairs, taking the steps two at a time, his feet flying along the risers. He hardly even looked where he was going in his rush, at least not until he met Lina as she ran around a bend and nearly knocked her ass over elbows down the rest of the flight.

  “Oh—!” she yelped in surprise, her arms pinwheeling frantically as she started to lose her balance. Brandon reached out, catching her by the arm and jerking her back.

  “Thanks,” she said with a shaky laugh, her hand fluttering to her heart. “Jesus Christ, you scared me!”

  Sorry, he signed, pressing his fist to his heart and rubbing in circles. He hadn’t used telepathy with her since they’d first reunited in the infirmary. Although doing so had become more natural to him than using sign language, he no longer felt he had the right to assume that her mind was open to him, his to enter anytime he wished.

  “What are you doing up?” she asked. “It’s so late.”

  Aaron’s gone, he signed, finger-spelling the name. I think he climbed out the window and took off.

  She glanced down at her sandals, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Why would he do that?”

  I don’t know. Brandon shook his head. But I need to try and catch him.

  “No!” She reached out, grabbing his hand as he started to move past her. “I mean…let him g
o. He’s dangerous, Brandon.”

  Brandon shook his head again. No, he’s not. He’s my friend.

  Lina crossed her arms, looking at him dubiously. “Do friends usually take off in the middle of the night without even saying goodbye?”

  No, but…

  “He’s a Davenant, Brandon. I know he helped you, but I bet he had his own reasons for doing it. Not because he’s a nice guy or anything. Augustus doesn’t trust him. Neither do I.” She cut her eyes away again. “And neither should you.”

  Brandon stood and looked at her for a long moment. This was actually the longest he’d been alone with her, the most he’d had the chance to say to her, since she’d walked into the infirmary. He wanted to reach out, touch her face because she was so goddamn beautiful, it ached his heart, but he didn’t.

  “Don’t go after Davenant,” she said. “Okay? Please, Brandon. Just let him go. Maybe it’s for the best.”

  He nodded. Alright, Lina.

  Her heart had been fluttering like an anxious dove from the moment they’d crashed into each other, but he sensed some relief wash over her at this. She nodded once, offering a shy, fleeting smile, then moved to walk past him up the stairs.

  “You should get some rest,” she said. “I know you must be exhausted.”

  Lina… He caught her by the hand. I’m sorry.

  He felt her stiffen at his touch. With the exception of their reunion in the infirmary, this had been her reaction: hedging and uncertain at his embrace, turning her head to gently rebuke any attempts he made to kiss her. He couldn’t blame her, though, and didn’t.

  She shook her head. “Brandon, don’t…”

  I love you, he insisted, because they hadn’t talked about what had happened and they needed to. I know you don’t believe me, but I swear to Christ it’s true. I love you more than anyone or anything.

  Her eyes grew glossy; her bottom lip quivered. “I…I do believe you, Brandon,” she said. “But I can’t do this. Not right now. This…just isn’t the time.”