by Ramy Vance
We walked through the forest together, my arms around his waist, and emerged from the tree line to the nighttime vista of Montreal. Below us, the city glittered with what seemed to me a bright-eyed sense of safety. Of security.
The world wasn’t fixed, not by a long shot. But there would be no more deaths—not by Empusa’s hand.
He turned to me. “Want to come back to the house and get cleaned up?”
I lifted my face and said with complete, innocent sincerity, “There’s nothing I want more.”
It was true; especially because we needed to have a serious talk.
CHAPTER 25
He had parked not far from Mont Royal, a short walk down the hill. By the time I climbed into Justin’s car, I could hardly feel my hands. And when the interior light flicked on, I found myself covered in blood.
My hands. My jacket. My pants.
He didn’t seem fazed. When he sat down next to me, he reached to set his hand at the back of my head.
“Wait,” I said. “Don’t touch me. The blood is poisoned.”
His hand dropped. “Poisoned?”
“Arsenic. I laced the meat and blood with it.”
“So that’s why the birds were flying in figure-8s by the time we got there. Where did you get arsenic?”
“I made it in the lab.”
“I thought you were a biologist.”
“I’ve also lived five hundred years,” I said. “I know a few things.”
He nodded, didn’t question me any further. Justin started the car, and we drove toward the O3 house with the heat blasting, baking the arsenic-loaded blood onto my skin. I tried not to touch anything.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Know what?”
“Where to go—how to find her? How to find me?”
“Sergeant Johnson got a tip. We were on patrol, and we made straight for the trees.”
A tip. What a funny thing, that the World Army had unleashed Empusa and one of their sergeants would lead his soldiers to defeat her.
“From who?” I said.
He shrugged. “I didn’t ask. We just geared up and moved.”
“But how did you know how to fight her?”
Justin paused as the car came to a light, and we idled. “You know, I didn’t ask about that, either. We just grabbed the weapons that Johnson told us to, and he briefed us about how the fight would go down on the way.”
I stared at him, and he finally turned his face toward me. I could see his thoughts written all across it.
“You think I’m a drone,” he said. “That I just do what I’m told.”
I shook my head, but I didn’t open my mouth to deny it, either. I should have, but I didn’t. I turned back toward the windshield as the light turned.
“Isa,” Justin said.
“Light’s green.”
He drove, and we arrived at the O3 house in silence. When I stepped out of Justin’s car, he came around and tried to take my hand.
“I’m still bloody, remember?” I said.
“Right—let’s get you into a shower.”
I nodded, but I didn’t move.
“What is it?” He waited, his breath visible in white puffs as he watched me untangle my thoughts.
“Doesn’t Sergeant Johnson need you at the scene?”
“Empusa’s gone.”
“I know, but … he said the police were coming. We should have stayed.”
Justin stepped closer. “The threat’s gone. We can go to the station tomorrow and tell them everything we know.”
For the first time, I took in his clothing. He was wearing some sort of uniform with a logo on the breast. I nearly touched it, my fingers hovering over the outline. “The World Army. Does this mean you’re a recruit?”
“I’m a volunteer for now.”
I turned my eyes up. “For now?”
“Let’s go inside, Isa. It’s freezing out here.”
I didn’t move.
“I thought you wanted to come back with me,” he said, finally getting annoyed. “If you don’t want to talk about what’s really on your mind, I can take you back to your dorm.”
I stepped back, leaned against the icy car. Frigid metal seeped through my clothing, but I didn’t move away. “I’m afraid,” I said. “I nearly died tonight—and would have, if not for you. There are things I can’t tell you about my research, but they scare me. And you … you’re with the World Army.”
“I’m with you, Isabella.”
My sight blurred. “There’s a wedge.”
“What wedge?”
“Between you and me.”
He stepped closer. “I don’t feel a wedge.”
“I’m an Other,” I whispered. “You just killed an Other.”
“I killed an Other who was killing people. You haven’t killed anyone. You’re good, Isa.”
“I’ve done bad things. I’ve tricked humans—I tricked you. I made men love me and then left them. Where do you draw the line, Justin, when you already hate Others?”
He sucked air. “Hate Others?”
I nodded, the warm tear slipping down my cheek a brief comfort.
He came to stand in front of me, and his hands found mine. “Don’t,” I said. “The blood.”
“I’ll wash it off,” he murmured.
And I stopped resisting, because his hands felt like the heat off an oven. He pulled me away from the side of the car, and we stood pressed against one another in the driveway while he kissed my hair.
I cried. I finally, really cried. And the whole while, he stroked me and whispered I don’t know what, but it sounded like the most comforting story I’d ever heard. I didn’t want it to stop.
When the crying slowed, his fingers came under my chin and lifted it. “Isa, I don’t hate Others. I can’t—because you’re one.”
I let a single sob, and because I didn’t have blood on my face, I allowed him to kiss me.
It was the best kiss of my long, long life.
So we walked toward the house together, his arm around me. And as we came around the side and up the walkway, a voice spoke up.
“Justin?”
We stopped before the front steps as a petite figure rose from the stoop, her face shrouded.
I knew that voice. It had once been my voice, for a time.
Justin didn’t let go of my hand, but he very nearly did. He didn’t speak, either, as the figure stepped forward and the porch light flicked on.
“Well,” she said, surveying the scene from him to me. Her eyes lingered on me, then returned to him. “It looks like you’ve been busy.”
Katrina Darling was back.
EPILOGUE
I f there’s one thing Serena Russo loves, it’s a snoop. They’re the easiest to blackmail.
Kilby finds her at her workstation, and he tries hard not to show his attraction. But then, she encourages it: it’s a large part of his loyalty—of any man’s loyalty. And for as long as you’ve got it, you drink that milkshake dry.
“Dr. Russo.” His head pokes through her door. Requesting permission to enter.
Serena’s lips curl before she gestures him forward. “Come in, Kilby.”
He steps inside, seems to bodily unfurl when the door shuts. He isn’t good at playing the part of a low-level research assistant. He can’t fit into any of the lab coats properly, and they only reach his knees. He’s too bald to blend with the students. And there’s something about him…
Something eternally creepy. Humans and Others sense it at once.
They stare at one another for a beat before her hand sweeps across the length of her desk. “Someone’s been here.”
He nods. “I know.”
“Tell me what you know.”
She sits back, arms folded under her chest, while Kilby explains. He watched her leave for her lunch-hour meeting, mysteriously reappear after only a half hour with Steve Allman in tow, and make straight for her workstation. Then she disappeared inside for the next fifteen mi
nutes. When Serena—the real Serena—came into the lab a second time, “that,” Kilby says, pressing a finger to her desk, “was when I knew.”
“Because there were two of me, Kilby? Was that how you knew?”
He doesn’t catch her tone of voice, or ignores it. He points to his wrist, where an old-fashion watch glistens under the fluorescents. “Time sped up.”
Serena nods, and he continues his narration. The fire alarm began, and he stayed where he was. He waited, crouched in shadow. Kilby has always been her best man when it comes to lurking.
“And out she came, wearing your clothes,” he says.
“She?”
“The sophomore researcher—the one studying the triple helix.”
“The encantado,” she says when he finishes. Serena sits up straight; she feels lit from the inside, her mind working fast. “How wonderful.”
Kilby looks confused. “The what?”
“It doesn’t matter.” That is, it doesn’t matter to Kilby. He’s just her eyes—not her intelligence. “She’s a snoop.”
This is his language she’s speaking, and he nods fast. “Definitely a snoop.”
“Did you follow her?”
“Into the hallway.”
“And?”
“She ducked into the nearest bathroom and came out in clothes that fit her.”
“Then?”
“She left the building and ran into the crowd.”
Perfect. “Tell me we’ve got video, Kilby.”
That familiar look of pleasure crosses Stein’s face—he knows he has what I desire. He can make me happy. “We’ve got video.”
She sits forward, both elbows touching the desk as she stares up at him. “No, Kilby. We don’t.”
His pleasure vanishes, a tortured uncertainty replacing it. When did she begin to love these small manipulations? “We don’t have video.”
“That’s right,” Serena says. “You know it’s policy to erase all the data after twenty-four hours. The university would be very angry with us for violating that part of our agreement.”
Now he understands. He nods, and because the silence weighs too heavily, he turns to go.
“But,” she says, “you’ll send me what you saw.”
He’s already partly opened the door, and now he turns toward her, the low-level lab assistant once more. And even as she knows he’s wearing those hi-tech contacts, it’s hard to believe; he squints like a mole in the sun.
He taps one finger beside his left eye. “Yes, Dr. Russo.” He pauses. “The trainee is waiting outside.”
“Send him in, Kilby.”
Then he’s gone, and Serena is alone once more with Isabella Ramirez’s file. She opens it, pens a note next to her species. Encantado illusion fooled Kilby. Extremely powerful. Worthwhile female candidate for testing.
Half a minute later, a knock sounds at her door.
“Come in,” she says, closing the file as he steps inside. That’s the first thing she notices about him now: the way he walks. He’s deft, quiet. His physicality is twice what it was.
“Dr. Russo,” Justin says, and she smiles as she meets those grateful blue eyes. Serena wonders if that’s how he looks at the encantado; she can understand how he draws women in. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“It’s not me who deserves thanks.” She gestures for him to sit in the chair across my desk. “I heard what you did in the forest.”
He sits. “The other cadets were there, too.”
“Of course. Tell me, how have you been feeling?”
“Since last night?”
“That, and since the procedure.” She lifts a notepad and pen. “Like I said, we want to know exactly how it’s affecting you—for better and worse.”
He sits back in the chair, his forearms flexing as he grips the armrests. “Well, it’s mostly been for the better.”
“But?”
“Well …” He hesitates. “There have been a few side effects.”
Serena lifts her pen. “Tell me,” she says. And because Justin Truly trusts her, he tells her everything she wants to know.
Kat Returns in
THE HEAVIEST OF BURDENS
CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING!
BOYFRIENDS SUCK.
BUT THEN AGAIN, I wasn’t exactly the ideal girlfriend, either.
WHEN KAT CAME home after almost dying - twice - to find her boyfriend in the arms of another woman … well, it hurt. Hurt more than getting her head bashed in by an ex-angel.
Hurt more than getting stabbed by a dead god.
Kat is a big girl and she’ll get over it. Right after she messes with Justin and his new girl.
But when Kat discovers that Justin is being used by the World Army and is probably going to die, she needs to put aside her petty ire and work with Isabella to save the man they both love.
Who knew being human would bite so hard?
Join Kat in the Heaviest of Burdens … where Kat will close one chapter in her life and start another.
AND THAT’S NOT ALL: To celebrate this milestone in Kat’s adventures, this book also contains a novel by Jenn Mitchel that goes back in time to Kat’s wedding day with Aldie - the Dark Elf come motivational speaker.
If you like Mortality Bites, you’ll love Shattered Vows (and the bombshell at the end of the story is a doozy!)
CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING!
or scroll down to read a sample chapter…
Chapter 1
Boyfriends, Brazilians and Kat Fights
YOU KNOW how when you’ve had a long day, all you want to do is snuggle up under your blankets with a good book, a bucket of chocolate, a bottle of wine and your boyfriend?
Well, I’ve had six months of long days that ended with an even longer stint in the hospital. So when I finally managed to return to Montreal, I figured I’d find Justin and snuggle.
The last thing I wanted was to see him battling a flock of souped-up birds while macking on another woman.
I stared in disbelief as Justin shot arrow after arrow like he was William Friggin’ Tell. He was awesome. Too awesome.
I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. I had been gone for a few weeks and maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t witnessing what I was witnessing. It could be an illusion, or my concussion being more serious than what the Paradise Lot doctors told me.
I mean, here I was in Montreal, watching my normally helpless boyfriend take down birds with a bow and arrows. A bow and arrows! And not just taking them down. He was making shots I couldn’t have made (and I grew up in an era when bow hunting was a thing).
He was as graceful as Aldie, and his hunting prowess would have made Egya—a born hunter—green with envy.
Justin was seriously badass.
I’d have been more impressed if I wasn’t fixated on the other person with him: a young woman with curly red hair and pale skin. I guess you could say she was cute, if you were into that sort of thing.
OK Kat, get a hold of yourself. Your boyfriend—
I looked over at Justin as he took down another bird with a shot that would have made Robin Hood give him a high-five.
But as good as he is, those are a lot of birds. He needs help, I thought.
Another shot, then a third.
OK, maybe not. When did Justin get all Terminator-meets-Predator-like?
I shook my head. I could mull over such thoughts when I got to him. Right now, some birds needed felling. (Is that the term for taking down a flock of killer birds of prey?) Not sure … I’d figure out appropriate vocab later. Now he needed me.
Well, he needed monster-killing Kat.
And if I was going to be of use, I needed a weapon. Something that would be useful against these diving monsters.
But just as I was about to enter the fray, it ended. The birds started falling from the sky, and not just because of Justin’s arrows. Something had happened, and the fracas came to a screeching, feathery halt.
Seems he didn’t need monster killing Kat, after all.
I
watched as the redhead ran to Justin and decided that the post-battle wrap-up perhaps wasn’t the best time for me to re-enter his life. Besides, there was that girl, and—
Argh! Kat, stop acting like a thirteen-year-old, jealous biddy.
I shook my head and made my way to his frat house. I’d wait for him there and we’d figure out whatever we needed figuring out.
Biddy. Humph, now that’s a word I knew no one used anymore.
↔
Waiting on the stoop of O3’s frat house was less fun than you’d think. First off, you’re on a stoop, in February, in Montreal. It was damn cold … and I wasn’t just talking about the weather.
Justin’s fellow fraters were more fidgety than any ice storm, giving me the stink eye as they walked in. I knew most of these guys. The GoneGods know I’d spend enough nights sleeping in this very house with them partying in the halls.
We had always engaged in friendly banter, a wee bit of harmless flirting and tons of trash talking when I took them down at ping pong.
But instead of the usual, “Hey girl!” and, “What’s ups,” the guys ignored me. All of them except the apu, Seth.
A while back Seth and I … well, let’s just say we took care of a murderous problem that was threatening the campus. Seth was an Aztec cave apu, a guardian spirit whose sole purpose for existence was to protect those who lived in his territory. He and I had formed a kinship when protecting the campus together.
Two kindred spirits doing what we needed to do.
So when Seth showed up, I expected a smile. Instead, he looked at me with his sky-blue eyes that slowly grew gray with worry and said, “You shouldn’t have returned.”
“Well, hello to you, too.”
Seth shook his head and repeated, “You shouldn’t have returned. Not here. Not now. Not ever.”
Now that was a bit cheeky of him. I mean, Justin and I had fights, and yeah, we broke up after I failed to protect him from a dybbuk demon that possessed him for a couple weeks—but still. Seth’s reaction to seeing me hurt.
“Look, what’s between Justin and me is none of your—”
The apu shook his brown, rock-like head. “No, you misunderstand. This place—it is possessed. It is …”—he paused as he searched for the word—“evolving into something that is cruel and unkind. But we have found an uneasy balance. Your presence will destroy that balance. Destroy the peace.”