by Dannika Dark
Christian recoiled, his face aghast. “You’re fibbing.”
All those memories of my mother came flooding back. The funeral. My life changing in an instant. A father unable to console a little girl who cried herself to sleep every night.
“It can’t be,” he whispered. “She had hair like yours, but I don’t remember her eyes.”
“You didn’t see them when I looked at you through the glass?”
He covered his mouth. “Jaysus. That was you.”
“My mother. What happened to my mother? Why didn’t you save her?”
He looked down as if searching his memories. “There was smoke and flames. The only door I saw was to the right. It was half-open, but there was a giant hole in front of it with fire climbing in.”
I covered my face. Oh my God. My mother had died a horrific death trying to save me when I woke up crying for her. I’d somehow convinced myself that the smoke had overcome her, because it was the easiest way to think about her death.
Christian took me in his arms, his embrace so familiar that it was as if we’d always known each other. “She didn’t suffer,” he assured me. “The fall would have been quick, to be sure. You were the only living soul in the apartment.”
What I began to internalize in that moment wasn’t my mother’s death, which I’d learned to live with for most of my life. It was the realization that Christian had saved my life. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have perished in that fire. I owed my life to him—my human life.
“Why me? Why did I live?” I drew back and wiped the blood from my face, which was wet again from my tears. “So I could become this?”
He rubbed the lines in his forehead.
When our eyes met, I searched for an answer. “What does this mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice somber. “The fates are at play, and we are their pawns.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped the coat around me.
“Is that why you have nightmares?” he asked. “Because of the fire?”
Christian could never understand that he was the reason why I didn’t have nightmares about that fire. My night terrors had nothing to do with the events of my childhood.
“No,” I said but didn’t elaborate. Beneath his coat, I gripped my heart-shaped necklace and squeezed it in the palm of my hand.
“If you want to sleep, Raven, I’ll watch over you.”
A draft snuck through the gap by the wall, and Christian secured the coat over my right shoulder. “Are you mad it was me?”
I nestled against him, my feelings conflicted. “No. I’m just… confused.”
Christian had always been the antithesis of what I considered an honorable man, and yet little by little, he kept proving me wrong. After this new revelation, my feelings shifted toward him, though I wasn’t sure how. But I trusted him more than I had five minutes ago. Vampire or not, the man had pulled me from certain death without thought to his own life. Finding out Christian had endured severe burns made it clear that the only motivation that could have been behind it was his heart.
But why had fate brought us together again?
“Is that why you hate humans so much?” I asked. “Because you almost died saving one?”
“I’ve learned over the years to grow more detached in my feelings about mortals. I cursed my decision. I wondered if it was all for naught when that little girl would probably grow up in abject poverty and not amount to anything in life. And now… here you are.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
Christian leaned around and met my eyes. “Just have a look at you. A crossbreed. Who could have imagined that one day you’d become an immortal like the world has never seen? Perhaps I don’t feel so regretful about the pain I went through to pluck you from the flames.” He reclined back. “Had I kept walking that evening, I wouldn’t have anyone to torment me with her dark humor and horrendous cooking.”
“You didn’t even try my food.”
“I think I’ve built up an appetite. Perhaps next time.”
The wind rustled a few papers around us, and I watched them scatter across the dirty floor.
“Why don’t I charm someone out of their car and get us home?”
I chuckled. “Where’s your sense of adventure? I’m too tired to move. Let’s just lie here until morning. You said yourself the streets are too dangerous and cabs don’t come out here.”
He clasped his hands together. “Now that we’re getting to know each other, do you want to tell me about your Creator? About how you were made? I think you at least owe me that.”
And I did.
As much as I’d wanted to bury that part of my life and forget it ever happened, I owed Christian the truth. He had given me a second chance in life, and maybe he needed to understand what exactly that meant.
“Promise to let me finish? No jokes?”
“I don’t wish to quarrel.”
I drew in a deep breath and began. “Well, I already told you about my Vampire maker and how we met. He wanted to make my death believable, all the way down to admitting me to the morgue. He drained me close to death after a blood exchange, but I don’t think he finished the process. I don’t really know how that works.” Just speaking about it sent terror through me, as if recounting the memories would make them real again.
“It’s magic,” Christian said. “Somewhat. It’s a careful exchange of blood. We give you just enough of our magic to keep you regenerative but not quite alive.”
“I woke up in a morgue. My maker was supposed to come get me, but he never came. The man in the room didn’t seem surprised when I rose from the dead.”
Christian inched back enough to look at me. “Was he Breed?”
I scooted away from him, finding it difficult to snuggle up to anyone while telling this story. “A Mage. He took me away. I was too weak to do anything, and I thought he was helping me.”
“What happened?”
“He gave me my first spark. I’m guessing that wouldn’t have normally worked on someone who was turned by a Vamp, but here I am.” After a moment’s pause, I added the most important fact of all. “He was a juicer.”
Christian cursed under his breath.
“I didn’t know anything about the rest of the Breed world. I made the decision to become a Vampire on a whim, so I didn’t realize what was happening to me.”
“Creators are the worst of the lot. Did you get his name?”
I averted my gaze. “He kept me for seven long months, Christian. Do you think I didn’t get his name?”
“Then we have to find him. Bring him to justice.”
I shook my head.
“Raven, you can’t protect him. If he did it once, he’ll do it again.”
“I can’t. I’m afraid of him.” I clenched my fists at the admission. I’d hunted down all types of nefarious men. But my own Creator, I couldn’t bring myself to go after. “He brought me to a place where I felt less than human—like a possession or an animal. I can’t. You don’t understand what it’s like. He’s got some kind of power over me.”
“His light is inside you. I understand a little about that. It’s not much different from how blood ties you to your Vampire maker. There will always be a connection you can’t deny, but that doesn’t mean he owns you.”
I sat Indian style and leaned forward. “My brain tells me that. But there’s a voice inside me that warns me not to open that door again. As much as I want him dead, I’m not ready to revisit that place in my life. If it doesn’t kill me, it’ll take what’s left of my soul. It took me years of struggle to become the person you know. Maybe that’s not saying much, but if you saw who I was then…”
My lip quivered, and I turned my head away. I’d successfully switched off my emotions these past few years—that was why I was impervious to fear—but now the floodgates were opening, and it made me furious. “I guess now you think I’m an emotional basket case.”
“Tears don’t make you weak,”
he said. “Fear does. Weep all you want over what happened to you; that’s your right. But never give someone your fear. That’s power. That’s control.”
I wiped my nose and grimaced from the pain. “You’re always telling me to leave the past behind, and now you want me to dig it up? That’s not what Viktor would want me to do.”
I turned to look, and Christian’s jaw set.
“I’ll keep watch,” he said, finally standing up. “With all this chattering, someone’s liable to hear us.”
I ignored the old me for just ten seconds and stood up, turning Christian around so we were facing each other. My hands rested on his straight shoulders, and our breath clouded the air between us. “Thank you for saving me,” I whispered.
His warm fingertips touched my cheeks as he held my gaze. The old me would have looked away from his penetrating Vampire eyes, but Christian and I were caught in a thread of time where the past and present overlapped. I wasn’t looking at a Vampire or even my partner. I was looking at the man who’d stolen me from the arms of death.
There was nothing more intimate.
He leaned in and kissed the corner of my mouth, and my breath caught.
“Déjà vu,” I said, puzzled by the emotions ripening in me like a familiar fruit I’d tasted once before.
A forbidden fruit.
Christian’s scruffy beard brushed against my chin, and he held that torturous position for longer than I could bear. There was a softness to his lips, the way they touched mine without kissing, and his smell was intoxicating. Maybe Vampires didn’t have a unique scent to Chitahs, but there were subtle nuances. It was as if I could smell his blood. When my fangs slid down, he cradled my neck possessively, and I leaned into him.
Dark hunger burned in his eyes, but what I was feeling was so powerful that it went beyond lust. I’d come full circle, finally face-to-face with the man I’d kept on a pedestal my entire life. And yet Christian had turned out to be the very Breed I loathed—the part of me I shunned.
We didn’t kiss, and yet that “almost” kiss was the most passionate I’d ever known.
“I’m a different man,” he said, still holding my gaze. “Colder. But if you asked me to do it all again, knowing what I know now… I would.”
Chapter 15
After running the full gamut of emotions and expending all my Mage energy, I’d fallen asleep. I woke up bone-cold, lying amid rotted papers stained with my blood.
Yet…
“Your face was a mess,” Christian said from the opposite side of the filing cabinets, his arms folded. “It was only a drop.”
I touched my nose and ran my fingers down the straight bone. There was still blood clotted in my nostrils, but it wasn’t swollen or broken that I could tell. “You force-fed me your blood?”
“That would imply against your will.”
“I was unconscious.”
“Oh, for feck’s sake. I didn’t play with your fanny in the night. A few drops of my blood on your tongue was all it took to heal your face. You barely stirred in your sleep. For what it’s worth, the sun didn’t come out this morning, so you might want to thank me.”
I rubbed my stiff neck, deciding to let it slide. I felt much better than I did six hours ago, aside from the fact I probably looked like one of Wyatt’s ghosties.
After staggering to my feet, I rubbed my eyes and stretched. Even though I’d fallen asleep on the concrete, I vividly remembered waking up with my head on Christian’s lap. He must have also put his coat all the way on me since I didn’t recall doing it myself. I tucked my hands inside the pockets and fished around until I found a piece of candy to remove the taste of blood in my mouth.
And not my blood.
I popped the mint in my mouth and crunched on it. When I shook out my hair, particles of dust and dirt floated to the ground. “What are we going to tell Shepherd about his Jeep?”
Christian strode over to the opening in the wall and turned away from it. “I don’t give a shite what he says. Assuming it’s still there, we’re heading back to get my sunglasses before walking home.”
Ugh. The idea of walking back to Keystone in the snow after all that had happened left me bitter. But I soldiered on and followed Christian down the ladder and through the alley, the wind at our backs and fresh snow having covered our tracks from the previous night. He didn’t ask for his coat, and I didn’t offer. But it felt good to be moving again, and it generated some much-needed body heat.
This time no one we passed gave me a second glance. I blended into the scenery with my scuffed shoes, dirty coat, rumpled hair, bloodstains, and sour look. Even with my nose healed, I could only imagine what my face must look like.
It was overcast with a light flurry, but the world seemed too bright to admire. We passed by a shirtless Vampire sitting on top of a broken intersection light, watching us with keen interest. His long black hair rippled in the wind, whereas the rest of him appeared as lifeless as a statue.
“Do they sleep outside?” I asked.
“Some of us don’t require sleep.” Christian rubbed a few flakes off his beard. “You’d be surprised what some of the buildings look like inside. A few rich bastards remodeled them into castles fit for a king. Some are in ruins but livable, others abandoned. It’s impossible to tell from the outside who’s making all the money. If Viktor hadn’t taken you in, this is likely where you would have ended up.”
“What about you?”
“I lived here a short while. But that was some years back.”
“You lived here?”
That offered me a new perspective. I’d seen Christian gleefully torture and murder men as part of our job, but it made me wonder what kind of man he was before Keystone to wind up in a place like this.
My stomach growled as we continued our march.
“Sounds like a wild boar in there,” he remarked. “We better get home while there’s still time for breakfast.”
I groaned. “This rotation thing isn’t working out.”
“Perhaps you can cater again,” he quipped.
“I would if I had my phone.”
After what must have been an hour, we reached the intersection where we’d abandoned Shepherd’s Jeep. I didn’t think anyone would steal it since it had an empty tank, and as we approached, the only thing different about it was a layer of snow on the hood and roof.
Christian slowed to a stop. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” He approached the vehicle and circled it, eyes brimming with disbelief. “They didn’t even take the tires!”
Even more astonishing was that the door was unlocked and nothing was stolen from the vehicle. I climbed inside to warm up and take a breather before we continued our walk.
Christian sat in the driver’s seat, and after he retrieved his sunglasses, he stared at the console. “If the battery’s still alive, maybe we can walk to a gas station and get enough fuel to move this thing out of here.”
“Sign me up for that plan.”
When he turned the ignition, the Jeep started up. It didn’t just turn on, it roared.
“Feck me.” He thumped his finger against the panel in front of him. “It says a full tank. Hand to God, it was empty when we left.”
“Maybe Shepherd needs to take it into the shop and get the needle checked. Sometimes they get stuck, or maybe it froze in the cold weather.”
Christian rubbed the back of his neck. “If I were a man who believed in fairies, I’d think one was playing tricks on us.”
That made me chuckle. “Maybe it was a leprechaun.”
He waved his hand. “Don’t start with the Irish jokes.”
“Did you bring your lucky clover?”
Christian gave me a cursory glance before turning the Jeep around. When I switched on Shepherd’s music, the chorus chanted: Let the bodies hit the floor.
“Now there’s some uplifting music,” Christian remarked, changing the station over to classical.
“Air on the G String,” I said, remembering it from
music class back in high school. “I didn’t take you for a Bach man.”
“It’s easier on a Vampire’s ears. Be thankful you don’t have to suffer hearing every sound magnified.”
I slowly took off my gloves, staring at Christian’s profile. Sometimes when he was thinking, he would draw in his lower lip and lightly scrape his teeth against it. I noticed his scruffy hair covering the top of his ear and had a strange urge to tuck it back.
“Is it like that all the time?” I asked. “Hearing everything. Does it hurt?”
“When it comes to bright light, I’ve got these,” he said, tapping his finger against the sunglasses. “But filtering sound takes practice. A Vampire learns to block out noise, and I’m quite good at it. I don’t hear the engine running, but I can hear a cat howling in the alleyway. If I wanted to, I could silence every sound in the world but the breath in your lungs.”
My face flushed, and I turned my attention out the window to two men fighting in the street. One Mage blasted the other man with energy, and in a split second, the tall man’s eyes rolled from yellow to black.
“Chitah,” I said, locking my door. Once they went primal, they targeted anyone who looked like a threat.
The Chitah took on a predatory stance, flashing his upper and lower fangs as he circled the Mage. They were worthy adversaries. A Chitah could kill a Mage with his bite, and a Mage could take down a Chitah with enough energy blasts.
If he could get close enough.
The Chitah rushed the Mage, and they rolled end over end across the snow. As Christian drove past them, I turned in my seat to steal a final glance of the violent ending.
A lawless society terrified and intrigued me. The appeal of a place like the Bricks was undeniable, even to the most honorable man. I’d lived in fear of the Mageri for many years. As an illegally made and undocumented immortal, our laws supported my execution. And yet criminals were given a safe haven in a place like this.
During the ride back to the club to pick up Christian’s car, we didn’t speak. The silence wasn’t awkward, and for the first time, it felt like we were two partners out on a ride.