“If I let it, it will take over my entire being,” I replied with conviction. “Then when it’s gone, the emptiness will destroy me.”
“What if it doesn’t go anywhere? Have you ever thought about such a possibility? Because I truly believe in that.”
His mouth curved in a light smile, and warm sparkles played in the green of his eyes. He didn’t seem to be nearly as concerned as I was, and I wished I could lean on his trust in us.
“Was that why you never asked me to stay?”
“I never asked because you’re not the type of woman who could be forced to do anything against her will. Instead, I’ve waited until you realised you wanted to be with me.”
“What if I didn’t? Would you have really let me leave for Moscow?”
“If that was what you wanted to do.” He nodded. “I hoped you wouldn’t go, but if you left, I knew it couldn’t be the end for us. Sooner or later, I knew I’d be with you.”
“How? Would you have gone to Moscow with me?”
“To Moscow, to the end of this world, and to any other one beyond this one.”
Something had been lightening inside me at his words, despite the tears swelling in my eyes.
“Look, Jade.” He took my hand in his. “If ever I have to be away from you, it would always be only temporary. I knew it from that night in your apartment when I told you the darkest moments of my past and you accepted me despite it all. You simply needed some time to realise that, and I gave it to you.”
I inhaled a shuddering breath, squeezing his hand tight, as hope curled warm around my heart. “Do you really think this could last?” I didn’t believe I could ever survive the disappointment of losing him now.
He got up from his chair, tugging at my hand for me to follow.
“I have full intentions of making it last, for as long as we both shall live.” He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Do you?”
“Well, I can see myself surfing until the day I die.” I smiled through the shimmering haze of my tears. “So I think I could definitely envision loving you for as long as we both shall live.”
He drew me in for a kiss.
Slow, deep, and tender, it made my head spin. With every glide of his lips and with every brush of his tongue against mine, I sensed the tension between us dissipate and drain from his body and mine.
“Always,” he whispered his vow against my mouth, and I swallowed it with a kiss of my own.
Chapter 31
WE RAN INTO ZAYNE IN the hallway, just outside of the meeting room. Andrei followed close behind him. Ilya and the few others still left at the Base were approaching, too.
“These are all the Incubi we have here,” Zayne reported to Vadim. “I’ve sent the summons to the few who went to the city, most should be here within the next hour or less.”
“I’ll call Andras right now and put him on speaker.” Vadim turned to go back in the meeting room. “I want everyone to hear about Keller and the ritual. About what Jade did, too.”
“Um . . .” I lingered in the hallway, not following him in.
Knowing that I could call him back anytime someone tried to take him away again, brought a definite relief, like being in possession of a strong antidote to a poison. Yet I still worried about leaving him, even for a short period of time.
“What are the chances of you being summoned again?” I asked quietly.
“Well, they know they won’t get anything from me now. I don’t think they’ll bother again. But I’m worried about the other Incubi. If summoned while outside, they would drop down on the street in convulsions. I want them all here, where they are safe.”
“Good. Could I borrow a car for a few hours then? I need to get some things done in the city.”
“Today?” Vadim stared at me as if I had just told him I was an alien from another planet.
The past three days had passed in a blur of fear and worry. I had a number of missed calls and texts from work. Tanya was supposed to be at my place soon to help me pack. The lease on my apartment had expired, too. I’d let everyone know I was alive to make sure no one would file a missing person’s report or do something else just as drastic, but things had been piling up, requiring my attention.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Vadim used his most authoritative tone of voice, and I dug in my heels.
“Listen, I was still supposed to be at work this week, helping Harry close up the office. Instead, he’s been doing all of it on his own, most of the staff have already been let go . . .”
“I don’t care,” he replied, unyielding. “Call him.”
Bossy and stubborn.
“Well, I do care. Harry has been a great boss. At the very least he deserves a personal goodbye from me.”
The stern expression on his face didn’t ease.
“I’ll also need to pick up my things from the apartment,” I continued, “and hand in the key to the landlord, and generally, you know, show my face to everyone, to prove I’m alive and to give some kind of an explanation for my sudden change of plans. As far as my work goes, everyone still thinks I’m leaving for Moscow within weeks. I’ll need to sign some paperwork, cancel the transfer request.” Which would also mean quitting my job.
I didn’t say the last part out loud. We hadn’t discussed this in detail yet. I understood that in order to stay with Vadim I would have to quit working, at least for now. I’d been ready to leave the country and part with my co-workers, but there was no time to prepare myself for saying goodbye to the job I actually liked.
“Does this have to be done today?” His mouth set in a firm line, Vadim definitely looked displeased, and I knew he was worried. Something in the curve of his bottom lip, though, brought to mind a petulant child.
I sighed, calling on my patience.
“Would you let me go tomorrow?”
His jaw flexed, and he kept silent for a moment, betraying something I already knew. It wasn’t the timing for him. Vadim simply didn’t want to part with me. Ever. Part of me liked that, way too much, despite the frustration at his resistance.
“Vadim, I am going to be with you, but I had a life before I met you, and I can’t drop everything just like that.”
“The sooner you go, the sooner you’d come back,” he spoke as if talking to himself.
“Can I have the car then?”
“No.” He turned to Zayne, who lingered in the background, letting us sort things out. “Take Jade to the city.”
“Me?” The Incubus raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“I trust you the most,” Vadim replied, still with a displeased frown on his face.
Zayne inclined his head. “I’m flattered.”
“Don’t take your eyes off her. If so much as a hair falls off her head, I’ll kill you then wait until you come back to and kill you again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Grand Master.”
“WELL, TAKE CARE OF yourself, Jade.” Harry shook my hand then pulled me into a bear hug. “Keep in touch, will you?”
He leaned back, his eyes flicked to Zayne standing silently by the office door with his arms crossed over his chest.
“I will,” I promised, taking the folder with my paperwork off the desk.
Following Harry’s advice, instead of quitting completely, I had applied for a leave of absence for six months.
Many things still needed to be sorted out in the Incubi world as well as in my new life, with some possibly taking longer than others. I knew I would choose Vadim over anyone or anything. Still, not burning all my bridges right now felt comforting.
As Zayne and I left Harry’s office and took the lift down to the lobby, I hoped there would still be a chance for me to come back to the job I liked and was sure I’d miss.
Not finding any free parking around my building, we ended up leaving the car at the next apartment complex then walked back to mine.
“There you are!” Tanya’s thin, wiry figure jumped from the steps to my entrance to greet us.
�
�Sorry, are we late?” I patted my jacket pocket for my phone to check the time.
“Nope, I’m early.” Her voice remained cheerful, even as she glanced Zayne’s way suspiciously.
“Tanya, this is Zayne, he . . . um, he’ll help us pack.”
“Is he your boyfriend?” She lowered her voice, avoiding another look at him. “The one you’ve been seeing on the weekends?”
“No. It’s his friend. Zayne, this is Tanya—” I stopped, faced with Zayne’s intense stare fixed on Tanya. “Have you two met?”
He just blinked and swallowed hard, without replying.
“No, we haven’t,” Tanya answered, instead, then added under her breath, “I would’ve remembered meeting someone like him. That’s for sure.”
It hit me that being a Council Member, Zayne must have seen Tanya in the meeting room during her weekly visits. Something about that must have impressed him enough to render him practically speechless when meeting her face to face now.
“Well.” I cleared my throat. “Shall we go in then? It’s rather cold and windy out here.”
IT DIDN’T TAKE US LONG to pack. All my belongings fitted into a couple of suitcases and a few boxes. I was used to traveling light and always made sure that all my earthly possessions fitted in one car at all times because, sooner or later, I knew I would have to move again.
“There are just my mugs left,” I said, rearranging some of the folded clothes inside one of the suitcases, in order to zip it up.
“I’ll get those,” volunteered Tanya. “There is still some space left in this box.” She made a move to lift the box, but Zayne beat her to it.
“I’ve got it,” he mumbled, heading for the kitchen with it.
This was the first thing he’d said during the whole time we had spent in my apartment. He also proved to be rather useless in packing, mostly getting in my way.
“What do you know, he can talk.” Tanya’s voice was quiet but filled with sarcasm.
“Could you help him, please?” I asked, shoving my knee onto the lid of the suitcase to force it to close. “It’s my collection of souvenir mugs on the shelf over the sink.”
“He didn’t ask for my help.” Tanya sulked. “I don’t think he needs it.”
Something was definitely going on between these two, but I had no time for sorting out their differences at the moment.
“Sure he does.” I waved her to follow Zayne. “It’s definitely a two-person job.”
Mumbling something about stuck-up, snobby men, Tanya shuffled into the kitchen.
“I’M ALL DONE,” I CALLED to Zayne and Tanya about twenty minutes later. “Just need to take the garbage out and we can go.”
“I’ll come with you.” Zayne emerged from the kitchen, with Tanya on his heels. He heaved two packed boxes from the floor, one under each arm. “I may as well take these to the car, too.”
“Okay.” I gestured him to follow me out of the apartment.
“Vadim texted me, he is on his way to pick you up,” Zayne casually informed me in the lift.
“What? Why? We have the car right here.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. “He said the meeting was over, so he decided to come here to fetch you himself.”
“Fetch me.” I couldn’t hold back an eye roll. “We’d be back in an hour.”
“Well, this way he’ll get to see you in fifteen minutes instead.” Zayne grinned, obviously teasing me. “He must be missing you.”
“Right. A serious case of separation anxiety. That’s what it looks like.”
Instead of going to the car right away, Zayne insisted on following me all the way to the garbage bins first. Remembering the orders he received from Vadim, I didn’t argue, although it felt weird having Zayne shadow me like a bodyguard.
The sun was setting, streetlights flickered to life, illuminating the courtyard surrounded by the five apartment buildings of my complex.
It definitely took Vadim less than fifteen minutes, since on our way back from the garbage bins, I spotted the black car pulling over at the entrance to my stairwell.
“I bet he was speeding to get here this fast.” Zayne shook his head as we approached the vehicle. “I’ll put these in his car instead of walking all the way to ours.” Shifting the boxes in his arms, he headed for the trunk.
The back door opened and I leaned in, expecting to be greeted by the familiar outline of Vadim in the dark interior. My heart sped up with the anticipation of seeing him again.
Obviously, whatever case of separation anxiety he might be suffering from was severely contagious—I already missed him, too.
“Get in!” The order came in Russian as someone grabbed me roughly and yanked me in before I managed to exhale a sound.
With a loud screech of spinning tires, the car took off, the door slamming closed on the way.
Kicking everywhere, I struggled against the hands holding me down.
“Let me go!” I yelled, as rising panic jumpstarted my ability to speak.
“Blya!” Someone cursed in a strangled voice. “The bitch just kicked me in the nuts.”
This was followed by a sharp punch in my ribs that knocked the air out of my lungs for a few seconds, forcing me curl in on myself.
“Here,” came from the front seat. “Give her the shot.”
A hand roughly shoved my head down and a sting of a needle burned the side of my neck.
“What do you want with me?” The end of my question came out muffled to my own ears. The twilight thickened around me.
Then the night came.
Chapter 32
I WAS LYING ON A HARD surface, which was moving. My head hurt, my wrists did, too. And my shoulders felt like the joints had been wrenched out of their sockets.
The floor under me lurched again, jolting my body with a renewed wave of pain everywhere.
A loud moan reached me, then the realisation that it was me moaning filtered through to my brain—like thunder following the lightning.
“She’s awake,” a male voice announced too loudly for my aching head, making me wince. “Should we put her under again?”
“No.” This was another one. “We didn’t get that much of this stuff from the German guy.”
“German? I thought he was from Switzerland—”
“Whatever. Same shit. Don’t waste it on her. I’ll find a better use for it. This is some good stuff, man.” The voice filled with appreciation. “The Germans really know how to do things, I tell ya. One shot knocked her right out for hours.”
I understood the meaning of their conversation. However, it took me a few moments of painful concentration to determine they spoke Russian.
The awareness of my surroundings slowly trickled in. We were no longer in the car. The plush seats had gone. I lay on a cold metal floor of what must be another moving vehicle, as the shaking and lurching of it hadn’t stopped, making my insides churn.
With a groan, I made an attempt to rise, afraid I’d throw up.
“She’s gonna barf,” someone stated calmly.
“Hey, give her the bucket, Shorty!” This one came from the driver’s seat and sounded much more panicky. “I’m not driving for a whole hour with her fucking stench in the van.”
I opened my eyes just in time to see the one who must have been referred to as Shorty scurry with the bucket to me.
He grabbed my hair, yanking my head up, and I scrambled to get my knees under me to heave myself off the floor.
My stomach emptied itself into the white plastic bucket that he’d shoved under my face.
“Fucking gross,” he squeezed through his teeth in disgust. “What do I do with this shit, boss?”
“Toss it, you idiot. Do I have to spell everything out for you?”
Shorty kicked the back door open and hurled the bucket full of vomit onto the dirt road outside.
It was dark out there. Since they talked about hours, not days, I figured it must still be the same night. I spotted no headlights on t
he road behind us. If Zayne or Vadim had followed us, my kidnappers must have managed to evade them.
I was on my own.
The van shook on the uneven ground. Fear tightened my stomach. I had no clue where they could be taking me and opened my mouth to ask, but the words refused to form into sentences yet.
“Water,” I croaked instead. The inside of my mouth felt dry and disgusting after vomiting.
“Boss, she’s asking for water,” Shorty forwarded my request, taking his seat on the bench along the wall opposite from me.
Left a few feet away from him, by the back door of the van, I briefly considered shoving it open and jumping out. We couldn’t have been moving that fast, considering the condition of the road.
Shorty had locked the doors, though, after tossing the bucket out. With my hands tied behind my back, I wouldn’t be able to unlock them.
As my head cleared a little, jumping out of a moving vehicle on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere no longer seemed like a good idea after all. Even if I managed not to break any bones in the process, the fact that the goons would simply stop the van to pick me up again made me abandon this plan for now.
“Thirsty, is she?” the Boss asked mockingly, tossing a plastic bottle of water my way. “Here you go.”
The bottle hit my shoulder and rolled under the bench. With my hands tied behind my back, I was unable to catch it, not to mention open the lid.
The two of them found it hilarious, guffawing loudly at my helplessness. Shorty bent over, laughing so hard, he nearly fell off the bench.
I caught the eye of the Boss. Glaring at him, I gathered whatever saliva I could and spat his way, getting rid of at least some of the foulness in my mouth.
The gesture, combined with the resentment I was sure was imprinted on my face, infuriated him.
“Suka!—You bitch,” he hissed, launching himself from his seat towards me.
A hand in my hair, he yanked my face to his.
“I may have to deliver you alive,” he gritted through his teeth, assaulting my senses with the stench of stale tobacco. “But no one said you have to be well and sound on arrival.”
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