There were too many boats speeding around for it to be just another summer night on the Pacific, Rhiannon thought. It seemed every time she, Roland and Roxanne emerged from the salty, cold depths, another one came shooting by, forcing them to dive under again.
She opened her consciousness to receive the images and sensations in the minds of the passing humans, which her own mind then translated. This was how the reading of mortal thoughts was accomplished. One did not think in words. One thought in feelings and pictures. The words were only their mirror.
They were military and Coast Guard vessels, and they’d been dispatched to search for two vampires who had attacked the cargo vessel of a private government contractor, leaving several humans dead in their wake.
It was a lie. They had killed no one.
Roland was a lead weight. She hoped the salt water was having some impact on the bleeding, but was unsure, and there had been little time to stanch the flow any other way, though she had chanted the blood stopping spell she’d known from earliest childhood nonstop in her mind.
He’d taken a bullet. Maybe more than one. The sorry bastard had made a point of keeping his body between the rain of gunfire and her back as they’d made their escape.
Always protecting her. Always getting hurt doing it. Hadn’t he learned by now that she could take care of herself?
She surfaced again, pulling him in her wake. As they broke the surface, she flipped her hair back with a toss of her head, then floated there, treading water, and holding him by one arm, floating on his back, his face strikingly pale in the moonlight. Even more so than usual. His eyes were closed, black lashes beaded with moisture. Her heart ached with love for him.
“He’ll be all right, Rhiannon. He’s always all right,” Roxanne said.
Rhiannon nodded hard. “And you? How are you, my mortal friend?”
“Fine. They treated me fine. No torture, nothing like that. I think they intended to study me or maybe to use me to force Charlotte to dance to their twisted-up tune. Maybe both. Thanks for getting me the hell out of there. How did you know where I was?”
“We didn’t. We were captured during our rescue of your granddaughter.”
No boats were in sight at the moment, so Rhiannon took the opportunity to help Roland. She moved his body in time with the waves. Thank goodness the seas were calm tonight and the swells were gentle, lifting and lowering them like a mother’s rocking chair. She moved down his body to his feet and unlaced one of his shoes. Then she moved back up again until she got to his upper arm, where the bullet had torn through, and knotted the shoelace tightly around his bicep, above the wound.
The blood, which had still been seeping despite her spells, stopped.
She sighed in relief and lay her head upon his chest. “Roland, if you die and leave me to face eternity alone, I will follow you into the Underworld and make you pay.”
Something sent a chill up her spine, some keen awareness that a predator felt when another was near. Rhiannon lifted her head from her lover’s chest and scanned the dark waters in every direction. Wispy black fingers of cloud crept over the face of the moon, and a light rain began to fall, blurring the horizon until the dark sea and dark sky were as one.
“Roxanne,” she whispered. “Don’t move any more than you have to. Be still.”
Eyes widening, Roxy looked around. And then the still waters were pierced by the slick gleam of a dorsal fin as it broke surface and submerged once again.
“I’ve often wondered how I’d die,” she whispered to Roland. “But becoming a meal for a shark is one I never even imagined.”
“Hell and damnation,” Roxanne muttered.
The fin appeared again, far closer this time, and off to the right. It was, she realized as she continued to watch it, circling, moving ever closer.
Rhiannon closed her eyes and projected an image of herself as Pandora, ripping a great white to shreds with her fabulous white fangs and deadly claws.
Whether the shark received that image, whether it was even capable of sensing her threat, she did not know. She heard boats, then, several of them, speeding nearer from one direction, and one deeper, louder motor that came from another.
She was about to submerge again when suddenly Roland shot like a missile, straight up out of the water, his arm wrenched from her grasp. The gleaming great white surged upward as well, with Roland’s leg clamped in its hungry jaws. Rhiannon screamed his name as the man and the shark parted company in midair. Roland splashed back into the ocean to her left, and the shark, with Roland’s severed leg still held clamped in its jaws, to her right.
Her shock was so thorough that she forgot about the boats, about Roxanne, about everything. She scrambled after Roland, ignorant of the people who were shouting and diving off a fishing boat and into the water. They grabbed for him, as she fought them off, her mind only focused on Roland. There were too many. They were strong. They were vampires.
They were vampires! She stopped fighting.
Roland was hauled up a ladder and onboard a small fishing boat with machine guns mounted at intervals along its deck, and Rhiannon clambered up after him to see Roxanne already aboard.
“We need heat! We have to sear the leg before he bleeds out!” The desperate shout brought her head around to see the powerful young vampire who was giving the orders.
Devlin? The rogue she had intended to kill? Yes, and his gang. All of them. Larissa, the fledgling female, was wrapping a blanket around Roxanne, speaking softly to her, drawing her away from the rail.
Other boats were speeding toward them now, but vampires manned the guns and began firing as Devlin knelt at Roland’s thigh, his own belt wrapped there and yanked tight. She stared at the stump of Roland’s leg. It wasn’t bleeding. But she didn’t think it was due to the tourniquet.
Rising to her feet, clenching a fist and shaking it at the heavens, Rhiannon shouted, “Do you truly dare to take him from me? Do you think I will not rip apart the very heavens and tear out the jugulars of the gods themselves?”
“Rhiannon!” Devlin’s voice was as sharp as a whip crack. “He’s not dead. Do that magic you do to keep it that way.”
He had an emergency flare in his hand, and as she watched, horrified, he struck it, and it lit. “Soak the leg in water,” he told the others around him. “And keep soaking it. If I fuck this up, he goes up in flames.”
Vampires obeyed, pouring buckets of sea water over the already soaked leg, and Devlin moved the torch, touching the stump and drawing it quickly away as the water poured over the spot. Over and over he did this, as gunfire shattered the night all around them.
Her enemy, Rhiannon realized, was fighting for the life of her beloved.
One of the military boats approaching them exploded under the hail of machine gun fire as Devlin applied the blazing flare to the bloodied stump of Roland’s thigh.
Roland did not even moan, but the stench of his burning flesh was too much for her, and her mind was rebelling. She met Devlin’s eyes as he burned her beloved’s flesh, and said, “You were right, Devlin. I was wrong. I want you to kill them. Kill every last one of them.” And then Rhiannon passed out cold on the deck.
“Shall we continue the pursuit of the Anemone, Devlin?” one of his followers, a young male named Jeremy asked.
“No.” He said. They had sent a pair of vampires out on a speedboat in pursuit with orders to affix a tracking device to the Anemone’s hull if they could get close enough without being seen. Their chances of success were slim to none, but it was all he could do.
He was below decks, staring down at the Diva bitch who had ruined his entire plan and her all but lifeless companion. Elders of his kind. But not the leaders his people needed. Not in these times. They were too ethical. Too moral. Too good. He had none of those flaws. And yet he couldn’t leave them to die.
Their mortal friend was asleep, exhausted from her ordeal at sea. He knew who she was, but had never met her before. The oldest living Chosen, Roxanne O’Mal
ley, a living legend among his kind.
“Devlin?” Jeremy asked, prompting him for an answer.
“No, we can’t pursue. Head for shore. Look for an isolated place. If they catch us, they’ll kill us.”
Rhiannon and Roland lay stretched out side by side on a table. There were no beds on the vessel. Just a galley and a head, neither of which Devlin needed. He had a bandage wrapped around his wrist, as did several others of his vampiric crew, each of whom had voluntarily given of their own blood, their own strength, their life force, to Roland. Most of it had dribbled down his chin, wasted. But he thought some might have made its way into his body to help him heal.
Devlin was angry, but he hadn’t yet given up hope, and as they neared shore, running without lights, he had his crew shut off the engines. Three of his gang dove overboard, ropes in their teeth to pull the boat silently toward shore.
“How are they?” asked the pretty one. The fledgling vampiress, Larissa, had, he suspected, been reporting his actions to Rhiannon all along. And yet he’d done nothing about it.
“Rhiannon will survive,” he said. “She’s been drifting in and out, calling out both audibly and mentally to someone named Killian each time. If he’s a vampire, and can hear her, I imagine we’ll meet him soon.”
“And what about Roland?”
Devlin pressed his lips, but said nothing.
Someone from above called down that they were as near to shore as the boat could go without running itself aground.
“Drop anchor,” he ordered. “I’ll take them in the dingy from here. I want everyone else to abandon ship and go on foot to our hideout. Stay there, out of sight unless you hear from me. I’ll take our three castaways elsewhere. At sundown, we meet right here again.”
“I’d prefer to stay with you,” Larissa said softly. Her eyes were huge and searching his face.
“Why? We both know you’ve never believed in the cause.”
She looked at Roland, lying there, white as the face of the moon and nearly as lifeless. “Maybe I do now.”
He held her eyes for a long moment, then nodded. “All right. Get Roxanne and let’s get going. We need to find a place where Roland can rest and recover.
Killian and his mortal band, Pandora and Olive included, had piled into Charlie’s vehicle and followed Rhiannon’s infrequent and increasingly confused-sounding calls to a private dock owned, apparently, by some incredibly wealthy mortals. Their mansion was some 70 miles from Portland on a wooded hilltop that looked down onto the ocean, boathouse and docks below. The entire property was surrounded by fence and patrolled by dogs.
The fence hadn’t been a problem. They’d all jumped it easily. The dogs hadn’t been a problem either. One snarl from Pandora sent them running for cover, whimpering as if she’d already attacked.
Charlie, Olive riding on her arm as had become the usual, spotted a camera mounted to the side of the redwood boathouse, picked up a pebble and expertly put out its lens.
Killian gave her a nod of approval, but she just looked away. She was strong now. Far stronger than she’d been when he’d first met her. But there was a sadness that lingered behind her eyes. Didn’t she know that he would not let her die? No matter what.
They walked down the hill to the dock and out onto it, standing side by side. Christian remained on the shore.
“This must be them,” Charlie said, standing on the end of the dock in the rain, watching a dinghy’s slow approach.
“There are coast guard patrol boats everywhere tonight,” Christian called from the grassy shore. “What if it’s one of them?”
Killian shook his head. “No. It’s vampires. Several of them.” His skin tingled with awareness, and he felt Charlie tense up. Olive felt it too, ruffling up her feathers then shaking them hard, before letting them lie flat again. “It’s all right, Charlie. Remember, you’re Chosen. Vampires can’t hurt you,” he assured her. “Not even strange ones.”
The boat came closer, and as it did, Killian became aware of more vampires, a dozen at least, all of them coming out of the water without the aid of any boat. They slogged up onto shore at various locations, dripping seawater, and loping away without so much as a greeting. The little boat, though, kept coming, and when it neared shore, its pilot got out, walked up to the prow and pulled it up onto the shore, ignoring the dock.
As the boat passed by him, Killian got a look inside. “Holy mother of God,” he whispered.
“Oh my God.” Charlie clutched his arm. Olive flew up into the air, then circled over the little boat.
Pandora came running, chuffing and switching her tail, lunging into the surf, then dancing back again.
“Easy, girl,” Killian said, jogging back off the dock arm in arm with Charlie, then heading for the dinghy. Roland was lying there in the small boat, maybe dead, missing an entire leg. Rhiannon lay soaked and unconscious beside him. A girl, a young vampiress sat between them, her eyes wide and wary. Another woman sat nearby, with a blanket wrapped around her like a monk’s hooded cowl. One of The Chosen.
Killian looked from the pair of them to the man who was pulling the dinghy up onto the shore. “Who the hell are you, and what in the name of God happened to them?”
The unidentified woman lowered her hood. “His name’s Devlin, and he’s the fellow who just saved our asses, so I’d suggest you speak more kindly to him, Killian.”
“Roxy!”
“Gram!” Charlie broke away from him as her grandmother climbed out of the dingy onto the shore, and the two met in an embrace that almost brought tears to Killian’s eyes.
“You’re okay, oh, God, you’re okay,” Charlie said over and over. “You were hurt, Killian thought. Are you hurt?”
“Ah, bullet took a chunk out of my thigh. I lost a lot of blood, but our friends at DPI were good enough to patch me up. They injected me with something, too. Wouldn’t tell me what, but my suspicious nature tells me it wasn’t anything as simple as an antibiotic.” She sighed. “Damn, Charlotte, I was afraid I’d never get you back from those bastards.” Smiling, hugging her, Roxy looked up at Killian over Charlie’s shoulder. “Thank you, Killian. You’re a helluva man. Thank you.”
Charlie lifted her head and turned to look back at him, telling him the same thing with her eyes. Then Olive swooped down to land on Roxy’s arm, and leaning near, blinked into her eyes as Roxy stroked her and told her it was all going to be okay now.
“Time is short,” Devlin said. “We’re being hunted. Do you have a vehicle?”
Killian nodded. “I think we can all crowd in.”
“Good. Let’s do it, then. DPI knows we’re out here somewhere.” Devlin lifted Rhiannon from the boat and handed her limp body to Killian. Then he picked Roland up and carried him up onto the shore.
“This way,” Killian said, starting off. Pandora was trotting along so close to his legs that he nearly tripped over her. She stretched her neck to sniff at Rhiannon, eager, he thought, to see if she was all right.
The stranger turned back briefly, staring out at the ocean. “They got away. We risked everything to find them, and they got away.”
He sighed heavily, nodded, and then joined the rest of them.
Charlie had her grandmother back. She’d also had some more time to look through the stolen computer. To do more investigating. She’d already known the horrifying news that the vampire scientist Eric Marquand had delivered by phone earlier. She’d spent the afternoon in the barn, poring over files while waiting for Killian to wake. Now she dug into them even more deeply, searching for an answer to what had happened when Killian had tried to turn Mariah. It was there, too. The injection of a toxin known to be deadly to vampires, was usually given with the third and final dose of BDX. Had they given her that as well? She tried to remember her day long bout of agony while they’d pumped that chemical death sentence into her veins. She remembered the pale doctor injecting three doses of BDX into the IV bag and cranking up the flow. She did not remember a fourth injectio
n. But she’d also been in screaming anguish and tranquilized into oblivion for much of the time.
One thing was clear. The BDX was dangerous, deadly, and DPI knew it, had known it all along, and had given it to all those recruits anyway. The average life expectancy of a BD-Exer was three months. Three fucking months. That was why LT hadn’t taken the cure himself. And that was what had killed all those recruits at Fort Rogers.
What she still didn’t know was why. What was the point of creating a race of super charged Chosen to kill vampires, if they would only live for a few months? What good were they?
The growing band had made its way to an abandoned warehouse on the docks where they intended to rest. It was near daylight, had taken them a few hours to get to the coast, and a few more to get far enough away from those searching for them. Roland was lying in a wooden crate. There were dozens of them scattered around this place, some packed with straw, others with some kind of mechanical parts inside. A big rusty flatbed truck was parked in the back and looked as if it had been there for decades. They’d pulled the van right inside and parked it beside the aging beast to keep it out of sight.
Rhiannon was awake now, kneeling beside him, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. Pandora had prowled the place until she’d found a satisfactory corner and was stretched out there, keeping her narrowed eyes always on her owner. And Olive had taken to the rafters and seemed to be content.
Christian was in the back near the vehicles by himself, and Charlie thought he was probably still grieving for Mariah. Roxy and Killian seemed to be sticking close to Charlie.
As Charlie sat there on the floor, leaning back against a metal wall, shell-shocked, exhausted, hungry, wrapped in her grandmother’s arm, and wondering what the hell was in store for her next, Devlin walked up to Rhiannon, put a hand on her shoulder and said, “We should talk.”
Rhiannon didn’t look away from Roland. “You saved his life. I owe you.”
He nodded. “I don’t abandon my own kind if I can help them, Rhiannon. I’m not entirely evil.”
“And yet you led your little gang in a raid that annihilated an entire village. A dozen humans. Maybe more.”
Charlie leaned forward, listening. She’d recognized the name when she’d heard it, knew this was the rogue Eric had mentioned, the one Roland and Rhiannon had come here to stop. To kill.
“They were a village of spies, Rhiannon.”
That drew Rhiannon’s gaze. “What’s this now?”
“Unlike you,” Devlin said, “I never trusted the mortals to leave us alone in our haven. I kept tabs. I had informants. I crept about that village by night and listened to their thoughts. They were no ordinary villagers. Most of the locals had quietly been gathering evidence against us and were planning to send it to their DPI contact the next day, to collect a sizable reward. You know there’s been a price on our heads since the war ended.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“We had to move quickly to prevent it. It was us or them, Rhiannon.”
She sighed, lowered her head. “I wasn’t aware–”
“I probably should’ve told you.”
“Yes, you should have. There was a child–”
“I went back for her. But you had already seen to her well-being. Erased the memory of the attack. Sent her off to safety.”
She sighed. “I need to warn Eric and Tamara to get the rest of our people out of there,” she said softly. “If anyone survived, or wasn’t there the night of the attack....”
“That’s probably wise.”
“I meant what I said, Devlin. I will no longer try to stop you. Not after what these bastards have done. And on that ship...on that ship I saw....” She lowered her head, closed her eyes. “Dawn approaches. Leave me with my love a bit longer.”
Devlin nodded, and went away from her, into the shadows where Larissa waited for him.
Sighing, Roxy said, “I’m going to scout around for something to eat,” and with a final squeeze of Charlie’s shoulder, she went off, leaving her alone with Killian.
“I don’t blame Rhiannon for wanting to kill them all,” Charlie whispered. They sat side by side near a shadowy wall. “I’ll bet she’d just as soon kill me, too. They got into this mess trying to help me. If I’d just listened to you, to Roxy–”
“It’s not your fault, Charlie.”
“Yeah it is, Killian. It’s completely my fault. Roland might die. He’s the leader of an entire race, and he might die because I was too stubborn to listen and too prejudiced to believe. And yet they risked their lives for me. And what’s the use? All this, to save me, when I’m going to be dead before long anyway.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s the truth. You heard Eric Marquand on the phone. He said this stupid drug isn’t a cure for the early death sentence that comes with the Belladonna Antigen at all. It’s a booster shot for it. It speeds it up.” Something she hadn’t yet told her grandmother. There hadn’t been time. But she knew she had to. And soon. “Why the hell is everybody getting themselves shot and killed and burned and maimed just to give me a few more months?”
Killian was quiet for a long moment. Then he took her hand and said, “They’re doing it because they haven’t got a choice. We protect The Chosen. That’s just the way it is. But I’d die trying to save you even if that wasn’t the case, Charlie, and I think you know that.”
“Don’t.” She got to her feet, shaking her head. “This is no time for that. Our lives are at stake. And besides....” She lowered her head, almost stopped herself from saying it, but then decided she had to. “I’m not going to live long, Killian, there’s no point.”
“Yeah there is. And you can live as long as you want to.”
She knew what he meant. “If you try to change me, you could die.”
“I would drink battery acid for you. And I’d do it happily.”
“But I couldn’t live with that.”
“Then I’ll find another way.”
“What other way?” she whispered. “Cut me, let my blood run out of me until the last? Then refill me with your own?”
He nodded fast, but his eyes didn’t hold hers.
“Tell me the truth.” She put her hands on his face, turning it to hers again. “I’ve put my trust in you, Killian. Don’t disrespect that by lying to me now.”
He sighed heavily, but he met her steady gaze. “It would be risky. I wouldn’t know exactly when your heart beat its last. And giving you enough of my own blood to bring you over, without having your blood to make up the loss, could be...dangerous.”
“It could kill you,” she interpreted. “That’s about what I thought.”
He held her eyes for a minute, and she stared right back at him, letting him see that she meant everything she was about to say to him. “I owe you an apology bigger than I’ll ever manage to give. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, Killian. I’m even sorrier that I didn’t trust what I felt and still feel for you. I should have, because it’s the most real thing there has ever been. I’m sorry I almost got you killed, and got your friends hurt. I’m sorry, Killian. But my biggest regret is that my own mother died because of me, and I just...I don’t know how to live with that. I don’t know if I’m supposed to. I think I’m just supposed to...to go. Whenever it’s time, you know? Just go.” Tears choked her, and she got up and ran through the nearest door into a dim and dusty office to cry her tears in private.
Killian didn’t let her, though. He followed her inside, locked the door behind him, and when he turned her around and pulled her into his arms, she didn’t even try to resist. “If this is all we have, Charlie, than at least let’s be together now. Let’s relish whatever time fate gives us, and I promise you, if there’s a way to save you, I will. I’ll turn over heaven and earth to find it. I...I love you, Charlie. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He kissed her, and when she tasted the salt of tears, she couldn’t tell if they were his or her own. He c
leared off an old desk with a swipe of his arm and laid her down there, his body covering hers, kissing her, holding her, making her forget, for a while, that this love of theirs was doomed. This might be all they had. She pushed everything else from her mind and opened her heart, giving herself completely to him and to this.
He pulled her blouse over her head, baring her breasts to his hungry eyes. She saw the way they glowed red, and when he closed his eyes, she touched his cheek. “Don’t hide anything about yourself from me. I want all of you, Killian.”
So he opened them, and she watched the glow of lust, like a fire behind his eyes as he fed at her breasts and licked at her belly. When he shoved her pants lower, she grabbed at his jeans, tugging them apart and pushing them off him. He peeled his own shirt off, and then he was pushing her legs apart and sliding inside her.
She closed her eyes in sheer ecstasy as he filled her and clutched at his back and his buttocks as they moved together. He kissed her endlessly, deeply, and he let her explore with her tongue, even touching those incisors that had felt so good sinking into her neck so long ago. Was it really only days ago? It felt like years. It felt like centuries.
God, she wanted to stay with him!
His kissed his way to her neck as his pace increased, and she felt him reaching for the pinnacle and knew his hunger was raging inside him. She felt it. She matched it as her own body tightened and tingled. He sucked the skin between his teeth, and she grabbed his head and moved his mouth back to hers. She didn’t want to hurt him. Not for all the world would she hurt this man.
She loved him. She loved him like no one had ever loved anyone before. And what was more, what was both thrilling and heartbreaking, was that she knew he loved her just as much.
Her mind stopped working then as he made love to her, pushing her near the edge, then letting her settle back again, over and over, until at last she clung to him and rode the waves of ecstasy that washed over her. He held her to him as her body trembled and her tears flowed, and he moaned her name and then wrapped his arms around her and held her as if he’d never let her go.
Chapter Twenty
Twilight Guardians Page 26