Lover Arisen, page 28
He moved himself over to the base of the bed, but he did so on a float over the flooring so as not to risk waking her up with any footfalls. Her body was so slight under the blanket that had been pulled up over her, and she was utterly still, in a way that made him think she didn’t sleep much and was catching up on all that she’d missed. He didn’t think she had been given a sedative—there was no IV in her arm.
Yeah, going by the dark circles under her eyes, she was just exhausted, and he wondered if maybe she finally felt safe enough to sleep here. They were underground, after all, in a secured location.
Maybe she needed to live somewhere other than Luchas House. Someplace where nobody could make her scared again.
Someplace on a mountaintop where humans didn’t go.
Someplace that didn’t exist on any maps and that, if somebody happened to set foot on the property, had an extra layer of magic security around it that would confuse any interlopers and blur their eyes and ruin their sense of direction.
Someplace with soft beds and good, wholesome food…
And an all-powerful angel who could spirit her away to the Other Side in the blink of an eye if she were ever threatened.
He still wasn’t sure why she didn’t live with Sahvage and Mae. He’d heard that they’d asked her to move in, but she’d maintained the new couple needed their privacy.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know anybody was in here—”
Lassiter wrenched around and threw out an energy buffer before he got a visual on the uniformed nurse who’d entered the room. As the female was frozen where she stood and then levitated about a foot off the ground, her eyes went wide and so did her mouth.
“Shit,” he said under his breath as he quickly lowered her back to her feet and released the hold.
She stumbled to the side and caught herself on the wall. “Oh… dear.”
“Sorry about that.”
“I, ah…” Her blond hair was pinned up under her cap and she patted at it. “I did not know this was a restricted patient. I am just here to make sure she doesn’t need anything.”
The words were mumbled, and he was fairly certain she had no clue what she was saying.
“Worry not.” He smiled at her. “And is she okay?”
“Ah, she fainted. Back in the room of…” The nurse stopped herself. “I’m sorry, who are you to her?”
Lassiter lifted his hand and calmed the female’s mind. Then he sent her back out of the room—although not before he searched her memories and reassured himself that, yup, as far as the medical staff were concerned, Rahvyn had nothing physically wrong with her.
They all just thought she’d fainted at the bedside of the young male who had made an absolutely miraculous recovery.
None of the rank and file staff had any idea what she had done.
Just as well.
The fewer who knew, the better.
Lassiter reached out a hand—but retracted his arm. It didn’t seem right to touch her without her knowledge. And also, he was in awe of her.
He should go.
Over on the wall, there was a plain clock, with a white face and black numbers. The little and the big hands were black, the second hand was thin as a line and red as blood as it raced around. He watched the measure of time do its work and told himself he really did need to take off.
But God, it was going to be hard to leave her. Now… or at any time.
* * *
In the kitchen at Erika’s townhouse, Balz came in from the garage. He’d gone through all the rooms and found nothing, but a pervasive sense of unease made him wonder whether they should stay at her place or try to find something that was a better defensible position. Then again, the threat he was most worried about was metaphysical, so like any zip code, set of walls, or even fucking bunker was going to make a difference?
The good news was he wasn’t tired. At. All.
“There’s nothing here,” she said softly.
“Not that I can tell,” he said as he glanced at her.
She’d pulled on a pair of jeans and shoved her feet into some boots. Her hair was tied back as well. Meanwhile, he was still in a towel and barefoot—but he could dematerialize out if he had to. Not that he would leave her.
“You have the keys to the Honda,” he said, even though he already knew the answer.
“Yes.”
He had a brief idea that he could bunk her in at the Black Dagger Brotherhood mansion. He wasn’t using his bedroom, for fuck’s sake. But how would that work? They drive there and he’d just throw her out the car door and tell her to ask for Fritz to take her upstairs to his crib?
Besides, he had no idea what he was picking up on. He felt as though there were a thousand of some enemy outside the townhouse, but—
The subtle noise was so soft, it was almost impossible to hear over the aggression roaring in his ears, in his blood, in his body. When it repeated, though, it gave him something to track, and he turned around and looked through into the living room. He had to wait an interval before it recurred, and this time, he went over to where Erika’s purse was.
“I think it’s your phone,” he said gruffly. “On vibrate.”
Erika hustled past him and glanced around before putting her weapon down on the coffee table. “I don’t have mine on silent, though.”
Opening the bag, she went in with her hands, taking out a practical brown wallet, a packet of Kleenex, a roll of Certs. A notepad. Couple of pens. Receipts. Lipstick. And was that—
“Is that a parking ticket?” he asked.
“I had no choice. I had to get some coffee.”
“Isn’t there a professional courtesy thing?”
“No, and there shouldn’t be. If you park wrong, you should get ticketed.”
As more crap emerged out of the purse, he decided it was like a clown car for debris, and in spite of his on-alert routine, he found the mess endearing. She was so damned put together, her house so neat, her opinions so direct, her professionalism so obvious, the idea that there was some chaos under the facade made him feel like he didn’t have to be so perfect.
And good job on that, as he was far from an A+ on anyone’s grading scale.
“No, it’s not mine.” She held up an iPhone. “And I only have one—oh, wait.”
She seemed to unzip something. And then she took out a Samsung phone he recognized.
As it vibrated in her hand, she frowned. “I don’t know whose this—”
“It’s mine.” So V knew where he was. Then again, was it really that hard to guess Balz wouldn’t leave her? “That’s my phone.”
“How did it get in my purse?”
She turned the thing over to him—and the second he went in and read the text, he was glad he’d taken all those guns from the garage with them.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We need to stay here.” Shelter in place… which was V’s formal way of saying hang-wherever-the-fuck-you-were. “And I have to find out what’s going on—is there somewhere you can lock yourself in? A bathroom with no windows?”
Although like that was really going to help if there were shadows popping up all over Caldwell, particularly around vampires?
Erika stepped right up into his face. “You’ve got the wrong woman if you think I’m going to damsel-in-distress in some tub while you stomp around and get shot in the back because you’re undefended.”
Balz blinked. And then one and only one thing went through his mind.
Do not tell her you love her right now.
Even though it was his God’s honest truth—
Oh, shit, he really didn’t want that coming out of his mouth right now.
“What,” she demanded. “You might as well tell me because somehow, I don’t think tonight could get any worse.”
His eyes traced her face and he shook his head ruefully. What the hell was he going to do with her?
What the hell was he going to do without her?
“Don’t bet on it,” he muttered. “Worse is always a possibility.”
“Well, all I know is, where you go, I’m going.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And if you have a problem with that, I’m not really interested in hearing about it.”
He cursed. Then he thought of her upstairs, guarding his six.
With another round of swearing, he went to the living room and came back with the duffle bag full of weapons. “Fine. I want to go clear your basement.”
Erika nodded once. “The door’s right behind you. And I’ll go first.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
How had the Omega changed its mind?
As the male walked down the city street, he was naked and impervious to the cold. He was also invisible to the few humans who were passing in cars. But he was alive.
With the wind blowing through his blond hair and across his bare skin, the sensations were distant and also foreign—and he wondered how long he had been in the miasma, the torturous void, the black oily Hell where he had known pain to the point where he had become pain.
No form, no function, just an agony that was somehow self-aware…
In spite of who he’d been sired by, he’d never thought much about Dhunhd. Now that he’d died, he knew firsthand that it existed—and not in terms of his father’s private quarters, but rather the eternal damnation that humans waxed poetic about and that vampires, too, sought to avoid.
He wasn’t sure why he was back here.
Striding by a parked car, he backtracked to check out the license plate. The sticker in the corner had a date that made sense to him. It was just over two years past when he had “died.”
No, not died. Not in the conventional sense. Rotted out, was more like it, on that mattress, unable to fight the tide of putrefaction that had seeped through and out of his body: Forsaken by his sire. Stabbed and left to degrade and decay in Hell. Abandoned like an experiment gone wrong—or worse, forgotten like a toy that had been explored, mastered, and discarded.
He’d wanted to think his sire had played a long game with his “birth” and the embedding of him in his infant state into the rarefied bosom of that aristocratic family. It had been a very strategic move on the Omega’s part, allowing him to infiltrate the enemy from the very moment of his first awareness, setting his son on a course not only to be trained by the Black Dagger Brotherhood, but to fight with them.
He had been the chosen one, not a lesser initiated into the Lessening Society, but the blooded son, the heir to power, the special gift to the earth.
When the son had been ready, he had assumed control of the coordinated vengeance against all vampires, and the first thing he had done was kill the family who had raised him. And then, because he had been in the mansions of all the aristocracy, he had taken the army of slayers out to do what they did best. He himself had led the slaughter, and nearly all of the glymera had been wiped out. The resulting societal chaos had been almost enough to topple the Blind King, and that auspicious beginning had been as he’d intended to go on. He’d been determined to eradicate all of that species he’d been reared among.
But somewhere along the line…
His father had become the enemy. The son just hadn’t known it until far too late.
When he had arrived down in Dhunhd, he’d been shocked, and he’d suffered, and he was now a hundred thousand years older than he had been before. Forged in the fire of the agony, he was harder. Stronger. And he couldn’t begin to guess about the motivation for him being renewed.
From a tactical point of view, it was stupid. The Omega was powerful and terrifying, and all of that was in the son—who was now disaffected and pissed off at having had to perpetually stew in the kind of pain that came when you were hit by a car and every bone in your body was broken. Why would anyone volunteer for an enemy that knew so much about—
The male stopped. Looked up to the sky. Looked down to his feet.
Then he turned in a circle. All the way around.
“Father?” he said quietly.
Closing his eyes, he reached out with his instincts, searching for…
His lids raised. And then he frowned when what was in front of him came into focus. It was the exit to a multi-level parking garage, the “Do Not Enter” sign glowing red above an arch in the concrete walling.
He couldn’t sense the Omega. Anywhere.
Back before his death, he’d known his sire’s presence sure as he recognized his own reflection, the dogged awareness of the evil who had spawned him like the sky above him, the ground beneath his feet, the air around him.
A law of nature.
And now… all he sensed was an absence of that particular chord within the musical arrangement of his reality. A bass note that was gone.
Had the Brotherhood finally done it? Had they eliminated that which had hunted them?
Twisting about, he glanced behind himself and tried to pick up on the echoes of any lessers…
Unless his resurrection had wiped out his ability to recognize the footprints of evil in Caldwell… it seemed like he was all alone. The sole survivor of some kind of Armageddon that had wiped out not only the Lessening Society, but its very origins, its creator and master.
Putting his hands on his stomach, he ran his palms down the ribbing of muscle and briefly clasped his sex. Then he touched his face. His throat. His pecs.
He had a substance. He had form. He had thoughts and free will.
Was it possible that the Omega had somehow known he wouldn’t survive whatever had happened? And in a last-ditch effort to have a part of him live on, carry on… he had brought back that which he had forsaken?
As the male considered where he’d woken up, he realized the bedding platform had been the Omega’s. The private quarters… had been the Omega’s. He knew this because he had been summoned there from time to time.
He wasn’t forsaken, he realized. He was the evil’s goddamn lifeboat.
Was it conceivable that he had not been discarded, but that his rotting had been tied to the Omega’s accelerating decline?
He would never know.
He was here now. That he did know.
And he knew one other thing.
That smoking hot brunette had helped bring him back to the earth. He had no clue who the hell she was or why she’d been going on about true love and other fantasies of a romantic variety. He didn’t care. Down in his father’s private quarters, the male had been aware, but going nowhere until she had summoned him—and she had some tricks up her own sleeve, apparently.
If their paths crossed again, he was going to enjoy submitting her.
But right now, he needed a plan. He needed resources. He needed…
The male let his head fall back. There was no seeing any stars, assuming they were not covered by clouds. Too much ambient light. He was sure they were up there, though, and in any event, their presence did not depend on his eyes for validation. They just were.
Like destiny.
And fate.
He was back in Caldwell. He didn’t know how much time he had, what his life span was, what kinds of powers he could marshal.
He was his father’s son, however.
Picturing Wrath, son of Wrath’s face, the male started to smile.
His purpose couldn’t be any clearer—although it would not be to honor the entity who’d brought him into existence, failed him, and then resurrected him. Finishing what he had started before things had gotten off course would be for his own satisfaction.
“Thank you, father mine,” Lash growled into the night, “I’ll take it from here.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
As Erika led Balthazar down into her basement, she held her breath. She’d turned the light on before she’d started the descent and the good news was that there were no interior walls in her cellar. Just steel supports that were four inches in diameter.
Easy to look around.
And there was nothing behind the open staircase or through the doorway into the utility bath.
“It’s clear,” she said. Not that that was necessary.
While he cased the place for himself, she saw the subterranean square footage with fresh eyes and was glad she’d finished it—well, sort of finished things with carpeting and some furniture and a fresh coat of paint. When she’d done the renovation, about two years ago, it had seemed like an unnecessary extravagance considering the only thing she did on the lower level was her laundry. But back then she’d been recently promoted to homicide, she’d had a little extra money, and she’d figured as long as she didn’t get precious about her choices, it was affordable. And maybe she’d been trying to turn the townhouse into a proper home. Which had seemed like a healthy thing to do.
Yeah, total failure on that one. No amount of Benjamin Moore was going to morph the three levels and a roof into a “home.” It was still her apartment, her camp-out, her tent. Her temporary, rather than her permanent.
He checked out her laundry machines, and looked behind the couch even though there was only an inch between it and the concrete wall. Inspected the furnace and the water heater. Even opened the electrical panel.
“My contractor really wanted me to throw some Sheetrock over the mechanicals and put in a proper dropped ceiling.” She shrugged even though his eyes weren’t on her. “But I’m cheap by nature.”
She’d also known about halfway through the painting and flooring that the real goal of the reno was not going to be reached, no matter how many pipes and electrical wires were covered.
“So what’s the plan,” she said.
When he just shook his head, she wasn’t surprised. They’d gone through all the rooms, checked all the closets, and made sure all windows and doors were locked. But his grim expression hadn’t improved and that duffle bag of weapons he’d brought with him suggested he was no more comfortable than he’d been before they’d started clearing each level.
“We’re going to stay down here.” He went over and put the cache of guns by the couch. “Until I get word back from the Brotherhood.”
