Lover Arisen, page 31
Rahvyn saved me, too, Lassiter thought. But she’d done that way before now.
And it was strange. He hadn’t known she was coming into his life, or what she would do now that she was here. Though he’d been able to see that gunshot going into the bouncer at Dandelion so clearly—he hadn’t seen Nate being killed and what Rahvyn had done in response.
“Well, she wasn’t the only one saving people tonight,” V said in a quieter voice. “Xcor and I know what you did for Balz at that bookshop. There’s no way that human woman plugged up an arterial bleed with just the life line on her palm.”
Lassiter shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fine. But Xcor wants to talk to you.”
“Then Xcor can come and find me whenever he wants.”
There was a moment of awkwardness, and Lassiter frankly enjoyed the way V squirmed under the surface of all his intellectual, better-than, BDSM-hard-ass. The brother couldn’t handle the fact that he felt indebted to a fallen angel who was perpetually on his last nerve, but he also couldn’t ignore the devastation that would have happened if Balthazar, valued member of the Band of Bastards, had bled out on the floor of that messy storage room in the back of that bookstore.
Everyone at the mansion would have been affected, and some of them permanently.
V was sooo stuck.
“You know,” Lassiter murmured, “I really wish I had brought my cell phone right now. Your face is such a picture. It’s the kind of thing I’d like to have as my lock screen.”
* * *
Rahvyn did not know what woke her up. Nor did she know that she had fallen asleep.
But then she recognized that there were voices. Just outside the door to her healing room.
As she sat up in the bed, she pushed her hair out of her face.
You’re saying that female is as powerful as my mahmen?
Now another male: No, I’m not.
Now murmuring.
The second voice stuck with her, and gave her a surge of awareness: That male with the strange, beautiful eyes and the blond-and-black hair had come to see her… and it was his absence, rather than his arrival or the voices, that had disturbed her unexpected repose.
His presence had eased her. His departure had roused her—
She is the Gift of Light.
As the next words he uttered registered, Rahvyn felt a cold rush hit her head, and when the chill permeated her body, she wrapped her arms around herself.
Those words… spoken in that tone of awe. She recognized the latter, even as she dreaded it. She had caught a similar tilting of emotions in all kinds of different syllables, uttered by different males, different females. Ever since she had been a young, and “oddities,” as her parents had called them, had occurred in her presence, there had been hushed conversation, and darting eyes that had returned to her quickly, and wonderment and reverence among the villages back in the past, in the Old Country.
And now she was here, in what was the present for those brave males outside in that white corridor, an ocean’s distance, as well as several centuries, away from where she had been birthed and lived for a time… and the same thing was happening.
The male who had come to see her was wrong, however.
He was very dangerously wrong.
She was not the Gift of Light.
Perhaps she had once been. But the night of her cousin’s brutal death, when the loss of her innocence had been so violently imparted, had changed that.
Closing her eyes, she eavesdropped upon the rest of what was said. When the fighters dispersed, she thought perhaps the one with those arresting eyes would come in once again. He did not.
And that was just as well.
She needed to leave this place and time, and the fewer ties she had, the easier that would be. She did not belong here, with these people, in this year.
She feared that she did not belong anywhere.
But at least she could not hurt anyone if she departed. These kind souls here, of which there were many, would be so much safer without her.
Though she had a feeling it would break her heart to be without them.
Especially the one they called fallen angel.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A dawn of pinks and yellows rose in Caldwell’s eastern sky, the rays spearing through the dark gray petticoat of cloud cover that was departing along with the night’s black velvet skirt.
As Erika stood on the shallow front porch of her townhouse, she had a steaming coffee cup in her palms, and an ache between her legs that was the kind of thing that pulled a secret smile out of her mouth. And while the other people in her neighborhood headed off to work, she stayed where she was.
Enjoying the sunrise. Which was the most beautiful one she had ever seen.
Yes, the colors were especially arresting, so vibrant and bright, the hard edge of the weather front providing a unique set of atmospheric conditions resulting in the brilliant display of chromatics. But it could have only been a smudge of yellow at the sole of the sky and the sunrise would have made her breathless.
She hadn’t expected to see the sun again. There had been too many opportunities to die the night before—and it turned out that a couple of stiff reminders of a person’s mortality was like being hungry when you sat down to dinner. Everything was more vital, more special, more extraordinary, afterward.
She felt positively reborn.
Then again, she’d had sex for the last six hours straight with a man—a male—who not only knew how to use his spectacular body… but had taken allllll kinds of care to make sure she knew how beautiful hers was to him.
Lifting her hand, she slipped it inside her bathrobe and ran her fingertips over the uneven scars below her collarbone. The t-shirt had stayed on the whole time. He’d more than figured out how to work around it, however.
When she dropped her arm, she exhaled long and slow, and watched a neighbor from the pair of units next door back down his shallow drive. The curl of steam coming out of his tailpipe made her wonder how cold it was. Sure, she was in her bathrobe, but her hair was wet from the shower she’d just taken—and given the way the man looked at her like she was nuts as he passed by, she had a feeling she really should be in a parka with dry goldilocks.
The next sip of her coffee reminded her of the dead-soldier cups on her desk in the Bull Pen, and sure enough, as she peered into the mug, there was barely an inch left in the bottom. Turning away from the show in the sky, she went back inside—and in a rare moment of optimism, she decided those dark clouds leaving to the north were a sign that things were going to get better.
How? She hadn’t a goddamn clue.
On that note, she threw the dead bolt and tiptoed through the living room. Out in the kitchen, she was equally quiet as she went over to her coffee machine. A filter full of Dunkin’ later, she was sitting at her table with her laptop propped open and a fresh steaming mug at her elbow.
It felt utterly bizarre to check email, like she had hacked into someone else’s account, someone else’s life. So much had happened, and she supposed it was like coming home from a months’ long vacation and feeling like you were lost among the familiar.
Yeah, except her night had been about as far from R&R as sunbathing in a hurricane.
As she went through her in-box, there was the usual spam and then a couple of work things. It dawned on her that she didn’t have a personal email, just this CPD-issued one. Then again, who was she emailing outside of her job?
Sitting back and cradling the warmth of the mug in her hands, she frowned as she looked around the counters and cabinets of her antiquated kitchen. Nothing was out of order and there was no clutter. The same was true for the rest of the townhouse. But there were also no personal items anywhere. No photographs of friends, families, or pets, no mementos from vacations to warm places or cold places, dry places or high places. No knickknacks. No art. Just bare walls, clean floors, and windows that had the drapes pulled.
And not just because there was a vampire sleeping in her basement.
Funny, how she kept using that word. She found herself wanting to get used to it.
Then again, she wasn’t sure why she bothered. She didn’t believe that Balthazar was going to leave her with her memories.
She believed he wanted to, but there was no way the others were going to let him.
Picturing that guy with the goatee and then the blond-and-black-haired whatever-he’d-been who’d helped her save Balthazar, she considered, from their point of view, the happy idea that there was a human woman, who worked for the CPD—in homicide, no less—out in the world with the knowledge that there were vampires in Caldwell.
Not going to happen.
They were not the Mafia, it was true, but the same rules had to apply for them to continue their fight against those shadows, against that demon.
Refocusing on her laptop, she knew it was just a matter of time before she was wiped clean, so she went into Microsoft Word and opened a new document. She hadn’t been an English major, not even close, so as she put her fingers on the keys, she was not going to try to write Shakespeare.
But she didn’t have to.
She was rusty, struggling to find the right words, but at least a rough chronology of the last week or so kept her on track. As she went along, not even adding paragraphs, the periods like tent poles holding the narrative up, she didn’t know whether this would help her later or hurt. Back when her memories had been tampered with, anytime she got too close to what had been covered up, the headaches had been one hell of a punishment.
But at least she would know it happened, she told herself.
Oh, who was she kidding.
She was trying to make sure she had a record of the male who was in her basement, and it was ironic that someone as unforgettable as him was in danger of being lost to her mind. At the end of the day, she just wanted some permanence to the fact that she had known, in the midst of the cold, cruel world…
Well, what love felt like.
* * *
Balthazar came awake in a violent surge, and as he sat upright, he brought his gun with him, the grab-and-point as reflexive as opening his eyes—
“It’s me! Don’t shoot!”
The instant he heard Erika’s voice at the base of the cellar stairs, he diverted the weapon so it was pointed at the washing machine and dryer. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry—”
She lifted a pair of coffee mugs over her head like it was a stickup. And then she laughed a little. “Don’t feel bad. I did the same thing the other night at the Bull Pen.”
“Bull Pen?” he said as he tucked the gun back under the lip of the sofa.
“It’s what we call the area I work in when I’m at headquarters.” She came over and gave him one of the mugs. “And it was the night before last. A cleaning person came in after hours and startled me—God, it feels like a month ago. I still have to file a report on the incident.”
As he took a sip, he studied her carefully, but she seemed okay as she sat with him. Actually, better than okay. She was radiantly beautiful, her lips swollen from his mouth, her hair drying around the shoulders of a blue bathrobe, her feet in slippers.
“I think I know what your favorite color is,” he murmured as he pulled the duvet she’d brought down earlier up a little higher on his stomach.
In spite of how many times he’d made love to her, he was hard again. Ready to take her again. He’d marked her inside and out, but he wanted his fresh scent to be on her. In her.
“Oh, really? So what color is it?”
“Blue.” He patted the couch, then reached out for the hem of the robe as she sat with him. “Definitely blue.”
Their eyes met, and he felt a sorrowful yearning that made no sense. It wasn’t as if she were on the other side of the globe—she was right in front of him. And yet all he could sense was a distance so great he would never be able to close it.
“Hi,” he said softly.
The smile that hit her face was small, a secret for only him to know, and he loved that. “Hi.”
When they fell silent again, she cleared her throat. “How’s the coffee?”
“Perfect.”
“I didn’t know whether you liked sugar or cream.”
“I like it any way you make it for me—”
As he stopped talking and looked around the cellar, she said, “What’s wrong?”
Like an idiot, he twisted to the side and checked out the cushions he’d been on. “I… was asleep.”
“You sure were. When I woke up, I was careful not to disturb you.”
“No, I mean I was asleep.” He patted his bare chest with his hand. “I didn’t dream.”
“Well, that can sometimes be a good thing—”
“The demon didn’t come to me. She left me alone.” He pegged her with his eyes. “Did you dream of anything?”
“No, not that I can recall.” Erika sat forward. “Wait, does this mean… the demon is gone from you?”
“I don’t know. But every day that I slept, she’s shown up.” He shied away from any details concerning what the female had done to him in his dreams. “Not just now though.”
“Maybe she’s fallen off the edge of the world,” Erika offered.
“Maybe.”
Except they weren’t that lucky. Still, it was the first time he hadn’t been hounded since that December night and what a frickin’ relief.
“Clearly, you’re my lucky charm,” he said with a smile.
“I wouldn’t put too much faith in me. But I’m happy to be of service.”
As she ducked her head in a mock bow, he thought about the situation she was in with him in her house, in her life. Making love to her. Warming the couch in her basement and tucking a comforter that smelled like her around his naked, well-used body.
Before you leave me, let me know all of you.
He was fooling himself, wasn’t he. To think that there was any kind of future for them, full of countless hours like this, sitting together in her cellar. The fantasy had seemed so real when they’d been pleasuring each other. Now, it was back to being just figments in his mind. In his heart.
“You’re looking really serious all of a sudden,” she murmured. “Penny for your thoughts—or will I need a dollar?”
Taking another draw off the rim of her mug, he tasted the very best coffee he had ever had.
“I grew up in the Old Country,” he said. “Which is England, Wales, and Scotland for you. It was my cousins, Syn and Syphon, and me for the longest time, and then with another male, Zypher. After a while, we crossed paths with a fighter who was… well, he was a force of nature. He still is.”
“Who did you fight then?”
As they drank the coffee she’d made, he told her all about the Scribe Virgin and the Omega, the Lessening Society, the innocent civilians, the aristocracy, the King who would not lead. While the words tumbled out of his mouth, he was aware of rushing through the story, and yes, he edited things out. The Band of Bastards had been no one’s heroes. They’d survived in the woods with no permanent home, fighting because they liked to, feeding because they had to, fucking when they wanted to. Back then, he’d thought it was the only existence he needed, but then they’d come to Caldwell and things had changed.
“So there are vampires still in Europe?” she asked, her expression riveted.
“Not many.”
“And the lessers are those shadows?”
“No, they’re de-souled humans. The Omega used to induct them into his society, and they served him.” He shook his head. “You want to talk about nasty. They smelled like baby powder and roadkill—”
“The farmhouse, the other sites!” She motioned in the air. “The blood everywhere, the oil stains—that’s what it smelled like. Homicide’s been called to a number of these scenes over the years, and I never knew what they were. No one knew.”
“That’s the Omega. Or was. He’s no more. He was eradicated recently, thank fuck. Although”—he lifted his mug in toast—“naturally we have someone new we’re dealing with.”
“The brunette.”
“Yup.” He took a deep breath. “So that’s my story. I serve my King and my leader—he’s the one who was with us in the surgical RV, the one with the lip? I live with them and their families—well, I did until Devina got her hooks into me and I moved out. Anyway, that’s that. Oh, and yes, I’ve stolen some things along the way.”
“And given the money to charity.”
“That’s right.”
“For which you don’t feel bad.”
“Nope.”
Instead of getting on him, she smiled a little. “I can’t condone that.”
“I know. Just as long as you don’t expect me to turn over a new leaf.”
They both laughed, but it didn’t last, and that was when he knew she was thinking the same thing he was: That their future was limited.
“Now you know everything about me.” He paused. When she didn’t say anything, he tensed a little. “Yup. Everything.”
In the quiet that followed, she seemed to age before his very eyes, her face growing drawn, her eyes getting grim.
He stayed silent, hoping she would open up to him and tell him what he already knew because he’d been inside her mind. He wanted to offer comfort in the face of her tragedy, but unless she chose to welcome him into her sacred suffering and loss, he couldn’t do that.
Her privacy needed to be respected, even after he’d unintentionally breached it. All she’d willingly shared was a date.
“Quid pro quo, huh,” she said tightly.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
Her head nodded slowly, in a way that he wasn’t sure he could interpret. “So what do you want to know.”
There was no beating around that bush—and if their circumstances had been different, he might have eased into the subject. Like, started out by asking her about her job. Or how long she’d lived in the townhouse.
Instead, he set them both upon a cliff. And jumped off first.
