Mine, page 6
Things were always most vivid just before death. And as he considered his turbulent emotions, he put his hand over the ache upon his heart and certainly felt as though he were dying. Yet he couldn’t remember ever being this alive.
“Messy business, this bonding…”
At the sound of a stick breaking behind him, his breath caught and he twisted around, hope bursting through the storm clouds of his pessimism, a brilliant color in the midst of his gray numbness—
Though his visitor remained within the shadows, his symphath side recognized their calling card.
The deflation was immediate. This was not the female who haunted him night and day, stalking his equilibrium through the alleys of his conscious purpose and distractions, hunting his sense of superiority as a male who was not to be toyed with, killing his coldness with a heat that came from sexual need and soul-deep yearning.
“To what do I owe this honor,” he drawled in a slow cadence. “I rather thought our paths would not cross again, given your distaste of me.”
There was a pause. And then Xhexania, his blooded, estranged sister, stepped out into the clearing. She was dressed head to foot in black leather, a gun holster around her hips, an ammo belt running across her torso, a knife strapped on her thigh. With her short hair and her hard gray eyes, one might have mistaken her for a Brother.
“I’m surprised you knew it was me,” she said. “I’m downwind.”
He motioned above his own head. “Your grid.”
Her cold stare narrowed on him, as if she were offended that he could read her emotions in the manner of their kind. But come now. In this, at least, he was not being deliberately offensive. All symphaths saw the inner components of all sentient beings, their anger, sadness, joy, and fear, among other whims of feeling, depicted in a three-dimensional grid that followed them around like a comic strip thought bubble.
Hers… was obvious as well as alarming.
And then there was the fact that clearly she no longer had the ability to block others from reading the thing.
“Must you,” she muttered.
Blade waved his hand in a dismissal. “You already know your grid is collapsing. Not that you like to dwell upon such a truth. No, no, you shall just go along, hoping it fixes itself, ignoring what Rehvenge no doubt has hammered you about, seducing yourself into a false sense of security that just because you’re sleeping again, somehow what you wish to be true is actually happening—”
“I didn’t come here for this bullshit,” she snapped.
“Of that I’m quite sure.” He turned toward the view once again, offering her an undefended position. “But you did come in search of me—and having found me, can you truly be surprised at what greeting you receive?”
Her voice lowered to a growl. “You shouldn’t offer me your back like that. Not in my current mood, at any rate.”
On the contrary, she would be doing him such a favor if she killed him. No Fade for those who escorted themselves unto their own grave, so he was a bit trapped. And it was funny. The afterlife had never interested him, but since meeting his wolven, he had found a strange preoccupation with what came next.
Perhaps in their next life, however it presented itself, they would meet again, and this time, they could…
Except he had been a wicked male. All the nights of his life. Or most of them, at any rate. Therefore, no Fade for him anyway.
“So what say you.” He did not bother to keep the exhaustion out of his voice. “Why seek me out? I have kept our bargain.” Or was it more a vow? Yes, a vow it had been. “I have not seen the wolven called Lydia Susi, as you requested. Am I not a good boy? I want a cookie. Or perhaps a merit badge.”
Dear God, would this pain in his chest never cease, he wondered.
“You didn’t tell me about Daniel and you,” Xhex said.
The wind sustained a sudden increase in strength, and as the cold made his cheeks and nose burn, his blood-red robes undulated around his body. Following their twisting agitation, he turned unto his sister.
Blade cocked a brow. “You did not know that Daniel walked in upon myself and the wolven you have taken so much interest in? Quite a scene. The man was very offended. He does not share well, evidently, not that she had offered me aught.”
“Lydia doesn’t want you.”
“Oh, she made that very clear.” He smiled in a nasty fashion. “Thank you for reminding me of the fact. How kind of you.”
Could his sister read his heartbreak? he wondered. If she was able to, no doubt she would assume he was projecting the agony onto his grid as a way to distract her or play with her. There was no way she would believe how awful he felt.
He didn’t believe how awful he felt.
Xhex took a step closer. Unlike him, her clothes were intended for fighting, so there was nothing loose upon her for the wind to grab hold over: She was a solid block of menace, all those weapons at rest, but on the verge should she decide to use them.
“You didn’t tell me that you and Daniel had worked together.”
Instantly, Blade shut down his grid, clapping shut his mind and emotions, something he should have done the instant she arrived. “You seemed to care primarily about keeping me away from her. Not her mate. What does my history with him matter?”
Those gray eyes narrowed even further, as if, in her mind, she was maiming him in some inventive manner.
“Daniel told Lydia you were his boss. What did he do for you?”
Memories stirred under his lockdown, images of that man, so capable and aggressive, yet so logical and in control, crystal clear. Daniel Joseph had been a rare find indeed, eager to fight, but no wild card with his firepower, his path of self-destruction requiring precisely the kinds of targets Blade’s ultimate goal had been able to provide. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Genetics. What a jolly good lie, the perfect camouflage for Blade’s purposes, a mental placeholder he had inserted in his operatives’ minds, to give them a context for their missions that made sense for their version of the world. If he had attempted to hire them to work for a half vampire, half symphath, to destroy the labs that had injured his sister so grievously, as a way of expunging his limitless self-loathing? Well, that would have been a hard sell, wouldn’t it.
He had engineered what he’d needed. As usual.
“He no longer works for me,” he murmured.
“That isn’t what I asked you.”
“That is all that is relevant for our purposes. His and mine. Yours and mine.”
The final lab that he had been able to locate was in fact under his feet as they spoke. But he had it on good authority—Daniel and Lydia’s—that there were no experiments being conducted therein on vampires, no torturous protocols, no exploratory surgeries, pregnancies, disease transmissions. Therefore he had no business with the enterprise and thus had let it stand.
And now he was retired.
Mayhap that was why he had cleaved to the wolven so. A new purpose.
“You know something,” he heard himself say. “It is occurring to me that I have lied to you.”
“Ask me if I’m surprised.”
Inclining his head in deference, he continued, “When I told you I would not be in the presence of the wolven, I meant as long as her mate is alive. As soon as he is gone—”
“Don’t you dare go after him,” Xhex growled.
“Oh, relax. That disease of his is going to do the job, not me.” Blade shrugged. “And before you accuse me of human engineering, I had nothing to do with his cancer. You can thank the Marlboro man for that—”
“What did he do for you.” The sound of a blade unsheathing was a musical note that seemed fitting in the icy air. “And I’m not asking again.”
Blade glanced down at the weapon in his sister’s hand. The silver dagger gleamed in the darkness, just like the valley’s lake did.
“Just what do you intend to do with that?” he inquired. “And before you answer, I will remind you that making threats against a symphath is a dangerous waste of time—”
She moved just as fast as he imagined she would: One second, she was before him. The next, she was on him, grabbing him by the throat and pressing the tip of the blade to his abdomen.
Her eyes were clear as the night sky. And just as cold. “Even after Daniel is dead, you’re staying away from that female.”
Blade drew air in with difficulty. Which was a pleasant distraction from his heartache. “Why do you care, sister mine,” he choked out. “She is not kin to you. You didn’t even know her before this interlude—she told me herself.”
“You ruined my life,” came the harsh reply. “You killed me on the inside when you put me into that lab twenty years ago, and I won’t let your casual cruelty enjoy another chew toy. She doesn’t deserve that—especially after the way fate is already fucking her mate.”
Opening his mouth to respond, he had some kind of intention to utter some kind of denial. But then the strangest thing happened: Tears welled in his eyes—and as Xhex’s face registered shock, she obviously noticed them, too.
As a single, blood-red drop fell onto his cheek, he would have wiped it away, but really, trying to hide that which was already obvious was a waste of effort.
“I am so sorry,” he said in a hoarse voice. “That I hurt you.”
Xhex blinked once. Twice. Then she recoiled as if he had slapped her, her hold on his throat releasing even as that blade stayed right where it was.
“You sick fuck.” She shook her head in disbelief. “You really think crocodile tears are gonna work with me?”
“Is that what they are,” he whispered as a wolf howled off in the distance.
Well, was this not irony at work. The one time he showed himself truly unto his blood, his credibility was picked from his pocket by the past—
“No!” someone shouted. “Don’t kill him!”
EIGHT
BACK AT THE Phalen house, Daniel was arching over his female on their bed, going for her mouth, kissing her deep and slow. The sensations were hot as fuck, and in the core of his consciousness, he recognized that it had been a long, long time since he’d felt the heat and the anticipation this clearly… except wait, that didn’t make sense?
It hadn’t been long, at all. They’d had a shower together before they’d gone to the apple orchard. And even though his side of things didn’t work anymore, that didn’t stop him from thoroughly enjoying the pleasure he could give her—
Looking down between their bodies, he was astonished. For months and months, he had been impotent, the treatments robbing him of any kind of erection.
Holy shit, he was hard.
How the hell was this happening—
Whatever, he wasn’t wasting time on questions. You didn’t ask the lottery to double check if you won Mega Millions.
As his cock throbbed at the front of his hips, he was acutely aware that his woman was totally naked underneath him, her thighs split wide to accommodate him, her breath ragged from what he was doing to her, her nipples brushing his pecs, her hands grabbing his back.
I got you, he told her as he restarted the kissing.
Swallowing her moans, he was beyond ready for what was coming next, the penetration, the pumping, the orgasm when he came inside of—
This is not real.
The conviction slammed into him with the impact of a physical assault, and he broke off their mouths to glance around for a flesh-and-blood intruder. There was none.
Daniel? Don’t stop.
As his wolven’s voice resonated in his ear, it all felt real… yet the nagging sense that reality had morphed on him somehow persisted. To try and ground himself, he noted that everything in the bedroom was where it was supposed to be, the bureaus, mirror, and pictures in the same places, the windows that looked over the back meadow in the correct position, the door to the marble bathroom partially open and letting a little light in, as it always did when they went to sleep.
There was just one thing that made him uneasy. Down on the floor, right by the bed, there was a pile of his clothes: a shirt, a sweatshirt, a jacket. Vaguely, he remembered taking them off—but no. Someone else had removed them from his upper body. Someones, actually—
Please don’t stop, Daniel…
He refocused on his female, and told himself that he needed to chill. Why the hell was he ruining this chance to be with her properly? Especially when he didn’t know when it would come again—
Daniel, she said as she stroked the flop of his hair back from his face. Oh, God… I need you. I ache.
I know, he told her. And I’m going to take care of you so good.
Back when he’d rolled over on top of her, he’d had plans to make them both wait. It had been so fucking long, too long, and he wanted it to be perfect, this reunion. Finally, after all these months, he was going to—
Why was his hair in his eyes?
Daniel, now. Please. I just want to feel you inside.
Fuck, yes, he forced himself to respond. I’ma make it good for you.
Kicking all the weird thinking away, he leaned on one elbow, and reached down to his hips. It was the most natural thing in the world, to go for his cock so he could get it positioned right for the thrust in—
The moment the thick, hard length hit his palm, he halted.
Daniel… she choked out. I’ve missed you—
Don’t cry, I’m right here…
No, this was not right at all, he thought with despair as a tear rolled down her cheek and onto the white pillow underneath her head.
Where have you been? she asked.
I don’t know…
Straining his neck, he looked down between them again, seeing her breasts with their tight tips, and her belly, and her graceful hips.
And in his hand, an erection that he knew didn’t make sense—
Make me yours, Lydia said through her tears. I’ve missed you.
A sense of impending doom made his body shake: He was running out of time. If he wanted to be with her, he had to move fast.
I love you, he told her.
Bringing the head of his—
* * *
Daniel didn’t so much wake up as he was kicked out of the dream, and sure as if someone had nailed him in the back of the skull with a size twelve, his torso shot up to the vertical. Panting like he’d been racing from an assailant, he glanced around the dim contours of the bedroom. Then he threw his hand out to the space beside him on the bed.
Lydia wasn’t next to him. And through the crack left open by the door into the bath, he could see that she wasn’t in there, either.
Just as he was getting a proper flip-out on, he saw the note on the bedside table. Grabbing for it, he read her precise cursive handwriting twice. The mountain. She loved him—and she had gone to the mountain.
Just as he had asked her to.
“Fucking hell.”
But what choice did they have? Phalen had checked in, just as she’d promised, and nothing forensic had been found inside Gus’s condo: No human hairs of note. No fingerprints. No mistakes. Except he’d already known that was going to be the result: A human hadn’t done the abduction. And neither had a vampire or a wolven, for that matter. It was one of those fucking cyborgs.
And just their luck, the Tesla in the garage hadn’t been spying on its surroundings. As for the development’s security cameras that were located in the common area in the center? They had to be hacked into and that was going to take time—but he wouldn’t be shocked if they, too, came up with a big, fat goose egg.
Rubbing his eyes, he worried about sending Lydia up that mountain. She wouldn’t be alone, though. At least her kind would watch over her. Even though she was, as she termed it, a half-breed, she was embraced among the wolves who lived on the preserve as one of their own.
It should have been him. He should have gone up with her.
Goddamn it. If he weren’t so busy fucking dying… they wouldn’t have had the conversation in the first place.
There was so much shit he wished he could do.
Shoving the covers off himself, he glanced at his lower body. Then he put his palm on his flaccid dick.
There were things, so many things, about cancer to get terrified over; the what-ifs, the maybe-nevers, the blind corners crushing your hopes and dreams for the future just in time for the actual bad news to crater your present. And then there was the stuff that hurt, and the surgeries and the tests, and all of the side effects of the treatments. There were also the indignities of strangers seeing you naked, the concessions to weakness like needing his cane to walk and his inability to hold peas on a fork anymore, and the loss of hair.
But he couldn’t say any of all that made him feel… small.
The fact that he couldn’t get it up anymore?
Daniel covered himself back up with the duvet. Layer by layer, what had made him a man, a person… himself… was being stripped away. No hair. His muscles gone. Hard to feed himself. Hard to walk. Hard to sleep.
No longer hard down below.
And it was just going to get worse.
Sadness crept into his marrow as he remembered Lydia pushing a towel into his hands as he coughed up blood, terror on her face. One day—or maybe night—that fear would be well founded. It would be his end—
“But not this evening,” he muttered. “Get your shit together, Joseph. Get your fucking shit together.”
He had to pull out of the spiral and be where he was right now: No medical emergency. No one pounding his chest to resuscitate him. No one hooking him up to a battery charge and shocking him back to life. No one bagging his lungs, or inserting a feeding tube, or coming up with another test or IV or drug or anything.
