Lover Unveiled, page 23
“Yes.”
Sometimes you had to go in for a second look.
Or twelve.
Deep in the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s sacred Tomb, Lassiter elbowed his way through big male bodies to get to the coffin’s edge. But it wasn’t like proximity changed what he was seeing.
Which was absolutely fucking nothing . . . except half a dozen old bags of—
“What is that?” someone said.
V outed one of his black daggers and stabbed at the discolored burlap sack. As a white powder was exposed, he speared some onto the blade.
“I’d think twice before throwing that in your nose,” somebody else remarked.
“Oat flour,” Vishous announced as he scented it. “Really fucking old oat flour.”
What the fuck, Lassiter thought.
No skeleton surrounded by spiderwebs. No mummy. No zombie with perpetually rotting flesh and a hankering for fresh meat. Not even a generic set of remains where there was a collapsed death shroud and some dust over a bunch of discombobulated bones.
But no, they had something Fritz could make a bread loaf out of.
And not the weapon Lassiter had brought them here for.
“Someone better tell me what the fuck is happening,” Wrath growled as he yanked the hood of his robe down.
“Nothing is happening.” Lassiter looked over at the King as the other brothers likewise lost the coverings over their heads. “There’s a couple bags of flour in there. Otherwise, the coffin is empty.”
The happy little announcement made the great Blind King register surprise behind his wraparounds. “Sahvage. Is gone.”
“If he was ever in there.” Lassiter backed away and ended up looking at the wall of names. “Maybe we have the wrong coffin.”
Tohr picked up the lid. “His name is carved into the damn thing. Along with all the warnings.”
“So they didn’t kill him,” Wrath said with a shrug. “Those guards must have not killed him, after all.”
“Warlocks aren’t immortal, if that’s what you mean,” Lassiter said absently. “Just because you practice magic doesn’t mean you live forever. It doesn’t work like that.”
“And just because you say you killed someone and nailed ’em into a coffin doesn’t meant that’s what you did,” Wrath shot back. “The glymera lying. Imagine that. That never fucking happens.”
“He must have used the supposed death to his advantage,” Tohr said. “He disappeared and stayed that way because he knew nothing good was going to come from what happened with that aristocrat, at that castle. He would have wanted to spare the Brotherhood the problems—”
Phury spoke up. “For those of us who don’t know the story, can anyone please explain?”
As Lassiter went over and checked out the names that had been inscribed into the marble wall, he listened to Wrath lay out the fact pattern: Sahvage with the hocus-pocus in the Old Country. Local glymera leader gets spooked. A hunt-down that supposedly ended in the slaughter of an aristocrat and his guards, and Sahvage’s own death. The brother put in this coffin along with the Gift of Light.
Except not so much, as it turned out.
“And what is the Gift of Light?” Phury said.
“It’s a source of energy,” Lassiter replied as he found Sahvage’s name in the lineup of inscriptions. “But more than that. It’s incredibly powerful, and if you want to fight evil, it’s really fucking handy.”
“So you weren’t going to try and resurrect Sahvage? I thought bringing him back was the point of all this.”
“No.” Lassiter shook his head. “Sahvage was never the thing. He was supposedly buried with the Gift of Light, and that’s what I want you to have.”
“What is that exactly? A sword? Another book—”
“Yeah, like we need a second hardcover in all this,” V muttered.
There’s something wrong here, Lassiter thought. This is not the way it’s supposed to be.
Turning away from Sahvage’s inscription, he cleared his throat. “The Gift of Light is a prism, a sacred relic of an ancient time that goes all the way back to when the Scribe Virgin was creating the vampire race. It reflects whatever goes into it. So if you leverage it against great evil—”
“Then that’s what you get back out of it,” V finished.
“So you could turn evil on itself?” Phury said.
“Only certain kinds of evil.” Lassiter pushed a hand through his hair. “It wouldn’t have worked against the Omega. He was the other half of the Scribe Virgin, so it was too close to him—I have to go now.”
“You’re kidding me, right.” V glared across the empty coffin. “If you’re leaving us because Golden Girls is on—”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Then what the hell’s wrong with you?”
Shaking his head again, Lassiter repeated some combination of the I’m-out-of-here album blaring through his skull—and dematerialized directly out from the Tomb.
Good job the Other Side was never far away for him. All he had to do was pierce the veil that separated the earthbound from all that was eternal and poof! he was in a glorious field of grass that did not require mowing, turning his face to a milky white sky that never stormed, taking a deep breath of temperate air that was perfumed with the delicate scent of tulips.
But there was no peace for him right now.
As he strode off toward his destination, he went past the bathing temple, with its beautiful, shimmering basin of water, and then continued on by the columned villas where the Chosen had stayed when they’d lived here. There was also the Treasury, with its baskets of loose gems and special artifacts, and even more important . . . the Scribing Temple.
He stopped outside of the sacred confines where, for millennia, the most cloistered of all the Chosen had spent the forever-hours of their existence staring into crystal seeing bowls and recording the lives and events unfolding down below on earth.
Opening one of the solid doors, he viewed the scribing stations set in rows, the desks still sporting the ink pots and feathers as well as the bowls and the folios of fresh, unused parchment. Everything was as it should be, the chairs aligned perfectly, the plumes of the quills all gracefully extending up at the same angle, no dust on anything, no cobwebs, the space as it had been at the moment it was established for its purpose.
Even though it had been abandoned.
Stepping inside, his boots echoed around the high ceiling, and he had a thought that with the Scribe Virgin retiring and him taking over, all these functions that had once been so vital were gone.
Talk about relics.
On that note, he went past the scribing stations and proceeded to the library—and even for an angel like him, who was pretty damned impervious to being impressed, it was daunting to take a gander at all the stacks and stacks of the recorded history of the vampire race.
Inside the countless volumes, which were arranged chronologically, every major and minor incident of every soul housed inside every body with vampire blood had been faithfully recorded. By hand. In ink.
It was all the knowledge that existed of all the lives that had gone before—and he was going to go through the pages and find every mention of the Gift of Light and Sahvage and that goddamn Book.
The brothers and the other fighters in the mansion often gave him a hard time for not taking his job seriously enough.
And for the first time, he worried that maybe they were right.
Because something wasn’t adding up here; he just didn’t know what.
• • •
Devina walked through the club, high heels clickin’—not that anyone could hear her Louboutins cross the grimy floor. Overhead, SoundCloud rap was thumping, the auto-tuned, distorted voice of a guy mumbling about drugs and sex punctuated with a lot of high-fiving synthesized beats. In her opinion, the track had as much in common with actual music as a Twinkie did with a homemade Victoria sponge, but what the fuck did she care.
It was chum into the sea, pulling out of houses and apartments all manner of humans, creating a buffet for her base instincts.
As she visually interviewed the various couples and throuples—assessing all manner of body type and wardrobe choice, but mostly the eye contact between and among the connected—she had a thought that she was feeling just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle aggressive.
And didn’t that self-awareness show personal growth?
Sure as fuck did, she thought as she focused on a pair of men who were nose to nose, eye to eye, their bodies moving in sync. Behind them was a man and a woman. Next to them, all around them, were more of the same, combinations of sexes and heights and hair colors coming together.
So they could come together.
The fact that she was surrounded by so much one-night-standing was the only thing that kept her from exploding the place, just running the people through with her wrath so they blew apart in chunks. Which would be so fucking satisfying . . .
Okay, fine, it would be so satisfying for maybe as long as it took for the pieces of arms, legs, and torsos to stop bouncing up from their landings on the floor.
But that was something, right?
Yeah, and then where was she going to be.
Right back where she was.
Stopping in the center of all the groping, directly under the light fixture that shot laser beams into the writhing masses, she turned and turned and turned . . . until she was like the after-school-special transition into flashback that wound faster and faster until everything blurred up and funneled away . . .
To Something That Brought Meaning or Revelation to Present Events.
Of course that was not what was actually happening at the moment. In spite of the Instagram revolution of narcissism, which she fully supported, people’s lives, even if you were immortal, were not actually film productions with jump cuts, off-camera narration, and soundtracks. There were no scripts, no stage markers for where you were supposed to stand, no let’s-try-that-take-again-with-a-little-more-emotion.
Which fucking sucked.
She wanted a do-over. And some better lighting. And a leading fucking man, thank you very much.
As her frustration sharpened even further, she surveyed the landscape of lovers and knew two things were true: One, not all of these one-night stands were going to stay that way. Some of these couples were going to develop their connection, and forge relationships, and someday in the future, laugh between themselves, or maybe with friends, at how they’d found true love at a club.
Can you believe it? We were so fucked up on Molly when we met, but now here we’re picking out china patterns and a sofa. We’re just so lucky, Todd.
You’re right, Elaine, so lucky!
Yeah, fuck off, Todd and Elaine. Oh, and the other thing she knew for sure? She was no part of this and not because she wasn’t human. While all of these useless tools were coupling up, she was locked out of a happily ever after, sure as she’d been blocked from entering that stupid fucking ugly-ass, fucking piece of shit, motherfucking ranch.
By salt. Damn it.
Not that there was going to be anything in there she’d want. For fuck’s sake, the place was no doubt home to fifteen-year-old couches, carpets she wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, and faded flocked wallpaper that had been bought at Sears back when Jimmy Carter had been the president and Taxi had been on prime time.
But sometimes you just wanted to get into a place you weren’t allowed to go.
You just wanted the things you weren’t given.
You just wanted to fuck shit up and walk away with the mushroom cloud behind you, feeling like you owned the world because you were able to destroy it.
Devina stopped turning.
Enough with this bullshit. Time to pick her fun for the rest of the night—because if she didn’t get a shot of enjoyment soon? She was going to lose her motherfucking mind.
Oh, and that vampire? With the salt?
It was going to be good to eat his heart. Because whether he knew it or not—whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not—he was totally in love with that female and her dumbass ponytail. And just as pathetic? She was in love with him. It was obvious in the way they’d communicated with each other, no words necessary to make meaning clear, their bodies turned to each other’s, their connection tangible.
Fine. Whatever. Those two lovebirds might be able to keep a demon out of that house.
But they weren’t going to stop her from kicking down their goddamn sandcastle.
As Sahvage heard the word that Mae spoke, the three-lettered door opener went into his ears and throughout his whole body. Yes.
Yet she stopped him as he moved in toward her lips. “I don’t know . . . how far this is going to go.”
“I do.” He brushed her cheek. “It’s going as far as you want it to. And no further.”
The tension left her body and she eased toward him. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I’d ask you why, but I don’t have to.”
There were too many reasons, for both of them, not to complicate things even more. But clearly, neither of them was going to stop the inevitable . . . so those were the last syllables they spoke before their mouths met—and what a kiss it was. He’d thought he was prepared for the sensation of her softness and warmth, but just because you wanted something didn’t mean you could handle it.
Mae melted him.
And he only wanted more. Keeping his touch gentle, he moved his hand up to the side of her neck to draw her even closer—and when she came willingly, he groaned and tilted his head. Deeper, the kiss now. Even deeper still. Until his tongue entered her.
He wished they had a big bed, with plenty of privacy.
But he needed her so badly, he would have done this in the middle of a war zone.
The chair she was on creaked softly, and the next thing he knew, he was in between her knees, cradling her face, learning about what she liked as he took it slow, took it easy, everything drifting away for him—
Well, not everything. His threat instincts remained on alert—but at the moment, there was nothing wrong inside or outside the cottage.
And his guns were on him.
God, he shouldn’t be doing this. She was a civilian; he was a bloodthirsty rogue fighter with no home, no bloodline, and no identity anymore. And yet he needed this like he was suffocating and she was his air.
They kept kissing, and even though his lust began to choke him, he wasn’t going to rush her—and wasn’t that a serious change of pace for him. For all his post-transition life, when the mood struck him and the female or woman was willing, he took care of business and then headed out.
With Mae? He wasn’t interested in this being over anytime soon—and even if he could have left the cottage, he was so very content to stay with her.
When she eased back, he hid his disappointment.
Except then she took things in a direction that was very appointment’ing.
If that was even a word.
With her soft, small hand, she took his palm from the side of her neck . . . and placed it on her breast.
• • •
Sahvage was the best kisser Mae had ever known. Which, considering she hadn’t kissed more than two males in her fifty years of life, probably didn’t sound like much. But holy . . . well, shit, honestly . . .
Was there really anything better than this?
The problem? For all his obvious arousal, he seemed to be stuck in a delicious neutral.
As their lips met and clung, and his tongue was a stunning penetration, as her body roared with heat, and so did his own, she sensed his powerful restraint . . . and waited for him to get exploring. Waited to do some exploring herself. And yet he stayed with the kissing.
So, yup, in a surge of uncharacteristic self-determination, she solved the issue of how far things were going to go by taking his palm and putting it where there was an ache she needed him to caress away. Kiss away. Suck away.
Mae gasped as the warmth of his hand transmitted through her fleece, her shirt, her bra. Sure as if she were naked.
“Is this okay?” he asked as he pulled back.
When she went to answer, he swept his thumb over her nipple—and didn’t that make her brain stop working right. In lieu of answering verbally, she arched forward and retook his lips as she pushed herself into his palm—and he got the point. He treated her to a stroking that made her pant into his mouth, and then he was slipping under things and finding her skin. As he went upward and stroked her ribs, she grabbed on to his shoulders.
Which were so big, she felt like she was trying to grip an oak trunk.
“Please,” she begged.
“What do you want?”
“Touch me . . .”
“Where.” He kissed up the side of her throat. “I want to hear you say it.”
“My . . . nipple . . . again . . .”
Now he was groaning, and with a surge, he pushed both of her bra cups up, her layers of clothing wedging under her arms. When one of his thumbs went exactly where she’d told him to go, she gasped again and needed to know what his mouth would be like there, his dark head down at her breasts, tasting her, marking her—
Sahvage pulled back so fast, her hands fell off of his shoulders and slapped into her lap. Confused, she looked down at her messed-up tops, the erect pink tips of her breasts peeking out from under the rolls of cotton and fleece.
Just as she was going to ask him what she’d done wrong, how she’d turned him off, he yanked her tops back into place and leaped away from her. Like maybe she’d become radioactive.
“What did I do?” she said in a voice that cracked.
The cellar door opened wide, and Tallah’s wrinkled face peered around the jamb. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
Mae blinked. The old female had changed out of her housecoat, trading the blue and yellow flowers for a long red dress made of a lustrous material that was likely pure silk, given her background. She had also put on makeup, a subtle pink blush tinting her cheeks, her eyes emphasized with tasteful shadow, a red outline and gloss on her lips.
And her hair was down, the waves of white and gray flowing around her shoulders like a cape of sterling silver.
