Lover Unveiled, page 34
She refocused on the pit. “He was one of the best males e’er I have met. Honor and strength were but the start of his many virtues.”
“Oh.” Nate dropped his hold. Took a step back. “I thought . . . well. Maybe you should have stayed with him, then.”
“I was his responsibility, and he protected me better than anyone could have. It made a target out of him and my enemies resolved to kill him. They wanted me, but they knew they had to take him first, as he would have died before he let anything happen unto me.” She closed her eyes and moaned. “And in the end, I was taken just the same . . .”
Something about the way she said it made Nate’s mind go into very bad places.
“Do you know if the male you lost lived?” he asked hoarsely.
Elyn was quiet for a time. “There has been . . . a vast distance between us. So vast.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Centuries ago.”
Nate blinked, dumbfounded. “Um . . . do you want to try to find him?”
Elyn took a deep breath. “I believe I do. But I do not want him e’er to be hurt again on my account. I barely survived the burden of that once, verily I could not live through it again. And yet . . . well, he is all that I have.”
Nate rubbed his hair to make sure none of the profound heartbreak showed on his face. “How can I help? Do you know if he’s here in Caldwell?”
“He is here. That is why I arrived thus.”
“Okay, so we’ve got a variety of ways to find people.” He thought of all the things she was confounded by. “There are databases to search. Places we can go to—or, like, you can go. I mean, I don’t want to get in the way—”
“You cannot help me, Nate.”
Oh, you’re wrong about that, he thought. I’m totally pumped to help you reunite with the male you love. Sign me up.
“Of course I can.”
“It shall be . . . dangerous.”
Nate frowned. “Who is after you?”
“He is dead, the now.”
“So you’re worried about his kin?” When she didn’t answer, Nate felt a warning ripple down his spine. “So his kin lives?”
“He was of fine bloodline.”
“Glymera?” As she nodded, Nate exhaled in relief, even though there was no verified reason to. Yet. “You may not know this, but many of them are dead now.”
“In truth?”
“From the raids a couple of years ago.” He was not surprised when she stared at him blankly. “The lessers infiltrated their homes here in Caldwell. So many were killed. Can you tell me your enemy’s name? We can check and see if his bloodline was affected? We can ask Mrs. Mary’s hellren and he will know—or know how to find that out . . .”
When she once again stared into the impact pit and didn’t answer him, Nate tapped her on the shoulder—and waited until her silver eyes rose to his own.
“I’m not afraid,” he said.
Her response was grim: “You should be.”
Instead of waffling at the warning, Nate felt a certainty in his chest that he had never known before, a surety that was so rock-solid, it was as if the end point of wherever they were going to go had already occurred.
“I am not and I won’t be,” he said in a low voice. “No matter what happens.”
“Nate—”
“You think I haven’t lived through pain? I’ve had surgeries with no anesthesia. Viruses and bacteria forced into my veins. I’ve been examined for the sole purpose of degrading me—and I was a young when all this happened. There are no miseries I haven’t endured, and if I lived through it once, I can do it again.”
Especially for her, and even though there was clearly no future for them. She was in love with her male, and given the hero-material the guy obviously was? Who could compete with that.
After a long moment, Elyn reached up and put her hand on the side of Nate’s face. “You are so brave.”
As the contact of her flesh on his own registered, he froze where he stood . . . and realized, as he stared down into her silver eyes, that he was as the male she loved had been.
Willing to lay his life down for her.
“Your hellren is a very, very lucky male,” Nate said roughly.
Elyn frowned and tilted her head to one side. “Hellren? I am not mated.”
“The male you love, then.”
“No, ’tis not as that. I do love him, but he is my first cousin. He is my family, not my mate.”
As her words sank in, Nate’s soul smiled. He couldn’t describe the feeling in any other way. But he pulled his shit together quick, as Elyn was still looking very serious.
“Then let’s find him,” he said. “Together.”
As she looked into his eyes, he wanted to be even taller than he was. Bigger. Stronger. He was through his transition, sure, but compared to his dad, Murhder? He was a pip-squeak.
“You have been so good to me,” she murmured. “You have been a friend when I need one, a shelter when I had none, a well of compassion in this darkness in which I am trapped. Thus I cannot, and will not, do anything to endanger you. This has always been my quest, and it must needs remain thus.”
They stared at each other for the longest time.
Kiss her, Nate thought. Now is the moment—
Off over Elyn’s shoulder, a tiny flare of light appeared and began to move. And another. And a third.
She turned and glanced at the little galaxy that had inexplicably formed behind her. “Oh, they are back.”
Elyn extended her palm, and the flickers came to her, coalescing above her outstretched hand.
“Fireflies,” Nate murmured. “Wow.”
The glow was such that it illuminated her face, making her positively resplendent—no, it was more than that. Her silver hair and her silver eyes seemed to pull the golden illumination in and reflect it back out, so that a halo formed all around her.
Without warning, she pegged him with a hard stare. “I shall not allow anything or anybody to hurt you, Nate.”
Touched as he was by the sentiment, he didn’t have the heart to state the realness. Out of the two of them? She was hardly in a position to do any protecting.
That was his job.
Balz smelled the brunette first.
In the midst of the dense darkness inside the triplex’s book collection room, that perfume, that grape-undertoned, darkly sensual Dior scent, pervaded the still air.
“Devina?” the Mr. said through the void. “What are you doing here?”
The lights came back on, and as Balz blinked the retina sting away, he didn’t shift from the position he was in, his arms and hands still outstretched toward the Book. But he did turn his head. Between him and the Mr., the brunette—Devina, evidently—was posed like a cover girl, wearing a formal white skirt and jacket and a hat that looked like something you’d wear to a royal wedding.
“You’re supposed to stay at corporate headquarters,” the Mr. said. Then he glanced behind himself and lowered his voice. “I thought we agreed you’d never show up here unannounced. Idaho is where you have to—”
“Oh, shut up, Herb,” the brunette snapped. “And I’ve never even been to Idaho, you fucking idiot.”
“B-b-but . . .”
Devina focused on Balz and rolled her eyes. “Humans. Really. They’re all in remote control cars they think they’re driving. So fucking ridiculous—”
“Herb” marched over and took the brunette’s arm. “This is not a game you’re going to win. I want you out of here, and if you’re going to keep seeing me, you’re never doing this again. Do we understand each other. My wife lives here.”
The brunette looked down at where Herb’s hand was. And in the beat or two of silence that followed, Balz was tempted to tell the guy to let the fuck go of her—but there was no saving stupid.
“Are you touching me right now,” the brunette said in a soft voice.
Herb rose up on his tiptoes a little so he could glare down at her given her heels. “I will touch you anywhere the hell I want, and you’re leaving now.”
As Balz straightened from the Book, he had a thought that Herbieboy was going to choke on those words.
“This behavior is really not becoming on you,” Herb felt the need to tack on.
Devina’s perfectly arched brow lifted over her perfectly made-up right eye. “You don’t say. Well, wait’ll you get a load of this.”
Herb’s body flew back against a set of the display shelves, sure as if invisible hands had picked him up and thrown him across the room. And as books were dislodged from their props, and all kinds of things landed on the floor, Balz frowned. There was no noise. Nothing made a goddamn sound, not the flopping of the first editions as they hit the parquet wood, not the clattering of the Lucite stands as they fell, not the banging of the varnished planks.
Likewise, as Herb was pinned against the wall, and his mouth cranked wide to start screaming, there was no sting in the ears from the high-pitched agony, no banging as those heels kicked at the Sheetrock, no tearing as his clothes—
Oh, shit. The loose PJs poor Herb was wearing were ripping at the crotch.
But that was hardly the worst of it.
Like someone had spread-eagle’d him and was dragging his legs apart like the wishbone of a turkey, the Mr. started to rip at the centerpiece, a fault line initiating at his hey-nannies and proceeding up his pelvis, his abdomen—
All kinds of internal organ-ish stuff fell out and landed like over-boiled lasagna noodles, glossy, mushy, and disturbingly pink and brown.
“Oh, man,” Balz muttered, “that’s gonna get whiffy.”
The tearing-apart along with the pulling-asunder kept up, cracking Herb’s sternum, halving his set of lungs, stopping at the base of his throat. And then all his nearly-there was dropped to the floor.
Herb, the former hedge fund manager, now hedge mound fertilizer, twitched a couple of times . . . and then didn’t move at all.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true.
His blood was still leaking out of his major veins and arteries.
“You know,” Balz commented dryly, “I bet you don’t worry about getting mugged much, do you.”
Devina wiped her hands off on her hip even though she hadn’t directly touched the guy. “No, I’m good out on the streets alone. And speaking of mugging, it’s time that you and I stop fucking around. Give me my Book.”
Balz, who’d straightened from his stretch-forward during the laughy-taffy interlude, glanced back at the ancient volume. It had closed itself up, and the spotlight that was mounted on the ceiling hadn’t come back on. Or maybe it hadn’t been on in the first place, and the halo around the Book was just dimmed.
“Give me what’s mine,” Devina demanded as she put her hand out.
Like maybe Balz owed her a fiver and was just going to slap a bill right on there.
“If you don’t give it to me,” she said as she sex-walked her way over, “then that is going to happen to you.”
Ridiculously, she pointed to the mess on the floor—like anyone might have missed the example of all her Ginsu knife skills.
Balz narrowed his eyes. Then he took a pointed step to the side. “You want it, you take it. Just pick the thing up and leave. There’s nothing stopping you.”
Or is there, he wondered.
The pout on her face was poetic. “After everything we’ve meant to each other . . . surely you can help a lady out.”
“No offense, but can you really call yourself a lady when you just field-dressed that motherfucker?”
“Now he’s part of the exhibit.”
“As a human anatomy illustration?”
“Exactly.”
They both laughed a little. Then it was enough of the jokey-jokey on both sides.
“So Balthazar, here’s how this is going to happen.” The brunette smiled again, but her eyes were chips of obsidian, cold, bright, and hard. “You’re going to pick that up and give it to me. And then I’ll decide whether or not—”
“‘To blow your ship from the water.’” As she blinked in confusion, he shook his head. “Come on, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dietrich to Katanga. You remember, they were on the deck of the ship and—”
“Shut up!” She jabbed her red-tipped forefinger at the Book. “Give it to me.”
“No.” He put his hands up. “I’m not going to. Now what?”
“Give it to me!”
There was a pause, and he waited for her to throw him back against the wall. Or maybe castrate him with thin air and make him eat his own nutsack. When nothing like that happened, he was interested in just how far he could push her.
“You know, if you stamp one foot, it’s going to really persuade me. Even better, tap-dance. I’ll whistle a tune—”
The roar that hit him in the face was like getting sandblasted with a hurricane, his hair streaking back, his skin flapping like he was in a wind tunnel, his chest getting compressed—and yet the sound seemed to be only between his ears, the effect only on his body.
“I own you,” Devina snarled over the din, “and you’re going to give me what I want.”
• • •
Sahvage found Mae’s car after four hours of searching for her. There had been nothing back at Tallah’s cottage. Nothing at her own home. Nothing that he could sense anywhere.
It was as if she had disappeared off the face of the planet.
Or, even more untenable, was no longer on it . . . because she had gone unto the Fade even though she did not believe in it.
Just as he’d been about to lose his ever-fucking mind, as he was making yet another circuit back from the suburbs and out to the cottage, with no Mae at her house and no Mae on his phone and no Mae—
Blue lights. Flashing blue lights.
He’d first seen them on the previous trip into town from the rural farmlands, but because he hadn’t sensed her anywhere near the scene, he’d ignored them. Besides, the truth was, about two hours into looking for Mae, he’d stopped expecting to find her—and started bracing himself to be found.
By a brunette with demands.
Or, Scribe Virgin forfend, body parts.
Except with nothing else to go on, he decided to check out the accident scene. Materializing in the darkness thrown by a stone wall, he surveyed the front-end car accident—
“Mae!”
Sahvage shouted her name as he recognized her Civic—and as the cops looked up from what turned out to be a body on the ground, his blood ran cold. He knew it wasn’t Mae, but as he was downwind from the scent, he prayed it wasn’t Tallah.
“Sir, unless you’re a witness or can identify—”
As a female officer came over to him, he didn’t give her the chance to get any further with the bug-offs. He busted into her mind and got the details he needed: Male victim on that grass had been stabbed and was dead. Car that was off the road was registered to a Christopher Wooden who had died in 1982 and lived ten miles away. Passerby who had a house in the neighborhood had called the scene in.
No other material anything—at least not that mattered to Sahvage. But that was definitely Mae’s car, the name on the registration an identity shield to keep things legal on the human roadways.
So where the hell was she?
And yet even as he asked the question, he knew. He was willing to bet that somehow, the brunette had come here and abducted Mae—
As his phone went off, he fumbled the thing out of his jacket to check the screen. When he saw who it was, for, like, the hundredth time, he flat out lost it.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—what,” he snapped as he answered the call. “Can you fucking leave me alone—”
“You’re the one who called me, asshole,” the Reverend shot back over the connection. “And given what you’re looking for, I’d have assumed you’d have picked up your fucking phone one of the last four goddamn fucking times I called. Now do you want to find the Book or not.”
Sahvage looked at the dead guy and dragged a hand over the top of his head. “Unless you’ve got it in your lap, I have other priorities right now—”
“Meet me out at the city park where we were before. Fifteen minutes. If you want the Book, you’ll be there. This is your one and only chance. After this, you’ll never hear from me again and you’ll never find me.”
As the line went dead, Sahvage nearly threw his fucking phone at Mae’s totaled Honda. But he held on to the thing because he was still hoping, by some completely impossible miracle, that she would call him.
He was cursing as he glanced around—
And realized all of the cops on the scene were frozen and staring at him like they were ready to get a list of jobs. Or maybe a clue as to what their first names were.
He went over to Mae’s car. The driver’s-side door was open and he leaned in. Both airbags had blown, but the keys were still in the ignition. Snatching them out of their slot, he didn’t see where her phone or purse were. They might well be in the hands of the cops already, but he wasn’t worried about the CPD showing up at her house—and God forbid, finding her brother in that tub. Like the registration, all her IDs would be in the name of someone else with an address other than where she actually stayed. It was standard procedure for vampires living in heavily populated human areas.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Shit, shit—”
“Can I help you?” the female cop said. “Anything you need?”
“What I need is . . .”
As he let his thought trail off, a word came to him from out nowhere, like it had been implanted in his head: Leverage.
That’s right, he thought. He needed some motherfucking leverage.
The kind of thing that when that brunette showed up again—and she was going to—he would have something she wanted. Something she needed. So he could get what he had to have in return.
Which was Mae. Safe.
“Leverage,” he said out loud as he looked at his phone.
As he dematerialized, he freed the cops out of their neutral, but only after he wiped any memory of his presence from their minds. For all they’d remember, he’d be nothing but ether.
