Lover Unveiled, page 46
“I’m not a warlock.”
“But—”
“I’m not. My first cousin Rahvyn, she’s the magic one. And two hundred years ago, I died trying to protect her during that attack on her life. I was struck by arrows and laid out in a coffin. It took me decades to figure out what had happened, to put the pieces together, and I’m not sure I have it all correctly. But what I know for certain is that she brought me back using a spell from the Book, and then she . . . disappeared. That’s why I didn’t want you to bring back Rhoger. Mae, my existence is terrible. Everyone thinks they want to be immortal, but it’s . . . hell. You belong nowhere, with no one, because the only thing that exists for you is time. It’s a nightmare. Friends, family, lovers, they’re all gone, everyone I once knew . . . except for a handful of the Brotherhood who I saw last night . . . are gone. It’s an endless mourning.”
“Sahvage . . . how is this possible?” she asked with wonder.
“The Book.” He shook his head. “It was a spell in the Book. And Mae, I just didn’t want you to do the same thing to your brother. All he would know is the deaths of those he loved, including you. I’ve had to separate myself from everyone, because how could I possibly explain my situation? Who would believe me? And as for destroying the Book—it was my only option to help you. Or at least . . . that’s what I thought at the time. You were right, though, and I’m sorry. I didn’t have the right to take your choice away, even if I was worried about its implications.”
Mae rubbed one of her eyes and then winced like it hurt. “So back at the parking garage . . . that first night, you were going to live anyway. I didn’t save you, did I.”
“Oh, Mae,” he said in a voice that cracked, “you have saved me. In all the ways that matter, you absolutely have saved me. My heart was dead, and then you came along—”
Without warning, Sahvage’s female launched herself at him, throwing her arms around him, pressing her lips to his.
“I love you,” she said as she pulled back. “And I’m the one who needs to apologize. I was just so tunnel vision’d about Rhoger that I was destroying everything—”
“Wait, what did you say?”
“I was destroying everything with my single-minded—”
Sahvage shook his head. “Before that.”
There was a pause. And then she stroked his hair. “I love you. And I don’t care about what comes next. All I know is that you belong here. With me.”
On a shudder, he closed his eyes. And remembered standing out on the lawn of the little cottage, thinking he would love to be able to clean the place up.
Because it was where Mae lived.
Now? It was where they would both live.
Slowly lifting his lids, he stared into Mae’s face. There were so many things he didn’t know. So many veils obscuring the future. So many things left to question and talk about.
But he knew one thing for sure.
“I love you, too,” he said simply. “Forever.”
• • •
Up in the cottage’s second-floor bedroom, Mae lay naked in between cool sheets, her head on a plump pillow, her breathing deep and easy. Downstairs, she heard heavy footsteps moving around . . . and then they started up the stairs.
The weight ascending was so great, the old wood creaked, but it was a cozy sound.
Because she knew who was coming up to her bed.
In the open doorway, Sahvage appeared, his huge body resplendent, powerful, naked as well. Light from the fixture overhead bathed the cuts and valleys of his muscles, and when he came forward into the room, she saw his massive chest tattoo clearly.
Except now the finger pointing to her felt very different.
She felt like it was the answer to the question . . . of who he loved.
Mae smiled as she moved the bedding aside, revealing her body.
“Oh, Mae,” he sighed.
“Come to me, my male.”
Sahvage prowled his way up to her, and when he started to roll to the side, she shook her head.
“I want to feel you on me,” she whispered.
“I’ll be gentle.”
“I know you will. You will never, ever hurt me.”
“Never.” He started to kiss her. “My love.”
The contact of their lips was sensuous, and she had the sense that he wanted to take it slow. But she was too hungry—and so was he.
“Mae—”
“Please,” she begged. “I just want you inside me. I’ve waited so long. I’ve waited a lifetime.”
He groaned, and then she felt one of his hands between her legs. When he brushed her sex, she purred in anticipation.
As Sahvage started stroking her, and she felt her pleasure rise, she shook her head. “No, I want to be with you.”
“You will.”
Just when she was on the cusp, his hand disappeared—and she felt the blunt head of him right where she wanted to.
“I love you,” she breathed.
Sahvage dropped his head in her neck as he repeated the words she was never going to tire of hearing or saying. And then he moved his hips forward and there was a brief flare of pain—that was instantly forgotten as a miraculous feeling of fullness and stretching carried her over the brink of a release that brought tears to her eyes.
As Mae started to orgasm, she called out her love’s name, scoring his back with her nails, her body arching into his.
And he did the same, joining her in all the pleasure.
It was so beautiful, so perfect, she cried tears.
Of joy.
No known cause,” a man’s voice said.
“They haven’t figured out how it started?”
“Nope. But the fire inspector is coming back for a second look.”
“So weird. The witnesses said it went up like a match strike.”
There was a series of crunching footsteps. The sound of one car door shutting. Then another. And finally, a pair of vehicles crackling over some debris and taking off down the street.
Silence. Well, not exactly. There was dripping everywhere, water falling from places all around, like it was raining. And then, from the other houses that were close by, distant sounds of people taking showers. TVs with early-morning news reports. Parents yelling up the stairs to children to hurry, it’s getting late, the bus is coming.
Predawn had come to this stupid, fucking middle-class neighborhood, and the only good thing about any of it was that shit was still mostly dark.
The demon Devina sat up out of the pile of ashes. Looking down at herself, she had to shake her head. She was nothing but flesh and bones. Literally—
“Oh, shut up,” she snapped. “I know I need a shower, and anyway, this is all your fault.”
She glared at the pile of burned shit next to her. “You know, you can play hard to get all you want, but you need me. Without me, you’re nothing.”
A wad of wet soot hit her in the boob as the front cover of the Book whipped open. And when pages shuffled in anger, like she cared?
“Fuck that,” she said as she got to her feet. “I should leave you here, you know that. They’re going to bulldoze this whole site. You’ll end up in a landfill, which is better than you deserve.”
As a section of pages stood erect out of the spine, she gasped. “Are you flipping me off? Seriously? How rude!”
Trying to make her way through the debris, she slipped and caught herself on a still-steaming beam. But eventually, she got past all the ashy crap and stepped onto the singed lawn. Shaking herself, she gave the raw meat of her corporeal body a sad eye.
It was going to take a while to get her strength back. Her looks, too.
“Whatever.” She started to walk off, and then realized how badly she was shivering. “Goddamn it.”
She needed to be back in her lair.
On that note, she opened up a tear in the fabric of reality, her comfy little home appearing in front of her so that all she needed to do was step through to be in it. And she did put one foot into the other side.
A plaintive whimper turned her bald, open wound of a head back to the fire site. The whimper was repeated.
“I don’t know why I should bother. You treat me with no respect. You’re always leaving.”
Whimper.
Rolling her eyes, she was about to leave the Book behind when she had a memory of that female vampire bent over and weeping across the chest of her dead male.
With a curse, Devina minced her way back into the fire damage.
“You better apologize.” She leaned down and glared at the fucking piece of shit Book. “And courtesy of me taking you right now? You’re going to do me a favor. You now owe me.”
Grabbing the thing out of the mess, she marched back to the tear in reality.
She was due her true love.
And this ungrateful bunch of parchment was going to give it to her. Or else.
I don’t . . . I don’t know how this is possible.”
As Sahvage spoke the words, he had a thought that he’d been saying them over and over again. Like since he had hung up his phone at the cottage and stared across the kitchen table at his Mae.
“I don’t know . . .”
Good thing his female was driving his crappy junker of a car.
Trying to get a grip on himself, he took her free hand across the worn seat of his beater, and reviewed the fact pattern with himself again: Phone rings. It’s Murhder. He says he has something he needs to talk about.
Annnnnd it was right about then that things went totally off the fucking rails. Which considering what the last twenty-four hours had been like was really saying something.
“. . . how this is possible.” He looked over at Mae. “Thank God you’re here. I couldn’t possibly do this without you. Do you know where you’re going?”
Mae glanced across the interior with a smile. “I do. And it’s not far now.”
“Okay. Good.”
Sahvage swallowed through a tight throat and tried to distract himself. And hey, at least the latter got him grinning. He and Mae had made love all through the daylight hours in their big, creaky bed, the two of them learning each other’s bodies, loving each other, being close and finally falling asleep together. It was the single best day of his life.
So in a way, having that phone call come through about thirty minutes ago? Kind of felt like overkill.
Then again, he’d been overdue for some dumb luck, he supposed.
“Here we are,” she said as she got off onto a county road.
The lane took them up to what he was determined to turn the cottage into: A farmhouse that had its trim freshly painted, and its shutters restored, and its chimney stick straight, the whole lot of it sitting pretty in a yard that was well-tended and thriving.
“This is so lovely,” Mae murmured as she turned off the engine and looked out to a meadow that was off to the side. “I’ll bet it’s beautiful when the leaves come out and the grass is green.”
He nodded. And then said, “I can’t feel my legs.”
Immediately, his female was focused on him. “I’ll help you. We’re going to do this together.”
“After all these years . . .” On an impulse, he went in to kiss her briefly. “Thank you.”
She stroked his face. “We’re in this together. Whatever happens.”
They opened their doors at the same time, and that was when he scented the Brotherhood—and the other males who had been in on the infiltration the night before: From out of the garage, the big bodies came, and he was surprised as they approached him with smiles and words of welcome.
One by one, they shook his dagger hand. Patted him on the back.
Greeted him. Or introduced themselves if necessary.
More than one of them said something like, Glad you’re back. Or, We’re going to really need you. Or, Let’s meet at the mansion.
Whatever that was.
And then . . .
“Shit,” he said. “Wrath . . .”
In the midst of all the Brotherhood and the fighters, the great Blind King was unmistakable. Literally nothing had changed about him—except for the dog at his side. He was still tall as an oak, still with the black hair falling from a widow’s peak, still with that cruel, aristocratic face.
“My brother,” Wrath murmured as he came forward. “Good to see you safe and sound. You did the race a great service last night.”
Sahvage swallowed. Was he back in? Was he rejoining?
“I . . . don’t know what to say.”
“Good. Too many idiots with opinions in this group anyway. And yes, if you want back into the Brotherhood, we’re glad to have you.”
Glancing around, Sahvage saw all kinds of nodding faces. And with Mae at his back? Was it possible . . . that the male who could not die had a future he no longer dreaded?
And then he didn’t hear anything anymore.
A diminutive figure appeared in the doorway of the garage.
Everyone stopped whatever they were doing. Time seemed to stop as well.
“Mae?” he said as he reached out blindly. “Mae, I need you . . .”
Instantly, he felt his female’s arm shoot around his waist and she steadied his balance. “I’m right here, Sahvage. What’s wrong? Do you feel sick—oh.”
The crowd parted as the little female came forward, and Sahvage was vaguely aware there was a male hanging in her background. He was young, though. Just out of his transition.
Nothing that could hurt her.
God . . . she looked different. No more the black hair, no more the dark eyes. She was silver now. She . . . glowed now.
“Rahvyn,” he heard himself say.
With a strangled cry, his long-lost cousin launched herself across the distance that separated them. “I am sorry, Sahvage! I am so sorry!”
As she burst into tears and kept speaking in the Old Language, he caught her and held her up.
While Mae held him up.
After he was sure Rahvyn was in fact, yes, actually alive, he set her back down, and a cold shiver of sadness went through him. Her hair was so very different—a gray so pale it was white—and yes, her eyes were in fact silver now, too . . .
In his mind, he went back to that bedchamber. The blood. The violence.
Sahvage touched her face. Even though she was still young in appearance, she had aged a hundred thousand years—and he hated that for her.
As talk bloomed among the Brotherhood, like the fighters were trying to give them privacy, Sahvage cleared his throat.
Before he could ask, she said, “I am alive, yes.”
True enough, but he of all people knew that that term was very relative—and utterly unrelated to respiration and heartbeat.
Was the pain worth it, he wanted to ask. The power you sought, was it worth it?
Instead, he switched into English and said, “Where have you been? I looked for you throughout the Old Country for two centuries. I crossed the globe trying to find you.”
“I was not here.”
“Yeah, I know—when did you get to the New World?”
Rahvyn switched back to the Old Language and dropped her voice so that only he could hear her. “I have been in time, dear Cousin, not location. I have traveled through the nights and days to meet you here, at this moment, in this place. My beloved cousin, my protector, I told you your job is done. I just had to find you to let you know that all was well.”
Sahvage blinked—and realized her mouth was not moving. She had somehow put the thoughts into his mind.
But all is not well, he thought with a shiver.
“You have been reborn,” he choked out. And thought of the headless guards. Of Zxysis. Of . . .
“Yes,” she said. Out loud? Maybe. He wasn’t sure.
“Would you like to introduce us?” Mae prompted. Like he and Rahvyn had been standing there, not talking out loud, for a while.
Refocusing, Sahvage drew his female toward his cousin—and wondered if he had to protect Mae against the female he had sworn to defend. Except that was crazy . . .
Right?
He tried to stare through Rahvyn’s eyes and into her soul, but he had never been a warlock. The magic had always been hers, and hers alone, to command.
“This is my Mae,” Sahvage announced. “Mae, this is my first cousin, Rahvyn. I’ve been looking for her for a very long time.”
He felt a little better as Rahvyn smiled shyly and bowed low; it was like some part of her still remained who he had once known.
“Greetings,” she said. “It is my honor.”
As Mae smiled and they started chatting, as if it was a normal first meet-and-greet of in-laws, Sahvage told himself not to worry. He needed to focus on the miracle, not worry about what any of it meant. Or where they were all going to go from here.
And yet . . . as happy as he was to see his blooded relation, he found himself frightened of the female.
Fuck it, though. His nerves were just shot, and why wouldn’t they be. He’d had enough near-misses with bad news in his immortal lifetime, and now that he finally had found his female?
He wasn’t into taking chances anymore.
Glancing around at his brothers, and then staring down at his beloved, he decided . . . well, maybe the universe wasn’t as unjust as he’d thought.
• • •
Off in the corner of the garage, standing apart from the crowd of fighters and females congregating on the driveway, Lassiter frowned. And frowned some more.
As he watched the two females embrace, and Sahvage, the missing brother, looked like he was worried he was about to wake up from a very good dream, Lassiter shook his head and tried to reframe the last week and a half.
The trouble was, the film reel kept with its final edit, none of the scenes altering, the soundtrack of conversations and inner thoughts remaining the same, the script evidently not subject to alteration.
“What the fuck is your problem, glow stick,” came a dry voice.
Great.
Vishous.
Exactly the brother he didn’t want anywhere near him at the moment. ’Cuz really, why bring a matchstick to a gas party.
“You look like someone broke all the remotes in the house.” There was a shcht of a lighter firing up. And then the scent of Turkish tobacco. “Come on, angel, this isn’t like you—and I can’t believe I’m jumping into your pool of weirdness, here.”
