by Juniper Hart
“It’s the only way,” Kyla said firmly without meeting his eyes. “She needs to lose her immortality to become human again.”
“What are you talking about?” Lara asked slowly, shooting Pascal a nervous look. He could tell that she was rethinking her decision already.
Pascal was still in shock at Kyla’s words, his jaw tightening.
Is she making this up or is this really the only way?
“You can’t do this,” Pascal muttered, remembering why had pulled Kyla into the bedroom in the first place. “Franz will never forgive you if this happens.”
“Franz will never know,” Lara interjected quickly, darting her eyes toward Kyla. “How can he know? I’m thirteen thousand miles away from him. I will never go back to the States if this works…”
“He’ll look for you, Lara, and you know it.”
“He might,” she agreed quickly, her face balking with the devil’s advocacy. “But the world is a very big place, Cal. He has no reason to know that I’m here, does he?”
“You’re underestimating him,” Pascal shot back. “I don’t—”
“You don’t really have a say in this,” Kyla interjected smoothly. “It has nothing to do with you.”
Pascal’s mouth parted.
“I’d say it does!” he countered but the females had already tuned him out and were talking amongst themselves again.
“Tell me more,” Lara urged. “Assuming you aren’t put off by the miniscule prospect of Franz finding out what you’ve done.”
“I’m not,” Kyla assured her. “What I was saying was that you need to be killed, an actual death.”
The more Pascal heard, the more he regretted having brought the women together.
You want to die? You don’t know how lucky you are to be alive, Pascal chided Lara inwardly. What if Kyla can’t bring you back? What if something goes wrong? What if Franz does find her?
There were far too many “what if” scenarios for Pascal’s liking.
“I can’t listen to this,” he muttered, turning away, but they didn’t seem to be paying him any mind anyway.
“That’s fine,” Kyla chirped. “We can do this without you.”
It was not the answer he had expected but in hindsight, he wondered why not. Kyla had never put up with his protests before and Lara was far too self-absorbed to care what his thoughts were on the matter.
Pascal cleared his throat, trying to think of something else to say, anything to fill the weird silence in the house as the women lost themselves in their own thoughts.
“Why don’t we take a night and think about this?” Pascal pressed. “Why don’t we deal with this when all of us have rested and cleared our heads?”
Kyla cast him an amused look and he could read her thoughts clearly.
She’s wondering when the last time I had a clear head was, he mused but did not say it aloud.
“I’m going to need some herbs from home anyway,” Kyla admitted. “We can do this but I will need to access some things from home.”
“I’ll come home with you,” Lara agreed, rising from the wingchair. “No sense in you coming and going.”
Pascal sighed heavily.
“Please stop,” he whispered but his voice was barely audible in his amazement. It had all spiraled out of his control in a matter of seconds and there was no stopping them now that they had gotten together.
“You stop,” Kyla shot back, her voice a low growl. “If we give the woman what she wants, she will be able to live her life.”
The unspoken meaning was clear. If Kyla gave Lara what she thought she wanted, the vampire would be no threat to the life that she was trying to build with Pascal.
Of course, Kyla still didn’t know the entire truth about Pascal, and why he joined the Sleepers in the first place.
A shudder of concern passed through Pascal and he turned his head away.
“Unless you have some legitimate reason why this shouldn’t happen,” Kyla pressed, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Something you haven’t told me.”
He looked at Lara but for once, she seemed to have nothing to say.
She’ll keep my secret if I help her, Pascal realized. If I don’t, she promises nothing. I’d be a fool to stand in her way. Whatever happens, it was her own choice, wasn’t it?
He wished he felt better about agreeing to it, but Pascal couldn’t bring himself to feel right about it. Somehow, he felt like he was caught up in a dream, watching these two females, serving opposite realms and loyalties, bonding together.
He realized that he didn’t want it to be a dream at all. What he wanted was to be with Kyla. He would be a fool to pass up the opportunity that was presenting itself before him. He had never experienced anything close to the sensations he had felt while inside her, as if she had crawled into his skin despite him being in control. Kyla was his mate and regardless of his past, he would ensure that they stayed together.
“What do you want from me?” Pascal finally sighed, dropping his chin.
“I explained to you what I want from you,” Lara replied quietly.
“Yes,” he conceded. “You want us to kill you because that will somehow make you human.”
“Yes,” Lara answered simply. “It is the only way.”
Pascal shrugged and looked at Kyla, who, in spite of saying otherwise, seemed to be waiting for his approval.
“She’s a grown woman,” he sighed. “If she wants to die, who am I to stand in her way?”
18
Kyla knew that Lara believed she was doing what was best for herself but in her heart, she wasn’t sure the vampire was correct.
Perhaps it was because Kyla knew she was going to be the one responsible for taking Lara’s life, and she could not help but feel an overwhelming guilt at the idea. She half-wished that Pascal would insist that it could not be done but even in the short time that she had known Lara, it was clear that the vampire did not take no for an answer.
The more time she spent with Lara, the more Kyla realized she knew very little about the being she had seen every day for over a year. Any intel she had received about Pascal had not readied her for the fact that he had once been human.
It’s not surprising that Anatoli found him, she mused as they drove toward her house in Kyla’s Rabbit. She always did have a soft spot for all the misfits in society. But how can a turned vampire have any loyalty to the shifters at all?
She idly considered that was the reason that Pascal had landed on her doorstep to begin with. Anatoli had never trusted him from the start. Why did she ever let him get this far?
She forced herself to focus on Lara and not Pascal for the time being. If all went according to plan, Kyla realized that she would be able to have unhindered access to Pascal. But that would mean getting rid of Lara first.
Learning that a woman from his past lurked among them had been unnerving at first but as Kyla got to know Lara, she could see that the vampire was no match for her.
And she’s not very smart if she wants to become a human. What cost will that have to her? What are the long-term effects of such a stunt?
Despite the literal centuries of research Lara had claimed to have done on the matter, she had never learned anything conclusive, only mythology and folklore about how the immortals had come to be. Most of the tales were farfetched and ridiculous but everyone knew they existed, so something must have happened along the way. Regular humans were not born to shifters although shifters could occasionally birth hybrid humans. There just wasn’t enough science surrounding the phenomenon.
But there was always magic, wasn’t there?
Although she would never admit it to Pascal, what troubled Kyla the most about what had happened was the idea of Franz coming to find them.
After this is done, Pascal and I will need to make a new plan, Kyla thought. If Anatoli ever gets back to me, I’ll see about moving us somewhere else. I’m not sure if Lara is telling the truth about Franz or not but if not, we don’t want him to have a direct line t
o us.
Kyla was sure that the idea was not going to go over well with Anatoli but that was a matter for tomorrow. Tonight was all about Lara.
And how she and Pascal were going to kill her.
“I have been walking this earth for over two centuries,” Lara told Kyla from the passenger seat as they slipped through the shadowy streets in the car. “Not as many as some but long enough.”
Pascal sat in the back, relatively silent as they drove.
“I long for the warmth of sunshine. I yearn to cry, to feel anger, to know love. All of that was taken from me when I was turned and there’s nothing I can do about it but accept that I will live a life without feeling. What kind of life is that?”
“Why do you think I can feel all that but you can’t?” Pascal demanded suddenly, an unmistakable anger in his voice. He sat up between the center console and glared at Lara.
“You’ve been witch-kissed,” she reminded him. She cast Kyla a sidelong look. “In more ways than one.”
Kyla blushed slightly.
“What if I give you a sun spell?” she offered without thinking. Immediately, she regretted the question and almost rolled her eyes.
“I’ve had one done before,” Lara sighed. “It didn’t take. I still can’t handle the sunlight, not like Franz and Cal can. I wasn’t meant to be a vampire.”
“You were meant to be a pain in the ass,” Pascal grumbled. “You’re doing all this for a suntan?”
“Cal…” Kyla said warningly as Lara scowled.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’ve got everything!”
“I have everything?” he choked. “You’re the spoiled—”
“Cal!”
Kyla’s tone left no room for argument and he sat back, pressing his lips together in annoyance.
“It’s your decision to make,” Kyla told her firmly. “But you should know that it’s irreversible. Once you’ve turned back to human, you’ll probably never become immortal again if you should change your mind.”
“I don’t want to,” Lara assured her quickly and Kyla heard the confidence in her voice. “Just undo this curse and I’ll never bother you again.”
She turned and smiled sweetly into the back seat.
“Isn’t that what you want, lover?” she purred. Kyla tensed, eyeing them both through her peripheral vision. On the floor, her foot pressed heavier onto the gas.
In twenty minutes, they were parked in front of Kyla’s house, the trio piling out. Lara bolted ahead toward the front door as Kyla and Pascal lingered behind.
“When this is all over with, I think you and I have to have a long discussion,” Kyla murmured in a voice low enough to keep from Lara.
“We will,” Pascal agreed but worry furrowed his eyebrows. “Hey…”
She gave him a quizzical look.
“Is there a chance that she won’t come back from a real death?”
Kyla inhaled and turned her head away.
“Yes,” she replied slowly. “And I’ve made her aware of that too.”
“And if she dies for real?”
Goosebumps prickled her skin.
“It’s a chance she’s willing to take as a mortal,” Kyla replied.
“I understand that but how will you feel if you know you killed her?”
Kyla’s head jerked back and she looked at Pascal angrily.
“Why are you asking me that?” she demanded. “Don’t you feed on humans regularly?”
Her tone was much brusquer than she had intended and the hurt on Pascal’s face spoke volumes.
“That’s why I’m asking,” he murmured quietly. “Because I do know how it feels. I don’t think you’re ready for it.”
“Stop trying to talk her out of it.” Lara appeared before them, her blue eyes flashing with malice.
“I’m just trying to talk some sense into her,” Pascal barked back.
“Maybe I can talk to her too,” Lara hissed, her eyes narrowing as she glowered at Pascal. “I have lots of stories to tell her about you…”
“Fine!”
Pascal threw up his hands and stormed away, leaving the women to stare after him.
“What kinds of stories?” Kyla asked. Lara flashed her an innocent smile.
“Oh, I was just kidding,” she chirped. “I don’t know anything.”
She flittered off toward the door again as Kyla’s gut rocked with uncertainty.
Yeah, she thought bitterly. We’re going to have a very long discussion after this is done. And I’m going to learn everything, whether Cal wants to tell me or not.
19
It had been thirty years since Franz had stooped to this level, but he trusted his instincts more than he trusted his mate, particularly these days. The truth was, he had never entirely trusted Lara, not when he had known from the start that she resented him for what he had done to ensure her survival.
Over the years, Franz had grown accustomed to her jabs, some of them gentle, some of them less than subtle. He had hoped that she would learn to love him as much as he did her, but it became abundantly clear that Lara would never forgive him for what had transpired all those years ago in the mountains.
He was used to her moods and anger, her love coming in fits or spurts as she wrangled with the creature she had become, but the past few days, Lara’s behavior had been more than strange. It had been downright suspicious.
Franz had been forced to find her and understand her over the years but even with that stint when she’d taken up with the humans pretending to be vampires, he had not been as concerned as he was now. At least in those days, she had been somewhat forthcoming with him, but this situation was different somehow.
Maybe that’s why she’s not telling me what’s going on, he thought wryly, remembering the mass murder he had committed upon that group. She’s worried I might kill off her new group of friends.
Yet it wasn’t just that and he was sure. Whatever it was that had captured Lara was demanding more of her than he had ever seen before and Franz knew he had to put a stop to it. He could not lose her, not like he had before.
Sometimes, he tried to remember what it was like to live without her. It had been so long ago, it was more like a dream than a reality.
In any case, Franz knew that he needed to follow Lara. His predisposition to danger had served him well over the centuries and his mind would not be at peace until he understood where Lara had been going for the past nights and not returning for hours. When she left that afternoon, defying the sunlight that she loathed to battle, he gave her a decent head start before trailing after her in a shroud of darkness. He allowed for her to disappear from view before using his extraordinary senses to track her.
She wasn’t difficult to find, as she clearly didn’t suspect she was being trailed, but he was stunned to discover her traveling across water to get wherever it was she was going. At first, he had thought that she was merely going to feast.
She’s only going to eat, Franz told himself, attempting to alleviate the strange sense of unease he was feeling, but he knew he was wrong. This was not typical behavior for Lara, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of what was happening. He had not prepared himself for the journey that set him back hours across the equator. Several times as he followed, he longed to stop, his wings not used to this kind of travel, but he dared not stop because he knew that he would lose sight of his target. Wherever Lara was going, it was clear she had been there before.
Finally, blissfully, she went in for a landing, somewhere clear across the Atlantic after only two quick pauses. Franz was exhausted but on high alert, unsure of where he was. His best guess was the south of Africa but geographically, he had no certainty.
Why would she come here? What is waiting for her here? Franz wondered.
Franz slowly began to realize that Lara had visited several times, particularly when she landed almost precisely in front of a small house and marched directly to the front door.
Franz remained on the street, col
lecting himself and his breath as he waited for his mate to emerge. His instinct was to break down the door, but he dared not, unsure of what he might find if he did. Well-honed senses told him that nothing good awaited him on the other side of the door.
Sooner or later, she has to come out, he thought but the notion did little to alleviate the mounting stress building inside him.
She’s taking too long, he thought impatiently, resisting the urge to find her inside the complex. It shouldn’t take so long if she’s going to eat. Maybe she’s in trouble and needs me.
Still, Franz did not move from his location. He knew if he dared seek her out, she would be furious with the intrusion and shut down even more. The one thing he had going for him in that moment was the fact that she didn’t know he was following her.
For decades, Franz had been encouraging Lara to hunt for herself. The encouragement had turned to outright annoyance with her. He had crossed the line of coddling long ago and ventured into the realm of enabling.
I’ve babied her for far too long.
He didn’t remind himself that even being where he stood in that moment was not helping his cause in the least. He couldn’t have it both ways with Lara. The stress of living together alone for so long had begun to take its toll on both of them and the two had started squabbling over trivial matters. It wasn’t either of their faults, not really. They had not been raised in a tribe like the original vampires and weren’t entirely accepted as they were. They had been forced to create a world of their own, away from the “real” vampires. Even if the Monarchy accepted them, the other vampires did not pretend to approve, even after two hundred years. It had been on Franz to prove himself time and again, not only to his tribe but to the Monarchy. He wondered if that was not where the drive to reign over the shifters had come from, a need to show them all that he and his tribe were just as good as any of the originals.
But were they really? They were only as strong as their weakest link.
And there was no doubt that Lara was their weakest link, no matter how much Franz tried to justify her behavior. It was clear that turning her was not something he should have done but what could he do about it now?
