Crooked Shadows--A Vampire Bodyguard Romance

by M. A. Grant

  “Atlas, I promised you we’d stay together and that’s what will happen.”

  “But what about rent and food and—”

  “I got a job.”

  Relief and guilt swirled in a potent mixture. He snuffled and wiped at his face with his hand, careful to avoid stabbing himself with his pencil. “What?”

  “I got a housekeeping job at the hotel down the street. They said they’ll let me do homework on my breaks. And if I work hard, they might promote me to front desk. I went and got my uniform today.” She gave him a mischievous smile. “Want to see it? It’s pretty hideous.”

  She hadn’t released him yet, so he snuggled in closer and rested his head against her shoulder. “How hideous?”

  “My apron looks like one of Mrs. Veger’s curtains.”

  The thought of Bea wearing one of those ruffled lace monstrosities made him lose it. She joined his laughter soon after. Even if their mutual amusement didn’t make everything better, it made most of it okay again.

  Something broke there, deep in the memory. Atlas’s narrative jolted off course, and the world dropped out from under him. The scattered thoughts Atlas directed toward him were disjointed, jarring, and painful to follow. Atlas’s emotions were out of control and too, too powerful to sort through. They landed against him like blows.

  He needed to draw away, to stop feeding before the bond fell apart completely and left them both emotionally wounded in the fallout.

  But he couldn’t pull back, tugged in over and over by the flash-frame images and double-speed dialogue. As if Atlas were trying to play all of this through on fast forward—

  Bea curled up on his couch, watching him with serious eyes. “Whitethorn’s success is directly tied to Mr. Vladislavic...”

  Another lurch to a different memory.

  Cristian’s face twisted in a rictus of fangs and golden eyes. The pain at the back of his skull when he slammed himself back against the heavy metal desk. The overwhelming terror coursing through him. The whispered belief that Cristian’s death would be the greatest gift in the world...

  This time, Cristian flung himself willingly into the new memory. He would do anything to escape the dark curl of Atlas’s rage when he realized he’d been duped.

  A dark parking lot. A boring office building. The flash of headlights... Bea on the phone, worried and afraid and still defiant about giving up her life’s work. Her voice ringing out as she declared, “I have no intention of cutting ties with Mr. Vladislavic.” Her gentle admonishment that Atlas was overthinking... He stuffed his hand in his pocket, the sensitive nail bed of his finger poked by a pointed corner. The texture of fine vellum. The shape of a business card...

  A yawning abyss of grief and guilt engulfed him and Atlas, stealing away the memories, the words, everything. Unless he pulled away, he’d be lost to that emptiness. He had to stop feeding. For Atlas’s sake. For his own.

  He clawed his way back to awareness and away from Atlas’s vein. The bond scattered. He gasped for air, willing the real world to come back. It was like his body and mind had been dipped in a developing bath, with shadowed edges forming around him. But even if he couldn’t see everything yet, even if his emotions ran riot, Atlas was a warm presence beneath him who shook as he fought down sobs.

  Cristian wrapped his arms around Atlas’s shoulders, hugging him and praying he wasn’t making it worse by holding him. Atlas didn’t push him away; instead, he buried his face into Cristian’s chest and gasped out, “Needed to explain why I did it, but... I can’t...not yet...”

  “You’re okay,” Cristian whispered, and pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re okay.”

  He continued to cry, as if it were his only chance of flushing the pain from his body and mind. He also stopped trying to explain himself. Some would have taken that as a good sign, but Cristian knew better. Atlas’s surrender only meant that he, like Cristian, knew it wasn’t okay.

  Chapter Eleven

  It had taken nearly an hour after the failed feeding to calm Atlas down enough to take his medication for the night terrors. About ten minutes later, after he’d finally settled in at Cristian’s side, he had fallen into a state of exhaustion too deep to be called sleep. Cristian envied him for that.

  Cristian had only dealt with the symptoms of a broken bond twice before in his long life. The first was during his awkward first feeding with a live donor; nearly every vampire failed and figured out the nuances of feeding after. The second time had hurt more. His vampiric lover Lillian had panicked when he got too close to learning the truth about her. A plant for a rival territory, she’d been tasked with seducing Decebal’s romantic son and using him to take over Scarsdale for her boss. Unfortunately for them both, she’d fallen for her mark as hard as he’d fallen for her. She forced him from her memories midfeed and abandoned him. He’d lain sick in their Chicago hotel room for a few hours before recovering enough to try to find her. Even a century later, he wished he hadn’t.

  Her sire, a brutal former warlord turned bootlegger, had made her an example of her perceived failure. Cristian had found her bloody corpse in her apartment, still wrapped tightly in silver wire. It had taken him two weeks to topple the bootlegging operation utterly. Helias helped, but Cristian was the one to rip out the warlord’s throat. He never regretted taking revenge as he did, and even his parents didn’t chide him when the Wharrams swept in and claimed the newly available territory for themselves.

  But the pain of his interrupted feeding with Lillian, the last feeding he ever had with her, paled in comparison to his despondency and suffering now. The minutes ticked by in a long, slow parade of time as he tried to scrape himself back together.

  It was nearly sunrise before he drifted off. The pain hadn’t gone away, but it had dulled enough to be a steady background hum in his body. Hopefully sleep would wash the rest of it away.

  He woke a few hours later, confused and dizzy. The room was still dark, protected against the sunlight outside, but Atlas’s side of the bed was empty, his sheets cool to the touch. Cristian forced himself to roll over to try to look for the man, but the motion left his stomach roiling. He breathed slowly to avoid puking, and lay on his back in the darkness, praying the world stopped spinning soon.

  He must have groaned, because a moment later, a cool hand pressed against his forehead and Atlas’s familiar scent comforted him.

  “Hey,” Atlas whispered, “how are you feeling?”

  “Tired,” Cristian croaked. Easier than trying to explain just how much he felt like he’d been thrown from a very high plane with no parachute.

  “Sleep,” Atlas urged. “Daria will be here soon. We’ll go check out the prints and be back before sunrise.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked, praying Atlas wasn’t suffering as much as he was.

  “Everything feels...a bit raw,” he admitted.

  “Last night—” Cristian began, only to stop when Atlas drew his hand back.

  Atlas had wanted to confess during the feeding. Even if he hadn’t managed it, it didn’t change the fact that he trusted Cristian enough to try. Trust could only grow, and Cristian could be patient while it did. He had time, and Atlas was worth the wait.

  Rather than press his original line of questioning, he cleared his throat and adjusted. “Recovering from broken bonds is difficult. I was worried you’d be feeling poorly.”

  Atlas shook his head. “Physically it’s not terrible. I’ve got a normal headache.” He conveniently left off any descriptor of how he was doing mentally. For a second, Cristian contemplated confronting the fact. The spiking scent of Atlas’s distress warned him off it though. He made a sound of commiseration and asked instead, “You slept?”

  “Yeah. The meds helped.”

  “Good.”

  Atlas inspected the bunched sheets, but didn’t move to fix them, or to meet Cristian’s
gaze. “What about you?”

  “Need more sleep,” Cristian said, praying it would solve most of his issues.

  “Then rest.”

  Atlas turned to leave. Maybe it was selfish, but Cristian couldn’t stand to let him walk away thinking last night’s painful failure was an insurmountable problem. He called out, “Atlas?”

  Atlas paused and glanced over his shoulder, but still didn’t dare to look fully at him. “Hmm?”

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” Cristian said. “We are going to be fine.”

  Maybe a little too on the nose, but the assurance had its intended effect. Atlas exhaled heavily, and the tightness in Cristian’s chest loosened along with Atlas’s shoulders.

  Atlas returned to his side and leaned down, pressing a kiss to his forehead. His cheek. And finally, to gift a slow, lingering kiss to his lips. “We will. I’ll be back soon.”

  The steady thud of Atlas’s pulse was soothing, and he lingered there at Cristian’s side, letting his scent pool between them, promising he believed Cristian, and was healthy and strong enough to search for the strigoi with Daria. Cristian hadn’t hurt him during the feeding, and the relief of that made everything else bearable.

  He must have fallen back asleep. He woke to Atlas swinging open the door of their room and calling his name.

  “Here,” he called back with a yawn. His gums were still sore, but the worst of his headache was behind him. He sat up in the bed, the sheets pooling at his waist, and stretched to gauge where the rest of his body was. The muscle weakness was gone, thank fuck, though there was a familiar burn, like he’d been run through one of Ioana’s vicious workouts. He wondered if there was anywhere he could find bagged blood. Maybe he could trick his way into one of the local hospitals and snag some...

  He glanced over as Atlas entered the room. He smelled like the forest, of dirt and leaves and fresh air, and his skin was pink from the exercise and sunlight. He could smell Daria behind Atlas, but didn’t give a shit. She’d decided to work with them, so he had nothing to gain by pretending in front of her. Besides, she’d brought food, judging from the bag she was carrying. The hot oil of freshly fried potatoes and warm, herbal accompaniment of grilled fish filled the room. If that’s what they’d brought for dinner, he was definitely getting out of bed.

  “Were you still sleeping?” Atlas asked him, brow furrowing with worry.

  “Yeah. But feeling better,” he said, quickly adding, “You brought breakfast?” He slid out of bed. Daria flushed at the sight of his exposed legs and tried to avert her eyes. He made a face and flipped the sheets away, revealing...his boxers, which he’d slept in after being too tired to change into anything else.

  “Relax,” he told her, “I’m decent.” He looked back to Atlas, who was eyeing him with fond amusement. “What did you find?”

  “Enough,” he said. “Go shower. We’ll get the food set up.”

  He did the bare minimum to qualify as clean and returned to the room to find the food already laid out. Daria must have gotten it from the small restaurant attached to the B and B. It looked divine and smelled even better. He happily stole one of the boxes from the table and returned to his unmade bed, perching on the edge as he ate.

  “Well?” he mumbled through a mouthful of crispy chips.

  Atlas rolled his eyes and began flaking away bits of grilled trout to eat as he spoke. “You were right. No tracks out of the forest, only one set leading in. The storm fucked up the road, so we couldn’t find anything there.” He smiled when Cristian swore, and added, “But we did find tracks farther up the road, coming down a different hill.”

  Cristian froze, delicate, steaming trout meat pinched between his fingers.

  “The bastards were using the road to travel,” Cristian said, astonished by the simplicity of the solution. It made sense. Lots of animals used roads rather than waste energy fighting through undergrowth in the forest.

  His mind returned to the attack against Atlas and his platoon. The strigoi came out of the woods, so comfortable and familiar with the area, and decimated trained soldiers within moments. He glanced guiltily at Atlas.

  “Wrong place, wrong time,” Atlas murmured grimly before returning to his food.

  Daria filled the void of uncomfortable silence by sharing, “One of the first local victims, Alva, was attacked while she was waiting for her boyfriend to arrive to change a flat tire.”

  “She was on the road?”

  Daria nodded. “Dragged off it into the woods. They assumed it was a bear because she’d been mauled, and there were defensive wounds on her hands. I grew up with her, and Atlas and I will go speak to her family tonight, after work. They may not know much.”

  “They could confirm some of the details of her death though,” Atlas said.

  “If your strigoi are using the roads to hunt—” she began.

  “At least it’s confirmation of how they travel,” Cristian finished, subdued at the cost of such knowledge. He looked to Atlas and tapped at his neck, in the same place Atlas’s scars were. “Does she know?”

  “About the attack?” Daria asked. That was answer enough for him, but she still granted the courtesy of confirming, “Yes, we spoke about it.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. She mustn’t have expected his honesty, because she frowned and glared down at her food, reverting to silence.

  It took an effort of will to remind himself to eat and replenish his strength in the face of such news. There were things to do, theories to test, but he needed to be able to help Atlas search for the remaining answers and the broken bond was another physical hit he hadn’t been prepared to take. His recovery—frustrating or not—was paramount to their success. “Okay,” he said as he slowly peeled off another chunk of fish, “now what?”

  Atlas licked some salt off his thumb and gave Cristian a funny look. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re the planner,” Cristian said. “What do we need to do to find the nest?”

  Atlas gave a low, rasping laugh, and shook his head. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Why not? We know the sites of different attacks. We know they’re coming from the woods and using roads to navigate faster. Can’t we start guessing where they could be coming from?” He pointed a finger at Atlas. “TV detectives have done a lot more with a lot less.”

  “Fuck off,” Atlas grumbled.

  “What would you need to start?” Cristian pressed. “A fancy pen? Some aviator sunglasses? A map?”

  Atlas stilled at the last one. “Actually, a map would help.”

  “We’ve got a place to start then,” Cristian declared. He set his unfinished dinner down beside him and found their phone, which made Daria chuckle.

  “What?” he snapped at her.

  “You can look at the maps on there as much as you want, but they’re never going to be accurate,” she said. “You have no idea how many tourists get lost up here each year.”

  He tossed his phone aside and focused on her. “Well, what would you suggest?”

  Cristian’s intensity didn’t dissuade her from answering, though she still fidgeted with her chips and tried not to make direct eye contact with him as she spoke. “Can you read a map?”

  “I can,” Atlas assured her. “It’ll need to be detailed. Topographical, if possible. A surveying map, or even a driving atlas if that’s the best we can find.”

  “There’s too much red tape to get a surveying map from the local offices. The atlas is your best bet, but nowhere in town sells anything like that,” Daria said, brow wrinkled in frustration.

  “Even the gas station back down the road?” Cristian asked.

  “They won’t have anything so precise,” Daria replied. “You’d have to go to a city for that.”

  “How long of a drive?”

  “Two hours, if the roads are good.”

  “I’
ll go get it.”

  Daria glanced at Atlas. He didn’t seem to notice her attention, since he was too busy frowning at Cristian. “Neither of us is feeling great. I can send Daria to speak with the family,” he said slowly.

  “No,” Cristian said. “You go there. I’ll go get the map. It’s not a complicated errand.”

  “But the sun—”

  He checked their phone. “It’s almost five o’clock now. Sunset’s a bit after eight. Find a way to get me into the car without me going up in smoke,” he said, with no small amount of grim humor, “and I’ll figure the rest out.”

  He didn’t dare voice his doubts. He needed to call around, find a place with the right kind of map, and get them to hold it for him. Hopefully the store didn’t close early, either. It was a long shot, but one that could pay off handsomely. A stupid triumph, perhaps, but one of the few he could manage in his current state.

  Atlas watched him with a mixture of concern and fear, so he rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. He held Atlas’s gaze and asked quietly, “Trust me, Mr. Kinkaid?”

  “Yes,” Atlas whispered.

  “Good. Now, toss me the phone. I’ve got some stores to call and you have to figure out how I can get into the car.”

  * * *

  Cristian sprinted through the mall, his lingering headache growing sharper with every panted breath. There was no denying it; he needed to take more responsibility in his life. He’d grown complacent since his mother’s death. He let the world move around him, let concerned family and friends do things for him, and now that he had to pull his shit together and accomplish a task on his own, he was about to fail at it.

  The bookstore he’d called promised to hold him a copy of the road atlas they carried. He’d been so ecstatic over that success he’d forgotten to ask where they were located in the mall and had panicked when he pulled into an almost empty parking lot. Many of the stores he passed were closed, with gates drawn down over their glass doors and their lights off. He focused on those who were still lit up for the few stragglers left in the building. Electronics store there, clothing store, McDonald’s... For a fleeting moment, he wondered if he’d fallen asleep while driving and was dreaming of a mall back home. The similarities were striking, unnerving even, and he wondered if Atlas would believe him when he told him about it.