everafter

by Nell Stark; Trinity Tam

  Helen turned her cold gray eyes on me, and it was a struggle not to take a step back. “If it bothers you so much,” she said quietly, voice tinged with menace, “then why did you go back?”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. And hiding it was impossible. I looked to Val, expecting her to answer—it was her show, after all. But instead of explaining to Helen that we had gone in pursuit of the rogue vampire that her task force still had not apprehended, Valentine hesitated. In the pause, I began to wonder. If Helen condoned the Circuit as a necessary evil, then what else did she know about that she was similarly overlooking? What if catching Val’s attacker wasn’t one of her top priorities? Malcolm had insinuated as much, and more. Maybe she considered Valentine—and almost Olivia—to be affordable or unavoidable casualties. The thought made me bristle, and I bit down on my lip to stifle the growl that wanted release.

  “Monique only showed us the dogfighting,” Val said smoothly.

  “We got curious about the rest of it.” Which wasn’t a lie per se, just not nearly the full truth.

  “And now you don’t have to be any longer.” Helen returned to her chair, opened a manila folder, and began to read the document inside. Clearly, our five minutes were up. As we walked slowly back toward the elevator, I felt the first twinges of fatigue. It had been a long, emotional night. All I wanted was to climb inside the cocoon of our cool sheets, snuggle into the curve of Val’s naked body, and fall into sleep. I wondered if I’d be able to shut my eyes without seeing Craig’s face. Or Gwendolyn’s.

  “I’m glad you didn’t tell her the whole truth,” I said as the doors dinged behind us. “I’m starting to suspect that she doesn’t really give a crap about catching him.”

  Val nodded, standing just close enough so that our arms brushed.

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  everafter

  “You may be right.” I watched her left hand tighten on the railing.

  “Damn it. I trusted her.”

  The doors opened and we hurried out into the chill night. Thankfully, we caught a cab almost immediately. I tucked one arm around Val’s waist and rested my head in the dip between her neck and shoulder as the taxi pulled away from the curb.

  “I guess…when you’ve been alive as long as she has, your priorities change. You forget how to be human.”

  “I don’t want to forget,” Val whispered. She sounded absolutely terrified, like a little girl afraid of the dark. It was, I realized, a much more immediate fear for her than for me. My blood was holding the advance of her parasite in check. Without me, so the legend went, she would lose the tether that kept her connected to humanity. But I would never allow that to happen.

  I gently kissed her neck. “You won’t. We won’t. We’ll never forget, as long as we’re together.”

  “Forever.” Her voice held a note of forlornness, the single word half statement, half question. I thumbed open the bottom button of her coat and rubbed my palm in gentle circles over the light swell of her stomach, hoping to comfort her.

  “Yes, my love. Forever.”

  • 253 •

  • 254 •

  everafter

  Chapter tweNty-three

  Iran. The long grass of the savannah bent before me, paying homage to the speed of my passage. Ahead, my prey soared in leaping bounds, zigzagging gracefully around the occasional stunted tree. I maintained my pace easily. The young gazelle would tire before I did, and then she would be mine. I could almost taste her now: the hot spurt of her blood against my tongue, the sharp crack of her bones between my teeth, her moist, tender flesh sliding down my throat. The wind blowing off the distant desert flowed around me, carrying with it a renewed burst of her enticing scent. I ran faster, now, restless for the kill. And then, she stumbled.

  It was the barest misstep, the slightest imaginable pause, but it was enough. Mid-stride, I coiled every muscle and sprang. My claws pierced through her light coat of fur, tearing into the muscle beneath. She screamed and went down. I shifted my weight as she fell, pinning her to the earth. She struggled beneath me, but my weight held her easily. I took a moment to savor my triumph—her wild, rolling eyes, the pulse racing in her throat, the fragrant scent of her blood. Flicker.

  The body beneath me blurred, becoming human. Skin and bones and lanky brown hair. Craig. He looked up at me in terror, too frightened even to tremble.

  Flicker.

  The bluest eyes. I snarled into Valentine’s face as she tried desperately to pull away. My paws held down her shoulders, claws digging into her skin. She flinched. And yet, I hesitated. This didn’t feel right. Her expression was panicked, just like my usual quarries. She

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  didn’t want to die. She thrashed against my grip and almost managed to pull free. I dug my claws in harder and she whimpered in pain and fear. A thread of saliva dangled from my curled lips; she was the most delectable creature I’d ever hunted, and finally, finally I was going to sate my hunger. Her eyes rolled wildly I as I tensed for the lunge that would break her neck…

  I sat up in bed, dizzy and sweating and nauseous. The dream. Again. God damn you, I thought at my internal beast, fighting to control my breathing. Get out of my head! Nearly a month had passed since our trip to the Catskills, and the progress I had made there was in jeopardy. The panther, strengthened by the blood and violence of the Red Circuit, was steadily gaining confidence and pushing the boundaries of my tenuous control. It was a vicious cycle; the harder she pushed, the less sleep I got. The less sleep I got, the stronger she became. I turned to focus on Val, who was thrashing a little on the edge of wakefulness. She was having a nightmare, too; she must have cried out and woken me, sparing me the sensation of my razor teeth slicing through her spinal cord.

  I shivered, determined to return the favor and free her from whatever horrors gripped her brain. Slowly, so as not to startle her, I caressed the warm skin of her stomach and began to rub in gentle circles. “Val, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.” I shifted so that my lips were grazing the shell of her ear. “Come on, sweetheart. Wake up. You’re okay.”

  Her body jerked once as she woke. I slid my palm up to rest between her breasts, over her heart. It was racing. She swallowed, blinked, and looked at me. Terror cast a dark shadow over the brilliance of her eyes.

  “Flashback?”

  “Yeah,” she said hoarsely.

  We really had to stop going to these parties. Val had been dreaming of her attacker frequently, and I was back to fighting my panther tooth and nail. We’d returned to the Circuit twice since, but had come away empty-handed each time.

  “You’re all sweaty,” Val murmured as she pulled me flush against her. “Were you dreaming, too?”

  “Mmm.” I kissed her forehead.

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  “Same one?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” I had told Valentine everything about my recurring nightmare up until the part when the gazelle-turned-Craig morphed into her. Knowing Val, she’d find a way to feel guilty. I held her close, running my fingers through her hair, and turned my attention inward. I’ll never let you hurt her. Never. I didn’t know whether my inner feline could actually catch the meaning of my thoughts, of course, but the mantra couldn’t hurt. These days, I often wondered whether I would ever feel that peace we had so briefly found again, or whether our wills would be irrevocably at odds.

  “I don’t really want to go back tonight,” Val said quietly, her hands ghosting up and down my spine.

  “Me, neither.” I wished there was some kind of alternative, but there simply wasn’t.

  “I just don’t know what else we can do,” said Val, echoing my thoughts. “Foster or Olivia would have told us if their investigation had come up with something, right?”

  “And if she hadn’t before, by now Helen seems to have completely forgotten that he even exists.” Her reaction—or lack thereof—continued to grate on me. It seemed to me that
the rogue vampire was a danger not just to humans, but to the continued secrecy of the Consortium. Wouldn’t it make sense for her to be even more concerned than the police?

  “God, I wish we could just get off square one.” Val sighed against my neck before drawing away reluctantly. She leaned over to look at the alarm clock: 6:07. “Might as well get up. Maybe if I review my notes before class, I can impress the hell out of my Histology prof today.”

  I grabbed her hand before she could leave the bed. “It’s early yet. We have some time.”

  She smiled for the first time since waking and leaned in to grant my unspoken request. Her lips were soft but firm against mine, her tongue hot in my mouth. God, could Val kiss. I twined my fingers into her hair to pull her closer. Everything else—the beginning of our daily routine, school, the rogue vampire—could wait for just a few minutes. This was what we had fought and were still struggling for, after all: the right to love each other for every second of forever. v

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  The Angel Orensanz Foundation was in our neighborhood. Just off East Houston on Norfolk Street, it looked like a cathedral, had once been a synagogue, and was now one of New York’s preeminent cultural centers. The Foundation hosted banquets and balls, all held in the name of the arts. But tonight, its lofty neo-gothic frame housed the carnage of the Red Circuit.

  Val and I stood on the balcony, sipping drinks and watching the seething crowd. Whenever there was a lull in the music, the snarls and growls from the dogfights in the basement filtered into the main hall. How they were going to get the blood off the walls, I had no idea. When I shuddered at the mental image, Val stroked my arm gently. But she never stopped watching the people below.

  On the dais, just in front of the steps that had once led to the Holy of Holies, a St. Andrew’s cross had been erected. Apparently, this particular Red Circuit party was a special occasion; I had seen people pointing to the cross and whispering about someone called “the Missionary” since we arrived. We had already suffered through this week’s attempt to break the record (a failure after forty-two lashes), as well as the murder of a homeless meth addict found in the Bronx. Her two children, the disembodied voice told the crowd, had been adopted into loving families. I could only presume that they would grow up to be just like Kyle. The thought made it hard to swallow.

  “You have all been very patient,” the voice said finally. “But you don’t have to be any longer. The Missionary has arrived.” An expectant murmur rose in the room, a hot breeze before the storm. “Three lovely pets have been selected to compete tonight,” the voice continued, low and hypnotic. The lights in the hall dimmed and a spotlight enclosed the dais in a cocoon of light. “Please welcome the first contestant, Jillian.”

  One of the crew, dressed completely in black as always, led a petite, red-haired woman out of the shadows. She was wearing a blue silk teddy with sequins at the neck that caught the light. He positioned her with her back to the giant “X” of the cross and secured her wrists, ankles, and waist to the frame. The teddy rode up a few inches on her thighs. She looked nervous, but not afraid.

  “The Missionary is very, very thirsty,” whispered the voice. And then, several things happened at once.

  A man stepped into the spotlight, clad only in black leather pants. His torso was heavily muscled and rippled with scars, his head shaven

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  so cleanly that it shone. When he appeared on the dais, the masses cheered and screamed. But despite their reaction, he didn’t smile. He didn’t wave. He stood still, surveying them impassively, hands at his sides. My gaze was drawn to the knuckles of his left, where some kind of tattoo crept sinuously across his skin.

  “Alexa!” Val choked out my name in a way that I’d never heard before. She was hanging on to the railing with a white knuckled grip, staring wide-eyed at the formidable figure of the Missionary. She had gone very pale. Her lips were drawn back in a snarl. And that’s when I knew.

  Rage clawed up my spine. The room turned red. Immediately, I closed my eyes and took a slow, deep breath. Another. And another. I wanted so badly to comfort Valentine in this terrible moment, but first I had to control myself. Val’s hand closed over mine compulsively, but while her touch usually would have driven back the angry tide, the sensation of her fingernails digging into my skin only made it harder for me to force down the panther.

  “It’s him. God damn it, it’s him!”

  “I know,” I said, hearing the strain in my own voice. “I know, just—just give me a second, here…” It was proving particularly difficult for me to regain my inner calm this time because for once, the panther and I were in agreement. She wanted to kill him. So did I. Not now, I silently pleaded with her. Not now, not here. Wait. Now was the time to be quiet and stealthy—to observe and stalk. Not to hunt. For a moment, nothing happened…and then, so gradually that it was barely perceptible at first, she began to back down. Maybe we could speak the same language, after all.

  I opened my eyes to the sight of Val looking between the scene below and the doorway behind us. “I have to go down there,” she muttered. “Have to stop him.”

  Panic obliterated the anger. A vision streaked through my mind of Val confronting him in front of these hundreds of people, the vast majority of whom had been eagerly chanting his moniker. They would tear her apart, limb from limb. Literally.

  I squeezed her hand even harder. “No!”

  “Look what he’s doing!” she retorted, flinging out an accusatory finger toward the Missionary. He was bent over Jillian, sucking greedily on her neck. I could only imagine what this scene was doing to Val, the

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  helplessness and pain that she was remembering. Her head was back in that alleyway, when he had cornered her, beaten her, bitten her. But she wasn’t there, and there was no way to stop him here. I stepped forward to slide my arms around her waist, holding her stationary as much as I was holding her close. “We can’t go after him here. We’ll get ourselves killed. You know that, Valentine.”

  “I can’t let him get away again! I won’t!” She struggled against my grip, but she and I were well matched in strength now. I didn’t back down.

  “We’re not going to let him get away,” I said urgently. “He’ll be there for a while. I’ll call Foster right now, okay? We won’t let him out of our sight.”

  The tension didn’t ease from Val’s body, but she nodded once. Digging my phone out of my pocket, I turned my face away from the scene below but kept my other arm securely around her. I had Detective Foster on speed dial, but after one ring, a male voice answered.

  “NYPD dispatch. How may I help you?”

  Crap. Why the heck was Foster having her calls routed to dispatch?

  And why tonight, of all nights? I squeezed my eyes shut and did my best to stay calm.

  “My name is Alexa Newland. I need to speak with Detective Devon Foster immediately about one of the cases she’s investigating.”

  “She’s unavailable at the moment, ma’am,” said the man on the other end of the line. “Are you in an emergency situation?”

  “No,” I said quickly, hoping that they couldn’t trace this call to my location. Squad cars and ambulances showing up here tonight would be a fiasco of untold proportions. The Consortium would probably have to burn this place to the ground to cover up the ensuing massacre. A shiver ran under my skin like an electric shock, and I felt Val pull me closer automatically.

  “I’m a family member of one of the victims and I have a question for the detective,” I elaborated, hoping to evade any kind of suspicion.

  “Could you have her call me back as soon as possible?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ve logged your number.”

  I hung up. My brain was racing in time with the visible pulse at Val’s throat. I was pretty sure that I had kept that conversation under a minute in duration. Wa
sn’t that how long they needed to trace a call?

  “What the hell was that?” Val muttered, never taking her eyes off

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  the Missionary as he pulled away from Jillian and stood at one side of the cross. She hung limply from her bonds, chin resting on her sternum, head lolling. A thin trail of blood trickled down her white skin to stain the collar of the teddy as we watched.

  “Oh God,” I whispered. “Is she—”

  “No.” Val spoke through gritted teeth. “I’ve been listening to the crowd, and apparently, the name of this game is to see which ‘pet’ can manage to stay conscious the longest while the Missionary sucks on them. He’s a legend for being able to drain three or four victims in a night.” Her jaw flexed as the two stage crew workers reappeared to carry a limp Jillian out of the circle of light. “Couldn’t get hold of Foster?”

  “The call went to dispatch.” I could feel the adrenaline soaking into my bloodstream. It compelled me to act, but I had no idea what to do. The panther was growling and pushing continuously at the doors to my brain. “She must be on some operation or mission or something. I asked them to have her call us as soon as she could.”

  Val pulled away from my grip to brace herself against the railing. I was surprised that the metal didn’t cut into her palms, the way she was squeezing it. Anger, fear, frustration—the emotions moved over her face like clouds before a hurricane.

  Below us, a young man had taken Jillian’s place. The Missionary, his torso shimmering with sweat from the hot lights above, bowed once to the crowd before turning to his next victim. Grasping the beams of the massive cross just above the man’s wrists, he flexed the prodigious muscles of his back before he struck. The man shouted as the Missionary’s teeth pierced his neck—whether in pleasure or pain, it was impossible to tell.

  My stomach twisted. Yes, the mechanics of Val drinking from me were identical to what was happening on that dais. But qualitatively, the two acts were entirely different. When Valentine sheathed her teeth in my skin, it was an act of love. The scene playing out below was about domination and nothing more. Whenever Val fed from me, we shared our most desperate, most needy, most vulnerable sides with each other. She needed my blood to live, and I needed her to crave me that deeply. We met each other as equals; I gave and she took, I took and she gave, and we both became stronger.