Death eBook 9.8.16

by Lila Rose

  “Maybe I applied some to myself.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. Her hand went to her stomach to hold it. “Oh, that’s a good one.” Her laughter subsided quickly and she asked seriously, “Do you have a sick fascination with her? Do I need to get a restraining order put out on you? Are you inclined to want to wear her skin as clothing?”

  It was my turn to chuckle. “Julie is at her safest with me. I would let nothing harm her in any way. Especially not by myself, if I can help it.”

  “I think—” Her words were abruptly cut off by a scream when the glass shattered all around us. Dark figures dove through the window, running for our position.

  I was on my feet in seconds. I picked up Fallon and threw her under a table next to the lobby’s obnoxiously large fake fireplace. I didn’t have time to see if she landed okay because the figures in black cloaks, like some fucked-up movie, were upon me. They held swords and daggers high; all with grips that had something carved on them.

  “I didn’t know it was time for a surprise party or I would have dressed better.” While talking crap, I frantically searched for my own weapon but came up with nothing. “Samuel, to the cellar, now,” I yelled across the way. I looked in time to see him open the door in the floor behind his desk. It was one room that would safeguard him.

  Lobby under attack. I sent out to Connor and Warren. I didn’t want Falcone rushing back with Julie; she could become harmed.

  Coming, came from Warren.

  On my way, Connor practically sang in my mind. He was eager for a fight. I didn’t know where they were, but I knew they were close.

  “Dean!” Fallon yelled. My eyes flashed to hers and she threw a fire poker to me. I caught it in the air.

  “Hide,” I growled at her, but the fool didn’t. I only had time to see her jump on one of their backs before four of them came at me, their swords raised ready to strike. I knocked two of them away and dodged the other two while more filed in through the windows.

  My brothers’ pounding footfalls came from the stairs. The door crashed open; the distraction helped me stab the poker through one. He fell to the ground, crying out in pain. Grunts from my brothers told me they’d joined the fight. Their own steel clashed with the others’.

  Dean, call them, Warren ordered.

  Unleashing my powers, I yelled, “Come to me.” Souls who hadn’t parted from earth swam up through the floors.

  “Dean,” Connor yelled. My hand went out, already knowing he was throwing my own steel into it. As soon as the sword hit my palm, I flashed out, stabbed, retreated, stabbed, dodged, and moved. Body after body fell to the floor.

  “Kill them,” I demanded. The souls screamed for blood, screamed to do what I willed. They ran their hazy forms through the opposing team, ripping their souls out of them, leaving their bodies to fall to the floor.

  “What the fuck?” I heard screamed from Fallon.

  The girl’s now fainted, Connor supplied.

  Which was good. I shouldn’t have called the souls for her to see. At least I didn’t have to worry about her. She was alive; I glanced over to see Connor tucking her back under the table before he slashed through more men.

  Turning, I cut off the heads of two of the men coming at me. They dropped to the ground, rolling off to the side while their bodies flopped to the floor.

  Suddenly, all that registered were our labored breaths. Seeing there wasn’t one left standing, the souls surrounded me, running themselves around, in and out of me. “Thank you, rest now,” I told them before they sank back into the floor, disappearing back to where they’d come from.

  “Minions,” Warren snarled, throwing the arm he’d held to the ground.

  That they were; the tattoo on their forearms told us so. It read Lord Decay in Latin, answering our question that the Order of Decay was very much alive—well, figuratively speaking, considering the dead surrounding us—and involved in Kayne’s escape.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, kicking one of the minions, but when he groaned, I paused. “We have a live one.”

  “Good.” Warren actually smiled, looking away from Connor, who was also grinning at me.

  “Interrogation time.” Connor clapped.

  Warren stalked over, picked up the Order member, and flung him over his shoulder. “Before he comes to, I’ll take him to the basement.”

  “I’ll get some cleaners in and some glaziers to fix the windows. Maybe we should install some bars since they know where we are.”

  “Sounds good.” Warren grunted before taking off.

  I called out, “And I’ll take care of Julie’s friend.”

  “So you should,” Warren said over his shoulder.

  “Or I could for you,” Connor offered.

  I shoved him back. “No touching. You will not have fun with that one. I don’t want Julie pissed at me when you screw her best friend over.”

  Connor rolled his eyes, and before he got on his phone to make some calls, he muttered, “You’re no fun.”

  Stepping over some fallen bodies, I made my way to Fallon’s side and slid her out from under the table. Gently, I brushed her hair back from her face; her eyes fluttered, but didn’t open fully. Glass crunched behind us, and I assumed it was Connor.

  Adjusting her onto my lap, I lightly tapped her cheek and said, “Fallon, time to wake up.” She swatted my hand away and swore at me. “Come on, the fun’s over. Time to rise and shine.” I shook her a little.

  “Are you always this good at waking people after they faint?” she grumbled, and then opened her eyes.

  Smiling down at her, I said, “Most women who faint over me don’t mind how I wake them.”

  “No flirting if I can’t,” Connor called out.

  “I wasn’t flirting,” I yelled back and offered Fallon an eye roll, which she giggled at. “Can you pretend to forget everything you saw?”

  “Not sure, what do I get out of it?”

  “I won’t have to kill you if you do.”

  “Well, gee. That’s hard to pass up. Did I mention I was drunk when I arrived earlier and my mind made up all those men smashing through windows, heads being cut off, and bodies falling to the ground? Or those two huge hunky men coming to help you, and… and those, ah, ghosts coming to help as well?”

  “Wow, when you’re drunk your mind really plays tricks on you.”

  She let out a burst of laughter, only to cut it off and hold her head. “No making me laugh. I hit my head when I fell.”

  “Shit, let me look.” I ran my fingers through her hair, feeling for any bumps.

  “Fuck.” Connor’s loud curse had me turning to look at him. But my eyes didn’t land on him; they went straight to Julie, who stood inside the door next to Falcone, looking at me in disbelief and fury.

  “I leave for, what”—she looked at her watch—“an hour and I come back to find you on the ground mauling my best friend?” She stomped over to us, seemingly unaware of the crunch of glass under her feet. Falcone went to grab her, but she shrugged him off. “And you,” she snapped down at Fallon who was, shit, still in my lap smiling up at Julie. I quickly stood, leaving Fallon to crash back to the floor with a gasp. Julie stamped her foot and clipped out, “He is not yours. He’s mine. My panties are already tied around his neck. Do you hear me?”

  Fallon’s eyes went wide; so did mine, but I also had a huge fucking grin on my face from Julie’s show of claiming me in front of her best friend, while Fallon had a puzzled frown on hers.

  “Ah, Julie, it’s obvious something has occurred, here—” Falcone started.

  “Obviously, Falcone, when I find my best friend in the arms of my mate,” she barked at my brother.

  “Your mate?” I asked. A need to throw my head back and roar pulsed through me.

  “Your mate?” Fallon mimicked.

  Julie paled. Falcone cleared his throat and tried again. “Julie, take a moment and calm down. Look around.”

  She did. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and
opened her eyes again, glancing all around her. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened. She gasped. “What happened?” Her eyes landed on me and frantically ran all over my body. Stepping up to me, she continued to run her eyes with her hands over me as she said, “Are you okay? Were you hurt? Who did this?”

  With humor in my voice, I said, “I’m fine, my jewel. We were attacked, but no one was harmed.”

  “No one?” She gestured to the bodies lining the floor.

  “Except the bad guys,” I offered.

  “What I want to know is why she didn’t see any of it until now? How can you not see this shitload? And I’m fine too by the way,” Fallon said as she slowly got to her feet.

  Julie blushed and blubbered, “Ah, um, you see. Uh…” She turned to me. “Dean?”

  “It’s simple really,” Falcone started. “When she felt my brother’s adrenaline rise, she knew something was going on. He kept his feelings from her, but she still knew. So we rushed here and when she saw a female in the arms of her mate, Julie saw red, and nothing else existed around her but the need to claim her rights to her mate.”

  “Falcone.” I groaned, my hand running over my face. Worry seeped through me, concern Julie would back out from what she’d already admitted to, since it was obvious our mate connection did most of the talking for her.

  “What in the fuck are you dribbling about?” Fallon yelled, then gripped her head. “Now my headache has turned into a migraine.”

  “Dean,” Julie said, turning to me. “What can I tell her?” I saw the plea in her eyes; she wanted to tell Fallon everything. It was lucky Fallon had already seen too much and that she was Julie’s closest friend, one I knew she would trust with her life.

  “Tell her whatever you want, my jewel.”

  She bit her bottom lip, only it didn’t hide the smile. “Thank you.”

  Cupping her face, I kissed her lips and then forehead. “We will talk later, but for now, go and be with your friend. Falcone will look over you both in our rooms while I have a few things to do.”

  Connor stepped up beside us. “We have people coming to clean this, ah, mess up. I’m going to tell Mr. S. it’s all clear to come out.”

  Julie nodded to me, and the next thing she did I would cherish for the rest of our lives together. She leaned in and kissed me on the chest before turning to her friend and guiding her to the elevator.

  That one kiss gave me all the hope I needed.

  That one kiss told me my mate was ready to move on.

  Now I just needed the words.

  Though first it was time to kick some ass for information.

  Chapter Twelve

  JULIE

  “Are you out of your goddamned mind?” Fallon started. “A voice message? You’re in a fucking train accident and all I get are some motherfucking voice messages the next day?”

  Well, at least my bestie was kind enough to wait until Falcone had closed the door to Dean’s apartment to start screaming at me. I’d known it was coming. I could practically smell her simmering wrath the whole elevator ride up. Still, the depth of her anger caught me off guard; her eyes seemed to burn bright with it. I could tell she was balancing on a fine line between unreasonable anger and complete breakdown. Judging by the fresh pools of tears in her eyes, and the hitch in her breathing, it looked like her control was slipping.

  “Come here,” I told her as I opened my arms to her. She didn’t hesitate, hitting and holding me with enough force to knock the air out of me. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m okay, I promise. I love you, too, honey. I’m okay, Fallon,” I mumbled into her hair as I squeezed her back. She took a deep breath and wiped her nose on my shirt. “Ew, gross, Fallon!” I squealed and tried to move away.

  She hugged me closer and mumbled, “Shut up, it’s the least you deserve.”

  Sighing in defeat, I wrapped my arms back around, hugging her close until she was ready to let go. It was a good five minutes, and after we did an awkward sniffle-hug shuffle to the sofa before she finally said, “If you ever, ever have a cold, stub your toe, miss shark week, freaking sneeze and piss yourself, or end up in the godforsaken hospital again, you. Fucking. Call. Me! Otherwise, I will hunt you down.”

  Nodding in answer, I shot a grinning Falcone, who had since relocated to the chair across from us, a desperate “help me” look. I believed her threat. We were all the family we’d had for the last ten years. With my opportunistic, often-absent mother and failure-to-appear father, I might as well have been an orphan, like Fallon. No one knew why she was left on the steps of a Catholic school. She’d been about one when the nuns of Saint Catherine had found her, and by all accounts, already a stubborn pain in the tookus. The nun who named her had a strange sense of humor and dubbed her Fallon Devon Station, or Fallen Devastation when she was getting into trouble. Which was often. I still found her upbringing bizarre. How did someone brought up in a church have a vocabulary of cuss words that would make a gang of bikers blush? I had asked her once. She’d said that cussing had been a way to rebel in such a structured, rigid environment. But when she turned eighteen, she’d started working at a bar, busing tables and checking IDs at the door to pay for English courses, and the swearing had stuck. We met in college. She’d slammed her books down next to me and pronounced I was the least-annoying-looking person in the class, and I’d been blessed with the honor of being her Shakespearean lit partner. We’ve been inseparable since. She was hard, where I was soft. She was confident, where I was hesitant. We were almost complete opposites, but we fed off the other’s strengths and grew to be better women due to the other’s influence.

  Fallon’s deep, calming breath snapped me out of my musings as she relaxed back into the sofa. “So, it looks like I’ll be dropping my cell phone provider, because the one I’m with obviously lost a vital voice mail, or three, from you, telling me about how you were held captive by a paranormal male revue. You said you were staying with PIs, not that they were good-looking freaks of nature.” She finished by cocking one eyebrow questioningly at me.

  “In my defense, everything I’m about to tell you I found out after I called you. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye,” I promised. Straightening myself, I asked, “Are you ready to have your mind blown?”

  She crossed her legs on the chair and placed her hands in her lap before she stated, “Hit me.”

  The next two hours were spent doing just that. Falcone had ordered pizza and added in his bit of information when needed, but otherwise stayed quiet. The thoughtful look on his face had me wondering if he was listening in, through their connection, to whatever was going on with the boys and their questioning.

  “So are we good?” I asked Fallon when I’d finished explaining my truly bizarre and long day.

  “Yeah, we’re good.” She nodded and then with a flick of her chin in Falcone’s direction, she added, “But if your buddy over there doesn’t stop staring at me, I’m going to box his balls.” She turned a glare upon him. “Seriously, dude, you’re creeping me out.”

  “Sorry, you just look so like someone I once knew,” Falcone apologized, but continued to stare.

  “Yeah, I get that a lot. I used to do porn,” Fallon responded with a dry tone and straight face. Watching the color drain from Falcone’s face before he turned cherry red was priceless.

  Once I stopped laughing enough to take a full breath, I put the poor man out of his misery by saying, “She’s joking, Falcone.”

  Fallon slapped my knee and said, “Anyway, let’s get back to your stalker.”

  Rolling my eyes, I shook my head and said, “No, what I’d like to know is what exactly did you see downstairs.”

  I was surprised when Fallon gave in. She dragged a hand through her hair as she gathered her thoughts. “I don’t know. I was sitting there giving Dean, that’s the one you almost clawed my eyes out for, right?” She was never going to let me live that down, but seeing as she wasn’t as cheesed off as she was earlier, I was willing to let h
er have her dig that time. I gestured for her to get on with the story. “I was giving Dean crap, then the room just exploded. Glass everywhere. Then in came a bunch of guys looking like ninja monks. I blinked and then your man threw me across the room under a table. Remind me to thank your lover boy for the honking bruise forming on my hip from when I plowed into the table leg.” She adjusted in her seat. My guess was the adrenaline was wearing off and she was starting to feel everything clawing its way into her mind.

  She shrugged, ran a hand over her face and admitted, “It was like an acid trip gone very wrong. The Lord of the Rings extras were running around with freaking swords and daggers. Seriously, not one gun in sight. Weird. I tossed your lover boy the fire poker I’d knocked over in my graceful landing, and we proceeded with kicking ass and taking names. It’s a damn good thing Sister Elizabeth insisted on those monthly self-defense classes. I was in the middle of taking down an ogre-sized bad guy when Bruce Wayne and the Hulk finally decided to join us. That was when things got really weird.”

  “Because they weren’t already?”

  She ignored my sarcasm and sallied forth with an overexaggerated tale. “Dean went all Grim Reaper on their asses. There were these opaque silhouette forms that came up from the ground and circled him once, then they attacked the bad guys after your man ordered them to.”

  “You could see them? You must be extremely sensitive. Very few have ever been able to see Dean’s gift as we can.” Falcone was staring again, only that time it was with a look of awe and contemplation.

  “Yeah, sensitive is not an adjective used often, or at all, to describe me; and you’re staring again, weirdo.” With that pointed out, Fallon turned her attention back to me. “Unfortunately, that’s all I saw, um… seems that the, er… robed ogre took advantage of my distraction and knocked me out.”

  And I was the Queen of France. Someone was a total liar, liar, pants on fire. I raised my own questioning eyebrow, but otherwise, let it go. I got it. She wanted to look big and bad in front of the legendary horseman who kept observing her like a scientific discovery.