by Viehl, Lynn
“Absolutely.” She was never going to get a good-bye past the lump in her throat. “Take care, Mr. Burke.”
“Godspeed, Miss Christian.”
She kept the tears away by tidying up the dishes and putting away the food. The subtle shift of the hull as it cruised through the calm water soothed her frazzled nerves. She’d just walked away from the only real friends and family she had, which might turn out to be the biggest mistake of her life. By revealing her orders to find the emeralds and keep them from Tremayne, she’d betrayed the council. As soon as they found out—and they always found out things like that—they’d erase her name from their list of potentials and forget she’d ever existed. With as much as she knew about the Kyn, they might even try to have her mind-wiped or killed.
Chris wandered over to the bunk in the back corner of the cabin, and lay down on the plaid coverlet. Although it was comfortable and roomy for a single, obviously the owner slept alone on the boat. She saw a row of buttons in the wall panel over her head and touched one.
From two small speakers on either side of the cabin the distinct sound of a cello colored the silence. Yo-Yo Ma, she recognized, performing Bach’s prelude from Cello Suite No. 1. It was one of her favorite classical pieces, and when she closed her eyes, she thought of the acclaimed musician in an overcoat and scarf, his talented hands clad in fingerless gloves as he played his beautiful instrument in the snow.
Whatever happened after she and Jamys found the emeralds, she would call Burke, Chris decided. She’d write to him, too, every month. It didn’t have to be a big thing, just a card or an e-mail to let him know she was okay and happy. She was going to be okay, and very happy.
She had every reason to be. Jamys cared about her, and trusted her. She’d make a new life for herself being his tresora. She didn’t need the council’s permission or a title or anything. Jamys was still Kyn, and if he wanted her, he’d have her. From the way he’d kissed her tonight, he definitely liked her.
Chris stared up at the ghostly reflection of her face in the mirror-polished wood ceiling. So why do I feel so miserable?
Like father, like daughter.
What her conscience suggested made her roll over and bury her face in the pillow. She was not like Frankie Lang; she wasn’t running away from a marriage or a kid. Sam and Lucan and Burke would be fine without her. They had a stronghold filled with devoted humans and immortal warriors, allies in Orlando and Atlanta, and more money than God. Once they got over the name-calling thing, they’d have each other.
No, she wasn’t like Frankie at all.
Chris had just turned thirteen a few days before her constantly battling parents had had a huge fight over money. The next morning Adele left to go shopping, and Frankie had picked up his board, kissed Chris on the top of her head, and took off.
“See you later, baby,” he called as he walked out to his Jeep.
Chris never saw him again.
Once Frankie had abandoned them, he’d stopped long enough to clean out what was left in the bank account, leaving Adele with nothing. Despite this, Adele refused to get a job, a divorce, or otherwise deal with reality. She repeatedly told her daughter that they would simply wait until Frankie came to his senses and returned home to take care of her and their daughter.
When her checks had begun bouncing and the credit cards stopped working, Adele had been furious. She had spent weeks on the phone demanding more time, more credit, and getting neither. Adele’s Chrysler disappeared in the middle of the night; in the process of filing a police report she learned it had been repossessed. As their food dwindled and the collection notices mounted, she remained in denial, sending Chris off to school each day with the promise that everything would be fine.
The bank began calling about the imminent foreclosure proceedings; Adele refused to speak to the loan officer up until the morning two sheriff’s deputies arrived to evict them from the property.
Some neighbors had first stared through their windows at them, and then closed their blinds so they wouldn’t have to watch.
One of the deputies had been kind enough to offer them a ride to a local shelter for homeless families, where Adele sat in a dead silence as Chris filled out the intake forms. The shelter manager told them they could stay for a week to give Adele time to find a job or someone who could take them in. Adele had said nothing, and moved like a sleepwalker until the manager took them to the dining room to have a meal.
The sight of the tray Chris had fixed for her seemed to rouse Adele from her stupor. “What is this?”
“I don’t know.” Chris, who’d been living on canned food for weeks, sat down beside her and started eating. “It’s not bad. Some kind of stew, I think.”
“This is garbage.” Adele had slapped the fork out of her hand. “We don’t eat garbage.” When the shelter manager came over to speak to her, Adele threw the tray of food at her before dragging Chris up by her arm. “We are going home, Christi. Right now.”
Her arm throbbed as her mother’s thin fingers dug into her skin.
“Mom, please, calm down.” Chris saw flashing red and blue lights coming down the road, knew instinctively the police were coming for them, and tried to dig in her heels. “Let’s go back inside. You don’t have to eat anything. We could just rest for a while.”
“We don’t belong here,” Adele said, her voice as hard as her grip. “We’re going home.”
The cops reached the end of the driveway before they did, and blocked it with their squad car.
“Ma’am?” One of the cops got out and directed his flashlight at Adele’s face. “We got a call from the shelter that there was some trouble inside. You and your girl okay?”
Adele looked down her nose at him. “Those people tried to feed my daughter garbage. You should go and arrest them at once.”
“Calm down, ma’am.” The cop gave Chris an assessing look. “Everything’s going to be fine now, honey. Don’t be scared.”
Her mother yanked on Chris’s arm and hauled her around the cop car. When the officer followed and called for her to stop, Adele broke into a run, dragging Chris alongside her. She tried to keep up, but something caught her foot and sent her sprawling.
“Easy, sweetheart.” One of the cops helped her up.
“Please don’t hurt my mom,” she begged him as Adele began screaming and pummeling the other officer. “She’s just really upset.”
“It’s okay,” the cop told Chris as his partner handcuffed her mother and hustled her into the back of the squad car. “Your mom needs some help, so we’re going to take her to a hospital.”
She saw the shelter manager hovering a few feet away with a plump, white-haired lady in a blue wool coat. “Can I go, too?”
“No, but there’s a safe place downtown where you can stay until she’s better,” he assured her. He beckoned to the woman in the wool coat. “This is a friend of mine named Miss Audrey. She’s going to give you a ride there.”
Miss Audrey came over and bent down, putting her face too close. “What’s your name, young lady?” When she didn’t reply, her smile became a tight line. “Answer me.”
“Christi.”
Miss Audrey straightened. “Very good.” She marched Chris over to another police car, but when she shoved her into the back of it, the seat vanished and four marble walls shot up around her, closing her into an airless tomb.
Chris scrambled to her feet and beat her fists against the cold stone. “This isn’t real. This didn’t happen to me. Let me out of here.”
Her shadow doubled, and Chris spun around to see the towering figure of a man in a monk’s robe. For a moment she thought it was Lucan, until he extended the torch he held, and she saw the network of scars covering his fingers and hand.
“Who are you?”
I was the maker of the scroll, and the keeper of the cross. It was I who washed it in my blood. You and your mortal family were my army, my guardians, each sworn to protect the secrets of eternity. Now you number but two. You
will not fail me as your sister did.
The smell of burning metal was making her stomach clench. “This is just a dream, and I don’t have any sisters, you asshole.”
You have the loyalty to protect the mortal world from eternal damnation. But do you have the conviction to do what needs be done?
He talked like one of the Kyn, Chris thought, but he was dressed like a Brethren. “Are you Hollander? The guy who stole the emeralds?”
The monk began to laugh, a deep and frightening sound that bounced around the inside of the tomb, each echo growing louder until Chris pressed her hands over her ears and called out for the only hope she had left.
“Jamys.”
*
The sky had softened from black to deepest blue by the time Jamys guided the sailboat into Biscayne Bay. Other vessels of various sizes sat anchored in a vast web of light and shadow cast by the brightly lit condominiums and hotels crowding the shoreline. One mortal who had risen early glanced up from the bobber on his fishing line and raised a hand in silent greeting as Jamys passed.
He returned the wave and then studied the assortment of piers, boathouses, and landings jutting out from the bay’s edge. Chris had said they might make use of one of the public docks, but he would need to consult a more detailed map to locate them. He turned the boat back into the wind, dropped the headsail, and backwinded the mainsail. As the boat slowed to a near stop, he secured the rigging and dropped anchor.
Chris still slept below, and it took all his resolve not to go down to join her. After sharing a kiss with her, however, all he could think about was stealing another, and another. He suspected he could kiss her for days and never grow weary of it.
His present dilemma was that he wanted more than kisses from her. Much more.
Jamys checked the horizon again, where the coming dawn had pinked the edges of the clouds. They would have to secure a vehicle to use whenever they were on land, he decided, or perhaps hire—
Jamys.
Chris’s voice called to him with such power and terror that for an instant he stood frozen. Only when he had pulled the door belowdecks from its hinges and jumped down into the cabin did he feel the echo of it through his thoughts. She had not called to him, as he could plainly see her in the cabin’s only bunk, her body still. The only sound he heard came from the soft rhythm of her breathing.
Why had he imagined her shouting his name when she was sleeping so peacefully? It had not been a memory or some fancy of his imagination; he’d heard her as clearly as if she had screamed his name in his ear.
Jamys went to the bunk, where her scent bathed the air and told him that she had been asleep for hours. He saw that she had been so tired, in fact, she had simply dropped on top of the covers. He reached for a blanket that had been left folded atop a chest, shaking it out before bending down to drape it over her. He hated the thought of waking her, and decided against it as he reached to brush a lock of hair from her cheek. He could give her—
Jamys please Jamys help me Jamys find me—
Jamys fell to his knees, blinded and deaf to everything but the bellowing storm that came roaring into his mind. It was as if he had been swept into the heart of a tornado, and as he fought to hold on to consciousness, he heard inside the terrible winds her voice and his name, distant and ragged, as if Christian were calling to him as she fought for her life.
Christian.
I’m here. Jamys, hurry.
Now Jamys felt the psychic barrier between them, as tall and wide as the wall of a fortress. Another Kyn had entered their dream and was using ability to prevent Jamys from reaching Chris’s mind. Without hesitation he threw himself at the other immortal’s barrier, battering it with his thoughts. At first it held fast against him, but as he continued to pour his power against it, he felt it flex and then grow thin. Just as he gathered himself for one last barrage, in his mind appeared a panel of smooth stone that changed from solid white to an opaque gray, and showed on its other side Christian, who stood beating her fists against it.
Such determination for such an untried warrior, another voice said, and the strangeness of it crawled through Jamys’s mind like a swarm of hungry, burrowing insects. In the face of eternity, will you be as steadfast and valiant? Would you kill her to save a hundred, a thousand, a million?
No, Jamys thought, lashing out in pain and rage at the other alien mind. I would die so that she might live.
Save her, and you are lost. Kill her, and then perhaps you both shall live. The other immortal’s power abruptly vanished.
Jamys!
He caught her in his arms, and they fell together through the voice and the wind and the darkness. Jamys landed on his back with Christian thrashing blindly on top of him.
“I have you.” He closed his arms around her, holding her still until she opened her eyes and stared down at his face. “I have you.”
She looked up and all around at the boat’s cabin before she collapsed against him. “Oh, God.”
Jamys cradled her as he sat up, turning her so that he could hold her as he braced his back against the frame of the bunk. He felt as weak as if he had not fed for a month, and it took all his self-discipline to stifle the tremors vibrating from his very bones.
“I thought I was having a nightmare.” Chris shifted, tucking herself into the curve of his arm. “What was that?”
“Not a dream.” The rapid beat of her heart distracted him; he could hear it humming through her limbs. Wherever they touched, it pulsed beneath the thin silk of her skin. “It felt like the nightlands.”
“That’s where you go when you sleep?” She shuddered. “I’d rather stay awake for eternity.”
Exhaustion and hunger made his fangs emerge into his mouth. “Sometimes it can be frightening.” He needed to put her aside, moor the boat, and leave her to hunt. And as soon as his head cleared, he would.
She lifted her face from his shoulder. “But I thought the Kyn were the only ones who could cross over into the nightlands. Why was I there? Jamys, your eyes.”
“Forgive me.” He eased her off his lap and tried to stand, and was vaguely alarmed to discover he could not. “Go to the helm, Christian, and take care of the boat. I will rest now.”
She ignored him and pressed her fingers to his neck. “Damn it, you barely have a pulse.”
Jamys felt her move away, and his body responded with a sluggish flow of need. That he couldn’t act on it was his only relief. He would rest through the daylight hours, and when he woke, he would hunt.
The unyielding wood made a poor pillow, he decided, until he felt warm hands lifting his head onto something much softer.
“You’re a lot heavier than you look.” Cloth slid from beneath his cheek. “Well, Burke said not to let it show.”
Her words made no sense to him, but he smelled her blood spill into the air a moment before a drop of it touched the corner of his mouth. Jamys tried to turn his head away, but her hand prevented it.
“Right now you need it more than I do,” she chided softly. “Go on. Drink.”
Her command was his wish, and the undoing of all his resolve; his lips sought the source of the blood and covered it. The taste of her made his fangs stretch out, eager to penetrate and take more, but to spare her more pain he used the last dregs of his strength to only suckle at the small wound.
Even that thin flow poured life and strength into him with astounding speed. Soon he brought up his hands, expecting to feel her forearm beneath his lips and instead grasping the tight muscles of her thigh. He raised his head to look at what she had done to herself, and saw a small wound marring her flesh, high up on the inside of her thigh. She had cut herself for him.
Her hand stroked over the back of his head, gently pressing as if to urge him back to the source of his delight. He ran the flat of his tongue over the wound, gathering the bright red beads that had welled there, and heard the soft sound she made. He could smell the arousal darkening her body’s scent, and followed it until his mouth f
ound the edge of her panties. The sharp points of his fangs easily sliced through the flimsy fabric, and he peeled it back from the pretty flower of her sex.
“Oh. Boy.” Her fingers curled into his hair. “Burke didn’t mention this.”
He looked up at her flushed, startled face before he deliberately pressed his mouth to the center of her dark curls. “And this?”
“Not a word.” She watched him through drowsy eyes, and when he used his tongue to part her, she shivered. “Jamys.”
He drew back a little to take in the fragrance of her desire, and look upon her hidden beauties. If she were his, he would take her away to some sultry deserted island where they would never have to wear clothing, and he could look upon her and touch her and take her whenever he wished.
Jamys put his hand over her to feel her heat against his palm, and her hips moved so that her damp mons rubbed against his skin. He eased two fingertips between her folds and found the slick entrance to her body, which instantly clenched around him in reaction. He could feel her tension in her thighs and the tightening of her belly, but when he glanced at her face, he saw only longing and excitement.
“Do you like that?” he murmured.
“No.” A dimple appeared in her cheek. “I love that.”
Slowly he pushed his fingers deeper, penetrating her sheath and filling her soft, wet channel. When she tightened again, he put his mouth against her, stroking her open with his tongue and rubbing the small, hooded nub of her clit. Like a pearl it swelled and emerged, satiny-soft, pulsing along with her heart.
As he lavished long, slow strokes of his tongue on her, he used his fingers to play within her, turning them in a rhythmic glide against the fluttering, grasping grip of her body.
This was how she would feel on his cock: hot and wet, tight and trembling.
The thought of fucking her that way made his muscles knot and his hips jerk as his fangs shot out into his mouth, and then she convulsed, scoring herself on the sharp tips as her body spasmed.
The taste of her sex and her blood released all the dark wanting inside him, and Jamys thrust his fingers in and out of her, harder and deeper with each roll of his wrist, driving her from one peak to another as he rode her with his mouth and tongue.
