Fierce Dawn

by Scott, Amber

  Lyric clapped loudly, a chortle of laughter peeling through the air. “Well done,” he said. “And a brutal choice, I might add.” He gave a shiver of repulsion. “Now how about a little skirmish?”

  “She should rest,” Elijah called.

  “I’m fine,” Sadie said, not taking her eyes off of Lyric. “A little achy is all.”

  “I’ll say,” Lyric said so low it was almost a whisper, the intensity returning to his gaze.

  “Flirt all you want,” Sadie said. “You don’t fool me for a minute.”

  Lyric grinned. “No? And what makes you think I’m faking it?”

  She had no idea. But she wasn’t about to admit as much. “Is this the skirmish? Or are you going to actually teach me something? I mean, that is what all this demonstration and bravado is about, isn’t it?”

  “You asked for it,” Lyric said and, in a blur, came after her.

  Sadie didn’t see him make contact. Instead, her chest smashed with blunt pain. His forearm, would be her best guess. And within milliseconds, Sadie lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, grappling for air.

  A whoosh breezed past. Somewhere behind her glass crashed. Had Lyric hit it? Sadie flinched, covering her eyes and rolling as a spray of shards rained down.

  “Lyric,” Elijah growled from up high. “I warned you.”

  Lyric laughed. “She took it like an immortal, Elijah. She’s not as fragile as you think.”

  A wave of pride ran through her as she got to her feet and shook off the gut blow. “I’m okay.”

  Elijah brought Lyric down from the upper window ledge, the glass there gone, and released his throat. Lyric chuckled. “She’s all yours,” he said, before snapping a jab at Elijah’s throat.

  Rubbing the area but looking far less pissed, Elijah faced her. “Let’s try to recreate the pulse you shocked me with, alright?”

  “I don’t think I can. This may sound weird, but I think the shocks turned inward.”

  “Hmm. Okay. Let’s focus on defensive moves, on predicting my attack.” He assumed a battle stance. “Try to feel for me coming.”

  Once he stopped the exercises, she couldn’t say how much time had passed. Neither did she realize that Lyric, Holly and Astrid had left them at some point. He walked her back to the bedroom, softly closing the door. “How do you feel?”

  “Fine,” she said, truthfully. “Anxious. I feel like I don’t have time. I need this to happen faster.”

  “I don’t want to push you too hard.” He leaned against the closed door, crossing his arms. “But I have to admit, I feel it too. If our location does get compromised, or worse, I’ll feel better knowing you’re prepared.” He pushed off from the door. “I worry about pushing you and conversely, I don’t want to leave you vulnerable.”

  Her belly flipped over. Sadie sat on the bed and found herself unable to meet his gaze.

  “If I share too much, I could damage your transformation. If I give you too little…mine is such a different world, Sadie.”

  His weight moved hers as he sat a foot away on the bed. Familiar attraction drummed through her. She couldn’t find her voice. His finger grazed her neck as he brushed a tendril of hair from her shoulder. She turned to him. “I know it’s different and this might sound bizarre, but all of my life, I’ve felt like some sort of transplant into a life I wasn’t meant for. And now, with all of this coming down on me at once, it feels completely…normal isn’t exactly the right word…and right doesn’t fit…I don’t know what I mean. That I can handle this. Lyric is right. I’m not so fragile.”

  “I know. I see the fight in you. And you’ll need it, full force, every day.” He contemplated his hands. “I didn’t want to believe Holly at first. She’s the one who first sensed this change in you, you know. Not me. But I promise you, I’ll see you through this. I should let you rest. Maybe later we can try reading some objects, or more technique, if you’re up for it. Or, you might have more questions.”

  She expected him to leave, hated that he would, searched her heart for that audacity he’d liked so much. If only he would look at her. The seconds weaved in and around them. Every breath seemed to string him closer to her, her pulse acting as a stitch, her hope a rhythm. She wanted him.

  “Elijah?” her voice cracked.

  His eyes met hers and the intensity there caught her unaware. Her breathing hitched. He leaned closer, his hand trailing a line down her jaw. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

  “I should leave.”

  Was he asking her?

  “Don’t leave.” She swallowed and forced the words out. “What if it hurts again?”

  He closed his eyes. She braced for rejection over her flimsy lie. Then he was kissing her, rough and swift, his lips melding to hers. She responded in kind, thrilled and hungry for more. Her hot need reawakened below her navel, between her thighs, aching in her deepest core.

  Elijah pulled her onto his lap. She gasped, feeling his hard cock. She gyrated her hips, searching for satisfaction. His jeans were in the way and his stupid shirt. His hands held her hips but didn’t move. Sadie whimpered, tugging at his shirt. She needed his bare skin and craved his touch. She pulled his shirt off and tossed it aside. How far would he let her take this?

  As though in answer, his hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs grazing her hard nipples. Within a blink, he moved her body supine onto the bed, his above, hovering, radiating erotic heat. He pulled her shirt off. Her bra followed and before it could hit the floor, her nipple was in his mouth. “Oh, God,” Sadie gasped. Pleasure shot through her. His tongue danced wonders over each nipple, his hands stroking, driving her need higher.

  “Elijah,” she gasped, lacing her hands into his hair.

  “Sadie,” he said, pulling away.

  She hated the broken contact and clutched all the tighter to his shoulders. But he pulled back further. “Not yet,” she said. Swirling blue depths met her gaze.

  He whispered her name. “Sadie?”

  She pulled herself up and kissed his neck, tasting the salt of his skin. Not yet. She wouldn’t let him stop. She straddled him, wrapping her legs around him, tugging at the fly on his pants. “Sadie,” he said again, his voice husky.

  “Not yet.” She couldn’t let him stop. She reached her hand down his pants and grasped his hard, hot length. Elijah groaned. His hands dug into her hips. God, he was so big, so hard. She ached for him.

  She arched her breasts against his chest, stroking his cock, kissing his neck. “I want you, Elijah.” His body throbbed in her hand in answer. But inch by desperate inch, he pulled away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. Regret shone bright in his eyes. “Sadie, we can’t. It’s too risky. You can’t imagine the ecstasy I’d love to give you right now.” He pulled on his shirt. “You must understand. If we consummate this passion, the repercussions could be devastating.”

  “How?” she asked, hating the clog in her throat, the need coursing through her.

  “You’re no longer human but not quite non either. Lust, love, it works differently in the realm you’ll become a part of. You’re caught in between. I can’t be sure what joining will do to you. How it will affect your pain—or your transformation.”

  At least he had the decency to look to be in as much frustration as she was. He moved to leave but paused. He bent and slowly kissed the tip of her nose. “Rest.”

  Talk about torture! For another twenty-four hours, no shudders came. Sadie might have preferred them. No more kisses. Sadie vowed then and there, next time, she’d finish what they’d started.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Seventeen

  The pain mostly gone, Sadie could roam Elijah’s bedroom, peak out the window and stare at the Superstition Mountains and dread facing Astrid yet again.

  Astrid didn’t like her. Yet she checked on her several times a day.

  Her fifth day at the safe house, a day since she’d last seen Elijah, Astrid came in around eight p.m.

  “Will Elijah be back to see me
soon?” Sadie asked, lying back for an examination.

  “I’m not sure,” Astrid said, pressing Sadie’s abdomen, her eyes vacant.

  Sadie pressed on. “I’d like to see him. As soon as possible. Can you tell him that?” She shouldn’t have let him leave in the first place. She could have seduced him. She’d held back.

  Astrid pushed against Sadie’s palms, watched, pushed, her frown deepening. “Roll onto your stomach?”

  Sadie turned over, wincing. “Why do you hate me?”

  No answer. Astrid pressed her cold hands to Sadie’s lower back. The muscles there jerked, sending twinges of pain through her. Sadie sucked her breath in.

  “Sorry about that,” Astrid murmured, her hands moving upward.

  At Sadie’s shoulders, Astrid’s exploration sent sharper pains through her. Her indrawn breath hissed out. Why wasn’t this getting any better? The shuddering had passed, yet her shoulder aches grew by the hour. Astrid felt the need to poke at her scars. Sadie considered jerking an elbow back in hopes it would connect with the healer’s stomach.

  “The epicenter is here, is it not?” Astrid asked, poking her fingertips into the soft muscle between her shoulder blades. Her mother had called the area ‘heaven’s gate.’ The pain there burned like hell. Astrid traced Sadie’s scars, making the crescent reminders of her breakdown sting.

  Sadie nodded quickly, unable to speak. God, this sucked.

  The night she’d cut the crescents into her own flesh remained a blur. She only remembered the slow, seeping thoughts that grew more and more frequent after her mother had died. So frequent that they consumed Sadie.

  Something inside of her wanted out.

  Sadie remembered blood, the dull steak knife covered in it. She remembered the relief the cuts gave her. And Heather’s terror upon finding her bleeding on the kitchen floor. Heather and Sadie’s roles reversed. Heather became the caretaker, Sadie the child.

  Astrid squeezed and poked. Sadie bit down.

  Where was Elijah? Probably avoiding her after that last kiss.

  Heather and Jen would be worried out of their minds by now. She could almost hear Heather filing a missing persons report. “She’s off her medications,” she’d be telling the greater Phoenix area. Jen, trying to explain that she didn’t know any better, that she wanted Sadie to feel normal. “She’s been doing so well. She went out with me.” What would Dr. Meyers say? “Perhaps it’s time we re-visit the idea of a group home.” Worse? An asylum? Sadie imagined the local news caption “Have you seen this woman?” and a photo from her breakdown. Looking completely insane.

  “I don’t suppose you happen to know, is Elijah angry with me?” There. She’d said it. Not that the human hater would answer.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Astrid said softly, removing her chill hands.

  Sadie took care rolling onto her back again. The way Astrid looked at her encouraged her. Could the hate be gone? “Why hasn’t he come back?”

  Astrid shrugged. “I’m not the person to ask. I’m no longer a part of them.” She stood to leave.

  Sadie sat up. “You don’t have to like me. But will you please tell him to see me?” She swallowed. “It’s about my family. It’s important.”

  “I’ll give him my final analysis when he returns.” She turned toward the door. “I can tell him then.”

  “Can you tell me?” Sadie blurted out. “What your analysis is, I mean?”

  Astrid’s face lit with something akin to surprise. “He was right. You’re no longer human.”

  Sadie’s hands went to her stomach. Not human? Immortal then? She hadn’t realized she’d held to the slim chance none of this was true, until now. “When will he be back?”

  Astrid shrugged and left her.

  “Great,” Sadie said and went to the far window. She separated two blinds and peered at the dark sky. The moon sat high in the sky. “Where are you out there, Elijah?”

  “Uh-oh. We aren’t talking to ourselves now, are we?”

  Sadie spun around. Lyric stood at the door. “You startled me,” she gasped.

  He put his hands up. “Sorry. I’m a bit of a specter that way.” He walked into the room. “Astrid said you were getting a little stir crazy. Am I too late?”

  Sadie frowned. “Too late for what?”

  “Have you lost your mind trapped in here?” He put a hand to his forehead and fake swooned into the armchair.

  Little did he know how on the mark he was.

  “How about a tour of the grounds,” Lyric said, looking like a rake from a romance novel.

  “That depends,” she said, crossing her arms. “Are you going to try to eat me?”

  His deep laughter echoed off the walls. “I haven’t used blood in more than six months, Sadie. I’ll admit I tested you a bit at the mall. I assure you I have no interest in your blood, sweetling.” He sniffed. “Not quite human anymore. Might end up poisoning me instead.”

  Lyric’s tour included every room in the gigantic house and a tale for each. Tale might be a loose term for all he shared, feeding certain portions into her brain for a nice, firsthand flavor she’d rather have skipped.

  The third floor bathroom, for instance. Bisque marble pillars adorned a deep oval tub sunken into the floor and dripping in ivy vines. Sadie could almost feel the steam rising off an imaginary bath. Bubbles on her toes, a glass of Merlot. The bitter taste of the wine. “Lyric, stop it,” Sadie said, pushing against the image he’d obviously fed in.

  “Elijah once caged a rabid vampire caught during a small human murder spree, drinking and bathing in their blood,” Lyric said, pushing scarlet dripped walls and screams into her mind.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “Keep your crap to yourself.”

  Lyric chuckled.

  Not all of the rooms had stories of gore and bloodshed, though. The smallest second floor bedroom, vacant save for an intricately carved wooden trunk, for example. Lyric called it the music room and said when he wanted to obliterate memories of each hunt, he came here.

  “If I sit for long enough, I can hear a song so sweet that nothing I have seen, nothing heavy or dark in my heart can survive.” He snapped his fingers. “Like a charm, as they say, every time.”

  Sadie had a hard time imagining Lyric sad. He acted too cocky for sadness.

  “So, how does all this work?” she asked at the close of his tour. “Do you four live here? Is it like some sort of headquarters?”

  “No. We haven’t actually lived here for ages. Only Astrid has. She prefers existing outside the immortal realm. Aiding hunters when needed.” He motioned for her to precede him through the kitchen door. “Before Crusoe disappeared—well, before then, we were a team. Like human bounty hunters, we tracked immortals trespassing in the human realm, took them back. But now…” He opened a mammoth refrigerator.

  She decided not to press for more. For one, her stomach screamed for food.

  For another, the light glinted off of him in such a way that she saw the sadness she hadn’t wanted to. “What kind of immortals?” she asked.

  Lyric pinned her with his obsidian eyes and a shiver ran through her. “Feeders gone vampire mostly. Blood junkies,” he said.

  Sadie swallowed and decided she didn’t need any more stories tonight.

  “Hungry, cupcake?” he asked, his eyes filling again with humor so instantaneous that she wondered if she’d really seen the sorrow.

  “Starving.”

  *

  Flames streaked past Elijah’s left flank. The old Thunderbird creaked on impact, the fireball crimping the rusted metal, then fizzling into wisps of smoke. “Damn it.”

  Holly would have to aim better than that to catch the changeling. They didn’t have room for error. Sadie had changed. Her kiss last night had left him senseless. It had taken everything he had to stop it.

  He’d wanted her. And that meant all these months of tracking Crusoe and the Book of Sorrows could soon be over. He couldn’t name why, but his urgency to find Crusoe had inflated
in the last few days.

  He lit to the ground and shook his head. Holly strode toward a hollowed out Ford truck. The cloak of night worsened their odds. And the rusting, old junkyard held plenty of dark corners for a changeling with vanishing powers to hide in.

  Holly’s breath came out in hard, steamy puffs in the cold night air. Sweat trickled down her brow. “She’s too fast,” she said, looking ready to give up.

  “Don’t give me that,” Elijah said, grabbing her arm and pulling her up short. “Look. I know neither of us is used to this. We’re used to hunting as four, not two. But more is riding on this than on any bounty we ever brought in.”

  Holly pulled her arm free. “I know.”

  Elijah let her stalk away, and bounded skyward again. They should have brought Lyric. But Elijah didn’t want Sadie unprotected. He didn’t trust Astrid’s anger.

  Needing to clear his head, he’d left after kissing Sadie. He’d found and tracked the changeling’s vibration. They didn’t have Lyric to image locations and didn’t have Crusoe, another seeker, to bookend Elijah.

  Holly shot another whirling flame. A scream tore into the air.

  “Good girl,” Elijah whispered, swooping toward the source. If he could isolate the changeling before she vanished, he could transport them far enough away to face off and keep Holly safe, too.

  Holly shouted something behind him.

  Elijah couldn’t decipher her words. He caught a glimpse of movement and didn’t hesitate. He tackled her. The junkyard blurred. Cold wind swiped his skin. He brought their bodies to a stop, hitting dirt and rolling.

  He’d taken them too far and his body was suffering for it. His arms were weak and the fiend squirmed free. Elijah let it. There was no place to go.

  He took a moment to focus on the curled form that rolled away from him.

  “You,” she said, her pale skin glowing luminously in the dark. “Not very original, are you?”

  He could guess easily enough she meant the desert he’d transported them to, again. Elijah snorted. “It works.” She’d escaped him once, but she wouldn’t again.