by J. K. Coi
The battle raged inside her, the lure of the vampire’s blood getting stronger as her anger settled in deeper, setting its hooks into her soul. She should fight it, but she felt the strength it gave her coursing through her veins, and she liked it,—she needed it.
Baron’s motorcycle was parked off the road along the shoulder but Max was nowhere in sight.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “Where the hell are you?” He pulled over and got out of the truck. It was hotter in Rockford than it had been in Chandler, the humidity making him sweat as he strapped the bike into the flatbed and bolted it down with a heavy padlock.
Let Max try to leave without him this time.
He tuned his ability, reaching out for any hint of psychic energy. Max’s powers seemed to be getting stronger, and if she was anywhere close by he should be able to—
Ah, there.
It was weak and distant. She’d already gone deep into the woods. But, for the moment anyway, she was alone. He wasn’t picking up any other signatures.
Following the fine trace of energy, he walked into the trees until he came to a small clearing and the entrance to a rocky cavern.
It was dark inside, but that wasn’t a problem for Baron’s Immortal eyes. His sight was better than human, even in the dark.
She was crying.
Max never let herself lean on anyone. Not Baron, whom she hated. And not even Jackson, whom she refused to burden with any more than he already had to deal with.
Instead she kept everything inside. She was a superwoman who always had it all under control. He’d felt a little like her damn appendix—a part of her life, sure, but not really necessary. If you had to cut it out, you wouldn’t really notice the lack.
Maybe that’s why he’d known he could just disappear. Fact was, she hadn’t come looking for him until Jackson had asked her to.
Baron had accepted Max’s disdain and distance as part of her defense mechanisms, but after the last few days he had hoped that maybe they’d broken down that wall, hoped that, for once, she would really let him in. Instead she had taken off, as he’d done to her once before. It seemed Baron wasn’t the only one who ran when things got messy and complicated. He hadn’t liked the feeling.
He took a step forward, but then stopped. Not wanting to frighten her, he called her name before approaching. “Max.” He couldn’t see her. His voice echoed off the rock walls of the cavern.
He heard her breath catch and hold. She wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing, and he started walking toward her again. “Max, it’s me. Where are you?”
His eyes adjusted to the darkness. He looked left and right until he found her huddled on the floor against the dirt wall, arms wrapped tightly around her updrawn legs. His heart lurched at the sight of her there, looking small and lost like a frightened little girl.
He went to his knees before her. He whispered to her as he rocked her in his arms. Words of comfort and love. Words he should have been telling her every day for the last two years but hadn’t because of his guilt and his fear.
“It’s okay, baby.” He kissed her forehead, kissed the tears from her eyes, her nose and cheeks. “Please don’t cry anymore.”
For a long time they remained like that, Baron holding Max as her tears flowed in a river down her face. He felt the drops fall, hot and hard on his soul, in his heart. They fell on his cheek pressed against hers, on the hands he used to soothe her with soft touches. They fell between his lips as he pressed his mouth to hers, desperate to take her pain into himself so she wouldn’t hurt anymore.
Baron kept his kisses light, but his body was getting hard all the same. She was close and soft and warm. Heaven in his arms, even in her grief.
He cursed himself even as his kisses became deeper, longer.
Max wasn’t helping him to stop, either. She kissed him back, her tears finally slowing but not stopping, not even when she opened her mouth to his tongue.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Max broke away from the kiss and took a deep breath, pressing her body closer to Baron, her face buried into the curve of his shoulder. When she’d come to this cave and realized Devon wasn’t here, that she’d been following a ghost scent left behind—probably on purpose to confuse anyone trying to follow—she had lost it. Broken down and just started crying. And now she couldn’t stop.
Why couldn’t she stop crying? She rarely cried, and never like this.
This, this was endless. An outpouring of years and years of grief and pain and disappointment, all coming out of her here and now. She couldn’t keep any of it in any longer.
“Baron, please. What do I do?” She hiccupped, her sinuses waterlogged. “I can’t stop it. It hurts so much, but I can’t stop crying.”
“I know sweetheart,” he answered, his voice low, soothing. “It’s okay.” It was that voice that spelled her undoing. It always had. It tricked her into believing in him, into believing that he would be constant and true, that he’d be there for her. Tricked her into thinking he cared, that maybe he even loved her.
But he never had. At least not enough.
Not enough to trust her with the truth, or to stay when things got tough. Not enough to give them a chance at what could have been something so beautiful.
With that thought some of her strength returned, and she forced the tears back. Baron waited. He didn’t move an inch away from her.
With a sigh, she swept a shaky hand through her hair. “How did you find me?”
He frowned. It probably hadn’t been a great idea to remind him that he’d been forced to come looking for her. “Luckily, I had a pretty good idea where you would go.” He rose, brushing the dust from his thighs, and then held out a hand to her.
“Yeah, luckily.” Max sighed as she took it and let him help her to her feet. “But how did you find me here?”
“My Immortal abilities allow me to sense the psychic gifts of others,” he explained. He hadn’t let go of her hand, and was now pulling her along with him back down the cavern corridor. “Yours are still weak and fledgling, but they’re there.”
“Ah, yes. The mysterious Immortal powers,” she said. “The ones I had to hear about from Diana.”
Baron stopped and jerked on her arm, pulling her against him so their faces were only inches apart. “Don’t,” he bit out. He glared down at her, his eyes glowing silver in the darkness, his mouth a hard line. “Don’t push me, Max. After the merry chase you led me, I’m so close to the edge right now. And you do not want to see me go over it.”
Max opened her mouth to shoot back a smartass comment, but in an uncharacteristically sensible move she snapped it shut again when it became clear that Baron was itching for a fight. She had no problem obliging him, but this wasn’t the best place or time for it.
“What were you thinking?” Both hands were on her arms now and he shook her as if trying to knock the sense back into her. “What if you’d walked right into one of Devon’s traps?”
Max jerked her shoulders back, stepped out of his grasp. “That was the whole point, you idiot.”
“Oh?” He sneered. “And what the hell did you think you were going to do after you found him, then?”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Oh, fuck no.” He grabbed her arm again. He started walking, pulling her along behind him. “Then it’s even more imperative that we get out of here. Right now.”
She thought about resisting, but again she knew it would do no good. He would haul her over his shoulder and continue walking out of there, and she didn’t have the strength to stop him—at least not without using her vampire powers against him, which she swore she would never do again.
Still, she didn’t have to like it.
“Why?” she argued. “There’s no one here—not anymore.” She was disappointed not to have found what she’d come here for, and Baron apparently caught it in her voice.
He stopped pulling her along like a bull mastiff dragging its owner, and turned back to glare at her again. “Fuck,
you have some kind of death wish, don’t you?” She flinched. “Why the hell did I bother saving your ungrateful hide if you were just going to throw your life away like so much trash?”
“Ungrateful.” She laughed. “Yeah, how impolite of me, Baron. Tell me something. When you found out about this Immortal gig, how grateful were you? I’ll just bet you got down on your knees and said thank you to the guy who broke that news to you, huh?”
“You know, Max, you are absolutely right. I was horrified, angry. I wanted to kill the person responsible for taking away my right to choose,” Baron said. “Is that what you want me to say? Do you want to hurt me? I can understand it—I know I’ve hurt you often enough. Do you want to get some of that back?” He held out his arms, showing her he was willing to take whatever she had to dish out.
“Fuck you,” she snarled. “It’s not always about you. I didn’t ask you to follow me, or fight for me, or save me.”
“Of course you didn’t,” he said, his expression turning cold. “You haven’t ever asked me for anything, have you? No, you’re too strong for that. Max—the woman who can support her drunken whore of a mother at sixteen, take care of my dying brother, confront hundred-year-old vampires and apparently still have the time and energy to make sure I never forget that she doesn’t need me.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“Is it?” he asked. “Is it, Max? How did you feel when I never came home? Did you get angry? Yeah, I’ll bet you were angry with me. But that’s okay, anger’s allowed, isn’t it? It’s all the other emotions that you won’t allow, the ones that make you messy and vulnerable. The ones that make you hurt.”
“Yes, I was angry!” she shouted. “I was angry because it did hurt. I was angry because I had to be. Because anger was the only thing that kept the pain of losing you from eating me alive.” Her confession ended on a sob, all her rage draining away.
“It kept me from asking why. My whore of a mother, as you call her, spent her whole life asking that question. Why? She never got an answer, and in the end, that’s what killed her. I swore I’d never let myself be like her. I would be stronger than she was, smarter than she was. Never let anyone have that kind of power over me.”
“But the truth is…” She lifted her eyes to his and knew he could see the tears that blurred her vision for the second time that night. “I am just like her. Because it did hurt.”
“Max—” he started, but something grabbed his attention. She sensed it too.
“I’m sorry, Baron,” she whispered.
He kissed her hard on the mouth. “Save your apologies for when we get out of here,” he replied. “What kind of weapon did you bring with you?”
She blinked. “Uh…I kind of borrowed a 10 mm from your closet.”
He smiled. A deep chuckle rumbled from his chest. “That’s my girl. Take it out and make sure you’re locked and loaded. If you’re going to shoot, shoot for the head. It won’t kill a vampire, but it’ll sure make a mess.” His tone was confident as he effortlessly took charge of the situation.
“Are you serious?” she asked. “A direct shot to the head won’t kill—”
“Nope. You’ve got to sever the head clean off for the vampire to die, otherwise—” He stopped and winced, looking down at her. “Ah, shit. I’m sorry,” he said.
Max shook her head. “Don’t be. We don’t have time for it.” She pulled her gun and checked the barrel. It was habit, even though she’d loaded it herself before sneaking out of the warehouse.
She’d never been so glad for the cool comfort of a weapon’s heavy grip in her hand. She might not be able to kill Devon with it, but it sure would feel good to do some serious damage.
“Come on.” Baron kept his voice low. With a nod of his head he indicated that he wanted them to keep moving forward toward the entrance of the cavern.
“Shouldn’t we stay here and try to take him by surprise?” Max asked.
He shook his head. “We’ll get him at the entrance to the cave. Staying here for that added element of surprise isn’t worth the risk. Trust me. We don’t want to get caught in a tight space against a vampire’s speed and strength. Speaking of which…” Baron looked her over. “Keep that in mind. You’re strong. Fast. You have power. Use it. Don’t let any preconceived notions of what you think you can’t do hold you back from doing what you have to. If that means you kill, then kill. If it means you run, I want you to run…even if you leave me behind.”
“Baron, no. I couldn’t—”
His expression was focused, unwavering. “You will do as I say, Max,” he ordered. “It’s the only way either of us has a chance of getting out of here.”
Finally she nodded, even though she had no intention of leaving him. Had no intention of letting him take on Devon alone. Maybe she wasn’t strong enough to kill the vampire herself, but she would make sure Baron had all the backup he might need so that Devon wouldn’t walk out of here to hurt anyone else, ever again.
He must have seen her intentions in her face, because he sighed before turning from her. “There are three,” he whispered with a note of surprise as they quietly made their way to the entrance of the cavern. “Devon is with them. The other two are young, probably not much older than you are.”
She hesitated. “They might not be…evil, right? I mean—”
Baron turned to her once again, this time taking her hand and bringing it to his lips. He placed a soft kiss on her palm, and his expression was regretful. “If Devon turned these two, then they’re evil.”
She gasped, jerking her hand back from his lips. “But—”
“It’s different with you, Max.” He looked like he wanted to say more, to convince her of his rightness, but there wasn’t time.
She shook her head, disbelieving. How could it be any different? She was a vampire, just like them. She had been turned by the same vampire, she had the same blood urges and the same unnatural strength.
God, the only difference between her and them might be that she hadn’t killed anyone…yet.
The three vampires were close now. Baron and Max stood just inside the rocky entrance, Baron’s blade looking black in the pitch darkness. Max tightened her grip around the handle of her own weapon, eyes burning.
The time for stealth was past. Max watched Baron surge forward, his motions quick and sure, his blade cleaving the head of one vampire clean from his shoulders. It was so fast. Max’s mouth opened on a silent cry as she watched the creature turn to dust. The particles hung weightless in the heaviness of the humid summer air until Baron tore through it again, this time with his body as he continued forward to face Devon and his remaining henchman.
The older vampire just laughed, sliding easily out of the path of Baron’s blade. “Ah. Once again, life is proven to be a most circular concept.” He goaded Baron with his sneering humor. “Although this time, I expect that it will not be my woman who dies.”
Baron didn’t rise to the bait. His face remained cold and hard as he approached the vampire. His sword tip caught Devon across the cheek before he could skip away. The vampire hissed and lunged for the Immortal, but Baron either anticipated the move or he was just wicked fast.
Max labored to gather a deep breath into her lungs. She was going to need it. But oxygen was in short supply. The universe had gotten too small in the last several minutes, the atmosphere too thin.
She shook herself, knowing she had to get out of her own head and help Baron.
Devon and his fledgling continued to dodge Baron’s blade, coming ever closer to getting their sharp animal-like talons deep into his skin. Max flexed her hand, and thought she could feel those same claws waiting just under the surface. It was a primitive, defensive reaction she had started to feel as soon as her body recognized the danger.
Taking a deep breath, she took care sighting her gun, wanting to make sure her aim was true so she wouldn’t hit Baron. She was a good shot—at least in target practice at the range. She could do this.
&nbs
p; Except that Baron kept moving, the vampires kept lunging forward and back.
She could do this.
Aim.
Aim.
Fire.
Max sighed with relief as soon as she realized her shot had proved true. One more vampire was down in the dirt, a bullet lodged deeply in his brain, a crater-sized bloody hole where his left eye had just been. He didn’t poof into dust like the first one, though. No, this vampire still lived, writhing and screaming, the sound piercing into her brain like a bolt of lightning.
Baron must have felt it too. He winced, although his attack didn’t falter. He and Devon were moving, circling each other in the intricate steps of a dance. Together, apart. Each breathing heavily, seemingly matched in speed and strength.
Max aimed her weapon again, patient, waiting for her shot. Baron and Devon were moving fast, almost a blur of arms and legs, steel and leather, sharp fangs and deadly claws. She was absolutely terrified but at the same time mesmerized. Baron was a fascinating vision to behold. Even though she had known him almost her entire life, she had never seen him like this.
A warrior.
His silver eyes blazed. His breathing was even and every movement was calculated. Powerful. She couldn’t help but watch and admire the strength and beauty of this man that she loved.
As Devon’s head came within her sights and she began to squeeze the trigger, Max sensed a shiver in the air. Cold. Biting. Icy. Another presence—someone else was close. And it wasn’t some trailer trash wino walking off Saturday night’s binge with a jaunt through the woods.
Shit! Her opportunity had passed and Devon was dancing around Baron once more, in a desperate attempt to elude the Immortal’s deadly blade.
