Be Still My Heart

by Jackie Ivie

  “I see you’ve met Miss Ellenby.”

  He’d rip her bloody heart out. Just as soon as he finished with the sheik and these other assholes. And all that had to wait until he had this excruciating pain handled. Fire-like agony raced each vein, taking his strength and leaving him nothing but cold. Tremor-inducing, blue-tinged cold. He swore he could see the frost from each exhaled breath.

  “You do understand, don’t you, Doctor Findlay? Yes?”

  Keep talking, Asshole . Just keep saying words.

  “That is good. We must go now. Miss Ellenby is here as my guest. We’ll be having a nice supper while I think about everything but you. I will be here again on the morrow, though. To continue our talk.”

  He heard them leave even with his hands slapped to each ear to shut it out. And even through the silent sobs rippling over him, the effort he was using to control all of it, and the fact that nothing was working. Why was everything and everyone so stinking wrong? He’d read and studied and even lectured about physiological reactions to emotion. How, when pain got too severe, a body could concentrate and turn it into a hatred-type feeling in order to absorb and then conquer it. He was concentrating and he was hating. And nothing worked. Where was that rage, huh?

  It wasn’t the first time he cried himself to sleep, silently cursing anyone who would listen, but it had to be the worst.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Stuart? You there?”

  Oh no. Again no. And for emphasis, a third no . Stuart wrapped into a tighter ball, clamped his hands tighter to his ears, and trembled at the slight whisper.

  “Stuart!”

  “Go to hell.”

  He mumbled it and shuffled closer to the wall. Manifestations were one thing he was determined to avoid, especially if they were a charcoal-haired vixen with long legs.

  “Come on, Stuart, we haven’t much time!”

  She wasn’t disappearing, and she wasn’t silencing. He might as well just face her and be done with it. Stuart moved into a bent sitting position and shoved open his arms, rattling chains with the motion.

  “I’ve got eternity, lady. Just look around.”

  “We don’t have time to argue. Move!”

  “And just how do you suggest I do that? I’ve got iron cuffs on my wrists and ankles. And I’m attached to the walls with logging chain.”

  “It’s just iron. Pull on it!”

  Stuart snorted. This was a great delusion. One of his better ones, actually. He lifted his hands at her, and then bent back into a “v” shape to pull on his ankle chains.

  “There. I pulled.”

  “We don’t have time for this, and if you make me climb down there and do it for you, it’s going to take more time! We’ll get caught. Is that what you want?”

  “Hell no. I want you to leave. That’s what I want.”

  She did that Russian curse word she always used, said it fairly vehemently, and it was recognizable even through set teeth and using a gargling sound. He smiled and started talking.

  “You know, I didn’t want to love you. Not because you’re not lovable, but because love can hurt so damn much. I suppose that’s what you wanted me to find out, isn’t it?”

  “You…love me?”

  “Of course. Probably did from the moment you walked into my office. Is that what you need to hear before you’ll leave me alone?”

  “Oh…Stuart.”

  “All right! I was wrong. This is tons worse. And you need to leave. Now.”

  “I’m not going without you.”

  “What a joke. You’re the reason I’m still down here. They didn’t even know who I was until you showed up. They were after you. And you know why?”

  “Not especially. Are you going to free yourself or am I going to have to come down there?”

  “All of my guards here? They used to shadow the prince. Now, they just torment me. One of them took supreme pleasure in telling me about how you took down one of them and drank his blood while the prince lay dying.”

  “That would have been Mr. Six on the BMI Scale. He got a rib-crunching right fist to the bread box, too. He tell you of that?”

  “Wasn’t on his list, I guess.”

  “Stuart. You’ve got to the count of three and then I’m yanking this cage apart. You hear?”

  “Why did you betray me?” And why did the words have to be sobbed?

  “Please don’t do this now.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with now? You have other plans? Perhaps some entertainment after the supper with His Excellency?”

  “It wasn’t betrayal, Stuart. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get into this compound? Huh? Well, I’m going to tell you. I had to give them enough truth to make it worth their while, and then do the best acting of my life.”

  “You call that acting?” He hooted fake laughter. It sounded every bit of it.

  “Keep your voice down!”

  “No. I’ve been using it at all octaves for a week now and nobody cared. Why would they care now?”

  “Because you’re escaping! You weren’t doing that before, were you?”

  “You have me there. Good point.”

  “Can you just forget listing items and ticking off points as they’re made? We can argue later!”

  She reached down and grabbed at his barred ceiling, but before she could move, her eyes got huge and a choked sound came from her. And then she was yanked up from him with a garrote about her neck that had a huge crucifix attached to it. A crucifix Stuart recognized.

  “Got her!”

  Stuart grabbed for the broken ends of Oblivious’ spear, his eyes flicking to the scene unfolding right above him. It was Lean. He had Mean with him, holding the banner sheet they’d used to subdue Stuart at the casino. No way was anyone touching his mate. Ever. And that’s when Stuart completely lost it.

  A deep-throated roar accompanied his leap right through the iron bars, his ankles and wrists still encased in cuffs that had chunks of masonry attached. They turned into projectiles, accompanying every flash of movement to send one jagged edged spear right through Mean’s gut, at the same moment Lean got the other one. And it felt like nothing to lift them, using the spear ends as handles, in order to toss their groaning carcasses into his hole, where they moaned and shuddered and then stilled.

  A momentary pain laced his palms as he tore the banner and crucifix off her, and then he had her over his shoulder and was running, taking entire rooms with one stride; and when a door failed to open, smashing right through it.

  He lost an ankle cuff. Barely felt the loss. Someone blocked him, trying some martial-art move. Mister Six-pack. He got a swinging length of iron chain with a block of cement attached, right to his neck, where it wound until it cut clean through. Stuart leapt the now headless torso and could sense freedom. But between it were incense-filled rooms that had too much diaphanous drapery and absolutely nothing substantial to stop him.

  It was the sheik; reclining atop a sofa, looking fat and contented, and supremely relaxed. That changed the moment he saw Stuart.

  The man’s mouth was an open scream and his expression ludicrous as Stuart jerked on one of his iron cuffs, grabbed for the chunk of cement as it flew at him, and then slammed it right through the man’s chest.

  There. Now, he’d killed an Ada Majin.

  His last ankle cuff got tangled and broke off in barbed wire as he ran toward the cinder block wall encircling their compound. It didn’t even slow him down. They tried to stop him again, one man using a rifle, and then another joined in. He knew they were firing from the puffs of dust lifting off the cinder as he reached it and then leapt it, but he didn’t feel anything. That answered that question. Bullets were about as useful as an insect bite would be in stopping a vampire.

  Then they were in the open, beneath a moonless sky, running toward what looked like her jet sitting on a runway but he didn’t particularly care one way or the other. If it wasn’t her jet, he’d still take it.

  It was hers.

&
nbsp; Vaughn had the door open. He moved swiftly out of the way as Stuart took the gangway in one jump, turning his shoulders to fit through the hall before gaining the entertainment area with that 60-inch flat screen. He didn’t have to give the orders. He liked that about her chauffeur/man-of-all-trades. The engine roared to life and the plane jolted to a start. He didn’t need to, but it felt like a good time to drop to his knees on the floor, pull his vampire assassin mate off his shoulder, and cuddle her atop his lap. Nothing had looked as wonderful as the goddess in his arms, except maybe how she gazed at him with a look he’d never seen before.

  “Oh…Stuart.”

  She mouthed the words, but that was a waste of kissing time. Stuart decided to demonstrate rather than point it out.

  “You might want to get seated for take-off.” Vaughn announced it over the intercom, laughing a bit through the words.

  “Get this bucket airborne, and cease trying to be a comedian, Vaughn.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  The reply came but he didn’t actually hear it. His woman had his mouth again and that was just about perfect. Except for a few items they still had to discuss. Stuart broke contact first and lifted into a chair, taking her with him, and that’s when she decided to start sobbing.

  “What did I do now?” he asked.

  “You said…you loved me.”

  “I do. But it’s not supposed to make you cry.”

  “But you said the word didn’t exist.”

  She hiccoughed and then pouted. And if that wasn’t enough, she slid a finger beneath her lashes, looking so young and vulnerable he had no choice but to smile.

  “You want to argue? Now?”

  “And you…hate commitment.”

  He waited for her to look at him, and got a full-body heat sensation the moment their gazes locked. “I admit it. I was wrong. On all fronts.”

  “You…were?”

  He inhaled a huge swimmer breath. “This isn’t a dream. It can’t be. Point one, I’m not imaginative enough for it. I mean, look at what I just did. I’m really something in a fight, anymore. Did you see what I did?”

  “Stuart.”

  He grinned. “All right. Point two. Love exists. I know because I’m totally in love…with you. Another point? I’ve discovered I’m not a one-night stand man. I want you forever. You got it? For. Ever. That means commitment, and therefore it exists, too. You going to argue any of this?”

  She could blind a non-sighted man with that smile, he decided, moving his head to nuzzle his nose alongside hers.

  “You know…in order to make a proper proposal, it’s normal for the gentleman involved to know the lady’s name. Unless it’s really Eve Ellensby?”

  “You’re asking me…to marry you?”

  “Not very well, obviously. And I suppose technically we can’t call it married, since we’re undead and all that. But, will you?”

  “Oh yes! Stuart…yes!”

  She had a bite to her kiss and a massive amount of sexy to her frame. And he was one willing victim. He still didn’t know her name, but what the hell.

  It could wait.

  -o0o-