She didn’t lose. She won, and her time was faster than Leo’s best. And then just past the finish line, a blowout. The car skidded sideways, then flipped and rolled. She didn’t know it was flipping or rolling, of course. She was aware of it moving fast and out of her control. She was conscious of gripping the wheel so hard her hands hurt, and that there was shattering glass exploding inward, showering her in sharp pebble-sized pieces. Not much else.
When she opened her eyes, there was rain falling in her face, and everyone had left but Leo. He was pacing upside down–no, wait, she was upside down. Leo was talking on his cellphone. Emma seemed to be lying on her back, half in and half out of the car. She could see a tire above her, turning slowly, around and around. She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t. She wondered if she was bleeding. Bleeding was very dangerous to her. Leo didn’t even know that. She’d never told him.
She tried to listen to what he was saying. “Everyone took off, Dad. I don’t know what to do. The car’s trashed.” Then a pause, and then, “I don’t know. I think she’s dead.”
I’m not dead, you freaking idiot. And how do you not know what to do? Call 911. That’s what you do when there’s an accident.
She blinked the raindrops out of her eyes and twisted her head to try to see Leo. Maybe he’d look her way, notice her eyes were open, and get her some help. Oh, hell, she could see blood now. There was a dark and still-spreading puddle of it beneath her, and more soaking her blouse.
She tried to speak again, to call out to Leo as he put his phone back into his pocket. She managed to move her mouth this time, but no sound emerged. As she stared at him through the rain, a dark form moved up behind him, and a big hand fell onto his shoulder. He turned around fast, and a strong, deep voice said, “Take a walk, Leo. You never saw me. You’re in shock. Take a walk now. Come back in a few minutes.”
And to her surprise, Leo shuffled away, ambling like a sleepwalker. The man came to her then, dropped onto his knees, bending over her so that his body shielded her face from the rain.
She blinked up at him. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. Close-cropped hair, glistening and wet and very dark. Rich brown eyes like sweet cocoa, their edges so naturally dark they appeared lined. Thick, full lips she thought were made for kissing. A body like a professional wrestler. Broad, big, muscled. And then she’d wondered, who thinks stuff like this when they’re dying?
“You’re not dying, Emma,” he’d said softly. “You’re too young to die.”
She blinked, tried to pick up a hand, to touch him. He’d read her thoughts, just then, or else she was hallucinating. Her hand made contact, weakly, fingertips managing to brush across his neck. It was cool to the touch. “Who are you?” she whispered.
He lifted his brows. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to help you.”
She’d been so intent on looking at him, she didn’t realized his hands were on her, pressing hard at a spot near her collar bone. It was starting to hurt. It hadn’t before. Feeling, sensation, was rushing back into her body now. The numbness of shock was fading too fast. Her head hurt, one leg screamed, and her chest felt like it was being crushed.
He slid one hand beneath her, down along her spine. “You have a broken leg, a couple of ribs, maybe a concussion, and a nasty cut. But you’re okay, Emma.” His voice was like dark silk, deep and smooth and brushing her nerve endings like a caress. “I have to move you now, so I need you to hold pressure on this.” He took her hand and pressed it to the spot on her collar bone. “Push hard,” he said. “I know it hurts. Nothing we can do about that. But you’re tough. Toughest girl I know.”
She pushed hard and wondered how he knew her. He quickly, easily, slid her the rest of the way out of the car, then picked her up in his arms and carried her into the shelter of a huge maple tree. The leafy limbs formed a canopy of green and blocked out the rain. Then he lowered her to the ground, leaning her gently against the massive trunk. “I already called for help, Emma. I can hear the sirens. They’ll be here soon.”
She listened, but couldn’t hear anything.
He eyed the collar bone, winced in what seemed like empathy. “You’re going to be okay. Keep the pressure on that until they get here.”
“Th-they won’t h-have blood for me.”
“Yes, they will. Your father has a few pints on hold at the local ER. You didn’t know that?” He smiled at her, and she almost died. Bright, white, even teeth in a face that seemed, even in the darkness, to be the most handsome face she had ever seen.
“He always makes me give a pint when I go for a physical,” she said. “I just forgot.” It was hard to talk, to get the words from her brain to her lips. She looked into his eyes and felt the ground fall away from beneath her. God, was this what her mother had felt the first time she’d looked into her dad’s eyes? Was this love at first sight? Was this mysterious man her soulmate?
He frowned and she wondered why, and then the sounds of sirens finally reached her ears, and in the distance, she glimpsed flashing lights.
“I have to go, Emma. No more risking your life like this. Okay?” He turned away.
She reached for him. “Wait! Don’t...go....”
He looked back once, his expression worried. So worried she wondered if maybe she was going to die, after all.
“You’re okay,” he said. “Have a good life, Emma.” Then he vanished, a blur of darkness only slightly darker than the shadows of the night, and she’d wondered if he’d been real at all or some kind of near death hallucination.
But he had been real. He’d come to her rescue again only a year and a half later. And it had been him just now, saving her life for the third time. There and gone again without a trace, not even telling her his name, just like always.
Her rescue-fishermen turned out to be a pair of adorable middle-aged men who seemed to have no idea that a clandestine government operation had been happening nearby. They’d spotted her boat going down, and seen her splashing, and come to rescue her. Probably the most exciting fishing trip they’d ever taken together, they’d said. Once on shore, they’d given her a ride back to where she’d left her Jeep and she’d thanked them profusely, because that was what would be expected. They never asked her name. She never offered it.
She’d driven back to the shore to retrieve her dad’s radio from its hiding place, before heading back to her father’s little adobe house and knocking on its red door, and waiting.
His footsteps came, his stride long, his pace slow. She said, “It’s me, Dad,” before he could ask who was there.
Locks disengaged. A chain rattled. Then the door opened and Oliver Benatar beamed a smile and pulled her in for a hug. “You’re all wet,” he said. “You get caught in the rain?” And he was looking at the sky as he said it, because there wasn’t a cloud in sight. “Where’s your Jeep?”
“No rain, Dad, and I parked the Jeep a couple of blocks down. Thought a walk would dry me out a little.” She let him pull her inside. He closed the door behind her and proceeded to re-fasten the locks and chains while she looked around the living room, which was cluttered with more radio equipment than the local FM station probably had. State of the art, all of it. And in the corner, a nearly obsolete TV set that still had a square picture and big round backside. Probably weighed eighty pounds.
And everywhere else, framed photos of her and her mother in roughly equal numbers. The shots of Emma ranged from newborn baby photos to toddler shots, to every single annual photo ever taken. The ones of her as an adult were mostly shots he’d lifted from her book cover jackets or anything he found online. He was always griping that she didn’t send him enough pictures anymore.
The photos of her mother were different, though. Frozen in time. She was unchanging from the earliest to the most recent. A beautiful, laughing young woman with burnt copper ringlets and eyes as blue as topaz. That light, happy blue of the sky in midsummer on a cloudless, perfect day. A lot of them were wedding photos. She’d been the most beautiful
bride, in a vintage 1920s gown of ivory satin and lace. Her adoring groom beside her, tall and lean. Unlike his bride, though, Oliver had aged. His combover didn’t hide the thin patch in the middle of his head, and the strands of silver in his hair were starting to outnumber the darkest brown ones.
His beautiful bride had never aged. She’d become a vampire, and the photos ended. But even if vampires did show up on film, she wouldn’t have aged a day. Not ever.
“You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on tonight,” Oliver said, turning from the now-locked door and looking at her.
“Yeah, I would.”
“Your lips are awfully pale. Emma, are you all right?”
“I’m fine now,” she said. “But I think I need to stay for a while. If that’s okay.”
“Of course it’s okay!” He slid an arm around her, then paused and looked at her, really looked. “You’re freezing cold. And your skin is so white.” Then his eyes went wider. “You didn’t...did you–”
“I haven’t been turned.” She bared her teeth to show him. “See? No fangs.”
She couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed. Her father wanted Emma’s decision—to become one of the Undead or die young—to be entirely her own. He didn’t want to influence her. She would have welcomed his opinion, though.
He led her to the sofa, yanking a blanket from the back of it and wrapping it around her like a shawl, then hugging it into place. “Go on up and get into some dry clothes. Then just relax. I’m gonna get you a hot meal and some coffee. And then we can fill each other in, all right baby?”
“Sounds perfect,” she said, hugging the blanket around her and heading for the stairs. She’d driven with the heat on full blast all the way back here, to her dad’s house in a little cul de sac on the California/Oregon border, not fifteen miles from the coast. She’d been shivering most of the way. Arriving here was like finding the perfect port in a killer storm. Always had been, always would be. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Anytime baby. Anytime.”
Devlin was tired of being wet. Dripping, sopping, bone-chilling wet. His kind felt everything more intensely than mortals ever could. So he felt the cold. It wasn’t crippling. He wouldn’t shiver or develop frostbite from it. But he felt it. And it didn’t feel good.
His little gang had gathered in the abandoned lighthouse, and they knew when he came dragging himself out of the ocean. He felt their attention turn his way. Tavia opened the door and looked out at him from the shadows, making him think of a dark, dangerous fairy. Small and slight, with that head of wild black hair.
There were no lights coming from inside. No flashlight beams or candle glow. They all knew better than to attract attention, and besides, they could see in the dark better than most cats.
“Did you save her?” Tavia asked. “I do not understand, her distress ceased.” Then her eyes widened. “Is she–”
“She’s fine, Tavia. Some mortals came along in a boat to save her, so I let them.” Then he nodded at her. “I see the clothes we brought along stayed dry.”
“Yes. Come, change, you must be miserable.” She pronounced every syllable of the word, so it sounded like “mee-sarah-ble,” and stepped aside to let him in. It had been a long night. A long, brutal night.
He went inside, his swift sweeping gaze taking the place in. A tattered sofa, upholstered in fading fabric with pink roses and green vines, looked as if it had been providing a home to several small animals. A broken wooden chair held itself upright in defiance of gravity in one corner. A cold brick fireplace was centered on the opposite wall. A tight, metal staircase spiraled up the center. The waterproof gear bags they’d brought with them from the Anemone sat in a pile on the floor. He was lucky there had apparently been a seaman aboard who was close to his size. Probably not one of the scientists.
Andrew and Bellamy were on their feet near the sofa where they’d been sitting. They were in clean, dry clothes as well. Without hesitation, Devlin peeled the wet shirt off over his head and twisted it in his hands to wring out the excess water.
Andrew was closest to the bags, so he unzipped one and pawed around inside, pulling out a large black T-shirt and a pair of black fleece pants with a white stripe down the outside. “There’s a bathroom, if you want privacy,” he said, inclining his head and tossing the clothes his way.
Devlin looked at Bell, who was fixated on his chest, rolled his eyes, and nodded.
“So tell us what happened,” Tavia said, not even glancing at his chest.
Dev went into the tiny bathroom, which had a coral pink basin and toilet and a white plastic shower stall, none of which looked as if they’d seen use in a decade or so. They had a quarter inch layer of grime dulling them. He left the door open and talked while he stripped. “I know the girl,” he said. “Woman, I guess, at this point. I’ve had to intervene to save her ass three times before.”
“Dat is quite a coincidence, is it not?” Tavia asked. “Unless she is your–”
“Her name is Emma Louise Benatar,” he said. He knew where Tav was going and so he threw up a red light. Vampires were drawn to The Chosen. Legend had it every vampire had one Chosen with whom the natural bond was more powerful than with any other. Personally, he thought it was a myth. “She witnessed what happened earlier, saw those bastards shoot the little mutants.”
“Dey were children, not mutants,” Tavia snapped.
“If they were children, they’d still be dead,” he replied, pulling a clean shirt over his head and waiting for her reaction.
Her head came up, black eyes wide and already surrounded by a fresh coat of thick black liner. Andrew and Bellamy stopped what they were doing and stared at him, as well.
“According to Emma, they revived in the boat, took out a couple of the crows before they were apparently drugged and taken prisoner.”
“That’s crazy!” Bell shot Andrew a look, and his partner nodded. “You said they were shot at point blank range with high-powered rifles.”
Devlin shrugged. “They were. And that would have killed any one of us. There’s no way we wouldn’t have bled out within minutes. We probably wouldn’t even have lived long enough to get out of the water. Apparently the Offspring regenerate like we do. But with them, it happens right away. Within minutes. They don’t have to wait for the day sleep.”
Tavia looked at the floor. “Where do you tink dey were taken?”
“I don’t know. Emma might. She had a lot more to say, but we ran out of time.”
“You should have brought her here,” she said, pacing now. “So we could make her tell us everyting she knows. Why did you let her go?”
“She seems more than willing to tell us everything she knows, Tavia. She wanted me to bring her back here, I got that the minute she knew she wasn’t going to drown and the fear cleared from her mind enough to let her thoughts surface again. That’s why I didn’t bring her. This is our haven, the only one we have right now.”
“But if she knows anything that can help us find Sheena and Wolf,” Bellamy began, and then he paused, searched Devlin’s face and said, “We are going after them, aren’t we?”
Devlin wanted to say no. He’d told himself for centuries that caring about others more than you cared about your own well-being, more than you cared about your particular cause or mission in life, was a mistake, and not one he would ever make again.
He talked the talk very well. He’d convinced a lot of people it was true. And for the most part, he walked the walk. But recently....he’d put himself at risk to help Rhiannon and Roland, two of the most powerful vampires he’d ever known. He’d joined them to take the research vessel Anemone and to free the vampires held prisoner there.
Those had been considered choices, decisions he’d made after careful, emotionless calculation. Or so he liked to think.
But with Emma, it had always been different. From the first time he’d saved her life, when she’d wandered out of her bed and fallen into the swimming pool at the age of two, to the
car wreck at seventeen, to the skiing accident just over a year later. With Emma, he didn’t think. He just acted.
And he didn’t care to dig too deeply into why that might be.
He’d managed to stay cool, distant and uninvolved where the Offspring were concerned, too. It was hard, challenging. He had a weakness for children. And when he’d seen Wolf and Sheena shot like that, it had felt like bullets ripping through his own heart.
“Devlin?” Bell prompted.
He nodded. “We’re going after them. We don’t have a choice. And don’t worry about Emma. She was willing to tell us what she knew tonight, and she still will be when I track her down again. But we’ve got about an hour left to find a safe place to bed down. And I don’t think this lighthouse is it.”
“There’s nowhere to hide in here,” Andrew said. “And windows everywhere.”
“You said dere was a house in de woods,” Tavia said. “Is it–”
“Caves, too, or so I was told when I bought the place, centuries ago. Honestly, I’ve never spent enough time here to get familiar with it. But the caves would be our best bet, if we can find them.”
Nodding, each of them hefted a backpack. Andrew handed Devlin’s to him, and Dev hitched it over one shoulder, still carrying his wet clothes in his free hand.
“I am starving,” Tavia complained as they hiked out of the house, closing the door behind them.
“We’re all starving, Tav.” Andrew looked around, eyes flashing a little. “Maybe we can find something in the woods to–”
“I don’t think we should eat the native animals,” Bellamy interrupted.
“Why the hell not?” Andrew, who was already in hunting mode and irritated at being cutoff mid-sentence, glared at him.
“Because if this is our island, then they’re our charges. We’re gonna be here a while. Maybe. If it turns out to be a good place. And you just don’t feed on your own.”
“I would like to feed on you, you leetle sheet,” Tavia said, but she said it affectionately.
“We go to sleep hungry,” Devlin said. “First thing we’ll do at sundown is find sustenance. And then...we’ll find Emma Louise Benatar.”
Twilight Vendetta Page 3
