by I. T. Lucas
With the big towel wrapped around her, he lifted her up and carried her to the bed. While they had been in the bathroom, someone had replaced the sheets with fresh ones. He laid Tessa on top of them, then went back for another towel and her overnight bag.
Jackson found a long sleep shirt in the bag and pulled it over Tessa’s head, then fitted her limp arms through the sleeves. By the time he tucked the blanket around her, she was fast asleep.
With only his pants back on, he sat on the chair Eva had vacated and watched Tessa sleep. She was so small, so fragile. She seemed bigger when awake. But that was okay. He was there to guard and protect his treasure—small but priceless.
Chapter 47: Kian
“I will have another cup of coffee, Okidu,” Annani said.
“Of course, Clan Mother.” He bowed, then lifted the thermal carafe to refill her cup.
Kian cut another piece of waffle, piled it with strawberries, and popped it in his mouth. He hadn’t seen his mother the entire day yesterday, working in his basement office until late at night.
He was trying to spend as little time around her as possible, but that hadn’t been the reason for his late-night session in the basement. With the noise levels in his penthouse, working from his home office had been impossible.
Since Annani’s visit was kept on a need to know basis, Nathalie had to bring Phoenix to her instead of the goddess going over to Andrew’s apartment. Only the penthouse level was fully restricted to its occupants. Even the Guardian floor wasn’t forbidden to other clan members. Which meant that his home had been invaded by a baby and her array of baby toys. The question was whether Annani had managed to get Phoenix alone for long enough to administer the transfusion.
The goddess wasn’t going home until that mission was accomplished.
Later, when he’d been sure the coast was clear and was about to head home, Kian had gotten a call from Bhathian about Tessa and had gone to pay her a visit. The girl had been asleep, but Jackson had looked so distraught that Kian had stayed with him for an hour or so.
By the time he’d gotten back home, Annani had retired to the guest room.
“How did it go yesterday, did you have fun with the baby?” he asked.
Annani smiled, her intense eyes growing soft. “She is such a sweet little darling. I got to hold her and play with her for hours. Poor Nathalie hovered like a mother hen, worried I would somehow hurt her daughter as if I had not handled countless generations of babies before her.”
Translation, Nathalie hadn’t left the baby alone with Annani for a moment. “It will pass. She’ll see that you’re capable and that Phoenix is happy in your arms.” He turned to Syssi. “Maybe you could suggest an adults-only outing to Nathalie.”
Syssi put her coffee cup down. “I don’t think Nathalie will agree to leave Phoenix with Annani. Not yet.” She glanced at the frowning goddess. “It’s not that she doesn’t trust you. Phoenix doesn't know you well, and she might get scared if her mother leaves her with you. You’re still a stranger to her.”
“Maybe in a day or two?” Kian pushed.
Syssi threw him a puzzled look. “Why is it important?”
“For the child to bond with me, I need some alone time with her,” Annani said.
It had sounded so well-rehearsed, that it was probably what she said to all the new mothers.
“I’ll test the waters later today. Maybe I’ll suggest visiting Amanda. Nathalie won’t mind if it’s only a short visit across the vestibule.”
“It is a splendid idea,” Annani agreed.
Nathalie’s reluctance to leave the baby with Annani could be the excuse he needed to cancel the vacation his mother was forcing him to take. “I think Syssi and I need to stay. Nathalie will not feel comfortable alone with you.”
Unfortunately, Annani was too smart and too stubborn to fall for that. “Nonsense. She will get used to me, and if need be, I will summon Amanda.”
It was a long shot, but Kian had another ace up his sleeve. “I can’t leave anyway. Tessa, a young woman we believe is a Dormant, is down at Bridget’s clinic, and we don’t know if she is transitioning or just sick. I have to stay until we know she is okay. The vacation will have to be postponed.”
Annani pinned him with a hard stare. “There is nothing you can do for the girl, Kian. You are not a doctor, and Bridget does not need your assistance taking care of her, so it does not matter if you are here or on vacation when you receive updates about her condition.”
Fuck. His mother was the most stubborn, difficult woman on the face of the earth. Hell, probably in the entire known universe.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll be too worried to enjoy my vacation.”
Annani looked down her nose at him. “You have nothing to worry about while I am here. I will give the girl my blessing to ensure her safe transition.”
Checkmate. Kian had lost, but he was going to try one last thing. Annani didn’t like leaving her sanctuary for too long. “Will you stay until we are back?”
She nodded. “Yes. How long are you going to be gone?”
“We are coming back Sunday night,” Syssi said.
Annani’s lips compressed into a thin line. “I thought I told you the vacation should be a week long at the minimum.”
“You did. And I said I can’t be gone for so long. This is a compromise.” Annani was big on compromising. She would have a hard time arguing that.
For a moment, she just glared at him, then a beautiful smile bloomed on her face, scaring him way more than her glare. “That means you will have to take another vacation soon.”
As long as it wasn’t now, he was good. “We will discuss it when the time comes.”
“You can be sure of that, my son.” She took one last sip of her coffee and put her cup down. “I am going out on the terrace to soak up some sun. Call me when Nathalie gets here.”
Kian pushed to his feet in deference to his mother and remained standing until her Odu closed the door behind her.
Syssi poured herself another cup from the carafe. “Why are you fighting this vacation so hard? It's only a few days, and we are going to have fun. Hawaii, sandy beaches, me in a bikini…” She waggled her brows.
Kian growled. “Only on our private beach, unless you want to leave a trail of mutilated males in your wake.”
Her eyes widened. “We have a private beach?”
“We are not staying at the hotel. I purchased a house with a stretch of beach inaccessible from either side. So yeah, it’s private.”
“I can’t believe it. Did you buy it just for our vacation?”
“No. I got it even before we bought the property for the hotel.”
She let out a breath. “Good, because talk about extravagant gestures. Are we taking anyone other than Anandur with us?”
“The pilot, but he is going to stay at the hotel.”
“Is the house big?”
“Pretty big. Why?”
She shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I was looking forward to staying at the hotel and getting some human interaction.”
Kian raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t like being surrounded by humans. We can go out to restaurants and visit the sights and do all the tourist things people do when they vacation in Hawaii. But I need a place where I can relax and be myself.”
Syssi got up and sat on his lap. “Be honest.” She smirked. “You don’t want to stay in the hotel because you don’t want the other guests to hear my moans of ecstasy.”
He cupped her head, holding her still as he took her lips. As always, she melted into him, her hands going under his shirt to caress his skin.
“You got me,” Kian said when he let her come up for air. “I also don’t want anyone calling security because of the ruckus we are making.”
The scent of her arousal flaring, she wiggled in his lap. “We are going to have so much fun.”
Looking into his wife’s beautiful eyes, Kian smiled. Why the hell had he been fighting
the idea of a vacation for so long? Four days of just him and Syssi, relaxing, having fun, sounded like paradise.
“I’ve been a fool for objecting. I can’t wait to have you all to myself for four days straight.”
“Are we being selfish?” Syssi wrapped her arms around his neck. “Leaving Tessa to her fate and Nathalie to deal with your mother?”
“Yes, we are. But so what? Annani is right. Us staying here will not affect the outcome either way, and tomorrow it will be another thing, then another. It never ends.”
“True. We have to make us a priority.”
“My woman is smart and beautiful. How the hell did I get so lucky?”
Chapter 48: Losham
“This was the last one,” the doctor said.
Losham pulled out the wad of cash in the amount they had agreed on. “Thank you, Doctor. It was a pleasure doing business with you.” He offered the human his hand.
The man shook it. “The pleasure was all mine.” He stuffed the four thousand dollars inside his leather briefcase.
“My assistant will take you back.”
“Yes, thank you.”
The guy followed Rami out.
Implanting his men with trackers was one of Losham’s better ideas. In fact, he should recommend that all Doomers be implanted with them. No more defections, and no more loss of men in mysterious circumstances.
In addition to the human, two out of his twelve men were missing.
The human was dead. An obituary had been posted in one of the newspapers. The cause of death hadn’t been mentioned, and it didn’t matter enough to merit further investigation. The only thing that bothered Losham was the money he’d lost.
His two missing men, however, could have either defected or been captured by Guardians—either imprisoned or dead.
Not knowing what had befallen them was eating at him. Losham almost hoped they had been captured. There was no shame in that. But defecting? That was shameful, more for him than his men because it implied lack of leadership.
Regardless of what had happened to the missing men, his official story would be that they’d been taken out by Guardians.
He could get away with losing two, but no more. That was why he had halted the operation. Now with the implants, he could resume the murders. If another man went missing, he would track the son-of-a-bitch, and if the man had indeed defected, Losham would make an example out of him in the most gruesome way.
Not that any of the men would be stupid enough to try to run now.
Not with the implants in their backs.
His ten remaining warriors were recuperating in the back of the warehouse. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours for the muscles to close over the trackers and the skin to knot itself back to its pre-operation pristine condition.
While waiting, Losham sat down with his laptop and began a new search for rumors and theories about the murders. Most speculated that it was a madman who believed himself a vampire. Not bad as far as alerting the clan, but not great. He needed two murders to occur at the same time in two separate locations for the authorities and the clan to realize it wasn’t the work of a single man. Perhaps he should send half of his remaining crew to San Francisco. Two simultaneous murders, one in Los Angeles, the other in San Francisco, would put an end to the lone madman theory.
The thing was, could he trust them to operate independently?
“Sir?” Gommed knocked on the door to the warehouse’s dusty office.
“Come in.”
“We have a problem, sir.”
“Yes?”
The man turned his bare back to Losham. “Our bodies are rejecting the trackers.”
The device projecting from the guy’s back was almost completely out.
Losham rose to his feet, gripped the protruding tracker with his fingers, and yanked it the rest of the way out.
Blood trickled down Gommed’s back, but the warrior didn’t move or utter a sound.
“That’s what happening with the others as well?”
“Yes, sir.”
It wasn’t as if Losham hadn’t considered the possibility. After all, immortal bodies pushed out bullets and blades as they healed. But the dealer who’d sold him the trackers had sworn that they were made from a special material the body didn’t recognize as foreign and therefore didn’t reject.
Losham should have known not to trust the human. Or maybe it was true for human bodies but not immortal.
He hated having wasted more money for nothing.
Between the cost of the trackers and what he’d paid the doctor, Losham was out another ten thousand dollars or so.
“What’s going on?” Rami asked as he walked in.
“Their bodies are rejecting the trackers.”
“What are we going to do, sir?”
Indeed.
“Did you thrall the doctor?” he asked Rami.
“Of course. But just to be on the safe side, tomorrow I’ll go to his office and do it again.”
“If he retains any of the memories, get rid of him.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the two left him alone in the warehouse’s office, Losham sat behind the desk and begun working on a new plan.
Failure wasn’t the end of the story. It was the beginning of a new one. Successful people failed as many times if not more than those who didn’t achieve much. The difference was that they didn’t let failure bring them down. They got up and started anew—again, and again, and again.
Chapter 49: Callie
Brundar leaned against the kitchen counter. “I’m going to work today.”
“Why? Aren’t you on leave until Monday?” Callie cracked two eggs into the mixing bowl.
“I need to go over the schedule and get updates.”
She had no doubt it could have waited for Monday, but it was obvious that being cooped up at home was making Brundar antsy. His work at the club didn’t provide him with a sense of purpose like his day job did.
Brundar was a defender, and he prided himself on keeping his people safe.
Besides, ever since he’d gotten injured, he seemed to have lost interest in the club scene and was spending barely any time in the basement. Instead, he occupied himself with drawing plans for the expansion that he and Franco had planned, and crunching numbers.
Callie wasn’t sure what had caused his change of heart. Was it the injury? Or was it her?
Apparently, Brundar was a one-woman man, and once he’d committed to her, in his noncommittal way, he’d lost interest in the activities of the club’s lower level.
A pity.
She was glad he didn’t want to play with anyone else, but that didn’t mean he had to give up the entire thing.
Callie was still curious as hell, but without Brundar to watch over her, there was no chance he and Franco would allow her to attend any of the demonstrations or classes.
But that was a worry for another day.
Her only worry for now was the state of her wardrobe. It was good to have such mundane, everyday problems. No more psychotic husband to fear, no more hiding, no more fake identity.
She felt years younger—carefree for the first time in forever.
“I need to go shopping,” Callie said while folding the omelet over a spinach and mushroom sauté.
“Perfect. You can do it while I’m at the office.” Brundar took the plate she handed him.
She started on the second omelet. “I’m not talking about a quick run to the supermarket. I need to go clothes and shoe shopping.”
Brundar poured them both coffee and put the mugs on the counter. “How long do you think it will take?”
“At least a couple of hours.”
“That’s how long I need too. Do you want to meet for lunch?”
The offer was as wonderful as it was unexpected. So unlike Brundar, who still struggled with the very basics of couple interactions. Except for sex, of course, that part he’d mastered. Hell, he was so good he could teach it.
But wait, he already did.
“I would love to.” She slid the other omelet into a plate and took it to the counter. “I’ll text you when I’m done with shopping. Any place in particular you have in mind?”
He shrugged. “No. You choose.”
“Does it have to be someplace fancy?” Other than steakhouses, she wasn’t familiar with high-end restaurants.
“Whatever you choose is fine with me. Hamburgers and fries will do.”
They had only been out once to that Italian restaurant Brundar had taken her to. Their one and only date. The other time, when Brundar had brought her a gourmet meal from his cousin’s place, didn’t count because they’d eaten at home. Besides, it had been a reconciliation gesture, not a romantic one.
Today, they were going to have their second actual date, and she didn’t want to waste it on hamburgers and fries even though she loved them.
“I’ll think of something.”
After spending every hour of the day for the past ten days with him, it was weird to kiss Brundar and watch him leave.
Alone in the apartment, Callie realized that the strange sensation in her gut was separation anxiety, which was ridiculous. In ten days she’d gotten addicted to Brundar's presence and dreaded being away from him.
This wasn’t healthy.
Callie shook her head. It was probably the result of the trauma. She and Brundar were like survivors of a catastrophe, clinging to each other for dear life. Once things went back to normal, that feeling should pass.
Hopefully.
Because if it didn’t, she would need to see a shrink about it. A grown woman shouldn’t feel anxious when separated from her partner for a few hours.
Shopping should take her mind off Brundar.
Callie needed a nice new dress, a pair of high-heeled shoes, and a new strapless bra that didn’t dig into her skin—if such a thing existed.
At the mall, Callie found the dress first. Another black one, but with wide shoulder straps to cover a regular bra. It was simple, with a square neckline that didn’t reveal too much, and not too short, just a couple of inches above the knees.
