Shit. “So you want me to take her out of here, somewhere they can’t find her?” Suddenly, Mirren felt the ache of every wound on his body. It had to be the injuries, right? Couldn’t be that the thought of never seeing Glory again made him tired. And pissed off.
Maybe he should leave with her, take them both so far off radar that no one would find them. Christ, how could he even think of leaving Penton for a woman? Proof she needed to go.
He cleared his throat. “I think Will should take her somewhere—he needs to lay low too.” Just saying those words hurt his gut as if another silver blade had been shoved in it.
He saw Will’s sharp look from the corner of his eye but wouldn’t acknowledge it.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say, and I’ve heard you say some stupid shit.” Aidan stopped in front of Mirren.
Mirren stared at the floor and didn’t answer. Aidan could go all apeshit over a woman if he wanted. Mirren couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
Aidan shook his head and returned to the desk, its chair squeaking in the awkward silence. He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the desk. “Let’s table that for right now. I think, until we learn more from Renz, we should keep up the patrol schedule we have. Once Renz fills us in on Matthias, and where the Tribunal stands in all of this, then we’ll reassess.”
“We have to finish Omega soon.” Hannah’s clear, high voice silenced the room.
Mirren stifled a groan. Omega was their shelter of last resort, a new space they’d built deep underground about ten miles out in the country beneath an automobile manufacturing plant near the Georgia state line. It was big enough for about a third of their people plus supplies for a year.
“What’s the status?” Aidan’s voice was calm, but his eyes had lightened with stress, which made Mirren feel a little better. Misery loved company, and clearly Aidan didn’t want to go into Omega, either. Nobody in his right mind would. If they had to take that step, moving the whole town underground, it meant the shit had gotten very, very deep. Claustrophobia raised its ugly little head every time Mirren thought about living in a hole in the ground.
“Let me get at the computer.” Will changed places with Aidan, and he frowned in concentration as he tapped the keyboard. He shifted the monitor until it faced the room. “Here’s what we have, as of two days ago when these shots were taken.”
Mirren leaned forward, squinting. It resembled a concrete box. “Tell us what we’re looking at.”
Will nodded. “This is the bare bones. The structure’s done. Ventilation system is almost complete. We’ve already moved in a shitload of nonperishables for the humans into storage areas that don’t have to be finished out. The waste system is about halfway done, and the water lines have been run—there’s a natural spring not too far from the site, and we’ve tapped into it.”
“The question is, how soon do we need to be done?” Will addressed his question to Hannah, and Mirren realized that, of all of them, Will was most at ease with the girl’s gifts. If he’d settle down, Will would be better for Glory than Mirren could ever be. So why did the thought of him leaving with her make Mirren’s head feel like exploding?
Hannah fiddled with some pink fluffy thing with a white cat face on it, her version of a purse. “We will need it. I don’t know when, but it could be soon,” she said softly. “I can see trouble ahead—and death.”
“Whose death, Hannah?” Aidan’s voice conveyed the same hesitation Mirren felt. Did they really want to know which of them might not live long enough to see Omega finished?
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Hannah punched her cat purse, her mouth in a frustrated pout, and Mirren wondered, not for the first time, how she stood it. The visions. The knowing—and yet not knowing. Aidan had told him Glory was practicing her own skills at Hannah’s urging, and he was glad. He didn’t know how they might come in handy, but if she could learn to control them, she might be able to protect herself better than most of them could.
“Tell me what you need to get Omega done fast.” Aidan turned back to Will, who began tapping the computer keys again.
“If you’re comfortable doing that many memory wipes, we can run crews in two full shifts instead of two half shifts,” he said. The human work crews involved in Omega had agreed to have their memories modified after each shift. If they were caught or decided to leave, they’d never be able to divulge the location—or even the existence—of the last-ditch shelter. “We’d need to schedule the shifts so one shift ends as we’re coming out of daysleep and the other as we’re beginning day-sleep—that way, one of us is always available to do the memory scrubs.”
Aidan nodded. “Do it. Let’s get it finished—or at least habitable—as fast as we can. If we don’t need it soon, we can take the extra steps to make it as comfortable as possible for our fams. If we do need it soon”—he stared at the computer screen—“comfort doesn’t matter, does it?”
Will shut down the laptop and stood. “I’m going home to get the schedules worked out, then, and see who our best workers are to add to the second shift.”
Hannah rose too, and Aidan took the chair behind the desk again and said, “Mirren, you stay.”
Aw, fuck me. He’s going to talk about Glory. Mirren wanted a shower. He wanted to work his tats. He wanted to watch a movie and wind down before his daysleep. He did not want to get all warm and fuzzy with Aidan.
So he’d change the subject. “It’s a bad idea for Lorenzo Caias to come here. Talk to him on the phone, or meet him in Atlanta. We don’t need him seeing any more of Penton than he already has. I know he’s your friend, but he’s still Tribunal.”
Aidan’s face took on what his fam Melissa called his Irish pig farmer expression—stubborn and unwilling to be moved.
Mirren didn’t care. “You of all people know it’s a bad idea, A. He met Krys when she was human and knew we took her against her will in the beginning. He can’t see her as she is now, your vampire mate.”
Aidan’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t give in. “I trust Renz. He’s never done anything to make me doubt him. Just the opposite.”
The man was too sentimental where that bureaucrat was concerned. “If Matthias or any of his allies gets wind that we turned Krys vampire, it’s all the excuse they’d need to come down on us like a brick shithouse,” Mirren said. Once the food supply started growing short, the Tribunal had outlawed turning new vampires. It had been the only way to save Krys after Aidan’s brother had broken her like a china doll. Matthias had set the whole fiasco in motion, but the Tribunal wouldn’t care.
Aidan pulled his hair out of the short tail and ran his hands through it. He might as well be the poster child for stressed, exhausted vampires. “I’ll keep Krys away from him. We’ll meet at the municipal building instead of my house or here at the clinic. That good enough?”
“Only if when he asks about the human doctor who was living here, and he will ask, you tell him she died. Technically, she did.”
“Agreed.” Aidan speared him with eyes of blue ice. “Now, about Glory.”
Shit. “Will needs to take her out of here.”
“No, she stays.” The pig farmer was back. Mirren hated that freaking pig farmer.
“Why the hell should she stay? This isn’t her fight. We can hide her far enough away that Matthias can’t find her.” And where Mirren couldn’t find her, either. She raised feelings in him he didn’t know how to handle, didn’t want to handle.
“Hannah says she’s important to whatever’s going to happen here.” Aidan’s voice softened. “She’s important to you too, if you’d stop being such an asshole and admit it.”
Mirren didn’t answer. What could he say?
“You’ve taken her as a fam, yes?”
Mirren crossed his arms over his chest and grunted.
Aidan grinned at him, the smug jerk. “So here’s your job. Figure out a way to keep tabs on her. And I mean twenty-four/ seven, even during daysleep.”
The man ha
d no idea what he was asking. Mirren couldn’t control that woman. She’d walked a half mile into town and found herself a job her first day out of the hospital. Aidan could send him to kill Matthias. He could order Mirren to put an army together to take down the whole Tribunal. But not this. “How the hell am I supposed to keep tabs on her during the d ay? ”
Aidan rose from the chair and walked to the door. “I’ll get Mark and Mel to take Glory duty during daylight hours. You can figure out how it will work. The rest of the time, she’s all yours.”
“Fuck you,” Mirren said to the empty doorway.
CHAPTER 19
Glory lay on the sofa in the rec room, thinking about Mirren. She’d gotten into his private space in the subbasement, but hadn’t felt right plundering through his stuff. Other than confirming that he was a slob when it came to everything but his movie collection and his motorcycle parts, she hadn’t learned a thing.
No, that wasn’t quite true. She had found something. An acid pen, lying on a drawing table. She’d bet it was what he used to etch the elaborate tattoos. He had a talent for drawing. She’d seen sketch after sketch, and not just tattoo art. Still lifes and even portraits. But he used his artistic ability to punish himself—and had been doing it a long time, judging by the amount of ink on his body. She didn’t get the sense the tats were a source of pride for him, but a reminder of what he saw as the sins he’d committed.
She’d stuck the pen in the pocket of her jeans, then returned to the rec room and practiced moving things. She’d lifted Mirren’s weights in the air and eventually could suspend them aloft for a couple of minutes before her attention wavered and she dropped them.
Finally, she’d stretched out on the sofa and dozed, starting at each creak of the house above her, wondering what was happening, if Mirren was safe. Wondering what, exactly, was the story with that sword.
The sound of a floorboard creaking overhead startled her to her feet, ready to run to the lower level or try hurling the weight set at anyone unfamiliar who came down the stairwell. Then the pipes knocked as the water turned on upstairs, and Glory relaxed. No one intent on breaking into Mirren’s house and finding her would stop to take a shower.
Then again, why would Mirren take a shower upstairs when he had a huge bathroom on the bottom level off his sparely decorated bedroom? Because whatever he’s been doing, he doesn’t want you to see him.
Hadn’t they just been through this last night? Glory walked to the stairwell and listened for footsteps or voices. Nothing but the knocking pipes. She climbed the stairs and focused her energy on the hatch, visualizing the panels sliding. The first time they clicked, it broke her concentration, and pushing on the overhead panel didn’t work. The second time, she kept her focus, and when she exerted pressure on the wooden square above her head, it shifted up and slid aside.
She climbed out, slid the panel back into place, and followed the sound of the water to the bathroom off the hallway, next to the bedroom she’d been using. The bathroom door was locked, but again, Glory was able to pop the lock by visualizing how it needed to work, then using her powers to make it happen. She’d realized how valuable her abilities could be now that she was learning to use them. And for the first time, she understood why Matthias had wanted her.
Was she sure Aidan and Mirren weren’t just as anxious to use her? Were they really using her if she applied her skills willingly to defend Penton? Because she would help them if they asked her; she knew that now. She’d somehow come to care for these people she hadn’t known very long. Penton felt like home, or at least felt like it could become home. Besides, if Hannah’s instincts were right, she might need to help whether they asked or not.
Glory turned the knob and eased the door open. She’d planned to peek inside, make sure he was OK, then slip back out—but she hadn’t taken the vampire senses into account. He was leaning over, with his arms braced against the white tile beneath the showerhead, hanging his head under the spray. Blood washed off him in pink streams, but this time, at least some of it was his. Glory could see multiple cuts on his back.
She had a glimpse of a muscular butt and powerful thighs before he whirled and stood upright to stare at her. His eyes had lightened to silver—she knew that meant he was hungry, or agitated. She wrenched her gaze from his and saw a body every bit as beautiful as she’d suspected, if not more so. The tats on the left side should have made him look asymmetrical or evil or something. But he didn’t. Muscles moved beneath wet skin as he leaned over and turned off the water. His expression said he was anything but pleased to see her, but his growing erection said otherwise.
“Go.” One word, harshly spoken.
Glory ignored her first impulse, which was to turn and run from that angry face. She sensed that he wanted to frighten her and that if it worked—if she fed from him—it would only confirm the self-hatred that brought him to create the tattoos.
She reached behind her and closed the door. “Turn the water back on.”
“What the—”
She grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and slipped it over her head, noting with satisfaction that his eyes dropped to her breasts and that those silvery eyes weren’t the only thing that grew bigger. She shucked the jeans, bra, and panties.
“Go,” he repeated. “I don’t want you here.”
Liar. “Turn the water back on.” She wasn’t sure why he’d gotten under her skin, but he had. She wanted him. He wanted her whether he admitted or not. To ignore it was stupid.
He stood there like an oaf, so she reached around him and spun the faucet, stifling a smile as he stepped away to make sure she didn’t touch him. Once the temperature was good, she pulled a washcloth off the rack and held it under the spray. “Turn around.”
Grumbling something unintelligible under his breath, he turned his back to her, and she studied the wounds. “How quickly will these heal by themselves?”
“By tomorrow. So you can go.” His shoulders were tense and his fists clenched, and Glory wondered briefly if he’d hit her, but then let that thought go. He wouldn’t. He’d had plenty of chances to get violent with her and he’d never even come close.
She gently pressed the cloth to each cut until the bleeding stopped, then poured body wash into her palm and began to work it into his skin in the uncut areas, digging into tight muscles with soap-slicked fingers and humming with approval as they relaxed under her attention.
“Glory, leave.” Mirren’s voice was rough, strained. “Get out now, or…”
“Or what?”
The answer was more growl than talk. “I won’t be responsible.”
“Good.” About time he acknowledged that she was getting to him. “I’m tired of you being all responsible. You don’t scare me, so you might as well quit trying. I’m ready for you to be—”
He spun so fast she wasn’t prepared, and her feet slid in the slick tub. Mirren’s hands latched onto her waist as she fell, lifting her until her feet left the porcelain. He held her against the tile wall of the shower and pressed himself against her, keeping her in place with his body. With rough movements, he slid his hands under her thighs and pulled her legs around him so he was pressed against her wet heat.
Her breath came in gasps. He was hard and hot, and she wanted him so badly she ached. If he’d let her slide a little farther down the wall, he could be inside her. But he wasn’t moving. He was fighting for control, and it was a fight she wanted him to lose.
She wriggled against him and felt his sharp intake of breath. “Mirren, I want—”
His voice was impossibly deep, and she felt it rumbling in the broad chest that pressed against her. “What do you want, Glory? Is this it?”
Mirren let her slide and slammed into her without warning, filling her until she thought she’d burst, then eased her up again with a groan. “I told you to fuckin’ leave while you could.” His voice echoed against her cheek as he thrust into her again, her back sliding along the tile from the impact.
Oh no. He wasn
’t going to turn this into some warped kind of punishment. She was no fragile china doll he had to protect. She wrapped her legs around his waist and began moving herself. He stilled, letting her move around him for a few seconds before thrusting her against the wall again and setting up a steady, pounding rhythm.
“This. What. You. Want?” He punctuated each word with a thrust, and Glory couldn’t answer beyond a gasping “yes.” Each stroke brought her closer to the edge, but she had to let him know he wasn’t punishing her—or himself.
She stretched her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her, kissing his throat and, on impulse, biting into the ridged skin of a snake tattooed into the side of his neck. She tasted a hint of rich blood before he shuddered and moaned. He froze briefly before lowering her to the shower floor, letting go as soon as her feet were firmly planted. He hadn’t come, and neither had she. He was going to run away.
Glory looked up at him, willing him to stay. “Mirren, I want you. Like this. Now.” She had been telling herself she wanted Mirren because she thought she could help him accept himself—but it was his acceptance of her that made her want him. He didn’t think she was a freak. He made her feel valued as a person. Maybe she was greedy, but she wanted him to value her as a woman.
“No. You don’t…you shouldn’t…” His breath came in heaving gasps as he stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel on his way into the hallway. Glory reached over and turned off the water, resting her face against the coolness of the tile. She flinched when the door slammed behind him.
She’d faced bigger problems than Mirren Kincaid in her life. She had no doubts he was a fierce fighter, and he’d probably done things with that sword that would make her blood curdle. But he also didn’t like himself very much and was scared of getting close to anyone.
And Glory had one big advantage. However stubborn Mirren might be, she was more so.
CHAPTER 20
Absolution (The Penton Vampire Legacy) Page 14
