by Tracy Tappan
“Dammit,” Dev spat, slamming to his feet. “First Marissa, then Mother, now you. Can everyone just lay off!?” He whirled to go, spinning the bar stool off its legs. It hit the floor with a splintering whack.
Every eye in the bar turned to watch Dev storm out.
Except for one pair of eyes.
Black and primeval-still, that one pair latched onto her.
She lifted her chin, staring back. Would her needs ever get fulfilled, if she didn’t look out for them herself? The idea was laughable. And here was the thing. She was done waiting for a slice of happiness to come her way. So for once in her life she didn’t hesitate.
Nearly imperceptibly, she nodded her head yes at Shọn.
* * *
Dev prowled his bedroom like a caged beast, pacing from one corner to the next, his hands cranked into hard fists. Hurt and loss bubbled in his veins like black lava, and something new: self-loathing.
God, he was such an ass.
He gritted his teeth and mutated everything into rage. Not much different than how he’d felt ten minutes ago when he’d stupidly lingered in the hallway on the way back to his bedroom, hoping to get caught by Gábor so he could beat the living shit out of someone. But Tarzan and Jane must’ve finally taken a breather, no doubt passed out from all of their recent exertions, because the mansion was finally quiet. Probably really good that a fight hadn’t panned out, anyway. A newly bonded male Vârcolac was the most dangerous creature on the planet. Even the most pantywaisted of them could cause serious harm to another male—including one of Dev’s size and build—if that perceived rival got within spitting distance of his woman. And with an aggressive warrior like Gábor? Dev would’ve gotten himself flat-out killed.
He shoved both hands through his hair. What was his problem? He usually wasn’t this brainless. Maybe he—
Grimacing, he pressed two fingers to his breastbone. Ouch. All day on and off he’d been feeling this weird pain in his chest. Knowing his luck, all the stress was giving him a—
A knock sounded at his door.
Narrowing his eyes, he crossed his room in several long strides and hauled his door open. It was Tonĩ. Hell, think “heart attack,” and a doctor shows up on the doorstep. “Hey,” he greeted her brusquely, glancing over her shoulder into the hallway. “Jaċken with you?” That black-eyed bastard could always be counted on for a good ass-whupping.
“No,” she answered quietly.
Too quietly. That’s when he noticed her expression. A spot in the pit of his belly jumped. “What’s going on?”
“It’s about Marissa.”
Ice filled his chest. “Shit, is she sick, is she hurt? Did she fall and crack her head on the cave floor, or…” He leapt forward a step. “Did the Om Rău make a grab for her?” Growling, he dug his fingers into his breastbone again. This explained the pain in his chest and why he’d been feeling so edgy and restless all day. His internal radar was going off.
Every bonded Vârcolac had a sixth sense connection to his mate; no matter where his woman was on earth, he’d be able to feel her existence and her state of being. If she got hurt, he’d know it, or, God help the world, if she died, he’d feel that, too. Huge. The worst pain imaginable right smack in the middle of the chest. Dev’s woman was in trouble, and even though he wasn’t fully bonded to her, there was enough of a connection between them that this special radar was tripping. He just hadn’t known what it was until now.
“It’s nothing like that,” Toni assured him. “Can I come in?”
“No. I need to go to her.”
“She’s not in any immediate danger, Dev, and I have to explain this to you.”
Dammit. “All right.” He grudgingly stepped aside to let Tonĩ pass.
She entered and crossed to his wet bar. “Can I set this here?” Oddly, she was carrying a gift bag, one of those tall, thin ones used for wine bottles.
He gestured abstractedly. Whatever. “What’s wrong with Marissa?”
Tonĩ gestured to the two armchairs clustered in front of his entertainment center, where a DVD player, X-Box, Play Station, stereo system, and more man toys were packed in. Basically all of the accoutrements a guy with no sex life needed. “Do you want to sit down?”
“No.” He clipped the word.
“All right.” Dark clouds moved across the blue sky of Tonĩ’s eyes. “Marissa’s mother relapsed, Dev. Mrs. Bonaventure is going back into the hospital to be treated for breast cancer.”
The news hit him like a hard blow to the solar plexus, emptying his lungs of air. “Oh, no,” he breathed. “Shit.” He covered his face with both hands, then dragged them up over his forehead and shoved his fingers into his hair. All the anger he’d been holding onto these past weeks, the resentment and hurt, poured out of him, like, swoosh, trapdoors had opened in his feet and let it all go. Compassion and worry and protectiveness for the woman he loved engulfed him instead. “Poor Riss. Where is she now?” He needed to talk to her, give her a hug, if she’d let—
“Topside.”
“What.” He blinked. “Already?”
“I’m afraid so. She left this morning.” Sympathy touched the curve of Tonĩ’s mouth. “She wanted to be at the hospital when her mother checked in.”
“Oh…yeah, that makes sense.” Which also explained the phantom-limb syndrome he’d felt all day; Marissa wasn’t even physically in the community. He shuffled his feet, agitated by that. “Is there anything we can do to help her? You know, maybe… Jesus!” His cold stomach plunged toward Ground Zero. “She’s one of the Dragons the Topside Om Rău know about, Tonĩ. She’s in danger up there.” He needed to get topside before—
“It’s okay, Dev. Marissa and I talked about it, and she’s promised to stay in the hospital where it’s well-populated.”
“Right,” he drawled, “because that worked out so well for you.” Jaċken and the Topside Om Rău had gunned for Tonĩ the night she’d been kidnapped out of Scripps Memorial.
Tonĩ sighed. “Marissa won’t be giving blood while she’s there, so that won’t set off any alarms about her presence, and she’s checking her mother in under an assumed name.”
He made a guttural noise, feeling only marginally better. The Vârcolac—and he suspected the Om Rău, too—had hacked into hospital laboratories around San Diego, inputting alerts for any human blood that came through with the sought-after Dragon gene, Peak 8. If Marissa didn’t set off that alert, and if she used an alias, then he had to assume she could keep herself relatively safe.
“We don’t have a choice with this, anyway,” Tonĩ went on. “Marissa has to be with her mother. And after Mrs. Bonaventure’s illness has resolved, the two of them are going to move far away from California.”
All right, he supposed that option was the only… His insides froze, his heart grinding down to a slow, painful beat. “Marissa isn’t returning to Ţărână to finish out her year.” He made it a statement, even though he wanted an answer. An enormous, shouting denial.
“No, she’s not.”
He worked his jaw once, forward then back. “Never?” Dumb question.
“No. I’m sorry.”
A queasy feeling blocked off his throat. “But…she left without saying goodbye.”
“She gave me this to give to you.” Tonĩ lightly touched the tall gift bag. “With a message.”
He nodded. Because he just wasn’t getting any syllables out of his mouth right now.
“First, I’m supposed to tell you that her maternal grandmother is Angelique Cuvier.” Tonĩ lifted a hand, palm up. “She said you’d know what that meant.”
He gaped. “Holy crap.” He walked over to the wet bar and reached into the gift bag, lifting the wine out. It was a bottle of Château Cuvier III, 1990. The label swung dizzily before his eyes. This was probably the last bottle on earth, and Marissa had given it to him.
“And secondly, Marissa wanted me to ask you to think of her when you drink this, and…try to forgive her for not being ready.”
He lowered the bottle. Something in his chest twisted. His legs went strangely nerveless. “Oh, Jesus…she loved me, didn’t she?”
“Yes, Dev, I believe she does.”
He ran his thumb and forefinger down the sides of his mouth. “Why…then why wouldn’t she say goodbye?”
“She wasn’t sure if you wanted her to, Dev. It’s my understanding that the last time you two were together you had a pretty bad fight.” Tonĩ’s voice was soft, her concern for him plain. “Marissa said that you told her being around her caused you physical pain.”
“But…but, I didn’t mean…” he said brokenly, his voice fraying apart. “Hell, I didn’t want her to leave.” A black void opened up inside him and gulped down his organs, lungs, kidneys, heart. Good God, what had he done? “I blew it.” Turning, he planted his elbow on top of the wet bar and pressed a fist to his forehead. “I blew it so bad.” He shook his head, the skin on his brow pinching against his fist. “Marissa was finishing out her year in Ţărână. I would’ve had nine more months to try and win her over. But I didn’t woo her like I should have. No. I was too focused on my own hurt feelings.”
What woman wants to spend the rest of her life with a man who only thinks of himself.
A baseball lump in his throat mutated into a beach ball. “Jaċken tried to tell me, you know, ‘don’t always look at your own self-involved version of a situation, Nichita,’ and my mom handed me my ass on the issue…Luvera, too. But I wouldn’t listen to anyone. I mean, why should I? I’m Dev, right? I’m never wrong. Well, someone finally did try to tell me I was wrong, and I threw a fucking tizzy and drove her away.”
Grigore always let you run wild and now look what’s become of it.
Dev tilted his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. For the first time in his life, he was less than thrilled with his father. He couldn’t recall his dad ever telling him he was wrong, or even having Dev make restitution for a mistake. Why couldn’t you have made me into a better man? To his shock, tears stung his eyes, and he blinked hard to hold back that torrent of embarrassment. “Um…would you mind if I spent some time alone now, Tonĩ?”
Tonĩ gave him a small nod. “Let me know if you need anything.”
When the door shut, Dev reclaimed the Château Cuvier III and headed toward his entertainment center, his knees going snap-crackle-pop as he sagged down into one of the armchairs. He hunched over, hugging the wine bottle to his chest.
You received exactly what you deserved from that woman.
He let the truth of those words stab through every pore in his body, refusing to fight back the pain gutting him. Because it was what he deserved.
The usual defensive rebellion rose up, and he locked his teeth against it. Nothing like slipping back into old territory and immediately blaming his shortcomings on his dad for spoiling him or even on his mother for not caring enough. Wait, here’s an idea. Maybe for once he could get his act together and take a hard look at himself.
Otherwise, dying a lonely old man was definitely in his future.
Chapter Thirty
Seemed like an eternity since they’d all done a cocktail thing in the mansion’s fancy-ass garden parlor, rather than only four months ago at that introductory-thingy, but now that Dev was standing in the middle of this room full of memories, eternity didn’t seem like long enough ago. He swore he could still catch traces of Marissa’s scent in here, and the memory of her looking like such a mega-biscuit in that slinky black cocktail dress was clear as day. Not that he knew what the hell day looked like, right? He took a hard swig of champagne.
Fucking champagne. It tasked like bubble-infused detox piss, and would forever be associated with his mother serving up his life to him on a Fuck-U Platter, but he’d choke it down anyway. This bonding reception for Gábor and Chelsea was a celebration.
The happy couple was standing next to a four-foot-tall white cake. Gábor was carving out a chunk from the top with what looked like a warrior blade, Chelsea watching him make a hack job out of it, laughing, a saucer glass of champagne in her hand.
Arc and Beth moved forward to congratulate the two, Arc careful to keep his body angled toward Gábor and away from Chelsea. A full seven days had passed since Gábor had bonded with his new wife, so his cells should’ve been solidly settled into The Change by now and the man chilled out. Still, considering how volatile Gábor had been the first seven days, Dev didn’t blame Arc for playing it safe in order to keep all facial parts in their proper place.
Thomal came over to stand next to Dev. He watched the two for a moment, then made a disagreeable noise in the back of his throat. “Chelsea has more than one glass of champagne, and I’m outta here.”
Dev snorted.
Together, they watched Chelsea daintily feed Gábor a piece of cake.
The rest of the crowd ooh’d and aah’d.
Gábor drawled something, and the spectators burst into laughter. Everyone was just jolly as pigs in poop.
Thomal shook his head. “Never in a million years would I have guessed that guy would bond before me.” He slugged back a large mouthful of champagne. “Or you.”
Dev glanced slantways at Thomal. His friend sure as hell sounded grumpy for a guy who still had his woman around. Yeah, as it turned out, Hadley had decided to stay in the community and work on her relationship with Thomal. She still wasn’t sure if the Vârcolac life was for her, but she was crazy enough about Thomal to at least put some effort into finding out.
“Wake up on the wrong side of the hangover this morning?” Dev inquired blithely.
Thomal gulped his champagne. “I’m just sick and damned tired of everyone thinking I’m some nicey-nice, mellow dude because of the way I look.” Another gulp. “I’m not that guy.”
“Who the hell would think that? Certainly nobody who’s been in the gym with you.”
“Hadley.” Thomal’s mouth clenched tight. “I don’t exactly excel at tip-toeing around people on eggshells or however the hell you say that. And the way Hadley is about my fangs…” Thomal trailed off on a curse.
Hadley was going through something called “systematic desensitization” with Karrell, the community therapist, to get over her needle phobia, but it was slow going and Thomal was understandably frustrated.
“She’ll come around, Costache. Don’t sweat it.”
Thomal drew a deep breath, then exhaled it in a hard rush. “I know. I’m being a dick. It’s just that…hell, if I don’t get some shaboink soon, my tonsil tickler is going to fucking fall off.”
“Nice, man,” Dev returned in a dry tone. “It’s a mystery to me what Hadley sees in you, truly.”
“Um, well…” He felt Thomal’s sideways glance. “I guess you’re the last guy I should be bitching to about relationship troubles, anyway. Sorry.”
Dev stared down into his glass, watching golden champagne bubbles rise steadily to the surface of his drink. Everyone was sorry for him these days: his sister, his friends, his warrior buddies. Dev felt pretty damned sorry for himself, too. He couldn’t even muster anger anymore. Just a constant aching acknowledgement of how badly he’d screwed up his life. A thousand times a day he fantasized about chasing down Marissa topside…but for what? To unload all of his regrets on her while she was dealing with a gravely ill mother. That would fall under the category of “only thinking about himself”—as would pleading with her to come back to him, part two of his fantasy—and he was beyond ready to set aside that little character trait. If he’d been any other guy, he could’ve begged her to let him live topside with her while she fulfilled her dreams. But he was a sun-allergic Vârcolac, so that idea was a non-starter.
Which left him with memories of Marissa, three months’ worth of dating bliss he hoarded desperately close to his heart, and her scent, banking around inside his head like a lone pinball, destined never to settle into its proper slot. How he was supposed to survive that, he hadn’t exactly worked out in his—
“Something’s going down,” Tho
mal said tersely.
Dev looked up and saw what Thomal meant.
A grim-looking Tonĩ had just re-entered the garden parlor, after having been called away from the party by her new assistant, Donree—a Stânga Town girl, of all things. Yeah, both Alex and Tonĩ Parthen were turning Vârcolac culture on its ass.
Tonĩ drew up right in front of Dev, wearing the same expression she’d worn a week ago when she’d shown up on his bedroom doorstep
He stiffened, cold sliding against his spine like an ice cube tossed down the back of his shirt.
“I have some bad news about Marissa.”
He felt a muscle jerk in his cheek. A scorching knot formed in the middle of his chest. Oh, he was mustering anger now. His next question threaded past rage-tightened lips, although he already knew the answer. “Om Rău?”
Chapter Thirty-one
Dark shapes surged around Marissa, voices murmuring, low and incoherent. Strangers, so many strangers, except for one familiar stare, drilling into her with such hatred. Tears blurred Marissa’s vision, her mind silently calling out, I want to go home; a little girl’s innate desire just to be safe. But she didn’t even know where home was anymore. She swallowed tautly over that thought, battening down her emotions, so many that they threatened to spin out of control at the slightest moment of inattention.
Her tears retreated down her throat and slid into her chest, landing in that balled mass of feelings where she’d been keeping all of her stress this past week; the despair over caring for her sick mother, that bone-aching emptiness from leaving Dev, and the usual frustration and sorrow that came from her sister treating her with nothing but outright loathing…and during a time when they should’ve set aside their differences. Whatever those differences might be.
