by Kallysten
“You mean…” Simon gulped loudly. “You want us to go there? To the demon dimension?”
Kate hadn’t put it in those terms in her own mind, but hearing Simon say it, she knew there was no other way.
“I don’t want to go there,” she said slowly. “But I don’t think we have a choice. We know what they’re doing to these people. If we just close the breach and leave them there…”
She shook her head. In her mind, it wasn’t twenty strangers in that prison. It was Blake. They hadn’t known how to help him, but they could help these prisoners.
“We’d be just as bad as the demons,” she finished, her throat tightening so that she ended in a murmur.
Her words seemed to strike Marc. He nodded at once, and she knew he, at least, would side with her. As for Daniel, he still wasn’t reacting.
“Come on, Daniel,” she said, her voice a little higher as she became more animated. She stepped forward and took Marc’s hand. “You can’t tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing as soon as you heard her.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. I need to tell my superiors about this, see what they say. It’s their choice, not mine.” Daniel frowned as his gaze turned to Marc. “And don’t you try the whole Sire thing on me. This isn’t a vampire issue. It’s a squad issue.”
He was still frowning when he looked at Simon, and Simon started visibly.
“The demons won’t be able to track her, right?”
Simon glanced at the closed door. “I don’t think… I mean… I’ll have to redo the spell in a few days but until then—”
Daniel sighed. “Simon. Will they be able to track her? Yes or no.”
Simon gulped. “No.”
“Good. I want to see you first thing tomorrow and hear about the breach again.” Simon looked as though he would interrupt and Daniel raised a placating hand. “Yes, I know, you didn’t figure it out yet. But maybe talking about it will help. For now, get some sleep.” He looked at Kate and Marc again. “We should all get some sleep.”
He and Simon walked away, Simon to the elevators and Daniel toward the soldier who was leaning against the wall, arms crossed and a bored look on his face. No doubt Daniel would have him guard the door. Kate started after Simon, her hand still holding Marc’s, but she quickly realized he wasn’t following. She turned a questioning look to him and found him considering the closed door with a thoughtful expression.
“Marc?”
He looked at her with a small smile. “Why don’t you go ahead? I want to talk to her some more.”
Bile rose to the back of Kate’s throat again. She didn’t know the full story, but she had pieced together that Marc and Jen had had some kind of relationship. She didn’t like the idea of leaving them alone in the least.
“I’ll stay with you. We can talk to her together.”
Marc’s smile thinned, and he leaned in to press a brief kiss to her lips. “It’ll be easier if I’m alone with her. I won’t be long.”
Kate had two choices: dig her heels in and look like an insecure child, or smile and go to their room.
She left. But smiling was beyond her.
* * * *
When Marc returned to the room, Jen’s eyes were closed, although he doubted she was sleeping. She opened her eyes as he directed the soldier to set the cot against the wall and then told him to leave again. Marc leaned back against the door and observed her. She was a handcuffed prisoner; nonetheless, she managed to look as if she were a full-fledged Mistress welcoming him into her lair.
Silence stretched between them. A few years ago, when Marc had finally figured out she was lying to him—betraying him and the humans they were working with—he hadn’t known what to say, and the same silence had weighed on them until she had fled the camp.
She finally broke the status quo with a sigh. “It’s late, Marc. Get to it.”
“Tell me one thing. Why did you come to us? What do you want from us?”
Jen considered Marc. In her cool gaze and the tilt of her head, he could almost see again the woman he had known—the woman he had thought he knew, before he had realized she was a traitor. The woman he would have followed into battle anywhere, because he had been so sure that they shared the same philosophy about helping humans like vampires had during the age-old times of Pacts. And he had followed her, hadn’t he? He had left Blake because she had asked him to, and spent months trying to help close a breach while, unbeknownst to him, she sabotaged every attempt.
“From you, nothing,” she said with a sigh. Marc wasn’t sure whether he saw real regret in her eyes or if he was imagining things. “You can’t help me. You’re lucky to still be alive, actually. Alive and sane.”
Marc started to shake his head, not understanding, but she was already continuing.
“They’re after you, Marc. They want you, either dead or working for them, they don’t care which. They’ve wanted you since Louisiana. They blame you for that first breach being closed and starting it all.”
“For figuring out you’re a traitor, you mean.”
Jen stilled, and this time Marc was sure he could see regret in her, even detect it in her scent: a faint, elusive, bittersweet smell that wafted from her. When she said, “I told them about you. I wish I hadn’t,” he believed her.
He inclined his head once, but redirected her back to his initial question. “You still didn’t tell me why you came here.”
She let out another, deeper sigh. “Because I’m tired of being a…a traitor, as you say. Tired of being their puppet. For a long time, I thought that I didn’t have a choice, but maybe I do.”
Marc arched an eyebrow. “How so?”
“Your mage. He did something to Blake. Something that stops the demons from being able to localize him unless he’s within a hundred feet of a rip. They wanted to use him to get to you, but they can’t. Simon blocked them from finding me for now, but he said it won’t last. If he did the same thing to me he did to Blake, all I’d have to do is stay clear of anywhere where there’s fighting. And then I’d be free.”
Marc observed her for a long moment until she started to squirm under the intensity of his gaze.
“So it was all a lie,” he finally said, the old anger coming back to the surface. “I thought maybe you had believed in the Pacts at some point and had lost your way. I wanted to think that. But you never gave a damn about the fight, did you?”
Her posture changed. She sat up in her chair, her back rigid and straight, and somehow managed to look down at him while he was still standing over her.
“When I became a vampire, there was no use for the Pacts,” she said, her words icy. “No demons for us to fight. But our Sire taught us the old ways anyway. We learned to respect human lives and—”
“Respect human lives?” Marc cut in, incredulous, with a bark of laughter. “How many people did you lead straight into a trap? How many—”
“Two hundred and thirteen.”
Marc blinked twice, his mouth falling open, though no sound came out.
“And I remember every one of them.” Her voice remained level, but her throat bobbed up and down before she continued. “You think I liked doing it? I didn’t have a choice. If I hadn’t followed orders, the demons would have found me. They wouldn’t have killed me. That would have been too easy. They’d have thrown me back into that cell.”
She finally broke down on the last word and took in a shaky breath, closing her eyes tightly for a few seconds.
“You don’t understand what it was like,” she said, her shoulders slumping little by little. “No one can get it unless they’ve been there. I watched my Sire and all her Childer die for this war, I lost two of my own Childer, and I would have been proud to die the same way. But that prison…that cell…”
She shook her head, and her voice firmed again despite the tears he could see gleaming in her eyes. “I lost everything I had fighting for the Pacts. I even lost myself. So don’t you dare tell me I didn’t believe in any of it.�
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“Then prove it,” Marc said, his voice as cold as he could manage. “Prove you care about someone other than yourself.”
Her eyes were sparkling when she glared at him. “Prove it how?” she spat.
“Help me go back.”
He didn’t care whether Daniel or his hierarchy approved, nor did he want Blake or Kate to step into the demon dimension. He only knew that he had to do something to help those twenty strangers—and try to make up for not being able to help the one person that mattered.
“Help me free the prisoners.”
Chapter 12
After walking through the city for what felt like an eternity, Blake finally returned to the hotel two or three hours before the first light of day. He was mentally exhausted. The fight earlier that night had tired his body, but it was his mind that needed rest. The night had been full of bumps, and he wanted two things: a shower and sleep. Maybe then the screaming echoes in his head would start to calm down. Maybe he’d be able to look at Marc again without wanting to hurt him. It would be hard to sleep in the same bed, though.
That last point didn’t turn out to be much of a problem. When he went back to their room, the door was propped open with one of Kate’s shoes. They would need to get key cards for each of them if they stayed there very long. He pushed the door open without dislodging the shoe and stepped inside warily. He expected to find both Kate and Marc, but only Kate was there, sitting cross-legged on the bed and holding a pillow to her chest. Her eyes were red as though she had been crying. Blake’s insides twisted painfully.
“Hey,” he said quietly as he approached the bed. “You okay?”
Kate’s arms tightened a little more around the pillow. “I was worried. Where were you?”
Blake didn’t like the tiny edge of reproach in her voice, but he understood it. He, too, worried when he didn’t know where she was. He always had flashes of her in a demon cell when it happened. He wondered if the same thoughts plagued her.
“I’m sorry. I just needed some air.”
She held her hand out toward him, inviting him to join her. “Are you feeling better?”
Blake’s fingers twitched at his side. He wanted to ask where Marc was, but at the same time he didn’t want to know; he didn’t want to care.
“I’ll be better when Jen is dust,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose Daniel saw reason and decided to execute her?”
Kate winced, and he could tell that she was trying to pick her words—and they weren’t going to be the words he wanted to hear. He shook his head, stopping her in her tracks.
“Never mind. I don’t want to think about her anymore.” He didn’t want to think, period. “I’m going to take a quick shower before bed.”
He turned away and hadn’t taken a step before Kate asked in a quiet, shaky voice that didn’t resemble her, “Can I join you?”
Blake’s body stilled, but his mind whirled too fast for thoughts to rise to the surface. Instead, emotions rushed through him. Surprise that she would ask for such a thing when she had been so cautious, probably wary of asking for more than he was ready to give. Fear that it was too much and that he would lose his mind again. Anger that his fear stopped him from being as close to the woman he loved as they both wanted.
“I…” he started, but didn’t know how to continue.
Kate slipped out of bed and came to him, slowly raising her hand to touch his shoulder. “Just a shower,” she murmured. “It doesn’t have to be anything more. We’ve done it before, remember?”
Blake looked at her hand on his shoulder. His gaze followed her arm then slid up until he met her eyes. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember showering with her, and it must have showed in his expression because Kate swallowed hard and pushed a crooked smile to her lips.
“It was just before you…you went away,” she said quietly. “You sent me on a date with Marc, and the next morning you brought me breakfast and we showered together and you said…you said…”
Her eyes were gleaming with the same tears he could hear in her voice, but she didn’t cry. She simply fell silent, and Blake finished for her.
“I said I love you,” he whispered as flashes of sensation and images coalesced into an actual memory. “And then you let me…”
His gaze dropped to the crook of her neck and to the two small round scars that couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a vampire’s bite mark.
“I let you bite me,” she finished. “Because I love you too. And trust you.”
Another memory tried to superimpose itself over the present: Kate’s neck, torn and bloodied as she took her last breath. Blake closed his eyes and pushed that image away.
It hadn’t been Kate. It hadn’t been Marc. It hadn’t been real.
“Blake? Are you—”
“Yes,” he interrupted, his voice as shaky as Kate’s. Yes, he was fine. Yes, he remembered. But most importantly… “Yes, I’d like to take a shower with you. Just a shower.”
“Nothing more,” she promised eagerly.
When he opened his eyes again, she was smiling. Truly smiling. Blake had almost forgotten how lovely her smile was when it wasn’t strained or forced. He hoped he could be the cause of many more of her smiles in the future.
* * * *
It was like a dance, Kate told herself as she watched Blake undress himself. Her hands clenched and unclenched again. She would have liked to help, but she didn’t dare to push her luck by taking the next step without knowing which way Blake was going. It was a dance, but she couldn’t hear the music, only Blake did, and she never knew when the tempo might accelerate or slow down. All she could do was take her cues from him and try not to step on his toes—try not to hurt him.
“Aren’t you undressing?” he asked suddenly.
Startled out of her thoughts, Kate practically jumped.
“Oh, of course,” she said, already grabbing the hem of her t-shirt to pull it over her head. “I just…”
She didn’t finish. Voicing the thought that he might want to help her was too close to leading, when it was so much safer to follow his pace.
She undressed quickly, leaving the oversized t-shirt and men’s boxers she used as sleepwear on the counter, then joined Blake in the shower stall. He waited until she had closed the curtain before he turned on the water. The first few seconds were icy cold, and Kate couldn’t help but gasp and move back, out of reach of the spray. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. Under the water, Blake was utterly still, his skin like pale marble, his cock hanging uninterested between his legs.
“Sorry,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes. “I should have let it warm up for you.”
Kate pushed a smile to her lips. “It’s okay,” she assured him. “I was just surprised, that’s all.” She held a hand under the water. It was already warming. “Didn’t it feel cold to you?” she asked and stepped closer again.
Blake shrugged and tilted his head up toward the spray. “It’s just nice to be able to bathe,” he said tonelessly. “Nicer when it’s warm, but water is still water.”
Kate picked up the bar of scented soap from the ledge and mulled over his words. She suspected another tidbit of what life had been like in the demon dimension hid behind them, and she could have asked Blake to confirm it, but what would be the point? She didn’t want him to think about those dark years. She wanted him to turn toward more pleasant memories.
“Would you like me to soap your back?” she offered. “Like you did for me back then?”
Blake blinked water out of his eyes and looked at her for a few seconds—was he remembering?—before he slowly turned away, presenting his back to her. Kate wet the soap and worked up a lather in her hands before she started to wash Blake’s back. The smell of lavender filled the shower. She could have used the washcloth hanging from a small plastic hook, but she wanted to feel his skin under her fingers; it wasn’t often that she was able to touch him like this, without fearing that he might bolt at any moment.
As she rubbed soap into his skin, starting at his shoulders and making her way down the smooth, unblemished expanse of his back, she couldn’t help but recall the many scars that had crisscrossed his entire back when he had been returned to them. She had washed him then, too, rinsing away grime and dried blood, and he had flinched at every one of her touches and tried to get away from her with pitiful little cries. He had made so much progress since then…and yet, they still had a long way to go.
Little by little, Blake started to relax under Kate’s hands. He bowed his head forward, and his shoulders loosened. She set the soap down and started again from the top, but this time her touch was stronger, her fingers digging into his muscles, massaging rather than simply stroking.
“Feels good,” he murmured when she finished, his voice all but swallowed by the sound of running water.
Kate laid a kiss in the center of his back before stepping closer to him. She pressed her chest tight against him, resting her cheek against his shoulder, and carefully encircled him with her arms.
“Is this okay?” she asked quietly.
Blake’s hands covered hers, and their fingers entwined in a gesture that had once been familiar.
“Yeah. That feels good, too. Not sure how I feel about you making me smell girly, though.”
Kate opened her mouth to apologize, but frowned when she realized he was teasing her. Tears filled her eyes; it wasn’t a rare occurrence, these days, but these were happy tears, and that didn’t happen much. Blake joking with her was certainly cause enough for joy.
“I thought you liked lavender,” she protested weakly, her throat tight with emotion.
Blake turned in her embrace, his arms slipping ever so slowly and carefully around her. Kate held her breath. This, too, happened much too rarely.
“I like it on you,” he said, looking down at her with a lopsided smile. “I always did. And I m—” He closed his eyes for a second and shook his head, sending water flying everywhere. When he opened his eyes again, they burned with determination. “I missed that smell when I was…away.”
