by Trina M. Lee
The pleading note in his voice broke me. I dissolved into tears and cried in his arms.
But the rage wouldn’t die. It wouldn’t fade to be set aside for later. And although Agent Winston deserved everything that was coming to her, she wasn’t the only FPA agent responsible for this shit…
Justin assured me that he and the others could take care of dumping the vans with the bodies inside. The FPA wouldn’t leave them to be found by civilians. Though my nightclub had been painted in the blood of those who’d dared to cross its threshold uninvited, cleanup could wait.
Arys didn’t try to stop me. He sat quiet in the passenger seat as I ripped up Shya’s driveway. This rage would be sated here and now.
“Are you going to kill him?” Arys slid a curious glance my way.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Agent Briggs had exhausted the last of my forgiving nature. I had no use for him anymore. Not really. His foolish, selfish, arrogant actions had led me to this moment.
I thought myself to be relatively composed as I strode up the front step and flung the door open. I thought wrong.
As soon as I laid eyes on Briggs, I lost it.
He stood in the kitchen in a t-shirt and sweats, stirring a pot on the stove. The air stank of garlic. He glanced up at our arrival, eyes widening as he took in the violent intentions plastered on my face.
I crossed the living room to the kitchen in a heartbeat. Briggs grunted when I slammed him against the fridge. A wooden spoon fell from his hand to spatter the floor with some kind of meat sauce.
“What the hell, O’Brien?”
“What the hell indeed,” I snarled before throwing a right hook that snapped his head to the side. “What the hell were you thinking when you took my blood? Did you think it wouldn’t come back to haunt you? Did you think I’d forget you violated me like that? Did you ever stop to think about how many ways that could go wrong?”
Confusion furrowed his brow. Hands raised in surrender, Briggs shook his head. “Calm the fuck down and tell me what the hell is going on. What happened?”
I slammed another fist into his face, then another. “You happened. Now I’m about to happen to you.” Grabbing two handfuls of his shirt, I flung him into the counter hard enough to send him sailing across.
He hit the floor with a thud. His training kicked in, and he was up, hands raised, ready to defend himself. “Gonna kill me, O’Brien?” he barked, angry now, ready to fight for his life. “You can at least have enough class to tell me why.”
“Class? Oh please, Briggs, school me in what it means to have class.” With laughter sharp as a razor, I advanced on him. “I have countless reasons to kill you, but I still haven’t decided if I will be that merciful. Tonight Winston sent a swat team into my club to kill the vampires and take me. As you can see, they failed. But they did get Shaz and Jez.” I threw a few punches, just to get him busy defending.
Briggs blocked them all, because I let him. “And that’s my fault?” He made the mistake of sparing a glance at Arys, who watched from the edge of the living room. Briggs’s head snapped back from the right hook I landed.
“It isn’t? You took my blood.” My fist smashed his nose. “You wanted me to be your weapon.” An upper cut rocked him back a few feet. “When I didn’t play along, you did whatever you could to find a way to duplicate me.” I let him get a shot in, grinning when I tasted blood from my fang cutting my lip. “You gave Winston a reason to want what you have. You’re selfish, ruthless, and everything you’ve done has led us to this point.”
After a few fake outs to get him flustered, I hit him with an open hand loaded with power.
Briggs went down hard and rolled before staggering back to his feet with hands held at the ready. He nodded and swiped the back of a hand over a cut on his cheek. “Fine, you got me. I’m a career-minded prick willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want. I always knew this job would be the death of me. But can I just say one thing first?”
I exchanged a look with Arys who raised a brow, leaving it up to me. Amusement graced his face. He leaned next to the fireplace, enjoying the show.
“Talk fast. My patience for you is long gone.”
“You’re right. It was you I wanted. Once I knew about you, I had to have you. I thought having Juliet on my team would draw you in. I was wrong. I fucked up, ok? I admit that.” Sweat dotted his forehead. Briggs held up a hand to ward me off, seeing the fire in my eyes. “But you don’t understand the type of shit we’re dealing with, Alexa. There’s so much more to it than hunting the supernatural. We’re protecting the country. The world. The people. You would be a valuable asset. You could do so much good with us.”
Was he friggin’ kidding me? This had to be a joke. “For a man about to die, you sure don’t know how to bargain.” I had no interest in listening to more of his government bullshit. Nothing he had to say could convince me that he wasn’t the enemy.
“I can help you with Winston.” Unwilling to accept defeat, Briggs tried another tactic. “She’s not going to make it easy for you to get your people back.”
Just looking at him pissed me off. All he cared about was saving his own ass. A psi ball in the chest knocked the breath from him.
Before he could recover, I threw Briggs into the wall, obliterating the drywall. A hand on his throat, I snarled into his face with wolf fangs bared. “What she wants in exchange for my people is more of my blood. Thanks to you.”
The basement door opened, and Gabriel appeared, looking slightly disheveled and surprised. “What’s going on?”
“Just taking care of something that’s overdue,” I said, momentarily distracted by the heavy traces of magic that wafted up the stairs after him like a bad odor. How had we not felt it? “What are you doing down there?”
“Nothing. Just some spell work.” Face expressionless, the kid did his best to appear inconspicuous. He failed.
Meeting Arys’s gaze, I tilted my head slightly. He pushed away from the fireplace and headed for the basement to investigate. With a loud huff, Gabriel followed him down the stairs.
Briggs took advantage of the distraction. He brought his leg up between us and kicked me in the stomach hard enough to send me stumbling back. Moving fast, he darted for the kitchen, the obvious place to secure a weapon.
I caught him first.
Alone with him, it was difficult to keep a level head. The need to make him bleed, to feel him struggle, it drove me. What I wanted most was to show him what it meant to be that which he most feared. To be judged and persecuted while struggling to maintain a sense of humanity and morality.
Death would not deliver that to Briggs.
Holding him in a vice-like grip, I willed back the wolf fangs and bared perfect vampire points instead. “You’ve never stopped to think of the struggle I face nightly. You condemn me as a monster, but you don’t know. You can’t. There’s only one way to learn.”
Deep-brown eyes widened in sheer panic, Briggs struggled hard to get away. “Kill me if you want vengeance. Just don’t make me like you.”
“Too late for mercy, Briggs. Death doesn’t want you. Tonight you reap what you’ve sown.”
Turning Briggs had never been my intent. In some ways it might even be a mistake. Yet, he deserved no less than to walk in the footsteps of those he hunted, studied, and killed.
“No, please, Alexa. I’ll do anything. Anything, I swear. Just not that.” My first name made this all the more personal. Briggs would have faced death without begging. But this he could not face.
I draped him in a dizzying amount of my thrall. He stilled in my grasp, staring at me, conflicted, trying to fight the pull.
“You called me a monster. You thought you knew all about me. Now you get to be me.” Voice low and seductive, I pulled him deep under. He would not be fighting this. “And belong to me.”
“I’d rather die,” he stated without inflection. His gaze strayed to my lips.
“You will,” I promised, touching h
is face, drawing him deeper under my allure. “Then you’ll rise and become mine. Which is no less than you deserve.”
I welcomed it when he kissed me. Not because I wanted it but because it would be a memory that would haunt him later. A memory of the moment he gave in. To be fair, I hadn’t been playing with him this time. I’d hit him hard, never intending to give him the chance to fight it. And I wanted to ensure he never forgot this.
Briggs kissed me with the desperation that racked him. He didn’t sincerely want me, nor did I want him to. We both knew it wasn’t real, but we each had a part to play.
I shoved him back so I could study his face. Bruised from my punches, chin blood-spattered over a hint of beard, there was a hard set to Briggs’s jaw. Even under my spell, he managed to look indignant. I respected that. My sister might just hate me forever for what I was about to do. She would have to get over it.
Vengeance demanded retribution. I couldn’t think of anything better than making Agent Thomas Briggs into that which he most loathed.
I bit hard and fast, sinking fangs into his artery. Blood filled my mouth, forced from the wound by tremendous pressure. Briggs’s life tasted like victory. It was a feast like no other, and I happily basked in every precious second that crimson fount flowed.
Somewhere in the background, I was vaguely aware of Arys returning, saying something to Gabriel along the lines of, “Can’t leave her alone with him.”
“Alexa,” Arys barked. “Please tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.”
My laughter sounded disembodied, like someone or something else. “Oh, I’m doing it.”
Briggs began to pass out, so I eased him down to the couch, slapping his face to keep him with me. He’d bled out faster than I liked.
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to give a guy like Briggs the kind of power we have?” Doubt marred Arys’s handsome face.
“Did you really think it was a good idea to give it to Gabriel after you were specifically told not to?” I fired back, ignoring Gabriel’s wounded expression. “Besides, not every Harley Kayson vampire has the same level of power. And he won’t be a problem because I’m going to make him mine.”
Arys didn’t look convinced. Yet he made no move to stop me. With a sweep of his hand, he said, “By all means then, don’t let me interrupt.”
With a mischievous grin, I bit my wrist. Arys didn’t give a damn either way what I did with Briggs. He just wanted to watch me.
I pressed my bloody wrist to Briggs’s lips. He’d fallen too far into the abyss to resist. He was mine already. As he took my blood, I reached out to wrap him in a steady flow of my energy. The bond we were about to form could only be broken by true death. It was not without risk. Being bound to Briggs meant having a mental link to him, similar to the one I shared with Arys. It also meant that he would hunger for me. Forever.
For just a moment I hesitated.
Briggs grasped my wrist, sucking hard on the twin punctures. As his old life slipped away, the new one took over. He paused, gave a strangled cry filled with anger and frustration, and jerked me closer. Pupils huge and heart pounding, Briggs drank my powerful blood because instinct commanded that he choose to live, even if that meant joining the undead.
I gasped as his fingers bit into my flesh. For a dying man he was unnaturally aggressive. But gradually his strength waned.
“Fucking evil bitch.” Briggs panted, slumping back on the couch. He seemed to sink in upon himself, deflating before my eyes. “You’re a goddamn monster, O’Brien.”
His eyes rolled up in his head, and his breath grew shallow. Blood trickled down his chin. It was done. Now he would die. And my sister would despise me for the rest of her life.
“So,” Arys asked when Briggs lay dead, “feel any better?”
I lay back on the opposite end of the couch, regarding him and then Gabriel with a cool, disaffected stare. “Not really. It doesn’t bring Shaz and Jez back. But he had this coming, Arys. You yourself threatened him with this very same thing.”
Arys ambled over to sit on the arm of the couch beside me. “Yeah, I did. I hope you know what you’re doing. If things go south, you’ll have to destroy him.”
I glanced at Briggs’s prone form. “I know.”
Gabriel glided from the shadows into the light. Taking a seat on the horribly soft easy chair, he cast his dark gaze my way. “Now, what’s this about you guys being told not to turn me?”
I looked to Arys, letting him field this one. It was him, after all, who’d blatantly ignored the sage advice of Hurst. I’d tried and failed to stop him from turning Gabriel. So he could damn well explain.
Arys tapped a foot on the floor and sighed. After firing a dirty look at me, he launched into a recap of all Hurst had said. There wasn’t much to tell. A warning had been issued and ignored.
“I’m not a threat.” A question laced Gabriel’s tone, as if he didn’t quite believe it himself. “Not anymore. I broke away from Shya. I’m done with that shit.”
“What were you doing downstairs?” Suspicion lent my question an air of accusation. There were few people I trusted currently. Gabriel wasn’t one of them.
For a kid with so few expressions, he managed to muster up a nice glower. “I told you. Some spell work. Basic charms. Nothing black, I swear.”
“Why couldn’t we feel it up here?” I didn’t mean to interrogate him, but he had yet to earn my trust.
“It’s Shya’s basement. He designed it that way.” Peering out at me from beneath a curtain of long, black hair, Gabriel managed to appear wounded. “Alexa, I’m not a threat. I can be useful. More useful than that asshole.” He flung a hand toward Briggs.
No argument there. Briggs, a dreamwalker, might have his uses, but I doubted he’d be much of a team player.
Looking at the teenage vampire, I was reminded of my own teenage self. Life had been hard enough as a werewolf. I couldn’t imagine the trials of vampirism at that age. Gabriel had fucked up in his short time among us. But did he deserve to be constantly punished for it?
“I want to believe that, Gabriel. Really, I do. It’s not easy. There’s not a lot of people I can trust right now.” I didn’t know him well enough to pat his arm or hug him or anything one might do under normal circumstances. We had no normal.
With a frown that indicated he’d reject any offer of affection, he said, “Give me a chance. And give me some credit for the good I’ve already done. I can help. I’ve seen things. Let me do more than babysit this useless Fed.”
That gave me pause. “I thought you weren’t in the business of revealing what you’ve seen anymore.”
“I’m not. I mean, I’d rather not be. But some stuff shouldn’t be kept to myself.” Looking uncomfortable, Gabriel shoved out of the chair and went to the kitchen to turn off the stove.
When he began cleaning up Briggs’s mess, I knew he was withholding something. I glanced at Arys. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I don’t even want to know. Any of it.” Arys’s tone went hard as steel.
Knowing the future didn’t appeal to me either. However, Arys was firmly against it. I got it. I did. Having a hundred years forewarning that he would kill me had tormented him endlessly. Which was why he still didn’t know that he would one day sink fangs into my sister.
I shoved off the couch and approached Gabriel. For a minute, I leaned on the kitchen counter, watching the kid wipe the sauce spill off the floor. He carefully avoided my gaze.
“What did you see?” I tapped my fingertips on the counter, using claws to make an irritating, repetitive drum.
“Nothing.” Gabriel didn’t look up, focusing extra hard on the floor mess. “I shouldn’t have said that. Forget it.”
A glance back at Arys revealed stony silence. A slow shake of his head was his only response.
Impatiently I waited until Gabriel had finished with the clean up. In an effort to keep from making eye contact, he started to unload the dishwasher.
<
br /> “Gabriel,” I said, sharper than intended. “Tell me what you saw.”
He turned from the coffee mug he held. Our eyes locked. “Arys is right. You guys don’t need to know. I’m sorry I said anything.”
Now I was starting to get ticked off. “Arys is right when I say he’s right. Otherwise, tell me what I want to hear.”
Arys scoffed. I ignored him. A pit opened up in my gut overflowing with foreboding strong enough to leave a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Trust me, Alexa, you don’t want to hear it.” Mugs clinked together as Gabriel shoved them into a cupboard. Such a normal thing for a regular person. Strange for a vampire in a demon’s house.
Because the sick sensation within me grew into a swirling black mass, I advanced on Gabriel, power making my hair float. Dishtowel in hand, he turned from the cupboard to face me, unafraid.
“Tell me what you saw. I’m not asking.” I didn’t raise a hand against him. The threat lurked in my stare.
Sure, he could’ve thrown down and given me a hell of a fight. He still would have lost. Besides, seeing as he wanted me to trust him, Gabriel had no choice but to spill.
Resistance filled him. From the stiffness in his stance to the thin press of his lips, Gabriel wanted no part of this. He overflowed with regret. “Let me go on the record as stating I very much wish I’d said nothing, and I’d like to keep it that way.” He slapped the dishtowel down on the counter. When I continued to stare at him, unmoved, he continued, “Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you and Arys were pitted against each other instead of fighting together as one? Because there’s a high likelihood that you’re going to find out.”
Stunned, I replayed his words several times, unable to accept them.
Conflict with Arys had always been a thing. Yet, it had never truly been a battle of anything more than wills. What Gabriel saw, it couldn’t happen. We were twin flames, two halves of the same whole. Impossible.
