Immortal Angel

by Lynsay Sands

  Both men stopped dead at her words and turned to look around the parking lot. Many of the witnesses who had been filming were gone now, most leaving when the campus police had arrived. But there were still a few watching them with phones out, still recording.

  “Damn,” Tybo growled.

  Valerian sighed and said, “You take the two on the right side of the parking lot, and I’ll—”

  “Don’t bother,” Ildaria interrupted as the pair started to move. “It’s already been uploaded to the net at least once.”

  When both of their heads swiveled toward her with alarm, she smiled sweetly. “I tagged Lucian Argeneau on mine. He’s probably looking at it right now.”

  “Ah, crap,” Tybo muttered.

  “Now you know how I feel,” she said grimly and turned to get into the SUV, leaving them to follow at their leisure. When she finished doing up her seat belt and glanced out, she saw that the two men were still standing beside the vehicle, but with their phones out now. Looking for the video, she supposed with amusement and guessed they’d found at least one version of it when they both began to curse.

  Releasing a satisfied little sigh, she leaned back in her seat to wait for them to get over their upset and take her to Lucian. Oddly enough, they didn’t seem as eager to get her there as they had been when they’d pulled her from class. It was a very quiet ride to the Enforcer house, with a lot of angry and accusing glares cast her way.

  “Ildaria! How nice to see you again.”

  Ildaria smiled crookedly at that greeting from Samantha Mortimer when Tybo and Valerian marched her into the Enforcer house. She stood stiff and still when the other woman hugged her . . . until Sam whispered, “It will be fine.”

  Relaxing a little then, Ildaria raised her hands to return the slender woman’s hug and even managed a real smile when Sam pulled back enough to look at her face. Ildaria wasn’t sure it really would be all right, but Sam’s words at least gave her hope.

  “Lucian and Garrett are waiting in the office,” Sam said, finally releasing her. She then glanced to Tybo and Valerian and added, “For all three of you.”

  Ildaria bit her lip when both men groaned and cast her accusing glares, but Sam grinned with amusement and slid her arm through hers to lead her down the hall as she asked, “How are you settling in at Marguerite’s?”

  “Good,” Ildaria murmured, forcing her worry aside for the moment. “Marguerite’s very nice.”

  “Yes, she is, isn’t she,” Sam said with a smile that dimmed a bit as she added, “But I hope she’s taking it easy. She and Julius were so crushed when she lost the last baby. I’d hate for it to happen again.”

  Ildaria halted and turned on her sharply. “Marguerite’s pregnant?”

  “Yes. But maybe don’t mention it to her. She hasn’t told everyone yet. I only know because I heard Lucian talking about it to Mortimer and warning him not to involve her in anything stressful until the baby is born,” Sam said quietly and explained, “She was pregnant a year or two ago, but lost the baby and Lucian is sure it had something to do with stress so wants to be sure we keep her stress free this time.”

  “Oh,” Ildaria murmured. She had been living with the woman for more than a month now and hadn’t picked up on her delicate state. Although, Ildaria had noticed that Marguerite was consuming a lot of blood, which was a necessity for an immortal female to carry a child to term.

  “In fact,” Sam continued, “Lucian’s so determined to keep Marguerite relaxed and stress free you almost had to stay with us when they dragged you here from Montana . . . which I would have loved by the way,” she added sincerely. “But Marguerite had already got wind of your situation and insisted you should stay with her. She worried that your staying here would be uncomfortable. That the cells out back would feel like a constant threat to you of what could happen if you misbehaved.”

  Ildaria grimaced at that comment, because here she was, in trouble again and probably going to end up in those cells Sam had just mentioned.

  “It will be fine,” Sam murmured again, patting her arm. “And here we are.”

  Ildaria glanced around to see that they’d reached Garrett Mortimer’s office—or Mortimer’s office, since everyone seemed to address Sam’s husband by his last name. Officially, Mortimer was the head of the Immortal Enforcers in North America, or rogue hunters, as they were often called. But Lucian Argeneau was the head of the North American Immortal Council and often stuck his nose in and usurped Mortimer’s position.

  As he was apparently doing in this case, Ildaria decided when she saw that the ice-blond Lucian was seated in Mortimer’s chair behind the desk while Sam’s dark-haired husband was perched on the corner of his own desk. The two men had apparently been discussing something, probably her, but stopped at their arrival.

  “There are brownies and cocoa waiting in the kitchen when you’re done,” Sam said lightly as she released the hold she’d had on Ildaria’s arm and urged her into the room. Ignoring the scowl Lucian gave her, the slender brunette then disappeared down the hall, leaving Tybo and Valerian to enter the room as well.

  “Sit,” Lucian said firmly when the three of them stood stiffly in front of the desk like naughty children in the principal’s office.

  Ildaria sat, taking the nearest chair, which happened to be the middle of three in front of the desk. It left Tybo and Valerian to take up chairs on either side of her.

  Once the three of them were seated, Lucian turned the portable computer on the desk toward them. A frozen image of an obviously running Tybo and Valerian was on the screen.

  Both of her escorts immediately began to speak, but Lucian held up a hand for silence. When they snapped their mouths shut, he hit the play button on the computer. They were all silent as they watched the action play out; Valerian and Tybo were as fast as cheetahs as they raced across the parking lot. Unfortunately, the parking lot was huge, and despite their inhuman speed, the attacker had dragged the woman into the van, slammed the door closed and somehow subdued her and got in the driver’s seat before they arrived at the van.

  Reaching the vehicle just as it started to pull away, Valerian leapt onto the roof like a monkey leaping into a tree and ran along the top of the van toward the front, probably intending to swing in through the front passenger window. It ended up being unnecessary, however, because instead of joining him on the roof, Tybo—just a couple of steps behind Valerian—caught the bumper and lifted the back of the vehicle off the ground in a beautiful display of superman strength that had the tires spinning in midair and brought the van to an abrupt halt.

  Valerian then jumped off the van roof on the driver’s side, reached through the window to turn off the vehicle and pulled the hulking driver out with one hand to let him dangle in the air. Meanwhile, Tybo set the van back on all four wheels and moved around to open the side door and retrieve the unconscious young woman inside. Valerian was still holding the would-be kidnapper by the neck and Tybo had just brought the girl back to consciousness when the campus police showed up on the scene.

  “We didn’t know she was filming,” Tybo blurted when Lucian hit the button to end the recording. Turning a scowl on Ildaria, the dark-haired Enforcer added, “I still can’t believe she did. She knows we aren’t supposed to draw attention to ourselves.”

  “This is not Ildaria’s footage,” Mortimer said when Lucian remained silent. “It’s by someone who goes by T.O.eyes, and their caption was Holy shit! Superman times two in Toronto.”

  “Shit,” Tybo muttered, slumping back in his seat.

  “Ildaria’s video was from a different angle,” Mortimer continued. “And hers was captioned, Special project for Film class. Awesome job peeps! Looks so good even I almost believed it was real.”

  When Tybo and Valerian both blinked in surprise and then turned to her, Ildaria shrugged irritably. She’d been rather enjoying their chagrin and anger, but the jig was up. “I thought I should do some damage control.”

  They were all silent for a
minute, and then Valerian frowned and asked, “This will not affect the arrest of the bastard who tried to take the woman, will it?”

  “We read his mind,” Tybo put in with concern. “She wasn’t his first victim. The bastard’s a serial rapist. If the police think it was just a film class stunt—”

  “No,” Lucian interrupted firmly. “I will see to it that he is brought to justice.”

  The two men nodded, and then glanced from Ildaria to Lucian, looking like they wanted to say something. Whether it was to stand up for her, or thank her for what she’d done with the video, she didn’t know, and never would since Lucian turned to her then and said, “You have been naughty, Angelina.”

  Ildaria noted the startled expressions on the other men’s faces at his use of her first name, but ignored them and said quickly, “I only did what Tybo and Valerian did on that tape. I just wasn’t lucky enough to have someone with me to do damage control. I promise I wasn’t playing the vigilante like in Montana. I wasn’t wearing my leathers and didn’t go looking for bad guys to beat up. I was just walking along minding my own business when . . .” She shrugged rather than say, “the shit hit the fan.” Which was what had happened each of the three times she’d stopped to save a fellow student. The first time it had been a girl getting mugged. Ildaria had chased down the culprit, got the girl’s purse back and returned it to her before walking them both to the campus police office so the man could be charged.

  The second time it had been a drunken asshole beating up his less inebriated girlfriend. She’d taken them both to the campus police as well, having to control the girl to make her admit what had happened. Something Ildaria still had trouble fathoming. The minute she’d got involved, the girlfriend had sided with her boyfriend as if Ildaria was the bad guy.

  The last incident had been a man who had attacked a student out for an evening jog and pulled her off the path into the woods intending to rape her. She suspected that was the one that had been videoed and got her in trouble. It was the only one where she’d been “tossing around” someone twice her size as Valerian had put it earlier.

  Ildaria’s mouth tightened at the memory. She’d known she shouldn’t do it, but she’d been infuriated. She had a special hatred in her heart for rapists. She’d taken great pleasure in beating the man and wiping the path with his face before the campus police had arrived to take him into custody.

  Unfortunately, while Ildaria had noticed that others had arrived at the scene, she hadn’t even considered someone might record it and post it online until she’d spotted it this morning. She’d known then that she’d probably be in trouble once Mortimer or Lucian saw it. Ildaria just hadn’t been sure when that would happen . . . until Valerian and Tybo had shown up at her class.

  “Hmm,” Lucian said finally. “There appears to be a lot of crime on campus at night.”

  Ildaria gave a small shrug. “It’s a university with loads of beautiful young women. It’s nirvana for perverts and draws them like flies to shit at night.”

  “At night,” Lucian echoed thoughtfully.

  “Si. Well, it’s generally safer during the day. More people about and fewer dark places to hide,” she pointed out.

  “Yes.” Lucian nodded. “That’s the answer then.”

  Ildaria tilted her head to the side, positive her confusion was showing on her face. “The answer?”

  “You will switch to day classes,” Lucian announced.

  “What?” she asked with disbelief.

  Lucian considered her briefly and then said, “At Jess and Raffaele’s wedding your old captain, Vasco Villaverde, told me you were a trouble magnet, but had a good heart.”

  Ildaria sighed inwardly over the fact that the man had tattled on her about her tendency to get herself into scrapes. She’d been in trouble several times in Punta Cana. In fact, if it weren’t for Vasco, she probably would have been executed long ago. He’d saved her hide repeatedly, and Ildaria would be forever grateful for that. She just wished he hadn’t felt the need to mention it to Lucian.

  “It seems obvious to me that Vasco was right,” Lucian continued now. “If there is trouble around, you will find it. So, to ensure I do not have to execute you, it would behoove me to ensure you avoid situations where trouble might occur. That means no more night classes. You will switch to days. Immediately. You will never again be on campus at night,” he ordered imperiously.

  Ildaria stared at him nonplussed for a moment, anger building slowly inside her, and then she burst out, “Are you kidding me? First you pulled me out of school in Montana and dragged me up here to Canada, making me miss my finals there and have to take those classes over again, and now you’re going to drag me out of my night courses and make me take day classes?” Scowling, she informed him, “I won’t be able to get into day courses now. The summer term will be lost and I’ll have to start again in the fall. Which means paying for them all over again, again. Do you know how expensive these courses are? Not to mention the extra blood I’ll need to consume if I attend day classes. I’m trying to save money to get my own place and stop being a burden to Marguerite and Julius. I’ll never be able to swing that if I keep having to pay for courses I don’t get to finish and extra blood to attend day classes . . . which with my luck, I again probably won’t get to finish anyway. I need those courses to get my degree.”

  Lucian’s eyes narrowed. “I pulled you from university in Montana because you were playing vigilante down there,” he reminded her icily. “You were utilizing your abilities in front of mortals and drawing attention to yourself, and by extension, our people. Which is against our laws. My choice was to either move you or execute you. Would you have preferred execution?”

  “Of course not, but . . .” Ildaria hesitated and then slumped in her seat with defeat. She supposed the setback to her education was probably nothing more than she deserved. She’d known she was playing with fire when she’d donned her leathers and gone out to kick some mortal bad-guy butt back in Montana. And she knew she was lucky that Lucian Argeneau had given her a second chance rather than have her executed. He wasn’t known for being soft on people who stepped out of line, and she had stepped out of line. Her only excuse was emotional distress, but she hadn’t explained that to Lucian when she’d been brought before him. She hadn’t had to, though. No doubt he’d read it from her mind and it was the only reason she was still breathing.

  Letting her breath out slowly now, she nodded in acceptance and simply said, “Thank you.”

  Lucian grunted at the soft words, his body relaxing. “You may go. I believe Sam is waiting for you in the kitchen . . . with hot chocolate and brownies.”

  Ildaria couldn’t tell if he was annoyed that Sam was waiting to give her treats to soothe her after she’d got herself in trouble again, or amused. His mouth was definitely twitching though.

  Supposing it didn’t matter, Ildaria stood and headed for the door, aware that Tybo and Valerian had also stood to follow her. They had to take her back to the university to fetch her car, she recalled then, and probably wouldn’t want to wait for her to enjoy those treats. That or they’d gobble them all up on her. She’d seen Tybo eat. He’d inhale the brownies before she got her hand on one if she didn’t run ahead of them.

  But in the next moment, she realized that wouldn’t be necessary because Lucian barked, “Not you two. I am not finished with you yet.”

  Ildaria glanced back to see Tybo and Valerian reluctantly returning to their chairs and had to smother the smile that wanted to claim her lips. Tybo had been so annoying with his nonsense about having the sense not to be caught on video that she didn’t feel at all bad he was in trouble now.

  Leaving the men to be raked over the coals by Lucian, she hurried out into the hall, headed for the kitchen and the promised brownies and cocoa awaiting her. There was nothing like chocolate to make you feel better after a stressful event. Between that and a chat with Sam, she hoped to be feeling at least a little better before the men rejoined her.

/>   Two

  Ildaria pushed through the red door of the Night Club the next day and then paused, blinking rapidly. The early afternoon sunlight was bright still, but in this room there was only the one small window in the door to allow the sun’s rays in. Most of the interior lights were off—only a set of five or six pot lights over the bar at the back of the room were on and they didn’t illuminate much other than the bar itself. Her eyes needed a second to adjust to the darkness before she could properly see the rich dark wood and leather interior of the establishment she’d entered.

  It was impressive, Ildaria decided as she finally started toward the bar. There were no clients in the place at the moment. The Night Club wouldn’t officially be open until sunset. Without clients cluttering up the place and blocking her view, she could see everything quite clearly.

  Her gaze slid with appreciation over the gleaming dark wood booths along the front and side walls, with their leather cushioned seats of a deep wine color, and then moved over the wooden tables and chairs taking up the center of the room, before shifting to the long dark wood bar along the back with high-backed bar stools lining it (again of rich dark wood and deep-wine leather seats). There was a set of swing doors in the back wall to the left of the bar, and then a huge mirror and the bar itself ran the rest of the length of that wall until it stopped at a hall leading to the back of the building. The mirror was probably forty feet long and reached to the ceiling. It was lined with shelves, but they didn’t hold bottles of alcohol as they would in a mortal establishment. Here glasses of every size and description filled the shelves: cocktail glasses, highball glasses, wineglasses (both the smaller, more rounded glasses used for red wine, as well as the taller type for white), champagne glasses, brandy snifters. There were even cordial glasses, she noted and smiled wryly as she wondered what they used them for. Who would order a tiny cordial glass of blood mixed with flavor or mood enhancers?

  Immortals who came to the club, she supposed and then paused halfway across the room when a man pushed through the swinging doors. He was mortal. He was also huge, a veritable giant at what she would guess was six and a half feet, and that didn’t include the bright green Mohawk on his head that had to be a foot high. But it wasn’t just his height that made him huge. He was also wide, with the shoulders of a linebacker and bulging arm muscles that made the tattoos revealed by his short-sleeved shirt move as he raised the plate he carried.