Tempest of Vengeance

by Tara Fox Hall

  My calm words hung between us for a split second, then Theo’s eyes went yellow. “I wanted you to know how it feels,” he growled. “For you to be the one who is jealous.”

  “I’m not,” I said casually, surprised myself that I was speaking the truth. What had happened?

  I stared at Theo, as if seeing him for the first time. My love of the last three and a half years, the man I’d moved Heaven and Earth for, and always put first. The man I’d driven cross-country to find, whose daughter I’d raised, whose child I’d had, whose life I’d sold myself in return for twice over. The man I’d left Danial for, hurt Devlin for, and rejected Lash for, over and over. Sure, he was handsome. Sure, he had a great body. Sure, he’d saved my life, but who hadn’t, of my lovers? Why had I thought he was so special? He was a good enough guy, but that was if you weren’t the one married to him. When had he ever put me first? Maybe long ago, when we first met, and he first loved me. Why had I chased him so long, tried so hard to be everything he wanted, instead of being myself? I’d almost died, trying to be what he wanted!

  “You are so not worth it,” I whispered cuttingly.

  “I could say the same for you,” Theo growled back.

  “You don’t have to,” I retorted, curling my lip. “I’ll be leaving now.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” he growled. “You’re my wife, and you go where I tell you. I’ll say if you are leaving, or staying.”

  I looked at him, ready to laugh at how ridiculous he sounded, and saw he was serious.

  “You aren’t going to go to Devlin again, ever,” Theo growled. “You’re staying here, with me. And you’re going to sleep beside me every night—”

  “Jenny’s not going to go for that,” I sneered, my tone raw sarcasm.

  “Sometimes she’ll join us,” Theo said with a grin that was part eager, part malicious.

  I looked at him in shock. Theo had never wanted more than me, had refused when I’d told him to take another lover...until Titus began to break the bond. Now, I was betting it was finally broken.

  “Why not, Sweetheart? I was in bed with you and Danial before, even if nothing happened. Two women sounds good to me, one on either side of me.”

  “Getting visions of your own pride now, Theo? Must be a lion thing—”

  “It is a ‘lion thing’,” Theo growled provocatively. “Male lions like more than one female lion to mate with usually, Sar. Nineva has three women. Two have already born him children, and the third will give birth in February—”

  “That’s nice,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes and getting up. “Count me out.”

  Theo growled, his eyes still yellow.

  “Don’t worry,” I continued, turning to leave. “There might be no werecougars besides Jenny in the Northeast, but I’m sure you can find someone else to turn if you ask enough women. Then you’ll have your very own ménage a trois, or quatre, if you prefer four!”

  “I already have someone else to turn right here,” Theo purred, his throaty sound of pleasure sending chills down my spine. “You.”

  I slowly turned to face him. “I don’t want to be werecougar.”

  “I don’t care if you want to be or not,” Theo said easily. “I want you to be, and you are my mate. You’ll do it, because it’s what I want!”

  “Keep telling yourself that and it still won’t happen,” I said, and went into Danial’s room.

  Theo followed me, locking the door behind us. I turned to face him, my eyes spitting sparks. “You think if you lock me in here with you I’m going to listen to your shit?”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Theo said in a more placating tone, leaning against the door. “I probably shouldn’t have said it like that. It is true though, what I said about Nineva. Most lions have more than one mate, but I don’t feel that way. I just wanted you to know how it felt to be the one told that you were going to have to put up with other lovers.”

  Outraged that he would do such a thing on the very day our son had died, my loud voice became a shout. “Theo, you know without Devlin’s protection, I’m sure to be claimed by some other vampire, even someone like Michael—”

  “Not if you let me change you tonight,” Theo said, a hot current infecting each word. “If you’re werecougar, they can’t force you to do anything! Danial will leave you alone, that is, if he even recovers—”

  “Stop it!”

  “And Devlin will too, he’ll find some other woman to bed—”

  “Like you obviously have?”

  Theo looked as if he badly wanted to say something cutting but instead let out a breath. “You’ve got to understand, my turning her, I did it for you, Sar! I know what to do now! I couldn’t risk trying it with you until I knew it would work! But I changed Jenny, and she was almost dead! It will work with you, you’re healthy and you’re mortal now.”

  I looked at him with growing fear. He was serious. He was absolutely serious. I tried to teleport, but he reached out and pulled me into his arms, hugging me tight. “No, you don’t,” he growled. “I told you, you’re staying here with me, even if I have to hold on to you all night. And you can’t teleport from here anyway. T’s worried about someone getting in the house. He had Terian put up a barrier for certain rooms, including the bedrooms and the offices. Go ahead, try it right now!”

  I felt a bad feeling of foreboding. I tried it, and nothing happened. Fuck!

  Theo let me go, and stepped back from me. “See?”

  “Devlin would be furious if you—”

  “But he couldn’t undo it,” Theo said triumphantly. “He’d get used to it. He’d have no other choice!”

  I didn’t say anything, too busy thinking how to get myself out of this situation.

  Theo was still trying to convince me. “We can hunt together, and I can love you with everything I am,” he purred, that great rumbling sound calming me in spite of the circumstances. “If you’re werecougar, I won’t have to hold back with you, or worry about hurting you anymore! It could be so perfect, Sar. Maybe we can even have another child.”

  I felt something cold slither down my spine and clutch my heart. Theo saw the fresh grief and loss in my eyes. “We’ll never get Devon back,” he said, swallowing hard. “I accept that. But I loved sharing that with you, seeing the two of you together, knowing he was my son, and how much you loved him, that he was part mine and part yours—”

  Even as my vision blurred with tears, I saw a problem here, a problem Theo should be seeing, unless he’d found out the truth about me. I have to know if he knows. “But I’m fixed, I can’t have any more children.”

  “When you become were, you may heal what Stephen did to you,” Theo said with excitement. “I checked, and there have been cases where it’s happened to other women when they were turned, Sar. Even if you don’t heal your human body, when you change into lion form you’ll be able to get pregnant. You could stay in lion form, carry the baby that way—”

  I felt a shiver again at his rampant eagerness as relief flooded me that he hadn’t found out I had already healed. “No, Theo, I don’t want—”

  “—with us being both were and the same species, there won’t be any danger of the fetus getting too big, and you’ll heal fast, too. I’ll take care of you, like I did before when you were pregnant.”

  “Theo, it’s not going to work! I don’t want to—”

  “It will,” Theo said staunchly. “We can finally be happy together. The way we should have been from the first! When I first changed for you, when you told me how beautiful I was as a lion, I wanted to ask you then to let me change you. We’d just gotten together though, and I didn’t have nearly enough control—”

  “Theo, you aren’t listening—”

  “But I do now, Sar. I won’t hurt you, like I was afraid I might. Aspen told me what to do, that night we saw her in Casper. She told me it would only take a moment’s courage, and it would be done—”

  I tried another tactic. “Dev will kill you! He treasures the
taste of my blood above all else, and it’s beginning to change finally—”

  “I don’t give a fuck what he wants!” Theo roared. “And I’m done sharing you with him!”

  Theo squeezed me tighter, and his yellow eyes bored into mine. “You either let me change you here tonight, or I’m leaving you, Sarelle. I’m done with having only part of you, and only being able to share half of myself with you! It’s all or nothing. And it’s your choice.”

  “Theo, please, let me go!”

  “What’s it going to be, Sar? Me, or the two brothers? Well, really now, it’s me or Dev! A good life in the sun, with a man who loves you, really loves you, or spending the rest of your life in the darkness with a leech feeding off you every chance he gets—”

  “Stop it!”

  “You stop it! Stop making excuses! Say yes now, or tell me good-bye. And know that Jenny has already told me if I want her, she’s mine—”

  “Good! Leave me alone! Go to your whore—”

  Theo slapped me lightly, the unexpected blow knocking me off balance. I fell down, but caught myself with my hands before my head hit the floor. I was in too much shock to do anything but look up at him, and put a shaking hand to my mouth. My teeth had cut my lip shallowly and it was bleeding. I lay where I’d fallen for a moment, feeling déjà vu. Theo had never struck me before, never. I hadn’t thought he was capable of it. But he’d changed from the man I’d known and trusted, when the spell had been broken. And the man he was now was a man I didn’t know. A man I couldn’t trust.

  “Sar, I’m so sorry,” Theo said, starting toward me.

  I suddenly realized I had a clear path to the door. Theo did too, and grabbed hold of my hand again.

  “Get your God-damned hands off me!” I said, trying to back away on my hands and knees.

  “I can’t believe I did that,” Theo said, tears in his eyes. “Please—”

  “Get out! I’m not turning for you, Theo! Not now, not ever!”

  “Is that your final answer? You’re sure?” His voice was hard now, no longer pleading.

  “I’m sure. I’m sorry for you, but—”

  “I’m sorry for you!” Theo spat. “You’ve chosen a monster! You’ll be pimped out to his friends to be fucked every way possible!”

  “Let me go!”

  “But maybe you like that? You seem to love having more than one man in your bed! How many times have you fucked Lash and him together, Sar? Fifty? A hundred?”

  “I haven’t been with Lash at all—”

  Theo heard the truth in my voice and switched tactics, still growling. “You don’t ever call Jenny a whore, not in front of me! It’s you who is the whore!”

  The last bit of my self-restraint abruptly gave way. “You’re right. She’s not a whore. But you’re a bastard, a motherfucker, and an asshole! Now let me go!”

  Theo let me go, and faced me. “Before you go to your new life in darkness, you might as well have this,” he said, and he took off his ring and tossed it to me. It rolled to a stop at my feet.

  “It’s just as well you aren’t going to turn,” Theo continued, running his eyes over me appraisingly. “You might have been beautiful once, but you’re not anymore, Sar. You have a hard look in your eyes now that never leaves. And you’ve put on so much weight, living at Hayden. You’re just too fat and ugly to be a woman of mine.”

  I knew it was a cheap shot. I knew Theo probably didn’t mean it, that he’d just told me that morning as he made love to me how beautiful I was, how much he loved me. But part of me told myself he did, that this was what he’d thought all along, that Terian’s spell had just hidden it. And for some reason, it hurt me more than anything else he could have said. Maybe because in part he was right; I had let myself go a little since I’d had the twins. Maybe it was because I had always been vain. And maybe because it was the path of least resistance, believing him.

  But in addition to hurting, his words also made me very, very angry. So angry I forgot about escaping, and decided I had a few things to say to him too. He wasn’t getting the last word.

  “I want you to know something, before you go,” I said, looking up at him with hate. “You owe Lash your life. You’re walking around breathing because he saved your ass!”

  Theo sneered at me. “What bullshit are you—?”

  “That night you challenged Robert, and fought him, Satar and his men, they were there, planning to shoot you as you fought him!”

  “You’re lying!”

  “You never wondered how they suddenly ceased to exist? Why they just seemed to give up trying to kill you? How much of an idiot are you?” I laughed maliciously. “Lash killed them. He covered it up, burned the bodies!”

  “No!” Theo said looking at me with so much pain and agony, I thought he might be having a heart attack. “That can’t be true! You’re lying! He would never—”

  “I sent him to protect you,” I hissed. “He got hurt saving your stupid ass! I went to save him in part because of it—”

  “I never asked you to,” Theo whispered, belief and horror in his eyes. “Why did you—?”

  “I heard you talking to Devon, saying you wouldn’t come back! I had to do something! You were going to let yourself be killed over your stupid honor! If you’d have let Terian go with you, I wouldn’t have needed Lash’s help—”

  “What did you give him for his help?” Theo growled in anger, his eyes bleeding back to yellow. “He wouldn’t have done it for free. And you couldn’t have afforded to pay him money, not what his going rates are.”

  I narrowed my eyes and looked at him. I’d already said too much. Maybe it was better, saying nothing, because Theo had already come to his own conclusion.

  “That afternoon you went to Hayden!” Theo said, his voice rising in volume. “It wasn’t to see Serena! It was to see him, to fuck him as payment! That’s why you were so calm that night! I thought it was because you believed in me, had faith in me—”

  Stay silent. Let him believe that. “Theo, I had to save you.”

  “You didn’t do it for me, you did it because you wanted him, just like you wanted him later, just like you lusted after him when you were pregnant, like you want him now—!”

  “Yes, I want him,” I screamed. “I love him!”

  Theo’s look of revulsion was terrible to see. “Say it’s a lie, Sar. Say it now, that you just said that to hurt me, and I’ll forgive you.”

  “It’s not a lie! I’m in love with him!”

  “He almost killed you and you love him?” he whispered. “What is wrong with you?”

  “I wouldn’t have died,” I spat at him. “He would have turned me, if the demon blood didn’t work. He said he would, that he’d done it before. And I told him to do it!”

  Theo roared louder than I’d ever heard him, and I realized with fear my mistake. “You’d be snake for him but not cougar for me?” he snarled. “You bitch!”

  I tried to jerk free, but he had me too tightly, his fingers digging into my arm painfully. He was changing, his clothes beginning to split as he shifted form.

  “You’ll never be with him again,” Theo growled, his words slurred and rough as his canines elongated. “I’m making sure of that tonight, Wife! Once you’re cougar he won’t be able to stand the smell of you, no matter what he feels for you! And you won’t be able to stand him touching you, for the same reason! But you’ll want me for the rest of your life—”

  It was now or never.

  I said a quick prayer as I slid my hand to my belt, flipping open the blade as I yanked it free. I kneed Theo as hard as I could. He let out a cry, struggling to hold me. I stuck the knife Lash had given me into his arm, and he snarled in pain, flinching back from me, but he still had me with one hand. I bit his wrist as hard as I could, then jerked free. Theo was almost fully shifted into cougar form, but he was not only injured, he was tangled in his clothes. I ran out of the room as soon as I’d unlocked the door, and upstairs to the study, the knife still in my hand.
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  Before I reached the top step, I heard a throaty purr, and heard clawed feet scrabbling on the stairs as they bounded up them after me. I got into the study just in time to slam the door and lock it, hoping to God Danial hadn’t moved the gun he had kept here since the attacks by Manir more than a year ago. Because I was running to a dead end with no way out, if what Theo had told me about teleporting was true. But I’d never have made it out the front door before he was on me. I tried to teleport immediately, and nothing happened. I tried the phone to call Terian, and got only static. An extension had to be off the hook somewhere.

  Shit!

  The office door shuddered under Theo’s assault. He roared, and hit it again. Danial, however, had put this door on after the assault by Manir. The reinforced steel and oak creaked, but it held.

  I wiped the knife off on my pants and folded it up, clipping it back to my belt loop, thanking God I’d put it on tonight. Unlocked the hidden safe in the wall, I retrieved a gun and bullets from inside, swearing because it was a regular silenced gun, not an explosive bullets gun. At least the rounds were jacketed hollow points. I had just gotten the first bullet into the chamber when I heard a key in the lock.

  The door opened, and Theo stood there, nude, his blue eyes determined, a key in his hand. His arm where I cut him was still bleeding. “I’m not healing, Sarelle. You have werepoison on your blade,” he growled, advancing slowly. “That’s Lash’s knife clipped to your belt! I recognize it!”

  I trained the gun on him, holding it with both hands so it didn’t shake too much.

  “That’s a regular .38. You shoot me, you’d better hit my heart,” Theo growled. “Because you miss, and I’ll be on you in a second. This little chase you’ve led me on is over! Terian isn’t here to save you! Danial and Lash aren’t here to save you! And Devlin will be too late!”

  “You have one chance to leave,” I said in a hard voice. “Or I will shoot you, Theo.”

  Theo looked at me for a few moments, and then he lunged for me with a roar. I fired, pulling the trigger, and Theo was pushed back as the bullet slammed into his torso. He let out a cry of pain and disbelief, looking down at his bleeding chest in shock. He slumped to his knees, and then to the floor.