Tempest of Vengeance

by Tara Fox Hall

  “I’m sorry,” Rip interrupted. “I heard about that, too.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and pulled back from him, my hair was plastered to my forehead. Rip had a lot less control over his body temperature than his brother had, or so it seemed. But it would be impolite to mention it.

  “Sorry about that,” Rip said, eyeing me. “Go have a nice shower in one of the guest rooms. I’ll stay here and watch.”

  The shower did wonders for me, but only increased my hunger. I went downstairs, and fixed a box of pasta, putting in two pounds of hamburger with the sauce. I was just fishing out the noodles to see if they were done when Lash appeared. He came in and peered into the pots.

  “Pasta?” he said hopefully. I nodded.

  He grabbed two plates, and I doled it out, giving him the larger share as I always had to Theo. Lash covered his with sauce, took his dish into the living room, and didn’t return.

  I was a little taken aback, but I figured he’d needed some time alone. He’d had to eat with people for every meal for the last month and a half. I’d want to eat alone, too, if I were him.

  I ate alone at the kitchen table, reading the latest Vampire Hunter D book. I had agreed to Dev’s request to read these books only here in kitchen, and to keep them out of our bedroom. But there was no way I was going to stop reading the series. I enjoyed it way too much.

  I finished dinner, hid the book in the lower kitchen cabinet, and went to find Lash. He was watching A Nightmare on Elm St., Part I. He saw me as I lingered in the doorway for a few moments, but ignored me. I decided he needed a little space, so I just gathered up his dirty dishes from the dining room table, and went to find Venus. She was just coming back from the ballroom with Serena. Actually, Serena was carrying her, as V was sleeping.

  “She won, finally,” Serena said tiredly, handing me Venus. “I was just coming to find you. Where’s Devlin?”

  “Lash got home today,” I said softly. “They were spending time together.”

  Serena nodded. “I have to get to bed,” she said happily. “T is stopping by early for breakfast tomorrow.”

  I was a little worried to see him spending so much time with her. I liked Serena a lot, but T was too young to settle down. I didn’t want him hurting her, after she’d just been hurt by Nick, if he wasn’t serious about her. Which collectively meant I’d have to talk to him. Sigh.

  “I’ll put her to bed,” I said, giving her a forced smile. “Get going.”

  She gave me a radiant smile, darting off in the direction of her room.

  I walked though the living room to get upstairs, but Lash took no notice of me again, or at least appeared not to. I carried Venus upstairs, and took off her clothes, dressing her in her nightgown. Then I tucked her in, making sure the blanket was covering her.

  “Have good dreams,” I whispered. “You’re safe. I love you.”

  I closed her door, and went into Devlin’s bedroom. Devlin was lying on the bed, still smelling of smoke, passed out asleep. I debated trying to get his clothes off, and him into bed, but decided against it. I put a nightgown on myself, folding up the clothes I’d worn only an hour or so to wear again tomorrow. I crawled in bed, and lay down. Even with the napping earlier, I was tired.

  I thought as I lay there that some of that was because I felt like I could relax now. Lash was home, and I felt truly safe for the first time in a month and a half, knowing he was here. I fell asleep, and dreamed no dreams.

  When I woke up, Devlin was missing, but I heard the shower running, and figured he was in there. He came out as I was getting dressed, and gave me a kiss. “Good afternoon,” he said pleasantly.

  My gaze shot to the clock. Shit! It was nearly two! Venus needed me! I made to bolt for the kitchen, but Dev grabbed hold of me.

  “Relax,” he said, his golden eyes concerned. “You needed to sleep, so Lash fed your dogs, and Serena fed the cats. She’s with Venus, I heard them in the kitchen a little while ago, having lunch.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to force myself to calm down.

  Devlin sat me down on the bed, then sat beside me. “Sar, Lash is going to be a little different for a while, until he gets used to being home again. Don’t be surprised if he’s distant, or cold, or even angry. He’ll be how he was, after some time had passed. Jail fucked him up a little.”

  Had something happened to him in prison? Had he had to kill someone inside in self-defense? “Okay.”

  “Now come and eat something,” Devlin said, helping me to my feet. “Then if you like, I’ll help you cut out some more doll clothes for Venus. She told me this morning she wants some ‘adventure doll clothes’, whatever that means.”

  “Clothes out of scraps of fur, and fake fur,” I explained, laughing a little too exuberantly in my relief to change the topic of conversation. “You’re going to cut out doll clothes for me? Don’t you have arrangements to make? Lash mentioned his jobs.”

  Devlin gave me an irritated glance. “They can wait another day. And why not? I can cut out doll clothes as well as you can.”

  “Sorry, I just didn’t think you’d stoop to it,” I said without thinking, then saw the anger build in his eyes almost immediately. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I just meant that you’re the four hundred plus Vampire King of the whole North American continent now, and you’re saying you are going to be spending the rest of the day cutting out doll clothes. It’s just...surprising.”

  “I’m a father now also, and that’s the more important job to me,” Devlin said, still irritated. “I do the other now only to make sure you and Venus are protected. But my child is my first priority, always, and you, as her mother, are right after her. Surely, you, the mother of my only child, know this? Have I not always protected her, and you? Have I ever set anything above you, either of you?”

  I looked at him and for a long moment, I couldn’t say anything. Then I was bawling, and Devlin was holding me, asking in a worried voice what was wrong, that he was sorry, what had he said, to please stop crying.

  “I’m the one who is sorry,” I said in a choked voice, holding him tightly. “I always give you too little credit, when you have been perhaps the best father of any I’ve known.”

  Devlin looked at me in disbelief. “Danial was better.”

  “He was not,” I said, looking up at him a little sadly. “He never went on any kind of vacation from his job, much as he stayed home to be around when I was pregnant. He always made time for Elle and me, but his job was always equal in importance to him, even after I had Theoron. He would never have blown off a day of meetings to cut out doll clothes. Never.” I took a breath, then continued. “I’m not saying I was a better parent than he was. I was there for Elle, but not as much, after we moved in with him—”

  “Hush,” Devlin said, hugging me. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter!” I said loudly, putting some distance between us so he’d listen to my words. “It matters that you know I was wrong, that day I said you’d make a bad father. You’ve made a good one, a very good one, and I’m very glad to have had Venus with you, despite that I didn’t want to share that with you at first—”

  “Stop,” Devlin said emotionally. “You’ll have me crying again, and Lash was already giving me shit yesterday, about how men are supposed to be strong, they aren’t supposed to be crying all the time.”

  “Tell him to go fuck himself,” I said vehemently, giving him a kiss. “I love you, and it’s okay if you cry, especially if you’re doing it because of love.”

  “I am doing it from love,” Devlin said affectionately, tenderly kissing my face, my neck, and my shoulders. “I love you. I love how passionate you are, how you feel everything so deeply, just as I do.”

  Devlin kissed me, and then he was stripping off his towel, and sliding my nightgown off too.

  “Shouldn’t we be getting downstairs to V—”

  “I’m a man too, as well as a father,” Dev said seductively. “And it matters that you know how
much I love you, how happy I’ve been with you here with me these past weeks, living at Hayden. And I can think of only one way to best show you the depth of my emotion for you.” Devlin brushed me with his fangs, trailing them up my bare shoulder as he kissed me, and I sighed, surrendering to him.

  * * * *

  The next week passed slowly. Devlin was as loving as he had been before, but Lash was as cool and distant as he’d been before we’d become friends. He avoided me for the most part, though I still made him extra of my dinner every night, except when I had soup, which he didn’t like for some reason. Maybe they’d given him a lot of soup in prison?

  Sometimes I would watch TV with him, but we didn’t talk, and he always stayed on his side of the couch, not touching. I was beginning to think I’d imagined his comments to me when I’d first gotten home, when he’d held me. Why was he being so distant now? I had thought it was the drug at first, that afternoon he’d been cold to me. But though he smoked still, or at least his clothes smelled of the smoke, it was always cigarette smoke he smelled of now, not pot. But there was another reason I thought he might have distanced himself from me: he had a lover of his own again, one that was weresnake like him. For Lash had had a visitor the very next day after the pot-smoking episode.

  I had been in the kitchen eating a very late breakfast/very early dinner when I heard the doorbell ring. Curious, I put my book aside, got up, went to the door and looked through the small glass pane. There was a pretty woman on the stoop with dark hair almost to her waist. It had dark pink streaks in it, and there was glitter around her eyes, almost like glitter eye shadow. Her skin was a tanned color, almost the color of Lash’s.

  I spoke with the door shut, figuring she was likely non-human and could hear me. “Yes?”

  “Is Lash here?” she said, offering me a sexy smile.

  Was this Gina? This was one of his lovers, past if not current. “Stay here, please,” I said in a voice that was trying hard to be civil. “I’ll go and see.”

  I thought as I walked upstairs that maybe I should’ve invited her in. Clearly, the guys knew her at the gate, to have let her in at all. But I was irritated just looking at her. Screw it. She can wait outside. Who cares that it’s ten degrees, and she’s likely cold-blooded? Not me.

  I climbed the stairs, and knocked on Lash’s door. He opened it, looking at me a little sleepily.

  “There’s a woman here to see you,” I said, trying hard to make my voice and face empty of emotion.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  I flushed, remembering I’d been too pissed to ask her name. But it wasn’t my job to keep track of his lovers, at least not anymore. “I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say,” I grated out. “If it helps, she has pink hair.”

  Lash ducked back inside, then returned in his jeans and a shirt, a gun in his hand. He went downstairs, gun still out, and I followed him. I went into the living room, wanting to listen and feeling jealous, and also very stupid to be feeling that way. I’d told him I had to be with Theo. I’d made the right choice at the time; there hadn’t been another to make. That didn’t make this any easier to endure.

  “Lyssa,” Lash said, lust and surprise in his tone. “What are you doing here?”

  So this was the infamous “Lyssa from PA,” Lash’s former lover whom Devlin had offered to import when Lash’s lover Cin had broken up with him last spring. Bitch. I already hated her.

  “I was up this way, seeing my sister,” she said teasingly. “I thought I’d stop in, as Dev said you’d be back this week, and see if you needed a little loving.”

  I did a slow burn at Devlin for telling her it was okay to come here, then blushed and was glad no one was there to see me blushing. It was bad enough that Lash had likely smelled the jealousy on me when I’d gone to get him.

  “I heard you guys were back in town last February, but I had another thing going then, with a rattler from East Texas,” Lyssa said, a little apologetically. “And I knew Cin worked around here, and you were probably with her—”

  He was with me, you bitch. He loves me. Fuck off and die.

  “We broke up,” Lash hissed angrily. “She cheated on me, and I told her it was over.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Honey,” Lyssa hissed sympathetically. “Anyway, Lynda said she saw you and Dev out one night in the summer riding your bikes, and told me I should get up here, see you. She told me Cin had moved away, down to Tennessee.”

  Lash didn’t reply, at least that I could hear.

  “Honey, I got to say, you are looking hot,” she hissed. “It’s got to be true, the rumors you were dying, and that demon of Dev’s, he brought you back with some faerie/vampire potion? Made you young again?”

  “It’s true,” Lash hissed, lust back in his words. “You can see I’m young again.”

  “I see, but not as much as I’d like to. You busy, honey? You want to come with me now, back to Lyn’s house?” Lyssa said seductively. “She’s at work now, and we’ll have the place to ourselves for hours.”

  I set my teeth together in fury, determined not to make a sound.

  “Sorry, Lys, I can’t,” Lash said apologetically. “I’ve got a woman I’m seeing now.”

  “The blonde?” Lyssa hissed, irritated. “You always said you didn’t like blondes, Lash.”

  I flushed again. I hadn’t known that, and it felt odd, to hear her say that with surety and anger in her tone. But what did I know about Lash really? Next to nothing.

  “The blonde is Dev’s Oathed One,” Lash replied. “I’m seeing another woman.”

  “She’s not as good as I am, whoever she is!” Lyssa said arrogantly. “She can’t feel as good in your coils as I always did—”

  “I’m with her,” Lash hissed firmly. “And you know me, Lyssa, know I’m only with one woman at a time, and that I expect the same thing back. That’s all there is to say.”

  “I know it.” Lyssa’s voice was mournful. “Those years we were together, I never doubted you were faithful to me. And you know I was faithful to you—”

  “I know you were, but that’s past,” Lash said almost gently. “It’s good to see you again, but nothing more than this is going to happen between us.” He paused. “And yes, I like the pink streaks.”

  “If you change your mind, you know where to find me,” Lyssa said brokenly, her tone emotional. “Take care of yourself, Honey.”

  “You too, Lys,” Lash said. There was the sound of the door closing, and his feet walking slowly back upstairs.

  I was touched and pleased, to hear from another woman that he was a faithful lover. But I’d believed that about him, when he’d been my lover. It wasn’t too much of a stretch now to believe that everything else he’d ever said to me was true.

  * * * *

  Lash continued to see Gina almost every day, every other day at the least. I only knew as those were the days I either put dinner aside for him, because he said he would be late, or had soup ready instead, depending if I was feeling grumpy or nice. Whichever I did, Lash seemed the same, and treated me the same. He was neither irritated, nor happy. This continued until the following Friday night.

  Lash, Dev, and I had gone to the mall, for some food and a movie. I’d thought it quite risky, but Lash assured me we’d be safe enough, between his skills and my teleportation power.

  We’d just finished seeing some slasher movie that I couldn’t remember the name of, despite having just seen it. I thought it was Aliens vs. Predator III or something, but couldn’t be sure.

  Lash and I were strolling along together, window shopping. Well, I was, and he was keeping me safe. Devlin had gone to feed on a slim brunette he’d seen watching him across the mall, and we both knew he would be awhile, as he would have to take her beyond the security cameras in the mall in order to feed on her. I was a little worried, but Lash assured me again that Devlin would be fine as he had regained his full strength; that Ulysses was vampire now, too, and wouldn’t try anything mystical or assassin-like with so man
y people around, especially as he wanted to beat him in a fair fight to gain everything Devlin possessed. There was too much fear of discovery, now that he, like Dev, had something to hide. I admit it calmed me, even though we still had no sure way to know if that was indeed Ulysses’ plan.

  “So, what did you think of the movie?” I asked him as we walked, unsure of what to say to him. He’d acted distant again for most of the night.

  “It was okay,” Lash said with a shrug. “But I would’ve liked a little more realism in the blood. Slasher films always put too much blood all over, and it’s never in the right places.”

  I tried not to grimace. You asked for this.

  “I mean, when you cut someone’s throat, you want to do it in a way to minimize the blood on you, unless you’ve been paid extra to decorate the kill scene with it—”

  I looked away, feeling queasy, and my eyes rested on two figures walking fast to the exit. I stopped dead in my tracks. What the hell?

  “Sar, what is it?” Lash said as he stopped in mid-stride, turning to face me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I thought I just saw Elle,” I said in confusion. “But it can’t be. Danial would never—”

  My eyes grew round with horror. Danial had been unconscious since last month. Theoron had been running Danial’s business as best he could, under the tutelage of Theo and Terian. No one had been keeping tabs on Elle, or probably even watching her, except maybe Theo. I’d depended on Danial for so long to guard her and protect her, I hadn’t thought...

  “Sar!” Lash said urgently, making me jump. “We should go after her. She shouldn’t be out here this late at night, alone. Terian and Theo can’t be here with her, they’re with Theoron tonight having dinner.”

  Has he been talking to Brian already, spying again? “Lash, how could she have gotten here? She doesn’t have a driver’s license—”

  “Sar, get real,” Lash said, grabbing my hand, and pulling me with him. “I took a joyride in my first stolen car when I was fourteen, and I never got caught. I looked old enough, and I didn’t break any driving regs, so no one pulled me over. I returned it to its owner undamaged, with the keys just as I’d found them. Elle’s probably been doing that since she knew she could, that no one was watching her anymore. No one would miss one of the Expeditions for a few hours, maybe not even for a few days.”