Ways in the Guardian: A Menage Romance Book Collection

by Barbara Downey

  “Leola-” Simon started.

  She held up one palm, already healing and bloodless. “Don't. Don't you dare, Simon. I know that tone and you won't wheedle your way out of this. You've brought a Hunter into my home and put all of my people at risk. I won't have it. You are lucky that I don't call for your life now, you both are.”

  “My parents are the Hunters.”

  She stood with such an abruptness that the seat clattered to the floor behind her. “Don't you mince words with me, little boy. Being a slayer of all things otherworldly is an inherited trait. If your parents are Hunters, so are you.”

  His cheeks flushed a deep rose. She could almost hear the blood simmering in his veins and knew that she'd hit a weak point. Another time she would be sorry for it, here and now she was pissed.

  “I'm thirty.”

  She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, if only just barely. “Oh, fine. Forgive me. Here I thought the person running halfway across the United States to seek out immortality was a fully grown adult. What a fool I am.”

  She expected him to match the heat in her voice. He didn't. He sat in his seat, calm and unflinching. The only show of his anger was a blanket of red slowly rolling up his neck. She could hear the speed of his heart, a deep unsteady pounding. She bet he would taste hot.

  “Leola, please listen to him.”

  She waved Simon away without looking at him. She didn't want to see his face, carved in the lines of fallen angels, nor those Irish green eyes. She kept her gaze focused on the foolish mortal who had come into her home and risked everything.

  It wasn't legal for Hunters to kill whatever they wanted, not like it used to be, but that didn't stop them from doing it when the mood suited them. They were, after all, born killers. If they wanted to, they could kill every vampire in her Coven, one by one, and no one would ever find the bodies.

  “Listen to what?” she demanded. “Listen to some sob story about you not wanting to be like your parents? How you think that vampires are people too?”

  “I do think that.” His words were so quiet, so calmly spoken. She was impressed, but only a little.

  “Oh I'm sure,” she continued. “What is this? Some too-late act of adolescent rebellion? Run away from home and turn yourself into something Mommy and Daddy hate?”

  His eyes tightened around the edges, another weak spot. Her anger had her twisting the verbal knife.

  “Oh, do you hate us too?” she ventured

  “No.” He paused. “Not anymore.”

  She sneered down at him and then waved her hands in the air, washing herself of the entire conversation. “I believe I requested that you leave.”

  Simon stepped forward once more. His hand reached for her shoulder. She jerked back. She didn't want to listen to him. She didn't want to hear whatever his pretty mouth was going to say. Leola may have zeroed in on some of Caleb's weaknesses, but at the end of it all Simon was hers.

  “Please, Leola. Just listen to him, and, if you still feel this way at the end of it, I swear that we will leave and you will never hear from either of us again.”

  It wasn't like Simon to appeal to her. It was his nature, and hers for that matter, to turn to fire when they got angry about something. It was why their trysts never lasted all that long. Fire may fuel fire, but sooner or later it did nothing but destroy.

  His fingers brushed her bare shoulder, making the sequins of her dress sparkle. A spark of heat thrummed in her veins and simmered to her core. She ignored it. She pulled her shoulder back once more, but there wasn't as much anger in the movement.

  “Fine.”

  With a deep breath, Caleb, the Hunter's son, began his story.

  *****

  “I was, as you say, born as a Hunter. My parents are good at their job, some of the best if I'm being honest. They raised me believing that anything that wasn't human was bad, and even if they didn't start that way they were bound to slip up sooner or later.” Caleb kept his eyes on the table as he spoke.

  He had a good voice for story-telling, Leola thought. “Go on,” she pushed when he went quiet.

  He shifted and cleared his throat, but continued. “I was fifteen when the blood quickened in me. When that part of me that makes me a Hunter, I dunno, turned on, I guess. Suddenly I could feel when something that wasn't like me was around, and when I got better with it, I could tell if they were shifter, or magician, or vampire. I was good enough that I could even guess the age or strength of them pretty well. I was proud of myself.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and sat back. So far all his story did was confirm that kicking him out was the best choice. Him being here was a threat to her and her people. Still, she kept quiet.

  “When I was twenty-two, I went on my first lone hunt. My parents were working on a different case, and our local police department had received a call about a raging werewolf.”

  Simon got up and poured out three drinks in new cups. Leola could sense his anxiety even through their bond and it set her on edge. Simon wasn't one to become anxious. He set one cup in front of each of them. He caught her gaze and she could see something swimming there, some kind of hope that she couldn't name. She said nothing, and turned her attention back to the cowboy.

  “It was this tiny little trailer.” Caleb wasn't talking to them anymore. He had that soft faraway voice of someone who was talking out a memory. “A bunch of people were gathered outside. They weren't part of the werewolf clan, which surprised me. My parents had always said that when a werewolf raged, the other wolves were bound to be around. They liked to help bring down those who had gone all feral. Everyone there was human, just plain human. I got nervous, but I checked and double checked my weapons. I put on a vest and went inside.”

  He wrapped his hand around his drink and tossed it back. Leola was pretty sure he didn't even taste it. “She wasn't raging. She was barely nineteen and pregnant to boot. She said it was too early, that it couldn't be happening yet. She was so damn scared. Her eyes had gone all silver, like wolves’ eyes, and she was crying big damn tears and wrapping herself around her belly like she could keep it in if she just tried hard enough. There was blood, all over the place. Here her body was trying to push out a baby before it ought to, and trying to heal itself, and she's damn near killing herself to keep it right where it is.”

  He shook his head and Leola couldn't quite stop her hand from wrapping over his. His fingers tightened around hers but he didn't look away from the distance of his memory.

  “I held her, I couldn't do anything else. I just held her and she cried. She cried so hard. It went on like that for hours. Just this cycle of pain and fear. It was maddening for me, I couldn't think how terrible it might be for her and then, then it was over. She was devastated, and so was I. She tried so hard and it didn't matter. She fell asleep on me and I let her.”

  “I'm sorry,” Leola said as gently as she could manage. Sometime during his story, a lump had formed in her throat, sympathetic or angry, she couldn't tell. In all likelihood it was a little of both.

  He shook his head now and squeezed her fingers and then pulled his hand away. She let him.

  “It changed things,” he continued, his voice not half so distant. “When I told my parents what happened they called me an idiot. They said that she could have gone feral at any time during that. I could have been killed. All of these things, and it just kind of made me mad. I don't get mad often, but boy-howdy I was mad then. I walked out. I didn't have any kind of plan, and I had maybe three hundred dollars in my account, and I just...I left. I did a lot of thinking and a lot of exploring. I started talking to the kind of people that I had been trained to hunt. I learned about them, lived with them. I tried to help where I could. Then, about a year ago I started to get dizzy for no reason. I felt sick, and scared, and when I couldn't think of what else to do...I went home.”

  There was something about the way that he said it that broke something in Leola's heart. She couldn't put a finger on it. He just sounded
so defeated, and she didn't know why. “What was wrong?”

  “Cancer,” he finally said. “Brain cancer, not so far along that you'd notice on the outside, but the inside is...well it ain't what it ought to be. Went to a bunch of different doctors and they all said the same thing. They could give me the whole shebang, chemotherapy, radiation, surgery. They could do what they could do, but it wasn't going to be enough. I'm thirty now, I'd be lucky to see thirty-two, but most likely I won’t. At first I was alright with it. I figure, I've done made my amends and I like who I am.”

  “What changed?” Leola wondered.

  “Fear, and this idiot.” Caleb motioned to Simon. “I was wandering around one night, just wrapping my head around it all. It suddenly just seemed too big. When you get brain cancer, your memory starts to go. I was walking around and for the life of me I couldn't remember the name of the werewolf. Here, this girl changed my whole perception on life and I couldn't remember what to call her. I ain't ashamed to say that it shook me, and it shook me pretty hard. It wasn't that I didn't want to die anymore, it's that I didn't want to lose what I was before dying.

  “So I went to the end of a pier and tried to get the courage to just jump into the water and I feel a hand on my shoulder and there Simon is looking at me like I'm a damned idiot. He makes some quip about being a perfectly good waste of blood or something. I just...I did know if I wanted to laugh or cry but I ended up doing both. And since I don't want to bother you with too many details, ma'am, I guess we came around to the idea that I could still help people, still protect people just like I've always done, if I became one of you.”

  There it was. He looked up at her, fixing his coppery eyes on hers. She saw that they were sparkling with tears and that made her heart ache. There were a lot of things that she could ignore, honest tears weren't one of them.

  “Caleb, do you understand what becoming a Vampire means?” she asked as gently as she could manage. “Honestly? Truly understand?”

  “I know the theory of it. I know that you gotta bite me, and you gotta keep biting me over a few days, and when I'm almost dead I gotta bite you and drink what I can.”

  “I tried to tell him what I could, but you are better at explanations than I am.” Simon finished his drink and sat back. He was fairly comfortable that Leola wasn't going to kick him out. She thought about doing it just to wipe the smugness off his face. Instead she gave him the shoulder and turned her undivided attention on Caleb.

  “Caleb, of the people who attempt the Turning, most of them die. I don't know the exact statistics but-”

  “Sixty-seven,” he said flatly. “There is a sixty-seven percent chance that I would die. Hell, considering how I'm feeling it's probably higher.”

  “And you still want to do this?” She shook her head.

  “To be fair, if I don't then there is a hundred percent chance I won’t live to see next Christmas, and I'd much rather do that.”

  It was a point she couldn't argue, so she changed tactics. “You know you'll have to stay here for at least a month before we start the change. We will have to see that you can handle the lifestyle, that you'll fit in with the Coven.”

  “I always liked having family around.”

  “You won’t be able to eat solid food after the change.” She motioned to the table, empty of everything but drinks.

  “Guess I'll eat all the steaks I can handle now.”

  “Your parents-”

  He sat forward and wrapped his hands over hers. His eyes were full of such warmth and vivacity that she forgot to pretend to breathe.

  “Ma'am, they don't want me. I've made peace with that.”

  He wasn't the first person to seek out undead if they got bad news from the doctor, but he did seem to be the most sincere in his desire, and he clearly had both eyes open.

  She blew out a breath. “All right, fine.”

  *****

  It all started because of the mistletoe, at least that was how Leola chose to see it. It was to have been a quiet evening at home, with her long term guests, preparing for her favorite time of year.

  “Ma'am, I hope you don't mind me saying, but this is an awful lot of decorations.” He hefted a large box, filled to the brim with tinsel and sparkling decorations. He looked out of place with his cowboy boots on her antique carpet.

  “I like Christmas.” Leola smirked. She ran her fingers over the branches of her tree, fluffing them so a wave of evergreen scent came wafting over her. It matched her outfit of sleek green silk, cut to show off her lush figure. It was, she knew, Simon's favorite dress; and, if she was evaluating that look right, Caleb was fond of it as well.

  “That's a hell of an understatement,” Simon chirped from his place behind several more boxes. “You should have seen what she did in the 50's. It was nothing but wreathes and bows everywhere. I thought some decorative factory exploded.”

  Leola ignored them both as she took the first box and started to place this here and that there, she hummed lightly through her work. The holidays never failed to put her in a good mood. Not, she realized glancing at the two men who were picking through the boxes, that she'd had a reason to be in a bad one.

  It might not have been her best idea to have them stay with her, but what else was she going to do with them? Simon might have made due anywhere, that was one of his better qualities, but Caleb was a Hunter. There were bound to be a few who were reasonably disquieted by his presence, and a few more who were less than reasonable about it. So she had them in her historic peninsula home. It had not been easy.

  Simon always had an effect on her. His jovial and often light-hearted presence was a counter to her own cool sarcasm. He had already made it known that if she wanted to pick up where they left off he was amenable.

  She hadn't.

  Being in such close proximity to Caleb wasn't much easier. The cowboy had a terrible habit of leaving his shirt off and wandering about with that boyish grin on his face. He was always willing to lend a helping hand or learn some new tidbit about becoming a vampire. It was, all things considered, an awful lot of man in one house.

  “The 50's? How long have you two...?” He hesitated and glanced between the two of them. “I mean, I don't mean to be rude and ask a lady her age, but...”

  Simon shrugged. “Well, I'm older, so there's that.” He plopped his feet up on the dining room table, the loafers were worn on the soles. She frowned at that.

  “But how old?”

  “I thought you two would have covered that somewhere between Texas and Charleston.” Leola exchanged several dust collectors on her fireplace with festive ones. Her skirt brushed against the pale marble.

  “We never got around to it.” Caleb shrugged and tugged a ball of lights unto his lap. His thick fingers diligently plucking at the cords to unravel them.

  “Let's see, I was turned in 1890,” Simon began. “Typical sob story, I'm afraid. Lots of loss and sadness and moping about. I was in my twenties when Isabella swept in and did her thing.”

  “Isabella?”

  “The one who made us,” Leola answered. “She came out of Louisiana.”

  “Beautiful woman.” Simon sighed and shook his head. “Shame.”

  “Is she...gone?” Caleb asked.

  “Oh yes, very tragic. Lost her to a terrible rogue.”

  “A rogue what? Magician?” Caleb paused in his detangling. His gaze swept between the two vampires.

  Leola rolled her eyes. “Simon is being melodramatic, as usual. Isabella is in France, with her current beau.”

  “Oh, man, sure had me going.”

  Leola and Simon shared a look. Simon looked utterly pleased with himself.

  “I was thirty-seven when I was turned, back in...what was it? '22?” Leola shifted the subject. “I was a lounge singer at the time. A decent one.”

  “Ah, don't let her fool you, boy-o. Our Leola here is one of the best.”

  “You can sing?” Caleb asked. His tone was hopeful.

  “When inspired.”
Leola kept her eyes on the mantelpiece.

  “Well what inspires you?” Caleb pushed.

  “Well, that depends. The right music, the right evening, a good drink, a new dress that fits just right. Honest laughter. A kiss from a new beau...or an old one.” She could sense their attention heighten. It was impossible to ignore, but she tried. She could hear the ticking of the clock in the hallway as the silence stretched between them. There seemed to be a kind of weight to the words that no one could shake.

  Without a word Simon stood up, in his hands he clutched a piece of dried leaves, the silken green of mistletoe, held together by a bright red ribbon. His long body stretched up and he wrapped the loop around the lowest run of the living room light, placing it between all three of them. It hovered there like some kind of symbol, an offer of a promise.

  “Simon-”

  He wrapped his hands over her silken hips, tugging her gently closer. He knew just how to touch her, how to run his fingers over the swell of her body. He pressed her body ever so gently to his. Like all of their kind he was cool to the touch, but there was an unmistakable prescience to him, a strength of personality that weighed on you, enthralled you.

  “Just a kiss, Leola.”

  He dipped his head and kissed her. It always shocked her how easily his mouth fitted over hers, like wine to the cup. His mouth flowed against hers, and that spark that lay between them ignited. Blood hummed inside of her veins. His tongue parted her lips with a gentle nudge and she tasted him. Their mouths danced against one another's in familiar hunger. It was always like that between them, one moment cool and the next hot.

  When he pulled away her head was spinning, and his eyes had gone dark with hunger. It would have been so easy to invite him to her bed, to enjoy his body with her own, but there was too much to consider, and too many memories.

  She cleared her throat and stepped back.

  “To be honest,” Caleb interrupted. “I wasn't that impressed.”

  Simon laughed and swept a hand out. “Well if you'd like to do better.”

  “Wouldn't want to impose.”