Shoving aside the pain, Merc followed, killing anything that dared to come too close to her.
They were almost to the truck when the howl of a small wolf made his blood run cold.
“Steven!” Scarlett screamed.
He looked on in horror as the female Scarlett had been shielding at the start of the whole mess yanked his brother out by his collar through the broken panels of glass in the driver’s side window.
Steven fought violently, already shifted into wolf form. He clawed with all his might to get away, but the vampiress was too powerful. She had him pinned and was straddling his body, her bloody red eyes glowing like dark rubies in the night.
They weren’t going to get to him in time.
He ran, tasting his pulse on his tongue.
The vampire grinned.
Then... Scarlett was there though he didn’t know how. Her eyes didn’t glow red but burned black like soot. Curls of black fog undulated out from within every pore of her body, which he’d only ever witnessed once before.
Scarlett didn’t move. She merely stared at the vampire. He knew what that fog would do because he’d touched it once.
The moment it touched the kneeling female, she screamed, tipping her head back, neck extended in visible agony. That darkness pumped through her, pouring down her throat and drowning her. Her skin turned paler than normal then gray. A strong gust blew, and the ashes of her floated away, leaving behind only a silver necklace and pendant bursting with a fiery red gem.
~*~
Dean
Invisible to all from within the interdimensional rift in time, Dean watched her standing tall, deadly, and silent.
Dean was catching a peek of the true soul bonded to that of the vampire’s. The darkness within Scarlett was awakening. Soon, she would be strong enough for what came next.
Pandora, never far from his side, took a step forward, shoulders lining up with his. Dressed in jeans, dark-brown boots, a white A-shirt, and a cowgirl hat, she looked different than he’d ever seen her before.
“You all ready?” he asked.
She nodded, and the weight of her ancient stare pressed on him. “You really think she can handle what’s to come?”
Tearing his eyes off his daughter, he studied his second-in-command. Was he sure? Hell no. He wasn’t sure of anything where Scarlett was concerned. All he knew was he was going to trust the future he was reading and let destiny transpire as it should have many centuries before.
Scarlett might not have remembered her many incarnations, but he did, each and every one of them—always powerful, always unstable, and ultimately falling prey to the dark power that breathed inside her. The world could not afford to go through a global catastrophe if Scarlett failed to keep her inner darkness in check.
He clipped a hard nod. “Yeah, I do. I think this time, she might surprise even you, my jaded Lust.”
Pandora snorted, giving her head a tiny shake. In her previous life, Pandora had been a Nephilim, half demon, half human. Her demon side had been Lust, one of the seven great deadly sins. As a result, she’d been able to shape-shift into anyone, male or female. Though Dean had exorcised the demon part of her when he saved her from Hell, she still retained her ability to shift.
He’d transformed her into something far more symbolic of her rebirth. Though she appeared to be an angel, in truth, she was a harpy, a female warrior of legend—deadly, lethal, and lovely.
That night, she was not wearing her wings because the time had come for Pandora to get on the board and play her role to ensure the next phase of Scarlett’s maturation.
“And the boy?” she asked quietly.
His lips twitched. “Steven?”
She shook her head. “You know who I mean. Mercer.”
He snorted. “I know who you meant. Just testing you, you old hag.”
She grinned.
He’d first met Pandora many lifetimes before, in another reality, a different realm. Time wasn’t linear. Multiple timelines existed, all of them based on decisions that snowballed into different realities, each and every one. The great game of life was not actually one, but many. Most people just failed to realize that.
Pandora came from a reality different from Scarlett’s, which was why she knew the secret of the games all immortals played. They tried like hell to change their destinies, but sometimes they didn’t succeed. Sometimes, the world imploded at their feet, leaving nothing behind but specks of cosmic dust.
The secret of how Dean knew so much wasn’t that he was omnipotent or even omnipresent. He could simply transverse planes of reality and “see” the direct cause and effect of any decision made.
That was why he was fighting, why he was trying his damnedest to change Scarlett’s reality. Traveling the realms was a skill known to a very select few. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse could do it... and now Pandora and Asher, her lover.
Dean trusted Pandora in a way he’d never trusted another soul in his life.
The previous night, he’d shown her the outcome of a different reality, one in which he’d failed Scarlett, in which she’d lost control of her demons. The world had become nothing but a cloud of dust, bones, and blood. All people were gone, obliterated, that realm never to be again.
He’d thought that preventing the shifter from getting too close to Scarlett had been the key, but he’d discovered the previous night that, without an anchor, she’d been lost, alone, and prime pickings for War’s deadly allure.
War had found her and destroyed her.
Pandora’s hand landed on his shoulder, dragging him back from his desperate thoughts.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Look at me.”
Clenching his jaw, he did as she asked. Dean had always prided himself on being a loner, a one-man show, needing nothing and no one.
He trembled as he stared deep into her haunting lavender eyes. Pandora existed outside of the realms, just as he did and just as the rest of the Horsemen did. Closer than a lover could ever be, she was his anchor. He never said so, and he never would, but deep down, he thought that maybe she already knew that and had for some time.
“She’s not going to do that,” she said. “Not here. We still have time to stave off that destiny. You hear me?”
Fingers clenching at his sides, he licked his front teeth. Once, Pandora had been the catalyst for bringing the realms to ruin. In fact, he’d lost twelve realms to Dora, but all he’d needed was for her to win in one realm for him to be victorious. War had tried to bring him down, but in the end, he’d bested her as he always would.
The games the immortals played were permanent. Death actually fought for life. That was the ultimate irony, really, leaving the fate of the worlds in his hands. However, he’d played the game since the very beginning, and he was the best at it.
War would never truly consider herself victorious until the day she ended it all, thereby ending herself and everyone else with it, but life had never mattered to War—his sister and also his one-time lover. For her, only the win was important.
The same was true for him.
Dean had never loved anything in his life—not War, not even his own daughter. He’d not been created to care for the feelings of others. Everything was about the game. That’s all it’d ever been about, for him.
His fingers felt electric when they brushed along the petal-soft skin of Pandora’s cheek. Her lashes fluttered, and she swallowed hard, her gaze locking tight with his.
She would never say, “You know I love someone else, Death,” and he would never say, “You know you chose wrong, Lust.”
She glanced down at her feet, and he sighed, dropping his hand like a paperweight back down to his side.
“I felt destiny’s calling card tonight,” she said. “Whatever she just did. Whoever that vampire once was, fate has shifted.” Pandora frowned.
She might not have been a Horseman, but the harpy was vexingly intelligent. She always had been.
He nodded. “That it has.”
<
br /> “And now?” she asked softly, her words echoing on the gentle, chilly breeze. “War?” Her thin, dark brow inched high on her forehead as she looked at him.
He knew what she was asking. In every other timeline, War had always found her daughter. It was only a matter of time before she found Scarlett in this one.
Their daughter—who went by many different names in many different realms—had never been strong enough to survive War’s blistering destruction. However, in all the realms, this daughter was the most promising.
She might be hurt, bitter, or slightly jaded.
Dean grabbed Pandora’s hands, clutching them tightly. “In your time, your reality, you were at your strongest when Asher came to you. Why?”
He wasn’t used to appearing weak in the eyes of anyone, appearing as though he didn’t have all the answers, but they were alone, and he needed to know he was making the right choice. The fates of many realms rested on his decision that night.
Unflinching and determined, lavender eyes locked with his.
“The truth is, Dean, I needed to believe that I mattered to someone, that if I died, there’d be someone behind left to mourn me. Someone who’d cared. It’s called hope. Asher was my hope. I didn’t fight because Asher loved me. It wasn’t his love that saved me. But he became my purpose, a reason for me to get up in the morning. Even when the night was darkest and bleakest, I knew there was one thing in all the worlds that would never lose faith in me, and I couldn’t allow that to be destroyed.”
Turning to glance over his shoulder, he watched as the wolf, transformed back to human, walked up to Scarlett, took her in his great arms, and squeezed her tightly.
“Love is a weakness,” Dean murmured, watching the flutter of Scarlett’s diaphanous shirt whip behind her like a colorful banner in the breeze. The couple stood swaying, eyes closed, breathing each other in and trembling in each other’s arms.
Pandora shook her head, squeezing his fingers hard. “Love is not a weakness. It is strength. That is what you and the rest of you horseman have never quite understood. Alone, you might be mighty, but together you’d be invincible. Nothing could survive you, which is maybe why you were built without the ability to care too much. Imagine if you did. As powerful as you all are, nothing could survive you then.”
Looking back at Pandora and studying her features, Dean entertained her words. He did not love Pandora, but he needed her.
He would raze all the worlds to keep her with him, and when they were alone, when he looked into her eyes and she into his, he could almost believe she was right.
“I’m trusting you, Dora.” He growled the words as his body shifted from flesh to bone.
His true form was macabre to just about everyone, save her.
The first time Pandora had seen him, her only response was a soft smile and the words, “You are so beautiful.” She’d been on the verge of death, and that was the moment he decided she could never leave his side again. He’d betrayed all he was and ever would be to keep her with him always.
And he’d do it again and again and again if need be.
He would never know how to truly love anything or anyone. That wasn’t how he’d been built. However, he thought that maybe if he could love someone, it would be her. It would always be her.
If something as old and ancient as him could change, well... Maybe fate wasn’t always set in stone. Every other daughter of darkness had failed or was failing. Just as Pandora was unique, only one realm existed with a shot at winning—this one.
War was waging a deadly battle in every realm, but so far, she’d not learned of her daughter’s existence in this one. Dean still had time to change the course of destiny here, still had time to win the game.
But hell, the thought of telling that blond beast that he could have Dean’s daughter made him edgy, twitchy. If Mercer broke her heart, he would rip out that shifter’s spine and feast on his bones. He might not know how to love the way other Veilers did, but Scarlett was his, and he’d fight like the devil to keep her safe.
“Then you know what to do, harpy. Do it now before I change my mind.”
Chapter 4
Scarlett
The hunt for new clothes having been a giant bust, we all decided once the dust settled to get our asses back in the truck and go home.
Steven was unnaturally quiet, and I knew why.
I was so pissed I had a hard time breathing. My now-beating heart was galloping a mile a minute inside my chest with red, hot anger.
Something had happened to me back there, something that’d terrified the hell out of my younger brother—and me, if I was being totally honest.
I was blaring the stereo, trying to drown out my thoughts and hoping I could drown out his, hoping he wouldn’t look at me and see a monster.
Steven was pressed in tightly against Mercer, clinging to the towel I’d draped across Merc’s lap since the transformation had pretty much destroyed what he’d been wearing. The hour drive back into town was tense, taut, and full of a thousand unspoken words.
Every so often, I would catch Merc looking at me.
Once, I dared to look over at him. I was sure I knew what I would see in them: fear, questions, maybe even a smidge of his beast.
However, his eyes weren’t lit neon. They were the calm blue-green and intelligent eyes of a man I’d known all my immortal life, which admittedly, wasn’t long.
Shocked by the fact that Merc wasn’t looking at me as though he didn’t know me but instead as though he was awed by me, I quickly moved my attention back to the road and didn’t so much as shift on my seat the entire drive back. Everything about that night was giving me a headache.
When we finally pulled back into Silver Creek, I was forced to finally speak. “Home?”
Mercer lived his life mostly at the honky-tonk, what I affectionately referred to as “the den,” going home only when it was time to lay his head down at night, and sometimes not even then. A cot was pushed up against his office wall for when he pulled all-nighters, a more frequent occurrence as of late.
He shook his head. “No. House is going through renos right now.”
“Okay. Clarence’s, then?”
Again, he shook his head.
“I was hoping Steven and I could stay with you, just until the renos are done. Should only be a few weeks more.”
I narrowed my eyes. That was the first time I was learning about the renovations. Then again, Mercer and I hadn’t exactly been chummy lately. Flicking a glance at the lightening sky, I sighed. I had to get home soon and didn’t feel like fighting about it. “Whatever. I guess. You and the kid can take the living room, but you’ll have to fight over who gets the couch and who gets the leftover.”
I had one big, comfortable couch and one small, very uncomfortable rocker. I didn’t doubt Merc would give up the couch to Steven. That’s just who he was.
I tried not to feel guilty about the fact that he was way too big to try to make that rocker his bed for the next week or so. Not my monkeys, not my circus. Merc was a big boy, so if he wanted a comfy bed, he could just go find it someplace else or, better yet, shift into a ball of fur and cop a squat on the hardwood floor.
“Mind running by my place so I can pick up some stuff for myself?” he asked.
Steven still wouldn’t look at me, which made me feel like shit.
I’d saved my brother but probably scared the living hell out of him at the same time. I still wasn’t even sure what I’d done or how I’d done it. That was the worst part about this whole debacle. All I’d known was that I wasn’t going to get to him in time, and I had to save him.
The fact that we’d been surrounded by a sea of frenzied, hostile Veilers who might have seen what I’d done hadn’t even factored into the equation, which it damn well should have. I had powers, strange and unusual ones—some that I thought might not even be vampiric at all.
I’d never heard of or seen another vampire doing what I’d done earlier. I had to hope no one
had seen me or had bothered to glance over toward a heavily congested row of parked cars and seen the dark glow. I didn’t want to imagine the consequences of something like that.
After killing the lone vampire, I had looked around, even sniffing the breeze, and had picked up nothing of consequence, but I was anxious all the same. For a long time, I’d learned to tamp down what I did in public, to hide most of what I could do around anyone other than Mercer.
Merc, on the other hand, didn’t seem fazed or bothered by any of this. That bordered on crazy because he was known to get a little anal when it came to making sure my secrets remained secrets. That, of course, made my heart sink just a little bit because I was wondering if he even cared at all anymore, but then I thought about what he’d said before the fight, and I didn’t know what to think.
Gah, I was a mess tonight.
“Fine,” I mumbled in response to Merc’s request, taking a quick left toward his place.
It wasn’t much, just an eight-hundred-square-foot squatter’s cabin less than a mile from the den. Mercer was a simple man.
I parked, and he hopped out, tossing the towel on the seat as he jogged toward his door. My eyes stayed glued to his tight ass as he trotted inside, but my eyes weren’t fastened to him because of lust. Though my adopted brother was hot and that’d never been the issue, I was confused.
He’d found out James had dumped me, and suddenly he was Mr. Nice Guy again? Suddenly he was grabbing me, pulling me into his arms, and hugging me tightly, as though I mattered, as though I meant everything to him. Also, I was letting him because he was my kryptonite and I couldn’t help myself from drowning in his scent of beast and bergamot, and I was so damned irritated.
I glanced at the chain and pendant I’d hung around my rearview mirror on the drive home. I’m not sure why I’d grabbed it from the scene. I just had, driven purely by instinct and curiosity. I wondered who she was.
Why had she attacked my brother?
What kind of shit was about to hit the fan? Technically, we’d been on Veiler designated land, but the vampires had massacred the cops—damn near every last one of ’em.
Me and You and a Ghost Named Boo (Southern Vampire Detective Book 2) Page 5
