by Mandy Lee
“N…No…so sorry…earlier…not me.” His eyes were wild and desperate, like he needed her to understand him more than he needed his next breath.
“What’s not you?” she asked as she continued trying to soothe him.
“Don’t…be with…other…me…” His eyes were beseeching her.
“Okay,” she said, agreeing to whatever it was that he ached to have her agree to. “Don’t worry. I’m here with you.”
B nodded weakly, placated for the moment by her acceptance of his request. Instead of closing his eyes and resting, he kept staring into hers. The look he gave her was full of…something. Under normal circumstances, and with anybody else, Mara would have sworn it was love. She felt her body sway toward him, an electric current felt like it was humming through her body, drawing her ever closer to him. The feeling was so welcome she felt like weeping. The void of feeling she’d experienced around B over the past few hours had disturbed her. Nothing that soul deep should just come and go, and she was relieved that she hadn’t imagined it.
Sergei stood back beside Sam, watching Mara as she ran her hands over B’s injured body. There was something oddly right about the situation, like she was meant to be the one tending to him. As Mara straightened her body, Sergei saw it. A faint, gold, shimmering light stretched between Mara’s chest and B’s. They were joined at the heart — soul mates.
“What are you smiling about?” Sam whispered to Sergei.
“Don’t you see it?” Sergei asked.
“See what?” Sam frowned.
Sergei chuckled. “I hope you guys like Mara, because I have a feeling you’ll be spending a lot more time with her.”
Realization dawned and Sam’s eyebrows hit the ceiling. “Never thought I’d see the day for B.” He shook his head in amazement. “Keep this under your hat though, bro. He’s not going to take well to the whole fate thing, let him figure it out himself.”
“Roger that.” Sergei said with a little salute.
A crash from the other side of the tavern had everyone wheeling around in surprise. Gadreel stumbled in bumping into tables, sending beer steins and plates smashing to the floor. Blood was caked in his hair at his temple as he flailed his way through the room. He reached out to steady himself on the bar counter, the veins on his arm were black, spidering out under his skin.
“Kill me!” He shouted. “Kill me, please!”
“How the hell did you get over there? You just left?” Theo looked like his brain was about to melt with all the crazy going on in his bar.
“It wasn’t me. It was a shape shifter!” Gadreel shouted, his eyes crazed.
The entire tavern turned from Gadreel, to B, and back again in unison.
“Well, that explains a lot.” Sam muttered.
Gadreel stumbled closer and grabbed at Bill. “Kill me now. Take off my head. Please!”
“Whoa! Calm down, buddy. What happened to you?” Bill asked, holding his shaking friend steady.
“Demon blood. He infected me! I can’t go through this again! Set me free, kill me!” He kept begging, unable to stop quaking in distress.
Sam came over and took hold of Gadreel’s other arm. “What do you mean again?” He asked.
“It won’t stop. The infection won’t stop. You need to end me now before I do something I can’t control.” Sweat broke out on Gadreel’s brow.
“Help him.” The weak voice broke through the confusion; B was raising himself into a sitting position with Mara’s help. “Find a cure.” He winced in pain.
Sergei piped up. “If it’s an infection from demon blood, I may be able to find a fix in one of my grimoires.”
“Good. Do it.” Sam gave a resolute nod. “Let’s get these two out of here. Theo, your safe haven’s anti-violence charm is clearly malfunctioning; you might want to look into that.”
“Someone might want to get a hold of Amir, we’re gonna need to move this operation elsewhere.” Sergei said turning to Sam. “I’m going to need access to my books, and those two need to get some serious R&R.”
“On it.” Sam pulled out his phone and texted Amir. Time to roll out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Crashing and banging filled the night air at Keir’s mansion, as the shape shifter crept toward it, keeping himself hidden in the shadows to disguise his ever-changing form. Slipping up close to the house, he peered in through a broken ground floor window to get a better look at what was going on inside. The blood-stained antique couch was upended, bookcases had been tipped over, and every knickknack imaginable had been smashed on the hardwood floor. In the middle of the destruction stood Keir, his eyes burning like blood red beacons in the night. If there was anything left in this room for him to break it would be a miracle, but he seemed determined to find something. Charging over to the marble fireplace, he grabbed up a poker and started wailing on the walls in a bid to bring the entire building down around himself. The shape shifter watched as Nyx sauntered in, a supermodel on a chaotic runway. Fearless, she sashayed right over to Keir and placed her hand between his shoulder blades. He stopped mid-swing, dropping the poker and turned to face her. There seemed to be a wordless exchange that calmed Keir immediately. He clenched his jaw, and balled his fists, but didn’t make another move in violence. He just turned away from her and left the room.
Nyx looked around with a bored expression. Calmly, she raised her hand and examined her exquisite manicure, checking for any damage that may have occurred just being in the presence of the destructo-master. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought she was an angel standing in the middle of hell.
The shifter looked down at his exposed skin. He was shifting faster and faster with no time to waste. He only had a little while left before his situation went nuclear. He stepped on the shattered glass shards that littered the flowerbed and hoisted himself through the broken window, landing in a heap on the floor.
“I was wondering when you were going to stop lurking around in the shadows like a peeping Tom.” Nyx’s bored voice floated over to him.
The shifter popped up to his feet, dusting off his pants. “How did you know I was there?”
Nyx waved her perfectly manicured hand in the air. “I have my ways.”
With his body shifting back and forth between identities so fast they didn’t have time to settle, he crept closer to Nyx, hoping to get close enough to shift into her.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” she said coldly, her eyes showing pinpricks of red and her teeth sharpening to points. “Find some other schmuck to clone.”
The shifter backed off and waved his arms to encompass the room. “What happened here?”
“Our fearless leader came home to discover that his pet is missing.” She stepped over a broken footstool and flipped over the only chair in the room that still had four legs, sitting down like she was the Queen of England on her throne.
“Well, that’s inconvenient for me.” The shifter said, raising his shifting arm with a wry look on his constantly altering face. “At least I managed to infect one of the fallen.”
“Well, bully for you.” Nyx looked him up and down. “Any ideas for getting to the rest of them before you implode?”
“Not yet. I’ll think up something useful while I’m out finding a new face.” The shifter turned back toward the broken window. “I hope I get a piece of that sweet-ass vampire chick Mara.” He hoisted himself up and out of the window.
Nyx sat alone for a minute, drumming her nails on the wooden arm of the chair. She was deep in thought and didn’t notice Keir’s arrival until he cleared his throat loudly.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked.
Nyx looked up at him with a sickly sweet smile. “Oh, they’re worth far more than that, sugar.”
“Fair enough. How about this — a new pair of obscenely expensive shoes for your thoughts?” he said, raising his eyebrow in question.
“I might be able to get on board with that.” She replied, her smile turning to one of satisfactio
n. “Your little shape shifter has actually accomplished something. He got to one of the fallen.”
Keir smiled. “Excellent. Now we need to find a way to get close to them and finish the job. Those fuckers are too tight knit. We need to find a new way in now that Baal has managed to escape.”
Nyx stood, placed her hands on her hips and started to pace. “I think your creepy little friend may have gotten some useful intelligence. There’s a woman they’ve allowed into their inner circle, a vampire named Mara. It seems she’s involved with Baal.”
“I see.” Keir raised a questioning eyebrow at her. “And how do you propose we use this little tidbit to our advantage, my dear? I see the evil little cogs in your brain turning. Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“You know these men are irrationally protective of each other.” Nyx gave Keir an evil smile. “Just imagine how insanely protective they’d be of a woman they’d accepted into their circle.”
Keir chuckled. “You really are a devious wench. You want to use her as bait.”
“Find out everything about her and put her in mortal danger. Dangle her like a carrot and watch the suckers come running. There’s nothing those fools like better recently than playing the savior.”
“I just love how your twisted mind works.” Keir’s eyes flashed a brighter red.
Nyx gave him a wink. “I am my brother’s sister after all.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
This was déjà vu for Sergei. His new apartment was overrun with fallen angels, Amir, and Mara. The last time he’d helped them out this way, it had resulted in his untimely demise as a human and his resurrection as a vampire. He enjoyed the perks of his new life, but the torture he’d had to endure at the hands of Satan’s minion, Voss, was definitely not an event he wished to revisit. His tiny, one-bedroom apartment was bursting at the seams.
B had been laid on the bed and was being tended by Mara. Gadreel was stretched out on his couch with an ice pack pressed to his head, muttering to himself like a crazy person. The others pored through his various grimoires, trying to locate any kind of spell that would cure demon blood poisoning. If a cure existed it would be in one of the many ancient texts that had been passed down through his family. The magical tomes had been in his family for centuries — a full compendium of supernatural knowledge that had served him well and had helped his strange new Otherworld family in their last battle against evil. His odd new group of comrades had moved his stuff from his old apartment to this new one while he’d been transitioning into his vampire state. They knew exactly where each and every volume was located. It had been a godsend at the time. The last thing he’d wanted while adjusting to his new senses was to return to an apartment that was decorated with his blood and guts. The memories of pain and terror were still too raw. Sergei looked through the bedroom door at B, his hands and feet twisted and crushed. That man had saved his life, arriving at his old place just in time to make his transformation possible. Without him, Voss and Satan would have succeeded in ending his existence. Gadreel was B’s best friend, and he would do everything in his power to pay them back for their kindness and acceptance by finding a cure for this infection. It was the least he could do.
In the bedroom, Mara examined B’s wounds more closely. The cuts and scrapes from the glass had healed, but the bones in his hands and feet were another story all together. His inhumanly quick healing had caused more harm than good. His bones had knit together wrong. There was no way he would be able to walk or hold anything in this condition. Mara was going to have to re-break his bones and set them properly. After everything he’d been through, this wasn’t going to be an easy pill for him to swallow.
“Are you okay?” B whispered, his eyes full of concern for her.
Mara burst out in nervous laughter. “Why are you worrying about me? You’re the one that’s been hurt!”
“I can’t stand seeing you look so disturbed,” he said, raising his twisted hand to cup her cheek. As he got a look at his mangled limb, he grimace and dropped it back down to his side. “I guess I’m not too pretty to look at right now.”
Reaching down, Mara took his hand in hers. “This is actually what’s wrong...I’m going to have to break your bones and re-set them or you’ll be stuck like this permanently.”
Mara was proud of herself. She’d managed to get that out in her most professional clinical voice without any of her inconvenient feelings leaking through.
B took a deep breath, nodded, and looked her dead in the eye. “Do what you need to do.”
Mara allowed her eyes to linger on his for a moment before looking away. If her heart was still able to beat she knew it would be clenching at the thought of causing him any more pain. There was one way she could do this without making him feel any discomfort.
Mara repositioned herself beside B on the bed and made the offer in her very best professional voice. “I don’t have any meds to put you under, but I could put you in a hypnotic state if you’d like.”
B shook his head. “No, I’ve been unconscious way too much recently. No matter how much it hurts, I need to be awake.”
“If you change your mind, just say the word.” Mara took his right hand and examined the twist of his wrist. “I’ll do this as quickly as I can. Let me know if you need a break at any point…no pun intended.”
B gave her a wry smile. “Go for it.”
Mara gripped his forearm and hand, giving them a quick twist. The snap sounded like a wishbone breaking. B clenched his jaw and grunted as she set the bone in a straight line. It would only take a matter of minutes for the bones to knit together, no splints necessary, she could hold his arm in place, then move on to the next bone.
B let out the breath he’d been holding. “Listen, about earlier at Brimstone…”
Mara shook her head. “No need to get into that. Let’s concentrate on getting you back into fighting form.”
He shook his head. “No, you need to understand. I need to tell you why I hurt you.”
Mara sighed. He was giving her that look again, a look of love. How could she say no? “Fine. Tell me your story while we put you back together.”
B smiled. She had no idea how much she really was putting him back together. “I need to tell you some things about my past. This isn’t easy for me. Gadreel’s the only one who knows these things.”
Mara nodded. “Okay. Just let me get your fingers fixed on this hand first.”
B sucked in a breath and prepared himself. Mara took each finger and snapped them back into place. He wanted to cry out in pain, but held himself in check. The story he had to tell her was going to be difficult enough; he didn’t want to look any weaker by screaming like a baby. Not to mention, the last thing he wanted was for her to feel bad for hurting him.
As the pain faded, B looked directly into Mara’s eyes. “This is a long story, so bear with me.” He took a deep breath and dove in. “When I was expelled from the Heofon, Gadreel and I got captured by a legion of demons. We were held in their lair for what seemed like an eternity. They tortured us and then allowed us to heal just to torture us again. All we had was each other. There was sexual shit too Mara. The male and female demons took great pleasure in having us against our will.” B trailed off, looking at the floor. He cleared his throat and continued. “They thought they could break us that way, but we stuck together. Even though we felt dirty and used, we knew we were in it together. That’s when they turned it up a notch. They started injecting Gadreel with demon blood. It only lasted a few hours at a time, but it allowed them to control him. He was locked in, aware of what he was doing, but unable to stop or control himself. They ordered him to join them as they tortured me, and he did. I could see it was killing him. His eyes were just so hopeless.”
“Oh my god,” Mara whispered.
“I’m not looking for pity. I just want you to understand. You’re too good for me, Mara. The things that have been done to me…I wasn’t strong enough to stop them. I wasn’t able to rescue myself or my
friend from that horror. I made headway today — I got myself out of Keir’s little prison. I was able to do it because I wanted to get back to you and the guys. I didn’t want you in danger because I let a shape shifter wheedle his way into the group. I was still too late, and now Gadreel’s going through hell, poisoned by demon blood again.” B looked her dead in the eye. Not shrinking from his past this time. “There’s a strong connection between us, Mara. I’m not going to deny it, but I don’t deserve you. I'm not good enough for you. I just needed you to know that I feel it too.”
B felt a weight lift off his shoulders, like a boulder had been removed after centuries of dragging him down. Whether she accepted his friendship after hearing about his past or not, he knew the simple act of telling her about his life was the right move. He'd spent long enough hiding his pain and shame. Nothing in his life would get better unless he dragged the ugliness into the light.
Mara shook her head. “I would never pity you, B. You’ve survived an experience that would have broken the best of us, and I hate to disabuse you of the notion that I’m too good for you, but I spent three decades after my turning totally feral, killing innocents and unable to stop. If my friend Alex hadn’t found me and brought me back from the brink, I don’t know where I’d be now.”
“Mara, I couldn’t fight back...I stopped struggling and just let it all happen...” B turned his head away from her, not wanting to see disgust in her eyes.
Mara reached out and cupped his cheek, turning him back to face her. “None of that was your fault. It doesn’t say anything about you; it says something about the demons that tortured you. You’ve been blaming yourself all these centuries for something that you shouldn’t.” Her eyes remained locked with his, searching for some truth he kept hidden. “That’s why you didn’t want me to touch you, isn’t it?” she said, finally breaking the silence.
B’s heart clenched, that invisible connection trying to draw him closer to her warmth. “Maybe...probably. But I can blame myself for all the whoring I’ve done in the centuries since — a different partner every night. That makes me a real prize, doesn’t it? I mean, it made me physically sick letting them touch me, I hated every minute of it. Maybe I thought if I screwed enough, it would erase the past. I didn’t want you near any of that. You’re not like them, you’re…you.”
