“I’m not taking it easy,” he informed her blandly. “There is actual danger waiting for us, so you need actual prac -- whoa!” He narrowly avoided a punch aimed for his sternum as Siobhan came at him again, sidestepping and instead taking a glancing blow to his shoulder. He hardly even felt it. “You aren’t using your strength,” he scolded, and he rocked onto one foot, kicking her in the ribs and sending her staggering backward.
She caught her balance on a tree, her fingers biting into the trunk with enough force that bark crumbled to the ground.
“Just like that!” Jack praised, and he ducked under her next swing as she rushed at him, her fist flying in a clumsy, too-wide arc.
He aimed a strike at her side, only to trip when something unexpectedly grabbed his pant leg and tugged. He looked down and Barton growled up at him, his ears pinned back and his jaws clamped tight in the denim of Jack’s pants. Siobhan used his distraction to her advantage and clocked Jack in the jaw with as much of her strength as she could dredge up, landing him on his ass in the grass. Barton darted out of the way, lurking on the outskirts of the scuffle.
“Cheating,” Jack pointed out as he stood up, but he sounded more amused than angry. He rubbed his jaw with one hand, the other arm raised defensively in front of his face.
“You would encourage me to cheat in a real fight,” Siobhan pointed out, and she lunged for him again, only to skitter back before he could nail her in the chest with an elbow.
“Fair point,” he agreed, and he hopped over Barton as the dog made another go at him, evading the snapping teeth just long enough to sweep Siobhan’s legs out from under her. She yelped and crashed to the ground, twisting at the last moment to avoid landing on Barton. “You need to be able to cheat effectively, though,” Jack pointed out. “I guess we’ll just need to work on including him since I doubt you’ll leave him out now. You haven’t so far.”
“Duh,” she drawled in return, and then she kicked him in the knee and sent him staggering as she climbed back to her feet. “If anyone’s got incentive to help keep me alive, it’s him, and it’s not like you can train me to be a master fighter in a week.”
“Fair enough,” he conceded again. “We’ll turn you into a master eventually, though,” he added, twisting sideways to veer out of her way. He slammed his elbow into her back, and she dropped to the ground with a grunt, landing on her stomach. Before he could retreat, she twisted, tangling one leg around his and tripping him. She snorted out a laugh as he landed on his ass.
“Why do I need to be a master?” she asked wryly, tumbling away from him before he could kick her in the ribs. Both of them got to their feet, eying each other cautiously, like a pair of circling wolves.
“Honestly?” He paused and started circling the other way. “After everything that’s going on now, how do we have any idea about what’s coming later? We don’t.” He surged forward, came to an abrupt halt when she dodged, and instead clotheslined her across the chest. Gasping, she stumbled to a halt, and he hopped out of range of her faltering punch. “So you might as well become a half-decent fighter in case something else comes along.” There was a beat as he ducked under her next swing. “Assuming this mess doesn’t kill us, at any rate.”
“That’s a cheery thought,” she grumbled, and she finally managed to land a punch on his shoulder, sending him stumbling back and into a tree. She could hear the bough crack, and she had to wonder how they were going to explain the mess they were making to any of the locals, or if they were just going to leave it to the televised monster hunters to figure it out in their own time.
Barton caught Jack’s shoe, dragging him to a standstill to carefully struggle free, lest he lose his sneaker entirely. Siobhan took the opportunity to kick him in the ribs, and as he fell back and landed on the ground once again, Barton trotted off cheerfully with the sneaker in his mouth.
Jack pouted after him and held up his hands in a time-out gesture, one hand held flat atop the upright fingers of his other hand. Siobhan knew well what the gesture meant, but she chose to ignore it regardless, aiming a punch downward and denting the dirt when Jack rolled out of the way.
Scowling at her, he got to his feet and instead simply pulled his other shoe off so he wasn’t standing at two different heights. He tossed the shoe aside. Sensing that something was going to happen, Barton dropped the shoe in his mouth and readied himself as Jack said, “You’ve got more than one new skill to learn how to use. Come catch me.”
He took off into the woods at a sprint, fallen leaves and low hanging branches rustling with the wind of his departure.
“Hey!” Siobhan hollered after him before she took off, her legs pumping like a pair of pistons. The sheer speed with which she found herself able to move, however, was her downfall, as she crashed into a tree, snapping a branch off and tumbling to the ground before she could dodge or put on the brakes. She could hear Jack laughing from somewhere deeper in the trees, and the noise only spurred her on to get back on her feet and keep running.
She clipped her shoulders against a few more trees, a head-on collision only narrowly avoided each time, and chips of bark and cracked wood erupted in her wake after each impact. She could hear Barton barking somewhere behind her, too slow to keep up and instead just trying to keep track of them.
Just ahead, she could see Jack weaving through the tree trunks as easily as he might walk along a sidewalk, and the ease with which he did what Siobhan was struggling with—something that looked so easy—rankled at her, combining with his smug amusement that rattled at the back of her mind. The bond had been silent until a few moments ago, and she could only assume he had been keeping it quiet until he decided not to any longer.
She put on another burst of speed, her fingers biting deep into a tree’s trunk as she caught herself before she could crash into it and then pushed herself away from it.
Step by step, she gained on him, until her feet were leaving the ground in a way she wasn’t entirely conscious of. She crashed into him from behind, and they hit the ground with an impact that rattled the leaves above them. They nearly felled the tree they skidded to a halt against, a line of uprooted grass and bare dirt behind them.
From there, any pretense at an organized fight went out the window as they grappled with each other across the grass, rattling the trees around them and tearing up the grass in clumps. Jack kept laughing, and Siobhan bared her teeth at him as she rolled on top. Her fist met the ground, her knuckles sinking into the dirt as Jack turned his face away, until she had to wrench her hand upward with enough force that she over balanced and tumbled off of him, landing in a sprawl on the ground.
Rather than make another go at her, he got to his feet and bolted into the trees again, shouting, “Catch me if you can!” over his shoulder. With a low, impotent growl, Siobhan scrambled back to her feet and tore after him. She was too annoyed, both at his attitude and his mocking amusement, to find it strange when he simply came to a halt, until he lunged out of the way just before she was going to crash into him, so she crashed face-first into the tree behind him instead.
The trunk cracked with a bone-deep ripping sound, and Siobhan dropped to the ground with a groan, clutching at her nose and her forehead. She was pretty sure her nose was bleeding, and when she demanded, “What was that for?” her voice had a distinct clogged sound to it.
He stood just out of reach as he pointed out, “I told you to catch me; I didn’t say I was just going to run in a straight line.” He stepped back again as she kicked at him. “Hey, these are your abilities,” he reminded her sharply as she sat up. “You need to get used to using them. If everything is perfectly controlled, then you’re only going to learn how to use them in controlled circumstances.”
He stepped back again as she tried to kick one of his legs out from under him, before she finally began to stand up. “You want to learn how to run without smashing into things? Then practice not smashing into things.”
With that final pearl of wisdom, he turned and bolte
d into the woods again, as easily as a horse might burst into a gallop. With a grumbled growl, Siobhan took off after him again.
For another half hour she chased him, until her clothes were a mess of wood chips and shredded bark, and she was pretty sure she was about ready to go crazy. At last, she managed to tackle him, her shoulder slamming into his back between his shoulder blades.
They crashed to the ground all at once and tumbled across the grass until they came to a halt at last, Jack’s knees on either side of Siobhan’s thighs and his hands on the ground on either side of her. He hitched his shins over hers so she couldn’t kick and wrapped his hands around her wrists, pinning them to the ground.
With a concerted effort, she wrenched one hand free, curling her fingers tightly against the back of his neck. Jack moved easily as she tugged him downward, their mouths crashing together gracelessly. Their teeth clicked together and their noses bumped, but it wasn’t any sort of deterrent, as they adapted quickly, tipping their heads until their mouths slotted together as they should.
It was less a proper kiss and more of a continuation of their scuffle, tongues exploring as if they were mapping new territory. When Siobhan pulled away, it was with a nip to Jack’s lower lip that drew blood, and she flicked the end of her tongue over it before lying back on the grass, her chest heaving.
They stared at each other for a drawn-out moment, but it was Siobhan who broke first, with a quiet snort of laughter before she was practically howling. Soon enough, Jack couldn’t hold back his own laughter, and he flopped down into the grass beside her. No longer pinned, Siobhan curled up into a helpless, fetal ball as she kept laughing until tears were streaming down her face.
“I don’t even remember what I was so annoyed about!” she gasped eventually as Jack continued to snigger beside her.
“It’s been a busy week for you,” he pointed out, his voice unsteady. “You’re allowed to need a bit of an adjustment period. It was a good spar, though. Good for blowing off steam.”
“We’ll have to do it again,” Siobhan agreed, her voice finally leveling out as she managed to get some semblance of control over herself. “Including that last part,” she added after a moment, her tone decisive. “I liked that part.”
“Yeah, that part was good,” Jack agreed, flinging an arm over his face. He took in a deep breath and let it out, practically melting into the grass as he relaxed. “We eventually need to head back the way we came,” he pointed out. “I left my shoes back there.”
“Unless Barton’s eaten them,” Siobhan supplied helpfully.
“There is always that possibility,” he sighed, sitting up slowly and leaning back on his hands. “Oh. There he is now.”
Barton trotted out of the woods and came to a halt, panting as if he had just run a marathon. He looked between the two of them, as if silently accusing of them of playing their game of tag purely to torment him, before he huffed out an explosive breath of air and flopped down into the grass.
Siobhan’s laughter once again echoed through the trees.
CHAPTER FIVE
Siobhan spent most of the walk to their next destination brushing her clothes off and plucking grass and woodchips out of her hair. Jack, she was a bit gratified to see, had to spend most of the walk doing much the same, though she was a bit disappointed that he wasn’t barefoot.
(“Oh, come on, it would’ve been funny,” she had insisted as he’d pouted at her and stepped into his slightly damp sneakers. Feeling his mild annoyance honestly just made it even better in the moment.)
Barton didn’t have to worry. One quick shake, and he was clear of almost all of the debris he had collected, although it had been a much smaller amount of debris.
Eventually, they emerged from the woods onto a quiet street, and from there, they veered onto a walkway that wound up the hill through a series of gardens and stone arrangements, until they were climbing a wooden staircase onto a porch suspended on stilts. Water flowed peacefully beneath it in a lazy, looping stream that steamed faintly.
“Where are we?” Siobhan asked, peering around the edge of the building to see a wall made of narrow, vertical logs extending from the back end of it.
“This is an inn,” Jack replied as he knocked on the door, and then he lifted his hand to gesture loosely toward the edge of the building and the wall beyond, “and back there is a hot spring.”
Siobhan’s expression brightened. “There’s a Vampire Lord at a hot spring?” she asked, nearly squealing the question. “Will we have time to take a dip?” she asked, her hands clasped together in front of herself before, slightly more seriously, she added, “Will Barton be allowed inside?”
Jack waved the last question off. “The inn is owned and run by vampires. It changes hands now and then, but there are always vampires involved. So we can do whatever we want, pretty much, as long as we behave.”
A woman opened the door, giving them a quick, analytical once over before deciding that they were probably there for something other than vacation, and so it was unnecessary for her to put on the customer service airs. Instead, she simply ushered them inside. She was as pale as Jack, her almond-shaped eyes were a bronzed-over maple color, and her black hair hung down her back in a thick, braided rope.
“What are you here for?” she asked, watching them suspiciously.
“We’re here to wake up…” Siobhan trailed off and turned toward Jack to stage whisper, “Who are we here for?”
“We need to wake up Osamu,” Jack supplied with a quiet sigh.
The woman eyed them with quiet, narrow suspicion. “It’s not time yet,” she pointed out, as if there was in any way a possibility that they wouldn’t already know that.
“Noriko, be polite,” a second woman scolded as she strolled into the room. She was taller than Noriko, and her figure was largely nonexistent in comparison. Her dark, copper-brown hair was short and slicked back against her scalp, and her eyes were gray beneath the bronze. Her face was younger than Noriko’s, but something in her voice and her eyes told Siobhan that she was much older.
“I’m Minako.” She linked her hands together in front of herself and regarded Jack and Siobhan politely as she asked, “Why do you need to wake him?”
“A seraph has left Heaven, and things are likely to get worse,” Jack stated bluntly. “We need all of the Vampire Lords, on Regina’s orders. We’ve already woken Dask’iya.”
Minako’s eyes widened slowly, but her voice was calm as she stated mildly, “Oh dear.” She crooked a finger for them to follow her into a different room.
“You can get cleaned up a bit in here,” she informed them, “so you’ll be a bit neater to meet him.” Considering the state they had found Dask’iya in, Siobhan wasn’t sure why that mattered, but she kept that to herself. “Would you like us to feed the dog while you’re in here?”
“He would probably appreciate it,” Siobhan agreed before Minako closed the door and left them in peace.
Ten minutes later, Barton started barking. Not like he was trying to play or get someone’s attention, but in the same way he used to whenever there was a bear near the cabin. Siobhan ignored it at first until Noriko poked her head into the room and said, “Excuse me? Your dog won’t stop barking, and we don’t want him to disturb any actual guests.”
With a sigh, Siobhan followed her back into the main room to calm him down, mumbling, “I’ll see if he needs a walk,” mostly to herself.
Once the door was opened, Barton growled and bolted outside, leaping down the stairs and bolting off of the path. With a muttered, “Goddammit,” Siobhan took off after him, only to grind to the halt on the opposite side of a garden.
An angel hovered above the inn, observing it placidly. A single pair of wings sprouted from her back, flapping gently every so often to keep her aloft. Slowly, the way a scientist might observe a petri dish, she turned her attention to Siobhan.
She was…beautiful. With skin like molten copper, she seemed to glow in the moonlight, her long, silver-
blonde hair drifting behind her, floating with the motion of her wings. Her features were sharp and angular—regal—and her eyes glowed an unnatural shade of orange. She was dressed in leather armor, with most of her back bared for her wings.
“JACK!” Siobhan hollered toward the inn as she got ready to run. “Get out here!”
She could hear Jack running to join her only a moment later as Barton barked up at the angel, his hackles standing on end from the base of his skull all the way down to his tail and his ears pinned back against his head so tightly that they blended in with his fur. His barking turned to snarling, his teeth bared.
Jack skidded to a halt just beside her, his mouth open to ask what was wrong before he closed it with a click, his gaze locked on the angel above them. His eyes narrowed sharply, and his lip curled as he growled out a guttural, inhuman sound.
They had to lure it away from the inn. Even without Osamu in the basement, there were actual guests at the hot spring, and they were all in danger. Siobhan crouched, scooping a palm-sized stone from the garden. Straightening back up, she wound up and pitched it like a fastball. It pinged harmlessly off the side of the angel’s head, but it most definitely got her attention, her perfect features twisting in pretty incredulity.
The Vampire's Bond Trilogy: The Complete Vampire Romance Series Page 7
