by Reinke, Sara
Without turning her back to the windows, Karen opened the closet door. She reached inside, fingers groping blindly until she found the light switch, flipped it on. In the corner, she kept a loaded Browning .257 Roberts rifle. Her father had taught her to shoot when she’d been no more than ten, and she kept in practice.
Hefting the gun from its corner, she reached for the shelf where she kept her ammunition. As she loaded the rifle, she kept her eyes trained ahead, past the closet threshold and across the living room, out the windows and into the trees.
Is it moving? Is that a person or a tree branch? What if it’s Tristan?
“Good,” she muttered, chambering a round. “I want to shoot him right about now too.”
Feigning courage she didn’t necessarily feel, Karen boldly crossed the main floor of her house. She’d left a pair of weather-beaten hiking boots by the back door at some point, and stepped into them now, leaving them unlaced. Pushing open the sliding glass, she walked outside, feeling the crisp, chilly air immediately bite into her skin.
Her breath frosted around her face, and within seconds, her back teeth began to chatter. With a frown, Karen started across the yard, her boots clomping heavily in the thick carpeting of dried pine needles underfoot.
“I see you,” she tried to shout, but all at once, her windpipe felt like it had collapsed in on itself, shriveling down to a pin-hole circumference, and her voice came out hoarse, little more than a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again, hefting the rifle to her shoulder and narrowing her gaze down the sight. “Who’s out there?”
The grinding crunch of tire treads through gravel from somewhere behind startled her, and she whirled. An enormous black SUV, all glossy black paint and sparkling chrome trim, pulled down the narrow drive approaching her house—a Cadillac Escalade with a front vanity tag that read TOP DOC. The big truck came to a stop facing her, the engine rumbling to a halt.
Karen turned, looking back toward the trees, but the shadowy figure hiding there was gone. A lone, low-hanging bough swished in the slim space where she thought she’d seen it, as if stirred by an otherwise indiscernible breeze.
“Do you always take up target practice in your bathrobe?” a man asked with a laugh as he opened the driver’s side door and stepped out of the cab. Tall and lean, he wore his coal black hair combed back from his face, the slim hint of a goatee on his chin. Dressed in mirrored sunglasses, black leather pants, and a double-breasted wool overcoat, he looked for all the world like some kind of goth rock superstar or Hollywood actor stepping out for his latest premier.
“Mason?” Because she was too surprised and bewildered to react at first, she kept the rifle stock raised.
“Don’t shoot.” He held up his hands in mock surrender. In one, he held a paper sack with the words Lake Tahoe Bakery & Gourmet printed across the front. “I come bearing scones.”
****
As Tristan followed the road toward the small, two-room guest cottage in which Brandon and Lina had been staying, he passed Karen’s place. To his surprise, he saw his uncle Mason’s black Cadillac truck in the driveway, and thus cut a wide berth through the woods to avoid them. Despite this, he could smell her, the sweet, tantalizing hint of her fragrance wafting in the breeze.
Goddamn it, he thought, because he could feel his gums begin to throb at this, a low-grade but insistent ache. Had he thought on the drive home that he’d be able to just walk up to her front door without any problems? Talk to her—stand in front of her, for Christ’s sake—without the bloodlust ruining everything again? When had things ever been that easy where Karen was concerned?
Hunching his shoulders, he shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He meant to hurry on his way but blinked when he felt the paper bag with Brandon’s medicine.
I was able to keep it under control, Brandon had told him of his own bloodlust, and of using the Wellbutrin to curb his Brethren appetites.
I can’t take this anymore, Tristan thought, because even though he clung to his Brethren heritage with a fierce, nearly relentless sort of pride, he hated it too, hated being like his grandfather with a deep-seated, festering vehemence.
He drew the bag from his pocket, then removed one of the bottles. Popping the cap, he brought it to his mouth and tipped his head back, letting a mouthful of the pills tumble against his tongue.
Brandon takes two of these a day, three hundred milligrams, he said, to control the bloodlust, he thought. But like most antidepressants, it could take several weeks to build up enough of a therapeutic dose to feel any effects. If you were human, that is. With his accelerated healing abilities, as a Brethren, Tristan could also metabolize medications much more rapidly, and he hoped that by glutting himself on at least half the pills at once, he’d feel the calming effects on the bloodlust right away.
With a grimace, he choked the first bunch down, then glanced over his shoulder through the trees toward Karen’s house. It lay behind him now, but still, that lingering hint of her remained discernable to him, tantalizing.
Another handful, another wince, and another quick swallow, and he figured it would be enough. It has to be.
When he reached Brandon and Lina’s house, he saw a rental car idling in the driveway, the trunk open as Brandon lugged out an armload of overstuffed luggage. He caught sight of Tristan approaching and smiled, visibly puzzled to find him on foot.
Where’s your truck? he asked.
Long story. Tristan shook his head, dismissive. Hey, I’ve got a going-away gift for you.
He tossed Brandon one of the medicine bottles, keeping the other for himself with only the slightest hint of guilt. Because I need them too, he thought. More than anyone, Brandon would understand.
Brandon caught the bottle easily, one-handed.
I could only get you a one-month supply, Tristan lied, affecting the appropriate mental tone and facial affect of regret. But if you need more, let me know, and I’ll call in a prescription for you to a pharmacy down there, okay?
Brandon nodded, striding forward to meet Tristan, his hand outstretched. Thanks, Dr. Morin, he said. For everything.
No, Brandon. He accepted the younger man’s proffered shake. Thank you.
CHAPTER FOUR
When he finally made it back to his house, he was stiff, sore, and not at all surprised to find his uncle’s SUV parked at the end of his drive. After all, he’d seen Mason at Karen’s less than thirty minutes earlier, and as Michel’s eldest son, there had been more than enough time and opportunity for him to catch wind of Tristan’s crash.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he growled, tromping up the steps past where Mason sat waiting for him, cheery grin plastered on his face despite the cold.
“About what?” Mason asked, his voice deceptively innocent and oblivious. He’d been smoking a clove cigarette, the aromatic smoke enveloping him in a spicy cloud, but snuffed it now beneath the toe of his boot.
“Exactly.” Tristan shoved his front door open, grateful that he hadn’t locked up when he’d left, considering his house keys were now officially in his grandfather’s possession.
Mason followed him inside. A prominent plastic surgeon based in Los Angeles, he looked every bit the part of a successful physician who made his living doing breast implants, rhinoplasties, liposuction, and facelifts on the rich and famous. Mason was just as physically perfect as any of his exclusive clientele. His youthful appearance pegged him as a man in his mid- to late-thirties, tops, when in fact, he was more than two hundred years old.
“Pack a bag,” Mason said as Tristan shrugged his way out of his coat.
This was a game Mason would play when Tristan had been a boy. He’d surprise Tristan and Lisette by arriving unannounced to whisk them both away to Las Vegas or New York or maybe Chicago, London, or Paris. Mason had always been very enigmatic about these trips, telling Tristan and his mother to each “pack a bag” with only those items they couldn’t live without. “Everything else,” he’d always say, “we can buy once we’
re on our way.”
The excursions had always been as much to benefit Mason as Tristan and Lisette. While Mason had never made a secret of his sexual predilections, he’d never publicly admitted them either, at least to his family. But during their trips abroad he’d introduced Tristan and Lisette to at least a half dozen or so “uncles” of one sort or another who would accompany them—all of them human, and none of them of any true blood kin.
“Not today, Mason,” Tristan said, tossing his coat onto the back of the couch. Was it just his imagination, or could he still detect Karen’s scent in the house, despite the fact he’d burned her blouse? With a frown, he sniffed.
“Yes, today,” Mason replied with a laugh, shrugging back the heavy sleeve of his wool overcoat enough to check his watch. As he moved, Karen’s fragrance stirred, and Tristan realized this was what he’d been smelling; he’d been in Karen’s house long enough for her scent to seep into his clothes. “Right now, as a matter of fact. We’re late.”
With a heavy sigh, Tristan turned to him. “Look, I’m really not having a good day,” he began wearily.
“I know.” Still smiling, Mason held out his hand in invitation. “Which is why you really need to come with me.”
****
Karen sifted through her travel bag, ticking items off her mental inventory for at least the hundredth time. Toothpaste? Check. Toothbrush? Check. Deodorant, perfume, hairspray? Check, check, and check.
Mason had been very specific in his instructions, but at the same time bafflingly mysterious. “Pack a bag,” he’d told her as he’d walked out the door, leaving her to feel as if she was now in the midst of some mischievous well-planned game, one in which she was not privy to all the rules. “Travel lightly—only items you can’t live without. Anything else we can buy along the way.”
She’d dressed in blue jeans, boots, and a sweater, drawing her hair back in a loosely fitted clip at the nape of her neck. Dancing down the steps from her bedroom loft two at a time, she found herself cutting a wary glance out the window toward the trees, then shook her head.
Stop it, she told herself. There’s no one out there. It was a trick of the light, shadows beneath the tree limbs. I was imagining things.
She’d returned the rifle to her linen closet but hadn’t quite convinced herself enough to unload it. Just in case, she’d thought.
“I’m supposed to be at the clinic tonight,” she’d protested to Mason.
“It’s taken care of,” he’d replied.
“But Eleanor has her treatment first thing tomorrow morning,” she’d said. “I need to let Michel know if I can’t—”
Still smiling in that enigmatic fashion, he’d gently cut her short. “It’s taken care of.”
A horn sounded from outside; Mason had returned. Feeling nervous and excited, Karen grabbed her purse and hurried for the door. Between her humiliating one-night stand with Tristan and the idea that one of the Davenants might be on the prowl, getting the hell away from South Lake Tahoe sounded like just what the doctor had ordered. Ducking outside, she let the front door swing shut behind her, then turned, using her key to turn the deadbolt home.
****
“Where are you going?” Tristan leaned forward, blinking stupidly out the window as Mason turned down Karen’s driveway.
“Quick detour,” Mason replied, pulling to a stop beside her house. He leaned across the cab, arm outstretched, and opened the passenger door beside Tristan. “Climb in back, would you, mon lapin?”
Tristan’s bewilderment turned to anxiety, then alarm. “Why?”
“Because it’s good manners to offer the lady shotgun.” With a smile, Mason pressed his hand against the steering column, blatting the horn in beckon.
Tristan sat, paralyzed in his seat, a grim sort of realization dawning on him, and after a few moments, he saw Karen step out the front door, a traveling bag hanging from her shoulder. Stricken, he turned to his uncle, and when he found Mason still wearing that goddamn Cheshire Cat grin, he bristled.
“No,” he said, shoving his door open wider. “No, no, no, hell no.”
He hopped out of the truck and wrenched open the back door, seizing his own bag by the strap. Karen caught sight of him as she came down the stairs, and her footsteps skittered to a halt in the loose dirt and gravel, her blue eyes growing round and uncertain.
Her heart jackhammered beneath her sweater. He could hear it, goddamn it; he could sense it in his mind, could smell the sudden surge of anxious adrenaline in her bloodstream as her body tensed reflexively for fight or flight.
“Let me take that bag for you.” Mason had obviously misinterpreted Tristan’s hesitation as having changed his mind, and he climbed out of the truck to approach Karen, arms outstretched. He paused long enough to kiss her in the continental fashion, leaning forward, brushing his lips quickly, lightly against either cheek. “Hop in. Your chariot awaits.”
“Mason, I…” she began, glancing between him and Tristan, looking for all the world like a rabbit cornered between a pair of hounds. Her face had become drained of color save for two bright patches of nearly fluorescent blush that had bloomed in the high apples of her cheeks. “I…I don’t think I should…”
“Be carrying your own luggage? Of course not,” Mason interjected mildly, slipping the bag from her shoulder. “That’s why I offered to do it for you.”
Leaving her to sputter, rooted in place, he carried her bag to the Escalade.
You tricked me. Tristan locked eyes with Mason, his brows narrowing.
I did, yes, Mason replied, catching Tristan off guard with his utter lack of protest. He leaned past his nephew to toss Karen’s bag into the truck.
Tristan caught him by the sleeve. “I’m not going,” he said in a low, angry voice.
Mason ignored him completely, returning instead to Karen’s side. As he led her toward the passenger side, she stared at Tristan in visible apprehension. The bloodlust still did not stir within him, but something else did—shame.
Because she hates me now, he realized glumly. She probably thinks I’m some kind of major asshole. And she’s right.
Lowering his eyes to the ground, he pressed his lips together in a thin line. He listened to the soft rustle of her clothes as she drew near, then stepped up into the cab. The leather-upholstered seats creaked faintly as she sat down; then, with a sharp snap of wind and a trailing click, the door shut behind her.
“Let’s go, mon lapin,” Mason said as he returned to the driver’s side. “I told you before—we’re running late.”
This had been his nickname for Tristan when he’d been younger—mon lapin, or my rabbit in his native French. He said nothing more, merely climbed in and shut his door.
For what? Tristan asked.
Mason pivoted in his seat to look back through the opened doorway at him. You’ll see, he replied with a wink and a smile. Come on, now. Get in.
****
It wasn’t a long trip to the Reno airport, but for Karen, it seemed to take an eternity. Throughout the entire ride, she sat rigidly in her seat, her hands folded in the nest of her lap. Although Mason chattered the whole way, making idle and friendly conversation into which she’d occasionally interject a murmured acknowledgment or sound of feigned interest, she focused more on Tristan. She could see him through the rearview mirror as he sat, equally stiff-backed and uncomfortable behind her, his arms crossed, his brows furrowed sullenly, his gaze averted out the window.
She’d almost turned around and darted back into her house when she’d seen him step out of Mason’s truck. Why she hadn’t done so still remained as much a mystery to her as their ultimate destination or the purpose of the trip Mason had orchestrated.
I want to go home, she thought, looking out her window, seeing Tristan’s morose and distant gaze fixed outwardly through the side mirror. Not just back to my house at the compound, but home as in Kansas. As in back to my parents’ house, my old room upstairs. Under the blankets, head beneath the pillow, never coming
out.
“Have you ever heard of the Trésor?” Mason asked, drawing her from her thoughts. “It’s a brand-new casino resort, the grandest in Las Vegas. Not to mention the largest, most expensive ever built in the country.”
Not one much for gambling, Karen shook her head. “Is that where we’re going?”
With a grin, Mason nodded. He shifted his weight, reaching beneath his coat lapel to produce a small, cream-colored card with gold embossed scripting. It was an invitation, she saw, as he handed it to her, for the resort’s grand-opening celebration.
“I’ve got three VIP suites waiting for us, and tonight, we’re to arrive fashionably late for the official soiree, sometime after ten.”
From the backseat, Tristan made a sound. It might have been a snicker, but she couldn’t be sure. “Good luck with that,” he remarked drily. “It’s a seven-hour drive to Vegas from here.”
“At least,” Mason agreed. “Which is why we’re going to fly, not drive.” When at last, Tristan cut his eyes away from the window to blink at his uncle in surprise, Mason chuckled. “Come on, mon lapin,” he said. “You think Michel’s the only one who can afford to charter a plane in this family?”
CHAPTER FIVE
It worked, Tristan thought, surprised and admittedly impressed. I’ll be goddamned. Brandon was right.
Throughout the ride on the way to the airport—trapped in the cramped confines of the Escalade’s cab—he’d waited anxiously for the wondrous, intoxicating aroma that was surely radiating from Karen in heady waves to hit him, overwhelm him, cause the bloodlust in him to stir with brutal, relentless insistence. To his surprise—his utter amazement, in fact—it had not. Even now, hours after taking the Wellbutrin pills, he sat in the cabin of the small Hawker jet Mason had chartered for their trip to Vegas and felt no hint.
