by Inez Kelley
“I don’t think you should be running around yet.”
“Tell that to my Mark,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing. I need to get downstairs.” He gave her a cocky grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Honey, either hand me some pants or be ready to applaud because I’ve got to piss like a racehorse.”
She quickly grabbed a pair of pants off the floor and tossed them in the general direction of the bed. He had no modesty, shoving the sheet away and tugging the black BDUs over his bandaged thigh. Pain knotted his forearms as he stood.
Lacy prepared to catch him if he fell. Dray wobbled before he limped to the bathroom. He didn’t bother to close the door as he stood in front of the toilet. Lacy stared at the handprint burn and crucified dragon tattoo on his back until the sound penetrated her mind. She turned her head as he urinated. Men had no shame.
“I’m almost done with the living room. I tried not to make too much noise. I think your carpet is a goner, though. I doubt even shampooing it will save it.”
A flush and a zipper’s whiz sounded. “Not surprised. What’s gone on since I fell asleep?”
He tugged socks and boots on his feet but left them unlaced. Lacy smoothed the bed linens as he finished dressing. “Nothing that I know of. Erik basically pushed me in the elevator and told me to stay put. Sela’s brother seemed to make everyone on edge.”
Dray froze, his shirt half-on and unbuttoned. “Which brother?”
“She has more than one? This was Gabe.”
“Shit,” he muttered. His shirt hung open as he headed for the dresser. Lacy’s heart galloped when he pulled out three small daggers. Two he shoved in his boots, the last was tucked in the back of his pants. Metal grated on metal as he jammed a loaded clip into a handgun and stuck it in his pocket.
“Stay here. I’ll be back when I make sure everything is okay.”
She trailed him from the bedroom. “Erik came up several hours ago and said they had to go check something out. Nomad is supposed to be in the medi-room. Dray, what’s going on?”
“Probably nothing but I need to be sure.” He limped to the door and looked over his shoulder, concern radiating from his face. “You took care of me, something no one has done in a very long time. Let me do the same. Wait here until I come back.”
The door closed, leaving Lacy staring at a dartboard that had dry-rotted. Her lip thumped from biting it, so she did what she’d always done in times of stress. She cleaned the kitchen. Her mind raced as she scrubbed and bleached. She trusted Erik, and with him, the men he surrounded himself with, but suspicions crept in at the oddest times. No matter what he said, he didn’t work for any type of security firm.
Using a table knife to scrape dried purple gunk off the counter, she let the truth sink in. Erik and his team operated outside the law. How far outside she couldn’t say. Maybe they were gang members, maybe they were mob, she didn’t know. She hadn’t caught any anti-American vibes from them or she’d suspect terrorists. She just knew in her bones that they weren’t totally bad. Or totally good.
There was a handgun in the fridge. She stared inside a bag from a Chinese restaurant with its container of hairy eggrolls and a lethal weapon. These men lived like they were at war. Myth’s apartment had been tidy, just needing a dust and vacuum, but he’d had knives and guns stashed everywhere. Rex had porn and knives beside his bed and porn and guns in the living room. His kitchen was porn free but the array of pills in small jars had made her blink. Nomad didn’t bother hiding anything. Guns, swords and knives were in easy reach on every conceivable surface.
The gun from Dray’s refrigerator was cold against her palm but warmed quickly. She held it, pointed it, tried to imagine it feeling natural and not stupid in her hand. Movement from the corner of her eye turned her head. Her wavy reflection in a smudged mirror shocked her. What was she doing? This wasn’t her. She wasn’t some gangster girl wanna-be or mob… what did they call them? Molls?
She carefully laid the gun on the now clean counter and stared at it. Was she a criminal’s girlfriend? Did she make love nearly every night to an outlaw? Was she cooking and cleaning for men who poisoned children with illegal drugs or assassinated rivals who wore a different color? Was she guilty of a crime by association?
Tossing random leftovers in a lawn and leaf bag, Lacy tumbled too many questions around her head. She’d wanted to be Ma Ingalls, Olivia Walton and Molly Weasley. She’d grown up playing house, never wanting anything more than to take care of a family. She only had Annie, but found a surrogate family through Dawson’s Diner.
Jack Simmons hated snotty eggs so she’d fried his extra hard. Mr. Jalanski always wanted the butter spread completely to the edges of his bread and she’d saved all the scraps for Mrs. Finney’s dogs. She didn’t lack ambition or drive or intelligence. It had taken her a long to time to accept that she didn’t want to climb any corporate ladders or blaze any business trails. For a while, she’d considered nursing but the fit was never right. She just wanted to make people feel special and comforted, to take care of them.
But was taking care of criminals a crime? Was she guilty of some illegal act just by making their lives better?
By the time she wiped the last bit of bleach away, she had found some answers in the river Denial. She peered into the now-sparkling empty fridge and knew she could handle whatever came down. If the Forsaken were criminals, so be it. They were still human beings and deserved the basic comforts. She really had no other choice since she didn’t want to die. And Erik meant too much to her.
But a niggling fear churned in her belly. Many of her restaurant regulars died because of her. Dray had been injured. She sent a swift prayer out that no one else would suffer. Annie was out there on her own…
Hands damp with bleach water, she dug out her cell and held her breath until a sweet familiar voice answered. Just listening to the mundane everyday details Annie outlined as she dressed for work made Lacy smile. She could handle anything as long as her sister was always nearby.
The pain was something he never forgot. The intensity, sharp, ripping agony as his insides spilled out, was etched deep in his brain. This had been how he’d died. He’d thought those fading seconds were his last. They were merely the beginning of a new path he’d been incapable of conceiving in his first life.
Dray and Nomad had felt the burn of a Forsaken’s injury. They were waiting when he and Myth completed the second Leap onto the patio. His strength was nonexistent. His knees felt like water and he didn’t fight when they shoved him onto a wheeled gurney. Myth Leaped back to Jerusalem, the battle still ongoing. Vike started to shake. His Awoken body kept making blood to replace what he lost, but it was like a spigot turned to high with no drain stopper.
Fear threatened to rush in and he shoved it aside. Death wasn’t an unknown to him now, it was more like an old friend. But just as had happened during his First Death, regrets flooded his mind. Clarity turned the copper flavor of his blood sharp. He’d never told Lacy the truth, not of who he was or what she meant to him. The coldest, cruelest, most brutal Viking to have ever lived had fallen in love. Now he was going to leave her.
The bright overhead surgical light stung his eyes and he turned his head. Pain was all he knew. Vaguely aware Dray and Nomad were cutting his clothes off and fastening restraints, he concentrated on not screaming. If he screamed, Lacy might hear. He didn’t want her to see him like this, tied down to prevent his body from jerking while his intestines were stuffed back in his body. He had to be strong for her, be her hero. She was the only one who thought of him like that. She made him think he just might deserve that title.
“Jesus, is that his liver?”
“Yeah. Another clamp. Fuck it, bring the whole tray over here.”
A metallic rolling noise sounded to his left. “What’s that thing?”
“The other half of his liver.”
Stupor set in and Vike fought it. He had to do something before he slept, befo
re he healed. He twisted against his restraints, bringing a spike of anguish that forced sleep from his mind.
“Muthafuck, Vike, hold still!”
Licking his dry lips, he tasted blood and didn’t know if it was his own or some Leech’s. Nomad pulled a long acupuncture needle free from a pack. Those things never took away all the pain but they helped. Something he would have praised any other time, but not now. He needed every ounce of the agony to stay awake. He caught Nomad’s wrist before the first needle could sink into his leg.
“How long?” He could only force two words from his tongue until a scream threatened. He clamped his jaw to hold it back.
Nomad’s grim eyes snagged his. “It’s bad. I’ll stitch everything back to speed it up, but you’ll be out a couple weeks.”
Weeks. Weeks he’d sleep away, weeks that Lacy would spend in danger, her Immunity growing. Weeks he’d have to trust his teammates to guard her. They would, he knew that. They’d get dusted trying to keep her safe or dust her to keep her from falling into Samael’s hands. He’d trust any of them with her life and her soul. But there was only one Forsaken he’d trust with Lacy’s heart.
The first needle sank into his leg, followed by more, each tiny sting almost lost beneath the anguish. Pain reduced by a fourth. Two needles speared his big toes.
Dray’s long hair swung as he moved, handing Nomad this instrument and that soaking pad. A suction machine drank the fluid spilling from his gut with a noisy gurgle. Vike tried twice to speak. The thick taste of sleep filled his mouth. He would not sleep until Lacy was safe, both from evil and from horny Forsaken.
Dray had no problem screwing any available woman who winked at him but he’d never cheated on his wife. He’d spoken his marriage vows and stuck to them. He’d never touched another man’s woman. To him, it was the lowest dishonor. Vike needed that loyalty.
He dug deep into his soul, drawing on the steel of a Viking. His fingers wrapped in Dray’s hair and yanked him close. “Lacy.”
“We’ll keep her safe.”
A burning need coursed through his draining blood. She deserved more than protection. She deserved better than him. Black ringed his vision and narrowed fast. “You,” Vike spat. “You guard her.”
His fist drew tight, holding Dray prisoner. Vike forced the words out, giving them life for the first time. “Mine…love her.”
Dray’s eyes went wide. In those three words, Lacy vaulted from holy mission to cherished love. He dropped his forehead to Vike’s, his whispered breath both a prayer and a vow. “Sleep, warrior. I’ll guard your lady as my own, will lay my life down for hers.”
He tried to swallow the gratitude but the pain faded away and he had no thoughts. The memory of Lacy’s kiss lingered in his heart.
Chapter Twelve
Sela Leaped into the courtyard and headed toward the medi-room. It was empty, sterile and cold, but the scent of blood hung like perfume. Clad in disposable scrubs still holding the creases from a fresh package, Nomad stood in the doorway between the surgical room and a recovery area. Her men preferred healing in their apartments, in their own beds. But Lacy stayed in Vike’s place. He wouldn’t sleep there.
“He’s been asleep about two hours.”
“We have no time for the healing sleep. He must Wake.”
Nomad snarled. “God damn it, Sela, his fucking internal organs were exposed. Another two inches and it would have cut him clean in two. This place was a bloodbath just trying to close him. Let the man sleep. He’s earned it.”
“He has, but our need is greater. For the first time in a millennium, we know Samael’s plans and must find all of the Scion, both living and dead, to prevent the final attack on Paradise. Armageddon approaches and I need every Forsaken now.”
She stepped toward the recovery area but Nomad blocked her. She glared at his defiance. His eyes closed with resignation. “You’re filthy. Shower off first. An infection will just make it harder to Wake him.”
Although she could easily will herself spotless, Sela didn’t argue. The medi-room shower didn’t offer much privacy, but she had no worry over stripping down. The nude body was flawless in its design and beautiful in its billions of variations. The plain Ivory soap in the shower created a soothing lather as it mixed with the steaming water and worked the sore knots from her muscles. It was a rare luxury.
Shampooing her hair, she let her mind drift back, back to a time of innocence that had changed everything, back to when she and Michael had not been adversaries. She knew him, knew him as no other Vangeli did. When the Vangelus had been free to come to the Earthly plane, to mingle with the mortals, everything she knew warped.
Sexual desire, a flush never felt in Paradise, had ripened her body and, with Michael, she’d succumbed to the intoxicating lure. They romped and frolicked in the Blessed Garden, basking in each other’s solid form, in sleek lines slick with the sweat of lovers. She’d bathed in his attentions and discovered another human pleasure, love. But Michael had been drunk with lust, with sexual power. He’d turned to others, any other who would lie beneath him and rock until climax cascaded.
The blush of discovered passion in his arms had blinded her. She’d thought when he whispered forever he truly meant forever with no others. He’d broken her fragile heart and sired an unholy child on a human woman, an Irin that raped and killed and destroyed all that was beautiful. Just as Michael’s infidelity had destroyed her trust and her love.
Sela had never forgiven him, never would.
Tilting her face into the steamy spray, she refused to think about what she had sacrificed for this mission. Humankind was an experiment. She’d expected them to kill each other off long, long ago. But they hadn’t, they’d flourished. Numbers swelled from a few hundred thousand to billions in a mere blink of an immortal eye.
From their animalistic beginnings, they progressed, learned and coped. They loved and laughed, were cruel and kind, changed and remained true to His original vision. All of this thrilled her as a Vangeli but it couldn’t erase her longing for home. She’d lost count of how many millennia she’d been fighting. Her assigned duty was a trying one, but one she believed in with all her being. If it were possible for hatred to exist in her soul, she’d claim she hated Samael with a zealous passion. She would not let him win.
He’d had seven hundred and eleven soul-boxes hidden beneath the Dome of the Rock, but none had been Scion. She’d walked those stacked walls, noting each void and empty space, knowing that he’d removed those Scion boxes and had them hidden well. There were sixty-three missing containers. The number stunned her. Had any of them succumbed to his torture? How many Minions did he control in his bid for Paradise? Had any been Scionim?
The torture of the other souls, the range of pain he inflicted, from physical to mental, was almost beyond comprehension. She’d held each one, breaking his power and sending that soul to Barzakh, a soul sleep without pain, without time passing, with nothing but unconscious blackness. Most had been buried before the first Great Temple had fallen. The eons they’d suffered incited her. That so many had not broken their faith and bowed to Samael thrilled her.
She wrapped a thin medical gown around her body and entered the recovery room. Only a dim bulb burned beside the narrow bed. A plain white sheet was pulled to Vike’s waist. It served as complement to the dressing around his middle, thick padding peeking from beneath a pinkish-tan Ace bandage. His chest barely rose.
Awoken humans in a healing sleep took a breath about once every three minutes, with heart beats perhaps once a minute. He was still and lifeless, but he was here. She could heal him. Her chin lifted as her resolve strengthened. She wasn’t blind to her men’s pain. She knew how torturous this was for them. It wasn’t painless for her either.
To repair Vike’s body in mere moments took strength, not just of muscle but of the spirit. As creation flowed from her to him, he would relive his First Death, as well as every death he had caused. With her men, that could mean thousands of deaths compacted
into one agonizing moment. She shared that pain, experienced it with them, felt every cut, burn, stab or break. The torture was so great, she rarely used this power, wouldn’t use it now except the Forsaken were down to a handful of warriors. Each and every one was vital.
Nomad sat in a sagging recliner, a well-worn book in his lap. He laid the volume aside, and stood. “I’m going to go upstairs, get a shower and clean up.”
Sela knew he couldn’t bear to watch the agony that was about to unfold. She nodded once. Privacy was best. She waited until the door closed and he disappeared from the window glass. She turned back to Vike.
He’d come to her in a rage, long braided beard crusted with his own blood and vengeance sparking in his eyes. Her fingers trailed along his now smooth jaw. So passionate, so filled with emotion, he was the fieriest of her warriors. Although he could be impetuous and impulsive, he knew no fear.
“Sweet Eiríkr, I would let you rest as you so justly deserve, but I need you, my warrior. I need your strength, your passion. Forgive me your hurt, but this is for the best.”
Words in his tongue, from his time, flowed from her quivering lips. She could never let her warriors see her like this, regretful and sentimental. They needed a leader and she had been that, would always be that. But sometimes she missed the intimacy of a friend.
Gabe was so far away. Here on Earth, Zale was the closest thing she knew, but even he was standoffish and cold. They both knew why, but it didn’t lessen the ache she carried. Lacy made Vike smile, brought out a tenderness in him Sela had never seen. It only increased her own longings.
Thrusting off the emotion, she swiped her eyes and steeled herself. She had no choice. The Awoken needed him. But he was so large, it was physically difficult to align their bodies. She tucked the thin gown between her knees and climbed onto the bed, straddling his hips.
His skin was cool, too cool, with the slight odor of the medicinal soap Nomad used to clean the blood from his body. She closed her eyes and drew from her core, from the immense well of power granted her at her creation. Her skin crackled with near electric energy and her blood sped with force. With all her Vangeli might rushing, she leaned forward and took his mouth, giving him the Breath of Life.
