Sundown & Serena

by Tara Fox Hall

  I didn’t hear the rest of what he said. I wasn’t even focused on him enough to be pissed off that he made it seem as if wanting to be with Lash was utterly disgusting. All I could think about was that Lash had been with Sar. More than once. Worse, he already wants her just like the rest of them do. I’d heard it in Lash’s words; he wanted her bad. He cared about her after knowing her for a few months, more than he’d ever cared about me, me who he’d known for years now!

  My anger reached a fever pitch at how Lash had treated me in the driveway. It was safe to say that his best-ever human lay was no longer me. I wanted to kill someone. If Sar ever asked Lash not to leave the country, he’d fucking just roll on his back and tell her sure, and was there anything else he could do for her besides that, like maybe kill Devlin. Bastard! Slimy no good bastard!

  “Sun, why are you so angry?” Danial inquired coolly, touching my arm gently with his hand. “You’re shaking with rage.”

  I went still, because under that cool tone was wrath, and also more coldness, coldness enough to stop my heart with an icicle dagger. This was Dev’s brother, with the same blood in his veins. Danial wouldn’t hesitate at all if he thought his Sar was in any kind of danger. He’d hurt me—hurt me bad—if he guessed how much I hated her right now.

  I tried to calm down. “It’s just that Sar seems happy with Theo. They went through so much shit to be together. I want their relationship to work. Lash is trying to split them up, I think.”

  “Is it really that, or that you are jealous?” Danial asked searchingly. “Jealous of Sar? That she is desired by all of us, and you, who looks so similar to her, are not? Or are you angry with her, that Devlin hurt you because you look like her, and you thought it unjust, and want her punished?”

  God, he seemed to be reading my mind. “I’m not jealous!” I said heatedly.

  “You surely are,” Danial said. “I know that particular tone in your voice. I’ve heard it often enough in mine this past year. But I’m warning you now, do nothing again to cause any more fights—”

  His grip tightened on my arm in a flash. I let out a cry of pain.

  “—or I’ll wait until Terian is away for an afternoon, and tell Devlin you are missing him.” His tone turned malicious, and dark as night. “I know the potion he probably used on you. All he needs to do is sing to you, Sun, and you’ll want him more than anything else, do anything he asks for without a thought.” He grinned widely. “And Sar has given him permission for oral sex with other women.”

  I jerked my arm free of his with a curse, and ran into the other room. I wiped at my angry tears as I listened to his feet on the stairs walking back to his study.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A few weeks later

  Where the hell was Terian? While he was not coming home tonight, he still hadn’t called to tell me the hotel where he’d be staying. Maybe it had slipped his mind in all the chaos. Terian was headed out alone on a trip he should have been going on with Theo. Now a trip that should have taken a day was going to be an overnight.

  Nagging doubt gnawed at me, that my fiancé had possibly had a setback. Last fall, Terian had finally done a little too much dark magic, and his waning tenuous control had shifted from his faerie half to his demon side. The effect had been all the more traumatic as the sudden shift had happened in the middle of sex. Sudden burning heat, taloned hands holding me down, and my lover’s fanged visage grinning down at me with red eyes of lust.

  Stop, Sundown. You know Terian’s father Titus took magical steps to stop a regression after he helped Terian find his way back. There’ll be warnings now, and you’ll never be caught by surprise like that again. And Terian’s sworn off the dark magic. He’s regained complete control.

  I wasn’t resentful of his being away overnight, even if I sounded like it. The reason for Theo staying home was the death of Devon, Theo’s only son, the little cougar everyone had loved. He’d been so happy all of the time, even when he got into things, and knocked over lamps, and made a mess. He had been the best of Sar and Theo. His loss had hit us all hard. Everyone had been crying at the funeral, even me.

  Sar and Theo had just buried Devon that morning. How horrified they’d both looked, and how lost. Sar had looked so old, and worn out. When I’d hugged her and told her I was sorry, for the first time I’d really meant it. She was a shadow of the happy woman she had been back in the spring, when I’d met her for the first time. She’d gained some weight after having the twins, and the years were showing on her, like they hadn’t before she’d given Lash her blood. But I’d heard that she was mortal now, that saving Lash from death had drawn the vampire taint from her blood and her body. What I’d seen had confirmed it.

  I called the main house from my cell, hoping to get Theo. No one answered. I swore, then put on my jacket, and drove over there. Going inside, I noticed spots of blood on the floor. There were also bloody footprints going down the stairs. I let out a shriek.

  “Sun?”

  It was Elle. She’d been crying.

  “What happened? Whose blood is this?”

  “Sar and Theo fought,” Elle got out, crying again. “He tried to force her to be what he was, but she said she loved Lash and she didn’t want to be a cougar.”

  I sat down and hugged her, thinking I was in a crazy world. Terian had told me Titus was breaking Theo and Sar’s famous true love bond. I guessed this fight was the end of them.

  At that moment, I finally put my envy of Sar to rest. Why had I ever been jealous of her, anyway? All the men in her life were so bad to her, so what if they wanted her? I didn’t envy her Danial, with his constant distantness and violent tendencies, or Theo, with his possessiveness and abusive way of shouting at her the minute he didn’t get what he wanted. And Devlin was just completely insane for her. Terian had told me tearfully one night in a drunken binge back last spring that Devlin had raped her not a week after Lash and I had been together, as soon as he had had the opportunity to get her alone where no one could help her. And that it hadn’t been once, but time after time. I pitied her, because even though she’d fought him tooth and nail the whole way this past year and a half, hell, since the day she first met him years ago, Devlin had still possessed her in the end. She’d had his child, she was Oathed to him, she was living with him at his castle, and I didn’t need anyone to tell me that no matter what might happen, Sar was never, ever going to get free of him.

  I was the lucky one, who should be envied. I had Terian, a man who was devoted to me, and despite what we’d gone through, he loved me. He loved that I was having his baby, and he hadn’t mentioned Sar to me once since he’d recovered his human self. There was only he and I now, and we were a family. Best of all, Devlin had forgotten me completely.

  Then Elle’s words finally fully registered. “She said she loved Lash?”

  “Yes,” Elle said sniffling. “She said she was in love with him, that she had saved him with her blood, and that he’d been going to make her weresnake like him, that she wanted him to—”

  God, she must really love him to say that. I’d liked him, wanted him, and even then, just his kiss with that forked tongue of his had scared me. Sar knew what it would mean to be turned, that he’d have to bite her, and how everyone would look at her after. She knew she’d lose Danial and Theo, and maybe even Devlin, though maybe she wanted that. So she must truly love Lash. Weird, but romantic and sweet in a way, too.

  “Will my mom be okay?” Elle asked. “She got away, I saw her teleport.”

  “Shh,” I said, hugging Elle. “Sar will be fine, Elle. She’s tough. A lot tougher than you or me.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  A few weeks later

  I had gone to Davy’s with the express purpose of giving Gary an invite to the wedding reception. He was one of my friends from way back, and I wanted him to be there. But when I got to Davy’s, the place was trashed. Worse, it was quiet; almost as quiet as it had been that night I’d first met Lash and Devlin. Instead of no one bei
ng around, there were broken tables everywhere, and unconscious forms laying around here and there, all men.

  I knew who had done it. His name was in bullet holes down one wall.

  I went to the back room with the pool tables, and there was Lash, at the far end of the room, sitting at a table. I hadn’t seen him since the spring. He looked much younger, but there was no mistaking it was him. He ignored me, smoking, and drinking heavily.

  I sighed, then went and sat down at the other chair at his table. “Tell me what happened.”

  “No,” Lash hissed, taking another swig of scotch.

  “Sar and you fought?”

  Lash looked at me in surprise, then anger. “How do you know my business? Does everyone already know she broke up with me? We just got together a week ago.”

  “Terian told me you two were an item,” I said flatly. “Remember Theo’s best friend? My fiancé? He saw you together one day last week in Hayden’s kitchen. He said she’d been making you breakfast.”

  Lash grimaced, and said nothing. He took another drink, finishing the bottle. He pushed it off the table, but it didn’t shatter when it hit the floor. He looked annoyed about it, but didn’t get up.

  I got up, walked to the bar, and got another bottle of scotch. I brought it back with a shot glass, and sat down.

  He poured himself most of the bottle, then made as if to hand it off. “You joining me?”

  “Sure.”

  He gave me a recriminating look. “You’re pregnant.”

  “One won’t hurt,” I said defensively. “I intend to drink during the wedding toast. Besides, the baby’s tough. He’s part demon, remember?”

  Lash made another grimacing smile, but he poured me a shot. We clinked glasses, and sipped. I hadn’t had anything strong in a long while. My eyes teared up almost immediately at the bitter alcohol taste, and I put down the glass. Serves you right for being a bad mom. Now pour the rest out when he’s not looking.

  “So what happened?” I asked again.

  “Why do you care?” Lash hissed, baring his fangs. “Who am I to you?”

  “Someone who cared about me when no one else did,” I replied. “Someone who saved my life, and got me out of town, when a madman was after me. I’m sitting here because you did what you did. I’m going to be a mother and a wife and I got a chance to, because of you. And you were more to me than that once, too, you ass.”

  Lash considered that, then threw his head back and took a long drink. I poured my shot remnant out discreetly on the floor, then pretended to do the same.

  “I didn’t do it for you, I did it for me,” Lash said, lighting up another cigarette. “I told you that. Go home to your demon fiancé. Leave me to my misery.”

  I stared at him, raising my eyebrows just a bit.

  “I thought if I could save just one,” Lash hissed softly, his flat eyes revealing nothing. “Maybe it would change things. Maybe I wouldn’t be damned.”

  “You aren’t damned.”

  “I am! Sar doesn’t want me because I’m a piece of shit killer! Everyone knows it! Everyone!”

  “She loves you.”

  “She doesn’t! She told me to stay away from her!”

  “Lash, don’t be an idiot! She left Theo for you—”

  “She didn’t! She left him because he attacked her!”

  “She did! Terian said she did, that he knew she loved you most of all her lovers! All of them!”

  “He’s wrong,” Lash hissed sadly. “She loved Theo and Danial, but not me. She told me she’d never be with me again. She told me to stay away from her.” Lash took a deep breath and let it out. “I’ve had enough, Sun.”

  I felt a cold chill. His next words were worse

  “I’m going to drink until I can’t feel anything anymore,” Lash hissed softly. “And then I’m going to finish it.”

  “Women get mad and say things they don’t mean! Don’t be an idiot.”

  “She shouldn’t have found me, and saved me! She should have stayed here, and I would have died, and that would have been that!”

  “But she didn’t! She loved you enough to almost give her life to save you—”

  “How do you know all this?” Lash hissed. “Titus said he erased the memories of anyone else who knew.”

  “He will, after the baby comes,” I said, patting my stomach. “But he can’t safely, until then. So I know what really happened, not the whitewashed version.”

  “It hurts too much,” Lash hissed, agony in each word. “It hurts too much to care for someone, and have them take themselves away from you. I had no idea it would still hurt this much. I’d forgotten how much it hurt.”

  “That’s always the same,” I said shrugging, thinking of Terian and myself, and the times we’d fought and broken up, and how glad I was that was over with now. “You must have hurt her too, with what you must have said to her when you fought.”

  “I know I did,” Lash said guiltily. “I feel awful for that, too. The things I told her...I didn’t mean them.”

  “So apologize.”

  “She won’t take me back,” Lash hissed in sadness. “She doesn’t want to be a snake for me—”

  “Did you ask her?” I interrupted.

  He shook his head.

  “Ask her, jerk,” I said. “You may be surprised. What do you have to lose?”

  “My dignity, my pride, and my self-respect. And that’s all I have left.”

  “So it’s better to die than to say you were wrong? Than to tell her you need her like that, and give her a chance to say she’ll do it?”

  “You’re young, you can’t understand! I’ve lost the one woman who maybe ever really loved me because of who and what I am! And there’s nothing I can do about it. She’s human and I’m not. I can’t not be a weresnake. And I can’t go back and erase the last hundred years! And what other woman do I have that’s my own, that belongs to me? None. Who else do I have that really loves me? Who else did I ever have? Who else will I ever have? No one! There has never been any woman for me like her. Not in my whole fucking life.”

  God, he sounded just like I did, back when I’d broken up with Terian. I reached out and took his hand in mine, making him start. “You aren’t alone,” I said softly. “I’m your friend, Lash. And I know for a fact she loves you more than her life. It doesn’t matter that you aren’t human, not to either of us.”

  Lash covered my hand with his, and squeezed. He gave me a sad smile. “It was okay for a long, long time to be alone, to have Dev, and nothing else. I stayed in this life so long for him, because I knew he was as lonely as I was, despite all the women he had throwing themselves at him. I knew he needed me with him, because a big part of the reason for his evil was he was so lonely. But he has his child now, and he’s got Sar. He doesn’t need me like he did. And I got a taste of something so sweet with her, I can’t go on living and never taste it again. I can’t go back to being alone, to being by myself again, to just fucking women when I get the urge and knowing they don’t care about me at all. Not after how being with her made me feel. Not after how she made me feel.”

  God, I knew what he was talking about. I’d felt the same way after loving Terian, and being loved by him. I understood right then that Lash loved Sar, loved her completely, and that she most likely loved him the same way.

  “Go home to Hayden,” I said, exasperated. “She loves you like you love her. Say you’re sorry, and that you need her as a snake. She’ll forgive you, and be with you like you need her to, and you can be happy—”

  “Get out,” he said curtly, not looking at me. “I don’t want you to be here when I do it. I’d rather you remembered me this way, not covered in blood. And there’s going to be a lot of blood Sun, I heal too fast now for there not to be.”

  “Lash, please,” I begged. “Don’t do this.”

  “Go home, Sun. There’s nothing left to say. I’ve made my decision. Respect it, and leave.”

  I got up, went over to him, and hugged him hard.
“Don’t do this.”

  He let out a surprised hiss, then hugged me back. “I wish you the best with Terian. I’m sorry for what I said to you that day at Danial’s house. I want you to know I never told anyone about us—not Sar, not Dev, no one. I wish I would have seen you get married. I’m glad you’re getting a happy ending.”

  “We can both have a happy ending, stupid! Come with her to the wedding! Stop being such an ass!”

  “I can’t,” Lash hissed, and then grinned when he realized what he’d said. “But think of me sometimes, okay? Maybe say a prayer for me, when Terian isn’t around to get hurt by it?”

  “Okay,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’ll go.” Gary’s invitation could wait. I had to get to a phone.

  Lash grabbed me hard, and gave me a deep kiss, stroking me with his tongue. It felt strange to me, just like before, but I made myself kiss him back.

  He drew back from me with a soft aroused hiss. “I’m mated to Sar, even though she said it was over. If I wasn’t, I’d ask to have you one last time right here, Sun. I remember how good it was with you. But you’re pregnant, and love Terian and so you’d probably say no, anyway.”

  “I’m engaged,” I said, giving him a smile. “Sorry.”

  Lash made a face, then sat me down on his lap, holding me. “I’m the one who is sorry,” he hissed gently. “I shouldn’t have left when you asked me to stay, or I should have taken you with me. I understand things better now, from knowing Sar. I’m sorry I didn’t give you the chance to try. It was easier to say I had to go, because I couldn’t face trying again and have it not work out with a human.”