Lucille had a shift at the bar tonight. When she told him, he demurred, but she insisted on taking it. “I want a life after this.” She stroked Jay’s chest, and he smiled up at her. She leaned on one elbow above him. She loved him like this, easy and peaceful in a postcoital haze. He’d taken her like a madman, gone at her last night, but today he treated her like she was precious and delicate. “I can’t let the bar go yet. I’ve worked so hard at making it what it is that I want to carry on living there until the last possible minute. I don’t want Drew there for now, so I’m taking the shift.”
“There’s still a Sorcerer at large,” he reminded her.
“And Ryan. What about him?”
His eyes shuttered. “Ryan could be the Sorcerer. He’s certainly involved. He’s also missing. We didn’t find a trace of him there last night, but Sorcerers can do that—change their psi presence. If he’s innocent, the Wheelers might have killed him or just kept him away. Sorcerers can do incredible things, at the very least disguise who they are. They scare me shitless.”
She laughed. “What, you? My big bad vampire?” She ran her hand down his body and touched his cock bar, enjoying his responsive shudder.
“Never mind. Maybe I’m not so scared.” He smiled. “I don’t deserve you, but now that I have you, I’m not taking any chances. I’m coming with you tonight, and I’ll ask Nathan if he can come. The team is tracking down the Sorcerer.”
“So you’re satisfied?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He lifted up to deliver a lick to her breast. “Not at all. But I’ve cleared the scum from the neighborhood.”
“What happens now?” She had to work to keep her concentration. “Not to the Sorcerer or the team, but the ranch?”
“I don’t know.” Resting his chin on his palm, he gazed at her. “They might say the Wheelers had to leave, or that they were killed by passing itinerants. Or maybe they just up and left. Then someone else can buy it.”
“But not us.”
“No. Not us.”
They were leaving. She didn’t hide her sorrow, because he’d know she was concealing something from him. Quitting her first home would be a wrench for anyone. “How did you feel when you left?”
“Relieved,” he said sharply. “I’d made such a mess of everything. Killing a man in a duel, so I had to go abroad. That gave me the opportunity to get lost in Europe. I disappeared, and I had so few non-Talented friends by then that nobody asked after me. The title passed to my heir, my brother’s son, and life went on.”
“You didn’t mind losing your title?”
“No. I could move more anonymously without it. I’d amassed a private fortune, enough to keep me until I grew it to a bigger one.” He grinned, his eyes bearing a faraway gaze. Looking back into the past. “I became Austrian for a while. I liked that. It’s a beautiful country. Then I returned in time for the Crimean War.” His mouth quirked up in a wry grin. “Lucky me.”
“You became a soldier?”
“Then an airman. I enjoyed flying. Always wanted to be a flying shape-shifter.”
They laughed, in total accord. She couldn’t have imagined feeling so happy. When her phone gave a ping as its alarm went off, they got up together, showered together, and dressed together. Then they took his car to work.
When Missy asked why Lucille was smiling, she hadn’t been aware that she was. It seemed a natural consequence of spending time with this scary, powerful, immensely tender man.
Today he joined her on her side of the bar. More people arrived tonight, but on a Thursday some would be anticipating the weekend. Tomorrow they’d have more customers at the bar. She checked the lunchtime records on the laptop they kept under the bar. She arranged for the records to upload to the cloud because she didn’t trust the ancient and battered laptop, but somehow the thing persevered. It would probably last longer than her sophisticated model upstairs.
Good takings at lunchtime. People had probably come to discuss the happenings at the ranch. They wouldn’t know yet, but she stayed quiet while she listened.
Texans loved gossip, even when it involved bad news, although they preferred the good. Someone had seen the police cars outside the main entrance to the ranch. The guests had gone home early, and no new guests had arrived. The local police captain was there, but he was unusually silent. Normally he was one of the biggest gossips in the town, whether he was allowed or not. He particularly enjoyed playing games where he didn’t actually break his confidences, but from his expressions anyone could guess what he’d learned.
Even the mayor had arrived. While she couldn’t regret the beer consumed, she’d wanted to forget the Wheeler ranch just for a short time. She should have known better.
“Your place is nearby,” someone said to Jay. “Didn’t you hear anything?”
Jay shrugged. “Nothing. I’m on the wrong side, in any case. The main entrance to the Wheeler place is on the other side to mine.” He glanced at Lucille. “We weren’t paying much attention to the outside world.”
Soft sounds of “Aw” and murmurs greeted his statement and his smile.
“You’ve tamed our outlaw rancher,” Missy said.
“I wouldn’t say tamed,” Lucille said, without thinking of the consequences of her remark. At least the consequent joshing got their minds off the Wheeler ranch. They didn’t get back to the subject for half an hour. Instead they took a circuitous route through the upcoming game. The evening passed without serious incident, although Jay had to eject a couple of men for coming on to Missy too strong. His technique was swift, unspectacular, and effective, and gained him grudging respect from some of the men present.
Lucille and Jay decided to sleep upstairs in her apartment rather than go back to the ranch. Lucille wanted to spend at least one more night in the place that had been home to her since her father had…died.
Jay helped her pack her family albums in a storage box. “You can’t take those with you, not at first.”
She turned to him with a smile. “But I can scan them and upload them to an online site. I can still have them, Jay.”
He gazed at her, his dark eyes soft with laughter. “So you can. You’re far better with modern technology than I am. That never occurred to me. My childhood memories are in a stately home in England. It’s open to the public, so I can see it when I want to. I can’t take them with me. I’ve learned to leave most things behind. But I don’t want that to happen with you.”
For the first time in days, she saw trouble on his face, a slight frown marking the skin between. He didn’t sound as sure as he had last night, but he would say no more.
“Don’t you want to come with me?” She swallowed. “I don’t want to go. I wanted at least twenty more years here.”
“By then Talents might have come out of the closet.”
Anticipation sparked in her, sending champagne fizzles through her limbs. “Do you think they will?”
“People have been talking about it forever, but in the last century it’s become more serious.” He handed her a battered blue volume that held precious records from Drew’s babyhood. She laid it carefully in the box. “New technology’s made it harder than ever to remain undercover. We weren’t always so deeply hidden, you know. That’s why legends still circulate about dragons and vampires. For the last six hundred years, we’ve hidden ourselves. Authorities are probing too intensely for us to keep it up forever, but I’m happy as I am.” He took her shoulders, turned her around to face him. “More than happy.”
He seemed to be trying to convince himself.
When they went to bed, their lovemaking was perfunctory somehow. Lucille told herself he was bound to be exhausted and probably shaken by the events of last night, although he’d never admit it to anyone. She curled up in his arms and slept.
In the morning they decided to take her stuff to the ranch. Easier to store. He’d put it with his possessions that he kept in a storage depot in Colorado. After they left, the moving company would arrive and pack for
him.
That was it. He’d said he liked it here. He didn’t want to go any more than she did. They’d have each other, and that had to be worth it—didn’t it?
JAY WALKED OUT into the daylight and tipped his hat back so he could stare up at the blue sky. Some vampires were sensitive to light, but he reflected, slipping on his sunglasses, he’d never had that trouble. Once he’d kept out of the sun, believing the legends, but someone had forced him to walk out naked, and he’d discovered the truth for himself.
A sunburned dick was fucking painful, though.
Now he leaned against his car door, despite the morning sun that had made it uncomfortably hot. He watched Lucille bid her staff good-bye and turn around to cross the road to him. Even with no makeup, wearing ordinary jeans and an old T-shirt, she was the most desirable woman he’d ever seen. He still doubted his ability to keep her happy, but he wanted to try. He’d do everything he could to care for her, cherish her. When he arrived in Taken, he’d never imagined he be thinking in terms of forever, and now here he was, happy to share his future with somebody else.
Lucille turned away from her cook and the two day-shift workers and pulled a pair of sunglasses from her pocket before lifting her head and smiling at him. Here she came. Maybe he’d make her wait for the promise of a kiss he could see in her eyes.
A veranda-like shelter fronted the bar. With the raised wooden decking, they seemed a regular fixture around here. Good for the sun and the rain. Out of the boutique next door strode a man, tall and dark-haired, carrying a brown paper bag.
The hairs on Jay’s forearms stood up. Something was wrong. The man turned his head so Jay saw his face.
Shit, fuck. Ryan Wheeler.
“Hey!” Praying his yell would distract Wheeler long enough for him to get to Lucille’s side, Jay set off across the road. He came to an abrupt halt right in the middle. A car swept past, the driver giving him the finger, but apart from registering the movement, Jay took no notice. Wheeler had a knife, one that gleamed in the bright sunlight.
Before Lucille could move, Wheeler grabbed her, pinning her against his body, and held the knife to the side of her throat, the point grazing the spot where the carotid artery pulsed beneath her skin.
Jay froze.
Ryan fixed Jay with an icy blue glare. “It’s silver. But that isn’t the point, is it? During the day you’re as vulnerable as anyone else, you people.”
“You people?” Jay knew better than to smile. How far away was Ryan? Ten feet, fifteen? He sent an urgent message, a note of alarm no Talent would ignore. He received an acknowledgement. Nathan wouldn’t get here in time. Nobody would.
Except him. He’d die for Lucille, but what would be the point of that? No, he had to live for them both.
“You’re abominations,” Ryan said. “She’s allergic, did you know? You all are. That was my first clue.”
He’d gone mad. Nobody but a madman stood in the street at ten a.m. spouting recriminations, holding a silver blade to a woman’s throat.
Jay met Lucille’s clear gaze, but when he tried to contact her mentally, he bounced off a wall harder than diamond. Not her work. Ryan had flung a mental shield around them both. “You’re the Sorcerer.”
“Don’t call me that!”
Jay watched helplessly as the blade dug a little farther in. Her skin turned red and swelled around the tip, like obscene acceptance. He caught a movement at one end of the row of stores. Someone was there, watching. Please let it be the sheriff, or another Talent, not one of Ryan’s colleagues.
Ryan kissed Lucille’s temple fiercely. “I had her. She was mine; she would have been safe. Even if her brother was a pervert, it didn’t mean he’d transmitted his poison to her. I never, ever saw any sign in her. We can still work something out. I can make it right.”
“With your mind?” There was only one way to convert someone to a vampire, and no way to turn them back. What did Ryan think he could do?
Not that he mattered, because he was going to die.
“I can stop her getting thoughts, make her forget what she learned.”
Jay reserved a part of his mind for Lucille, trying to find a way in. Ryan Wheeler was scarily potent. Shielding the presence of half a dozen people from the trained Talents who approached the ranch last night took a frighteningly powerful mind.
Uncaring of who might be listening, Jay started to talk to him. He had to keep the channel of communication open, the link between them, and to keep him distracted, stop him driving that knife home. “Will she remember you, Ryan? Are you so potent? Listen, I can introduce you to people who will teach you how to do things you’ve never dreamed of before. There are others like you.”
“There’s nobody like me!” he screamed. He shot a spear of such pain that it spun Jay around, knocked him down. Lucky no more cars were coming. At least, it might not be luck. Someone could be blocking them. Jay could only hang on and pray. The pain paralyzed his nerve endings, stopped him moving so it sent him into a near trance, but he fought it, told himself he’d known worse. He had, but the helplessness was new.
He couldn’t even speak. Drool trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Then Lucille shifted, and Ryan released him from the thrall. Coughing, sucking in deep restorative breaths, Jay watched, the sensation returning to his limbs in shots of agony.
Ryan had her around her waist now, the blade still pressed against her carotid. Already her skin was reacting, swelling in a red blush around the tip of the knife.
“What do you want to do with her?” Jay said. He licked his lips, suddenly gone dry.
“Take her. She always wanted me. We’ll find peace together.”
Shit oh fuck, the man had turned. Completely crazy. A mad Sorcerer? Didn’t bear thinking about, but here he was facing one.
He was too far away to lunge for the bastard. If anybody in the bar behind her had noticed, they wouldn’t get there before Wheeler had slashed her throat.
Forcing him to act in the takedown, or maybe making him realize what he was had sent him insane. Sorcerers went through a vigorous training program from babyhood as much for their own sake as for the people around them. Wheeler hadn’t the benefit of that.
“Peace?”
A smile curved Wheeler’s lips, ugly and calculating. Jay only had one chance, just one because there was no reasoning with the guy.
As Wheeler drove the knife home, Jay put everything he had into his spring and went for broke. Two leaps took him to the decking and another to her side. As he swept Ryan Wheeler aside with one backhanded slice of his claws, a shot echoed, but after registering that neither he nor Lucille was hit, he ignored it. He tossed Ryan aside, barely recognizing the wound that bloomed in the man’s chest or the blue-shirted sheriff who rushed up to deal with the situation. Nothing mattered except for one thing.
The woman he loved was dying before his eyes.
“Don’t pull it out!”
Some prick was giving him orders now. Without looking up he said, “She’s allergic to silver,” and yanked out the blade as cleanly as he could. Her flesh was already closing around it, forced it deeper with the swelling that came almost instantly. Her breath came in short pants. Now Wheeler was rendered inactive, the barrier was gone, and Jay could join with her, give her his strength.
No time to move her, to get her to the specialists. The flash of metal caught his attention, but not in time to stop the stranger. The man plunged a syringe into her. If he weren’t preoccupied with keeping her alive, he’d have knocked the guy the length of the decking.
The man said, “It’s an EpiPen,” and Jay registered that at least her throat wasn’t swelling anymore.
It wasn’t going down either. The man came up on the other side.
“Doctor,” he grunted. “Keep your hands where they are. Don’t move them.” He had her wound pinched between the fingers and thumb of one hand, and the other supporting it, but blood still gushed over his hands, warm and slippery.
“Save her.”
“Anything I should know?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Shit, son, don’t start playing games with me. Is she a Talent like her father?”
For a brief second, Jay glanced up at the doctor and then back to Lucille. “Yes.” No time to do more than that flash of concentration that assured him the man was telling the truth.
“I’m Dr. Selby. Call me Harold.”
“I’ll call you God if you help her now.”
“She’s mortal during the day, right?”
“Yes.”
People were yelling. Jay ignored it.
“That won’t matter if we don’t get her stabilized soon. She’ll die before nightfall.”
“If we can keep her going until then, she’ll recover.” The doctor spent a second or two examining the situation. “I’ll hold the wound. You carry her. My surgery is about a hundred yards down the street, and I can close it for the day. Anybody with strep throat will just have to suffer, or hightail it to Houston.”
Relief swept through Jay, but not much. Through the delicate procedure of letting the doctor get into position while holding the wound together, Jay set all his concentration to that alone. Only when he got to his feet with Lucille in his arms did he take in the scene. Then only because he needed to assess the obstacles between him and the surgery.
A heap of dead Ryan Wheeler lay to one side, where his body had spun away. Jay didn’t know who’d shot him, and he didn’t care, but one thing Sorcerers couldn’t do was build themselves a ring of invincibility. In any case, Jay was concentrating on that defensive shield, keeping him and any other Talent in the vicinity away.
People gathered around, chattering, including Lucille’s chef, who had a cell phone in his hand.
“She’s not badly hurt,” the doctor said. “I’ll look after her.”
A man wearing a badge and carrying a gun—the sheriff, blue shirt marked with sweat—shouted and organized people, getting them out of the way. “Are you sure she’s not hurt bad?” He had his cell in his hand. “I got to call this in.”
The Thorndykes 1: Dispossessed Page 18
