by Scott, Talyn
By his need for revenge, Tare had long ago sealed his fate. A terrifying laugh left the Beast. “I remember being the last one inside your Bride. How does that feel, Tare?” More of Gage’s voice came through, taunting the dying vampire. “Though I must say you haven’t missed much, my own hand is a better lay than that boring fuck,” he whispered frighteningly. “Trust me. Killing her was an act of mercy, a blessing from me to you.”
“You blessed Clarice, as well, since you killed her so quickly,” Tare spat through a withering mouth. “Not wanting her to suffer. But I want your Azure to die slowly, you know?”
“Slowly, like the way you drank our female younglings?” A bellow of rage left Gage’s chest. “Enjoying the taste of their fear with every swallow?”
“Just as you’ve killed countless others,” Tare hissed brokenly. “After all, you’re well known in the immortal world as an expert torturer, aren’t you?” His heart was faltering. “Only…cowards…,” he panted roughly, “kill from…behind.”
“Only cowards stalk women and children,” he whispered and gave Tare’s heart an extra squeeze. “And even though there’s not much fun in a quick kill, your time on this earth is long past.”
Gage easily dragged him, now carrying Tare to the balcony away from her. Milky blood poured from his chest when Gage pulled his hand away with Tare’s beating heart in it. Tare bit back his howl of pain and forced himself not to bow his body, keeping himself stoic yet proud. He smiled brightly, right at Azure. A secret, chilling smile meant just for her. “I may not see your death, Azure Malloy, but you’re about to join me in hell.” He leapt back, freefalling for what seemed like an eternity before he landed with a definite thud on the low beachfront deck.
Without a backward glance, Gage ran straight for her, fierce animalistic sounds rumbling from his enormous body. Without a second thought, she sprinted to the left of him, ready to tear that vampire away from Sayer. Fear no longer registered. She shoved past the sofa while whirling past Will, muttering something entirely incoherent. Though she knew that it was something in the lines of she didn’t want to live without Sayer because that wouldn’t be living at all.
Bands of steel wrapped around her ribcage, squeezing painfully. “No, Gage. No!”
“Guess again,” Will said, breaking two of her ribs in his deadly embrace.
The anger coursing through Azure’s veins made her feel native, incredibly feral, temporarily numbing the pain. She kicked out right as Gage wrapped his massive forearm around Will’s throat, hauling him off her. A snap louder than a tree branch hit her ears and Will went down, one hand reaching out to her in utter longing. She didn’t have time to think about his death or the way he was about to end her life so easily as he did Elise’s. She needed to save Sayer.
Azure jumped back up, gasping through a sharper pain. Understanding one of her broken ribs may have punctured a lung. But the determination to help Sayer flooded her, yet Gage had other ideas. He picked her up with his mouth - the way a mother cat carries her kittens, propelling her with his body. She clutched her throat, feeling large teeth so hot, so powerful, she couldn’t imagine being on the receiving end of Gage’s bite. But they anchored her vulnerable neck without so much as nicking her while one of his powerful arms cupped her body. Azure was not a small woman, but next to this thing, she was minuscule.
In the next second, someone hit the brakes, slamming everything into slow motion. Sayer literally evaporated and a mammoth-sized, monochromatic tiger took his place, his slashing claws raking his attacker into broken shreds. Flesh and more of that opaque blood hit his fur in arterial spurts. Those wicked blue-fire flames from earlier erupted from the bits that were his fallen body and the tiger jumped high, aiming for the sea.
Azure heard a bitter, yet contented laugh swell from the ocean, certainly not Sayer’s.
“Vengeance rings true this night,” a rumbling male roared from the water just as Gage jumped high with her still in his mouth, aiming for his rooftop garden. “I, Ciaran, Alpha of Scotland claim your blood for the loss of my clan’s, and it tastes sweet upon my tongue!”
She braved a glance down, watching on as the blue flames became smaller, diminishing inside an enormous waterspout uncharacteristic for a clear night such as this. If the terrifying creature who centered it was Ciaran, she hoped she never, ever laid eyes on him again.
Azure tightened her arms around Gage’s broad neck, listening as a deep purr left his body and reverberated into hers. He eased his mouth from her throat. Her mind was unraveling, trying to assimilate everything that happened. And just like that. Ancient images began to surge within Azure, markings of a tribe long past, swirling inside her mind. A slow release of pain, a gentle wave of pleasure followed by welcoming warmth so much like a mother’s hand soothing her forehead as if she were still a child being lulled to sleep. Him. Gage was doing this. She fought the darkness, pushed it back with everything she had. “I want to see the sun come up,” she told the monster from her nightmares. And this time, he listened.
Chapter Nineteen
“Azure Blue, are you okay?”
The sound of Sayer’s rumbling voice threaded through her body, heating her in cold places, cracking another wall of fear that had settled around her heart. She looked around her mother’s old stuff. Gage had everything placed carefully in one of the penthouse’s many spare rooms. She sat on the floor while wondering why a grown woman, such as herself, took to hiding like a child during a storm.
“The door isn’t locked, Sayer.” A short burst of laughter left her. He could turn into a tiger whenever he damned well felt like it. “Like a lock would keep you out.”
He opened the door slowly, easing through as if she were a cornered animal he didn’t want to frighten. “I will respect your privacy in every way I can, Bride. If you want me to step back outside while you continue to work your mind through things, I will. I have all the patience you need.”
Apparently so, since she’d been holed up for four days.
“May I sit with you?”
“I still need some space,” she answered kindly, yet firmly.
“I’ve never hurt you. We’ve shared our bodies in the most intimate way possible and I never once hurt you…on purpose,” he qualified with a snort.
“I know you never will.” He always melted her, so she gestured for him to sit down, opening her eyes only to stare at her mother’s old quilt folded atop a box. Tiny blue flowers dotted the white cotton and a long piece of torn lace hung down. “I should have sewn that for her, made it look better, especially since it was on her deathbed.” A hard knot settled in her chest while he settled next to her, close to her, reaching out his hand and linking fingers with hers. She didn’t know why this was pouring out of her, but it was. “I was working too much at the time, getting work experience at a nearby convalescent home, holding everyone else’s hand while they died but my mother’s. Sure, I took care of all of her physical needs, but not her emotional ones. What kind of daughter was I? I selfishly avoided her because I could deal with everyone else dying, but not her. Just couldn’t deal. I don’t know how to climb over that shame. And I don’t know why I’m talking about it right now.”
“It sounds normal,” he whispered. “You held others hands that weren’t your mother’s because it was easier than letting go of the woman who brought you into this world. That’s how you dealt as you say. But think upon this, my Azure. Maybe you were the only one holding the others’ hands. Maybe their offspring or other familial relations weren’t there for them. Have you thought upon that?”
“Not really.”
He brought his lips to her temple, kissing it before he said, “Because you find it easy to hate yourself.”
“I used to put myself in the position of martyr quite frequently. I didn’t know how to stop. I sure don’t like it. But the night I nearly died in the Everglades” - the night she thought was a dream - “I wanted to change my ways, still helping others while making myself happy, too.”
“Are you going to stick with that plan?”
“If I can,” she said with a slight shrug, “Old habits and all of that.”
His voice dropped an octave, “Perhaps I should take to spanking you in the customary Were way.”
Considering how much she liked spankings, she replied, “It wouldn’t be much of a punishment if that’s what you’re going for.”
“I miss you in my bed, Azure.”
She missed them, too. She hadn’t wanted to leave this room.
Then, he decided to play Nick’s role as psychiatrist and totally change the subject.
“Females, I’m told, tend to need their fathers. I understand that you had none.”
She felt herself flinch at the conversational shift, couldn’t stop it. “My mother didn’t even remember his name or names since there was more than one possibility of sperm donors.” She gave him a sideways glance. “I think she was drunk, high, or maybe both. She sure liked her bottle.” One of the reasons they never had anything, since she drank their money away. “She only stopped drinking when the cancer worsened, right before she died.”
“So,” he said, holding their joined hands between them, “we have some things in common.”
She could feel him truly listening to her, drawn by deep-rooted feelings she was only beginning to understand. “Your parents?”
“I’m told, are dead. Though I never knew them,” he brought his voice to a low whisper, and she could feel his indignation rising. “I was imprisoned in a breeding facility.” He swallowed, stalling out for a long moment. She couldn’t look at him, didn’t know what to say. Her complaints palled in comparison to that uttered sentence, and her shame grew. “I am half Habaline. My mother was a Species Vampire and werewolf mixed blood.”
“T-they can mix like that?” Over the past few days, everyone she’d recently met had visited her. Coming to this very room to help her assimilate and answer any question she hurled at them, even the beautiful blonde woman named Tatum who, apparently, was the Alpha’s queen. She didn’t want anything, but to be Azure’s friend, talking to her for hours with a sleeve of saltine crackers in her hand as she fended off her morning sickness.
They even brought in Nick to watch a movie with her. He thought she was having a rough day over her mother’s death. Clearly, he knew nothing of these other species, and she was happy for him.
“Species and Habalines do not find it problematic to breed in that way. The moon governs werewolves since their bodies are celestial. More, uh” – he tilted his head, thinking – “what would be the human word?”
“Particular?” She offered.
“That will fit. Particular.” He drew his knee to his chest and settled his free hand on it. “It is difficult for werewolves or Were beasts to produce offspring with anyone other than their true mates. A rarity if it happens. But it does. You’re proof of that, Azure Blue. I’m so grateful that you were born.” He brought their hands to his lips, kissing her knuckles worshipfully. “Not only are you a given Bride to my Species blood, you are my Beast’s celestially given mate. Just as you now belong to Gage, as well. Perhaps, you don’t actually understand what that means, but in time, you will.”
“Werewolves,” she muttered, shaking her head dismally.
“Why did your mother name you Azure when you have extraordinary, golden eyes?”
She gave a derisive snort. “She said the sky was so blue overhead that it was her way of memorializing the day.”
“Hmmm.”
“You don’t believe it, either.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Maybe she was so blue, you know, so depressed on the day I was born that she couldn’t name me anything but Azure.”
“I definitely do not believe that.” He rubbed his thumb over her inner wrist, stroking her pulse point.
“Then what?”
“I’m thinking more in the lines of your father,” he offered simply. “That your mother really knew the male who procreated you.”
“Sayer, I’ve never heard of a man named Azure.”
“Probably not,” Gage answered, misting in next to her while flashing his otherworldly blues, “but his eyes could have been. There’s a possibility that your mother thought more of him than she admitted. Maybe, she knew who your father was from the beginning. Those stories about her binge drinking and whoring, lining up too many candidates to narrow down your biological father were, in all likelihood, a farce. One she concocted to spare you. She didn’t want you in our immortal world – your true world.”
With his words, he straightened her spine, layering her backbone right when she needed it. Gage had skipped work, stayed with her all day - day after day - as she dealt with what had happened. He’d sat on the floor with her. Fed her slices of fruit and soft cheeses, eased chicken broth between her trembling lips and told her about his entire life – the good parts and the bad. By what she’d heard, he held nothing back. Even the part where he had thought he loved the woman named Clarice, and the queen named Tatum. But realized none of those feelings came close to what he now felt for her. He said that love had never touched his heart until he held her in his arms. Just yesterday, he’d said, ‘I won’t hold my heart back any longer. I cannot slow it down in order for your human sensibilities to catch up. Pull from your Were side, Azure. That side draws from the love I have for you. I love you, Azure. I have to say it aloud now. Every damned day, because it’s true’.
She curled her fingers around his, still marveling at how much larger Gage was than her, and pulled his hand onto her lap alongside Sayer’s. They fit. No matter their genetic makeup, they were a family. Azure needed to hear more about Sayer in order to understand those shadows lurking in his eyes. “So, you were imprisoned?”
“By what humans would refer to as a mad scientist.”
“Maybe in movies, but in real life that person would be pure evil.”
“Evil? Yes, Azure Blue. I’ve stared evil in the face.” He cupped her cheek and kissed her tenderly as Gage nuzzled her shoulder. When he pulled back, he admitted wearily, “I still sense your fear. It burns my tongue like acid. I don’t like this feeling between us, this distrust.”
Distrust for him was something she didn’t feel at all. But anyone who could change into an animal while keeping a silver dagger through his chest was a force to be reckoned with. “Keep talking. Just tell me more about you. Are you truly twenty-one?” She understood that Gage was centuries old, maybe Sayer was, too.
“Yes. I am.” He paused a moment, before offering more. “In the facility that bred us, we trained as mercenaries and readied for an immortal war. The pureblood Habalines mated the females in order to increase their army. Mostly males were born. I haven’t any inkling of the reasons behind that, but we were never allowed around females anyway. Not even our mothers.”
How cold and desolate, she couldn’t imagine living in such a manner. “So your old life consisted of training to kill others.”
“Other immortals,” he corrected, “from an early age on, yes. The night the vampires took you from me, I had never incurred immortal fire. If it weren’t for that, I could have killed those Species easily.” His broad chest puffed out. “On the balcony, I absorbed those age-old Druid spells into my body so I could dissimilate those wielding it.”
“Absorbing them when that vampire held you with his dagger?” That must have been excruciating, she thought.
“Yes. They are all dead. I am a worthy protector for you, Bride. And now, if needed, I can wield immortal fire.”
“But we’ll keep that to ourselves,” Gage interjected. “No need advertising that special skill, okay?”
“Good idea,” Azure said, “Yes, uh, Sayer, both of you are worthy protectors.” Still, she couldn’t think about being someone’s mate or Bride while living for an eternity. “And, um, you were never around females until this Ciaran freed you?” Ciaran, the monster in the ocean who absorbed
the immortal fire Sayer threw down. “When, approximately, were you freed?”
“During the time you were in Scotland.” At her gasp, he added, “When your dreams began. Of…monsters, as you called them, chasing you. Somewhere our paths crossed there. It started your cycle in the female werewolf way. You went into heat.” She bowed her head, looking at the floor, though still listening. “I am your male. The one you’ve received in your body. When you think upon me as a monster, it stills my blood, making my heart full of sludge.”
“No wonder Nick,” she stalled out, thinking about how Nick consoled all of those women Sayer had sex with. Obviously, he had a lot of backed-up energy to exude.
“Nick?”
“Never mind.”
“I would like to know what you’re thinking, please.” His gazed dipped to hers, his eyes now glittering like the desert sun. There was nothing human inside Sayer. Nothing. But his heart was bigger than most of those who were human. “This honesty between us should feel right.”
“Okay, well, Nick consoled the women you one-timed.”
“What is this one-timed?”
“Sexed and dumped,” Gage cut in.
“Ah.” He shook his head. “I don’t want you to feel. Hmmm.”
“Jealous,” Gage filled in, understanding Sayer’s way of thinking.
“Yes, jealously is painful. But in all honesty, I tried to rut females many times. It didn’t happen for me. From what I now understand, after I had encountered you somewhere along the way in Scotland, my Beast and my Species recoiled from those women. I’m glad that you were my first, my only.”
“But they remembered -”
He placed his fingertips on her lips with his free hand. “They remembered something wonderful that never happened because, don’t run, okay?” He tightened his grip on hers. “Please, don’t stir me up by running.”
“I vote you don’t run, Love,” Gage agreed. “I’m a little edgy from lack of sex.” He raised a horny eyebrow, sucking that lush bottom lip of his between his teeth. “The full moon is high.” His eyes flashed again, the ones denoting his werewolf. It was staring right at her. Predator and prey. Hunter and hunted. “Soon it will be overhead.”
