Midnight Ash (A Blushing Death Novel)

by Sabol, Suzanne M.

  Patrick grimaced at Danny’s flaunting confidence, glaring at the werewolf with a flash of violence in his lovely dark eyes. He wanted to hurt Danny, maybe even me for that swagger.

  “She thinks she’s protecting us, if something happens to her,” Alex snapped in disgust from her perch on the sofa arm. “I think we can rule out the Board here in the States.” Alex started strategizing as she hopped gracefully to her feet and paced her own frustrated line in the floor.

  “Patrick?” she asked as she reached in the top drawer of Patrick’s desk and snatched a cigarette out. She flipped the stick up to her lips and lit the end as she resumed pacing back and forth across the floor. Her eyes were cast down as she took in a long, slow drag of nicotine. Suddenly, she stopped pacing, looked up, and exhaled toward the ceiling.

  “Patrick!” she snapped when he didn’t answer. Her voice was sharp and agitated, finally catching his attention.

  Patrick’s glare was filled with wrath. My gut churned with his confusion and anxiety as his control wavered.

  “Alex,” I whispered in caution. She whipped her head around and glared at me. I nodded for her to get out before Patrick killed her. Even if it was by accident. Patrick would never forgive himself for killing her in the heat of the moment. She grabbed Danny’s arm and started tugging.

  “Hey,” he grumbled as he glanced over his shoulder at me.

  “Go,” I ordered in a hushed tone.

  Danny followed Alex, dragging his feet with every step out. I could see in his expression that he didn’t want to leave but he still followed her.

  “Come on, big boy, you can show me those big arms for a few minutes,” Alex quipped with unfiltered annoyance as she escorted him out.

  The door slammed behind me.

  Patrick stood as still as stone with his eyes fixed on me, fists tight at his sides and his jaw in a granite line of anger, hiding those luscious full lips from view.

  “What’s your problem?” I asked with frustration bubbling around the edges of my words. They would be safe, his entire colony, the city. They would all be safe. I got to my feet and squared my shoulders as I slammed my hands down on my hips. What exactly did he want from me for fuck’s sake?

  He glared at me, his dark eyes penetrating into my being like a searchlight making my heart race and my body tense. Patrick said nothing as I stared him down, narrowing my eyes on him and letting him see my anger. The push of his power against me was usually like a cool stream. Somehow his anger had manipulated it to something static and more frigid. I could taste his anger, like dry ice on my tongue.

  “What?” I asked, exasperated more than anything else.

  “I don’t know what to say to you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You are giving up. Do you think we can’t protect you? Do you think I would be able to function if I lost you?” he asked, placing both hands flat on the desk to support his weight as his dark eyes bore into me. His voice was pleading and unsure. My breath caught in my throat as his agony caught me off guard. I was prepared for jealousy and for the anger. I wasn’t prepared for the quiet desperation that filled him, radiating out like a cancer.

  I stepped around the desk and caressed his cheek with my shaking hand. He was always so cool and in control, hiding his emotions from me while maintaining the confidence of the entire colony. Everyone relied on him for that cool confidence, even me. He was getting better all the time too, keeping more and more from me. Sometimes I forgot I wasn’t the only one worried.

  I trailed my fingers across his cold skin. He hadn’t eaten yet. He looked up at me with anguish-filled eyes and lips that had disappeared in a grim line across his face. His brow was furrowed, waiting for me to say something to reassure him that I hadn’t, as he put it, given up. I hadn’t given up but I wasn’t one to shirk my responsibilities. Patrick had become my responsibility along with Alex, his colony, Danny. I would make sure they all survived if I wasn’t there to protect them. I had to make him see that and understand.

  I kissed him on the cheek and ran my hand through his dark, coarse hair, relishing the feel of it through my fingers.

  “I haven’t given up,” I whispered with a resolute smile. “I just need to know that you, Alex, and everyone else that’s important to me, will be taken care of if the worst happens.”

  A hot tear streamed down my face. GOD DAMN IT! I mentally stomped my foot in protest. I hated crying. I took a deep breath to steady myself.

  Patrick brushed my cheek with the pad of his thumb, wiping the tear away. He raised his thumb to his face and stared at the tear resting in a perfect drop as if it was something foreign, precious. I suddenly needed him to touch me. I wanted him to remember the feel of my skin and my scent.

  “Promise me something,” I whispered.

  He nodded, slipping his thumb in his mouth and sucking the salt of my tear from his skin.

  “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid or that you won’t let Danny do anything stupid if something does happen to me.”

  He opened his mouth to protest but I silenced him, pressing my hand over his full lips. I needed him to listen and really hear me.

  “Listen! I’m not oblivious to the odds here and you shouldn’t be either.” This emotional bullshit would kill me if the big bad ninja didn’t. I wasn’t built for all the drama. It left me feeling drained and off kilter, unsure of myself. I couldn’t hesitate in any way or she would kill me, of that I was certain.

  He nodded as he cupped my face. “I can’t speak for the pup but you have my word.” I heard his voice shake and my gut tightened in response to that small, almost infinitesimal, quake in his voice. “You’re precious to me,” he whispered. His dark eyes met mine with pain lighting them from the inside out. He hadn’t said that he loved me, not yet. But as I searched the depths of his gaze I knew that even if he never said it, he was mine and I was his.

  He called for Alex and Danny to come back in and I turned away from the desk, wiping my face. You tend to lose all credibility with vampires if you cry. Alex was a soldier and soldiers don’t cry.

  Alex opened the office door and filed back in with Danny in tow looking confused and concerned.

  “Can we proceed now?” Alex asked with an air of irritation making her pixie-like voice sharp.

  “Now, if it isn’t the Board, then who? Who are your enemies, Patrick? And how much do they hate you?” Alex asked.

  “I don’t know, really,” Patrick answered, shaking his head. “Ethan was always the one out front. I’d assumed that no one noticed me next to him.”

  “Who were Ethan’s enemies?”

  “Alex,” he said with a heavy breath of exasperation. “He was over 400 years old. There were more than a few.”

  “Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way,” Danny offered. The entire room stopped as if my dead grandmother had appeared from out of the ether dancing the can-can naked.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, trying to break the tension that had seeped into the room.

  “Well, most of the Pack disputes are territorial,” he added. He didn’t get to finish whatever he was about to say before Alex cut him off.

  “Look, Pooch, vampires aren’t werewolves—”

  “Wait,” Patrick hissed, his eyes focusing on everything and nothing as his back straightened. He sat forward in his chair, leaning his forearms on the desk before him. He’d caught onto something and I knew it. I could feel his excitement brimming beneath the surface as it fluttered in my gut. He wasn’t hiding from me anymore and that meant more to me than whatever idea had materialized in that brilliant, scheming brain of his.

  He was quiet for a long moment while we all waited on pins and needles. He stood and circled the desk, propping himself on the edge of the deep mahogany frame like a college professor in the middle of a lecture.
He leaned back with his hands flat on the desk behind him, with a twitch tugging at the corners of his very kissable lips.

  “You could be right, Daniel,” he said and I knew what that had cost him to give even that inch to Danny. “Darshan expressed a considerable interest in taking over Ethan’s holdings here in Ohio when the transition was . . . How did he put it? Still in contention,” Patrick snarled. “He wasn’t happy either when I declined his generous offers of servitude.” He smirked at me with that clever, I’ve-got-him grin.

  Things were starting to look up, even if it was only speculative. We had an idea, a lead to run with and in the end that was better than nothing. I felt like I was getting something accomplished instead of just spinning my wheels without traction. I was tired of waiting for that ninja bitch to come and get me.

  “Who’s Darshan?” I asked, taking a seat next to Danny on the black velvet couch and settling in.

  “Darshan is the ‘King’ of the Pennsylvania territory, running his operations out of Pittsburgh,” Alex said as she crossed her arms over her tiny, pert breasts with a scowl on her exotic heart-shaped face.

  I don’t think her displeasure had anything to do with Danny. I think she was more upset that she hadn’t thought of the territorial issue herself.

  “Darshan is not as old as Ethan was when he died. I believe he’s only 250 or so years old,” Patrick said. I did notice how he’d phrased that sentence. Ethan hadn’t died. I’d killed him and for some reason, Patrick was having a hard time admitting that to himself or to me. I caught Alex’s gaze at his words and she tilted her shoulder up in a quick shrug. Great! Just fucking great!

  “What’s his story and why is he so bent on getting your territory?” Danny asked, oblivious to the silent conversation going on between Alex and me.

  “Darshan came from the Kingdom of Cayor in modern-day Senegal. There, he was a King. That—I believe—is why he calls himself King now. Some of the Old World vampires refer to themselves as Kings. Most do not. It is our American spirit perhaps but some of the Board members see him as an upstart for this.”

  “Why haven’t they taken him in hand?” I asked. That would’ve been the first thing I did.

  “He has a benefactor,” Patrick said, glancing at Alex. “He was brought over to the Americas by the French on a slave ship and sold on the auction block. I’ve heard that he lived for several years after arriving in America on a plantation in Southern Georgia until he escaped. This is all speculation, however. Only one person has heard his true story,” Patrick said, completely holding his audience—me—in awe.

  “The story goes that he was discovered by Arthur one cold night in the middle of winter somewhere along the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border, freezing and close to death. Arthur was lonely and found that having a companion suited him.

  “Pennsylvania was a gift of sorts from Arthur some years ago,” Patrick finished.

  “So, this Arthur guy made himself a bodyguard?” Danny asked.

  “Of sorts,” Patrick said, expertly avoiding the question.

  “Ohhhh,” I said with a dawning realization. Alex winked at me with a smirk on her pert lips. “Arthur took Darshan as a guard and a companion,” I said, making air quote gestures. “All right, so this Darshan is really close with Arthur. Maybe we can use that to our advantage?” The wheels in my head were starting to turn. My blood thundered through my veins like a rampaging beast. I had a lead. A lead was good, great, actually.

  “Why would he be after Dahlia?” Danny asked.

  “He’s trying to rebuild his kingdom,” I said in a lost voice.

  “What does that have to do with you?” Danny asked, looking around the room from solemn face to solemn face.

  “We should get Dean here,” Alex muttered after a long moment of silence. She grabbed the phone as the gravity of the situation set in around the room.

  “Wait,” Danny said. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked with a panicked edge to his voice. He jumped to his feet, his power radiating out from him in a warm rush of air.

  I got to my feet, too. I didn’t feel like sitting anymore. I wanted to get up and move, do something.

  Danny peered down at me, searching for answers he didn’t understand. I gazed up into his hazel gray eyes to see a frightened little boy looked back at me.

  Alex asked Dean to get over to the club as soon as possible and put the phone back on the receiver.

  “What am I not getting?” he asked in a hushed tone. His voice was soft and intimate against my skin as his hand brushed my cheekbone.

  “Darshan is eliminating what he doesn’t understand and the only real unpredictable element in Columbus. Second—”

  Patrick stepped up behind me, his cool power like a comforting familiar wind, wrapping around me and seeping deep into my bones. His hands caressed up my back and rested on my shoulders. The chill of his power was more reassuring than I wanted to admit. I eased into his touch as he glared over my head to Danny.

  “He is counting on, at least me, being too distracted to fight back if she’s gone. I’m unsure if Darshan knows of the nature of Dahlia’s relationship with the wolves,” Patrick added in hushed tones.

  “If he doesn’t know,” Danny said with a bright devious smile lighting his face as his mind as his eyes flashed a rich amber, “we can use that.”

  “This is all under the assumption that Darshan is the contractor,” Alex hissed with a menacing glare, reminding everyone that our theories were just that . . . theories. “I know you want it to be Darshan so that there’s a face to the threat but we must be sure,” she said. “We have no room for error. We cannot afford to start a war unnecessarily.”

  She came around the desk, fire blazing in her chocolate brown eyes and a snarl curling her full lips. Our tender moment was fine for us but she wanted hard facts and a clear plan of action.

  “Dean will be here in ten minutes.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost eight,” Alex answered me.

  I looked up at Patrick and Danny with a question in my eyes.

  “We’ll be ready for Derek. We have time,” Danny said with a soft, playful smile.

  “See,” Patrick said as he pointed to the floor below. “Nova is already clearing the club.”

  I nodded. This was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 9

  We waited as Danny filled in his Gaoh. Dean glanced at Patrick with a grim expression on his face, his eyes narrowed on me for a split second—assessing—as he folded his arms over his muscular, bulky chest. I don’t know if he found in me what he was searching for. I wasn’t even sure why I cared but I did. He finally turned to Alex.

  “Is she worth it?” he asked as if I wasn’t even in the room. My chest tightened at his slight, at the silence from Alex.

  Why did he hate me? Granted, I could be a bitch, at times, and I could be stubborn, most of the time, but I was protective 100% of the time. Whatever his problem with me was, it was his problem, not mine. No matter how much it turned my stomach or angered that voice in the back of my head.

  Mine, she growled in the back of my mind.

  I wanted to disagree with her but I couldn’t. Heat flushed my cheeks as I watched him. He wanted an unbiased opinion to be sure of the risk, and of me. He’d get that from Alex.

  She didn’t glance my way or to anyone else before she answered. She never hesitated, nodding her head as she folded her arms in a tight knot beneath her perky breasts. Dean shrugged his shoulders and stood. Danny moved to flank him on his right. The two stood side-by-side like an imposing wall of heat, making my body tighten low in my belly and my skin flush as warmth surged through me. What is wrong with me?

  “Information? Kurt and I can go to Pittsburgh,” Dean offered, standing like an immoveable granite pillar in the center of the room
. He was calm, decisive, and spoke as few words as possible.

  “I think we’d all appreciate any help you would be willing to provide,” Patrick said in his most diplomatic tone. It hadn’t been that long ago that Ethan had tried to raise a demon to kill Dean and take over the city. Dean owed Patrick whether he knew it or not. Somehow, in the exchange and preternatural politics, Dean had managed to make it appear as if he was providing the favor to Patrick. Smart puppy.

  “Excuse me,” I said, moving toward Patrick. I strode by the overpowering Goah with my hands free at my sides and fighting the urge to reach out and touch what I knew would be scorching hot skin. She howled, deep in the back of my mind to reach out and touch him. I didn’t dare. As I hurried by the Gaoh, the cool winter chill and burning energies of both men mixed and mingled like a lukewarm bath. Patrick and Dean, together, separate, and somehow whole.

  I sashayed between them, letting the magic of their power tingle over my skin and tighten every muscle in my body.

  Dean’s nostrils flared as I got within a few feet of him and I couldn’t help but notice the stiffening of his shoulders. I met those olive-green eyes and caught my breath as they flashed a clear Caribbean blue.

  It couldn’t be, I told myself.

  They were the same. Even though I’d only seen that flash of blue for a split second, I knew I was right by the heavy beat of my heart. I pulled my bottom lip in between my teeth and felt the first tingle of arousal heat my womanhood as she whispered in my mind . . . safe . . . warm . . . home.

  A wide-eyed awareness spread over him as our eyes met. He took a step back, away from me. She howled for me to reach out and touch him but I wouldn’t.

  “What were you going to say, Dahl?” Danny asked, oblivious to the metaphysical tug-of-war going on around him.