A wave of dizziness washed over him as he lowered his hand and stared at the smear of blood.
Behind him, the man spoke.
“Elias . . . ?”
The pain in his head exploded, and like a stone, he dropped to the ground.
CHAPTER 9
MALACHI moved in a blur of motion, too quickly for her eyes to track him. After working with vampires for decades, one would think she’d get used to it. But their speed still caught her by surprise.
Kelsey saw Dominic stagger, then fall, but Malachi caught him before he could hit the ground.
He lifted his head and stared at Kelsey, his dark blue eyes unreadable, his face tight, hard as stone.
“Elias?” she repeated.
“He was Nessa’s husband.” Malachi’s voice was cold, flat, devoid of any accent, any emotion.
“I know who he was.” Kelsey swallowed past the tight knot in her throat. Confused, and more than a little freaked out, she looked at the unconscious vampire.
His voice had been different. Seriously different. She hadn’t understood him at first; the accent had been too thick. It had sounded vaguely British, but not quite. Older. Archaic, almost.
Rattled, Kelsey remembered the way Dominic had looked at them, like he’d never seen them before. Now that she could attribute to his head injury. Even vamps got their brains scrambled every now and then.
But there was also how he’d been acting earlier—the way he’d come at Malachi . . . Where the fuck is she?
Blood pounded in her ears, and she rubbed her hand over the back of her neck as tension mounted there.
Who had he been looking for?
But deep inside, she knew.
Nessa.
Even though it had been more than a week since she’d been in the cabin, her scent would still linger, especially for those with sensitive noses, like vamps. He’d scented her . . . and somehow recognized her.
He was looking for Nessa.
Elias . . .
Even thinking about it made her head ache and pound. Something light and euphoric tried to dance its way into her heart, but she didn’t want to examine it too closely. Shattered hopes were often painful.
So instead of trying to think it through that very moment, Kelsey took the easy way—she focused on her job.
“Be careful with him,” she told her husband as he shifted the vampire in his arms. She drew on the cool cloak of serenity that kept her sane when she healed. “I need him on the bed, on his stomach so I can see his head.”
Without saying a word, Malachi did as she asked.
Kelsey grimaced as she gently probed the back of his head. The bone was still knitting together—he was healing, she could feel the energy as his body dealt with the damage. There was a lot of damage, too. If he’d been human, he’d be dead. As it was, it was taking quite a while, and he was going to be utterly drained once his body was done.
“I didn’t do . . .” Malachi’s voice faded off and then he took a deep breath, as though to brace himself. “Is he healing well?”
“Yeah.” She shot him a strained smile and said, “He just took a really bad blow. You bashed his head in. Although you didn’t seem too worried about that a moment ago.” She cocked a brow in his direction, wondering if he was thinking along the same lines as she was.
A muscle jerked in Malachi’s jaw. He stared at her, an impassive mask on his face. That careful lack of expression never boded well. Malachi hid his emotions when he was very, very pissed off, when he was hurt or when he was worried.
A few moments ago, he’d been angry, so angry it had stung her skin like hot little needles. But he wasn’t angry now and she knew he wasn’t hurt, either.
So he was worried.
Personally, Kelsey was scared shitless. Her mouth was dry and her heart raced away, pounding in her chest like she’d gone and popped some speed. Feigning casualness, she tried for a smile and asked, “So, do you believe in reincarnation?”
“Fuck me.” His face twisted in a scowl and he went to shove a hand through his hair and then stopped. He studied his bloodied hands and then went to the sink in the small kitchenette, scrubbing them clean. “I don’t know that I’m ready to have this conversation just yet, pet.”
“You better get ready,” she advised him. “I don’t think it’s one we’ll be able to put off.”
As he turned around, he took a towel from the counter and dried his hands, taking a lot more time with it than necessary. But Kelsey recognized the look on his face. That canny mind was turning everything over, looking at it from every possible angle.
Finally, he tossed the towel on the counter and then folded his arms over his chest. He stared at Dominic as he said, “I never met Elias. Nessa was young then, just a girl. It wasn’t until after Elias died and she came back to Brendain that I even met her. She was . . . broken.” A haunted look settled on his face and he closed his eyes, remembering the girl who had arrived at Brendain—the home of the Hunters. “So broken,” he murmured. “You wouldn’t recognize her, you know. She’s not the woman that you’d remember. Lost and uncertain. Terrified.”
Malachi opened his eyes, gazing off into the distance. He wasn’t seeing her. He was too lost in his memories.
“I have forgotten more of my life than I’ve remembered.” His voice was rough and low, thick with the sounds of Scotland. So often, Malachi could speak without any trace of an accent, but at certain times, it slipped out . . . like when he was grieving, as he obviously was now. “But I canna forget the first time I met her. So sad, she was. Poor little lass, so broken and so angry. They killed Elias, right in front of her. There was a man in her village—he wanted Nessa for his own, you see.”
He sighed and opened his eyes, staring once more at Dominic’s still body. “For years after he died, she waited. Bloody hell, all her life she waited. He’d promised her—told her he would come back. Come back for her. So she waited. And waited.”
Abruptly, he spun around and slammed a fist into the marble countertop. It cracked under the blow and Kelsey saw his blood splatter. His head bowed, he rasped, “She waited for five hundred fucking years.”
She checked Dominic one more time and then moved to join her husband. Slipping her arms around his waist, she rested her brow against his back. As she did, she lowered her shields.
Malachi sensed it, tensing. The tension slowly melted away as she let her magic work . . . the pain, she couldn’t help with, but she could ease some of his confusion. His big body shuddered in her embrace and then he turned in her arms, cuddling her close. Resting his forehead against hers, he whispered, “Five hundred years, Kelsey.”
“I know.” She rubbed her mouth against his, a gentle, soothing kiss. Then she pulled back, snuggling close and resting her cheek against the hard, muscled wall of his chest. “Do you think it’s possible?”
“I don’t know.” He lowered his mouth, kissing the top of her head. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew he was looking at Dominic. Looking and wondering. “I haven’t the slightest fucking clue.”
Knowing Malachi, that probably had him as bewildered as the puzzle of Dominic. Malachi, it seemed, always knew what to do.
He sighed and stroked his hands down her arms. “We have problems, pet.”
Easing back, Kelsey looked at him, a rueful smirk on her lips. “Such an understatement. We’ll handle it, though. We just need to let him wake up and then we’ll see if we can figure out what’s going on. Before he finds Nessa.”
“No.” Malachi shook his head. “He’s not the problem I was talking about. It’s Nessa.”
Wincing, Kelsey said, “Please tell me she isn’t in trouble again . . . not already. She hasn’t even been gone two weeks.”
“I don’t know if she’s in trouble or not,” Malachi said, scowling. He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes on the floor. “I can’t tell where she is . . . how she is doing. Kelsey, she’s missing.”
“Missing?” Kelsey frowned. “What exactly do
you mean by missing?”
Once more, he had that remote, expressionless mask in place. “Just that, pet. She’s missing, and I can’t sense her. I’d wager you can’t, either.”
There had been a time not too long ago when Nessa had served on the Council. Over time, the Council members forged a bond, a way of tracing each other. It was a handy thing, especially for vampires who could dematerialize—like Malachi—or witches with the ability to fly—not through the air, but just disappear from one place and arrive in another in the blink of an eye.
Lowering her gaze, Kelsey reached inward and focused.
A lump settled in her throat as she looked up at her husband. She swallowed and tried to speak around it, although it felt like it was choking her. “You’re right. I can’t feel her.”
THE lumpy mattress was uncomfortable as hell. Rolling onto her side, she pounded her pillow with her fist and then snuggled up, drifting back into sleep.
Back into her dreams.
He was there. They were together, lying on a bed, and he stroked his hand up and down her arm. Midnight black hair framed a lean, golden face . . . an angel’s face, she thought. He was as pretty as an angel. His dark brown eyes stared into hers and he smiled.
“I miss you when you’re not here,” he murmured.
Pushing up onto her elbows, she smiled and kissed him. “Then I should just stay here all the time.”
“You’re never here. I’m never here.” Then he sighed and rested a hand on her stomach. “Why is it taking so long?”
“What?”
He opened his mouth but instead of speaking, he bellowed, a deep, gut-wrenching sound of sheer agony. Startled, she jerked back and then she screamed, too.
He was bleeding. It was just a few spots at first, staining the tunic he wore. But it grew, and grew, a vicious rose of death. “No.”
Tears spilled out of her eyes and she rested a hand on the wound, summoned the power. She could heal him. She knew how—she could do it.
But the magic wasn’t there.
“You haven’t learned how to heal yet,” he said, his voice quiet and level, as though his heart wasn’t pumping his life’s blood out of him.
“I know how to heal,” she whispered. She knew how—
But it was too late.
He was already dead, and even as she bent over him, sobbing, his body began to shrivel until it was nothing but dust. She sobbed and pounded her fists against the bed where he had lain. “Damn it, come back! You swore to me, you bloody bastard. You swore you would come back to me!”
It was the sound of her own screams that woke her.
Jerking up in bed, she sucked in a desperate breath and wiped her hands over her tearstained cheeks.
“Bad dream?”
Looking up, she saw Jazzy standing in the doorway. She forced a smile. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Must have been a doozy. You’ve been crying for the last ten minutes.” Jazzy gave her a pained grimace and said, “You woke me up again. Geez, I don’t know what in the hell you’ve been up to since you disappeared, but it must have been hella bad, right? You’ve had nothing but nightmares all night.”
She tried to smile, but she couldn’t. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“It’s okay.” Jazzy came up, gave her a smile. She settled down on the bed and curled up next to her. “Maybe . . . Maybe it will help if I stay with you a while? I really missed you when you were gone. You remember the dream?”
Shaking her head, she whispered, “No. Just that it was awful.”
“What about all the time you were gone? Have you remembered any of the time you were gone or is it all still like a blank slate?”
Morgan closed her eyes and rested her chin on Jazzy’s crown. “Just a blank slate.” There was nothing in her mind, save for the past day or so. The first clear memory she had was coming to the grass with this girl leaning over her and begging her to wake up. It was like her life before that simply did not exist. She patted Jazzy’s arm and said, “But don’t worry. It will be okay.”
CHAPTER 10
BY necessity, they decided to move Dominic to the quarters Kelsey and Malachi had in the lower floor of the school. Sunrise was only a few hours off and she wasn’t going to have one of her patients resting on the floor. Nor was she going to just protect the room from the sun. That would work, but his instincts would keep him from resting as well as he should.
Dominic was still out, although his head wound had healed. Dawn edged ever nearer, and Kelsey was more than a little worried that he hadn’t woken back up. As Malachi logged onto the computer and set things up for a videoconference, she rested a hand on Dominic’s brow and closed her eyes.
“How is he?”
Opening her eyes, she looked at Malachi to find him watching her, arms crossed over his chest. Over his shoulder, she could see the familiar faces of Tobias, Niko and Andreas, fellow Council members on the screen. She might hate technology but it had made convening with the Council easier in recent years.
“How is he?” she echoed with a sigh. “Healed. Tired, though. He’s been injured recently—I feel the echo of it. And he’s weak. He’s going to be as hungry as a bear when he wakes up.”
Malachi jerked a shoulder in a shrug. “Not overly concerned about his appetite, pet. I’m more concerned about who we’ll be talking with when he wakes.” Then he spun around in his chair to face the monitor, tapping a button. Kelsey moved up to stand behind him as he said, “We’ve got problems, mates. Nessa has up and disappeared.”
Kelsey hoped against hope one of the other Council members would be able to sense Nessa, but she knew it was unlikely. If Malachi couldn’t, if Kelsey couldn’t, there was no reason the others could.
Tobias ran a hand over his face and muttered something under his breath. It was too low for Kelsey to hear, but Malachi said, “Yup. One massive fucking problem.”
Niko glanced from Kelsey’s face to Malachi’s.
The relationship between Kelsey and Niko was somewhat strained. Truth be told, the relationship between Niko and the rest of the Council had gone past strained and well into the area of dislike.
The vampire hadn’t been particularly helpful in the days after Nessa was . . . reborn. Part of Kelsey understood that—she still couldn’t understand exactly what had happened with Nessa. The woman had been frail, old and physically very weak when she faced off with a young, feral witch.
Morgan had been something of an anomaly. She could steal power through blood, using it to bolster her own magic—doing so was addictive and it was a bad, bad path for a witch to take. But Morgan’s thirst for power hadn’t just stopped at taking power through blood—she could also take it through dreams. She had been able to steal her way into dreams and siphon energy that way. Kelsey suspected she’d drained more than one person’s life away in just that fashion.
She’d been young, brash and arrogant—a happy little psychopath, one the world was well rid of. But the cost had been very, very high.
Focus on the here and now, girl, Kelsey told herself. Not the there and then.
“How long has Nessa been missing?” Niko asked quietly.
“Missing, as in gone from Excelsior? A couple of weeks. Avoiding me for a few days,” Malachi said, shrugging restlessly. “I was trying to give her some privacy.” He slumped lower in the seat and closed his eyes. “She seemed . . . better the last time I tried to reach out to her. The grief that choked her had lessened.”
“You spoke with her?” Tobias asked, cocking a black brow, his shrewd eyes watchful.
“No.” Malachi shook his head. “I was just checking on her.” A humorless smile tugged his lips and he said, “I know her moods almost as well as I know my own and all I have to do is reach for her. The pain was there—just less.”
“What else did you sense?” Niko asked.
“Resolve.” Malachi shoved back from the chair and started to pace. “She was almost as she was when she first joined the Council.” He paused and looked
at the monitor. “You remember that time, Tobias?”
“Yes.” He was the only Council member old enough to remember. Niko and Andreas, twins, had been born in 1701 and they’d been vampires since 1742. Nessa had first joined the Council in the 1600s. By that time, she had no longer been the broken girl who’d arrived at Brendain a century earlier. Though the sadness had still been there, it no longer crippled her.
On the screen, Kelsey could see Tobias’s face, could see his reflection as his thoughts turned inward. She suspected he was remembering the earlier years with Nessa, much as Malachi had. The bond between the three of them was a deep one. There were times when Kelsey had envied them for that, even though she shared one with Nessa, as well.
“And how long has it been since you were able to sense her?” Andreas asked. He was the quieter twin and in the months since Nessa’s change, he’d finally stopped blindly following his brother’s lead so much.
Malachi grimaced. “A day, perhaps. But . . .” His voice trailed off and he murmured, “It’s not right. There’s something wrong. I sense a darkness. One of us, at least, should be able to feel her.”
Kelsey tensed as several gazes shifted to her. Although she was the youngest, her abilities were the most closest to Nessa’s. “I can’t feel her,” she said flatly. “I’ve already tried.”
“Are you concerned about this?” Tobias asked softly.
Concerned? Hell. Concerned didn’t touch it. None of them, save for Malachi, had any idea of the pain Nessa was living with. None of them. If they did, perhaps they’d understand why she was concerned.
“Yes.” She gave him a tight smile. “I’m concerned.”
“So what do we do?” Andreas asked.
Andreas, more than his twin, had acknowledged what they had almost allowed to happen years earlier, when the change between Morgan and Nessa had transpired. Niko shied away from it, but Andreas faced reality. They had almost killed one of their own. If that didn’t change a man, what would?
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