Bitten in Two

by Jennifer Rardin

  We still hadn’t let him go, though. It was like, having brought ourselves so close to the part of our team that brought us the most happiness, we couldn’t walk away.

  Sterling said, “You did well. I believe he’s been completely reclaimed.”

  We nodded. Vayl stepped back. So did Bergman. I squeezed Cole’s hand. Then I placed it gently on the bed and began to turn away. Wait. What did I—

  “Jasmine?” asked Vayl, coming to slip his arm around my waist. “Are you all right?”

  I peered at Cole’s eyes. They stayed closed. Maybe I hadn’t seen them flutter just slightly. Maybe those two slits of red I thought I’d spied peering out from beneath his lashes had just been a side effect of sniffing soul-smoke.

  This is why you never did drugs, right, Jazzy? asked Granny May as she threaded her needle.

  Amen. I nodded, and laying my head against Vayl’s shoulder, I let him lead me from the room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It is nearly dawn,” Vayl said. He stood by the window to my room, looking down into the courtyard. Lights came on in a second-floor window, distracting us both.

  “Is that Monique’s room?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  We watched, shameless voyeurs, as Bergman’s skinny frame crossed in front of the curtain and stopped. His shadow was joined seconds later by the curvilicious shape of Monique. They stood that way for a long time. And then the distance between them slowly closed, until to our eyes they were a single entity. Moments later the light went out.

  Vayl turned to me. “I hope she is gentle.” For the first time, his smile made him look old. He stared up into the sky, and I realized how much he was going to miss the sun.

  I said, “Won’t you be able to stay awake now? I mean, now that you remember what year it is and everything?”

  He turned to me. Shrugged like it didn’t matter as he said, “No. I have lost…” He paused, looked toward the sky, as if by force of will he could make the sun come out while he was still up so he could see sunshine and clouds again. “As with the ice armor, the ability I had gained to stay awake beyond dawn and dusk has been wiped out by the curse.”

  “That fucking Roldan.”

  His nod barely moved air. “Just so. However, we have the Rocenz now.” He gestured to the tool sitting on my trunk, looking so innocent I might’ve guessed the maintenance man had forgotten and left it there after he fixed the air conditioner. If I hadn’t known better.

  “Yeah. What do you say after we use it to carve Brude’s name into the gates of hell, we beat Roldan to death with it?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Feeling violent tonight, my love?”

  Though I’d closed the door behind me, I hadn’t been able to take my hand off the knob. It was like I thought this one extra step could keep Cole safe if he woke and needed me to come running and—what? Smother whatever Kyphas left in him? How would you do that without killing the rest, the best part of him now?

  I dropped my hand and walked over to Vayl. Wrapped my arms around him. Breathed in his scent, closed my eyes and pretended that I was lying on a bed of pine needles with him, naked and willing, beside me. I said, “Umm, not as much now. I do want to know some things though.”

  “All right.”

  “Back at the tannery, Sterling sent you into hell.”

  A sigh, so soft I nearly missed it, that told me he’d prefer never, ever to discuss those last hairy moments when neither of us knew if we’d survive to share another moment like this one. He said, “Yes. I knew I could only destroy Kyphas from the inside. But I needed help.”

  “Astral?”

  His arms tightened around me. “You know Bergman. He would never outfit her with one weapon designed to defeat demon defenses when he could as easily equip her with two. Knowing he had already used one of Astral’s grenades to destroy Kyphas’s door blockade, I brought her through the door so I could direct the second grenade at both her and her… attackers.”

  I waited for him to tell me what he’d seen in hell. But he wasn’t inclined to describe his version. Can’t say that I blamed him. So I asked him another question that had been nagging at me.

  “What happened to Helena?”

  He pulled away long enough for me to wonder why his eyes had gone such a dark, troubled blue. And then he pulled me in even tighter. “We moved several times after that first trip to Marrakech. Finally we settled in Northern Ireland, where she met a boy named John Litton who had brains and ambition but, alas, no money. They were married on my estate in the spring of 1783 and sailed to America with Berggia and his wife shortly after.” He paused. “I had many an entertaining letter from her for the next two years. And then a single note from John telling me that she had died in childbirth.”

  “Oh, Vayl,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.” I hesitated, but I just had to know. “Did the… the baby die too?”

  “No, they lived.”

  “She had twins?”

  “Yes.”

  Wow. Now I felt even closer to her. And more determined than ever to exact some sweet revenge for her. A life that short shouldn’t have had to spend so much time with misery in it. I said, “The Berggias?”

  “They helped John raise his daughters and died at a very old age, within just a few days of one another.”

  “That’s good, then.”

  “Yes, they were a devoted couple who deserved some happiness”—his lips brushed my forehead—“like us. I can feel it, almost within our grasp. But first we must go back.” He tipped his head toward the tannery, though we both knew he meant deeper. “And it must be soon.”

  “Yeah. But we need to make detailed, get-in-get-busy-get-out plans. And my head still hurts.”

  “So let us leave that for tomorrow.” He slid his hands up my back, squeezed the tension out of my shoulders. Ran his fingers down to the base of my spine. Parts of my body seemed to wake from a long sleep. To stretch and moan as trickles of pleasure washed through them.

  I pressed my breasts against his chest. “Tomorrow’s soon enough for me,” I whispered as I ran my fingers up into his soft curls, as I left feathery kisses along his cheekbones, the sides of his lips, the base of his jaw.

  “Then tonight,” he murmured into my ear, moved his lips downward, brushed his fangs against my neck. “In what we have left of it. Jasmine. Give me something to remember.”

  extras

  meet the author

  Cindy Pringle

  JENNIFER RARDIN began writing at the age of twelve, mostly poems to amuse her classmates and short stories featuring her best friends as the heroines. She lives in an old farmhouse in Illinois with her husband and two children. Find out more about Jennifer Rardin at www.JenniferRardin.com.

  introducing

  If you enjoyed BITTEN IN TWO,

  look out for

  THE DEADLIEST BITE

  Book 8 of the Jaz Parks series

  by Jennifer Rardin

  We ran up the main stairs to the third floor, where I found my jeans crumpled beside the cozy brown suede chair where I liked to curl up every afternoon with a book and a can of Diet Coke. I pulled my phone out of the back pocket and stuck it between my ear and shoulder while I shoved my legs into my Levi’s.

  “Hello?”

  “Jaz? Where’s Vayl?”

  “Hi, Cassandra. He’s with me.”

  “He’s all right, then?”

  “What?” I felt my fingers go numb. Usually I reacted faster. It was my job to make sure my emotions didn’t cloud my judgment. Even for the extra three seconds it took me to realize my psychic friend was freaking out about my lover. “What did you See?”

  “There was a mix-up in Australia. I accidentally packed one of your T-shirts in my suitcase. So I was folding it back into my luggage because Dave and I are coming up to visit you and Evie. It was supposed to be a surprise—” She swallowed a sob.

  “Tell me now, Cassandra.” I tried to keep my voice calm. No sense in shouting at the woman who had alr
eady saved my brother’s life with one of her visions. But if she’d been in the room I’d have shaken her till her teeth rattled.

  “When I touched your shirt I saw you, leaning over Vayl’s body. He had a stake through his heart. The blood—oh, Jaz, the blood.” She started to cry for real now.

  “Anything else? Come on, Cassandra, I need to know everything you Saw.” I’d zipped into my pants. Run to the stairs. Managed to make it to the second floor without breaking my neck. Jack was way ahead of me.

  “I don’t know. There’s this explosion, but not like the kind you see in movies. It’s more… ripply. And at the middle is a young man. Younger than you. Taller, even, than Vayl, with full brown hair that keeps falling onto his forehead. He’s snarling, which makes two deep dimples appear on his cheeks. He’s standing in front of a tall oak door, above which is hanging—”

  “A pike with a gold tassel,” I finished.

  “Yes!”

  “Shit. Cassandra, that’s Vayl’s front door. And you’ve just described the kid who was ringing the bell.”

  “Did Vayl answer?”

  “I don’t—”

  A shot rang out, tearing my heart in two. Too far ahead of me to gauge his location, Jack growled menacingly, already on his way down the final set of steps. I glanced into the well made by the turn of the stairs from second to first floor. Yeah, I could jump it. So I did, landing on Vayl’s blue, overstuffed sofa. Rolling into the walnut coffee table fronting it, knocking it across the hall into a case full of antique knives. I raised my arm, protecting my face from the shattering glass.

  Not knowing how far the glass had scattered, I protected my bare feet by jumping back onto the couch. Then I took one second to assess the situation.

  Twenty feet from me, at the other end of the hall in front of the open door, Vayl lay in a spreading pool of blood, the bloody hole in his forehead a result of the .22 lying on the floor. Two reasons the young man kneeling over him still wasn’t holding it: he needed both hands for the hammer and stake he now held poised over Vayl’s chest, and Jake’s teeth had sunk deep enough into his right wrist that, by now, he’d have been forced to drop it anyway.

  Only a guy as big as this one wouldn’t have been thrown completely off balance by a full-on attack via 120-pound malamute. His size had kept him off his back, though it hadn’t allowed him to recover his balance enough to counter with the stake in his free hand. That would change if I didn’t reach the scene in time.

  I jumped to the outside of the stairs, holding the rail to keep from falling as I cleared the fallout from the display case. Another jump took me to the floor. Five running steps gave me a good start for a spin kick that should’ve caught the intruder on the temple. But unless they’re drugged, people don’t just sit and wait for the blow.

  He pulled back, catching my heel on his nose. It broke, spraying blood all over his shirt and Jack. But it didn’t take him down. In fact, it seemed to motivate him. Desperation filled his eyes. He ripped his hammer hand out of Jack’s grip, though the bloody gashes in his forearm would hurt like a son of a bitch when his adrenaline rush faded. Afraid his next move would be a blow to my dog, I lunged at him. I was wrong. He threw the hammer at me, forcing me to hit the floor. I rolled when I felt his shadow loom over me, knowing the worst scenario had me pinned under all that weight. But it never fell on me. I jumped to my feet and began to unholster Grief, though the last thing I wanted was to kill the bastard before I found out who’d sent him.

  Still, I was too late. The intruder had retrieved his .22 and was pointing the business end at my chest. He’d probably hit me too if he held his breath long enough to stop shaking. The only positive I could see was that I stood between him and Vayl. For now.

  Jack growled menacingly and began to approach the man, his fur standing on end so he looked like the miniature bear he sounded most like when he vocalized.

  The gun wavered as the man said, “You tell that dog to stop, or I will shoot it.”

  “No, Jack,” I said. “Sit.”

  He came to an unhappy stop beside me. Once again I was looking down the barrel of my ultimate end. Because Raoul had informed me that my body couldn’t take another rise to life. If this scumbag capped me, I’d be done. And I so wasn’t ready.

  I said, “I don’t know you. And I thought I knew all of our enemies. You’re not a werewolf. You’re not Vampere. You’re definitely not a pro. So what’s a human who’s never killed anybody in his life doing trying to off the CIA’s greatest assassin?”

  His eyebrows went up. So. He hadn’t been told about our work. Baffling. Still, whoever picked him had chosen well. Amateurs occasionally succeeded where professionals failed because they were unpredictable. And motivated. This one definitely had his reasons for being here. I could see it in the way his eyebrows kept twitching down toward his nose. He was a time bomb ready to blow everybody in the room to bloody bits.

  He raised the gun. Uh-oh. While I’d been thinking, so had he. And it looked like he’d made a decision. “You need to walk away from that vampire,” he said.

  “No.”

  He pushed the barrel toward me, to make sure I understood he could pull the trigger. “I’m not playing. I will kill you if that’s what it takes to smoke him.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ll die if you do that anyway.”

  The remark confused him. Upset him. This isn’t a bad man, but damn, something has pushed him way past his limit. I watched his finger tighten on the trigger. I said, “Don’t. Dude, you’ll be killing a federal agent. They put you in jail forever for that kind of shit.”

  “Jail?” He laughed. “I’m already in hell.” Which was when I knew there was nothing I could say to divert him. I looked down at Jack, touched the soft fur on the top of his head in farewell. Glanced over my shoulder at Vayl. Only long enough for the pain to lance through my heart.

  I could pull on him, make my final moments an epic shootout. But Jack could get hurt in the cross fire. And I’d never forgive myself if that happened. “Get it over with, then.”

  NOT SO FAST!!

  I slammed my hands over my ears, though I was pretty sure the voice came from inside my head until I saw that the intruder was wincing and wiping blood from his earlobes as well.

  The floor started to shake. Jack yelped and tried to hide between my legs as the polished pine floorboards between me and the intruder began to splinter and the fiery outline of an arched doorway pushed itself up from the basement below.

  “Well,” I whispered to my dog. “This is new.”

  I was pretty sure the intruder couldn’t see the plane portal rising to stand between us. Most humans never did. But he did get a load of the five-by-six-foot gap developing in the floor. And when my Spirit Guide, Raoul, seemed to step out of thin air, I didn’t blame him for needing to sit down. Which he did. On a plush, round-seated chair that was currently covered with wood chips.

  Raoul recovered his weapon so easily I felt a little stupid to have ever been paralyzed by it. Maybe I was getting soft in my old age. Maybe seeing Vayl halfway to dead had freaked me out more than I should’ve let it.

  Raoul reversed the gun and lightly tapped the intruder on the forehead with it. “Wrong choice, Aaron. And here I thought you knew better.” He lifted the back of his jungle camouflage jacket and stuck the .22 in the waistband of his matching pants. Then he turned to face me. “Stop trying to get yourself killed. Even the Eminent agreed with me on this one. It isn’t your time yet.”

  “I wasn’t trying—it’s not? Cool.” Nice to think that the folks who called the shots upstairs had actually approved of Raoul helping me for once. Especially since it had involved saving my neck. Again.

  “So what do you and the other Eldhayr think about this dude? What did you call him, Aaron?” I asked, pointing my chin toward the failed assassin.

  Raoul pulled me aside. “I’m not allowed to interfere there.” He looked hard into my eyes, trying to communicate information I hadn’t known him long
enough to decipher. He said, “All I can say is that it’s good, really good, that you didn’t kill him. Keep doing that.”

  “What about Vayl?” I asked. “What can you say about him?”

  “You really need to hear that he’s going to be okay? You already know that, Jaz. A bullet to the head can’t kill a vampire as powerful as him.”

  I shrugged. It’s one thing to understand something intellectually. Something completely different to see your lover looking fully dead from a head wound. So I reminded myself again, He’s just been knocked out. If you lifted his head you’d see the back of his skull has probably already re-formed. You shouldn’t be trying to figure out how your stomach can manage to clench itself that tight. You should be patting yourself on the back for hooking up with a guy who’s that tough to kill.

  “Jasmine? Jaz? Is it over? What happened?”

  The voice, small and tinny, could’ve been mistaken for one of my inner voices. If I hadn’t suddenly realized I’d dropped my phone during the fight and now Jack was trying to dial China with his nose.

  “Cut it out,” I murmured as I picked it up. “You don’t even like rice.” I put the receiver to my ear. “Cassandra? I can’t believe you’re still there.”

  “He’s important!”

  “Of course he is. But he’ll be fine. Vampires are—”

  “No! I mean, yes, of course. But I’m talking about the young man.”

  “WHAT? You can’t be on Raoul’s side in this. This guy, Aaron, nearly killed us both!” I glared at the would-be killer. He stared straight at me. Raised his chin slightly. Didn’t even blink.

  Cassandra yelled, “Jasmine Elaine Parks, you listen to your future sister-in-law, dammit! Something is making me tingle like I’m electrified. Let me talk to Aaron!”

  I held the phone out to him. “You have a call.”