The Kindred

by L. L. Foster

  Fabian let it go.

  “Into the tub.” He gestured with the gun. “I want to see you drink. I want to witness your understanding when you feel all that beautiful, slippery blood on your skin, soaking in, redefining you, elevating your strengths.” He breathed hard, and then as if he’d just snapped, he yelled, “Do it!”

  “All right, all right. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” Gaby went over and looked into the tub. Blood still dripped from the woman’s body, sending ripples across the surface of the bath. She could smell the fresh blood, tangy, thick, and dark. And she smelled the woman’s death, her fear. The scents commingled in a nauseating emanation, a tumultuous assault on her senses.

  “Don’t do it.”

  Luther’s voice was raw, hurting.

  Gaby looked over her shoulder at him. “You know, Luther, before you, I didn’t know anything but destruction and duty and pain. I didn’t know how to smile. I didn’t know how to . . . love.”

  Luther’s back stiffened. His jaw locked, his eyes glistened. “You don’t have to do this for me. Not for anyone.”

  She smiled, proving her words. “Don’t you know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you?” At peace, Gaby stepped into the tub. While she crafted her next move, blood soaked into her shoes, the bottom of her jeans.

  It still held warmth from the woman’s body.

  But the scabrous circumstances didn’t faze her—they inspired her. Luther thought she was without options? He had to know her better than that.

  “I’m glad you’re so willing to accommodate me.” Keeping that gun on Luther, Fabian edged over to the side and grabbed Mali.

  Her struggles only seemed to further excite him, but Gaby knew she couldn’t calm the girl right now.

  “Drink it, daughter.” Fabian licked his lips while stroking up and down Mali’s side. “Drink your fill, and then we’ll feast on this one together.”

  When Dacia would have raced across the room, Luther caught her and tucked her behind his back. “Shh,” he said to her, to all of them. “Trust Gaby. Always.”

  Yeah, trust me—please. She made a sound of disgust. “Do you expect me to drink from that dirty tub?”

  “It’s not dirty.” Fabian spoke around his accelerated breaths, so excited that he could barely talk. “It’s brand-new, I promise you.” A maniacal light shone from his eyes. His laugh sounded demented. “Drink.”

  “Not from the tub. No, sir.” Knowing what she would do, Gaby lied, “I’ll take her down and find a fresh vein.” She reached up and gripped the chain above the cold, hard handcuffs.

  “No.” Fabian lowered the gun, distraught at her actions.

  “Hang on,” Gaby told him, pretending to misunderstand. She put a foot to the wall for leverage—and pulled.

  Fabian went crazy. “What are you doing?”

  Gaby pulled again, and felt the bolt loosening from the ceiling. “Actually, Fabian, at this moment”—she tugged again, straining, any second now—“I’m thinking of the many ways I’m going to kill you.”

  “God damn you!” Screaming, hauling Mali up off her feet, he rushed toward Gaby.

  The bolt in the ceiling popped free.

  Going with the momentum and using her hold on the chain, she wielded it like a medieval mace. With Mali in range, the aim was close. She utilized extra care, swinging hard and fast, and the heaviest part of the restraint missed Mali, but struck Fabian’s temple.

  The sick thud of impact rebounded in the small room.

  As blood gushed from Fabian’s head he went stumbling backward, releasing his hold on the girl. Mali raced back to her sister.

  Fabian’s lips pulled back from his terrifying, sharp-edged teeth and he fell, dropping the gun.

  Gaby eased the corpse down into the bath of her own blood. Evil or not, this pathetic girl hadn’t deserved such a death.

  Luther fetched Fabian’s gun and held the other three at bay, not that they’d posed much threat. Without Fabian directing their every move, they caved to their own cowardly natures, behaving like the cattle Fabian thought them to be.

  Looking around, Gaby tried to decide what to do next.

  Bliss looked to be in shock, white-faced and too still.

  The girls were huddled together, bawling their eyes out, sobbing so pitifully that Gaby couldn’t swallow.

  Mort knelt down and made soothing sounds, trying to reassure them.

  They were all so scared, so wounded by what they’d just seen.

  Gaby couldn’t go to them. Not like this, not covered in blood. What to do?

  “Evil bitch.”

  Gaby jerked around—and found Fabian propped up against a file cabinet, one drawer open, a smaller handgun held loosely in his fist. Fresh flowing blood filled his left eye, ran over his mouth and lips, along his jaw, and into the creases of his neck. He licked at it—and smiled, a smile so diseased that Gaby felt the short hairs on her neck stand on end.

  “You won’t send me to jail,” he told her. His words slurred, and he wobbled. “I won’t waste away there among the servile scum of humanity’s mistakes.”

  Blood and spittle punctuated each uttered word.

  “You, you wicked bitch, are no daughter of mine. I disown you.” He spat toward her. “I curse you to everlasting hell.”

  “But we were just getting to know each other.” Trying not to spook him, Gaby reached behind herself for her knife. Did he remember her blade?

  A demonic light shifted in Fabian’s eyes, glittered with purpose. “You have to pay.” He tried and failed to lift the gun.

  “Everyone pays, eventually,” Gaby agreed. As unsteady as he was, she didn’t think he had it in him to shoot her. She could just as easily—

  “Goddamn you,” he swore. “I will kill you.” He used the cabinet for leverage, almost fell, and tried again. The gun lifted . . .

  A blast sounded.

  Gaby jerked, stunned that he’d gotten a shot off. But she hadn’t felt a thing.

  And then she saw the blossom of blood on Fabian’s forehead. In an anticlimactic finish, he slumped back to the floor. His head drooped to his shoulder, and his life ended.

  Gaby spun around. Luther stood there with the gun in his hand, his expression set, defiant, and satisfied.

  “You didn’t have to kill him.” But it was one hell of a good shot.

  “I love you, Gabrielle Cody.”

  Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. He’d shot Fabian. For her?

  Luther Cross, by-the-book super-cop, had put a bullet in her father’s brain. “You could have . . . could have overpowered him.”

  “I love you,” he said again. “Now. Always.”

  Well, crap. She had friends waiting for her to finish this, to ease them, reassure them. She couldn’t go all mushy emotional. Not right now.

  “Gaby?” This time Luther’s voice was softer. “Baby, I love you.”

  Gaby nodded. She looked at Fabian, gone forever from her life, and the greatest relief washed over her. “He needed killing.”

  “I know. But not by your hand.”

  Luther had spared her. Because he . . . loved her. Wow.

  Gaby looked at Luther again, but he had turned away to remove Mort’s gag and untie his hands, while still keeping the gun trained on the three stooges who were lost without Fabian’s leadership.

  Causing additional commotion, Ann charged in, gun drawn, shouting for Luther and Mort. She saw the blood everywhere and drew up short. “Dear God.” Looking around in horror, she spotted Mort, and quickly got it together. “I called it in,” she assured Luther. “Units are on their way.”

  Still speechless, Gaby stood there, ineffectual, uncertain. She looked again at her father, and thanked God that the man had never sought her out. Her life had been twisted enough without him being involved.

  Then something hit her around her legs and she realized that Ann had untied Dacia and Mali. They clung to her like little spider monkeys. They didn’t care about the blood.

 
From the tightness of their holds, she could tell they wanted only to be comforted.

  Sinking to her knees, Gaby gathered them close. She breathed out the scents of death and despair, and instead filled her lungs with the sweet scent of their acceptance.

  Smoothing back Dacia’s hair, she asked, “You’re okay?”

  “Yes.”

  But tears tracked the girl’s face and marks from the gag still marred her jaw. Without thinking about it, Gaby kissed the injury, then turned and did the same for Mali.

  Sirens sounded.

  Over Dacia’s shoulder, Gaby said, “Bliss? Talk to me, please. I need to hear your voice.”

  Luther helped Bliss to her feet. She swallowed, nodded. “I’m okay.”

  But she wasn’t, and Gaby knew it.

  Luther put an arm around her, but he had eyes only for Gaby.

  Such beautiful eyes, so dark and sincere. Such a powerful, altruistic, amazing man.

  As his aura of strength and protectiveness grew, spreading out to warm the room and chase away the gloom of depravity, Gaby saw herself.

  Her aura twined with his, and in doing so, looked brighter, clearer, than she’d ever thought possible.

  Her breath caught. “Bliss? You were right.”

  Some of the shock waned and color seeped back into Bliss’s face. “I was?”

  “Oh yeah, my friend. You were very, very right.”

  Cops swarmed in and quickly cuffed the now-cowering woman and her two male cohorts. Ann stood with Mort, touching his face, fussing over him. He had an arm around Bliss, hugging her to share his warmth.

  Luther spoke briefly to the one in charge, then he came to Gaby.

  He held a hand out to her, and when she took it, he hauled her to her feet. “Let’s get these kids out of here, okay?”

  “All right.”

  He lifted Mali into his arms, took Dacia’s hand, and together they stepped outside to a full moon, a brisk, cool breeze, and fabulous possibilities for the future.

  Epilogue

  Luther woke to an empty bed. He sat up, immediately concerned until he saw the faint light beneath the closed bedroom door.

  Slipping from the room, he went down the hall to the spare bedroom Gaby liked to use.

  He found her on the floor, dressed only in one of his T-shirts, a box pulled out from beneath the bed. A gun had been tossed atop the guest bed, unneeded, out of the way. Papers were everywhere.

  So Gaby had been hard at work on her Servant series. He should have known.

  Beneath the overhead light, her dark hair shone and her lashes left shadows on her soft cheeks. She had papers spread out around her, ink in hand as she drew with a fevered intensity.

  Contentment settled over Luther and he leaned into the doorframe. For a long time he watched her.

  Finally Gaby paused, studied her finished drawing, and without looking up, said, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I don’t mind.” Of course she’d known he was there. She had tempered the prodigious paladin inside her, but her acute perceptions remained—and he was glad.

  She wouldn’t be Gaby without them. “We need to get you a proper desk.”

  She looked up with a small smile—a genuine smile that stole his heart and made him feel like life could never be more perfect.

  “I don’t mind the floor. When I need to work, I can do it anywhere.”

  After a trip to the hospital to ensure everyone was okay, Luther had used special connections to guarantee that the girls were released back into his and Gaby’s care. Bliss was better, but still too frazzled to deal with two children. The exhausted kids slept in a room together, peaceful, secure in the knowledge that Gaby would protect them.

  As she protected everyone.

  Gesturing him in, Gaby said, “Look at this.”

  In his boxers, Luther joined her on the cold floor. Gaby didn’t complain about the chill, so he did the manly thing and sucked up his own discomfort.

  The still-wet ink sketch she held depicted two girls—and a family.

  Unsure what it meant, Luther took it from her to better study it. Her artistic skill forever amazed him. But then, anything Gaby did, she did better than most.

  “Dacia and Mali?”

  “Yes.” She lifted the previous pages and showed them to him. “I finished up my story with Fabian.”

  Luther laid the paper down and tucked her hair behind her ear. “You didn’t want to catch a little sleep first?”

  “It’s . . . cathartic for me. You know, to get it out. Sort of my way of putting it to rest.”

  “I understand.” He couldn’t stop touching her. She was his now, and he’d keep her. Forever.

  “I had wondered if my duty would be done. But . . . She searched through the papers and found a specific one. “I think we’re just going to keep working together, you know, like we did tonight.”

  At the thought of going through another night like the last one, a knot twisted in Luther’s guts. But what the hell. He could live with that.

  He couldn’t live without Gaby. “If that’s what you want, it works for me.”

  “After I write some more, I’ve got that picture of the girls. We’re going to find the perfect family for them. It won’t be us, but they’ll stay close to us all the same. We’ll have a role in their lives.”

  If she said it was so, Luther believed her. “I only want you happy, Gaby. If you want the girls to stay with us, then—”

  She shook her head. “We’re going to be busy. The girls need someone who will give them a routine dinner and bedtime, and attention with their homework.” She glanced at him and grinned. “That’s not us.”

  Probably not. But he’d try his damnedest to adjust for her.

  “I don’t know what will come up next, but this picture sort of drew itself.”

  He took the paper she handed him. It was a depiction of the main protagonist of the series, a female paladin who stood outside, hair blowing back. In the distance, a sun rose.

  She was alone. Luther didn’t like that. “I know that woman is you, Gaby.”

  “It is.” With the tip of a finger, she traced the sun. “This is like your aura, Luther. Always touching me, changing me.”

  “And that’s okay?”

  She nodded. “It means a new beginning, you know?”

  “With me.” It wasn’t a question.

  Laying the paper aside, Gaby turned to him, crawled into his lap, and hugged him. “Yes, with you. I never knew love until I met you. I couldn’t even dream it, because I had no idea what it should be.” She leaned back and touched his face. “But it’s you. With me. What you feel for me . . . and what I feel for you.”

  Luther’s heart pounded hard. “You love me?”

  Very slowly, Gaby nodded. “I wasn’t sure at first, only because it’s so new and different, and kind of weird.”

  Luther grinned. “Weird, huh?”

  “I woke up ready to write, and for the first time that I can remember, I felt no dread. I felt only contentment. With you, everything is easier. Being me is easier.”

  “That’s because you’re a really wonderful person.”

  She let out a breath. “Only because you say it, can I start to believe it’s true.”

  He hugged her tight. “I’m glad.”

  “I used to curse my life, but now, with you, I look forward to the future and what we might accomplish. Together, it all seems more possible.”

  “Your duty to save others is not an easy one, Gaby. It’s understandable that you disliked it.”

  She shrugged. “Well, I might have the duty of saving others, but you saved me. I bet that was a whole lot harder.” She grinned. “I know I’m not always easy to be around.”

  Luther laughed. “You do keep things interesting.”

  “I love you, Luther Cross.”

  Finally, she’d said it. Or rather, blurted it out in a rush. But the impact was the same.

  “Do you need to do any more writing?” He desperat
ely needed her. Right now.

  Gaby looked at him, knew his thoughts, and her features sharpened in awareness. Eyes glittering, she said, “You know, cop, I do believe the writing will wait.”

  Luther scooped her up, more than ready for what the future would bring. With Gabrielle Cody, he could hardly wait.

  And now a special preview of

  BACK IN BLACK

  by Lori Foster.

  Coming soon from Berkley Books!

  Gillian Noode stood against the back wall of Roger’s Rodeo, the popular bar where many fighters hung out. She was close enough to observe him, but not close enough to be noticed. Yet. At least, not by him. Plenty of other men had already given her the once-over, showing appreciation for her trim black skirt, her low-scooped white blouse, and her strappy sandals. A few had even tried to strike up a conversation. Though tempted, she’d politely declined.

  She’d come here for a reason, and Drew Black was it.

  Dressed in well-worn jeans and a comfortable black T-shirt bearing the logo of the SBC fight club, the president of the extreme sport sat at the polished bar. Currently, he held close conversation with two long-haired lovelies whose bloated busts defied believability. No woman that slender had breasts that large.

  But Drew showed no signs of disbelief. Like a king of his own making, he ogled with commitment to the boob ruse. Appreciating his commitment, the girls played with their long hair, flirted, and giggled.

  Gillian fought a gag.

  From the many interviews and television spots she’d watched, as well as her current scrutiny, Gillian surmised that Drew Black had a fighter-type physique, not quite as shredded as the actual fighters, but sculpted with honest muscle rather than the steroid-induced kind. He looked strong and capable.

  Obviously his ego demanded that he stay in shape. After all, he was often surrounded by younger men in their prime, elite fighters with rock-hard bodies and astounding ability.

  Drew Black intrigued her beyond the job at hand.

  As an entrepreneur he showed great intelligence; no one could have accomplished what he had without a lot of smarts. He’d taken a mostly dead sport, banned in many states, and turned it into an astounding success.