“Shit!” I swore, getting up from bed. “I have to call him, and tell him I’m home. I don’t want him showing up looking for me.” I went upstairs and called Terian’s cell. “Terian?”
“Sar, what is it?” he said, worried.
“I teleported myself home,” I said quickly. “You were right, I have the power. I just wanted to let you know, so you wouldn’t worry.”
“Sar, this is amazing. I’ve got to have a sample of your blood to test—”
“No samples, Terian. I’m tired, I’m dirty from ending up sprawled on the floor, and I’m going to go shower. You saw I’m fine. Leave me alone, unless it’s an emergency.”
“Okay,” he said, offended.
“Good-bye,” I said, and hung up.
“What sample? What did he want?” Devlin said, standing in the darkness of the stairway. “What was so urgent?”
“You can come up. The blinds in here are still closed.” I sighed, and sank into the nearest chair. “He wanted to take me to Danial, because he’d heard I was cooler and he was worried I was dying. Some of what he said sounded like he suspected I might have been changed by having Theoron. Mostly, he wanted a sample of my blood, which I didn’t give him.”
“Good. That’s for me,” Devlin teased. “He saw you were better. Does he suspect why?”
“He’s suspicious, though I distracted him for now. He didn’t see the choker.”
“Good,” Devlin said, relieved.
“Why are you relieved?” I said sharply. “You tell me you want my Oath, yet you don’t want anyone to know?”
He came up and put his hand on my arm. “I need you to trust me. Besides, until I know if you want Theo in the Oath, too, we can’t let anyone know.”
“Now we’re up to three men?” I said sarcastically.
“Hush,” he said, pulling me close. “If he was going to leave you, Sar, would he not have taken Elle, and just left? Why come back at all, if he wanted to be with her? It’s obvious you still love him. I would rather include him now than have to re-Oath you later if you kiss and make up.”
“We aren’t making up,” I said decisively. “Maybe he did love me once, but you’re right that he loves her more.”
“Then he is a fool, and you are well rid of him,” Devlin said, hugging me. “Now come back to bed. Tonight we have much to do.”
* * * *
Devlin woke me at dusk. “We have to hurry. Get dressed.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, yawning. “Sure this is our last night, but—”
“I mean go now and get dressed, Sar. I’ll meet you at the front door.”
“The dogs—”
“Let them out, and get moving! We’ll walk them when we return.” His eyes were cruel and masterful, that of the old Devlin who expected to hear “yes” to every command.
I got moving, dressing fast, and letting the dogs out. “Are we taking the motorcycle?” I asked, letting the dogs back in.
“We’ll need to take your truck, the journey is too far,” Devlin said on his way up the cellar stairs. “Where are the keys?”
I tossed him the keys from the counter. He caught them, striding fast to the door. We hastened to the garage. He got behind the wheel, and peeled out, before I had time to get my seat belt on.
“What is the rush?” I said, annoyed.
“There is something that needs to be done tonight, Sar. I am not sure how long it will take. The minutes we have together are slipping away faster and faster.”
We drove south, Devlin remaining edgy. An hour later, we pulled up at a wooden building that had seen better days. With no light but the truck’s headlamps, it was hard to tell if this was a house. All that was visible was rusting cars on the front lawn, surrounded by brambles. The road we were on was little more than mud and gravel, the surrounding area overgrown fields and dark forest.
Devlin got out. “Hurry.”
“Is this place deserted?” I asked, getting out of the truck. “There are no lights.”
“He likes the dark,” Devlin said, going to the door and knocking loudly.
The porch light came on immediately. A huge bearded man opened the inner door, dressed in a clean Harley T-shirt and black jeans. He looked mean, but the moment he saw Devlin a smile split his face. “Dev, my man, how the hell are you?” he said, extending his hand.
“Great, Cleave,” Devlin said, flashing a radiant smile, and shaking Cleave’s hand.
Cleave noticed me. “Nice piece, Dev,” he said, looking me up and down.
“She’s more than a piece, Cleave,” Devlin said sharply. “That’s why we’re here.”
“You want the regular?” Cleave said with a grin.
“No,” Devlin said intriguingly. “Something different.”
Cleave’s eyebrows shot up, and he opened the door wide so we could get past him. “Come on in and have a seat.” He closed and locked it behind us, then led us into what I guessed was both his place of business and his house. I expected it to be filthy, to have beer cans or sex magazines interspersed with dirty dishes. Instead, everything was moderately clean, only one Penthouse magazine lying across the chair.
We must have interrupted the night’s reading agenda.
Cleave moved easily with the grace of someone who exercised regularly, despite the outside of his house. Once we’d been seated, he turned to Dev, putting his hands together.
“What did you have in mind?”
“This,” Devlin said, pulling me into his lap, and showing Cleave my choker pendant.
“Take it off her. I’ll need to see it better, especially to sketch a drawing for size.”
Devlin undid the choker and handed it to him.
“You want the bear to have red eyes or another color?”
Devlin considered that for a moment. “Red,” he said finally.
“I’ll need to enlarge it to at least double the size of the pendant,” Cleave said. “Or you won’t have much more than an outline of the bear.”
“Make it as small as you can and still be detailed,” Devlin answered. “It must be obvious that it’s the exact same symbol.”
“Sure,” Cleave said. “I’ve got small needles.”
I turned to Devlin. “Isn’t the choker enough?”
Cleave got up hurriedly, the choker in his hand. “I’ll be back in a bit, when I have a sketch for you to approve. Then we can get started.”
“How long will it take?” Devlin asked.
“Thirty minutes to sketch and then an hour or thereabouts to apply the ink,” Cleave said. “If you want more color than just red, white, and black, it will take longer.”
“Just those colors.”
“If I rush, it won’t be as good, you know that.”
“I know,” Devlin said, nodding. “Take your time.”
“You didn’t answer me,” I said angrily.
“Be back,” Cleave said and left.
I turned to Dev, still on his lap. “You could have asked, you know.”
“But I’m not asking,” he said devilishly. “Rings can be taken off. Marks can be healed with time and magic. Oaths can be broken. I want something more lasting.”
“A tattoo of your symbol.”
“I want to be under your skin, Sar. And I want you never, ever, to be able to get me out.”
His words made me shiver. “Tattoos can be removed.”
Devlin reached out and tilted my face, so his molten gold eyes met mine. “Ordinary tattoos can be removed with surgery. Cleave’s specialty is tattooing supernatural beings, those that heal almost anything. He has done this for me before, and he knows what to do. Even with your new physiology, it will be difficult to remove this one, if not impossible.”
“Did you mark the women you turned this way?” I said angrily.
“A chosen few, over the years,” Devlin answered. “But just with a “D,” never with my personal symbol.”
“What if I say no?”
“Then I’ll bite you and drink until y
ou lose consciousness again, and he’ll do it while you’re out,” Devlin replied. “I want this very much, Sar. Please give your assent.”
As much as I was annoyed with his pushiness, I liked very much that he wanted me to wear his symbol permanently, not just as a neck decoration. “Will it hurt?”
“There will be some mild pain, but not much. And you will bleed slightly, also.”
“Where is he going to put it?” I asked apprehensively.
“Where do you want my symbol to be?” he said, giving me a sexy smile.
“I can tell you where I want it not to be,” I said heatedly.
He laughed. “On your hip is fine, Sar,” he said, patting me there gently. “It will hurt less there, anyway.”
“Are you going to get one?” I asked.
“No,” Devlin said gently. “But I will look into a ring for my left hand. Will that suffice?”
I felt a rush of feeling for him. “Yes, if you’ll wear it.”
“Why would I get one and not wear it?” Devlin said angrily. “I tell you something meaningful, and instead of happiness, you give me sarcasm.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean it like it sounded.”
Devlin didn’t reply.
We sat in silence for a minute or two. I broke first. “Look, I’m sorry. Don’t be angry, please.”
“I’m not angry with you, Love, just on edge. What do you want to talk about?” Devlin said, leaning back on the couch and giving me a bemused glance.
“Tell me about yourself. I know very little about you.” That was good, anyway. “I do love you, but that is for what you’ve done for me, been to me, since I had Theoron, and for what you’ve done for Danial—”
“What do you mean?”
“You protected him down through the years, didn’t you? You were hard on him because of Anna, but you kept him from being harmed. Danial can be tough, but he’s not ruthless enough to have lasted four hundred years without someone watching out for him.”
“You are astute for a woman,” Dev said with a tiny bit of respect. “Yes, that’s true.”
I glared at him. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that. The dark ages are over.”
“Alas, they are,” Devlin said with a mock sigh. “But I remember them with nostalgia.”
“You’re not that old, Dev. But please tell me of your past, if you would.”
He caressed me gently. “Of course. What do you want to know?”
“Tell me what really happened with Anna. I was told by Theo that Danial seduced her and you never forgave him. That ever afterward, you tried to seduce anyone he loved.”
“That is all true,” Devlin said coolly. “And that’s it, in a nutshell. What details are you looking for; how I found out about them?”
“No,” I replied, blushing. “But you wouldn’t share her with Danial, yet you want to share me. What changed your mind?”
“You want assurance I don’t love you less than she,” Devlin said. “Be assured I do not.”
“Tell me what happened.”
He took a breath and began. “Simply put, we loved the same woman. She’d sworn herself to me and Danial was jealous, so he seduced her. I found them together. We fought, and I almost killed him. We didn’t speak for a decade, until after I had become Ruler, and she had died. I’ve been taking my revenge on him ever since.”
“I’m sorry for you both,” I said softly.
“I was angry for a long time, Sar. I’d never met a woman like Anna. Losing her was like losing all I had left that meant anything to me. I was filled with rage at the unfairness of having eternity and not having the person I wanted most of all to share it with. I channeled all of my anger and hate into becoming Ruler.”
“Once you had, why not make up? Danial was the only family you had left. And there must have been many women you tried to ease your loneliness. Why not be comforted?”
“Danial did not want to make up, and neither did I; we were both too angry.” He held me close. “There were always women, but I didn’t want to be loved or have anyone look at me with affection or tenderness. I didn’t want to love anyone ever again. I found my pleasures in other ways, some of them cruel. As the years passed, then centuries, I let other women into my heart, even loved some of them a little. But no matter my precautions, eventually they all turned. After they changed, we separated. A great part of sex for me is the blood exchange, Sar. And vampire blood is bitter.” He sighed miserably. “But most of all they weren’t her, none of them.”
Unbidden thoughts rose in my mind that I wasn’t her, either. Doubt filled me that Devlin would care about me at all, if not for my blood. More heart wrenching was wondering if he would have come back to save me if I hadn’t reminded him of his lost love. I kept silent.
Devlin paused for a few moments, then said, “And the sunlight clasps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the sea. What are all these kissings worth if thou kiss not me?”
I drew his lips to mine gently, and gave him a light kiss. “I will always want to kiss you.”
“I hope so,” he said, hugging me. “That was Shelly.”
“For being brothers, why are you and Danial so different?” I asked.
“We are not so different, save in sexual desire,” Devlin replied, then let out a wicked laugh.
“Your views are different from Danial’s,” I amended firmly. “He devotes his life to his business, and you devoted yours to Ruling. I remember your words to Danial on my behalf. Although you used the law for your own ends, you took your position seriously. At least, you made me believe you did.”
“I always did,” Devlin replied, nodding. “Those in power have a responsibility to those under them not to abuse that power. Tyrants get overthrown.”
“We talked once about what you’d do if you were facing an attack. You said you’d kill a few innocents to save the lives of many. Danial said he’d leave instead.”
“What did he say, exactly?”
“He said he would do what the woman he loved wanted, that fighting over a piece of ground was not worth dying for, that people always died in wars and you couldn’t save them.”
“Sounds like him,” Devlin said, rolling his eyes. “Ever the pessimist.”
“Not to me,” I said, looking at him carefully. “To me, it sounds like you. What I might have expected you to say. And your answer was more what I expected him to say.”
Devlin looked at me for a long moment. “Perhaps you don’t know either of us that well.”
“Perhaps I don’t know you,” I said quietly. “But I want to.”
He sighed. “There are reasons for his answer.” He paused for a long moment. “Did you never wonder why being brothers, we look so different; why I’m fair, and he’s dark? Why our bodies you have come to know so well are markedly different in some ways?”
I had never thought about it, but now that I did, it all came together instantly. God, I should have figured it out years ago. “You aren’t full blood brothers.”
He nodded. “We are half-brothers, Sar. Danial had a different mother than I.”
“You’re older.”
“Yes. When I was changed, I was thirty-five to Danial’s thirty—”
“He told me he was changed at thirty-five!” I exclaimed, shocked. “He wasn’t?”
Dev laughed. “He so wanted to be like me. No, he was younger.” He paused. “We have different backgrounds because of having different mothers. All our mortal lives, we were separated by class.” He turned sad. “I was the legitimate heir, the spitting image of my father. I was trained from birth to rule men, to study strategy and tactics, and to learn the finer arts, like music, reading and writing. My father had no title, but he was the liege lord’s strategist. He taught me all he knew, including how to seduce women, and I took my first one when I was sixteen, much as I took you that first time we were together.”
“Danial’s mother was not only the most beautiful woman in her village, but also the most comely
within the territory. She had the misfortune to be both beautiful and poor. She was only sixteen when she caught my father’s eye. He took her as his mistress almost immediately, despite her objections. Danial looks much like her, with her dark hair and eyes, though he has the same general build as I do, from our father.”
“Danial had none of my training, Sar, none of my education. Despite that my father supported him and his mother, he didn’t have an easy time of it. He knew who his father was, as did everyone, but my father would not acknowledge him publicly. Despite my father’s objections, when he was five, I took him under my wing and taught him what I could. My father frowned upon our relationship. He thought only of what Danial was to him, not what he could become someday.”
“God, how awful. No wonder Danial is the way he is.” I wiped my filling eyes. “He always declined to answer my questions about his parents and his past, saying he didn’t want to remember. He even did that with his birthday.” I wiped again at my leaking eyes.
“Don’t cry,” Devlin said gently, putting his arms around me. “He’s a happy father now, and soon to be Oathed again. Danial needs your love, not your pity.”
“Can you fill in more of the blanks for me?” I asked.
Devlin nodded. “If I know the answers.”
“Why didn’t your father accept him? I understand class hierarchy, but when it comes to sons, didn’t—?”
“Because of his eyes,” Devlin said sadly. “My father had other children out of wedlock. The ones with gold-colored eyes he did acknowledge. Danial had the misfortune not to inherit my father’s favorite attribute.” He squeezed my hand. “There is no more to say about it other than that was unfair and evil.”
Hopefully, Dev’s dad was roasting in hell. “I know the story of how you were attacked. If you were a higher class than Danial was, how did you both end up doing guard duty together?”
“The prisoner was a visiting Duke’s son, accused of rape and murder. He’d been found with the body of my father’s favorite maid, the knife still in his hand. In those times, an upper-class man harming a lower-class woman was common, and usually unpunished. But my father was annoyed with the loss of one of his choice conquests, and he asked that I go to give account, to make sure the man was punished. He put me in charge of the group.”
Her Secret Page 25
