Resisting Darkness
Page 13
**
Anthony heard the knock but didn’t move from the bed. He wanted as much time as he could get with Kaia tonight, so he compelled his voice to the front door. “Come in Dag. I’m in my bedroom.”
He waited for Dag to join them, then nudged Kaia. She startled awake. He felt guilty for not letting her sleep, but he wanted to resolve this disagreement between them before he went to work for the night.
“Kaia, Dag’s here.”
She groaned at him. “What?” Once she sat up she instantly came awake, her eyes wide and glued to the big man.
His deep voice rumbled, “Ma’am.”
She stared in awe at him, and Anthony didn’t like how her heart’s pace picked up, or how she suddenly seemed so attentive.
She put her hand out and a fire lit up her eyes. “Hi.”
He shook her hand and Anthony’s stomach dropped. Dag was either bespelling her or something about his blood was calling out to her. He looked sharply at Dag and it was obvious the man knew something was wrong. Dag started to say something to him but Anthony glared and minutely shook his head. He didn’t want Kaia to be part of this conversation.
He tried his best to be calm while he spoke. “Kaia, Dag’s the one who healed your bites Saturday night.”
She somewhat breathily said, “Thank you.”
Anthony’s temper rose to the point that he was seeing red as she stared longingly at the big man.
Dag cautiously said, “You’re welcome, ma’am.” His gaze kept nervously flicking to Anthony, which it should, dammit.
Kaia swallowed. “I don’t remember meeting you the other night. I guess I was pretty sick.”
Dag flicked another look at Anthony, then back to Kaia. “It’s all right ma’am. There’s no need to remember me. It’s more important that we got you healed.”
She blinked wide eyed at him. “Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And call me Kaia.”
He nervously smiled and inclined his head. “Kaia.”
Anthony curtly said, “Thank you for coming Dag. I think Kaia needs to go back to bed now. She’s still not feeling well.”
Dag immediately turned to leave, but Kaia put her hand out. “Nice to meet you Dag. Thank you again.”
Anthony gave Dag a death glare but nodded once, gesturing for him to shake her hand. Dag hesitated, but finally reached for her, his huge hand completely dwarfing hers.
He nervously said, “Pleasure to meet you, Kaia. I hope you feel better soon.”
Anthony watched him go and tried to blank his expression before Kaia turned her attention back on him.
She leaned against his chest and said, “Thank you baby. I really don’t remember meeting him the other night.”
He nodded and tried to unclench his teeth. “Are you upset I had him heal you?” Because he definitely was now.
She briefly cringed. “I don’t remember him doing it, and it feels weird that I had no control over it, but I’ll be fine.”
He sounded a little too stubborn even to himself when he said, “I assure you I would not have allowed him to hurt you. I am much, much more powerful than he is, no matter his size.” He quietly sighed. “But I apologize that you feel awkward about it.”
“Oh baby, thank you for being so sweet. I love you.”
“I love you too, my sweet.”
**
Anthony left Kaia downstairs so she could get some sleep, then stormed up to the club to find Dag.
He was waiting by the door to Anthony’s office and immediately dropped to one knee, bowing his head in submission.
Anthony put a sound barrier around them. “What the hell was that all about?” He pointed furiously at his office. “Get inside.”
Dag didn’t look at him as he hurried into the room. Anthony slammed the door behind them. “What did you do to her?”
Dag risked a glance at him, then dropped to one knee again. “Master, forgive me. I didn’t know that would happen. I assumed with my human pets that they acted that way because of their addictive personalities. I didn’t realize it was my blood that made them like that.”
Anthony’s heart beat in anger, but also heartache. He clenched his fists in fury with Dag, but forced himself to look away. This was his own fault. Anthony should never have risked any of this with her.
He paced around the small office. “She was fine before you came into the room.”
Dag meekly said, “It’s not a strong link, Master. I’m not that powerful of a vampire.”
If Anthony made Kaia vampire someday, he’d easily break Dag’s link simply by turning her with his own blood. While she was human, though, he didn’t dare try anything else involving vampire blood. He didn’t want her to go insane from a supernatural power her human body couldn’t handle.
He halfheartedly snapped, “Tell me you didn’t know this would happen. Say the words out loud.”
Dag looked him straight in the eye. “I swear to you I didn’t know this would happen, Master.”
Anthony could see Dag was scared, but his aura said he wasn’t lying. “Fine. Leave me.” He turned away, unable to look at him while he cooled his temper.
Dag warily got to his feet and Anthony had to step aside so he could leave. Before he left the room, though, Anthony tersely said, “Thank you for healing Kaia.”
“Of course, Master. I’m your loyal subject.”
That wasn’t something people typically said to him, and it made him look more fully at the man. “I’m assuming you’re referring to the recent mutiny against me.”
“It was a foolish thing to happen, for many reasons. Many here are upset about the attempt on your life.”
“But some aren’t. Some wished it’d succeeded.”
“There will always be those that despise having to answer to someone, Master.”
Anthony cocked an eyebrow.
“A lot of people here support you. Maybe more than you realize.”
Anthony inclined his head, his temper cooling just enough so he no longer wanted to physically hurt Dag, though that could change at any moment.
Dag took the hint and quickly left.
Chapter 14
Harmony slowly opened her eyes as the last of the setting sun’s dampening energy evaporated for the night. She sensed Ethan in the room and turned her head to see him standing in front of his dresser mirror, his reflection showing him looking down at a small ring in his hand. He flicked his eyes to her when he noticed her movement, then dropped the ring into a wooden jewelry box before turning and giving her his full attention. She got out of bed and reached for him as he stood shirtless in just a pair of striped pajama bottoms, her in the matching top.
“Good evening, kitten.”
She lazily purred, “Good morning.”
He hugged her, and even though his arms felt lovely around her, he didn’t try to get any closer, just like last night. They’d passionately kissed before the sun rose, then she borrowed his pajama top before she faded for the day. Tonight he already seemed distracted. She figured they wouldn’t be getting any closer until this thing with Anthony’s father blew over, so she let him walk away without the sexy scolding she wanted to give him.
He stepped towards the bathroom but abruptly stopped when she slowly reached for his jewelry box. She looked back at him, wondering if she dare open it, vaguely surprised at her own boldness.
His expression was solemn, almost a frown, but he finally took a deep breath and nodded. She turned her attention back to the box and opened it to find a satchel inside, as well as a few pieces of jewelry. There was an old pocket watch, a delicate necklace, and a woman’s ring.
She picked up the ring and didn’t need to ask whose it was. She held it in her hand as she slowly studied it, though her thoughts were on Ethan. She didn’t look at him as she said, “She’s still alive in your mind, making it difficult for you to move on in life. Do you hold her so tightly that she can’t move on either?” She carefully looked at him as his eyes went wide with horror.
“I don’t know. All I know is that if you two loved each other as much as it seems, she wouldn’t have wanted you to keep living in the past. She would’ve wanted you to have a life again.”
She absently dropped the ring back in the box and stepped towards him, surprised that she’d unnerved him so much. He looked crushed at her words, and she felt bad, but she wouldn’t take them back. She wanted to help him move on, even if it was painful.
He took her in his arms and held her tight, rocking her back and forth, and she couldn’t help thinking that he was well and truly starting to seem like a crazy person.
“Harmony, I’m trying. I’m trying to straighten this all out in my head.”
Her tense shoulders relaxed. Crazy people didn’t think they were crazy. Ethan knew he had a problem and needed to deal with it. Just knowing he was aware of it helped ease her worries, at least a little.
“Can I ask you something?”
He warily nodded.
“Why did you need two shifters to feed from the other night?”
He stared blankly at her for a time.
“Because I’ve been giving Cory my blood.”
“Why?” The revulsion in her own voice told her she still wasn’t over her distaste of shifters.
“Because I want him to be stronger. He almost died recently. Not because of me. But I don’t want him to get caught up in my problems, just because he’s my friend, and not be able to defend himself. I’m doing whatever I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Warmth rushed through her. Ethan was a good man. She knew he was, which made it feel more and more like she was the one who was resisting letting him all the way into her heart.
**
The tension in the air was palpable at the club. Harmony was used to Ethan’s vampires showing up throughout the evening and hanging out for hours. These last few nights, though, they all came at once and looked like they were on a team mission. Anthony and Ethan constantly kept a wary eye on each other, too.
The shifters didn’t make her any less antsy, either. She was middle of the line power wise, and even she could feel that something was going to happen soon. She was surprised she didn’t hear any gossip about what it was, though. Ethan’s family was pretty good at keeping things to themselves apparently. Still, it made her feel bad every time she looked at Anthony. Was any of this his fault? From the few bits and pieces she’d gotten out of Christopher, and the lack of anything from Ethan, it didn’t sound like it. It made her sad to think that the sins of the father might be Anthony’s undoing.
**
Ethan couldn’t get what Harmony said about Sonya not being able to move on out of his mind. Could he have actually kept her in some kind of hellish limbo all these years? Was that even possible?
He watched Cory and Christopher play pool while Harmony sat at his side. He’d given up trying to play when he couldn’t keep it straight if he was solids or stripes.
He was worried sick about having Harmony here with him, especially since he felt Isaiah’s link stronger and stronger every night. She refused to stay at Wild Woods, though, and he was reluctantly grateful for her calming presence. He still wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to do when the murdering devil arrived, but he figured once he saw the man in person his mind would be easily made up.
Ethan leaned into Harmony and asked, “Do you truly think we have souls? Vampires, I mean.”
She gave him another one of her cautious looks. She thought he was crazy, or at least bordering on it. He could see it in her eyes and hear it in the way she talked calmly and quietly to him lately, like he might snap at any second. She might be right, he supposed. It made him wonder how he’d let himself get so far gone and if there really was any turning back now.
“Maybe. What do you think?”
His mind had already wandered and he had to focus to remember what he’d asked her. Souls, he’d asked about souls.
“My dear friend Nala was killed in a freak accident, years and years ago, right in front of my eyes. I’d never seen anything like it and hope to never see it again. She was dead, no question about it, and poor Seth was a wreck after that. Even after we buried her, he was constantly at her grave site. He’d wake for the night, go to her, then come home just before sunrise. Weeks went by while he did that. Almost two months passed before we fully grasped why he kept going up there. Besides to grieve, I mean.”
He vaguely realized Christopher and Cory were listening to his story. Christopher had known Seth and Nala, but Cory had no idea who he was talking about.
Harmony asked, “Was Seth her husband?”
Ethan nodded.
“So what was he doing?”
Ethan and Christopher shared a look. These were stories from the old days, stories he didn’t usually share because it felt like he was cheapening the memory.
He turned his attention back to Harmony. “Seth was a Micmac, from the Mi’kmaq Nation in Nova Scotia. He was actually supposed to become his tribe’s shaman before he came across Nala and fell in love. From the time they ran away together until the day of her death he performed rituals with her to bond their souls together. When she was killed…” He opened his hands and shrugged nonchalantly, something that was hard to do because the whole thing still bothered him. A lot.
He couldn’t look anyone in the eye as he continued his story. This part always made him emotional. “When Nala was killed, Seth kept going back to her grave and performing the ritual, and part of that was to share blood. He told us he’d been continuing to share his blood with her by bleeding onto her grave. He was helping to guide her soul into the afterlife.
“We didn’t want to seem disrespectful, but we were worried he was becoming obsessive about it and refusing to move on in life. He agreed he’d stop spending every night at her grave if we’d give some of our blood to her as well. So we did. Little did we know, Seth had been practically draining himself every night in an attempt to bring her back from the dead, and as soon as our blood hit the ground, combined with months of Seth’s blood, there she was. A wisp of a ghost, but she was back.”
Harmony’s eyes went wide.
Ethan said more emphatically, “He brought her back to life. Their bond was so strong, he pulled her soul back from the dead.”
He knew he sounded crazy right now, and Harmony looked like she wasn’t sure what to believe. He spared a look at Cory and Christopher. Cory was frowning.
Christopher had been around back then though. He knew Ethan wasn’t lying. And it made him feel better to hear Christopher’s confirmation out loud. “It’s true. I felt her death and I saw her a few months later. Not the same, exactly, but she was alive again.”
Ethan sharply said, “Blood. She just needed lots and lots of blood to stay whole. It wasn’t always easy to let her feed that much, but when it was possible, she became whole again.”
Christopher knowingly nodded and Harmony’s face paled.
Ethan sighed. “And when Sonya died, I couldn’t take looking at them anymore because he couldn’t bring her soul back. Not like Nala.”
Christopher busied himself starting a new game of pool, and Cory quickly turned to help him. His gaze was elsewhere but Ethan could feel his attention was still on him.
Harmony let out a heavy breath, sorrow plain on her face. “I’m sorry, Ethan. I’ve been insensitive.”
He put his arm around her shoulder and leaned into her, then kissed the side of her head. “No you haven’t. You were right. I need to let her go. Keeping her alive in my head was the only thing stopping me from doing what I wanted to do, anyway.”
He pulled back and looked meaningfully into her questioning gaze, then slowly disappeared into mist as understanding dawned in her beautiful, smoky eyes.
**
He was here. The bastard was here and would come down those stairs and through that door any minute now.
Ethan hadn’t even realized the man was already in town. He’d been feeling the same frantic, almost manic, paranoid energy getting stronger every night, but he’d never made another vampire besides Sonya’s murderer so he hadn’t known what to expect.
When the energy in the air told him another Master Vampire was in the building, he knew it had to be him. He opened his senses wide as he waited, then decided to play an evil game of cat and mouse with his prey. He slowly, very slowly reached through his link to Isaiah and made sure he had a firm hold on his soul, or whatever it was, then gave it a good yank.
The murderer’s frantic paranoia nearly engulfed them both. Ethan had to keep his head on straight if he was going to do this the way he’d always imagined, so he slowly loosened his hold on Isaiah and hovered as mist in the air near the door at the bottom of the stairs.
And waited.
Isaiah had people with him. He could feel that now. Three, no four, werewolves. One was a woman. And two… vampires? One of them didn’t feel quite right though. One felt like… No! It couldn’t be! There was no way Nala would be traveling with this bastard! And if she was here, then so was Seth.
He frustratingly stopped himself from going upstairs to get this confrontation over with. Isaiah needed to come down here. He needed to be where Anthony was. That was the way this worked. An eye for an eye.
He looked for Harmony, who was searching futilely around the room. He seeped towards her, then nudged her further back from where he figured the action would take place. Even though he was ready to confront Isaiah, and was prepared to deal with what that might mean for himself, he didn’t want to see her get hurt.
He supposed he should thank her for helping him realize he needed to let Sonya go. He’d told his beautiful butterfly goodbye in his mind earlier tonight, wishing her well wherever her soul took her, if she really had been tethered to him this whole time. He hoped her next life treated her well, but that thought nearly made him break down.
It had been incredibly hard to say his goodbyes, but knowing Sonya was gone gave him a clear conscience to do what he’d always been guiltily planning to do, something he’d never actually been against. Only Sonya had been. He was finally going to kill either Isaiah, or his son, for destroying the wonderful life he’d built with the only woman he’d ever loved. Ethan was a Master and people didn’t take things from him without his permission. Especially not Isaiah, an insignificant human at the time, no matter what he’d decided to be after that.