Rising Ashes

by Annie Anderson

  She feels guilty – over something which is no more her fault than the color of the sky. She wouldn’t blame an animal for snapping when wounded, or rain causing a flood, or the lightning causing a fire, so why she blames herself for losing control when she was in imminent danger is beyond me.

  San Francisco was an accident. Nothing more or less, and I didn’t blame her – not many did – but she still blamed herself. It was easy to see the lengths she went to not to lose control – only consuming little bits here and there so her body stayed tired. Then, she would run herself ragged, flitting about doing things for everyone she knew – helping, giving more and more of herself until there was nothing left.

  So, no, I didn’t want to cage her. I wanted her free. I wanted her safe. I wanted her to be mine.

  But I wasn’t going to get what I wanted – I wasn’t going to keep her good soul with my tainted one.

  Evangeline killed by accident. I killed on purpose.

  And as I watched this beautiful pixie shine her light in the throng of concertgoers I vowed to myself she’d never be mine.

  WEST – 1987 – LONDON, ENGLAND

  I’ve lost her. I never had her in the first place, but I’ve lost her all the same. She was tired of waiting for me. Tired of my silence. Tired of feeling the pull and getting nothing in return. Make no mistake - she felt it. It didn’t matter that I tried my best to avoid speaking around her. I thought that if I didn’t speak, she wouldn’t know about the bond, but I failed in that endeavor about a decade ago.

  She went on a date tonight.

  The first date she’s ever been on, at least to my knowledge – and the twist to my heart was unbearable. She wouldn’t choose me over him, this pale-headed suitor with the nice clothes and even nicer car. Why would she? I have done nothing in these some eighty years to dissuade her.

  Here I stood – in the rain no less – like a pathetic sack of shit waiting to get my heart ripped up a little more. He took her to a decent restaurant, a new Moroccan place that opened up last year. He pulled out her chair, opened her door, he was polite.

  I wanted to murder him on site.

  I hated where we were living. I hated that we were so far from John and Olivia. I hated the rain and gray skies and cold weather. But it didn’t stop me from agreeing that she needed a change.

  My Angel was withering away. I thought keeping my vow would keep her safe, but…

  It had been months since the last time she consumed a soul, and it was starting to show. She looked painfully gaunt, her cheeks hollow, her collarbone prominent despite the thick sweaters she wore. But I didn’t know what to do, so I agreed to move across the world.

  Still, she refused to consume.

  Evangeline lived quiet here, managing an art gallery where her best friend’s paintings regularly made an appearance. John has received roughly a dozen calls and updates from Aurelia about my Angel. It was good she had Aurelia – someone to talk to when she stopped talking to me. Someone else to care for her. I didn’t even have to meet her to know Aurelia Constantine cared deeply for my Angel.

  But John was worried, and Olivia was concerned enough that Aurelia kept her updated with daily phone calls.

  But me? I was beside myself. Scared out of my mind for so many reasons.

  Should I leave her be?

  Should I butt into her date and take her away from this place?

  Should I just get over myself and fucking kiss her?

  Evangeline wasn’t getting any better. How much longer could she go before the damage was irreversible?

  I watched them dine through the window, the barest hint of a smile passed her lips, quickly marred by a frown when she met my eyes through the glass. Oh, she was mad.

  They ate their meals in tense silence and parted ways at the door of the restaurant. She waited impatiently for him to get into the low-slung car parked on the street and drive away before stomping across the street to me.

  She was pissed, but I didn’t care. There was a life to her that had been missing these last few years. So when she opened her mouth to yell at me for whatever reason she had to do so, I couldn’t help myself.

  I closed the few feet that separated us, wrapped an arm around her waist, fitted her small, firm body to mine, and kissed her with everything in me. Whatever she was about to say, whatever tirade she planned in those tense minutes while she waited for her date to end, died on her tongue as I met it with mine. I tangled my fingers in the thick curls of her hair and breathed her in – tasting her sweetness, her light – until I couldn’t breathe anymore.

  “You going out with that fucker again?” I asked, but I knew she wouldn’t before she shook her head no.

  “Why would I waste my time on anyone who wasn’t you?” she asked by way of explanation.

  I answered her with my mouth over hers, stealing both of our breaths as the warm, slick slide of her tongue met mine. I couldn’t tell if she climbed me or if my hands moved of their own accord, but before I knew it, her pert little bottom was in my palms and her legs were wrapped around my waist.

  I was soaked to the skin from the winter downpour, but I wasn’t cold – not with this beautiful woman in my arms. Then I no longer felt the pelting of the rain and knew we’d moved. Once again, I wasn’t sure if I’d done it or if she did, but we found ourselves in her opulent flat in Knightsbridge. I didn’t see it. I didn’t need to.

  I didn’t need anything but my Angel and her breaths on my lips, her moans in my ear, her warm body in my hands.

  And then I didn’t see anything at all but the backs of my eyelids as her tongue stroked the pulse point on my neck as she clawed at my sodden sweater.

  Jesus. Fuck.

  My fingers tugged at the blouse that refused to lose its purchase on her skin, and it pissed me off enough that instead of the delicacy I planned to take with her, I ripped the fabric away from her skin without meaning to.

  “Shit, babe. I didn’t mean to rip it,” I murmured my apology but by her giggle, she didn’t care. Then she returns the favor ruining my shirt as well as she runs a long black talon down the center of my sweater, parting the wool from my flesh. I couldn’t say why that caused such an intense curl of heat in my gut, but I wanted her more than I ever had at that second.

  It isn’t until her whole body freezes do I snap out of my lust-filled trance.

  “What?” I asked cupping her jaw in my palm and tipping her chin so her eyes met mine.

  “Your tattoo,” she whispered.

  “Which one, babe? There isn’t much skin that isn't tattooed.”

  One cool finger traced the large calligraphy ‘E’ over my heart, and I froze. I’d gotten it one rare night off in the fifties. The green cast to the ink a dead giveaway of the age of the tattoo.

  “It’s old,” she murmured.

  “It is,” I admitted, but she didn’t need to know just how old it was.

  She took my non-answer in stride, nodding as if she knew the whole story when I gave her only bits and pieces. I vowed there and then to give her more even if I couldn’t give her all of me.

  I backed up until my legs hit the soft cushion of her couch, and then I sat with my beautiful prize in my lap, moving my hands from her hips to cup her face, I brought her face to mine. Brushed my lips across her cheekbone, down the delicate column of her neck, nipped at her collarbone, tore the remnants of her shirt away to run my fangs over the crown of her shoulder. That one earned me a shiver so fierce she practically vibrated in my hands, her mewling moans causing my dick to jerk behind my zipper. I ran my nose back up her neck, memorizing the delicate scent of her and wondering if her pussy smelled the same.

  My mouth watered, my cock pulsed, and I froze for a moment to collect myself before I lost all reason. Impatient, she quit waiting for me to undress her and reached behind her back to unclasp her bra. When the magenta lace fell away to reveal her creamy swells, my brain quit functioning except for my baser instincts.

  My only thought was her scent, her s
ounds and the pale flesh beneath my rough fingertips.

  I stood without preamble and headed for the dark hallway that I hoped held her bedroom. I hit pay dirt on the last room and laid her down on her king size bed. Shifting her to the center of the bed, I luckily had the forethought to drag her jeans and panties down her legs. My brain pressed pause on the moment – freezing it in my mind so I never, ever forgot the slim line of her legs, the dainty patch of blond curls at her center, her hips, her high, firm breasts, her neck, her face, her wild hair splayed all over her pillow. Her cheeks rosy from arousal and her eyes shining bright yet heavy lidded with want.

  Jesus fucking Christ. How did I get so lucky?

  “If you don’t take off those pants and get up here, I’m going to lose my fucking mind, West,” she grumbled, snapping me out of my reverie. I ripped my boots off my feet and shoved my jeans down my thighs and off, before climbing onto the bed between her legs.

  She reached for my face, bringing her mouth to mine and I was done. Decades of wanting, decades of needed her, and now I had my Angel. I ran my blunt fingers through her wet heat, testing her readiness before notching my dick against her, feeling her slick arousal. At her needy moan, I pressed forward, her flesh parting around me, her gasps hitting me straight in my gut.

  Hot, wet, tight. I can’t think, I can’t…

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  I can’t think of anything but her sounds – the gasping groans mixed with almost agonized whimpers of need, the smell of her neck, the feel of her desperate pants against my neck as I move in and out of her. And when her whole body tightens like the string of a bow – her arms closing around my shoulders, her legs becoming vices on my hips, her pussy tightening on my cock – I fucking lose it.

  My fangs descended, the phase taking over before I have a chance to stop it. I have to fight every instinct I have not to rip into the meat of her shoulder as she breaks. Her moans reached my ears, and I was lost, pounding into her until my release came over me, groaning into the skin of her chest through gritted teeth.

  I lifted my head as I looked at her smiling mouth, unable to stop the kisses I rained down on her face and neck. And when her lips caught mine I reveled in her warmth. When the kiss ended, her smile was all I needed, and it was easy to coax her to consume again – to live again. We were happy.

  For a time.

  WEST – 1995 – OUTER BANKS, NC

  We were sleeping naked and wrapped around each other when I nearly lost her.

  It’s funny how little we thought of the outside world – how little we thought of the consequences of my life before her. But physics has it right. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

  Even if it’s a hundred some odd years late.

  I was dreaming – dreaming of her running away from me and me chasing her, a game we used to play. Evangeline loved cat and mouse. She would pop in my workshop, poke me in the belly, say ‘You’re it!’ and pop back out, practically begging for me to chase her – usually when I’d been working on an engine too long. I loved the game and her, mostly because she got me out of my own head. She got me to have fun. She got me to forget. The game usually ended with us wrapped around each other in bed – just like we were right then.

  But this dream was so much different than all the others. It didn’t feel playful, it felt like she was running from someone or thing. In my dream, she looked frightened, so when I shook myself out of it, I was already on high alert. Had I woken up a second later, we both would have died.

  I saw a glint of moonlight coming in through the open French doors, reflecting off the steel of a rather large hunting knife.

  Just one second later and her light would be out, and that one second would haunt me for the rest of my life. I didn’t wait, I tightened my hold on her still-sleeping form and traveled to the panic room I set up in an interior, windowless room on the bottom floor.

  By then, she was awake, and I threw clothes at her as I tried to dress, grab weapons from their assigned pegs and get back to the men who broke into our island house with not so much as a whisper.

  “West, wait,” she said as she grabbed my elbow, but I couldn’t look at her.

  I couldn’t – I was too guilty.

  I left her there in that steel-walled room, and even after I eliminated the threat – a family member of a target I’d ended at John’s insistence when he’d murdered four small children – it was a long time before I spoke again.

  WEST – 2015 – GRAND LAKE, CO

  We were in the loft of the lake house, and I’d about had it with this woman. We’d just left Aurelia and Rhys to find the exceedingly romantic room Evangeline decorated. She’d said she was done with these two ‘dancing around each other.’

  “You just can’t let it go, can you?” she griped after I’d asked her for the tenth time.

  “I know you’re going somewhere without me – which in this particular climate is not only scary, it is dumb as shit. Now, where the fuck is it?” I demanded.

  She was. I’d lose her for hours where she wasn’t with Aurelia, and she wasn’t home or at the gallery. Where in the hell was she?

  “I was with Mom, okay? She’s fucking dying, West. The both of them are. Where the hell else would I be?”

  “Was that so goddamn hard? Jesus fucking Christ, woman. It is my damn job to keep you safe, but you keep secrets. You’re even keeping secrets from Aurelia, and she’s your best friend. I’ve been your Guardian for over a fucking century, and she didn’t know who I was until an hour ago. What the fuck, Evangeline? You ashamed of me or something?”

  “Shouldn’t I ask you that question?”

  “You know good goddamn well why I won’t. Outer Banks proved it, so don’t tell me I’m a paranoid asshole. Look at your mom and dad. Look at them and tell me you want to watch me die just so you can follow.”

  I regretted the last sentence as soon as it passed my lips, but the expression on her face was the worst sort of punishment. She looked like I’d just slapped her, and the tears welling in her eyes broke me.

  “Goddammit,” I muttered as I crossed the loft, crowding her space, and cupping her small, delicate face in my rough hands. Her skin was like silk, and it had been so long since I’d felt it against my fingertips.

  “I love you. I’ve always loved you. Do not punish me for wanting to keep you safe, Angel,” I said before I ran my lips over her closed, wet eyelids, over the bridge of her nose, over her parted lips. I stopped there, tasting her, feeling the heat of her that we’d denied ourselves for so long.

  “Just don’t leave me again,” she ordered.

  “I swear, Angel. If you want me to go, you’re going to have to send me away.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” I said, and if everything had gone to plan, she would have been my mate that night.

  But when in my life had things ever gone to plan?

  That’s right.

  Never.

  14

  Waiting

  EVAN

  Time stood still as I watched my friends – my family – try to breathe life into the man I couldn’t live without. It was then that I completely understood why the Fates decided to make mates. Because if you loved someone just that much, when they left this world, you’d want to follow them. There were so many regrets I had when it came to West, but the single largest thing I regretted was the time we wasted. The time I spent mad at him for doing what he believed in.

  The time we spent apart.

  I was torn. Did I stay and watch Mena and Ian try to put him together? Or did I scour this most likely empty house for the person who hurt him?

  So much death.

  So much pain.

  No one should have to endure this, but especially not him. Not my West. It isn’t fair or right that he should have to bear so much.

  I don’t lose it until Ian starts the chest compressions, climbing up on the rack to get the right angle. Until I hear his poor ribs crack with the force of them. Until Mena t
ells him to move so she can try to restart his heart. All the while, unbreakable arms hold me back as I try to get to him. Clawing, biting, kicking, I can’t break them.

  In my haze of anger and fear and regret, I barely notice the man hovering just out of the shadows, but when I catch a glimpse of white-blond hair, fury floods me. My power leaks from my skin – enough that the four men holding me so Ian and Mena can work unheeded, go flying outward like rag dolls.

  My bonds gone, I stalk across the circular chamber to the place where I saw him, but nothing remains. No clue, nothing to prove the flash of blond was anything other than my imagination conjuring up something to keep my mind busy while I wait to know if the man I love is alive or dead. At first, I thought it was Walter, but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure it wasn’t. And I know my mind must be playing tricks on me.

  Why else would I see a man who died one hundred and nine years ago? I watched Devereux Emerson die with my own eyes in 1906.

  Didn’t I?

  “He’s breathing!” Mena yells, and I forget the man who was never there in the first place and go to West.

  “He’s still unconscious, and we need to get to a medical facility right the fuck now, but he’s alive,” Ian informs me, but I can’t think about that right now. All I can do is play ‘he’s alive’ in my head over and over again.

  “You have what you need at the high-rise or do we need to commandeer a surgical suite at the local hospital?” I ask him. Ian has been outfitting the new headquarters into a better facility than we had in Grand Lake, but getting all the things we need takes time.

  “I’m going to need the hospital,” Ian replies, “And we need to be quick about it. He has some internal bleeding – I’m sure of it.”

  “I have a contact at the the local university hospital. She was going… to help me leave before I got caught trying to get the ch-children out,” Claire struggles to say behind us. “I-I could call her if someone has a phone. There are good people there. It is a safe place.”