Embrace the Night

by Caris Roane

  Finding her sitting on the back step and crying her eyes out, he’d slid an arm around her young, boney shoulders until she hiccupped through a couple of sobs and finally let go of her girlish pain. He’d then given her a piggy-back ride until she was laughing again.

  He’d always liked her spirit.

  He still did.

  But he needed to keep thinking of Hannah like that, young and innocent. However, it was really hard when her shirt had just enough of a v-cut to reveal a line of cleavage he’d been lusting after for several months now.

  The whole messed up situation had begun in that stupid supply closet. He’d gone there to ask her something about one of the access centers and had somehow gotten lost in her beautiful breasts that grew puckered then and there. And from that point, his cravings for Hannah had all but taken over.

  He’d tried to keep his distance, but every time he promised himself to skip a visit to the Gold Rush, he’d head there anyway.

  Something had erupted between them in that moment, something new, vital, and damn sexual.

  And he absolutely loved the new perfume she’d taken to wearing. She smelled like roses and seashells, which didn’t make a lot of sense, but she did, like if he walked through a rose garden right by the water’s edge, that’s what she would smell like. The trouble was, when he caught the scent of her perfume, his body lit up and he wanted nothing more than to pick her up in his arms and fly her to his home in Kellcasse. Maybe keep her there for a decade.

  He’d had several ‘moments’ with her in recent weeks, when her gaze caught and held or she accidentally brushed up against him in the bar and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

  He also knew whatever was going on was mutual to the point that lately he’d started thinking about actually asking for a date. He held back, though. She was little Hannah, the one called ‘girl’, the human, for Goddess’s sake.

  And he wasn’t into long-term anything. He’d made that decision a century ago when his wife and daughter had died. He didn’t ever want to feel that kind pain again, not until the ancient fae was dead and the last of the Invictus burned on a funeral pyre.

  But right now, she wanted him to talk about what was troubling him.

  He debated the matter in his head for a full minute and to her credit, she let him be, let him live with his own thoughts and sort this one out.

  Finally, he drew a deep breath and decided to open up. “I never talked much, to anyone, about what happened in Walvashorr with the shifter packs.”

  Her arched brows rose, but she made no comment, which once more encouraged him to continue. “I saw the ancient fae. She was surrounded by a strange powerful golden light, but she smelled evil, like something rotting behind a dumpster.”

  Hannah grunted softly. Glancing at her, he saw that she’d wrinkled her nose. “Was the imagery too strong?” he asked.

  “If it was accurate, then you couldn’t have said it better. We all know that smell.”

  “Yeah, we do.” He nodded several times. “Mastyr Seth has a woman now, his blood rose, and I’m sure Lorelei has shared things on your loop.” He waved a hand to encompass her computer monitor. “You know, the one with all you women.”

  “Yeah, all us women.” She smiled. She had lovely teeth, white, perfectly straight, nicely shaped incisors. Shit, he even liked the woman’s teeth.

  He frowned at Hannah for a moment, searching those violet eyes again. She’d struck up a serious friendship with several of the women bonded to mastyr vampires and the email loop seemed to be blazing or at least simmering all the time.

  He knew she’d switched tabs the moment he’d arrived on the threshold to the room. She’d done that before, protecting everyone’s privacy, so he wasn’t surprised. He’d once asked her about it, teasing her, but she’d lifted her chin. “What we women say in confidence, especially about you men, you don’t need to know. It’s a sacred, womanish thing.”

  ‘A womanish thing’. Another reminder that the child had grown up. And she really wasn’t a child. She was twenty-eight, but against his two-hundred-years she was considerably younger in life-experience.

  He forced his thoughts back to what it was he wanted to say to Hannah. “Here’s the thing. Margetta planned this attack on Walvashorr Realm, really planned it. And when Seth and I went to rescue Lorelei, I saw the ancient fae’s army encampment. The level of military organization astounded me because wraith-pairs, aren’t by definitions, soldiers. They don’t group together and form joint goals.”

  Hannah nodded. “Which means, Margetta has somehow taken charge of the wraith-pairs and can control them.”

  “She’s being very deliberate and I’m worried for Kellcasse, and concerned that Margetta will come after us and we won’t be ready. It’s been months now and everything’s been quiet in all the realms.”

  Even as he spoke the words aloud, he wasn’t sure what was prompting him to share this with Hannah. But because of her association with the communications center and with the other powerful women bonded to a few of his fellow mastyrs, she knew a lot about the current war with Margetta. “The problem is, I don’t know what kind of strategy she would devise against Kellcasse, what her goal would be. With Seth’s Realm, she’d intended to invade and conquer the shifter lands, thinking the packs volatile and unable to work together as a unit. With a foothold in the northern part of the realm and the packs decimated, she would have headed south and taken over the rest of Walvashorr.”

  “But Lorelei and Seth worked together to change that.”

  Jude scowled now, his arms tight to his chest. “Yes, that’s exactly what they did.” Lorelei had become Seth’s blood rose during the time Jude had helped out. Stunned at how the packs had worked together to destroy so many wraith-pairs, he’d fought in the battle against Margetta until she’d called a retreat.

  Hannah reached over and touched his arm. “Hey, if you frown any harder, you’ll break your face in half.”

  He laughed and his arms eased apart.

  Suddenly, a soft alarm sounded within the room.

  Hannah slid her chair close to the central computer once more and started moving her mouse, then tapping on the keyboard. Her eyes went wide. “Jude, it’s from Longeness. He’s been trying to reach you.”

  He’d already removed his coat, which had both the com attached at the shoulder that connected him to the Kellcasse center and his phone. “Shit. Even my phone’s in my coat.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve got your center online. You can video-chat now.” She rose from her chair and gestured for him to sit down.

  Jude was grateful that when Hannah originally ordered office furniture, she’d planned on accommodating the Vampire Guardsmen. The three chairs in the room were each built on big lines and could handle his two-eighty and then some.

  He sat down and saw his center’s com specialist. Longeness rubbed the tip of his right fae ear, pulling all the way to the elongated point, a sure sign of his distress.

  Jude knew better than to react. Remaining calm for his people was a constant part of his strategy. “Apologies, Longeness. My phone was elsewhere. What’s cookin’?”

  “Mastyr, we’ve had word that another wraith-pair attacked the access checkpoint. The guards survived but only because the pair was intent on getting to the Sound before dawn.”

  For a long moment, Jude could hardly think. Another wraith-pair was headed toward Port Townsend? They rarely, if ever, crossed the earth access-point lines.

  “But that’s the second wraith-pair tonight. They never leave Kellcasse.” He felt uneasy. He didn’t say as much to Longeness, but his first thought went to the ancient fae. Something was on the wind. “Was there anything unusual about this pair? Was a vampire part of the bond and if so, was he a mastyr?”

  “Vampire, yes. But to my knowledge, he wasn’t a mastyr.”

  Jude scrubbed a hand through his thick hair, dislodging the clasp. “Well, thank the Goddess for that.” Wraith-pairs with mastyr vampires as a mate wer
e nearly impossible to defeat alone. “I’ll head out into the Sound and meet these bastards.”

  “Do you want me to send Guardsmen to back you up?”

  “No. I’m good.” He’d like to see a regular wraith-pair move against him. “And Longeness, how’s the wife?”

  “Complaining all the time now.” His woman was expecting twins and only had a month to go.

  “Completely understandable. Take her some flowers when your shift ends.”

  “Plan to. I’m not a complete gremlin’s ass.”

  “No, that you’re not.”

  He signed off and grabbed the clasp that now hung at the back of his head, tugging it out in stages. He had an impossible mane of hair, kept long as was the Guardsman’s tradition. Thank the elf lords for the invention of crème rinse.

  He rose from the chair, lifting his arms to re-clasp his hair, then turned toward Hannah.

  She looked odd, though, pressing a hand to her throat. Her gaze tracked the lines of his raised arms and his chest, gradually moving over his hips and down his heavily muscled thighs.

  This was one of those moments when he was glad he worked out as much as he did. He knew what he looked like, the raw physical power he exuded because of his size.

  And the room suddenly smelled of roses and seashells.

  His body heated up something fierce in response because of her perfume. In another minute, if things went on this way, the snug fit of his battle leathers wouldn’t be hiding his desire for her.

  Securing the woven clasp at the back of his head, he moved toward her. She leaned against the doorjamb, her hands at her sides. “What’s going on, Hannah? Why the sudden interest in me?”

  “It’s not sudden,” she whispered, meeting his gaze in that steady way of hers.

  “You know this would never work.” He drifted his fingers through her hair, still not understanding what had changed that he now wanted Hannah as much as he did.

  “I know. You don’t do long-term.”

  “I don’t. And your bar is everything to you.”

  She smiled faintly. “I don’t date vampires anyway, you know that. Just humans.”

  Jude sighed. “Gotta go. I’ve got a wraith-pair to take down and dawn’s about fifteen minutes away.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Hannah didn’t want to be so completely hooked into Jude right now, but the way he’d talked to Longeness had done something to her. Jude wasn’t a simple man by any stretch. She might have been able to shove her interest in him aside if he showed indifference to those around him. Instead, he’d asked about Longeness’s very pregnant wife.

  She also knew that a long time ago, over a hundred years now, Jude had been married. He’d even had a daughter, but both had died in an Invictus attack. Her email loop had given her a lot of information she wouldn’t have had otherwise. She knew they’d perished in his peach orchard on Castle Island, next to the house the couple had built together. Her throat grew tight every time she thought about his loss.

  But Jude had never remarried and from that time, he’d kept his relationships on a love-em-and-leave-em basis, yet one more reason she needed to keep her distance and ignore what had become a fairly relentless drive toward him.

  Jude made a move to slip past her into the hall, but she caught his arm. “Jude?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be careful.”

  He smiled. “I always am.”

  Was she imagining things, or had he leaned toward her as if to kiss her.

  And she would have let him.

  Yep, she had it bad.

  But he huffed a quick sigh, and turned up the hall, heading toward the bar. The daytime communication staff would arrive in about three hours, and her staff had already cleaned up and gone home for the night.

  She signed off on the loop and added an auto-responder to her email that any emergency communication could be routed through her cell phone. Usually, Sandy came in at this hour to take over, but she had a dentist’s appointment so Hannah would be on call until about ten. But like hell she wasn’t going to walk down to the nearby dock and watch Jude launch into the air. She was worried now because something didn’t feel right.

  Moving up the hall toward the bar, she pressed a hand to her chest. She was more anxious about things than she realized because right now her heart felt squeezed tight. She hurried past the horse-shoe shaped bar and a couple dozen tables and chairs toward the entrance. Once there, she stared through the large, stained glass, front door but couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  Jude hadn’t reached the Sound at all, but fought a wraith-pair not fifty feet from the Gold Rush near the dock.

  And the strangest thing of all was that she suddenly felt an overwhelming need to help him. Yet, Jude was one of the most powerful men in all of the Nine Realms, so in what possible situation would he ever need her help?

  Chapter Two

  Flashes of blue battle energy left Jude’s palms in steady pulses as the Invictus pair answered with their red strikes.

  Hannah had never seen a wraith before or a full-on battle. She’d visited Kellcasse a number of times, but the Invictus, thank God, hadn’t shown up.

  Her body felt oddly flushed as she watched. Her skin was warm and her hands tingled, as though she was getting ready for something, but for what she had no idea. And strangely, she felt an inexplicable connection to Jude because of these sensations.

  Slowly, she opened the door. Jude fought both the wraith and the vampire at the same time – a bonded wraith-pair – levitating, then flying back and forth in quick slashes to avoid being struck. He had some kind of blue shield in front of him as well. It moved with him as he whipped through the air.

  The vampire wore battle leathers like Jude’s but short boots. His black hair jerked around in lank, beaded strands, and he had a heavy scruff on his face. He held a dagger in his left hand, as if hoping for an opening.

  The wraith was a wispy-looking creature, a woman, who wore what looked like a gown of floating red strips of gauze-like fabric. Her limbs appeared elongated, her lips dark, the whites of her eyes yellow.

  But it was the shrieking that distressed Hannah the most, a piercing cry that made her cover her ears. The wraith’s mate was Guard-sized but still not as big as Jude, but then few Guardsmen she’d met could compete with his mass.

  The wraith suddenly flew straight up, then met Hannah’s gaze. In a swift streak of movement, she headed straight for Hannah with an intense expression that made Hannah think the wraith had come for her. Why would that ever be true?

  Dread assaulted her.

  She didn’t have time to think or to do anything.

  And in that horrible moment, Hannah knew that death had found her.

  But just as the wraith would have reached her, a streak of blue struck the wraith’s back. She arched in the air, shrieked, then fell hard not five feet from Hannah. She was dead, her back obliterated.

  Hannah put her hand to her mouth. The smell of burned flesh nauseated her.

  Hannah’s gaze moved past the wraith and back to Jude. And as if time had slowed, she watched in horror as Jude fell to the earth as well, the front of his shirt smoking. The mated-vampire, thank God, faltered as well, then hit the pavement with a thud, rolled once and fell unconscious.

  She ran to Jude, not caring what happened to either the wraith or her bonded vampire-mate

  Jude lay ten feet from the dock, breathing hard, his stomach sliced open, blood pouring from the wound. The same rancid smell of burned flesh caused her to weave on her feet.

  His eyes were closed, and he breathed in small pants.

  “Jude.” She knelt beside him, wanting to touch and comfort him but afraid anything she did right now would cause him pain. She rubbed his arm. “You’re hurt.”

  “I’m fine. I’m healing as we speak, but thank the Goddess you’re okay. The wraith?” He tried to look around but she could tell each movement hurt.

  Hannah twisted to look behind her. “She’s dead.�
�

  “Good. If her mate isn’t gone as well, he will be soon.”

  Hannah glanced at the prone vampire who had one leg bent at a strange angle. “He’s still breathing, but not moving.” She knew that once either part of a wraith-pair died, the remaining mate often followed, especially if wounded in battle as the vampire had been.

  Jude winced. “Hannah, listen, I’m in trouble here. I need you to call Longeness. I won’t be able to move by myself and the sun’s coming up.”

  To her eye, it was pitch black out, but she’d been around both the light sensitive fae and vampires from the time she could remember and knew that they had internal clocks that counted down the rising sun to the split-second. A vampire caught in the light, even a faint and very distant dawn, would end up burned and blistered. She’d seen the results more than once and it wasn’t pretty.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and glanced toward the street. Familiar lights flashed from a Port Townsend police car. The wraith’s shrieking had probably prompted some of her neighbors to make a complaint and she couldn’t blame them.

  Hannah made her call and when Longeness answered, she spoke quietly. “Jude’s been hurt and there’s a dead wraith nearby and a vampire on his way out as well. The police have shown up, which is never good, and I’ll deal with them, but I need to get Jude inside before the sun comes up and I don’t know what to do. His Guardsmen have long since returned to Kellcasse.”

  “Hannah, don’t worry. I called for Fleet support as soon as I heard that a wraith-pair had breached the access point. You should be seeing them any second.” Kellcasse had a large boat-based policing fleet that patrolled the hundreds of waterways in the realm but which also worked the access point and often entered Sound waters when needed.

  “Oh, thank God, and yes, I see the ship now. They’re moving at a fast clip.”

  Jude gripped her hand. “How we doin’? What did Longeness say?”

  Hannah had never seen him look so pale. She could feel by the way he held her hand just how much pain he endured. “The Kellcasse Coast Guard is here.”