Lover Avenged

TWENTY-EIGHT

Spending time with you is like watching paint dry.” Lassiter’s voice echoed up to the stalactites hanging from the Tomb’s high ceiling. “Except without the home improvement-which is a tragedy, given how this place looks. Do you guys always go for the gloom and doom? You never hear of Pottery Barn?”

Tohr rubbed his face and glanced around the cave that had served as the Brotherhood’s sacred meeting place for centuries. Behind the massive stone altar he was sitting next to, the black marble wall with all the Brothers’ names on it stretched out across the back of the cave. Black candles on heavy stanchions threw flickering light over all the carvings in the Old Language.

“We’re vampires,” he said. “Not fairies.”

“Sometimes I’m not so sure about that. You see that study your king hangs out in?”

“He’s nearly blind.”

“Which explains why he hasn’t hanged himself in that pastel train wreck.”

“I thought you were bitching about the gloom-and-doom decorating?”

“I free-associate.”

“Clearly.” Tohr didn’t look at the angel, as he figured eye contact would only encourage the guy. Oh, wait. Lassiter didn’t need help.

“You expecting that skull on the altar to talk to you or some shit?”

“Actually we’re both waiting for you to finally take a breath.” Tohr glared at the guy. “Anytime you’re ready. Anytime.”

“You say the sweetest things.” The angel sat his glowing ass down on the stone steps next to Tohr. “Can I ask you something?”

“Is ‘no’ really an option?”

“Nope.” Lassiter shifted around and stared up at the skull. “That thing looks older than I am. Which is saying something.”

It was the first Brother, the inaugural warrior who fought the enemy bravely and with power, the most sacred symbol of strength and purpose within the Brotherhood.

Lassiter stopped fucking around for once. “He must have been a great fighter.”

“I thought you were going to ask me something.”

The angel stood with a curse and shook out his legs. “Yeah, I mean…how in the fuck have you sat there for so long? My ass is killing me.”

“Yeah, brain cramps are a bitch.”

Although the angel did have a point about time having passed. Tohr had been sitting there, staring at the skull and at the wall of names beyond the altar, for so long his butt wasn’t so much numb as indistinguishable from the steps.

He had come here the previous night, drawn by an invisible hand, compelled to seek inspiration, clarity, reconnection to life. Instead, he had found only stone. Cold stone. And a lot of names that had once meant something to him and now were nothing but a grocery list of the dead.

“It’s because you’re looking in the wrong place,” Lassiter said.

“You can go now.”

“Every time you say that, it brings a tear to my eye.”

“Funny, mine too.”

The angel leaned down, the scent of fresh air preceding him. “Neither that wall nor that skull will give you what you’re looking for.”

Tohr narrowed his eyes and wished he were strong enough to fight the guy. “They won’t? Well, then they’re making a liar out of you. ‘Now is the time. Tonight everything changes.’ You give portent a bad name, you know that? You are just so full of shit.”

Lassiter smiled and idly adjusted the gold hoop that pierced his eyebrow. “If you think being rude is going to get my attention, you’ll be really bored before I care.”

“Why the fuck are you here?” Tohr’s exhaustion crept into his voice, weakening it and pissing him off. “Why the hell didn’t you just leave me where you found me?”

The angel mounted the black marble steps and paced up and down in front of the glossy wall with the carved names, stopping now and then to inspect one or two.

“Time is a luxury, believe it or not,” he said.

“Feels more like a curse to me.”

“Without time, you know what you got?”

“The Fade. Which was where I was headed until you came along.”

Lassiter ran his finger over a carved line of characters and Tohr looked away quickly when he realized what they spelled out. It was his name.

“Without time,” the angel said, “you have only the bottomless, shapeless mire of eternity.”

“FYI, philosophy bores me.”

“Not philosophy. Reality. Time is what gives life significance.”

“Fuck you. Seriously…fuck you.”

Lassiter’s head tilted to the side, as if he had heard something.

“Finally,” he muttered. “Bastard was doing my nut in.”

“Excuse me?”

The angel came back over, leaned down right into Tohr’s face, and said with clear diction, “Listen up, sunshine. Your shellan, Wellsie, sent me. That’s why I didn’t leave you to die.”

Tohr’s heart stopped in his chest just as the angel looked up and said, “What took you so long.”

Wrath’s voice was annoyed as his shitkickers thundered down toward the altar. “Well, next time tell someone where the fuck you are-”

“What did you say,” Tohr breathed.

Lassiter was utterly unapologetic as he refocused. “That wall isn’t what you need to be looking at. Try a calendar. One year ago your Wellsie was shot in the face by the enemy. Wake the fuck up and do something about it.”

Wrath cursed. “Easy, there, Lassi-”

Tohrment lunged off the cave floor with something close to the old strength he’d once had, and he hit Lassiter like a linebacker in spite of the weight difference, taking the angel down hard onto the stone floor. Wrapping his hands around the guy’s throat, he stared down into white eyes and squeezed, baring his fangs.

Lassiter just stared right back and thought his voice directly into Tohr’s temporal lobe: What are you going to do, asshole? Are you going to avenge her, or disrespect her by wasting away like this?

Wrath’s huge hand clamped on Tohr’s shoulder like a lion’s claw, digging in, pulling back. “Let go.”

“Don’t…” Tohr’s breath came in punches. “Don’t…ever…”

“Enough,” Wrath spat.

Tohr was whipped backward onto his ass, and as he bounced like a stick dropped on the ground, he came out of the murder trance. Came awake, too.

He didn’t know how else to describe it. It was as if some switch had been triggered and his bank of lights, which had been extinguished, suddenly went live with juice again.

Wrath’s face came into view, and Tohr saw it with a clarity he hadn’t had in…forever. “You okay, there?” his brother said. “You landed hard.”

Tohr reached out and ran his hands over Wrath’s heavy arms, trying to get a feel of reality. He glanced over at Lassiter, then stared at the king. “I’m sorry…about that.”

“Are you kidding me? We’ve all wanted to strangle him.”

“You know, I’m gonna get a complex over here,” Lassiter coughed out as he caught his breath.

Tohr gripped his king’s shoulders. “No one’s said anything about her,” he groaned. “No one’s said her name, no one’s talked about…what happened.”

Wrath held on to the back of Tohr’s neck and supported him. “Out of respect for you.”

Tohr’s eyes went to the skull on the altar and then to the etched wall. The angel had been right. There was only one name that could wake him up, and it wasn’t inscribed up there.

Wellsie.

“How did you know where we were,” he asked his king, still focused on the wall.

“Sometimes people need to go back to the beginning. To where everything started.”

“It’s time,” the fallen angel said softly.

Tohr stared down at himself, at the withered body beneath his sagging clothes. He was a quarter of the male he’d once been, maybe even less. And that wasn’t just because of all the weight he’d lost. “Oh, Christ…look at me.”

Wrath’s response was front and center. “If you’re ready, we’re ready to have you back.”

Tohr looked over at the angel, noticing for the first time the golden aura that surrounded the guy. Heaven-sent. Wellsie-sent.

“I’m ready,” he said to no one and everyone.

As Rehv stared across the table at Ehlena, he thought, Well, at least she wasn’t beelining for the exit after he’d dropped the i-bomb.

Impotent wasn’t a word you wanted to use around a female you were interested in. Unless it was used along the lines of, Fuck, no, I’m NOT impotent.

Ehlena sat back down. “You’re…is it because of the medication?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes skirted away, as if she were adding figures in her head, and the first thought that hit him was, My tongue still works and so do my fingers.

He kept that to himself. “Dopamine has an odd effect with me. Instead of stimulating testosterone, it drains the shit out of me.”

The corner of her mouth twitched up. “This is totally inappropriate, but considering how male you are, without it-”

“I’d be able to make love to you,” he said quietly. “That’s what I’d be like.”

Her eyes shot to his, all holy-shit-did-he-just-say-that?

Rehv brushed a hand over his mohawk. “I’m not going to apologize for the fact that I’m feeling you, but I won’t disrespect you by trying to do anything about it either. You want some coffee? It’s already made.”

“Ah…sure.” Like she was hoping it would clear her head. “Listen…”

He paused in the midst of standing up. “Yeah?”

“I…ah…”

When she didn’t continue, he shrugged. “Just let me bring you coffee. I want to wait on you. Makes me happy.”

Fuck happy. As he headed back into the kitchen, a screaming satisfaction broke through his numbness. The fact that he was feeding her food he had prepared for her, giving her drink to relieve her thirst, providing shelter from the cold…

Rehv’s nose picked up an odd scent, and at first he thought it was the roast he’d left out, because he’d rubbed the outside of the piece of meat with spices. But no…it wasn’t that.

Figuring he had other things to worry about rather than his nose, he went over to the cabinets and got a teacup and saucer. After he poured the coffee, he went to straighten the lapels of his jacket-

And froze.

Lifting his hand to his nose, he breathed in deep and didn’t believe what he was smelling. It couldn’t possibly…

Except there was only one thing that the scent could be, and it had nothing to do with his symphath side: The dark spices coming off of him were the bonding scent, the mark that male vampires left on the skin and sex of their females so that other males would know whose wrath they risked if they dared to get close.

Rehv lowered his arm and looked toward the butler’s door, stunned.

When you got to a certain age, you didn’t expect any more surprises out of your body. At least, not the good kind. Rickety joints. Wheezy lungs. Bad eyesight. Sure, when the time came. But really, for the nine hundred years or so after your transition, you had what you had.

Although good might not be the exact word he’d use for this development.

For no evident reason, he thought of the first time he’d had sex. It had been right after his transition, and when the deed was done, he’d been convinced that the female and he were going to get mated and live together and be happy for the rest of their lives. She’d been perfectly beautiful, a female who his mother’s brother had brought to the house for Rehv to use when he’d gone into the change.

She’d been a brunette.

Christ, he couldn’t remember her name now.

Looking back on it, with what he’d since learned about males and females and attraction, he knew he’d surprised her with how big his body had been after the change. She hadn’t expected to like what she saw. Hadn’t expected to want him. But she did and they mated and the sex had been a revelation, the feel of all that flesh, the addictive rush, the power he’d had as he’d taken control after the first couple of times.

He’d learned he’d had a barb, then-whereas she’d been so into him, he wasn’t sure she’d noticed that they had to wait a little before he could withdraw from her.

In the aftermath, he’d been so at peace, so content. But there had been no happily-ever-after coming. With the sweat still drying on her body, she’d put on her clothes and hit the door. Just as she’d left, she’d smiled at him sweetly and told him that she wouldn’t charge his family for the sex.

His uncle had bought her to feed him.

Funny, as he considered it now, was it really a surprise where he’d ended up? Sex as a commodity had been drilled into him pretty damn early-even though that first fuck or six had been on the house, so to speak.

So yeah, if this dark scent meant his vampire nature had bonded with Ehlena, it was not good news.

Rehv picked the coffee up and carried it carefully through the butler’s door and out to the dining room. As he placed it in front of her, he wanted to touch her hair, but sat down instead.

She lifted the cup to her lips. “You make good coffee.”

“You haven’t tasted it yet.”

“I can smell it. And I love the way it smells.”

It’s not the coffee, he thought. Not all of it, at any rate.

“Well, I love your perfume,” he said, because he was a dolt.

She frowned. “I’m not wearing any. I mean, other than the soap and shampoo I use.”

“Well, I like them, then. And I’m glad you stayed.”

“Is this what you planned?”

Their eyes met. Shit, she was perfect. Radiant as the candles had been. “You making it all the way to the coffee? Yeah, I guess a date was what I was after.”

“I thought you agreed with me.”

Man, that breathless quality in her voice made him want to have her up against his naked chest.

“Agreed with you?” he said. “Hell, if it would make you happy, I’d say yes to anything. But what are you specifically referring to?”

“You said…I shouldn’t date anyone.”

Ah, right. “You shouldn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

Fuck him, but he went for it. Rehv put his numb elbow on the table and leaned into her. As he closed the distance, her eyes got wider, but she didn’t pull back.

He paused, to give her a chance to tell him to cut the shit. Why? He had no clue. His symphath side was into pauses only for analysis or to better capitalize on a weakness. But she made him want to be decent.

Ehlena didn’t tell him to step off, however. “I don’t…understand,” she whispered.

“It’s simple. I don’t think you should date anyone.” Rehv moved in even closer, until he could see the flecks of gold in her eyes. “But I’m not just anyone.”