chapter 12
It wasn’t as though I had never seen him fight before.
Indeed, I had been a witness to his sparring sessions with his Domina, and I knew the damage he could elicit on a being not vampiric in nature.
In truth, I was apprehensive. For one so young, did he have the power to take upon an alpha wolf, a man who had clearly clawed and bit his way to the top of dead bodies?
But in a split second, I knew all my worries to be for nothing.
This...this being in front of me...
He was power.
He was strength.
He was invincible.
With a single blow, Marcus was bowled upon on his back and when Jason almost casually placed a hand on his neck, he ceased to move.
If one had blinked at the wrong time, they would have missed the whole thing.
But I did not blink.
I saw everything.
Marcus’s chest moved up and down at a frenetic pace and his hands twitched uselessly at his side. And despite the mess I had made of his eyes, he did not keen in pain, did not even refer to it. I stared at the blood running down the side of his face and felt nothing. Would he ever see again? I did not know.
“What the hell are you?” he asked.
Jason’s hand tightened and the werewolf let out a small, strangled sound. “Oh, dear. Do forgive me, won’t you? I don’t know my strength quite yet. Although, this seems small compared to what she has done to you.”
The wolf coughed, a wet sick noise, as he drew in another breath. “Once again, I ask you, what the hell are you?”
The smile did not reach my Master’s dark eyes. “Me? I’m just a vampire, remember? A vampire who will now take his leave, along with his human companion.”
A human companion.
I was his human companion.
Upon retrospect, it supposed it was easier to call me that rather than servant or bodyguard.
Although, now I felt rather moot. “Jason.”
His gaze never left that of the wolf. “Yes.”
“We need to go.”
“Understood.”
Jason straightened up, and stepped away from the shivering alpha, wiping a hand on his jeans as though he couldn’t bear to get the touch off his hands. “He seemed easy enough to bring down.”
Two bodyguards, motionless until now, sprang into action, putting an arm under each shoulder and bringing Marcus up to his unsteady feet.
The wolf laughed softly and then coughed again, a splatter of blood spraying down his front. I had known this was easy, too easy, but still Jason had done damage. He had salvaged a hopeless situation and this was something we would discuss, soon. “Well, I certainly did try. Although, your Master did surprise me quite a bit. Of course, I will have to report this to Vincent when he comes to hear my report.”
He sounded almost regretful.
“Will you?” I asked.
“I called him,” he said and coughed again, a wet, sticky sound that made my stomach twitch. “As soon as my boys let me know you two had passed through the doors...I had to let him know. He sent out messages to all supers within a hundred mile radius of Centennial.”
“Supers?” asked Jason.
“It’s slang,” I said, almost automatically. “It’s what we call supernaturals...the ones who aren’t human.”
“Ah.”
One of Marcus’s bodyguards pulled forth an immaculate white handkerchief from inside his blazer and began to dab at his Master’s eyes, bringing forth a slow hiss from Marcus’s lips.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t particularly apologetic, but it seemed the best to say.
Considering.
He laughed, a low guttural sound and I watched the kerchief turn a brilliant red. “Don’t be. You did what you had to, didn’t you? You’re his Ailward. Your life is as he dictates. I would not have expected any less from someone as esteemed as yourself. You have done well, Ailward. Don’t let anyone say otherwise.”
Jason put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing slightly. “I have chosen well.”
There was no time. “Let’s go.”
Without another word, Jason pushed me into the dark night, the cold not at all like the balmy night from even half an hour ago. It had begun to snow, soft, feathery flakes of white that spun like feathers ripped from a pillow.
The doors closed behind him and he raised up the collar of his woolen peacoat, shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Let’s go. We need to--”
He stumbled and almost fell down the steps.
In the surprisingly empty street, just under the streetlight, face shadowed from the overhead light, stood a brunette, the honey-sheen glimmering under the flickering streetlight.
I couldn’t help but wonder if she still wore nothing under the knee-length black leather trenchcoat.
Arms crossed, she stared at us as we came down the stairs, our footsteps muted on the concrete floors, the snow crunching under our feet.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay the f*ck away from him?”
I drew in a deep breath and felt the frost coat the inside of my throat like oil. “As always, such
impeccable usage of the English language.”
She snorted and a brisk wind blew past, ruffling the bottom of her coat. Obviously, the cold had gotten too much for her because this time, I did see her legs clad in black. At least, she didn’t have zero common sense. “F*cking humans. You just never listen, do you?”
Jason stopped at the step below mine and slanted a glance at me. “Do you know her?”
“Regrettably, yes.”
Her eyes narrowed as they centered on the dark-haired man in front of me. “Jason.”
He let out a sound like someone getting punched in the stomach. “Shannon.”
Of course.
Of course.
I should have known. “Weren’t you supposed to be pregnant, vampire?”
A very human emotion crossed those harsh, lovely features. “I was supposed to be a lot of things. As you can see, I am not. For those like me, the act of carrying a child...never works.”
The corner of my lips rose in a sneer. “I’m sure you were pleased.”
She took a step closer to us, on the street and darkness clouded her face. “Whatever. Anyways, I have been sent to bring you two to my Master.”
I heard Jason swallow. “Shannon, why--”
“Jason, be quiet,” said Shannon.
Call me heartless, pitiless, but right now, Jason was worse than useless and I held him up when it seemed as though his legs could not support his body any longer. He smelled like a pine forest in the winter and I drank deep of his scent, letting his ex-fiance see the joy in my eyes.
Was it jealousy?
Jealousy that filled my body watching my Master utterly destroyed by the entrance of the woman he had spent years searching?
Did I hate her because she was a vampire?
Or did I hate her because she affected Jason like this?
Questions I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to answer, to address. Ever.
“And what exactly does your...Master need with us?”
She tossed her hair over one shoulder and in that instant, I realized I hated her more than anything I had ever experienced. Hated her more than I hated my father, hated her more than my mother for the way she let him step all over her, hated her more than this life that would not let me die. “Should you really be standing there asking questions, hm? Wasting time?”
Jason was heavy in my arms but in that moment, I truly thought I could support him for eternity as he stared at the wraith of a woman he loved.
“I think I would rather brave Vincent’s anger than walk off with some vampire who swore to kill me if I involved myself further with Jason,” I said.
A corner of her crimson lips lifted. “And yet you are still alive, aren’t you? Trust me when I say you do not want to be around for when the Lord of Centennial City shows his anger.”
“There are three more like him.”
“And yet all three of them defer to him,” she said. “Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
Jason pulled himself free of my arms, straightened the collar of his coat. “What do you want, Shannon?”
Voice colder than the heartlessly frozen air swirling around us, for the first time in a while, I felt hope blossom in my chest. Was he free of her? Or was this just the thrashing of a wounded beast that only seeks to return the favor?
“Jason,” she said and her expression softened. Did she still love him? Impossible. Why, then, did she leave? “This really wasn’t how I wanted to come back to you. Please. You’ve got to trust me. I know what you’ve been going through, just to find me.”
Even her tone had softened. Perhaps she truly did love him.
And despite all the warning alarms that blared in my head, I could not hope to stop him, could not hope to keep the siren from her prey. They still had unfinished business and it would have been nothing but stupid for me to keep him from that. After all, I was not his lover, just his Ailward.
His protector.
That was the only thing I was to him.
I would do well to remember that very important fact. “Jason.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Ran. I don’t...”
“Either way, we have to leave.”
And even though it was almost two in the morning, the sounds of a lone car drifted through the thick air, and instinctively, I took a step back, one hand on his shoulder, even though the car, if it wanted to run us down, would have to jump onto the curb and make it three feet across the sidewalk to the front of the silent casino.
But I had survived this long by being so damn paranoid and suspicious of those around me.
Shannon took a step back onto the sidewalk and we watched the car drive to us, a sleek black Toyota Celica, windows tinted darker than the night.
We waited for it to pass.
It did not.
Instead, it stopped in front of us, blocking us from Shannon and the passenger side’s window went down.
For a moment, I froze, half expecting an Uzi to start spraying bullets.
But no.
Just the driver leaning over, the brilliantly blond hair familiar, but somewhat annoying at the same time.
Although, I suppose I did owe him.
“What the hell are you doing? Get the f*ck in the car before he gets here!”
Jason blinked. “You’re...”
The blond vampire grinned at me, exposing those wicked fangs. Was he making fun of me? “Hey, Ran. I’m here to pick you up.”
“For?”
He laughed. Surprisingly, I found I was not completely averse to it. There was something free, something so damn childish and innocent that reminded me there was indeed something beyond all the death and darkness surrounding me.
Not...that I would ever admit it. “Our date, silly!”
That I had just heard such words from a so-called monster of the night made me wonder if I wasn’t currently passed out somewhere and this wasn’t just some crazy dream. “Date?”
He pouted. “You forgot? Christ, woman, you’ve got the memory of a gnat.”
Shannon tapped on his window. “Ryder? For once in your life, quit flirting with every woman under a hundred and open the damn door.” She peered at us over the hood of the low-sitting sportscar. “Get in. I promise you no harm. I’ll explain everything once we’re out of this place.”
Face Vincent?
Or get in the same car with two people to whose allegiance I could only guess at?
Jason let out a breath. “We don’t have a choice, Ran.”
With that said, he opened the passenger’s seat and pulled the seat forward, exposing a dark cave that made my insides clench uncomfortably. “Get in.”
But I would do as my Master ordered.
The car smelled like expensive leather and something else, something almost sweet and bitter at the same time.
I ended up behind Ryder, who smelled just like the car. Or was it the car that smelled like him?
Jason’s shoulders brushed mine as he closed the door behind him and pulled the passenger seat back to accommodate Shannon, who was taking a rather interesting entry in: mostly by slipping through Ryder’s window head first. But I supposed it saved time from having to go around the vehicle.
By the time Shannon had righted herself next to Ryder, the car was already moving and for one absolutely frightening moment, I felt the intense, dry-throated fear of dying in a small, metallic box in a million terrible ways, each more horrifying than the last.
I cleared my throat. “Small car.”
Ryder laughed again. I wanted to hear it again. “Sorry. I don’t really have more than one other person in it. Don’t get too many people in the backseat. Er. Other people, that is.”
Shannon snorted. “You’re a f*cking dog, you know that?”
“Aw, come on, cut me some slack, yeah? It’s not like you don’t do this kind of shit either. So get off your high horse, you slut.”
Next to me, Jason flinched, but said nothing.
I wasn’t so sure if I could be so laissez-faire if someone I loved was called a tramp. “Do you always talk to each other like that?” And then a far more pressing matter occurred to me. That it hadn’t occurred to me before made me feel like an idiot. “And furthermore, how are you two related? I was under the impression you were under Vincent’s...rule, Ryder.”
He snorted as he turned a quick left taking us off the main thoroughway. “I follow him, yeah, but only when it suits me. I guess you can say that I am a...free agent.”
“Vincent doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who would be okay with that kind of loose allegiance.”
Shannon laughed, a high shrill sound that put my teeth on edge. “He’s not. Oh, he’s definitely not. If he ever found out about Ryder and his bid for freedom, I’m pretty sure he’d lope his head off. Ryder’s, not Vincent.”
It really was none of my business.
That didn’t stop me from asking. “Then why? It seems you’re putting quite a bit on the line. And for what purpose? Is it so you feel like you are your own Master? Is it because you feel stifled in your current position? Or is it because you’ve always hated him, always resented the fact that even though he is younger than you, he is still, and will always be, stronger than you are?”
Perhaps the last sentence I should not have said.
I almost broke my neck as he braked abruptly, almost sending Shannon through the windshield, while Jason bounced off the back of her seat.
Jason spoke. “That was not necessary. I apologize on her behalf.”
My hackles rose. “I don’t need you to apologize for me. I am fully capable of doing it myself.”
“Oh? Then why aren’t you?”
I knew I had stepped over some invisible line.
But I had to know. “Ryder, I’m sorry. But I can’t take that comment back.”
Shannon turned in her seat, eyes narrowed. “You know, you make us look like f*cking saints, hunter. Put a clamp on that mouth before it gets us all killed.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Ryder stared straight up head, hands clenched on the steering wheel. For one brief moment, I thought he would break the steering wheel clear off and kill me with it. A muscle twitched by his thinned lips and then he blew out a heavy breath.
He laughed and leaned against his seat, taking his hands off the steering wheel, one hand going through his thick yellow hair.
“Wow,” he said, voice shaky and soft. “You sure as hell don’t pull your punches, do you?”
“I need to know.”
He drew in a deep breath and proceeded to drive. Something in me relaxed, now that I knew he wasn’t going to throw me out the window. Truly, I was lucky, although perhaps luck had absolutely nothing to do with it and just the fact that Ryder merely wanted to sleep with me. “Look...it’s not as easy as all that, okay? There are...issues. Vincent and I are...at odds with many things. I will follow him but there some things I just don’t agree with him. One of them being the guy sitting next to you.”
Jason lifted his head and met Ryder’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “And what would that be that?”
“He sees you as--”
“Ryder!” barked Shannon. “Why go through this now? We’re just going to have to repeat this conversation once we meet up with Matthias. Let’s try not to make this any more boring than it already is, hm?”
“Who is Matthias?”
Shannon’s jaw tightened. “The man who has saved me.”
Jason spoke up then, his words tumbling over each other. “Saved you? Saved you from what? Saved you from vampires? Saved you from humans? Saved you how?”
A dull silence followed his words and I watched the multitude of emotions play across Shannon’s face...from where I could see, that is.
She was not as expressionless, not as heartless as she would have liked to seem.
Was that a good thing?
“I’m sorry, Jason,” she said and faced forward, her eyes on the road swiftly blanketing in white. “Everything will be explained very soon. I promise.”
Trust a vampire?
One could only hope it would not come back to haunt me.