chapter 25
After sunset, Rose punched a message into the cell and reread the text, which was meant as an answer to Keegan’s give-me-back-what-you’ve-stolen-paintjob.
Over my dead body. Rose.
She sensed Quinn looking over her shoulder.
“It’s not exactly an invitation,” he murmured. “But I think he’ll get the message. Send it.”
Pushing the send button, she turned to him, shoving the phone into her front jeans pocket. “He’ll be fuming when he gets this.”
“Angry men make for irrational fighters. It’ll be to our advantage. So, while the others are keeping watch, come with me.” He tugged at her hand.
She felt heat rise into her cheeks. “Quinn, not now. There’s no time for that.”
His eyes shimmered golden when he looked at her. A wicked smile curled around his sensual lips. When he leaned closer, her knees started to wobble. After their amazing time in bed together, she felt more feminine than ever—and more vulnerable. And she couldn’t get enough of him.
“As much as I would love to drag you back to bed, I agree with you, there’s no time.” He winked. “I was going to arm you with a few weapons instead.”
Embarrassed that she’d misread his intention, she tried to cover up. “Of course, I knew that.”
His eyes were glued to her lips, his smile confirming that he knew what she had really been thinking of. “Of course.”
She let Quinn lead her upstairs to his room. When he opened the closet and dragged out a large metal crate, Rose realized instantly that arming her wouldn’t mean simply pressing a wooden stake into her hand.
The crate contained hand guns, knives, stakes, silver chains, throwing stars, and lots of other equipment she couldn’t instantly identify.
Quinn bent over the case, rummaging through it, then pulled out something and turned to her. “Here, you’ve got to wear gloves so the silver won’t injure you.”
As she took the leather gloves he handed her, she watched him pull on gloves of his own. Then he dug back into the box, pulled out the weapons, and laid on them on the bed.
“I don’t know how to use any of these. I’m used to defending myself with a stake,” she told him and pointed to her favorite weapon.
Quinn shook his head. “You won’t get anywhere close enough to be able to use it. Not if I can help it,” he grumbled. “You’ll be staying away from the action. You’ll take the gun. And it’s merely for self-defense.”
She glanced at the weapon. “That’s not a very big gun.”
“It’s a .22 caliber gun with silver bullets. Anything larger than that, and you risk the bullet passing through your target. The bullets from a small gun like this will lodge in your victim and do the most damage—burning him from the inside. But as I said, you’re only keeping this for self-defense.”
Rose squared her stance. “This is my fight. You don’t honestly think I would step back and hide somewhere safe just because you say so, do you?”
With her hands at her hips, she underscored her position.
Quinn leaned closer. “I’m a trained fighter, you’re not. No discussion.”
“How do you think I survived the last two hundred years? I’m not a withering debutante anymore. I’m stronger than you think. And you seem to have a problem with that.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting that I underestimate you?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m suggesting that you, my lord,” she mocked, “still see me as a helpless woman who will faint at the slightest sight of trouble. I’m not that person anymore. Don’t be fooled by the packaging.”
“Rose,” he said, a warning growl in his voice. “I can overpower you in two seconds flat, and close combat isn’t even my specialty. Trust me—”
He didn’t get any further. Rose pressed her lips onto his. As she felt him respond to her kiss, she reached toward the bed. Gripping her weapon of choice, feeling the smooth wood settling in her palm, she twisted from his embrace, whirled behind him, and within a split-second had him in a tight grip, the stake pointing to his heart.
“Close combat is my specialty,” she whispered in his ear. “The closer, the better.”
His chest rose against the tip of the stake.
“Because you tricked me. Is that how you’re planning to defeat Keegan? Is it, Rose?” He turned his head to look at her. “Then be prepared for a massacre, because if that man gets to touch you one more time, I’m going to rip his f*cking heart out while it’s still beating.”
His jealousy was palpable. She’d never seen his eyes this wild, his facial expression this tense, not even when he’d been angry with her after realizing that she’d lied to him.
Her grip loosened.
An instant later she found herself on her back with Quinn pressing her into the mattress, his hand now holding the stake against her chest. Her breath hitched, her thoughts instantly traveling back in time to the night she’d killed his sire. If he found out, was this how he would finish her off? Killing her one day as she lay beneath him, his hot body the last sensation she would ever feel?
“I might have mislead you by saying close combat wasn’t my specialty.” A wicked smile appeared on his face. “My bad.”
Quinn tossed the stake to the side, making her take a relieved breath. He noticed it, a surprised look on his face. He glanced at the stake, then back at her. “I was only making a point. You know I would never hurt you.”
She hesitated before she answered him. “I know that.”
But she also knew that once he knew the truth, things would change and his promise of never hurting her would vanish into thin air.
He tilted his head. “Then why do you look so worried?”
She pushed against him, wanting to free herself, and avoided his gaze. “Why wouldn’t I look worried? Keegan is about to attack us.”
Quinn searched her eyes, but for whatever reason she had shut him out. Something was bothering her, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t the fact that Keegan was about to burst into their safe house. He’d hoped that after Rose had let him drink her blood, she would finally open up to him completely, but he realized now that she was still holding back. As if she were afraid of something.
Disappointed that she still didn’t fully trust him, he rolled off her.
“Let’s get ready then.”
In detached efficiency, he explained the weapons to her, showed her how to use the gun and even let her keep a stake, even though he hoped that she would not have to use it. Shooting from a safe distance was all he wanted her to do.
Quinn kept the throwing stars for himself, tucked a gun into the waistband of his pants, and armed himself with a flail, a medieval ball and chain weapon vampires had adapted for their own purposes. Two chains of pure silver hung from a stick, two balls at each end so when the flail was thrown with skill, the chain and balls would wrap around a person’s neck. The silver would burn into the opposing vampire’s skin, disabling him for long enough to finish him off in close combat.
“How did you get into this line of work? I mean, working for Scanguards,” Rose suddenly asked. “You didn’t need the money, not after your brother died shortly after . . .”
She stopped herself as if she’d said something she shouldn’t have.
He shot her a surprised look. “You knew about that?”
And why shouldn’t she? The headstone on Rose’s grave might have been dated before his brother’s death, but she had never lain in that grave.
“A hunting accident. It was tragic. He had no heir, so I inherited the title. How ironic. Had it happened two years earlier, I would have been the Marquess of Thornton. Your father would have consented to my suit.”
“You would have never had to go to war.”
There was so much regret in her voice, it clamped around his heart like an icy cold hand.
He sighed. “We can’t turn back time. And I can’t begrudge my brother those two years of life. I would never be able to live with myself if I even wished it for a second. I’ve accepted what happened. And I mourned him.”
“Is that why you refused the title and made a deal with the new heir to allow your brother’s widow to remain at the estate?”
“You give me too much credit, Rose. I refused the title because I needed to live a life away from the eyes of society.”
Yet the real truth was that he was still mourning Rose. And to see the same kind of pain reflected in the eyes of his brother’s widow made him want to soothe that pain in whichever way was possible, knowing he couldn’t soothe his own. Throwing her out of her home that housed so many happy memories would have only added to her grief. Besides, the title and its holdings meant nothing to him anymore.
So he simply became Quinn Ralston, no title, with only a small property to his name—which of course, by today’s standards, represented considerable wealth.
“I met Amaury at a bar brawl on the Lower East Side of Manhattan just a few days after my ship had docked at New York harbor. He made his job sound like a great adventure. So I signed on. I haven’t looked back since.” He paused. “But then, you know all that, don’t you?” he fished.
Slowly, she nodded. “I knew where you were, but I didn’t pry into your life, if that’s what you mean.”
The confirmation that she would have had no trouble contacting him whenever she wanted hurt. But he didn’t allow himself to make a comment about it, because if he did, it would only widen the gap between them that still existed.
The vibration of his cell phone saved him from having to come up with an appropriate response. He pulled it out and read the text message.
“There’s activity outside.”
Quinn crossed the distance to the door and flipped the light switch, drowning the room in darkness. Then he stalked to the window, aware that Rose was at his side. From the corner of his eye, he noticed her gloved hand tucking a silver chain into her jacket pocket.
He peeled the dark curtain aside by an inch and looked outside. All appeared quiet.
“Do you see them?” Rose asked from behind him.
He shrugged and let the curtain fall closed again, stepping away from the window. “Maybe at the front of the house. Stay close to me.”
By the time he and Rose reached the corridor and ran along it toward the back of the house, Quinn already heard the curses of his colleagues. Why they were cursing was evident when he reached a window overlooking the front garden and sidewalk: several youngsters were setting off illegal fireworks right in front of the house, joking and laughing as they did so. Beer cans in their hands, they gave off the impression that they were drunk.
Quinn recognized a diversion when he saw one. “Looks like Keegan hired a few kids to throw us off our game.”
“Or is using mind control on them,” Rose added drily.
Considering the few things he’d heard about their opponent so far, he was inclined to agree with her.
Turning toward the staircase he called down, “They’ll be attacking from the back.”
“Already figured that,” came Zane’s response from a floor lower. “You joining in on the fight or are you planning on cozying up to your girl instead?”
While Zane’s remark would have warranted a fist fight at any other time, Quinn let the words slide by him and headed for the stairs instead.
“We’re taking the tradesmen entrance.”
“Somebody has to keep an eye on the front,” Rose cautioned as they rushed down the stairs, meeting Zane on the first floor. “Keegan is too crafty to go for a simple diversion like that. I know him too well. And he knows that.”
How well Rose knew Keegan wasn’t exactly something Quinn wanted to contemplate right now. The very thought of them having been lovers turned his insides out.
“Wesley is watching the front,” Zane confirmed. “Don’t worry, if he thinks he can fool us with a few fireworks, he’ll have to get up earlier.”
Quinn noticed how Rose’s forehead creased.
“He’s smarter than he lets on. And very devious,” Rose added.
“We can handle whatever he throws at us,” Quinn answered.
He squeezed her forearm in reassurance and hoped the coming events wouldn’t brand him a liar.