“Becca.”
She hugged her arms to her chest and squeezed her sides, and then she barked a hollow laugh. “Who would’ve thought…you, taking me…might have saved my life.” A single tear welled up in her eye, and Julien crossed the room in two long strides.
“Becca.” He reached out to take her hand, but she flicked it away.
“No. No!” Her voice grew hoarse as she lost her control. “Damn it!” she blurted. “How? Why?” She threw both arms up in the air in frustration and gestured angrily as she spoke. “I did everything right. I did everything I knew how! I have spent the last five years of my life trying to avoid…exactly this…running from this…this monster, this idiot, this foul, disgusting trash. What more could I have done?”
Julien cursed beneath his breath in the old language, and he was just about to reach for her again when Rebecca saw the stains on her comforter.
She gagged, and her knees grew faint beneath her.
He caught her by the elbow and propped her back up. “Hey, now, baby; don’t start going to all the wrong places in your mind. You weren’t here; that’s all that matters.”
She pointed angrily at the bedspread and practically snarled. “Look at that! Look what he did!”
Julien tugged her beneath his strong, broad chest and whispered softly in her ear. “Sh. Sh. C’mon, now. You’re lookin’ at this glass as half empty, when I’m seeing it as damn near full.”
Rebecca sniffled into his shoulder and drew back to appraise his eyes. “How in the world could this glass be half full?”
He shrugged. “The way I look at it, baby, you did do everything right. You kept yourself safe for the last five years, and that’s no small accomplishment. And yeah, so he finally found you, but the way I see it—you zigged when he zagged. You weren’t here when he broke in.” He reached down to cup her chin in his hand and tilted her jaw upward so she had to maintain their gaze. “And then”—she tried to glance away, and he tightened his grip on her chin—“and then, the gods brought you to me. So the way I look at it, you handled it as long as you had to. And now? Now I’m about to handle it for you. Now, the nightmare is over.”
She shut her eyes, took a calming breath, and then opened them again, glancing askance at the comforter.
Julien sidestepped to block her view. “Baby, it’s just a piece of cloth with a little stuffing in it. You can buy as many comforters as you want, angel. Don’t go there.” He lowered his voice. “Hear me? Don’t do that to yourself.”
Rebecca nodded slowly.
She took several steps away from the bed and focused her gaze on the floor. And that’s when Julien noticed the sparks in her topaz eyes, that her dominant emotion wasn’t fear at all—it was fury.
As if she had heard his thoughts, she gritted her teeth and murmured, “I almost wish I had been here.” She curled her hand into a fist, unwittingly. “I wish I would’ve heard him break the glass in time to get my Glock and empty the whole damn clip into his sick, pathetic little head.”
Julien whistled low beneath his breath. “Ah…ah’ight.” He chuckled. “Well, I can still make that possible if you need the closure. String him up in the woods behind the house in Dark Moon Vale and let you use him for target practice. Your call, little mouse.”
Rebecca stared at him like he was an alien, and then she sighed. “No. No. I could never really do that, kill another person in cold blood. I would never be able to live with it. To live with myself.”
Julien nodded, understanding. “Well, if you change your mind before I end this, just let me know.”
Rebecca appraised him critically, seeming to replay his words in her mind, as her eyes swept over his features, his chest, and then his arms. It was like she was taking his measure for the very first time and only now beginning to truly see him for what he was, at least partly: a warrior, a possessive vampire, and a potential ally who was planning to wipe the floor with the bastard who had recently defiled her room. Someone more than capable of doing it.
She cleared her throat, as if testing her voice for metal. “The Curse,” she muttered, completely out of the blue. “You said that none of it works, none of it will work, unless I’m converted, first.”
Julien cocked a curious eyebrow and waited for her to continue.
She wrung her hands together and then abruptly stopped fidgeting, forcing herself to settle down, to project more bravery than she actually felt. “I don’t want to be this vulnerable, Julien. Not another day. Not another hour. Not when Trevor is still out there. Not—”
“Baby, I’ve got this. I’ve got you.”
Her lips tightened; she angled her jaw; and she shook her head in disgust. “No. That’s just it. You’ve got this, when I need to have it.”
Julien tilted his head to the side. “What are you saying, Rebecca?”
She looked away abruptly, and her lips began to quiver. It was almost as if she had extracted her last ounce of courage, and she wasn’t sure if she could muster any more. “Tomorrow.” The word was a mere whisper on her tongue. “We are going to meet with the women from my VOSU group, tomorrow, and then you…you are going to clean this nightmare up, right?”
Julien could hardly believe what he was hearing.
Finally, a modicum of trust.
“Absolutely,” he said.
“Well, you can’t be in two places at once, and it only takes a second… If you have to turn your back on me, if only for a minute—”
“Whoa. Squash that thought,” Julien cut in. “First and foremost, I’m not going to turn my back on you, Rebecca. And second, you’re not gonna be beside me when I handle this business.” He decided to share a little more than he had intended: “Look, I figured I’d call Saxson, bring him in on the gig: just to fill in the gaps…cover all bases.”
Rebecca nodded. “I get that, but you don’t understand, Julien: I can’t stand to live like this anymore, to be this afraid, to be this vulnerable, to be this…violated.” She looked so lost. “Convert me,” she blurted. “Tonight.”
The room grew silent, and if someone had dropped a pin, it would’ve reverberated like a bomb. “Come again?” he said.
Rebecca looked suddenly faint. “I don’t think I can say it twice. I’m terrified. But this Curse—there’s no way around it, right? And a bargain is a bargain.” Before he could answer, she creased her brows and pressed on. “I don’t want to be this vulnerable, and it’s going to happen anyway. Convert me.” She more or less mouthed the last words as opposed to speaking them aloud.
Julien retreated into silence, taking a moment to contemplate her request. He nodded, to indicate that he had heard her, and then he continued to consider her petition, seriously. In all truth, he was stunned by her various layers: the complexity of her thoughts, the ever-changing nuances he saw in her eyes, and the depth of her conflicting emotions. One minute, she wanted to run; the next, she wanted to fight. One moment, she felt like a trapped, cornered animal; the next, she was ready to bite. One second, she was terrified; the next, she was brave.
And all of it was wrapped up in such confusion, such paradoxical hesitation, such raw, unmitigated determination—she was an enigma to be sure.
“Listen, angel,” he said, measuring each word carefully and basing his response on where he truly believed she was, in her heart. “I’ve heard you. I have. And I understand where you’re coming from. And if you still feel the same way in a couple of days, then I will convert you, no questions asked. But you need to hear me out.”
Rebecca’s features tightened, like she was bracing herself for disappointment—or maybe, relief.
Wow, what a paradox…
“Conversion is no walk in the park, angel. It may take hours. It may take a day. And either way, it’s going to take everything out of you…and out of me. If you change now, tonight, your body changes, your physiology changes—you will hear differently, you will see differently, you will feel everything in a different way. The entire world is going to come at you, at on
ce, in high definition. That’s a lot to play off in front of your friends, and that’s only half the story. You will crave blood. You will feel off-balance, if only for a while, until you get used to the change. I don’t think you wanna do that now. Not here. Not the night before we set out to finish what we started. I think it will make you feel less stable, not more. And as for you and me? We still need a little time.”
What he didn’t tell her was what he’d seen in her eyes.
What he’d read in her soul.
Rebecca Johnston was a very similar creature to Julien Lacusta. She built up walls, barriers, and armor to shut out all the noise. Like Julien, she could deal with the present when she had to—she could even step boldly into the future—but she couldn’t run, far enough or fast enough, away from the past.
When Julien was tracking, time stood still, and the noise turned off.
There were no dimensions, no reason, no sentient thought: just a predator and his prey.
When Rebecca was fighting, defending other women, or championing a cause, she went to the same tranquil place: There was nothing else, no one else, just the victims and their plight.
Rebecca’s advocacy was predatory, and all the stalkers in the world were her prey.
But—and wasn’t that really the crux of the issue—it wasn’t a healthy fight.
As long as Rebecca had someone to save, she didn’t have to feel her pain.
Hell, her rage.
As long as she was fighting back—somehow, some way, striking back—she didn’t have to look too closely at the ghosts that truly haunted her life: the guilt she still harbored over her choice to date Trevor, remorse over the years she had lost, a deep-seated belief that she was responsible for her own victimization and, somehow, faulty by proxy, alone in the world. Like Julien, she was convinced that nothing—and no one—would ever change that fact.
Nothing and no one ever could.
And, frankly, she preferred it that way.
Because that way was safe.
Julien Lacusta knew that Rebecca was not capable of letting him in, of ever opening her heart—at least not now, not like this—and if he converted her tonight, she would only be one step closer to her goal of fulfilling their bargain; she would simply possess one more layer of armor to bury her heart within; and she would have one more excuse to do it all herself, to stand on her own two feet, at the expense of their future and their intimacy.
Julien grew ominously quiet and padded away, silently pacing the room.
Well, hell.
Wasn’t he just the pot calling the kettle black?
He was the exact same creature, just for very different reasons. Julien wasn’t an idiot—he knew damn well that he was haunted by a host of ever-present demons: guilt, rage, hatred, and maybe even…shame.
But there was one critical difference.
Julien’s damage ran so deep that it terrified him.
It wasn’t just a matter of not looking at it, not feeling it, turning down the noise. It was a matter of surviving, one day at a time.
A matter of life and death.
If Julien ever touched those shadows, if he ever felt that rage, if he ever let that hatred rise to the surface, the earth would split open beneath his feet, the rivers would overflow in violent floods, the heavens themselves would rain down ice, fire, and blood.
And Julien—oh yes, he knew—he could not turn it off.
Dozens of humans would die.
What lived inside of Julien was a natural disaster waiting to happen: a destructive volcano waiting to erupt. And while heroin might not have been the stable man’s choice, he was a vampire, a preternatural being, an immortal descendant of celestial gods. Neither his body nor his mind could be permanently corrupted—vampires couldn’t have physical addictions—and it was a helluva better choice than letting all that lava fly…releasing it on the earth.
Julien brushed a tense, curled hand through his tapered mahogany hair and sighed. So why was he trying to bring Rebecca into a relationship that he, himself, could hardly sustain? He honestly had no idea. “C’mon, little mouse,” he said, in an abrupt change of subject. “We are going to clean up the apartment—I will clean this room—and then we’re going to pack your things for Dark Moon Vale and get the apartment ready for your guests, tomorrow. You still need to make a couple calls, at least leave a few new messages.”
Rebecca stiffened, and Julien knew he had thrown up a wall, made a final pronouncement with regard to her question…to her request for conversion. But to her credit, she didn’t push the subject. More than likely, his little mouse was grateful for another reprieve, another out, a cleverly placed escape route.
“Fine,” she finally mumbled, and then in an abrupt show of defiance, tempered with subtle obedience, she turned on her heel, spat on the mattress, and strolled through the bedroom door. “Burn that shit,” she snarled, glancing over her shoulder.
Julien drew back in surprise.
“Considera ca si făcut.”
Consider it done.
Trevor Rainier tossed and turned restlessly on the stiff hotel mattress. The room was nothing more than a hovel, a cheap, dirty, mismatched cubicle, one hundred yards from Colfax, in an extremely shady district, and the very air he was breathing made his skin crawl.
He had contemplated going back to Rebecca’s apartment, but he wasn’t willing to take a chance at getting caught, being discovered a bit too soon. Not when he could bide his time and ultimately terrorize her senseless, as well as threaten her friends. Not when he wanted to be the one to say where, when, and how.
Trevor Rainier desired the ultimate in orgasmic revenge, to prove a point in grand, shocking fashion, that Rebecca Johnston wasn’t so high and mighty, after all.
She wasn’t the world’s protector.
Hell, she couldn’t even protect herself.
And in the end, she would be the one to expose and jeopardize the VOSU women. She would be the one who was proven to be a coward.
He chuckled low, beneath his breath, imagining a dozen different scenarios: Oh yes, Rebecca might put up a fight—she would surely try to act defiant and brave—but none of it would matter.
Not one iota.
One way or another, Trevor would have his revenge, and Rebecca would leave Denver with him. Everything that happened in the meantime was just foreplay, leading up to the ultimate release: their permanent and inevitable coupling.
He checked the glowing light on the rickety, digital clock buzzing on the hotel nightstand like its internal parts were whistling a low-budget tune: It was one o’clock in the morning, and he still couldn’t sleep. Sighing, he opened his smartphone and scrolled to his photo album, where he kept several hundred pictures of Rebecca—and him—many of them spliced together in Photoshop.
He was just about to start the familiar litany, scrolling through the photos, one by one, when he noticed a small red-and-white number next to his green phone-icon. Hmm, wonder who called? He tapped the icon, selected voice mail, and scrolled to the most recent message. He didn’t recognize the number, but that didn’t really matter—it wasn’t like he had a host of friends in Colorado, and no one knew what he was up to. He swiped his thumb over the digits and pressed the phone to his ear.
“Hi, Jake; it’s Kate, from the VOSU support group. Sorry to call so late at night, but I just wanted to let you know that I got a message from Rebecca. She’s back in town for a couple of days, and she wants to get all the members together at her apartment, tomorrow. She said it’s really urgent. Anyhow, I didn’t know if she left you a message, your being so new to the group and all, but I figured if she invited you to Sheila’s, she would probably want you in the loop. Anyhow, the address is 556 Sycamore Lane, and we’re hooking up at six. Hope you’ll be there. Oh, yeah, and remember: To escape fear, you have to go through it, not around it. Talk to you later. Bye.”
Trevor set the phone down on the nightstand and folded his arms behind his head, sinking deep into the pillow and lau
ghing, almost hysterically.
Oh, this was truly rich.
Could it get any more perfect than this?
He shut his eyes and practically meditated on the ripeness of the moment.
Oh, yes, Katie dear, I will be there with bells on.
And we will have the get-together of a lifetime!
fourteen
Dark Moon Vale
Ian Lacusta sank deep into the mist, spreading his molecules even farther apart, as he approached the secluded brownstone on the northern end of Dark Moon Vale, just beneath a formidable series of forest cliffs. The gorgeous brick-faced domicile was built in the tradition of a 1920s Park Avenue brownstone, and it had to be close to five thousand square feet, with its four impressive levels, rooftop patio, and opulent series of front and back terraces.
So Nachari Silivasi enjoyed his creature comforts.
Bully for him.
Ian thought about the quaint, simplistic card he had tucked into the lapel of his duster, and hoped that he had calculated everything correctly: It was one thing to dissolve his physical form and travel like a Vampyr of legend, streaming through the forest as mystic fog; it was another to incorporate an envelope with a written missive—ah yes, a written message—into the mix. Best-case scenario, the ink would be runny when he took his corporeal form. Worst-case scenario: the card would be unreadable, the envelope would have already dissolved, and his entire effort would be for naught.
He hovered above the old-fashioned mailbox and concentrated intensely on extending a single hand from the fog—if he didn’t have to materialize completely, that was just fine with him. Nachari Silivasi had some wickedly dangerous wards surrounding this house, and from everything Achilles had told Ian, he was a wizard of some notable talent. Ian had no doubt that the son of Jadon would pick up on his presence—and pronto—if he hovered around too long.
Extending a ghostly hand toward the singular red flag, he turned it upright and poured all his concentration into retrieving the letter.