My heart rate does spike a little, nervousness creeping into all the tips of my body.
But I’m ready.
Ready for Lexington.
Just as we reach the door leading back down into the house, he gently and easily scoops me up into his arms, holding my eyes as he walks down the stairs. I lace my fingers behind his neck, keeping his gaze.
He pushes the door to our bedroom open, and I’m at peace when he steps across the threshold.
Gently he sets me down on the bed. He leans forward, kissing me as he cups a hand behind my head.
I reach for the hem of his shirt, smeared with cake. I pull and he slides out of it. I study him for a moment, taking in the hardened and toned body. The scars that cut their way across his chest. The ones I know are on his back.
Lexington is my warrior. If need be he can destroy kingdoms and lives.
But he’s also my gentle whisper of calm. My soothing embrace.
I reach forward, untying the drawstring of his bottoms. He reaches for my own cake smeared shirt, pulling it from my body.
His eyes take me in, all of it. From the very non-sexy clothes I never saw myself wearing on this night, to my twenty-eight week pregnant belly. Up to my bra, and my breasts which heave in anticipation of what’s about to happen.
And he leans in, gently laying me back on the bed, a hand wrapping around my side, to my back, pulling him against his ready body.
“I love you, Elle Dawes,” he whispers into my ear.
I wanted nothing more than to lie here with my husband, skin to skin, and spend a blissful night together, and the following day never leaving the bed.
Instead, I got a knock on the door at five in the morning, and my brother storming into the room with his wife in tow.
“They pre-recorded both interviews at the same time,” Ian goes off without a second thought. But then I jerk awake, half sitting up before I remember that I’m not wearing anything. But Lexington is quick enough to jerk the blanket back up over the two of us so we aren’t exposed.
“Shit,” Ian hisses, turning his back to us. “Sorry, I uh, forgot yesterday was…”
My sleepy eyes find Alivia, blushing hard, crossing to the closet where she rummages for a robe for me, and picks Lexington’s pants from last night off the floor and gently tosses them to us.
“Ian,” I say groggily. “What are you doing here?”
“Thanks for the wake up call,” Lexington says, rather annoyed, as he flops back onto his pillow.
My brother looks incredibly embarrassed. He’s not sure where to look, and those clothes Alivia brought us are a little useless at the moment. I’m not putting either on with both of them still in the room.
Ian awkwardly stands sideways, facing the wall, not looking at either of us. He swears under his breath again, shaking his head. “Life can’t get any weirder right now.”
“Tell me about it,” I growl at him, pulling the blanket further up my chest.
“Sorry guys,” Alivia offers helplessly.
“Uh, okay,” Ian says, trying to move on from the scene before him. “We went down to the news stations last night as you suggested. Wasn’t much of anyone there last night when we got there, but we waited around until some assistants showed up around three.”
I actually hear Alivia swallow.
“Killian and Cyrus went to the station that ran the interview yesterday,” she says. “They grabbed the first person who walked into the station this morning. Poor thing was some low-body assistant. They interrogated him on the spot.”
“They pre-recorded both interviews yesterday,” Ian repeats his opening statement. “They got everything they needed and they finished editing the footage last night. Killian and Cyrus took the man, and I can only imagine what they’re doing to him to try and get more information about how to get in contact with Jonathan.”
“They’re just going to torture a poor innocent man, who probably doesn’t know anything?” I ask, sitting up straighter.
“Elle, you can’t forget who they are,” Ian says, a little louder than he needs to. “Who the King is. There’s about a one percent chance that man will make it out alive. Cyrus wants this problem taken care of and he’ll do anything to deal with it.”
The blood in my veins begins to chill.
Cyrus never hurt me.
But that doesn’t mean he won’t hurt others.
“He values this secret above anything else, except Sevan,” Alivia says. “He’ll go to any lengths to protect it.”
I shake my head and Lexington places a warm hand on my back.
“I’ll get on the computer and see what I can find on Jonathan,” he says. “Everyone leaves a digital footprint these days. I’ll dig through whatever I can find; phone records, bank accounts, bills. There has to be some record of him, and then we can start making connections and narrow his options.”
“Work fast,” Alivia says as she steps for the door. “If we can get this figured out fast enough, it might mean the difference between life and death for that assistant.”
They both step out the door, giving us some space and privacy to pull some clothes on.
I lay back, tucking myself into my husband’s side for just a few more stolen moments.
I’m so tired.
So beyond exhausted.
I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in what feels like weeks.
“I’ll work on this,” Lexington says, pushing my hair out of my face and pressing a kiss to my forehead. “You get some sleep. You need it.”
I shake my head, but my eyes slip closed. “I should be doing something. There’s got to be something I can help with.”
“Maybe,” he says quietly. “But right now I need you to take care of yourself. And little squish.”
I start to shake my head, but he reaches a hand down, caressing my stomach. And suddenly a foot jabs out against his hand.
“Please,” Lexington begs me. “For our family.”
And his words make my eyes open once more to look at him.
Our family.
And everything shifts.
I have to take care of us, our family, before anything else now.
Because everything else is secondary.
“Okay,” I promise those blue eyes. “Just wake me up if there is anything I can help with.”
“I will,” he says with a nod. He bends down, pressing a kiss to each of my eyelids. And he slips out of bed to get dressed and get to work.
When I wake, the sun is streaming through my window, and when I roll over, my heart jumps into my throat when the clock on the wall reads 11:56.
Everything feels wrong when I listen for Lexington’s location, and the house is far too quiet.
“Lexington?” I call, climbing for the edge of the bed, sitting with my legs hanging off the side.
I hear feet on the stairs, climbing, but I’m familiar enough with all of Lexington’s movements to know it isn’t him.
I reach into the nightstand and withdraw a stake, just as my bedroom door swings open.
“It certainly might still kill me if you shove that chunk of wood through my chest,” Michael says with that charming, lopsided smile as he leans in the doorway. “But I don’t think it quite has the same meaning as it used to.”
I swear under my breath, letting my arm fall loose at my side. I’m instantly grateful that I pulled on some clothes during one of my many half-asleep trips to the bathroom. “You might have responded when I called out. I would have felt just a little guilty if I killed you.”
He gives a little smile, but there’s something sad about it.
“I’ve…uh, always wanted to ask, little bird,” he says as he slides his hands into his front pockets. “Why…why do you care?”
“About what?” I ask, sitting back on the bed.
“About me,” he says with a shrug. “Ever since my parents died fifteen years ago, it’s been the solo Michael Savage show, until I made all those friends who were just my mindle
ss slaves. And then you came along. So…why?”
The fact that he even feels he has to ask the question breaks my heart.
Michael is a man who’s only ever truly loved two people in his life. His mother and father, and as he said, he lost them fifteen years ago.
“Because you’ve always believed in me,” I say. “When pretty much everyone but Lexington has doubted me at some point in my life, you believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself.” I watch him, and my chest swells. “You make me love you, Michael.”
He looks to the ground and shakes his head. “I don’t know that there were ever two people more opposite in this world, yet somehow you still latched on to me. Guess I just don’t get it.”
“Take a look at me and Ian,” I say with a little breathy chuckle. “He and I are nothing alike, except we share the same horrible mother. But we’d do anything for each other. It’s just the way it is, Michael. You’re my family. And that’s a small circle.”
He looks up at me from beneath his dark lashes, his lips in a thin line surrounded by that salt and pepper beard of his. “You literally burst into my life, spittin’ fire, Elle. And I think in that very moment, I knew you were something special. Thanks for making me feel like I was worth something. Been a long time since I meant anything to anyone.”
My own smile is a little sad, but I’m grateful. Grateful that this man, as savage as his last name, came in to my life to fill a hole I’d always had in me.
“How are you handling being human again?” I ask, knowing there’s more below the surface of his serious demeanor today.
He shrugs, trying to brush it off, but I can tell.
“No point lying to you, I guess,” he says. “It’s a lot harder than I hoped it would be. Everyone is out fighting the war in the streets of Boston, and I’m little more than a liability to them anymore.”
I shake my head. “You’ve never been a liability. Look at me. I’m pregnant, about as physically useless as I’ve ever been. But we can still do things, Michael. When it comes down to it, I know you won’t be on the sidelines.”
He looks back up at me and offers a little smile. “You always have the right words, little bird.”
I shake my head, letting a little smile pull on my lips. “Only when it comes to you it seems.”
He smiles too, and this time it reaches his eyes.
“Well, at least I’m good as a messenger and watch dog now,” he says, stepping into the room. He folds his arms over his chest. “Aleah caught sight of Charles about three hours ago. They’ve been chasing him all around downtown since.”
“What?” I gasp, jumping to my feet. I head for the closet, desperately searching for some clothes to wear. “That’s…that’s amazing. That’s the first real lead we’ve gotten since he attacked Lexington.”
“Guess your fake pregnancy problems are working in drawing him out.”
I whip around, staring at Michael.
“You know about that?” I ask, my tone growing cold and quiet.
He gives me this little look that says, I’m not stupid.
“You’ve been way too spunky and active to be having the problems you say you have,” he says, taking a step forward. “And I know you, Elle. You’ve decided to keep this baby, let Lexington be the father. If that baby really were in the danger you say it is, you’d be losing your mind, couldn’t-get-out-of-bed down and depressed.” He cocks a little sideways smile. “Don’t forget, I spent a few months with you in lock up, going through the shittiest time of your life.”
I’m full of dread, because if Michael can see through the lie, why couldn’t the others? Yet a smile pulls on one side of my mouth.
Because he’s right. In a lot of ways, Michael knows me better than almost anyone now.
“Thank you for not telling anyone,” I say, because I know he won’t. “I’m glad to hear the plan seems to be working.”
“Who else knows what’s really going on?” he asks.
“Lexington, obviously,” I say, pulling out some clothes to wear for the day. “Rose and her crew.” There’s a flash of violence in his eyes at that. “And Cyrus. Everyone else believes there’s problems. That this baby is coming in two weeks.”
“Which, to clarify, you’re not really going to cut that kid out of you, are you?” he asks, and the way he words it, it’s complicated and unsure.
I shake my head. “No,” I say.
He nods. “Good.”
I study him, and I can just tell. “What else?”
He just shrugs. “I’m just glad to see you coming back. You’ve already changed again. Gone back to this alternate version of what you were when I first met you. Someone who kicks ass in that quiet, removed way. It’s like…as soon as you decided to let that husband of yours love you and that kid…you just woke back up.”
He looks up at me. “You got this Elle. And I’m always gonna be here for you and your family.”
I smile, my heart swelling. “Thank you.”
He nods, looking away again when the moment gets a little too heavy. “You get dressed now. We’ve got some updates to acquire.”
Lexington is the first to return that night.
When he walks through the door, his head hangs low, his shoulders slumped. His expression is grim and solemn and so very heavy.
I rush to the door, wrapping my arms around him, pulling myself tight to him. He engulfs me, pulling me close, gripping tight.
We just stand there for a long few minutes. I hold him, as something bears down on him, so hard to bear.
“I found some information on Jonathan,” Lexington breathes. He releases me and sinks onto the couch as Michael walks into the room. I sit beside my husband, taking his hand in mine.
“I got into his bank account,” Lexington says. “There were two recurring charges for a rental management company downtown. Ian and I went to check it out. Only took a few minutes to convince them to give us the address of the property he was renting.”
My heart rate picks up and I shift on the couch, sitting a little straighter.
“Jonathan wasn’t there when we showed up, but that woman you mentioned…”
“Patricia,” I fill in. She was the one he showed up at Oleander with, the one I cured alongside him.
Lexington nods. “She was there. We were just going to get information out of her,” he continues, his face growing paler. “But I guess Cyrus and Killian knew where we were going. They showed up. With these…these tools.”
I swallow hard, dread and horror filling me. I know what they did with those tools.
Lexington shakes his head, disgust in his eyes. “They were a little more aggressive in their interrogating. She only said something bigger was coming. And then she killed herself.”
I startle back, horror saturating my bones.
This is such a mess. The ramifications of trying to help others.
It’s come back to hurt so many others.
“We didn’t get anything out of her,” Lexington says. “Nothing useful. She didn’t give them time.”
I squeeze his hand.
“I assume the King’s got someone camping out at that apartment now, waiting for this prick to come back.”
Lexington nods, looking up as if he’s just now realizing Michael is here. “Killian isn’t leaving until Jonathan is dead.”
I shake my head.
Once more, I’m so tired of all these politics and the drama and the lives that are lost and twisted. Over, and over, and over again.
“Any other clues at his place” Michael moves on, because he’s just like that, “as to what more he’s got planned?”
Lexington shrugs. “Probably. Cyrus kind of took over and is tearing the whole place apart. I’m sure they will find something.”
He leans his head back, looking up at the ceiling. This is hard for him. It’s hard on all of us. But now he has so much more to worry about. A future that hangs so heavily on how things play out in the next two weeks.
?
??What about the second interview?” I ask. “The one that is supposed to air today?”
“Alivia went down to the station,” he says. “I think she paid them off to not run the second half. And supposedly she’s convinced them to recant yesterday’s statements. She handled it the way she does.”
I nod. She’s always been so good at this.
I hope someday our daughter can be the kind of leader Alivia has become.
“And the assistant?”
He looks up at the ceiling and swallows once. “I was too late to save him.”
I squeeze his hand again, trying to give reassurance. That he did the best he could do. But that pain is real, and I can’t make the facts not be facts.
Aleah didn’t catch Charles that day. Finally, the trail went cold, and she had to admit that he had slipped through her hands yet again.
Killian and Cyrus found a personal calendar at Jonathan’s apartment. There was a name, Phillips Anderson, and 5:30 written on it, August thirtieth.
Lexington was on the computer day and night, trying to track Phillips Anderson down. Because if we could intercept this meeting, we could finally catch Jonathan.
But to no avail.
For the next few days, things were quiet.
Until Po-Sun found a gathering of four people near the waterfront, ripping apart a Born man.
Who the victim was and where he came from, none of us had any idea.
But those humans killed him. Tore him apart, piece by piece. They took his fangs. Took his eyes. Mutilating and torturing him.
And then they were dead. Cyrus and Killian’s Hunters tracked them down and ended their lives. Slowly.
Lexington drives himself mad, spending nearly all hours of the day on the computer, tracking and hacking. Jonathan is still in the city, but he’s all over the board. And still hasn’t returned to his apartment.
Just four days before my plan to draw Charles out goes into action, there are two more attacks. And then eleven more humans dead.
I understand now the advantage of having your House in a small city.
There are fewer places to hide.
Fewer people to help you cover up your tracks.