“They never knew?”
He shook his head. “In most cases, unless it’s obvious someone has the line strong in them, I never make direct contact with the family. Especially if I feel they would be better off not knowing their lineage.”
“Why did you lie to me? Sucker me into this job?”
“What was I supposed to say? ‘Hi, I’m a really old vampire. Do you want to come work for me?’ Like you’d give me a chance to say anything else. You’d think I was crazy.”
“Guess what, big guy? I do think you’re crazy. You just want to sleep with me. I can think of better pick-up lines than, ‘Hi, I’m a vampire, you’re a vampire, let’s suck.’”
“No. I won’t lie and tell you there were no ulterior motives, Anastazia, but that’s not the reason I brought you onboard. You are a talented, skilled, beautiful woman, and you are a valuable asset to this firm.”
She pulled the blanket away and sat up, determined to salvage a little of her dignity. “Asset to the firm. Great. Valuable firm ass is more like it.”
He caught her arm. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
She shook free. “That’s exactly how it came out.” She threw the door open, taking Tim and Albert by surprise. Her purse sat on the chair just inside her office. She grabbed it as she passed, barely breaking stride.
Matthias followed her. She didn’t dare meet his gaze, knowing she’d melt. “Anastazia, can we talk about this, please?”
“We have nothing to discuss, Mister Hawthorne. I am leaving this loony bin. You’ll have my letter of resignation tomorrow.” She yanked the door open harder than she meant, and it flew out of her grasp, bouncing off the wall. “Good day, sir.” She didn’t say anything to Robertson. She’d deal with him after she dealt with this. She could only handle one shift of her world on its axis in a day, and this was it.
How could I be so stupid?
“Please, Anastazia, wait—”
She held up a hand, not looking back as she walked to the elevator. Matthias fell silent behind her. He didn’t try to follow her down to the parking garage. By the time the elevator opened downstairs, the valet had her car waiting, running, door open. One of the men must have called ahead for her.
How thoughtful.
Asshats.
She held her tears at bay until she reached I-75.
What a moron I am. What a friggin’, absolute dumb-ass moron. How could I be so stupid?
Vampires and demons and clans, oh my. They were probably laughing their asses off back at the office. What kind of sick game was Hawthorne playing? And with Robertson in on it?
How could he betray me like that?
She felt foot meet floor and realized the speedometer needle was buried at 110. She immediately eased up. She didn’t need a ticket from FHP on top of everything else. Her day sucked badly enough already.
Chapter Thirteen
Robertson didn’t follow Taz home, and there were no calls on the answering machine. She switched her BlackBerry off, locked the front door behind her, and locked herself in her room.
She filled the tub and sank into the hot water, closing her eyes and trying to sort her thoughts.
This is a dream. A really, really bad dream. There are no such things as demons or vampires.
Babson didn’t disappear into a flaming pile of ash. If Criss Angel could appear to levitate on a city street, surely a man of Matthias Hawthorne’s considerable means could concoct an elaborate hoax.
And her employer—and admitted yummalicious hunk—was not a vampire.
She was not a vampire.
Correction, ex-employer. Despite her attraction to him, after that display there was no way in hell she was working for him anymore. She’d pack and be back in LA by the end of the week.
Or she’d wake up in the morning in the hospital, suffering from the flu or food poisoning. Part of her prayed that was the real answer, because despite the crazy events, part of her dreaded not working for handsome Matthias Hawthorne anymore.
Her doorbell rang. Fuck that, I’m not answering it. She didn’t care who it was. She sank lower in the water, trying to calm her nerves.
It rang again, then a third time, over the next few minutes. Finally, it stopped.
Talking cats. Exploding demons. Vampires…
Taz woke up and realized she’d dozed in the warm water. After drying off she donned her pajamas and robe. A glance out the window and she saw it was now past dark. Just her car in the driveway. Robertson must be giving her a wide berth tonight.
As damn well he should.
Taz stuck her head out the bedroom door. Dark. She made her way to the kitchen and turned on the light before grabbing a glass of wine. She felt she’d need more than that.
She remembered the doorbell. On the front step, she found a large bouquet.
How expected.
She sighed and brought it inside, locking the door behind her. She took the card and her wine back to her room, stopping to pick up her BlackBerry.
The card was in Matthias’ tidy script. He must have followed her from the office to get it out there that soon.
Anastazia, I’m sorry I couldn’t confide in you sooner. I never meant for you to find out like this. Please forgive me. I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me, but for your safety, will you please talk to me?
“For my safety?” She snorted. Oh, isn’t that just a tad on the melodramatic side? She balled the card up and flung it across the room where it hit the wall and landed on the floor.
A loud thump shook the back of the house, startling her. She slipped on a pair of sneakers then grabbed the 9mm from her purse, chambering a round and checking the safety.
One of the back windows shattered as she opened the bedroom door. She raced to the bedroom phone. Dead.
She didn’t have time to power up her BlackBerry.
From the bedroom doorway she yelled, “Whoever you are, get out! I have a gun, and I will kill you.”
She heard a growl. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She heard more glass breaking.
“That’s what you think.” The voice sounded barely human. There was something so cold, so harsh about it that made her want to crawl into her closet and hide.
Taz fought the urge to run and released the safety, bringing the gun up. Moving to the other side of the doorway, she kept the wall between her and the voice. It was large, whatever it was, with loud, ragged breath.
“I’m warning you, leave now!” She put the hall corner in her sights and tried to quiet her breathing. Her pulse raced, in her throat, in her head, in her chest. Praying she could keep the gun still, she held her breath.
There was another growl, closer. “Don’t run. You’ll only make the meat tough.”
What fresh hell is this? She had to be dreaming, still in the tub, right?
Wake up, Taz. Wake up now!
A misshapen shadow loomed around the corner. She prepared to pull the trigger when her front door exploded. The intruder howled as she jumped and squeezed the trigger. The bullet plunged into the hallway wall three feet up. A dark blur and a flash flowed past her, down the hall, and sounds of a violent struggle ensued.
She moved to follow but two pairs of arms were on her, pulling her toward the front door. She tried to fight. Robertson whispered in her ear, “Taz, it’s us, hurry!”
Taz let him take her and realized Albert was with him, and as they left she heard the sounds of a vicious fight. She managed to thumb the safety on the gun before they none too gently shoved her, headfirst, into the backseat of Matthias’ car. Thompson dove for the wheel, and they roared off, tires squealing.
She saw through the back window that her front door was splintered. “What the hell was that?” she screamed once she’d caught her breath.
Robertson ended up in the backseat next to her and exchanged looks with Albert in the mirror.
“Oh, stop that,” she yelled, close to hysterics. “Don’t do that. Tell me, goddamn it!”
Robertson grabbed her hand, the one without the gun. “It was an Other.”
“Another what?”
He shook his head. “Not ‘another.’ An Other.”
“What was it?”
“If we were casting a movie, we’d be looking for someone to play a werewolf. But that’s not what they really are. Shape-shifters are totally different, and they are our allies. These…I can’t begin to explain it right now, but if you were to call it a werewolf, you’d be close. They have always been called ‘the Others.’”
She felt her sanity slip yet another notch. “But what—” She stopped. “Wait. Who was with you? Did someone go after it?”
They exchanged looks again, and it hit her. “Matthias. That’s what I saw?”
Robertson nodded. “He went after it with the sword—”
“A sword? Are you shitting me? Fuck that, I’ve got hollow points!” She swatted the back of Albert’s seat. “Go back, turn around!”
Thompson tightened his grip on the steering wheel, speeding through the dark to I-75. “I can’t do that.”
“We’ve got to help him!”
“We can’t. We are under orders to get you to safety immediately. If the Others are after you, you are not safe.”
“But what about—”
“Taz,” Robertson said quietly, “Matthias knows what he’s doing.”
She didn’t like it. Whatever it was, the growling, gravelly voice she’d heard sounded like pure evil. She feared for Matthias. She also hated that she worried about the big fink and felt scared for him. She tried to cling to what little bit of sanity she could.
They coaxed her out of the car at Hawthorne’s compound. They’d parked safely inside the garage, and the men took up secure positions around her, Albert ahead and Robertson behind, as they led her inside the house.
She curled up in a large chair in the corner of Hawthorne’s living room and glared at them, not speaking, the gun lying in her lap. There was no word from Matthias. She tried not to worry, but it broke through her anger, and she kept thinking about the growling voice, the fearsome dread that filled her when she heard it.
Will Matthias be okay?
Thirty minutes later, Albert quit pacing and left driving Hawthorne’s Hummer. Yes, totally incognito, that huge, yellow vehicle.
Not.
Five large, stone-faced guards had arrived minutes after she did and kept watch on her in the house. How many outside, she didn’t venture to guess.
“If you were so worried about my safety,” she asked Robertson, “why did you all let me leave? And how did you just happen to show up in the nick of time? How do I know this isn’t some elaborate hoax?”
Robertson smiled kindly. “Matthias had a security team check the house before you got home. We were outside the whole time. We thought it best to give you space tonight. You were rather upset when you left.”
“Understatement of the year.”
When Robertson’s BlackBerry buzzed, he glanced at it before racing from the room. “Keep her here,” he told the guards. She tried to follow, but one stepped in front of her and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, miss. Please, don’t.” Taz sensed she could wave her gun in his face, probably shoot him, and the other guards would keep her in the room instead of getting him help. They were under orders to protect her and keep her there, and they would to the exclusion of their own lives, if she knew Robertson.
Taz heard a commotion through the garage door. One of the guards left to help, and a few moments later, the group returned. She went to the doorway, and when another guard tried to keep her from leaving, Albert said, “It’s okay. Let her through.”
They carried Matthias. Unconscious and bloody, his clothes shredded. Albert’s clothes were stained with dark smears she instinctively knew were Matthias’ blood.
Her anger fell away as she ran to him. “Oh my God! Is he—”
“He’s hurt very badly,” Albert confirmed. They reached his room at the far end of the upstairs hall, and two guards helped get him into bed.
“We have to get him to the hospital!”
Robertson grabbed her hand as she reached for the phone and pulled her into the bathroom. “Taz, you don’t understand. He can’t go to the hospital.”
“We can’t let him die.” The irony that she wanted to kill Matthias hours earlier was not lost on her, even under the circumstances.
“There’s nothing they can do that we can’t do for him here.” Robertson still had her firmly by the hand, apparently not about to let go until he knew he made his point. “Taz,” he said softly, “he’s not human. If they pull blood work, he’ll end up in isolation and the CDC will get involved. His blood looks nothing like normal blood under the microscope. It doesn’t react like normal blood. It’ll cause a lot of problems. If you can’t be objective, I’ll have to take you out of here. Please, trust me.”
She looked into his eyes. He’d never talked to her like this before. He obviously cared about Matthias, and she couldn’t imagine he would deliberately jeopardize his life.
She nodded.
Robertson touched her cheek. “That’s my girl.”
Albert stood alone at Matthias’ bedside after the guards left. She watched as he cut off Matthias’ blood-soaked shirt. Disgust, fear, and rage battled for control of her emotions. She couldn’t lie to herself anymore and say she didn’t have feelings for Matthias, especially when he lay there, near death, after having saved her life.
Across his chest several deep gashes still oozed blood. There was nothing fake about those. She could see the white of his ribs through one, even smell the blood. The men cut his pants off, and the soaked and shredded fabric gave way to more deep rips in his flesh. His face was bruised and battered. He struggled for each breath.
“Did he…?” Robertson asked Albert.
Albert nodded. “The head’s in the Hummer. And the sword. I barely got him in before more showed up. I’ve already phoned Rafael. He’s flying in to the executive airport. He’ll be here in about two hours.”
“Will he last that long?” Robertson asked.
Albert looked at Matthias. “He has to.”
“What? What’s going on?” Taz tried to stay out of their way but wanted to help.
Robertson used a wet washcloth to swab blood off Matthias as best he could. “His cousin, Rafael, lives south of Atlanta. If Matthias feeds from him, it will help him heal. Rafael has enough of the line in him.”
“Feed?” Her head was spinning. “What? He said he doesn’t drink blood?”
“We don’t, usually,” Albert said, now with large paramedic kit. “But in an extreme case like this, if Matthias feeds from someone strong of the line, it’s like a blood transfusion. Tim and I don’t have enough of the line in us to be any use. Rafael is much more powerful than us.”
She stared at them and tried to process what they said. She looked at Matthias’ battered body. He was dying, every ragged breath weaker than the last. She could feel it.
“I’m of the line. You said so.”
“No!” they both yelled, making her jump.
Robertson stood and went to her. “Yes, you’re of the Clan, and you have the line in you, but you’ve never done anything like this before. This isn’t like the movies. You have to know what you’re doing. It could kill you, and we can’t let you do that. Matthias wouldn’t want you to risk your life. We can’t even guarantee you’ve got enough of the line in you to help.”
“You can’t just let him die. The DNA report said I had a lot of the markers. Can’t you draw my blood and give it to him?”
The men exchanged looks. “It doesn’t work that way,” Albert said. “It has to be direct from the donor. There’s a ritual—I can’t get into it right now.” He turned to Robertson. “I’ll start an IV. That might help get his BP up until Rafael gets here. I’ll need your help to carry everything.”
Robertson nodded and handed Taz the washcloth before following Albert, leaving her alone
with Matthias.
Obviously, this was no hoax. No one was crazy enough to rip themselves to shreds. Were they?
She touched his arm where an ugly gash ran from his shoulder to his elbow. This was real. This wasn’t her imagination. She wanted to take it back, take it all back. The angry words, everything. He’d saved her life.
Again. Twice in less than twenty-four hours.
The least she could do was repay the favor.
She quietly locked the bedroom door. Racing to the bathroom, she opened his medicine cabinet and found what she needed. She dropped the disposable razor and stomped it with the heel of her shoe, grinding it against the tile floor. Then she fished out the blade. She used a bottle of alcohol to sterilize the blade.
Carrying the blade, alcohol, and a towel into the bedroom, she wondered the best way to do this. Matthias groaned and moved his head.
She sat on the bed next to him, trying to make herself do it before she lost her nerve. In the movies it was always the neck, but she didn’t feel like slicing through her jugular or carotid artery and bleeding to death in minutes in case she was wrong. The wrist would be safer. With the towel in her lap, she splashed alcohol on her left wrist and tried to keep herself steady.
“Matthias,” she whispered. His eyes fluttered open and tried to focus on her before closing again. She pressed the blade against her wrist and gritted her teeth. This wasn’t going to be easy. She made a lengthwise cut along her arm inside the wrist, about two inches long, trying not to cut through the tendons and hoping it was enough.
It hurt like hell. Blood immediately oozed from the wound, and she fought the urge to throw up. She put the alcohol and blade on the bedside table. Unable to believe she was doing it, she pressed her wrist to his mouth, cupping the back of his head with her other hand.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” she urged, gently shaking him when he didn’t do anything. “Come on, damn it. Drink. Do it. You have to do this before they get back.” She thought she heard voices at the bottom of the stairs.