Dark Needs at Night's Edge (29 page)

T
he weeks that followed her embodying would have been the happiest of Néomi's life.

If not for the fact that I came back wrong,
she thought, stroking Conrad's hair from his forehead as he slept….

Shortly after her return, they'd married without fanfare. Initially, she'd been weak from the events of that turbulent night, but as soon as she'd recovered enough, Conrad had gotten a Lore officiate to perform the simple ceremony at Elancourt.

She'd felt guilty marrying Conrad without revealing her misgivings to him. Especially when she'd learned that Bowen had barely managed to pry Mari from the glass. The spell had somehow gone awry.

Néomi could feel it. She was altered.

She continued her new habit of sleeping during the day, but now she only needed about four hours. She could leave or take food, though Conrad had learned her favorite dishes and tempted her with delicacies from all over the world.

She'd tried to call Mari, but was told that she and Bowen were on an island off the coast of Belize or somewhere fantastic like that.

Though Néomi yearned to confess her new secret to Conrad, she didn't want to worry him—this was the best he'd ever done. He was just so excited, making plans for them, eager to start their life together. He'd already begun restoring Elancourt, and he was
happy,
genuinely satisfied with what he imagined the future held for them.

Yet when Néomi had healed from a small cut in under an hour, she'd been so confounded that she'd tentatively broached the subject. “I worry, Conrad. Sometimes, I don't think I'm…human,” she'd told him.

“Of course, you are,” he'd said, gathering her into his arms and spinning her around until she was forced to smile. “What else could you be?”

The morning after her embodying, Néomi had woken to the sound of hammering. Conrad had taken his task of restoring Elancourt very seriously. But once she was well on the road to recovery, his labors were hindered by the fact that she found his sweat-slicked body irresistible.

Whenever she came upon him with his shirt off and his muscles all hot and lathered, she had to have him. “I'm back to normal,” she'd informed him. “And normal for me is quite lusty.” He'd declared himself “eagerly at your service.”

One day she'd found him in the studio, but hadn't thought he'd heard her. She'd gazed at him with pride and a desire so strong it had left her shaken.

As he'd lovingly oiled the mahogany barre, he'd said, “I'll see you dance here.” His voice had been husky, as if he was imagining it even then. “I'll watch you for hours, then I'll taste your damp skin.”

They hadn't made it even close to getting to the bed….

His care had made her long to dance again, to use this studio as she'd never been able to. Once she'd gotten stronger, she'd begun practicing again, her love for it undimmed by time.

Néomi could never take the stage again, but she'd decided to open a Lore ballet school. There was not a single one in existence, and she'd been heartbroken to learn that many Lore children—with their horns and wings and siren screams—couldn't attend human classes.

When she'd asked Conrad what he thought about the idea of a Néomi Wroth School of Dance, he'd said, “If it makes you happy, then enroll every Lore pup who's willing to wear pink.” Scratching his head, he'd added, “Though I'll need to figure out how to expand the studio….”

Conrad stirred then—but not from a nightmare. Once he'd turned to her, she smoothed the backs of her fingers over his cheek, and he resumed sleeping deeply. Nightmares were rare these days.

Though he'd been apprehensive about taking her blood again, that one bite had already transferred her memories to him. Néomi had feared hers would be the ones that would send him over the edge, breaching the dam. Yet they actually seemed to be
helping
him. “I dream of music and laughter and warmth,” he'd told her. “It's…soothing to be in your memories. Awake, I'm with you. And asleep, I'm with you. I like this.”

She knew he wasn't yet cured. It would take time. She just wished she had even more time with him. Given a new chance at mortality, she'd become greedy for immortality.

Life held so much
promise.
…

Except for the fact that she had no idea what she was.

Sometimes when she looked in the mirror, or if she caught her reflection in a window, she saw glimpses of her spectral self. The shadows around her eyes and under her cheekbones would appear in flashes.

Her night vision was as flawless as it had been when she'd been a ghost, and when she slept, she dreamed of floating and moving things with her mind.

This twilight, Néomi had awakened with a rose petal clutched in her fist….

Nïx had visited Néomi on several occasions. Each time, the Valkyrie blatantly scrutinized Néomi with those golden eyes, seeming fascinated. Just yesterday Nïx had come to Elancourt and said nothing, only blankly staring at her.

“Nïx, what am I?” Néomi finally asked her.

“Complicated?”

“I came back wrong, didn't I?”

Nïx sighed. “I can't get a sense of you whatsoever.”

Néomi had no sense of her own self. She didn't feel as she had when human—or as a ghost.

Awkward doesn't begin to describe this meeting.

“Have a seat. Please,” Nikolai said, waving to one of the chairs in front of his office desk. Sebastian occupied the other.

Conrad had traced to Blachmount Castle, Nikolai's home, to meet with his brothers—at Néomi's insistence. It was day in New Orleans, and she'd wanted to nap for the afternoon, so he thought he'd get this over with.

His brothers had questions about the past—and Conrad wanted to formally purchase Elancourt from Nikolai.

With his neck knotted with tension, Conrad reluctantly sat. He was already on edge from leaving Néomi for the first time since her return, but being back here made his uneasiness ratchet to another level.

“I thought all three of you would be here,” Conrad said. “Where's Murdoch?” He would leaven this tense atmosphere.

“Missing in action,” Nikolai answered. “We presume it's concerning his ‘secret' Bride. I think for the first time in his existence, he's having woman troubles.”

“Might do him some good,” Sebastian said, then asked Conrad, “Does it not feel surreal to be back here?”

He nodded. This castle was where Conrad and most of his family had died. His young sisters had wept here as they'd succumbed one by one. Blachmount was where Conrad had been born and raised—and raised from the dead.

For three hundred years, Conrad had hated Nikolai for his decision that fateful night. Now Conrad was beholden to him for Néomi. Without Nikolai's choices and Murdoch's determination, he would never have known his Bride. He would never watch her readying for bed, brushing her long hair.

Just yesterday, he'd thought,
My Bride by fate, my wife by choice….

“I felt the same way when I first returned,” Sebastian said.

Nikolai made a scoffing sound. “No, you didn't—you were too busy decking me.”

“The second time, then.”

Uncomfortable silence ensued. Conrad peered around the paneled study. Nikolai tapped a pen against his desktop. Sebastian jogged his leg.

Eventually, Nikolai rose from his chair. “I have something of yours.” He pulled a file from a cabinet, handing it to Conrad. Inside were the deed to Elancourt and the contracts of transferral.

“I signed the property over to you and your Bride the night you got her back.”

Conrad's tension cranked up even more. “I can pay you for it.”

“It's technically Néomi's anyway, right? Consider it a wedding gift.”

Conrad hated feeling beholden. “Wait.” He traced to Elancourt. There, he checked on Néomi, tugging her blanket higher with a kiss. Then he snagged a bottle of whiskey from the crate. She'd suggested bringing one, but Conrad had gruffly declined. Now he returned to Blachmount and gave it to Nikolai.

Nikolai brushed off the label. “My God, this is…this is…”

“As good as you're imagining,” Conrad finished for him.

Sebastian wasted no time, rising for snifters from the sideboard. “Then stop staring at the bottle and let's drink it!”

They did. Two hours later, Conrad decided that speaking to his brothers with roughly twenty thousand dollars' worth of whiskey in his belly wasn't so awkward.

When Nikolai and Sebastian wanted to know what had happened to Conrad in the past three centuries, he told them. When they asked about Néomi, he found himself proudly relating his wife's accomplishments. “You've never seen a woman dance as she does. And she'd bought that property by herself—an unmarried woman in her twenties.” Even to himself, his tone sounded impressed.

“Chains, drugs, and brute force couldn't control Conrad,” Nikolai began in an amused tone, “but a tiny ballerina is domesticating him with ease.”

“What are you going to do about her mortality?” Sebastian asked.

“Search for a way to make her immortal.” When they gave him uneasy expressions, Conrad said, “I know the odds, but that's a more likely scenario than me following wherever she would go after death.” Conrad finished his drink, then contemplated the bottom of his glass. “Do you not think of our sisters when you're here?”

Nikolai and Sebastian shared a speaking glance.

At length, Nikolai said, “We're bringing them back. We have the means to retrieve them from the past. Not to change history, but just to return with them to this time.”

Conrad narrowed his gaze. Was Nikolai jesting? “How?”

With utmost seriousness, Sebastian answered, “A mystic's key.”

Conrad flinched at the word
key
.

Sebastian topped off their drinks. “A goddess named Riora gave me one turn of it for the sole purpose of reuniting my family. I know for a fact that it works.”

If skeptical Sebastian said it worked, then it did. “And you'd thought of returning my past self as well?”

“Yes, the offer still stands,” Nikolai said. “Think of it, we could clear your eyes of the blood completely. And take away all the memories that plague you.”

“And what would happen to my present self?”

“You'd fade,” Sebastian said.

“I knew you'd had an ace up your sleeve.” No wonder his brothers had been so confident about Conrad's recovery. “But I'm not interested.”

Nikolai steepled his fingers. “You wouldn't want to be human again?”

Sebastian added, “No more red eyes, no more blood drinking.”

Conrad shook his head. “And no more strength to protect Néomi. I need it to keep her safe. If history wouldn't be changed, then I'd still have the same enemies after me—and now her.” Conrad drained his glass, hating this reality of their lives. “Why didn't you just do it? Why go through all the trouble of capturing me?” Especially when he'd been spitting blood at them and trying to murder them.

“We wanted you to get stable enough to make the choice,” Nikolai answered. “We would've been taking away your immortality. And you would have lost your own memories from the last three hundred years as well. It was a major decision.” In a lower tone, Nikolai said, “I didn't want to make the same mistake twice.”

“There was no first mistake,” Conrad said firmly. “You made a fated decision, and I'm in your debt.”

“Good. Then you won't mind helping us raise the girls.”

Christ, their sisters actually would live again. He'd get a second chance to know them better. Hell, Néomi could teach them to dance. He grinned, shocking his brothers. “When do we go back for them?”

“Once Murdoch returns, we plan.”

Conrad opened his mouth to speak, then froze.
Something's wrong.
A chill slithered up his spine. “I'll return,” he said, immediately tracing back to Elancourt.

Straight into fire.

N
éomi had been dreaming of floating and walking through walls again. But now she wanted to wake because her breaths had begun to taste of…
soot
?

She couldn't seem to get enough air, coughing with each smoky inhalation. And in the haze of her mind, she perceived fire all around her, thought she smelled the flames and felt their heat.

A fire! Why can't I wake?

Feeling so dizzy…she needed clean air….

At last, she was able to crack open her eyelids. She blinked them in disbelief.

The room was choked with thick smoke. Flames licked the walls and crawled across the bowing ceiling. The boards above her whined under the strain.

“Néomi!”

Conrad! He was here? Through the flames between them, their gazes met—just before a beam snapped and a portion of the ceiling collapsed in front of him.

With a yell, he lunged for her to trace her away, but returned to the same spot empty-handed, as if his arms had wrapped around only air. When he failed at it a second time, he dived into the fire, tearing away the blazing timbers to reach her.

Why did he look so stricken? She wasn't hurt—hadn't even a scratch. In fact, she felt nothing.
No perception. Dim.

Then she glanced down.
No, no, no…
Her body from her waist down was buried under the burning wreckage from the ceiling. It should be crushing her.
Why am I still conscious?
Where was the pain?

Then she realized…

I died…again?

Néomi was in her incorporeal form once more, wearing her old black dress and jewerly—

A thunderous rending above her drew her gaze. With the ceiling gone, she could see that the roof was sagging in pockets. The enormous rafters began to snap, one by one. Jagged wood hurtled down like spears, hammering into the floor.

Still grappling to get to her, he dodged them.

“Conrad! No!”

One caught him, stabbing into his body, slamming him down. A split second later, the roof crashed over him, shrouding him. With a shriek, she found herself rising through the debris covering her, floating admist the fire to get to him.

She couldn't find him, couldn't see! Then…she spied blood pooling out from under a pile of debris, the liquid reflecting the flames, boiling and popping.

Tonight Cade found himself in a familiar spot—sitting on the edge of a downtown apartment's roof. His female's building neighbored this one, and her top loft and private rooftop pool were readily viewable from this higher vantage.

Cade hadn't intended to come here tonight. He'd just
needed
to.

He gazed over at her balcony. And there she was.

Holly Ashwin.

His
Holly. She was a math geek who wore glasses, no makeup, and her blond hair in a conservative bun; she was sexier than any female he'd ever known.

But as ever, he scratched his head at her antics. She was cleaning an already spotless apartment.
Mystifying human.

She'd expire if she saw his place. Just another example of how unalike she and Cade were.

Holly was scholarly—he was deadly. Every aspect of her life was strictly organized. His idea of a day's schedule was
wake, eat a few meals, do things, sleep.
And any of those were optional.

She didn't even drink. He took a swig just then.

Was she having company over tonight?
Her tosser boyfriend?
Just as his claws dug into his palms, Cade heard footsteps approaching.

Bloody Rydstrom.
His brother had found him.
So much for keeping my visits secret.

“What in the hell are you doing up here?” Cade demanded.

“I ask you the same,” Rydstrom said, treating him to a look of unmitigated disappointment.

I've never seen that one before.

“You told me you wouldn't come here anymore.”

“Fell off the wagon,” Cade muttered.

“Humans are forbidden to us as mates for a reason. If you haven't gotten that through your thick skull before, then you certainly should now. The accident with the vampire's Bride is exactly why mortals and immortals should never mix.”

Cade narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure Néomi's even dead?”

With a nod, Rydstrom said, “I checked with Nïx.”

Why did mortals have to die so easily?
The smallest sword thrust had ended the girl forever. She hadn't deserved to die like that.

“If she's dead, then that vampire is out searching for something of mine to destroy.” Cade glanced around them.
A thousand times over,
Wroth had vowed. Cade would be signing Holly's death warrant to approach her right now.

“So you have even more reason to resist her,” Rydstrom said. “You have to forget her.”

“You think I haven't tried?” Cade ran his hand over a horn. “You think I don't know how bad this looks? I'm stalking a girl, a human who's millennia younger than I am.”

“Then it's fortunate we're leaving this town for good. Nïx has given us one last means to destroy Omort—a job to complete. This is our final hope to reclaim my crown. She's adamant about that.”

“What's the op?” Cade asked, though he didn't give a damn. He'd agree to anything to take his mind from what he'd done—and from what he was tempted to do with Holly. Even Nïx hadn't foreseen his crazed plans for her.

“We'll receive instructions within the week. Just be ready to move quickly.”

Cade exhaled. “I'm always ready.”

“Again, brother, this is it—our last chance. I have to know that your head is in the right place.”

“I said I'll be ready,” he snapped. “Whatever it is, I'll get the job done.” Cade rose and gazed at Holly.

For a last time.

With a lingering glance at his female, Cade dropped from the roof.

No sooner had Cade disappeared into the night than Nïx emerged from the stairwell to join Rydstrom. “And how did he react?”

Rydstrom glanced at her, evincing no surprise that she'd found them. “You don't know?”

“I'm ever-knowing, not—”

“Yes, yes, not all-knowing.” Rydstrom sighed. “Cade's vowed to do his duty.”

When Holly came back into their view, Nïx's golden eyes fixed on the girl and her pupils dilated. Tilting her head, she asked, “And if he finds out Néomi still lives?”

“Lying to him sits ill with me,” Rydstrom said. “You're certain I can't tell him?”

Nïx faced him. “I've gone over and over the decision trees. Billions of outcomes all trace back to this decision fork—
tell him or don't
. It must be this way.”

“So you've seen my future?”

“Some of it,” she said. “And it's a doozy.”

“Tell me,” he said, waving her on.

“Rydstrom, you really must learn
to ask
. In any case, I've got somewhere I need to be. A mystery will be revealed to me tonight, and I can hardly wait.”

“You can't leave me like this! And what if we need to get in touch with you?”

She grinned at him, but her eyes were growing vacant, her mind already somewhere else. “Greedy demon, there's only so much Nïx to go around.”