Darkness & Discovery (The Bespelled Trilogy #2) (20 page)

I
just knew that him running off like that, alone, out into a world with enemies
at every turn – that could
not
happen.

I
took a deep breath and yelled, “Joey!” at the top of my lungs. I had to be loud
– he was moving at vampire speed, so who knew how far he’d gotten? People
passing by the atrium turned to stare at me, and I smiled at them pleasantly
before once again calling Joey’s name as loud as I could. I followed that up
with, “If I keep yelling like this, I’m going to get kicked out of the hotel!
And you know as well as I do that getting kicked out of here is a very, very
bad thing! So get back here, Joey!”

A
little crowd had gathered at the door to the atrium to stare at me, and suddenly
the tall double doors were slammed in their faces. Joey leaned against the
doors, his arms behind his back, and raised an eyebrow at me. “What are you
doing?”

“Getting
your attention.”

“By
threatening to get yourself thrown out past Bryn’s protection spell, which
would, of course, endanger your life?”

“Yeah,
sorry. I know that was heavy-handed, but I was desperate. I really needed you
to come back.”

“Why?”

“So
we could talk.”

“Are
you in love with me?” he asked, one eyebrow still raised.

“Well
no, but—”

“Then
there’s really nothing to talk about. I’m a jerk for falling for my friend’s
girl, she doesn’t love me, and I need to get a grip. End of story.”

“We
do need to talk about this.”

“We
really
don’t.”

“You
running off by yourself is no solution.”

He
shrugged and said, “It’s the only one I’ve got.”

 “I
need you, Joey. You can’t leave.”

“You
don’t need me. You’ve got Alastair, and Bryn, and that muscle bound moron to
watch out for you. And you’re perfectly capable of defending yourself, too.”

“I
don’t need you to physically defend me. I need you to be my best friend. Joey,
I love you. Not the way you want me to, but I do love you,
so much
. And
the thought of you running off somewhere all alone makes me heartsick. So, we
need to talk about this. We need to figure it out. And you need to stay with
Alastair and me, because we’re your family, and that’s all there is to it.”

Joey
was wavering a bit now, I could tell. His jaw was no longer set in a hard line,
and he was kicking at the floor absently. “I kind of
have to
leave now,
after what I did. I mean, first of all, that was mortifying. And second of all,
when Alastair finds out I kissed you, he’s gonna yank my still-beating heart
out of my chest and show it to me.”

“You’re
a vampire, Joey. Your heart doesn’t beat.”

He
grinned, just a little. “Don’t mess up my dramatic imagery. It’s gorier if the
heart’s still beating when it’s yanked out.”

“Ok,
fine, your inexplicably beating heart will surely be yanked out and shown to
you.” I was grinning a little too.

“I’m
talking about being murdered at the hands of your boyfriend, and you find it
amusing.”

“I
find your flair for the dramatic amusing, not your pending homicide.”

“I
feel so guilty right now,” Joey said, slumping against the door. “I don’t know
how I could have done that to Alastair. It’s just not right. And I have no idea
how I’m going to face him and tell him what I did. He’s going to go ballistic.”

“No
he’s not.”

“Oh
no, trust me, he is.”

I
grabbed his hand and tugged him away from the double doors, then flung them
open. “Let’s go prove me right. We’re telling him right now,” I said, and
dragged Joey out into the lobby. There was still a small crowd gathered there,
drawn by my earlier yelling. And I told them, “There are a thousand shows,
amusements and attractions in Vegas, folks. But a girl yelling for her best
friend just isn’t one of ‘em.”

In
the gym, Alastair and Athos had moved all the insanely heavy exercise equipment
to the edges of the room, and were sparring in the center of the space. As we
came in, Athos launched a flying kick at Alastair, who deflected his leg
easily, sending Athos into a backwards summersault. Athos landed on his feet
and crouched to take another run at Alastair, but I interrupted with a
cheerful, “Hey, can you guys stop beating each other up for a sec?”

They
both smiled when they saw me, and Athos grabbed a nearby towel and rubbed it
over his sweaty face, breathing heavily. Alastair didn’t even sort of look
winded.

“So,
here’s what just happened,” I said, still dragging Joey with me by the hand.
“Joey kissed me. He has a crush on me. Now he’s afraid to face you, Allie, both
because he’s ashamed of what he did, and because he thinks you’re going to rip
his heart out. I assured him that wasn’t going to happen. Oh, and he’s talking
about running off by himself, which is nuts. Not only is that dangerous, but as
I explained to him, we’re a family and we all belong together. So there you go.”

“Oh
God,” Joey murmured.

Alastair
brushed his hands together before crossing the room to stand right in front of
Joey. He looked down at the young vampire for several seconds, his expression
unreadable. Joey was making a valiant effort not to cower, though fear was
plainly visible in his eyes. And then Alastair did something even more shocking
than ripping Joey’s heart out. He pulled him into a hug.

A
sound escaped Joey that was equal parts gasp and sob, all his pent up fear and
embarrassment and guilt made vocal. “I’m sorry, Allie. God, I’m sorry. I
shouldn’t have done it. I know that. I was only thinking about myself. Please
forgive me.”

“I
already have,” Alastair said.

Joey
let go of him and quickly dragged the back of his hand over his eyes. “I…I don’t
get why you’re not mad at me.”

“I
knew it was just a matter of time before you mustered the courage to kiss her,
Joey,” Alastair said, sitting on a weight bench and resting his elbows on his
knees. “And this is just how I knew it would go. I kind of feel bad for you,
mate, because I knew all along you were headed for heartbreak. But that’s just
how love goes sometimes.”

“Wait.
You knew I had a crush on Lu? How?”

Allie
grinned a little. “It was incredibly obvious. The looks, the little sighs, the
puppy dog eyes.” Across the room, Athos covered a laugh with his patented
cough-into-his-fist maneuver.

“Oh
God,” Joey said. He looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock.

I
asked Alastair, “And you weren’t worried that I’d pick Joey over you?”

“Nope,”
he said serenely.

“You’re
that confident?” I asked with a little grin.

“No,”
he said, “I’m that able to count.”

“Count
what?”

“The
beats of your heart, Lu. When you’re around Joey, your heartbeat actually slows
down a little. He’s soothing to you, as a best friend should be. But when
you’re around me,” he said, a little smile tugging at one corner of his mouth,
“Your heartbeat absolutely accelerates.”

I
laughed at that. “Well damn, busted by biology. I can’t even pretend not to be
smitten with you. You’ve got me all figured out.” 

He
grinned shyly and said, “Oh no I haven’t. Not by a long shot. And I very much
look forward to spending the rest of my life learning your every intricacy, and
each exquisite nuance that comprises you.”

“Oh
man, what a line. And just like that, I feel like a total third wheel. Come on
Ath, how about if we give these two a little space?” Joey said, heading for the
door.

The
big warrior was right behind him. “Good idea. But it’s Athos. Not Ath.”

“Funny,”
Joey said, right before the door shut behind them, “you look like an Ath to
me.”

I
crossed the room to Alastair and took his face in my hands. “You handled that
incredibly well.”

“To
be honest, I’m actually furious that Joey kissed you. Part of me wants to go
all caveman-like and territorial and beat him up while grunting about no one
touching my woman. But you embarrassing him half to death by dragging him in
here was already harsh punishment. He really didn’t need more from me.”

“I
didn’t mean to embarrass him. I just wanted to get that all out in the open, so
he didn’t feel he had to run away.” I brushed his dark hair back from his face
as I said, “And you’re really quite evolved, Allie. Most men probably would
have gone the caveman route.”

“I’m
not
that
evolved, and I’m about to do something that proves it,”
Alastair said with a sparkle in his eyes.

“Oh?
And what are you going to do?”

He
grabbed me and swung me down onto the weight bench, hovering over me as he
said, his voice low and seductive, “I’m going to kiss you long and hard, until
you don’t taste him on your lips anymore. Until all you taste is me.” And he
claimed my mouth in a deep, passionate kiss, my fingers twining in his dark
hair as he held my body to his.

“You
know,” I whispered when he finally pulled back a couple inches, “sometimes a
touch of caveman is a good thing.”

He
smiled at me as he sat up and pulled me onto his lap. “Well, I won’t make a
habit of it. Clearly, you like me evolved and civilized.”

“I
like discovering new parts of you, evolved and otherwise. In fact, I very much
look forward to spending the rest of my life learning your every intricacy, and
each exquisite nuance that comprises you,” I grinned. “And it is
my
lifespan
we’re talking about here, by the way, because you’ll clearly outlive me by a
few millennia.”

“I
doubt that. Have you noticed that pretty much
everyone
is trying to kill
me? What am I supposed to do about that, Lu?” he asked as he wrapped his arms
around my waist and rested his head on my shoulder.

“I
really don’t know.”

He
grinned a little and said, “Think it’s too late to send all my enemies a peace
offering? A nice fruit basket or something?”

“There
you go. That ought to smooth things over,” I said with a smile.

“We
can probably get a bulk discount on all those fruit baskets. I have a lot of
enemies to send them to, you know.”

“Dang,
I just realized why this plan won’t work,” I said with mock seriousness.

“The
vampires won’t like the baskets because they don’t eat fruit?”

“Exactly.”

“Back
to square one,” he said as I stroked his silky hair.

“Yup.”

“Maybe
we can just sneak out of town undetected and go and live in the Himalayas,
someplace where the number of people who want me dead is in no more than the
triple digits.”

“Sure,”
I said. “We can disguise ourselves as Penn and Teller and slip out of Vegas
quietly. No bloodshed, and no exorbitant cost of fruit baskets.”

“Who
are Penn and Teller?”

“A
pair of famous magicians.”

“We’ll
never fool anyone. We don’t know any magic tricks.” Alastair relaxed against
me, picking up one of my hands and interlacing our fingers.

“Well,
no. But you can do your E.T. impersonation and light up your fingertip. Then
while the crowd’s giving you a standing ovation, we can make a break for it.”

He
laughed at that, then lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.
“And what about Joey and Athos and Bryn? How are we getting them out alive?”

“That’s
easy. We’ll disguise them as the Blue Man Group. That’ll be an economical
disguise. We’ll just have to chuck a bucket of blue paint at ‘em.”

“And
the Blue Man Group is what, exactly?”

“It’s
three guys that paint themselves blue and…you know what? I can’t even explain
it,” I said with a smile, and his chuckle reverberated through both of us.

Alastair
fell silent for a while, and then he said softly, “It’s just never going to
stop. Bryn will be able to get us out of Las Vegas, surely. But there’s always
going to be someone coming after me, whether it’s the Order, or vampires, or
hunters, or any one of a thousand enemies.”

“And
you’ll survive, just like you always have.”

“How?
By reverting back to being a killer? By getting them before they get me?” He
said it so quietly, and then he tilted his head back to meet my eyes. “I don’t
have a choice, do I?”

“Sure
you do. You always have a choice.”

But
he was shaking his head. “The only choice as I see it is kill or be killed. That,
I’m learning, is the life I made for myself. I put a huge target on my back by
fighting other vampires. As if there wasn’t a big enough target there to begin
with, just by being this anomaly. Just by somehow failing to die like I was
supposed to, like all other nephilim do during the vampire transformation.” He
sighed and said, “And if that’s my life, I just don’t know what we’re going to
do.”

I
wrapped my arms around him and held him securely as I said, “I know what we’re
going to do, Allie. We’re going to survive today. When we’re done doing that,
we’re going to survive tomorrow. Along the way, we’ll get answers. We’ll find
Jin and you’ll remember your past, and maybe things will make a little more
sense. And after that, we’re just going to keep surviving. Day by day. And
we’re going to do that together.”