Death's Redemption (The Eternal Lovers Series) (11 page)

Going to the cabinets, she opened them, riffling through the dry goods. Looking for a bag of jerky—hell, even canned sardines sounded good right about now. Anything to get some protein in her body.

Hands starting to shake with desperation, because apart from a couple bags of flour and sugar, there was literally nothing she could eat in there. Vision going hazy, she realized she was starting to walk a little funny. Nearly stumbling over a corner kitchen rug, she grasped hold of the countertop and counted slowly to ten as the spots in her vision danced and swirled. Was this vertigo?

It felt almost like diabetic shock.

Heart racing, she fumbled and stumbled her way over to the small kitchen table, managing by some miracle to pull out a chair and plop into it. Mum had suffered type 1 diabetes her whole life. Once she’d seen her mum go into shock, and the sight of it had scared the crap out of her eight-year-old self.

It took all her effort just to glance down her body, to the hands lying useless in her lap. No matter how much she willed it, she literally couldn’t move them.

And even around the darkness crowding her mind, she noted that her skin looked unnaturally pale, almost to the point of blue.

Just as she was noting that something was possibly very, very wrong with her, her heart stopped beating and blackness consumed her.

H
e would die before admitting this to anyone, but Frenzy was struggling. Rolling onto his side, he punched his pillow and growled under his breath. The woman drove him crazy, brought out the ire and beast in him. He knew he was acting like the world’s biggest prick with her, but he wasn’t sure how to stop it. Because she was worming her way under his carefully crafted guard.

After Adrianna’s murder he’d closed himself off. Emotions could kill—it was a lesson he’d learned the hard way. Her loss had very nearly destroyed him. After her death he’d gone mad, losing any shred of humanity he might have possessed, becoming a killer of legend. Decimating the local vampire coven down to mere dregs. Not because vampires had had anything to do with her death, but because they were there and he’d been in agony.

His chest ached as he rubbed at the spot over his heart, staring up at the ceiling. And then here comes Mila with her spun-gold hair and her soft Irish lilt and the emotions he’d thought he’d killed were coming out.

To see that knife in her today, he’d suffered a moment’s panic so violent it’d nearly brought him to his knees. In physical form, she reminded him nothing of his sweet-tempered Adrianna, but there was a spunk to her, a breath of freshness that he couldn’t seem to help but respond to.

Biting his lip, he tugged the sheets higher and then, with a growl, kicked them off. He was restless; he wanted to call her back here. Just being around her soothed him. Not that she’d likely think it. He’d been nothing but an asshole.

Sighing, he watched Lucky, his five-month-old goldfish, swim back and forth, and wondered what she was doing now. He should check on her, just to make sure she wasn’t actually trying to kill herself. But he wasn’t exactly ready to engage in a war of words with her again. Or to deal with the feelings she plucked out of him.

It was no longer a matter of him not wanting to kill her just to satisfy his duty; Mila was breathing life into his dreary, gray existence, and he craved more, like a junkie. Maybe he should try to be nicer to her, starting tomorrow. Make an effort to show her he wasn’t really the jerk he was pretending to be.

But the thought of dropping the mask terrified him. The mask was what helped him survive; he’d become a man he hadn’t once been because it’d been the only way for him to thrive without the constant reminder of all that he’d lost.

It was so much easier to make others hate you than to let anyone in. Because if they hated you, you knew where they stood, but if you invited them, then you’d always wonder if they felt the same.

Growling, he squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t thinking about this shit anymore. The woman was making him soft and weak already. Lise should never have stuck them together. What had she been thinking?

It took him several hours to finally quiet the frenetic buzzing of his mind, but eventually he must have slept, because the next thing he knew he was rolling over and blinking open hazy eyes.

Frenzy couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so rested. Sunlight filtered in through his half-drawn blinds. Peeking around his room, he noted Mila was nowhere to be seen. But he smelled her earthy scent floating in from somewhere within his apartment, perhaps coming from the direction of the kitchen.

The wench was likely starving. He smiled thinking about her. Last night, the way she’d fought him, how soft and malleable she’d been in his arms when he’d petted her…goddess, it’d twisted him up inside.

He could try to deny it all he liked, but she intrigued him. Her fire, her spunk, the way she moved and smelled and how wild she got when angry. How her pale, iridescent skin would flush a faint pink. How human she still seemed in so many ways.

Rubbing his cheek, he snorted, remembering the sharp flare of pain. The way his body had tightened, his cock had grown hard—that hadn’t happened to him in ages. She brought out his violence and his lust. It was only a matter of time before they either killed each other or had nasty, hot sex. He hoped for the latter, but figured it would likely be the former.

Neither of them had docile temperaments.

Stretching his arms above his head one last time, he jumped out of bed. Frenzy didn’t need to sleep. None of the fae did, but he found he enjoyed the quiet, the meditative calm of just simply being still. It was when at rest that he could think best.

Last night when Mila grilled him on what he planned to do he hadn’t answered—not out of spite, despite what she might think. Truth was, he didn’t have a clue. Lise had given him no concrete plans on what protecting Mila actually entailed. He was as alone in this as she was.

Apart from George, who’d secluded himself away from all of humankind, he couldn’t think of another monster who wouldn’t betray his trust or worse to get at Mila. The queen and consort had shown their true colors last night. They were as interested in the her as everyone else.

Brushing his teeth, he took care of his bodily needs next and then dressed in no hurry to get back to her, perversely enjoying prolonging their reunion. Even after seven hours of rest he didn’t really have a clue what their next move should be.

His apartment was only a temporary solution. None knew of its location, not even his queen. Frenzy had learned how to keep his personal life private thanks to Adrianna’s death, a harsh lesson that living out in the open wasn’t wise for someone like him. Since that night he’d learned to ward his homes with powerful magic.

Though his flat was in the heart of the business district, where hundreds of
others
roamed with impunity, they’d all feel a natural compulsion to give his place wide berth. It had cost a small fortune to get the crone to place the warding spell on it. She’d warned him that he wouldn’t receive many visitors, but like every other member of his species, death was solitary by nature and he especially did not wish to mingle.

Fastening the final pearl button on his dove-gray silk shirt, he snatched up a pair of socks from his drawer and meandered toward the kitchen, frowning when he realized that apart from her smell letting him know she was still around somewhere, he heard no sounds. Not even the beating of a pulse.

No sounds of scraping chairs, glasses, or utensils on plates; there wasn’t even an exhalation of breath. Suddenly alert, he cracked open the door and peeked inside.

The kitchen was as it always was. Frenzy was a minimalist in every sense of the word. He did not enjoy clutter, he preferred order to chaos. That was why everything from the appliances on the glossy Formica countertop to the refrigerator, the stove, even the floor tiles were white.

It took no time to find her sitting with her back to the door at the breakfast table. The way she sat so still, he wondered whether she’d fallen asleep attempting to raid the fridge during the night. But he had nothing in there for vampires or shifters. He wasn’t much of a meat eater and would never require bloody cocktails to get him going.

“Wake up,” he said. Walking up to the table, he toed at the back leg of her chair, determined that today he wouldn’t be so harsh with her.

Instead of jumping, she dropped like a stone off the side—smacking her face into the floor. Heart crowding his throat, he snatched her up, shaking her gently.

“Mila,” he barked, noting the gray pallor to her cheeks and the veins now standing in bold relief. Her skin was dry too, like touching dehydrated corn husk. Her lips were cracked and oozing black. It took two seconds for his befuddled brain to figure out why.

She hadn’t eaten a thing since turning two nights ago.

“Damn it, woman,” he snarled.

Others
were immortal and very nearly indestructible, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t go bat-shit crazy if they didn’t take care of themselves. The longer she went without the sustenance her body needed, the more likely she’d suffer irreparable damage. She needed food in her quickly, needed to get her heart and blood pumping. Right now it was sitting like sludge in her veins. Not knowing whether the priority was blood or meat or both, he knew his only choice was getting her to a food source immediately.

“Mila,” he whispered, not sure if it was a prayer or curse, then slashed a hand through the air, ripping open the fabric of time. Hauling her over his shoulder, he jumped inside, taking them to the only place he could think of.

Walking with her in the city was too much of a risk; there were creatures looking for her everywhere. She was too incapacitated to fend for herself, especially while he had her hanging off his back like a monkey.

No, he had to get her far away from the city. Which meant—stepping out of the tunnel, he inhaled the nutty aroma of sprouting wheat fields—he’d have to return to George’s home.

But he couldn’t let the lone wolf know they were there either. The longer he kept Mila around the monk’s location, the more her scent would permeate, basically turning his bachelor’s paradise into a homing beacon. George had managed to stay alive for so long by lying low; he wouldn’t risk his friend’s safety.

In and out. That’s all they could afford.

“I hate to do this to you, O’Fallen,” he said before releasing her and gently dropping her to the ground.

Last time he’d been hunting he’d caught squirrel. She hadn’t touched any of it. So maybe rodent wasn’t her thing.

A rustle of shrubbery caught his ear. Turning toward the noise, he spotted the fluffy tail of a rabbit burrowing in deep. Needing bigger game than that, he ignored it.

The sun was shining bright; there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and the trees were so wildly spaced that they didn’t offer much coverage. Neck prickling with the need to get them quickly back to his warded home, he scented the air, quickly catching the musk of several different prey items.

The clean, icy scent of reptile. The nut-and-berries scent of bear. Fishy smell of hawk, the clover of more rabbit, and then finally the earthy gaminess of deer.

By his calculations the deer, a stag in musk, was a good mile off in the distance. He could drag her with him, but she’d slow him down, making it a sure bet he wouldn’t be able to catch it.

There was only one option. Leave her. But not unprotected. He wasn’t completely without skills. Unbuttoning his shirt, he yanked the tail out of his pants and then tore it off him. Bringing the dove-gray shirt to his mouth, he opened and exhaled.

After Adrianna’s death and his subsequent years as a raving lunatic killing anything unfortunate enough to cross paths with him, he’d determined he’d never be weak again. Never allow anything or anyone to take what was rightfully his. He’d studied, taking centuries to master the limits of his powers. Learning there was so much more to being death than merely touching his skeletal hand to a mortal’s chest.

He wasn’t just pushing air onto his shirt, he was scenting it. Marking it like a predator. Lacing the very fabric of it with death’s toxic kiss. Exuding a type of chemical bomb from his mouth, one that would kill anything that happened to graze it.

Because Mila was undead, the effects were harmless to her. Anything else would suffer hallucinations, seizures, vomiting, before the heart finally stopped beating. It would be a grisly way to go.

Laying it gently on top of her, he couldn’t help but feather his finger across her delicate cheekbone. Her skin was so brittle and cold, and his heart ached to see her in this position. He debated whether to tell her he’d return soon, but he wasn’t even sure she’d be able to hear him.

“Don’t worry, little one, I’ll come back very soon,” he whispered before turning.

Each reaper had a unique and specialized gift only they had. His was speed—being able to move at the velocity of thought. Standing erect, he scanned the rolling hills, knowing he’d smell the deer before he actually saw it.

Gathering scent from the wind, he waited until he caught its trail again. Then he was off. Time jumping would be easiest, but not the most effective, as being within the tunnel would cut off his ability to scent it out.

The world was a blur of color, browns and blues and grays and greens all melding into one chaotic clash. Moving in between trees, he never stopped drawing lungfuls of air.

It was easy to follow; deer were generally stupid creatures, and though it could likely sense a predator’s approach, it would never be able to outrun him. The animal was farther than he’d initially estimated. He’d easily run a mile by this point.

Hunters had likely overrun this place not so long ago, killing off many deer already. The one he’d tracked was the only one he smelled for miles in any direction. But soon the cool tang of water and freshly shorn grass had him veering to the right. Close now, he stopped, not wanting to spook the animal further. Able to make it out now, he noted it was a buck, only a few years old. There was still velvet on its antlers. Its head was high, its black nose in the air, and its eyes wide and alert.

The deer had to weigh almost two hundred pounds. Maybe a little too big for her, but he’d make steak out of whatever she didn’t consume.

The next breath the deer took would be its last. Frenzy was upon it in less than a second, cracking its neck with a firm twist, watching as the beautiful creature dropped, lifeless, to the ground.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he inclined his head. All fae folk were in tune with nature and her children; killing one wasn’t sport. At least not for him. Needing to hurry back to her, he grabbed it by its midsection. Grunting under the weight of it.

He was a fast runner, but not with this thing on his back. Opening a rift in time, he brought the deer with him, returning to the clearing.

She was as he’d left her, eyes closed and not breathing. The grass she’d been on, which had once been lush and green, was now an ugly shade of yellowish brown. Beside her feet lay the rigored body of a garden snake.

Breathing a sigh of relief as he tossed the deer to the ground beside her, he picked up his shirt and put it back on.

“Wake up. I’ve brought you food.”

Doing up the last button, he gently tapped her foot. But she still didn’t move.

Kneeling, he pulled her to a semisitting position, leaning her torso and head against his chest.