Death's Redemption (The Eternal Lovers Series) (17 page)

She giggled.

His brews drew down. “A laugh? I did not think the shrew had it in her.”

That made her laugh harder. Life was absurd. After all the years of seeing futures, of gleaning the darkest truths of someone, she finally understood what she never had before. “All my life I hid, I fought to survive, to eke out an existence because it’s what my mum and gran taught me to do. To hide, to run away, to never let others in, and now I see…how pointless it all was. They died protecting me, both sucked into the void that is the black-hearted shadow. I did everything they taught me, Frenzy, and in the end none of it mattered because I died too.”

Tugging her face in, he planted a hard kiss on her forehead. “But you’re not dead. You’ve been reborn and this is your chance to get it right. Do it right.”

She wanted that so bad it was almost painful. It was a sick churning in the pit of her stomach. A lease on a new life. “But we’re still running. And you shouldn’t be forced into this with me. Why are you here, Frenzy? Tell me the truth.”

“Okay. But not here. We’re going to talk some things out. But we’re too exposed. I should have thought of that earlier—”

“What? You mean instead of groping me arse?”

His lips twitched as his hands curved around the base of her spine, feathering along the top of her bottom. It made her hot and cold and achy in places that shouldn’t feel achy anymore. He’d filled her, given her the best orgasm of her life. It should have been enough, but it wasn’t.

“It’s your fault for having such a nice one.” Serious again, he threaded his fingers through hers. “We have to move away from here. I know a place. But first let’s get you dressed.”

S
ince reapers traveled the globe harvesting souls, there was never a guarantee of making it back to faerie. Sithens—entrances into the fae realm—were only in a few spots around the world. Unlike most of his brothers and sisters, Frenzy had always planned ahead for the nights when he couldn’t make it back home. He had homes scattered all over, cabins that he hadn’t visited in decades, sometimes centuries, keeping them guarded from rust or decay with wards and spells.

Gathering up what few supplies they had, he wrapped Mila in his arms and transported them to a small cabin lost in the middle of the redwood forest. She didn’t speak, just clung to his back, still practically naked except for a pair of his boxers and a T-shirt.

That he didn’t mind at all.

He smirked, but quickly turned serious again.

Something had happened to him, to them, back there in George’s woods. The sex had been incredible, but that wasn’t the difference. Perhaps he hadn’t been fair to her, expecting her to adapt to this new lifestyle without incident. Because in his head, things were as they were. There were no grays in his world; it was all black and white, yes and no. Life was what it was, and he accepted it and moved on.

Adrianna’s death had taught him that. There were things he could not change, no matter how badly he might want to. But maybe he was wrong.

It irked him to think so. Old as he was, he’d prided himself on seeing truth for what it is. Inevitable. Unyielding.

And yet staring into Mila’s eyes, he’d felt like he’d glimpsed a vision of her soul. Of the ugliness that she’d battled through the years. It’d been humbling and disconcerting because there was so much pain inside her it’d stolen the breath from his body. He understood that pain, understood the need to guard and keep others at bay. Far from your heart, from your soul…to not let others in because it hurt too damn much.

He’d closed himself off after Adrianna. Become a monster, become vicious and so cold that eventually it’d been second nature. Eventually he’d turned all emotion off; any need he’d ever desired to know and be known had died with her.

But this little
other
, this baby…she understood that need. He’d read the truth of it in her eyes and he couldn’t help but respond in kind.

The sun was just beginning to set, casting the world in long shadows. The woods were eerily quiet, a rolling white fog curling slowly along jewel green moss. This land did not belong to faerie, but it filled him with peace all the same. Made the angry hornet’s nest of too many thoughts quiet down, helped him to take an easier breath. A fae was tied to nature, to the balance and harmony of colors and the purity of a land undisturbed by the poison of those who only sought to control and possess it.

Trees with clay-red-colored bark towered above them, standing like sentinels, guarding them from prying eyes.

The cabin was nothing more than a solid A-frame of logs, with two small windows and a small stone chimney on top. He’d built this place back in the early nineteenth century; nothing fancy, just a place to rest his head during the long winter nights.

It was dark and slightly foreboding, but that was simply part of the ward he’d placed on it. A repellent to make any unwary passersby continue on.

Adjusting the strap of their shared duffel bag, he gestured toward the door. She stood a little to the side and behind him, her liquid amber eyes huge in her pale face. The way the sun shone through the leaves highlighted the prominent scars on her cheeks. She looked like some wild thing with twigs and bark poking up from the strands of her blond hair. There was blood streaked across her neck and jaw, and peach-tipped nipples jutted proudly from her smooth, alabaster breasts. He swallowed hard. She was a nightmarish vision and his mouth watered because what they’d done back there had only fed his beast.

The way she moved, stealthily, easily through the trees, how she no longer blushed about her nudity or his…the transformation from human to other was fully beginning to grip her. But he couldn’t help but wonder which side would manifest strongest.

Vampires were sensual creatures, consumed with their need for violence, sex, and blood. Shifters merely for the feed. It’d taken George a millennium to break the hunger’s hold on his sanity.

Her eyes roamed his body, languishing, reveling in every dip and curve of his flesh. Making him hot and aware that they were alone, that for now, the shadow couldn’t find them.

“What?” he asked finally, sensing her need to talk.

At first it appeared like she might not say anything. “This.” She gestured at the open space. “Even out here, in the middle of nowhere. I’m not safe, am I?”

The melancholy was back in her eyes, but not the anger this time. “Did you enjoy my blood?” he finally asked, not sure why. He knew she had; he’d felt it in the way her body had trembled, her touch had turned frantic.

Her lashes fluttered, but her stare did not waver.

Stepping toward her, he nodded. “Because I did.”

She licked her lips. “Really? It didn’t turn you off?” The last was a mere thread of sound.

Lips twitching, he shook his head. “Come inside, woman. We have to finish this discussion, but I don’t want you out here another second.”

Glancing over her shoulder, she reached his side, taking the hand he offered. In less than a minute he was opening the door.

The cabin had the old musty odor closed homes usually did.

“Where are the lights?” She traced the wall with her hand, gazing at him, perplexed.

He smiled. “I built this home in 1901.”

Her nostrils flared. “You
built
?”

“I did. Try not to sound so disbelieving.”

She laughed and the sound was nice. Shivery and dulcet all at once. She seemed different now. Not quite so tense or ready to do battle.

“That’s very domestic for a faerie.”

Frenzy snorted. “I like to work with my hands, it helps me think.”

“Think?” she inquired, and he had to admit, he liked this more open side of her. For so long he’d been closed off, not willing to share any part of himself with another soul, but he sensed she needed this. They were walking a tightrope right now: one wrong word or move and they’d be back to arguing, hissing and spitting at one another. He didn’t want that and, he sensed, neither did she.

Rubbing at a speck of dust on the counter, he shrugged. “After Adrianna’s death, I was lost. I became the monster of nightmare.” He shuddered remembering the countless times he’d wake up and realize he was coated in blood, a snarling, raving lunatic hell-bent on revenge. It was like he’d been two different people: one who was void of emotion, so numb that even a child’s laughter couldn’t have pulled a smile onto his face, and then there’d been the creature walking through the night, wreaking chaos and mayhem wherever he went. Using his hand to fell anything that dared to walk in his way.

She smiled softly, as if unsure. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have asked.”

Waving off her concern, he walked over to a drawer in the kitchen. Opening it, he pulled out a thick, cream-colored beeswax candle and a book of matches that he’d left sometime in the late seventies. Pointing at a small cabinet inset within a pantry, he jerked his chin. “There are a few more in there. Grab what you can.”

He probably should say more, try to calm her worries that she’d insulted him somehow, but he didn’t want to dredge up any memories of Adrianna’s ghost. Not now. She didn’t belong in this moment.

Turning, she did as he asked, pulling out another five. “Where do I put them?”

Her voice was calm, taking her cue from him, and he felt an inexplicable urge to hug her, which he promptly ignored.

His cabin was as sparsely furnished as his apartment in San Francisco had been. This was a one-room home: kitchen, bedroom, bathroom all shared the same space. There was a bronze horse trough he’d used to wash in resting against a corner, a small frame bed big enough to sleep two with a feather-down mattress he’d stuffed himself. A kitchen table that would seat four. An armoire to fit his clothes in, an icebox to store perishables, and a farmhouse sink he’d installed. Water ran in from the natural spring well out back.

“Put them on the table.”

Licking her lips, she set down the fat candles, which he proceeded to light one by one. “I hate to break it to you, but this place needs some serious updating.” She chuckled, and the sound of it washed against his flesh, brought color to her snow white cheeks.

“Part of its charm.”

“Charm?” Turning in a slow circle with her hands planted on her hips, she shook her head. “Is that what we’re calling it nowadays?”

Setting the matchbook aside, he leaned against the kitchen counter. He really needed to get her more clothes, something not quite so revealing—it was distracting to look upon so much female beauty and not want to return to what they’d been doing not even an hour ago.

“What would you call it?”

Picking up a crocheted yarn blanket off the foot of his bed, she sniffed it. “Antiquated. Old. Ancient—”

He snorted and crossed his feet. “I think the word you’re searching for is ‘charming.’”

“Pft. You wish. It stinks like my aunt Telly’s rubbing ointment for her bad knees. It smells like old people and”—she laughed again—“I thought the other place was minimal, this is positively medieval.”

He shrugged. “It suits me. Does what I require.” His eyes drew down her form. “You need clothes. And another bath.”

She rubbed her chest, smearing the caking blood. “What? Red doesn’t suit me?”

“Suits you too well.” He shoved off the counter. “I’m going into town to get some supplies. The shadow arrived too soon for me to grab much other than some soaps and toothbrushes.”

At the mention of the shadow she visibly pulled into herself. The verve and vitality so present just seconds ago vanished as her eyes roamed around their place, out the windows into the woods beyond.

He shook his head. “You are safe from her tonight.”

“How do you know that?” She crossed her arms over her breasts in a defensive posture.

“Because I injected enough death into her to sink her into a coma for at least a couple weeks. Go out back, there’s a lake. Take some of the supplies in the bag, whatever you need. Don’t stay out too long; this cabin is very isolated, but I don’t want to take any chances. I’ll be back in about thirty minutes with food and clothes.”

Her jaw jutted out and she merely nodded an okay where before his ordering her about would have turned into a battle of wills.

Zipping open the bag, she knelt and began rummaging through it. The flickering flame played off her body, highlighting the sweet curves of her ass, the graceful line of her back and supple thighs. His body responded and it shocked him that it could. He hadn’t felt a need to be with a woman for too long, so long he didn’t know how to act or think.

She must have felt his look because she turned to look at him, cocking her head in question.

“Nothing.” He turned on his heels and headed back out the door.

Mila watched him go with questions pounding through her skull. After the sex in the glen, they’d been doing a weird sort of dance around each other. The stupid cry fest had been good for her, gotten rid of the festering poison inside, but now she felt exposed. Like he’d seen a side of her few ever did; it made her anxious and aware in a way she hadn’t been before—that this was it.

This was her life now. She could rant and rave and piss and moan about it, but it changed nothing. The thought of offing herself felt wrong, not because she was suddenly in love, but because when he’d kissed her, moved inside her body for the first time in so long, she knew she wasn’t alone.

It wasn’t a fight she’d have to shoulder full responsibility for again. And it was strange thinking that, because she wasn’t sure where they stood. She hadn’t exactly made a habit of one-night stands in life, so she was socially inept at navigating these waters.

You’d think in afterlife, things like embarrassment and humiliation would cease to exist. They really didn’t; in fact, they intensified by about tenfold.

Riffling through the bag, she yanked out a bottle of shampoo and conditioner, a hairbrush, toothbrush and paste, and a towel. There were some clothes in the bag, but mostly his stuff.

It was surprising to her that she really didn’t care about wearing so little clothing, being practically naked in front of him constantly. Just yesterday it’d been hard to watch him sleep in the buff. Now today she was walking around with her breasts hanging out and her hoo-ha on display and barely thought about it. Just didn’t seem all that important anymore.

But the way he’d been eyeing her, maybe it was best if she at least attempted to cover up. Feel more human. Grabbing a plain gray T-shirt from the bottom of the bag, she exited the depressingly small cabin and made her way to the back.

The woods were electric.

It was amazing how different the world smelled, tasted, looked, now that she was immortal. The setting sun was a deeper shade of yellow. The orange and pink streaks across the sky more jewel-toned, and the green of the leaves was an intense shade of color.

The water was also different. She could smell it in a way she never had before. There was the obvious, fish and muck and brine, but there was more. Each molecule within each individual drop had its own distinctive scent. All her life she’d been taught hydrogen and oxygen had no odor, but that wasn’t true. Even the most sensitive machine couldn’t pick up on it, but there was a smell.

It was salt and mineral, earth and clay all rolled into one. She inhaled again, letting it coat her lungs.

Nesting owls in the trees above smelled of rodent and berries. The soil was rich and pungent. A blackberry bush beckoned her with its sweetness.

This was it.

The vibrancy of life she’d never known existed before manifested itself in a new way—it was more than the colors or the scents, it was tangible. Awed, she held her arms out, watching as the sun played off her skin, and smiled, because it didn’t burn. She wasn’t sure what it meant to be a hybrid exactly, but maybe being part shifter and vampire had its perks, because she didn’t have to fear the sun or the night.