Enemy Lover (37 page)

“Geth ah—” he croaked.

“Shane,” she said, going down on her knees beside his head. “I’m going to get you out of here. But first I have to get all this shit out of you. It’s going to hurt.”

He turned his head slightly and opened his one good eye. “Geth ah—” he said again, and she realized he was telling her to get out. To save herself. She fought back tears and used the tail of her shirt to gently wipe the blood from his face. “I’m so sorry.”

He closed his eye, making a small sound before seeming to pass out.

Jax got busy. After several heart-stopping moments, she freed him of the hooks. Jax crossed herself and said a Hail Mary. She needed to get him out of there. Now. Bending over him, she prepared to haul him over her shoulder. Before she could, she heard him.

“You are a very enterprising woman, Jax Cassidy,” a deep, dark voice said from behind her.

Lazarus.

Rage reared its head, and with it came a surge of adrenaline.

Jax turned, leveled her Glock at him, and pulled the trigger. Lazarus’s body flinched. He looked down at the hole in his belly, then looked back at her. “You missed.”

She pulled the trigger again, but her target had disappeared.

“You cannot kill me,” he said from behind her.

Jax whirled around.

He inclined his head to her pistol. “Silver-tipped wooden bullets? I’ ll give credit where credit is due.” The colonel moved closer to her. “Too bad it won’t help you.”

The room seemed to sway beneath her. Her insides burned and she was suddenly cold. She raised the gun. Her hands shook. Not from nerves, but from shock. She was on the verge of total collapse.

Lazarus seemed to easily take the gun from her numb fingers.

The room spun. Her chest became heavy. She couldn’t breathe.

He grabbed her to his chest and shoved her head
back. He ran a finger down her jugular. “I can see what Marcus finds so fascinating about you. You are truly extraordinary. But I’m afraid he will have to find some other form of entertainment. I cannot permit you to live as you are—or as one of us.”

Jax swallowed and summoned the strength to speak. “Why didn’t you just kill me on the street?”

“You, my lovely assassin, are my insurance policy.”

“For what?”

He smiled. It gave her the creeps. “Marcus has become quite independent these last few months. I have something very important for him to do, and since he refused my order to eliminate you, perhaps he will do my bidding if he thinks it will save you.”

Lazarus chuckled demonically. “He’s avoiding me, you know. But no more. He knows where to find me. He knows where to find you. Why do you think he isn’t here?” He laughed low. “Perhaps I overestimated his fondness for you?”

No, asshole, he’s tied up in a silver chain.
But she wasn’t going to tell him that.

“He’s very territorial, you know. Maybe we should test that. I know what will bring him to me. To you.” He brushed her damp hair from her neck. “You have lovely skin,” he whispered.

Jax closed her eyes and went limp in his arms. Her right hand dangled next to the pocket with the stake in it. Trying to control her erratic heartbeat, she slipped her fingers into the pocket and clasped the blunt end of the stake, then gathered it in her fist.

His fangs hovered over her neck. Jax arched, offering herself to him. Just as his fangs pierced her skin,
she brought her hand up and drove the stake into his back.

Lazarus screamed and dropped her.

Jax fell to the floor and scurried back toward Shane. She reached for her pistol, but her bloody hands could not grip it.

Lazarus twisted and hissed in terrible pain, but he didn’t go down. After what seemed like an eternity but was only a few seconds, he straightened, reached around, and yanked the stake from his back.

His eyes burned molten red. “You missed again.” He threw the stake to the floor.

Shit.

Lazarus reached down and yanked her up.

“Release her.”

Oh my God, Marcus.

She tried to jerk around to see him, but Lazarus shook her like a rag doll. Her head rattled. Her vision blurred. Then she could not see. She went limp, her strength draining.

The pain was lessening now.

“Do not interfere here,” Lazarus warned.

“She belongs to me,” Marcus said.

“Do not defy me!” Lazarus mandated.

“Our laws permit me to claim a mate. I choose her.”

“An eye for an eye, Marcus. You will pay for destroying
my
chosen one!”

Jax tried to comprehend their words. Her body was on the verge of total collapse.

Lazarus’s body shuddered, as if he had been hit. His grip loosened. The warmth called to her. She let herself go to it.

She felt herself falling.

Angry words reverberated around her.

Strong arms caught her.

Warmth.

Marcus.

“Put the girl down,” Lazarus commanded.

Marcus shook his head. “Not a chance.”

Lazarus moved slowly around the bloody body of Jax’s partner. Marcus detected the barest hint of a heartbeat. The man would bleed out in the next few minutes. “I’m not interested in her, Marcus. She’s nothing but a means to an end.” He held out his hands palms up in a show of trust. “You are my end.”

Marcus considered the fatally wounded figure draped across his arms. She was losing body heat. Her organs had begun to shut down to sustain what life was left in her. He felt as if his world was crumbling around him with each shallow breath she took. The pain of his emotions tore him up inside. There was nothing undead about him. For the first time since he could remember, there was an aching inside him, a yearning for something other than himself. This broken creature had struck a nerve, and it numbed him to Lazarus’s will.

“Our time is growing short, Marcus. Put her down,” Lazarus commanded, his voice darkening to thunder.

Raising his eyes, Marcus returned his master’s gaze. “There is no measure of bargaining here. No hold you possess any longer.”

“I gave you life! Have you forgotten? I could have left you for the sand fleas and the vultures, but I breathed life into your dying body!”

“And now I return the favor by exacting no vengeance for the liberties you’ ve taken today.”

“You
return
the favor?” Lazarus demanded, incredulous. “Who the hell are you? You’ re no one without me!”

Not breaking with Lazarus’s eyes, Marcus slowly moved toward the door as the conversation accelerated. If he could keep Lazarus engaged and enraged, there was a chance.

“You’ ve been like a son and I your father!” Lazarus raged.

“No, Lazarus. More like the chattel to do your bidding! Am I to repay the deed for a lifetime?”

Lazarus shook his head and moved toward him. “One more request, Marcus. One more simple request and I will set you free!”

He would never be free so long as Lazarus lived. Inching closer to the hallway, Marcus could feel the slight breeze of the corridor wafting into the room. Jax’s heartbeat had slowed to halting. Shane was closer to his end than Jax but not by much. If he could save them both, he would, but there was only so much he could do. First things first, and nothing, not even Lazarus, was going to interfere with his getting Jax out of there.

“And Jax?” Marcus asked in false sincerity.

“She stays here with me. I won’t harm her further. I give you my word, Marcus.” Lazarus stretched out his hands again in a gesture of friendship, but Marcus read through his façade. “I was only using her to reach you.”

“What of him?” Marcus nodded toward the heap of bloody flesh that was Shane’s dying body.

Lazarus stopped and turned to consider the figure
upon the floor. “His time is over, Marcus. He’s beyond even my powers now.”

With Lazarus’s attention turned even for a brief second, Marcus seized the opportunity and made his break out of the room and down the corridor so fast that his body was only a dark blur. He cleared the exit into the sultry night air. He felt a sudden rush of air go past him. Lazarus.

Everything slowed to a grinding halt. Marcus saw the master vampire settling to stand just ahead of him. Gathering Jax tighter to his chest, Marcus cut right and accelerated toward the dilapidated packaging plant at the edge of the parking lot, but Lazarus was there again. Marcus could not fight his maker with Jax in his arms. If he set her down, she would be dead before he returned to claim her. Marcus bit down hard on his lower lip until his blood flowed down his chin. He pressed his lips to Jax’s and with his tongue gave her as much of his life-saving blood as he could in the few short seconds he had.

Almost immediately, her heart rate stabilized, but it was still weak and much too slow. But— He looked up to see Lazarus coming straight at him. Marcus set Jax down on the asphalt and hurled his body straight at Lazarus. They crashed with a sickening thud in midair. He grabbed his maker by the shoulders and swung him in a high arch, then tossed him into the broken row of third-story windows on the plant. Marcus went crashing in after him. While the outside world was hurtling by, he and Lazarus appeared to be in a time warp of slow motion, movement matched by equal movement. Speed matched by equal speed.

The building was dark, dusty and full of broken pal
lets. None of it slowed Marcus down. Cutting back and forth in a fury of speed, Marcus rose to the fifth floor and met his maker, who stood atop a pile of stacked cardboard.

“Now what, Marcus?” Lazarus softly demanded. “We do battle?”

“That’s up to you. You could just let us go.”

“You, I might be able to trust not to divulge our secret, but not her. She has a separate agenda that I cannot allow.”

“Then we really have no other choice.” Marcus leapt and dove into Lazarus, hurtling him into the concrete wall behind him. The impact shook the glass from the windows. Shards rained down on Lazarus. But the old vampire kicked Marcus away, the velocity sending him nearly thirty feet away. He landed on a wooden pallet, shattering it. Marcus struggled to his feet, grabbing a two-by-four-foot piece of the pallet.

Lazarus hovered several yards in the air in front of him. “You’ ve gained strength through your growth, Marcus. Still, I will kill you if you leave me no option.” Lazarus stood above him, delaying his rise. Dropping onto his back, Marcus made a quick roll right and shot his legs into Lazarus, knocking him to the ground. Spinning away, Marcus leapt to his feet and darted deeper into the building. Lazarus was in hot pursuit.

“This can only end one way, Marcus!” Lazarus called from behind him.

Marcus flew through the air from behind and planted both feet into Lazarus’s back. Any mortal man would have been dead from the whiplash caused by the impact, but Lazarus was no mortal; his neck remained intact.
Marcus stabbed Lazarus in the back with the two-by-four, impaling him to the floor. Lazarus screamed, not in pain but in fury. Marcus leapt up and moved into the depths of the building.

“I grow weary of your game!” Lazarus called. “The girl will be mine again and you will have to come to me on my terms!”

Marcus watched from his perch as Lazarus yanked the wood from his shoulder and stood, tossing it aside. Then he stood still and scanned the darkness. When he could not detect Marcus behind the stack of pallets, Lazarus turned and turned and turned, forcing the air to rise up around him. With it, the littered pieces of wood from the old pallets flew through the air like missiles. Marcus braced himself, then deflected each piece of wood launched at him, sending it directly back to its point of origin.

Like the true master he was, Lazarus blocked them with forearm blows. The faster they came, the faster he defended his position. Marcus leapt from his spot and down to the floor beneath Lazarus. He grabbed a bundle of copper piping and hurled it backward toward the colonel.

“Destroy me and you destroy yourself!” Lazarus screamed. Marcus leapt toward his maker and grinned. A short piece of pipe had impaled Lazarus’s left thigh. Marcus reached down, grabbed another piece of pipe, and shoved it into Lazarus’s gut. Blood spewed from the wound. Lazarus looked up in complete shock. Marcus ran it through.

“Leave us be!” Marcus yelled at Lazarus. “I have
claimed her as my mate! It is my right, and I will defend it to the death if I must!”

Silence. Lazarus did not move. His eyed glared red. His skin had paled to white. He dropped to one knee. Reaching with his left arm, he grasped the pipe, slowly pulled it from his gut and flung it aside. Grasping with both hands the other pipe protruding from his thigh, Lazarus gave it a hard tug. As he pulled it clear, blood poured from the wound. Marcus had hit his femoral artery. Lazarus cursed and flung the pipe aside. He would survive, but it would take more than a few minutes to recover from the blood loss.

Marcus did not wait; he turned and jumped up through the broken windows to the asphalt parking lot and then to Jax.

She lay where he had left her. He gathered her into his arms and moved toward the dark streets for a car to hot-wire.

Jax was dying.

Without hesitation, Marcus took her north to Clearlake, where he’d spent his troubled childhood. After he had come home from Afghanistan, he’d purchased a small cottage on the lake. It was where he went to decompress. No one, not even Lazarus, knew of its existence.