Immortal Craving (Dark Dynasties) (20 page)

Haltingly, he told her of the cave in the Gir, of awakening alone four hundred years after his last memory. Anura’s gaze never wavered as he spoke. When he was finished, she was silent a moment.

“I’ve heard of such things, but not in… gods, centuries. I wasn’t sure whether it was really possible, though. Forcing one of us to sleep so long and then expecting us to come out whole is a pretty iffy proposition. You couldn’t have been much more than a corpse at first.”

Tasmin cringed, remembering.

“No. I wasn’t.”

“And now?” Something in her expression told him she already knew he wasn’t what he had once been.

“Now… I seem to be something… else.”

She leaned forward, and to his relief he saw no horror in her eyes.

“Just as I thought,” she said, the last words he’d expected to hear. “Tell me what they did to you.”

“I can only tell you what a healer told me not long after I awakened,” Tasmin said. “I think—no, I
know
he was right. Just as I know that if things stay this way, I might as well have died. It’s going to kill me.”

“No, it won’t,” Anura said, and in her voice was the fire he remembered from long ago. “I couldn’t save the rest of them. But I’ll be damned if I don’t find a way to save you.”

T
Y HAD RETURNED
just long enough to shove a stuffed suitcase into her arms before vanishing into the night again.

Over an hour later, Bay had finally dragged it into the room she’d chosen, muttering to herself as she dug through it. She couldn’t seem to settle down. And she wasn’t the only one.

There was a weird, unpleasant energy in the house tonight. Most of the Lilim had apartments and houses out in town, but there were some who stayed here, and all of them were whispering among themselves. None of them paid much attention to her. That wasn’t so unusual, in and of itself. She was just the oddball human hanger-on. But that feeling of not belonging had intensified tonight to the point where she felt actively unwelcome by some of the Lilim.

In a way, she understood. If something bad happened, she was nothing but a liability. She couldn’t shoot energy
or turn into anything with sharp teeth or drive people insane with nothing but her willpower. She didn’t even have her shears to stab anybody with… not that any of her grooming tools would do much to stop the average vampire.

Bay sighed, head drooping, her hands stilling as she sorted through the odd hodgepodge of things Ty had brought her.

“I am the crappiest sidekick
ever
,” she said.

She didn’t even qualify as a sidekick. Sidekicks did something. She seemed to be purely ornamental. Which was pretty sad, considering she was usually covered in dog fur.

Trying to pull herself out of her increasingly lousy mood, Bay pawed through the six pairs of fuzzy socks Ty had stuck in the suitcase. She couldn’t decide whether it was sweet or just kind of sad that he knew her that well already.

Probably a little of both.

A familiar sound heading down the hallway toward her door had her pausing in mid-rummage. She would know Grimm’s slow, heavy-footed amble anywhere by now. And sure enough, after a few more thuds, he nosed around the edge of the door and moseyed in, looking for all the world like he expected her to have forgotten all about his traitorous activities downstairs by now.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she said as his eyes brightened at the sight of her and he trotted forward, knocking a small porcelain bowl off the dresser with his tail in the process. She barely caught it, winding up in an awkward position on her side. Grimm took full advantage, looming over her and trying to drown her in joyful slobber.

“Ack!” she managed. “Bleh! Grimm! Stop it—gah!” But she was giggling as she curled into the fetal position and tried to fend him off, which only made him more determined to shower her with doggy kisses. He shoved his nose up under the hands she was covering her face with.

“Hey!” Bay laughed.

“Do you need help?”

Tasmin’s voice finally broke Grimm’s single-minded concentration, and he relented to go give her visitor a cursory sniff. Bay sat up, wiping at her face and pushing at hair that was now completely hopeless. She watched Grimm decide Tasmin wasn’t interesting, then take a flying leap onto the big four-poster bed and flop down, silently daring anyone to try and remove him.

“You brat,” she said. He panted at her happily. He knew she was a sucker.

Resigned to having him see her like this, Bay turned to look at Tasmin. He’d only ventured a step into the room, and he didn’t look like he was sure he should even have come that far.

She wasn’t sure either.

“I’m fine,” she said. “A mess, but fine.”

He watched her out of those bright gold eyes, giving nothing of what he was thinking away. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, at the moment, considering she still hadn’t changed out of her scrubs. And that her hair was likely in some kind of lopsided fauxhawk held in place by Newf drool.

Since he seemed content to just stand there not saying anything, which she had decided was one of his more unnerving habits, Bay turned her attention back to the suitcase.

“He packed me four pairs of flannel pajama pants. Four. And one pair of jeans. Does he think I go out in public in my pajamas?” It was more a rhetorical question than one she expected Tasmin to try and answer, but it did get a response.

“Ty packed your clothes?”

“Mmm-hmm. And I’m trying to figure out how he decided what to put in here, because it doesn’t make any sense to me. It looks like he covered his eyes, reached into my underwear drawer, and just grabbed a handful of whatever before he stuffed it in the suitcase.” Actually, Bay was pretty sure that was
exactly
what the man had done.

“It looks like he expects you to stay for a while,” Tasmin said, taking another step in and looking curiously at the suitcase. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, trying not to let his presence affect her the way it always did. Especially after what had happened outside. That had been…

Yeah, she decided as heat flooded her from head to toe. There weren’t words for what that had been. Amazing? A promise of things to come? A bad idea? All of the above?

“I don’t know,” Bay said. “I don’t know what’s going on.” Then she did look up at him. “No one tells me anything. Lily is locked in her office on the phone, Ty looked like he wanted to kill someone when he showed up with the suitcase, and according to Eric Black, who I bumped into while I was hoping to eavesdrop something useful in this place, there was definitely somebody in my house.”

Tasmin’s expression hardened. “I see.”

“Don’t,” Bay said sharply, dumping handfuls of clothes back into the suitcase in a pile and sitting back on the floor.
“Don’t you get all homicidal too. Everybody here is whispering about war. Not that they told me that. Me being the token useless human here.”

“You’re not useless.”

She gave him a beleaguered look. “Don’t patronize me. I’m a very useful person in my normal life. Here, I’m talking and occasionally interesting food. If we get attacked, I’m toast, and everyone knows it.” She looked at Grimm, who had flopped onto his back and was snoring softly. “I’ve got to at least figure out how to get him somewhere safer. I’d be devastated if anything happened to him.”

Tasmin looked at her a moment, then surprised her by lowering himself to the floor to sit beside her. He didn’t get too close… but he seemed to be offering company, and right now, she was glad to accept it.

“Maybe you could take him to your family. Are they near here?”

It was nice that he didn’t tease her about how concerned she was for her dog. “No,” she replied. “My parents moved to Florida last year. They’d had it with the winters here. Dad had an opportunity to go with his job… so they went. I’m happy for them. I mean, they love it, so…” She trailed off, shrugged. “And Steve, my older brother, is a big-time lawyer in DC. He’ll probably run for office eventually, God help us all.”

Tasmin chuckled. “You miss them.”

She quirked a half smile at him. “Of course I do. Mom and Dad poke at me about moving down. Sometimes I think about it, but I don’t know if Florida’s for me. And I like it here. Steve is pretty wrapped up in his own stuff, but he calls to annoy me when he can.” Her face fell a little. “I didn’t think I’d be the only one who stayed. But
I have my business, and my friends.” She sighed. “I don’t know. I’m twenty-eight. I feel like I should be more satisfied than I am, but I’m just… restless.”

She laughed then, embarrassed. “Ignore me. I’m nervous, so I’m babbling.”

“I like hearing about you,” Tasmin said, and Bay looked at him skeptically.

“No,” he protested. “It’s interesting to me. And… nice, that you got to know your parents. I didn’t know mine.”

“Oh,” she replied, feeling suddenly guilty for having complained at all. “I’m sorry.”

But Tasmin waved the apology off. “Don’t be. There were things I missed, but I gained a group of brothers. The pride raised me. I can’t regret that.”

She watched him, curious. “Seriously? They raised you?”

He nodded, draping his arms casually over his knees. “They did. My pride was sought after by many of the most important men in the land. We were fierce warriors, but honorable. Not all of my kind were. Our lineage made us highbloods to the other dynasties, but we were never structured like they are. Every pride was its own. There was no Rakshasa court, no king or queen. Just many small groups, all operating as they saw fit. That was both good and very bad, at times. The reputation of a few left most people in terror of all of us.”

“But not the guys who wanted you to fight for them.”

“Greed is usually stronger than fear,” Tasmin said with a small smile. “And as I said, my pride was known to be honorable. I was actually given to seal an alliance between the pride and a powerful family.”

Her eyes rounded. “Your family
gave you
to the Rakshasa?”

Tasmin nodded. “It wasn’t as though my father didn’t have enough sons to carry on the line. I was his twenty-second, by his sixth wife.”

“Wow. That’s… way outside my realm of experience,” she admitted. “But they must have missed you, Tasmin. You don’t just give up a child and not care.”

He looked pensive. “I don’t know,” he said. “I often thought… it must have hurt my mother. I doubt my father thought much of it. There were so many children. I was too small to even remember. In any case, I was raised by the pride. They became my brothers in every sense that mattered. It was a long time before I even realized that many of the people we were protecting were my biological family.”

She frowned. “Didn’t
they
know?”

“Probably.”

Bay struggled to understand. “And that was… okay. With you.”

He smiled. “Bailey. It was a different place, a different time. I didn’t
know
them. I knew the pride, and even though they could be hard, they were a good family to me. I have no regrets.” But then his smile faded, and she knew he had one. He’d wanted to save them, and he hadn’t been able to. She wished she could heal that wound, but only time would do that… or as much as could ever be done.

“So how did things go with Anura?” she asked, wanting to turn his attention back to things that
could
be changed. She hoped.

“They were… interesting,” he allowed, and his expression became inscrutable. He looked at his hands, frowning lightly. “I think she can help. But there are things that need to be done.”

“Oh,” Bay said, trying to keep her tone light. She desperately wanted to know what had gone on, but she wasn’t going to beg for information. It was none of her business, she told herself. Well, mostly not her business. Even though she’d taken him in, put him up, and dealt with him when his split personality had shown up.

Her jaw tensed the way it always did when her stress levels started to rise. It would give her a lovely headache if she didn’t watch it. Bay fought the urge to massage it. Planting herself in the bed face-first soon would take care of most of this. She’d deal with tomorrow when it came.

Tasmin slid a look at her and must have seen how she felt written across her face, because he relented a little.

“She’s contacting some of her dynasty sisters tonight. The Empusae who didn’t abandon her when she was banished for mating with my pride brother, Rai.”

Bay bristled at his succinct description of Anura’s situation. “I know that what I think doesn’t make any difference here, but what the dynasties do, to each other and their own people, really sucks.”

“It does,” he agreed. “But they didn’t all turn on her. The Empusae know more about ritual and magic than most dynasties ever did. And that’s what I need, Anura believes, to cure me. Ritual, and magic. And luck.”

He didn’t look very excited about it, Bay noted.

“Does she know what’s wrong with you? Not just a guess, like the healer, but… does she really
know
?”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

Bay pressed her lips together. “Okay then.” She refused to push him further. It had been a rough couple of nights for both of them, and it was possible he just wanted to deal with this on his own. If so, she would let him. Even if
it gave her the same sinking feeling she’d had downstairs earlier, when she’d been left alone with him and Anura—the feeling that she was out of her element with nothing to offer, that she was in the way as far more important events and individuals swirled around her.

She pushed to her feet, grabbing her comfy old pajamas in one hand. Bay was startled to find herself near tears. She was beginning to hate this week. She’d never been a girl who bawled at the drop of a hat. Even knowing it was mostly exhaustion mixed with a healthy dose of feeling sorry for herself didn’t stop it from being irritating.

“I’m leaving,” Tasmin said, jerking her back into the moment. Bay’s head snapped toward him.

“You… you are?”

He nodded. “Tomorrow night. I need to go with Anura if I want to have any chance at stopping what’s happening to me.”

Bay felt an ugly burst of jealousy coupled with a wave of sadness so crushing it took her completely by surprise… It was that much worse because of it.