Retribution (Book 3 of The Dominion Series) (26 page)

Julien knows how I feel. He understands how and why I'm so different. As much as I want to escape my previous life for normal, I know I can't ever really do it, so being with him is a comfort.

I don't have to pretend with him. He knows me, inside and out.

“Eve, you have to understand that, every now and then I forget what you are,” he says as we pull in the driveway at the cottage. We sit in the car for a moment. “I have to keep reminding myself that you’re actually very strong. Competent. Dangerous.” He turns to me, his expression serious. “I look at you and see this sweet young girl-woman who’s seen too way much blood and violence, experienced way too much heartbreak. I want to protect you. I’ve got to remember that you’re my partner so,” he says and looks away. “That’s my
mea culpa
. My confession.” He holds his hands up. “You said I was over-protective? Guilty as charged. I have to back off a bit.”

“Thanks,” I say, warmth spreading through me at how honest he's being.

I shower and dress as quickly as possible, but my hair is still damp despite the blow dryer. I put on this little black lace top, my jeans and heels. I put on some drop earrings and a bit more makeup than normal.

“How do I look?” I say as I turn in a circle in front of Julien. “Will I pass muster?”

He shakes his head as he looks me up and down. “You look,” he says and hesitates. “Good enough to eat. I might just have to take a shotgun into the pub with me.”

I laugh at that. “You look pretty nice yourself.” He wears a black sweater and jeans, with a black belt and looks like he might have stepped out of GQ with those whiskers growing fashionably on his jaw and the dark hair. I allow myself to see him as a man. The other female students will swoon over him.

If they knew he was a self-described day-walking super-warrior-vampire-hunting vampire killer, I wonder how they’d feel.

That's someone only I could love.

Julien drives to the fourth pub on the list after I finish getting ready and we enter and walk into the dimness of the bar. There's a small dance floor and a VJ had set up with a big screen playing music videos. Some students are dancing while others stand around in small groups. I stop beside Julien at the edge of the dance floor and watch, my heart beating faster than it usually did when I was in a fight. I think of how different this is from last night at Soren's. This is where I really belong – feeling nervous and awkward at a college function, not an organized vampire and slave orgy.

I scan the floor looking for people I recognize, but don't see Nate – thankfully. I see Sarah Rhys and Brenda as well as several others at a table. Brenda waves at me and motions for me to come over. I nod and make my way through the dancers to their table, Julien behind me.

“Hi, Eve,” Sarah says. “Glad to see you here.”

I smile. “Thanks. I'm a bit nervous. I’ve never been to a pub crawl before.” I turn to Julien. "This is Julien. Julien, this is Sarah and Brenda from my history class."

They turn to him and he smiles and bows mock-formally, that grin of his starting.

"Such beautiful ladies!" He bows to Sarah and then takes Brenda's hand and kisses her knuckles as if he's trying to see if she's an Adept. "How am I so lucky to be the only man here?"

Sarah smiles and I see Brenda's eyes widen. When Julien lets go of her hand, she looks down at the table for a moment. Julien pulls up a chair from another table and Brenda makes room for us. I sit down.

"I'll go get us a drink. What will you have?"

I make a face. "Just whatever you're having."

He leaves us.

“You’ve never been to a pub crawl?” Sarah says. “How come?”

I shake my head. “I was a bit of a nerd.”

“
We
almost didn’t come,” she says.

“Why?” Then I cringe. “Oh, right. Your friend Christie’s funeral was yesterday. I’m sorry.”

Brenda looks quickly at Sarah. “Thanks. It’s hard, but she’d want us to come. She helped organize tonight.”

I’d completely forgotten why I came to Davis Cove, so wrapped up in the petty psychodrama of my so-called college social life.

“I read about it in the paper. She was your friend?”

Sarah nods. “My best friend.”

“Do they know what happened?”

Brenda shrugs, glancing at Sarah. “Overdose, from what the coroner said. It was weird because she never took drugs. Someone maybe spiked her drink, but the coroner ruled it accidental.”

I nod. Yes. It certainly was weird. But I know the real cause. She was an Adept and a Blood Slave.

They're silent for a few moments and then someone changes the subject, and talks about an upcoming football game against an old rival. Maybe I imagined the whole thing the other day when Brenda gasped when she touched me. Maybe she really did get a static shock and I didn’t notice it.

I start to relax once the focus is off me and on to other subjects.

It's then that Nate strolls up, looking very handsome as usual, in a dark blue shirt and jeans. He says hello to everyone and then turns to me, holding out his hand.

“Eve, would you like to dance?”

"Not really," I say, glancing at the dance floor where a few people are dancing.

"Come on. Don't be a buzz kill. Besides, I have something to tell you in private."

I frown and stand up, taking his hand, because, what am I going to do? Refuse? I'm sure it's a message from Soren.

“Sure.”

He leads me to the middle of the dance floor and we wait for the next song. The music starts and it's a slow dance.
Crap
.

“I better not," I say stepping back from him. "Julien's a bit jealous."

I try to walk away, but he grabs my hand and pulls me against him. "You don't have a choice, Eve," he says and smiles. “Soren wanted me to tell you something and this is the best way to convey his message.”

I give in, but I glance over at the bar, where Julien is chatting with the bartender, his back to me while the bartender pours our drinks. Probably talking bar stuff.

“You're on the wrong track if you keep investigating these murders,” he says into my ear.

"What do you mean?" I put on a fake smile, not wanting Julien to get upset if he sees me.

“They're nothing. Just business. Not part of anything ominous.”

“Like I believe that.”

"Believe it. Soren doesn't want you to keep investigating them. You're raising all kinds of unnecessary questions. Back off or he says your little problem with Julien will continue. " 

The song ends and I turn away without another word, going back to find that Sarah’s table is joined by a tall dark-haired young man I hadn’t seen at school before.

I take my chair and Sarah cranes her head to me. “Dylan, I want you to meet my new friend Eve. Eve, this is my big brother. He’s only a year older than me, but he likes it when I call him that. He's back from Boston for the weekend. He’s doing a degree in engineering at MIT. He’s studying nanotechnology.”

I smile at him. He looks a bit uncomfortable, but then smiles back at me. It looks anything but friendly.

“Nice to meet you,” he says stiffly. I figure he doesn't like being introduced to all Sarah’s little friends like he's some trophy on display. I wonder why he came if he's uncomfortable.

“I told you about Eve,” Sarah says. “She’s a classically trained pianist. Her father played violin for the Prague Symphony.” She raises her eyebrows at that.

I feel my cheeks burn. Her father or mother must have spoken about me.

“Yeah, I was my father’s performing monkey for a few years,” I say, trying to downplay it. Then I feel bad, saying something mean about my father, considering. I just don't like the limelight.

“Our mother said you made the first cut at Julliard for the pre-college program. That’s something you should be proud of,” Dylan says.

I look at him more closely to see his expression. He's darkly attractive, with longish black hair and hazel eyes.

I shrug and turn away, hoping the conversation will shift away from me and my background. I don't like lying or telling too much of the truth and most of all, I don't want anyone to talk about the fact that I lost my parents.

Finally, Julien returns and sits beside me on the chair, which he's turned around. Then, out of the blue, Dylan offers me his hand when the music starts.

“Care to dance?”

I smile and glance at Julien, who raises his eyebrows. What is it with these people and hand-holding? I don't want to say no, so I breathe in deeply and take his hand but get nothing strange from him when I do. The song turns out to be another slow one and so once again, I've broken Julien's rule about touching strangers. He can't come and rescue me either. We can't touch.

“You’re lucky to be able to play piano,” Dylan says, his mouth next to my ear, one hand on my waist, the other holding my hand. “My mother tried to teach me, but it didn’t stick. Didn’t get the talent genes, I guess. Sarah did, but then she got sick.”

"What's wrong with her?"

"Inherited neuromuscular disorder. Incurable. She'll likely be dead by the time she's thirty."

"I'm so sorry."

He shrugs. "I've known most of her life. It's hard to watch. She's still pretty good though."

He has the same accent as his parents and sister, called ‘Scouse’ to those who live in the region. When we lived in England, in Wales, I became familiar with the different accents.

An awkward silence passes.

He takes in a deep breath. “How come you didn’t go to Julliard?”

“After my mother died, I focused more on science and never went to the audition.”

He shakes his head and frowns. “That’s sad,” he says.

“I was in love with medicine, like my mom was,” I say, remembering my foster parent's insistence that I go back to full academics in high school.

“That's too bad,” he says, and his voice actually sounded sad. "The world has more than enough doctors but hardly enough really gifted musicians."

“So, you study nanotechnology?” I try to change the subject. “That’s amazing.”

He pull back and checks me out. “You’re interested in science?”

“I’ve loved science since I was a kid,” I say. “I had a telescope back when we lived in Wales and I take pictures. I took one of Andromeda and a few nebulae that turned out pretty well. Some time lapse video of the Milky Way rising.”

“Really?”

“When we moved to Prague, I hated it because there was so much light pollution, I could hardly see anything.”

“Wales, Prague. Sounds like an interesting life. How did you end up in Davis Cove, of all places?”

I hate to lie to him, especially since he and his sister are being so nice to me, but what else can I do?

I repeat the lie. “My dad stayed here as a kid and so I thought it would be a good place to come, get away from it all.”

“It certainly is away from it all.”

I look up at his face. He's smiling.

“Some weekend when I’m back, I’ll bring my telescope and we can do some star gazing,” he says, his voice light. “I have a great Takahashi and a pretty good camera for astrophotography. The Draconids are coming up next week – it's supposed to be a great show this year. A thousand meteors a second.”

I smile. “I have a boyfriend.”

"I have a girlfriend," he says and smiles. "Just being friendly."

I feel heat rise in my cheeks. "Sorry. I just didn’t want…"

"No offense taken." We dance in silence for a few moments, and it's then I feel it – just a tiny sense that he's trying to get into my mind.

I immediately put up my mental blocks.

I don't know what to do. Do I act as if nothing happened? Do I confront him? I feel conflicted. I decide to pretend nothing happened.

Then I see Julien walking across the dance floor to us.

"I guess I overstayed my welcome," Dylan says, smiling. The song ends and now it's a fast one. Dylan bows to me and gestures to Julien. "She's all yours."

Julien tilts his head in acknowledgement. "She always was."

Dylan smiles and catches my eye before he leaves.

Julien and I dance, but we stay our proper distance away, and I try to tell him what Nate said.

"Nate told me that as long as you and I investigate these cases, our problem will remain."

"Fucking bastard," he says. "He knows we're here because of the murders."

Then I tell him about Dylan.

He frowns. "This is why you shouldn't be dancing, Eve. If he's an Adept working for Blackstone, they'll know I'm here."

"I thought you wanted to infiltrate them?"

"Yeah, but on my terms. Now, we'll have to see how they respond, if this Dylan guy is with them and if he knows who I am."

"How could I know? I'd written the Rhys family off because I never go anything from Sarah or her parents."

He shakes his head and inhales deeply.