The Dark Vampire: Last True Vampire 3 (45 page)

Bria didn’t push Chelle for details. To be honest, she didn’t think she wanted to hear them. She believed that Ronan’s sister hadn’t meant to turn Lucas. Her scent hadn’t soured in the slightest with her words. “You are more than your own coven,” Bria remarked. Chelle glanced at her
from the corner of her eye but didn’t acknowledge her. “You’re your own race.”

Like Chelle, Lucas would not be a part of the Collective. Maybe that was for the best. Perhaps it would mend Lucas’s broken heart. Chelle could give him purpose. The life outside of Bria’s uncle’s coven that he’d hoped for.

“A one-man wolf pack no longer,” Chelle said with a laugh. Her expression turned serious and her tone softened, “It scares the shit out of me. I’ve felt so alone ever since—” Her words cut off. “It’s nice
not
to feel that way anymore.”

Bria’s heart went out to Chelle. She knew the crippling pain of isolation. Of being surrounded by people and still being utterly alone.

Chelle’s head snapped up. The action made her appear wild and predatory. She’d sensed something—heard something—that even Bria’s vampiric senses hadn’t picked up on. “Lucas is awake,” Chelle murmured. “You can go talk to him if you want.”

Bria missed their earlier lighthearted banter about reality TV. The current turn of conversation had quickly become far too morose. She couldn’t ignore the sudden sadness that Chelle exuded or the way it weighed down the air and made it hard to breathe. “Thank you, Chelle. I’ll bring you a caramel macchiato if you’d like. For what it’s worth, though, I don’t think you need to stay cooped up here. Isolation isn’t going to strengthen your control. You need to get back out into the world.”

“You’re a good egg, Bria,” Chelle said. “No wonder Jenner’s so into you.” Chelle went back to channel surfing, all but dismissing her.

Bria turned and headed down the narrow hallway that went past the dining room and kitchen. A shiver of anticipation danced down her spine. Not necessarily a warning of danger, just a tickle against her senses that
convinced her it would be a good idea to stay on her toes. She passed the bathroom and a small office and came to a stop in front of a closed oak door. Her fist rapped on the surface, three light taps, and she leaned in toward the wood. “Lucas? It’s Bria. Can I come in?”

“Bria?” His voice roughened when he spoke her name. “It doesn’t sound like you.”

Vampiric senses were hard to get used to. Nothing sounded like it should, looked like it should. The transition was certainly a rebirth, and it took time to adjust to the change. Bria eased open the door and stepped into the room. “It’s me. You just need to get used to hearing with new ears.”

Bria remained close to the door. The room wasn’t big, but the space she kept between herself and the bed gave her a small amount of comfort. If she sensed Lucas didn’t have a grip on his control she could easily slip out the door.

“Are you all right, Lucas?” The tentative question was answered with an eerie silence that pressed down on Bria’s shoulders. “Is there anything you need?”

He responded with a bitter chuff of breath that chilled Bria. She wrapped her arms around her middle as though to warm herself. Soullessness was a heavy price to pay for being turned. And though hers had been brief, Bria remembered the apathy, the dark, empty hole that had opened up inside of her.

“I didn’t know the thirst would be like this,” Lucas rasped. “I didn’t know that I could experience need with such intensity. How is it possible to feel that and be so empty, Bria?”

She didn’t have the answers for him. None of them, save Mikhail, could answer that and maybe even he couldn’t articulate to Lucas what he was going through.
“Soon, you’ll be tethered and that emptiness will go away.”

“I’d hoped that Chelle would tether me. If I’m being honest, I’d hoped—” He choked the word off on a bitter laugh. “My hopes were foolish.”

“You are anything but foolish, Lucas.”

Bria took a step forward and another. Lucas sat with his back propped against the headboard, his chest bared, a sheet slung over his narrow hips. He raked a hand through the tangles of his blond hair and let out a ragged gust of breath.

“Chelle wants you to think that we slept together.” Lucas spoke so low that Bria had to strain to hear him even with her superior senses. “Well, we did, but we only slept. We kissed. I held her. We comforted each other in our loneliness. But that’s all.” Lucas’s gaze hardened; his irises shone like silver disks in the darkness. “She said she couldn’t bring herself to take my virginity as well as my soul.”

For as long as Bria could remember, Lucas had been her confidant and she had been his. The hollowness of his words echoed a pain that she knew he couldn’t feel and yet she felt all of it for him. It bit into her heart with sharp claws. Lucas’s vulnerability lent a sharp tang to his scent and Bria wrinkled her nose. He would have seen it as a rejection, but Chelle’s gesture proved further to Bria that everyone’s assumptions about the female were wrong.

“I think you should go, Bria.” Lucas’s voice further roughened and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “My thirst isn’t under control yet and your scent is making me forget that you belong to another male.”

“All right, Lucas.” Bria knew better than to tempt him. “But if you need me, I’m here for you.”

“Good-bye, Bria.”

The coldness of Lucas’s parting words sent a chill over Bria’s skin. She left the bedroom as quietly as she’d entered and headed back down the hallway. Chelle still sat in the living room, sprawled out on the chair.
Mob Wives
had apparently lost its appeal and now she watched a rerun of
Modern Family
.

“I was thinking,” Bria said as she entered the room. Chelle made no move to acknowledge her, but she knew the female listened. “Instead of me bringing you a macchiato, why don’t we go out and get one together?”

“Sure,” Chelle said. She kept her attention focused on the screen. “After Lucas’s thirst levels out, though. I’d thought about going out earlier, but I probably shouldn’t leave him here alone.”

“Of course.” Chelle wasn’t half as fearsome as everyone gave her credit for.

“Yes, I am,” Chelle replied. “But I like you.”

Bria’s jaw dropped with astonishment. Chelle had heard her thoughts as surely as if Bria had spoken them. “I like you, too.”

“I bet you’re a good secret keeper, aren’t you, Bria?”

Bria recognized the undertone of Chelle’s words. “In the vault,” she replied.

“I’d better go check on Lucas.” Chelle pushed herself out of the chair. “His thirst is burning
my
throat.”

“Thanks for letting me see him.” Bria headed for the door.

“We might be a two-man wolf pack now, but Lucas doesn’t belong to me, Bria. I know you’re friends. Come whenever you want.” She turned and flashed Bria a wicked smile. “In fact, come just to push Jenner’s buttons.” With a wave Chelle turned toward the hallway. “See ya around.”

“Yes,” Bria replied. “See ya around.”

“So
much for maintaining order.”

Mikhail shot a disgusted look in the direction where the guest cottage was situated. Anxiety pulled Jenner’s muscles taut, but he refused to give in to his fear that Lucas—or Chelle—might harm Bria. She could take care of herself. Jenner knew that. But it would be a while before he could truly relax. The events of last night still weighed heavily on his mind, as did the realization that he could have lost her.

“What’s done is done.” Ronan didn’t sound any happier with his sister than Mikhail did. “Honestly, Mikhail, it was bound to happen.”

“I sent Lucas to her to help assuage her thirst. I did not give him to her to turn.
Gods,
” Mikhail spat the word. “You know how sheltered the members of Fairchild’s coven are.”

“Lucas is a big boy,” Jenner grumbled. Gods, the male wasn’t some skinny, weak child. Nor was he so young to imply that Chelle had taken advantage of him. “I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

“You saw him?”

“Bria is with him now.” Jenner tried to keep the scowl from his face. He knew too well the drive of post-transition thirst. The thought of Lucas’s mouth anywhere near Bria sent Jenner into a jealous rage that caused his secondary fangs to punch down violently from his gums. He dug his feet into his boots in an effort to keep from sprinting over there and coldcocking the son of a bitch on principle.

“We’ll wait and see what she has to say then,” Mikhail said.

“How’s Saeed?” Maybe if Jenner changed the subject he’d be able to keep his shit tight.

“Good.” Mikhail’s demeanor relaxed as he sat back in his chair. “His control is better than I thought it would be, and now that his thirst is sated the Collective seems to have quieted in his mind. I doubt he’ll need to spend another day here. I plan to send him back to his coven before sunrise.”

Probably a good idea. Mikhail’s property was becoming overcrowded with vampires lately and Jenner knew that having so many variables so close to his pregnant mate had begun to wear on him.

“Saeed is the least of my concerns right now,” Mikhail remarked. “And strangely enough, so is Chelle. Tristan McAlister contacted me just before sunrise yesterday.”

Ronan’s eyes widened. “What did that fucker want?”

“Vanessa,” Mikhail said. “He wants to get a glimpse of the girl and so he’s brokering a tentative peace to get it done.”

“Right,” Ronan spat. “As if the Sortiari has any interest in peace.”

“He agreed to a location of my choosing. Him. Me. Two representatives each and Vanessa. He wanted to meet immediately, but I pushed him back to a month.”

“You can’t be seriously considering his request?” Ronan said.

Mikhail smirked. “He claims to have the slayers in check.”

Jenner snorted. “That’s reason enough not to trust the bastard. We know it’s a lie.”

“True, but our knowing gives us the upper hand, don’t you think?”

Jenner regarded his king. Mikhail was an intelligent male, though perhaps a little too eager to get his eyes on the Sortiari’s enigmatic director. “Or you could be giving those berserker bastards exactly what they want: an opportunity to take out the both of you in one fell swoop.”

Mikhail nodded as though he’d considered the possibility. “Regardless, we won’t be able to keep McAlister from the girl forever. And I think we’ve learned over the course of the past month that locking someone away from the world in the name of protecting them can have disastrous effects.”

A lesson hard learned by all of them. Jenner had tried to keep Bria locked away and he’d almost lost her because of it. They’d isolated Chelle and she’d been forced to turn Lucas in order to have another creature with which to share a connection.

“The longer we keep Vanessa from him, the more his obsession with her will grow.” Mikhail paused, thoughtful. “I must admit, I’m curious myself. Perhaps McAlister will give something away that might clue us in as to why she’s so special.”

“Does Claire know?” Ronan asked the most important question. Claire loved the child like she was her own. Surely Claire wouldn’t allow for Mikhail to take Vanessa to McAlister.

Mikhail kept his gaze focused on some far-off point.
“No. She has enough to worry about right now. The girl’s mother will be released from the facility she’s in soon and Claire will have the baby to think about. She’s already too worried over things she has no control over. I don’t want to add to that stress.”

“If you take that girl out from under her nose, you’ll have more than McAlister to worry about.” Claire was a feisty female. No doubt she’d lay Mikhail out if he practiced subversion with her.

Mikhail sighed. He turned to look at Jenner, lips pursed. “You’re probably right. Which is why I put McAlister off for a month. It gives us time to do our own recon, find out what we can about Gregor’s plot to overthrow the Sortiari, and perhaps learn more about this rogue wolf that’s been sniffing Siobhan out.”

A lot of fucking work to accomplish over a scant four weeks.

“We can worry about all of that later,” Mikhail said as though the subject of McAlister and Gregor no longer held his attention. “Tell me more about what happened with the necromancer.”

For the next half hour Jenner filled Mikhail in on what had happened after he and Bria had left for his apartment. Mikhail listened intently and only Ronan interrupted to add his own details to the story. The words Jenner spoke began to bleed into one another in his mind as he regurgitated the story. His mind wasn’t in the moment anymore. It was across the property where Bria more than likely sat with Lucas.

“Has anyone notified Fairchild?” Mikhail asked.

Jenner came back to the moment and shook his head. “No. There hasn’t been time.”

“I’d like to see the look on that smug bastard’s face when he finds out that you’ve managed to rectify in a
matter of weeks something he took centuries to fuck up,” Mikhail said.

“You’re welcome to deliver the news yourself if you want.” Jenner wasn’t interested in seeing Thomas Fairchild ever again.

“No,” Mikhail replied. “I think it’s best he hear it from you. I would appreciate it, though, if you offered him a gentle reminder of where he agreed to place his allegiance. Especially now that Lucas has been turned. It’s been suggested that the male has fickle tendencies.”

Thomas had certainly made that apparent the night Jenner had shown up at his compound looking for Bria. The male had the nerve to act offended that his privacy had been violated and proclaimed to Jenner that members of Mikhail’s household were no longer welcome, since the king had seen fit to “steal” members of his coven. Jenner wouldn’t mind rattling the male’s chain a bit.

“I can do that. I’ll tell him about Lucas, too, if you want.” The idea gave Jenner a perverse sense of satisfaction. “I have to warn you, though. Don’t expect to see much of Fairchild in the future. And if you ever need him for anything, he’ll more than likely have to be pushed into doing it.”

Mikhail sighed. “Not the way I’d like to conduct business with him, but so be it. He needs to learn to honor his obligations.”