Divine Savior (8 page)

She knelt down in front of Colin, looking directly into his eyes. He expected her to kill him, kill him as he lay there helpless. It was no less than he deserved, he thought. He may even welcome it because of what he had just done to her.

“My name,” the woman demanded in a whisper.

Colin looked at her; the tightness around his throat eased slightly. She had more than likely lessened her hold so that he could answer.

“What? What did you say?”

“Do you know my name? You came here to kill me, didn’t you? So I’ll ask again, do you know my name?”

He didn’t, he realized with a start. Colin didn’t have any idea who she was. She stood up then, walked over his legs, and away from him. The only thing left of her was her scent for him wafting through the room. As soon as he heard the front door to the warehouse click shut, the binds released him and he could breathe. He sat there for several minutes, doing just that, inhaling her scent along with deep gulps of air. Then he thought of the term he had been hearing a lot lately, WTF.

Yeah, he thought, this definitely qualified as a “what the fuck” moment. Suddenly, the room shimmered to life and another being appeared. Melody, the Queen of Molavonta, the Mistress of Magic, appeared. Colin wondered if his day could get any worse. Then he looked down at his bleeding body.
Yeah
, he thought again,
it certainly could
.

“Hello, vamp. It seems like you have a bit of a problem there,” Mel said with a hint of censure in her voice.

Just what I need—just what I fucking need right now,
he thought as he banged his head against the floor several times. A smart-assed woman who could kill him as easily as the one that just left him here.

“Hello, Queen Melody. Nice weather we’re having, don’t you think? Do you think you could help me out here before I bleed out?”

Colin needed help and as she was the only one about. He had no choice but to ask her. He had tried to make his voice friendly, but from her cocked brow, he was sure he had failed miserably.

“You have yourself in quite a dilemma, don’t you, big guy?”

Mel had already started working the large piece of wood from his chest. And she was being none too gentle about it either.

It began to heal as soon as they pulled it free, but he needed to feed. And to feed soon. He had lost a great deal of blood and he was too weak to do much more than to sit up and talk to her. Dizziness had him close his eyes against the tilting of the room.

“I don’t suppose you could let me sip from you, could you? I need to have blood now, my lady.”

“Ummm, I don’t make a habit of letting people bite me, Lord Larimore, but you do seem to be in trouble. I can’t give you my blood without getting something in return, though. It’s a way of our kind; otherwise my blood will poison you. It could be a favor to collect later, a token maybe.” She seemed to consider her options. “Ah, I know. I have something; yes, you may sip from me. But be easy, I don’t like pain.”

Colin was running out of time, he knew that. Strangely, Colin felt as if he could trust her. Mel would not take more than he could give. He nodded once to her, and took the wrist she proffered him.

Colin licked her delicate wrist once, and as easily as he could, he bit into her vein. Still, she jerked in response and hissed slightly at the small pain. Colin only took enough to survive, not a drop more. And with the power she held and being the Mistress of Light, Keeper of Magic, it didn’t take much to heal and energize him again. Very little at all, really. Still, he felt drunk and happy, both stronger and lightheaded at the same time. She packed quite a punch, he thought with a short giggle.

Standing now, he bowed before her. “Now, my lady, what can I do for you? Anything you need, I will provide. Death to an old lover, scaring a bill collector, anything; you name it and then consider it done.” He realized he was giddy. He was actually drunk from the taste of her.

“Nothing so nefarious, sir, I assure you. I need but a name. Who was the magic that was here before I came?” She moved about the room, touching the woman’s things, his mate’s things. Colin watched as Mel picked up a folded shirt, and then returned it. Heat welled in his veins. Colin watched her touch his mate’s things, and felt an overwhelming need to ask the queen to stop, to please leave things alone. It was then that he realized Mel was there because she had felt the power too, the woman’s power.

“How did you know...you felt it too? How?” Colin flushed when he realized he was babbling. “She’s strong, isn’t she? I didn’t know how strong until she tossed me across the room just now.”

“Yes, I felt it. She is a part of me, magic. Not like me, just a part of the magic somehow. I’m not sure how as yet.” She was leaning against the wall now, regarding him as she spoke. “What can you tell me about her? Does she live here? Do the two of you live here together? I can smell her on you; that’s why I ask.”

They both turned just as the room shimmered once again. This time, Mel’s grandfather, Phillip, a former royal guard himself before he married Mel’s grandmother, came toward them. He looked pleased. At what, Colin had no idea.

“She isn’t a royal guard, that’s for sure. I know that taste of magic. Where is she, my love?” Phillip commented as he looked around the room.

He searched as if the person he was looking for would pop out at him at any moment. Colin felt a giggle erupt again without being able to stop it. The powerful blood was doing that to him, he realized, and tried to get a hold on it.

“I was just asking the young vamp here the same thing.” She turned to Colin with a raised brow, as if to say, well, time to fess up.

Colin knelt back down to the floor. Suddenly, it was too much. They were right; the woman was right. He didn’t know who she was. Because as soon as Colin had pulled her into his embrace, he knew that she was not the stoned woman in the apartment. She and the drug addict, they were two different women. And this one, the one who he had just threatened, was the protector Sara had sensed while she had been searching the room for Colin.

Colin had come here to kill an unknown woman because he had assumed incorrectly. He had assumed that she had been the cause of the death of a young child. When she had been the stronger one, the woman who had fought the were. He had caused harm to his mate. More importantly, she was strong magic and Colin was sure she would be using it on him again.

“I don’t know who she is. I met her several weeks ago, well, not met. She ran into me, literally. She was running out of the back of a restaurant, stealing food...I can only assume now for the small humans. Since then I’ve been sort of stalking her. I came here to kill her for something I thought she had done. I thought she had killed her own child, you see? But I was wrong...wrong about so many things about her.”

Colin was babbling, talking fast and likely making very little sense either. He hated himself for what he had done, what he had thought. Now he had to explain himself and his actions not only to these two beings, but his master as well.

Colin sat now and looked up at the ceiling. He wondered now about her scent. She had been coming and going from the back of the building, not the front. The front entrance would have brought her closer to the apartment and the stairs. Colin should have thought of that earlier. Drug addicts tended to make things easier on themselves, not harder. She would have come in the easier route everytime. The scent on the little girl, Becca, that was not what he had thought either. It was all over her. Colin knew then that the woman had been hugging Becca, loving her. More than likely showing the child the only love she had ever experienced.

“Stalking her?” Phillip asked condescendingly. “For God’s sake, vamp, why? Is she that pretty, sexy...what the hell?”

Colin felt the growl moving along his chest and worked hard to contain it before it moved out beyond his lips. To a place where he was sure would get him into trouble.

“Well...hum...you see, I...well, I believe...shit! She’s my mate, damn it.”

Colin hated admitting it now. Especially to these people, when he had only just realized the truth for himself. If the woman had disliked him before, she would surely hate him now, he thought with a grimace.

There were times when a person could only take so much, and poor Phillip had reached his limit, apparently. He burst out laughing. He had started his chuckle standing up, and then progressed to leaning down on his knees, to the point of sitting on the floor, still laughing like a loon. Every time he chanced a look up at Colin, Phillip would laugh even harder. Colin just glared more severely at him. Damned man was gonna have a heart attack if he didn’t stop soon. Then Colin thought that that might not be such a bad idea; it would serve him right. It wasn’t as if Colin had purposely gone out to find his mate and to piss her off, damn it.

“Do you know how to find her?” Melody wanted to know. “This girl, Colin, is powerful—unskilled, but powerful all the same. I want to find her, meet her as soon as possible. She could hurt herself, or someone else without some sort of training.”

“She did hurt someone. Me,” Colin grumbled peevishly.

“Oh, you don’t count. You provoked her. You said so yourself. Don’t you have some sort of special bond or radar detector or something to find each other?” Mel asked him. Colin could hear her impatience in her voice and tone.

“No, we haven’t. I mean we didn’t. She and I haven’t—we...I haven’t bonded with her yet. We haven’t exchanged blood. All I have is her scent, her smell that I smell because she is mine. And well...we haven’t had sex yet either. Not that it’s any of your bloody business, but I thought she was someone else. I’ve made a mistake, a horrible mistake with her.” Colin shuddered at the magnitude of what he had done to her. “Oh my God, I have to find her, to explain. She was right. I wanted to kill her, hurt her, and I know nothing about her. I didn’t even try to find out, just assumed and accused. Please, you have to help me.”

Colin was begging, but at this point, he really didn’t care. His mate was out there and she needed him. Not as badly as he did her, but he wanted her with him.

Phillip stopped laughing now. He came over and offered his hand to Colin to help him up. He hoped. It was either that, or he was going to laugh at him again.

“We have ways, my boy. All is not lost, Colin. Come on. We have her string now, something we can follow her with. And every time she uses her magic, no matter how small, we’ll get closer. You’ll see, we’ll find her for you, for both of us.” Colin hoped so.

Colin called to his friend and master, Aaron, in the way only vampires could. He mentally reached out to him, begging for Aaron to come to him. He needed his friend. Aaron answered immediately, assuring him that they were on their way; they would be there soon. Colin felt Sara’s love for him pour into his soul, helping to calm his troubled heart. Colin had never exchanged blood with Aaron’s mate, but he could speak to her as easily as Aaron because she was a part of magic that was all his kind and what all the other magical beings used to live, to survive. He let her reach into him, find what he had done. How he had hurt his mate with the mistrust and hate he had felt.

“
I have to find her, Sara.”

“
We will, Colin. I promise you, we will.”
She answered him back. He hoped she was right.

Colin thought about Aaron and Sara. Their love was so powerful, so strong. He thought the way they seemed to continually touch one another, or pass a look...had thought it was silly and unnecessary. But now, now that he had touched her, he wanted more of the same thing. Much, much more.

If Colin and his mate could have but half of what Sara and Aaron had as a mated couple, he could count himself very lucky.

~
CHAPTER SEVEN~

“I would like you all to meet Dominic Marshall. I’ve asked him to come here from another master’s realm to help us track Colin’s mate. He’s agreed to help us out. His record for recovery is excellent.” Aaron looked around the room. He had already spoken to Sara about this even before he had asked for the help from another master.

A vampire in Aaron’s position did not ask for help; it just wasn’t done. It not only made one look as if he could not make things work in his own realm, but it also made one beholden to the other master. In this case, however, the other master owed Aaron a favor and was more than glad to have the debt repaid without any effort or cost to him or the realm. Aaron hated the arrogant bastard, too.

Dominic didn’t look like the others, in dress or in manner. He was tall and fit like them, but that’s where the resemblance ended. Dominic had been a boxer in his previous life and continued with it still, though he didn’t make a living as one. His long hair was dark; almost a blue-black, and he had a widow’s peak deep in the front of his forehead. Dominic’s skin was a light tan in color; his cheek bones where prominent, probably inherited from some Cherokee Indian in his blood line. Dominic had not worn a suit once since he had been old enough to need one. And he didn’t now. His shirt was a very loud print of cockatoos and palm trees. His pants were light-colored khakis and he wore white tennis shoes most of the time. He was so different than the others in the room that Aaron thought he would feel uncomfortable. But he didn’t seem to be.

Looking for the girl had become a lesson in futility. When she used her magic, which was not often, it was sparingly. Also, by the time they got a fix on her location, she was gone, leaving only her scent to tease at Colin. Phillip was giddy with excitement in tracking her. Colin was ready to brain him. Aaron could see a mighty fight coming between the two beings if Colin didn’t find his mate soon.

Aaron had begun to worry about Colin over the past few days. He hadn’t been resting well, nor feeding well either. If he didn’t take better care of himself, Aaron, as his master, would have to step in and put him into the deep sleep of his kind to help him regenerate. Aaron didn’t want to do that. But his friend’s health was much more important than Colin being pissed off at him.