Angel's Pain (11 page)

He nodded. “I couldn't tell her what I did for the Agency. The lying, the hiding it from her, the constant fear she'd find out…it really drove a wedge between us.”

“She would have left you if she'd known.”

“I wish she had,” he said.

“So she found out and couldn't handle it. Took a header off a roof somewhere or OD'd on tranquilizers. Some easy suicide like that, 'cause she wouldn't have been strong enough to do anything messy. And you've been blaming yourself for it ever since, right?”

He turned and looked her squarely in the eyes. “No.”

Briar blew smoke rings, shrugged. “No? What do you know, I got one wrong. So how did she die?”

He held her eyes. She lowered the cigarette from her lips and stubbed it out in the ashtray on the nightstand, all without looking away.

“I was going to quit for her,” he said. “I was going to walk away. But before I got the chance to tell her, she said my trigger word. I killed her with my bare hands.”

He watched her reaction, the way her eyes widened in shock and disbelief. The way she blinked three times in quick succession. The way her face softened just the slightest bit.

“I raged until I passed out. When I came to, she was on the floor a few yards away. Her neck was broken.”

“Shit,” Briar whispered. “What did you do?”

“What I was trained to do when I got into trouble. Called Dwyer—started to, anyway. He was there before I even got my ass up off the floor.”

She lifted her brows in question.

“Derrick Dwyer was my supervisor at the Agency. Apparently Rebecca had called for help, but it was too late. By the time he got there, it was over.” He paused, took a breath. “He brought in a team to clean up. They took her body away, removed every trace of evidence, yanked me out of circulation and told me not to speak to anyone or ask any questions. A week later, her family were notified that she'd been killed in a car accident. There were no questions, no investigation, no suspicion. I played the grieving widower until she was in the ground. And that was the end of it.”

Briar swung her legs off the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress, leaning forward. “How was that the end of it?”

“Because it just was. That was it. Done. Over.”

“You ever wonder why she said that trigger word, Reaper?”

He shook his head. “It was an accident. Probably came up in conversation.”

“Uh-uh. It's not that kind of a word. I can't even remember the last time I had a conversation where that particular word came up. You might hear it on a TV show, or in a song. Definitely in a song. But not in casual small talk.”

He sighed. “It doesn't matter. It happened. I can't undo it.”

“Seth didn't think you would kill him. Remember back when Gregor had you over a barrel? When he was going to kill me unless you slit your wrists and let him watch you bleed out? And I said your trigger word, because I didn't see any other way out, and you went off on all of us?”

“Seth's young and idealistic. I'd have killed him.”

“You didn't, though. You banged everyone around, but you didn't kill any of us.”

“You're vampires. A vampire can take a lot more than a mortal female.”

“Roxy's not a vampire. You didn't kill her, either.”

“Somehow I think Roxy would be tougher to kill than any of us. Mortal or otherwise.”

She was shaking her head slowly. “No, there's something wrong with this story. There's something off about the whole damn thing, I'm telling you.” She frowned at him, as if looking for something in his face that she wasn't seeing. “You worked for the C-I fucking A. You're telling me this whole thing doesn't stink to you?”

He shrugged. “Dead is dead, Briar. The details don't matter all that much, and to be honest, I don't think I can talk about it anymore.”

She was silent for a long moment, and then, with a sigh, she said, “Okay.” Then she got off the bed. “Okay.”

He looked up, drained from sharing his past with her, wondering if he'd managed to make even a chink in the armor she wore day and night. She had been right about one thing: Rebecca
had
been her polar opposite. In every possible way.

She moved closer to him now, lifted one hand, and tugged the sash that held her robe together and let it fall open. She let him take in what she had revealed. The inner swell of her breasts. The smooth skin of her belly. The dark triangle of curls between her legs.

She came to him where he sat in the chair, waiting. And then she straddled him and lowered herself onto his lap. Gripping a handful of his hair, she tipped his head back, covered his mouth with hers and kissed him. She tasted smoky and sexy and good.

He let his hands slide up underneath her robe to cup her bare ass, and squeezed. She lifted her head, and when she stared down into his eyes, hers were blazing.

“You ready for your reward, big guy? Hmm?”

He stared back at her, every bit as aroused as she was. He was hard, and he wanted nothing more than to take her right then and there. But instead, he shook his head.

“No.”

Her eyes flared wider just briefly and she went still.

“What the hell do you mean, ‘no'?”

“I didn't tell you that so you'd screw me, Briar. I told you so you'd know. And I think maybe it's time for you to stop using sex as currency. You're not a street kid anymore, and you're not a whore.”

“You don't want me?” she asked, her eyes narrow, angry.

“Not like this.”

She shoved her hand between them, stroked the bulge in his jeans and said, “You're a liar.”

He clasped her hand at the wrist and pushed it away. “You're right. I want you. And I'll have you. But when I do, it will be because you want it, too. Not because you're trading it for something. Okay?”

She got up and turned to move away, but he was still grasping her wrist, so she couldn't go far. So she faced him again, head swinging around. “What the hell are you trying to do, Reaper? What do you want from me? You want me to come to you all needy like your freaking dead wife or something? You want me to beg for it?”

“No. No, that's not what…I want you to want it. That's all.”

“Wanting makes you weak. I don't want, much less need, anything or anyone. Ever.”

He nodded, and released her hand as he got to his feet and headed for the bathroom to take a cold shower. Pausing at the door, he said, “Do you think I'm weak or needy, Briar?”

She lifted her head, met his eyes.

“I want to have sex with you,” he said when she didn't answer. “No strings. No reason. No deal. Just sex, not because it's owed but for the sole purpose of mutual pleasure. When you want that, too, you let me know.”

Without waiting for a reply, he went into the bathroom, closed the door behind him, leaned back against it and thumped his head into the wood three times, not caring if she heard.

Hell, why didn't he just screw her? He'd intended to. He didn't know what the hell had happened to change his mind.

Yes, he did. He knew. He didn't want to be just another trick. He wanted her to want him. The way he was pretty sure she had once wanted that bastard Gregor, though he couldn't imagine why.

He cranked on the tap and stepped into the cold spray of the shower, knowing he had to kill the man. And not because he'd been well paid to do so. Hell, at this point, he'd do it gratis.

Maybe that would finally get Gregor and the pain he'd inflicted out of Briar's system.

 

Roxy sat in the passenger seat, and looked out at the passing scenery. The sun had risen. Her vampiric friends would all be resting by now, as Mirabella was in one of the van's hidden beds concealed in the back. Ilyana sat behind the wheel, taking a turn with the driving. The console between them held two paper bags that Roxy had put there, holding snacks she'd grabbed at the last rest stop. She reached into the largest of them now and tugged out a foam box, then offered it to the blonde, who looked as if she would blow away in a strong wind.

“Breakfast sandwich?” Roxy asked.

Ilyana wrinkled her nose, but at least her eyes reacted. She emerged from her self-imposed cocoon long enough to meet Roxy's gaze. “I couldn't eat.”

“You really should. You're too skinny as it is.” As she said it, she placed the box that held the ham, egg and cheese croissant onto her lap, and reached into the second bag. “I got us a box-o-Joe from DD. Have a cup? Best coffee there is.”

“That I'll take,” Ilyana said. So Roxy got the cardboard coffee dispenser into position and poured two cups. It wasn't easy on this particular expanse of highway, which was ridiculously bumpy, but she managed it, then capped the box and tucked it back into its bag.

Her expression troubled, she sipped her coffee and watched Ilyana do the same.

“You wish we were already in Oklahoma City, don't you?” she asked Ilyana.

The other woman nodded, pushed one hand through her close-cropped platinum hair, and nodded again. “Yes, I do. Gregor's behind those murders. There's no doubt about it, is there?”

Roxy shrugged. “Maybe a little doubt.”

Ilyana sighed.

“Okay, precious little. But realistically, what good is our being there going to do? We have four crime scenes, two of which have already been checked out by our…colleagues—and no hard evidence Gregor ever set foot in any of them. Clearly his drones were th—”

“If those lummoxes were there, Gregor was there,” Ilyana snapped.

“Where? The murders took place in four different states, Ilyana.”

She lowered her head all at once. “I know. I just—”

“You just want to be going after him, wherever he is. You want your son back.”

Ilyana didn't confirm that. She didn't need to. Roxy had never had kids of her own, but she thought she had a pretty good idea what the blonde was feeling right now. Helpless. Furious. Desperate.

Ilyana was thumbing the silver charm she wore around her neck, rubbing it absently as she drove.

Roxy eyed the thing. She'd never seen Ilyana without it. “Is that a locket?”

Looking up sharply, Ilyana met her eyes, then nodded.

“Do you have his picture in there?”

“Yes.” Ilyana adjusted her grasp, then flipped the locket face open and held it out toward Roxy.

Roxy leaned closer, took it in her fingertips and stared at the intelligent-beyond-their-years eyes of a young boy.

“That's my Matthias,” Ilyana said. “He's ten, now. It was taken on his last birthday.”

Roxy smiled as she eyed the boy, with his thick head of butterscotch hair in a bowl cut, and his big brown eyes, and the handful of freckles across the bridge of his nose.

“He's a looker, all right,” she said. “You must miss him terribly.”

Ilyana nodded. “His father can't take care of him the way I can. Gregor doesn't understand him. He never did.”

“How is it that all three of you have the belladonna antigen?” Roxy asked. “It's an incredible coincidence, that.”

“It's no coincidence at all. Gregor knew he was one of the Chosen, and he knew what it meant. He worked for the CIA—they'd drafted him partly because of the antigen, after all. So he knew. He deliberately sought out a woman who had it, as well. He pretended to fall in love with me, played a role, lied about everything until he got me pregnant. A child born to two parents with the antigen is almost certain to have it himself.”

“But…why?” Roxy frowned as she gently closed the locket over young Matthias's face and released it. “Why would he want to raise a child with the antigen?”

“He saw Matthias as the beginning of his dynasty. Gregor worked out almost non-stop before the CIA made him over in their monster lab or whatever the hell they have over there. He wanted to be in peak condition when he was changed. I have no doubt he intends to see to it that Matthias is even better than he was. Young, strong, not even getting close to weakening yet.” She lowered her head. “He won't give Matt a chance to live out his mortal life before he makes him into one of them. And God only knows what he's doing to my son's mind in the meantime. He's so bright, so sensitive….”

“He's got intelligence in his eyes,” Roxy said softly, wishing she could offer more than words in comfort.

“He's got more than that.” Ilyana lowered her head.

“He's special, my boy. And I'd much rather be in one of the four locations where he might be, even not knowing which one is right, than to be somewhere else where I know he isn't.”

“Just hang on, Ilyana. We're on our way. And I promise you, the instant we get a lead on Gregor, we'll go after him. You and me. I promise.”

Ilyana sighed. “I know.”