Sundown & Serena (14 page)

Where had they headed? Lash had mentioned
their shared taste in sushi. But I couldn’t ask for raw fish.
Gag and yuck.
I couldn’t ask Danial the
name, either, though he had to know. Fuck it, without knowing for
sure, I couldn’t point Terian the right way, either.

“Sun, what is it?” Terian said with concern,
interrupting my thoughts. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Bring me some Chinese food,” I said with a
shrug. “Some lobster fried rice?”

The nearest place to eat was Alan’s Creek.
Lash and Sar had likely headed there for lunch. All the
eating-places there were on the same street. It was the best I
could do.

“Sure,” Terian said. “I hope I can convince
Theo to go there instead. He wants to get sushi at some new
restaurant in Alan’s Creek, because Sar brought some to him the
other day.” He made a face. “I said I’d go before I thought about
it too much.”

I gave him another shrug, wicked glee
radiating through me. “Make the best of it. I’ll make you a
sandwich when you get home, if that stuff tastes too awful.”

He flashed me a smile. “You’re on.” Then he
disappeared.

Maybe it will work. Maybe
it wouldn’t...

“The game you’re playing is a dangerous one,
Sundown,” a low voice said.

I turned to see Danial at the top of the
stairs, his eyes glinting red. “I don’t know what you mean.” I
blushed, hearing myself repeat Lash’s words.

“I think you do,” Danial said as he glided
down the stairs, baring his fangs. “And as it involves Sar, it
involves me. You wanted Terian and Theo to go where Lash and Sar
are, to find them together. Why?”

I went to leave but he grabbed hold of me,
and squeezed my wrist hard. I cried out in pain. “Stop, you’re
hurting me.”

“I’ll hurt you worse, if you don’t answer
me,” Danial growled. “Why?”

“I heard that about you, that you were just
like your brother,” I retorted, deeply bitter.

Danial dropped my wrist, snatching his hand
back, sudden understanding breaking across his face. “When?” he
asked softly.

I closed my eyes, and didn’t answer him.

“When, Sundown? Back this past fall? When did
Devlin have you? Because I hear in your voice that he did. I’m
guessing it had to be before he left for Rio, before being with
Sar. They are Oathed now, and Dev would not risk breaking that, not
for you.”

I flushed, and then realized belatedly he
didn’t know about Lash at all; he was only asking about Devlin.
“Back when Devlin was weak, over two years ago,” I admitted. “When
he was angriest at Sarelle. You know why he came on to me. He’s
your brother. You must know what he wanted to do with Sar; what he
did with me, pretending I was her...”

I trailed off as cool arms encircled me. “I
wondered why you mostly kept to yourself at the werecompound, and
didn’t ever spend much time here,” Danial said quietly, hugging me
gently. “I thought it was Sar, or me, maybe. But you were afraid of
running into Devlin.”

“Yes,” I confessed, trembling. “I don’t ever
want to see him again, I’m so afraid of him.”

“Don’t be,” Danial assured. “He has the real
Sarelle now. No matter that they fought recently, nothing has
changed between them. He would not even lay a finger on you now,
Sun. Not for Terian’s wrath, or mine, but because he doesn’t want
to lose her. He does love her, in his way. He was obsessed first,
it’s true, but that obsession has turned into love.”

I stayed quiet. Maybe Devlin was his brother,
but he didn’t know him well, if he thought Devlin could ever love
anyone.

“Do you want me to say something to him?”
Danial offered. “My word is law, at least in America, even to
another Ruler. I can forbid him from coming within sight of you, if
you like.”

I’ve already managed to
avoid Dev all by myself. I’d be all set, if only my fear was
rational.
“No,” I replied, pulling out of his grasp. “But
thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now explain your actions,”
Danial said, his dark eyes on mine. “Why send Terian and Theo to
where Lash and Sar are? You want them found together for some
reason, even though you must know it will cause a fight, a bad one,
no matter that it’s just lunch.”

“Because it’s not just lunch. Lash cares for
her, I think,” I said.

Danial said nothing, though he looked
uncomfortable.

“You knew?” I accused. “Why did you let her
go with him, then?”

Danial sighed. “Devlin said they had been
together again a few days ago, and that he thought Lash had
feelings for her, by the way he acted afterwards. He said not to
worry, that he had talked to Lash, and Lash accepted that the
situation was temporary, that when The Lust ended, Sar and his
sexual relationship would be over. It’s not what I’d prefer her to
do—being with that repulsive creature—but it’s not her fault, Sun.
It’s not as if she wanted to be. She must sate The Lust when it
occurs, or she becomes wild. It is better Lash is with her, and not
one of the other guards. I know she hates having to be intimate
with him. But that is a small price to pay for Devlin to have a
child of his own—”

I didn’t hear the rest of what he said. I
wasn’t even focused on him enough to be pissed off that he made it
seem as if wanting to be with Lash was utterly disgusting. All I
could think about was that Lash had been with Sar.
More than once. Worse, he already wants her just like the
rest of them do.
I’d heard it in Lash’s words; he wanted her
bad. He cared about her after knowing her for a few months, more
than he’d ever cared about me, me who he’d known for years now!

My anger reached a fever pitch at how Lash
had treated me in the driveway. It was safe to say that his
best-ever human lay was no longer me. I wanted to kill someone.
If Sar ever asked Lash not to leave the country,
he’d fucking just roll on his back and tell her sure, and was there
anything else he could do for her besides that, like maybe kill
Devlin. Bastard! Slimy no good bastard!

“Sun, why are you so angry?” Danial inquired
coolly, touching my arm gently with his hand. “You’re shaking with
rage.”

I went still, because under that cool tone
was wrath, and also more coldness, coldness enough to stop my heart
with an icicle dagger. This was Dev’s brother, with the same blood
in his veins. Danial wouldn’t hesitate at all if he thought his Sar
was in any kind of danger. He’d hurt me—hurt me bad—if he guessed
how much I hated her right now.

I tried to calm down. “It’s just that Sar
seems happy with Theo. They went through so much shit to be
together. I want their relationship to work. Lash is trying to
split them up, I think.”

“Is it really that, or that you are jealous?”
Danial asked searchingly. “Jealous of Sar? That she is desired by
all of us, and you, who looks so similar to her, are not? Or are
you angry with her, that Devlin hurt you because you look like her,
and you thought it unjust, and want her punished?”

God, he seemed to be reading my mind. “I’m
not jealous!” I said heatedly.

“You surely are,” Danial said. “I know that
particular tone in your voice. I’ve heard it often enough in mine
this past year. But I’m warning you now, do nothing again to cause
any more fights—”

His grip tightened on my arm in a flash. I
let out a cry of pain.

“—
or I’ll wait until Terian is away for
an afternoon, and tell Devlin you are missing him.” His tone turned
malicious, and dark as night. “I know the potion he probably used
on you. All he needs to do is sing to you, Sun, and you’ll want him
more than anything else, do anything he asks for without a
thought.” He grinned widely. “And Sar has given him permission for
oral sex with other women.”

I jerked my arm free of his with a curse, and
ran into the other room. I wiped at my angry tears as I listened to
his feet on the stairs walking back to his study.

Chapter
Fourteen

A few weeks later

Where the hell was Terian? While he was not
coming home tonight, he still hadn’t called to tell me the hotel
where he’d be staying. Maybe it had slipped his mind in all the
chaos. Terian was headed out alone on a trip he should have been
going on with Theo. Now a trip that should have taken a day was
going to be an overnight.

Nagging doubt gnawed at me, that my fiancé
had possibly had a setback. Last fall, Terian had finally done a
little too much dark magic, and his waning tenuous control had
shifted from his faerie half to his demon side. The effect had been
all the more traumatic as the sudden shift had happened in the
middle of sex.
Sudden burning heat, taloned hands holding me
down, and my lover’s fanged visage grinning down at me with red
eyes of lust.

Stop, Sundown. You know Terian’s father
Titus took magical steps to stop a regression after he helped
Terian find his way back. There’ll be warnings now, and you’ll
never be caught by surprise like that again. And Terian’s sworn off
the dark magic. He’s regained complete control.

I wasn’t resentful of his being away
overnight, even if I sounded like it. The reason for Theo staying
home was the death of Devon, Theo’s only son, the little cougar
everyone had loved. He’d been so happy all of the time, even when
he got into things, and knocked over lamps, and made a mess. He had
been the best of Sar and Theo. His loss had hit us all hard.
Everyone had been crying at the funeral, even me.

Sar and Theo had just buried Devon that
morning. How horrified they’d both looked, and how lost. Sar had
looked so old, and worn out. When I’d hugged her and told her I was
sorry, for the first time I’d really meant it. She was a shadow of
the happy woman she had been back in the spring, when I’d met her
for the first time. She’d gained some weight after having the
twins, and the years were showing on her, like they hadn’t before
she’d given Lash her blood. But I’d heard that she was mortal now,
that saving Lash from death had drawn the vampire taint from her
blood and her body. What I’d seen had confirmed it.

I called the main house from my cell, hoping
to get Theo. No one answered. I swore, then put on my jacket, and
drove over there. Going inside, I noticed spots of blood on the
floor. There were also bloody footprints going down the stairs. I
let out a shriek.

“Sun?”

It was Elle. She’d been crying.

“What happened? Whose blood is this?”

“Sar and Theo fought,” Elle got out, crying
again. “He tried to force her to be what he was, but she said she
loved Lash and she didn’t want to be a cougar.”

I sat down and hugged her, thinking I was in
a crazy world. Terian had told me Titus was breaking Theo and Sar’s
famous true love bond. I guessed this fight was the end of
them.

At that moment, I finally put my envy of Sar
to rest. Why had I ever been jealous of her, anyway? All the men in
her life were so bad to her, so what if they wanted her? I didn’t
envy her Danial, with his constant distantness and violent
tendencies, or Theo, with his possessiveness and abusive way of
shouting at her the minute he didn’t get what he wanted. And Devlin
was just completely insane for her. Terian had told me tearfully
one night in a drunken binge back last spring that Devlin had raped
her not a week after Lash and I had been together, as soon as he
had had the opportunity to get her alone where no one could help
her. And that it hadn’t been once, but time after time. I pitied
her, because even though she’d fought him tooth and nail the whole
way this past year and a half, hell, since the day she first met
him years ago, Devlin had still possessed her in the end. She’d had
his child, she was Oathed to him, she was living with him at his
castle, and I didn’t need anyone to tell me that no matter what
might happen, Sar was never, ever going to get free of him.

I was the lucky one, who should be envied. I
had Terian, a man who was devoted to me, and despite what we’d gone
through, he loved me. He loved that I was having his baby, and he
hadn’t mentioned Sar to me once since he’d recovered his human
self. There was only he and I now, and we were a family. Best of
all, Devlin had forgotten me completely.

Then Elle’s words finally fully registered.
“She said she loved Lash?”

“Yes,” Elle said sniffling. “She said she was
in love with him, that she had saved him with her blood, and that
he’d been going to make her weresnake like him, that she wanted him
to—”

God, she must really love him to say that.
I’d liked him, wanted him, and even then, just his kiss with that
forked tongue of his had scared me. Sar knew what it would mean to
be turned, that he’d have to bite her, and how everyone would look
at her after. She knew she’d lose Danial and Theo, and maybe even
Devlin, though maybe she wanted that. So she must truly love Lash.
Weird, but romantic and sweet in a way,
too.

“Will my mom be okay?” Elle asked. “She got
away, I saw her teleport.”

“Shh,” I said, hugging Elle. “Sar will be
fine, Elle. She’s tough. A lot tougher than you or me.”

Chapter
Fifteen

A few weeks later

I had gone to Davy’s with the express purpose
of giving Gary an invite to the wedding reception. He was one of my
friends from way back, and I wanted him to be there. But when I got
to Davy’s, the place was trashed. Worse, it was quiet; almost as
quiet as it had been that night I’d first met Lash and Devlin.
Instead of no one being around, there were broken tables
everywhere, and unconscious forms laying around here and there, all
men.

I knew who had done it. His name was in
bullet holes down one wall.

I went to the back room with the pool tables,
and there was Lash, at the far end of the room, sitting at a table.
I hadn’t seen him since the spring. He looked much younger, but
there was no mistaking it was him. He ignored me, smoking, and
drinking heavily.