Tempest of Vengeance (12 page)

“Now come and eat something,” Devlin said,
helping me to my feet. “Then if you like, I’ll help you cut out
some more doll clothes for Venus. She told me this morning she
wants some ‘adventure doll clothes’, whatever that means.”

“Clothes out of scraps of fur, and fake fur,”
I explained, laughing a little too exuberantly in my relief to
change the topic of conversation. “You’re going to cut out doll
clothes for me? Don’t you have arrangements to make? Lash mentioned
his jobs.”

Devlin gave me an irritated glance. “They can
wait another day. And why not? I can cut out doll clothes as well
as you can.”

“Sorry, I just didn’t think you’d stoop to
it,” I said without thinking, then saw the anger build in his eyes
almost immediately. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I just meant that
you’re the four hundred plus Vampire King of the whole North
American continent now, and you’re saying you are going to be
spending the rest of the day cutting out doll clothes. It’s
just...surprising.”

“I’m a father now also, and that’s the more
important job to me,” Devlin said, still irritated. “I do the other
now only to make sure you and Venus are protected. But my child is
my first priority, always, and you, as her mother, are right after
her. Surely, you, the mother of my only child, know this? Have I
not always protected her, and you? Have I ever set anything above
you, either of you?”

I looked at him and for a long moment, I
couldn’t say anything. Then I was bawling, and Devlin was holding
me, asking in a worried voice what was wrong, that he was sorry,
what had he said, to please stop crying.

“I’m the one who is sorry,” I said in a
choked voice, holding him tightly. “I always give you too little
credit, when you have been perhaps the best father of any I’ve
known.”

Devlin looked at me in disbelief. “Danial was
better.”

“He was not,” I said, looking up at him a
little sadly. “He never went on any kind of vacation from his job,
much as he stayed home to be around when I was pregnant. He always
made time for Elle and me, but his job was always equal in
importance to him, even after I had Theoron. He would never have
blown off a day of meetings to cut out doll clothes. Never.” I took
a breath, then continued. “I’m not saying I was a better parent
than he was. I was there for Elle, but not as much, after we moved
in with him—”

“Hush,” Devlin said, hugging me. “It doesn’t
matter.”

“It does matter!” I said loudly, putting some
distance between us so he’d listen to my words. “It matters that
you know I was wrong, that day I said you’d make a bad father.
You’ve made a good one, a very good one, and I’m very glad to have
had Venus with you, despite that I didn’t want to share that with
you at first—”

“Stop,” Devlin said emotionally. “You’ll have
me crying again, and Lash was already giving me shit yesterday,
about how men are supposed to be strong, they aren’t supposed to be
crying all the time.”

“Tell him to go fuck himself,” I said
vehemently, giving him a kiss. “I love you, and it’s okay if you
cry, especially if you’re doing it because of love.”

“I am doing it from love,” Devlin said
affectionately, tenderly kissing my face, my neck, and my
shoulders. “I love you. I love how passionate you are, how you feel
everything so deeply, just as I do.”

Devlin kissed me, and then he was stripping
off his towel, and sliding my nightgown off too.

“Shouldn’t we be getting downstairs to
V—”

“I’m a man too, as well as a father,” Dev
said seductively. “And it matters that you know how much I love
you, how happy I’ve been with you here with me these past weeks,
living at Hayden. And I can think of only one way to best show you
the depth of my emotion for you.” Devlin brushed me with his fangs,
trailing them up my bare shoulder as he kissed me, and I sighed,
surrendering to him.

* * * *

The next week passed slowly. Devlin was as
loving as he had been before, but Lash was as cool and distant as
he’d been before we’d become friends. He avoided me for the most
part, though I still made him extra of my dinner every night,
except when I had soup, which he didn’t like for some reason.
Maybe they’d given him a lot of soup in prison?

Sometimes I would watch TV with him, but we
didn’t talk, and he always stayed on his side of the couch, not
touching. I was beginning to think I’d imagined his comments to me
when I’d first gotten home, when he’d held me. Why was he being so
distant now? I had thought it was the drug at first, that afternoon
he’d been cold to me. But though he smoked still, or at least his
clothes smelled of the smoke, it was always cigarette smoke he
smelled of now, not pot. But there was another reason I thought he
might have distanced himself from me: he had a lover of his own
again, one that was weresnake like him. For Lash had had a visitor
the very next day after the pot-smoking episode.

I had been in the kitchen eating a very late
breakfast/very early dinner when I heard the doorbell ring.
Curious, I put my book aside, got up, went to the door and looked
through the small glass pane. There was a pretty woman on the stoop
with dark hair almost to her waist. It had dark pink streaks in it,
and there was glitter around her eyes, almost like glitter eye
shadow. Her skin was a tanned color, almost the color of
Lash’s.

I spoke with the door shut, figuring she was
likely non-human and could hear me. “Yes?”

“Is Lash here?” she said, offering me a sexy
smile.

Was this Gina? This was one of his lovers,
past if not current.
“Stay here, please,” I said in a voice
that was trying hard to be civil. “I’ll go and see.”

I thought as I walked upstairs that maybe I
should’ve invited her in. Clearly, the guys knew her at the gate,
to have let her in at all. But I was irritated just looking at her.
Screw it. She can wait outside. Who cares that it’s ten degrees,
and she’s likely cold-blooded? Not me.

I climbed the stairs, and knocked on Lash’s
door. He opened it, looking at me a little sleepily.

“There’s a woman here to see you,” I said,
trying hard to make my voice and face empty of emotion.

“Who is it?” he asked.

I flushed, remembering I’d been too pissed to
ask her name. But it wasn’t my job to keep track of his lovers, at
least not anymore. “I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say,” I grated
out. “If it helps, she has pink hair.”

Lash ducked back inside, then returned in his
jeans and a shirt, a gun in his hand. He went downstairs, gun still
out, and I followed him. I went into the living room, wanting to
listen and feeling jealous, and also very stupid to be feeling that
way. I’d told him I had to be with Theo. I’d made the right choice
at the time; there hadn’t been another to make. That didn’t make
this any easier to endure.

“Lyssa,” Lash said, lust and surprise in his
tone. “What are you doing here?”

So this was the infamous “Lyssa from PA,”
Lash’s former lover whom Devlin had offered to import when Lash’s
lover Cin had broken up with him last spring.
Bitch.
I
already hated her.

“I was up this way, seeing my sister,” she
said teasingly. “I thought I’d stop in, as Dev said you’d be back
this week, and see if you needed a little loving.”

I did a slow burn at Devlin for telling her
it was okay to come here, then blushed and was glad no one was
there to see me blushing. It was bad enough that Lash had likely
smelled the jealousy on me when I’d gone to get him.

“I heard you guys were back in town last
February, but I had another thing going then, with a rattler from
East Texas,” Lyssa said, a little apologetically. “And I knew Cin
worked around here, and you were probably with her—”

He was with me, you bitch.
He loves me.
Fuck off and die.

“We broke up,” Lash hissed angrily. “She
cheated on me, and I told her it was over.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Honey,” Lyssa hissed
sympathetically. “Anyway, Lynda said she saw you and Dev out one
night in the summer riding your bikes, and told me I should get up
here, see you. She told me Cin had moved away, down to
Tennessee.”

Lash didn’t reply, at least that I could
hear.

“Honey, I got to say, you are looking hot,”
she hissed. “It’s got to be true, the rumors you were dying, and
that demon of Dev’s, he brought you back with some faerie/vampire
potion? Made you young again?”

“It’s true,” Lash hissed, lust back in his
words. “You can see I’m young again.”

“I see, but not as much as I’d like to. You
busy, honey? You want to come with me now, back to Lyn’s house?”
Lyssa said seductively. “She’s at work now, and we’ll have the
place to ourselves for hours.”

I set my teeth together in fury, determined
not to make a sound.

“Sorry, Lys, I can’t,” Lash said
apologetically. “I’ve got a woman I’m seeing now.”

“The blonde?” Lyssa hissed, irritated. “You
always said you didn’t like blondes, Lash.”

I flushed again. I hadn’t known that, and it
felt odd, to hear her say that with surety and anger in her tone.
But what did I know about Lash really?
Next to nothing.

“The blonde is Dev’s Oathed One,” Lash
replied. “I’m seeing another woman.”

“She’s not as good as I am, whoever she is!”
Lyssa said arrogantly. “She can’t feel as good in your coils as I
always did—”

“I’m with her,” Lash hissed firmly. “And you
know me, Lyssa, know I’m only with one woman at a time, and that I
expect the same thing back. That’s all there is to say.”

“I know it.” Lyssa’s voice was mournful.
“Those years we were together, I never doubted you were faithful to
me. And you know I was faithful to you—”

“I know you were, but that’s past,” Lash said
almost gently. “It’s good to see you again, but nothing more than
this is going to happen between us.” He paused. “And yes, I like
the pink streaks.”

“If you change your mind, you know where to
find me,” Lyssa said brokenly, her tone emotional. “Take care of
yourself, Honey.”

“You too, Lys,” Lash said. There was the
sound of the door closing, and his feet walking slowly back
upstairs.

I was touched and pleased, to hear from
another woman that he was a faithful lover. But I’d believed that
about him, when he’d been my lover. It wasn’t too much of a stretch
now to believe that everything else he’d ever said to me was
true.

* * * *

Lash continued to see Gina almost every day,
every other day at the least. I only knew as those were the days I
either put dinner aside for him, because he said he would be late,
or had soup ready instead, depending if I was feeling grumpy or
nice. Whichever I did, Lash seemed the same, and treated me the
same. He was neither irritated, nor happy. This continued until the
following Friday night.

Lash, Dev, and I had gone to the mall, for
some food and a movie. I’d thought it quite risky, but Lash assured
me we’d be safe enough, between his skills and my teleportation
power.

We’d just finished seeing some slasher movie
that I couldn’t remember the name of, despite having just seen it.
I thought it was
Aliens
vs.
Predator III
or
something, but couldn’t be sure.

Lash and I were strolling along together,
window shopping. Well, I was, and he was keeping me safe. Devlin
had gone to feed on a slim brunette he’d seen watching him across
the mall, and we both knew he would be awhile, as he would have to
take her beyond the security cameras in the mall in order to feed
on her. I was a little worried, but Lash assured me again that
Devlin would be fine as he had regained his full strength; that
Ulysses was vampire now, too, and wouldn’t try anything mystical or
assassin-like with so many people around, especially as he wanted
to beat him in a fair fight to gain everything Devlin possessed.
There was too much fear of discovery, now that he, like Dev, had
something to hide. I admit it calmed me, even though we still had
no sure way to know if that was indeed Ulysses’ plan.

“So, what did you think of the movie?” I
asked him as we walked, unsure of what to say to him. He’d acted
distant again for most of the night.

“It was okay,” Lash said with a shrug. “But I
would’ve liked a little more realism in the blood. Slasher films
always put too much blood all over, and it’s never in the right
places.”

I tried not to grimace.
You asked for
this.

“I mean, when you cut someone’s throat, you
want to do it in a way to minimize the blood on you, unless you’ve
been paid extra to decorate the kill scene with it—”

I looked away, feeling queasy, and my eyes
rested on two figures walking fast to the exit. I stopped dead in
my tracks.
What the hell?

“Sar, what is it?” Lash said as he stopped in
mid-stride, turning to face me. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought I just saw Elle,” I said in
confusion. “But it can’t be. Danial would never—”

My eyes grew round with horror. Danial had
been unconscious since last month. Theoron had been running
Danial’s business as best he could, under the tutelage of Theo and
Terian. No one had been keeping tabs on Elle, or probably even
watching her, except maybe Theo. I’d depended on Danial for so long
to guard her and protect her, I hadn’t thought...

“Sar!” Lash said urgently, making me jump.
“We should go after her. She shouldn’t be out here this late at
night, alone. Terian and Theo can’t be here with her, they’re with
Theoron tonight having dinner.”

Has he been talking to Brian already,
spying again?
“Lash, how could she have gotten here? She
doesn’t have a driver’s license—”

“Sar, get real,” Lash said, grabbing my hand,
and pulling me with him. “I took a joyride in my first stolen car
when I was fourteen, and I never got caught. I looked old enough,
and I didn’t break any driving regs, so no one pulled me over. I
returned it to its owner undamaged, with the keys just as I’d found
them. Elle’s probably been doing that since she knew she could,
that no one was watching her anymore. No one would miss one of the
Expeditions for a few hours, maybe not even for a few days.”