Afterglow (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #2) (13 page)

When I saw her do this, I began to understand, and her melancholy became mine. Her husband’s ashes were in there. I realized that she had come to tell him something, as I had seen her do before. I wondered if it was her final goodbye before she began a love affair with me.

I sat in the snow, on a marble table under the black lace of bare tree branches, looking absently at the full moon and waiting for Ambra to come out of the mausoleum.

When she came out, to my surprise, a huge red and silver wolf leapt out from behind the building and bit her right arm. And held on.

In a flash, I leaped off the snow-covered marble table, my silver blade weapon out of my right boot. Ambra yelped and struggled to get to her full-length scythe in her right boot, but with her left arm and was miserably failing. She grabbed at her scythe necklace with her free left arm and the chain broke and the mini-scythe went flying in the snow, only to be lost until spring.

“Corbin! Let her go!” I shouted.

The topaz-colored eyes of the huge werewolf and the full moon made me put two and two together.

The animal snarled at me and clamped its jaws onto her coat sleeve with her arm in it.

“
It’s Ambra! You go skiing together! She’s your
friend
!”

The werewolf tried to drag her away. She kicked and screamed and fought, all to no avail.

“You can’t have her, Corbin! I love her and she loves me!”

The werewolf’s mouth was full of her forearm, so I knew he couldn’t bite me unless he let go of her. I didn’t want to kill Corbin, but there was no way that I was going to let him turn her into a werewolf. Or eat her.

I stabbed the werewolf in the shoulder, a non-lethal place, I hoped. A lot of our organization hinged on having Corbin here, taking care of the wolf pack. But I wasn’t going to let him kill Ambra. Or turn her, either. Corbin wasn’t indispensable. But then, neither was Ambra.

The werewolf yelped out when my silver blade sank deep into his shoulder. As soon as he let go of her arm, I grabbed Ambra and put her behind me, then withdrew my silver blade from the werewolf’s shoulder.

I held out my blade and faced my friend, Corbin, in his werewolf form.

“
Corbin! You son of a bitch! If you
ever
touch her again, you’re dead! I will cut off your wolf head with my silver blade and hang it from the tower so the ravens can pluck out your cold, dead eyes! Do you understand? Ambra is
mine
!”

Whining, the werewolf limped off into the forest, spreading a blood trail behind him.

I gathered Ambra in my arms and calmly walked back to the castle to claim our love.

It was time.

Chapter Sixteen

On this winter’s night, just after I’d saved Ambra from being turned or eaten by our own resident werewolf, it was all I could do to carry her silently sobbing body through the deep snow toward the safety of our castle.

“Corbin was my friend. I trusted him!” she said, shaking. “We skied together. For years!”

“
I know.”

“
Do you think he was going to kill me and eat me?” she asked.

“
No, I think he was going to turn you, and keep you for himself. For a mate. He probably fell in love with you. And felt very threatened by me.”

“
Oh, this is terrible,” Ambra said. “I never meant for that to happen. I never gave Corbin any encouragement in that department.”

“
I believe you.”

“
Put me down. I can walk.”

I put her down. “How’s your arm?”

“It hurts a lot.”

“
Griff will fix you up.”

“
I won’t be able to fight or do parkour for a while if he broke my ulna.”

“
Does it feel broken?”

“
I don’t know. Maybe.”

“
Ambra, you just got yourself a new ski partner.”

“
Who, you, surfer boy?”

“
Yeah. Start me out on the bunny hills and watch me learn. Kick my ass on the slopes like you do everywhere else.”

“
Okay. We’ll ski. As soon as I can hold my poles again.”

I took her through the south secret passage and straight to Griffin’s medical office. I used the house phone to call him downstairs.

It was with great relief that we took off her coat carefully and didn’t see one drop of blood.

“
Thank goodness he didn’t break the skin!” I said. “You could have ended up a werewolf. I mean, I guess that’s how it works.”

She nodded.

Griffin came immediately and looked at the damage. He cleaned it up and took a digital x-ray and we all looked at it.

“
Nothing’s broken. The bone is bruised. The skin is unbroken.”

She nodded. “Thanks. Glad you are here, Griff.”

“Me, too. Did Corbin really do this?” Griff asked.

“
I guess we’ll find out tomorrow if he comes in and asks you to patch up a shoulder wound,” Ambra said.

“
This is going to change some things here, in the castle, about our contact with Corbin,” I said.

“
We aren’t supposed to go outside the castle walls during a full moon,” Ambra said. “It wasn’t Corbin’s fault. It was mine. I knew it was a full moon. I just didn’t think he would hurt me.
Ever
.”

“
You sound like you forgive him,” I said, hurt and angry.

“
I’m just trying to understand an immortal. We don’t know what it is like to walk in their shoes,” Ambra said. “Or their paws.”

Griff said, “Come back if it hurts worse in a few days and we’ll take you for an MRI in Zürich, if necessary.”

“Thank you. I will.”

Griff gave her a bottle of pain pills, hand-wrote the prescription label, and sent us on our way to bed.

“I’m sure we’re going to have to tell Lucas and the others what happened and also talk to Corbin in his human form and get him to promise this will never happen again,” Ambra said.

“
Ambra, he probably can’t control it when he’s an animal,” I said. “Does your arm hurt?”

“
Yes, but I will be all right.”

“
I’ll walk you to your room,” I said.

“
Why don’t you walk me to yours?” Ambra said, her eyes watching mine carefully.

My heart soared.

Apparently, while I had been gone to Romania, Mikhail had been bunking in the empty second bed in my bedchamber for the last week, as his room was being exterminated, again, for rats. For some reason, they had been able to get through the cracks in the stone wall and seemed to congregate in his bedchamber. I didn’t blame him a bit for not wanting to sleep in there.

So, when I walked into my bedchamber and kicked open the door, with Ambra in my arms, and a flexible ice pack taped to her arm, Mikhail sat up in bed, shocked. “What happened? Is she hurt?”

I didn’t feel like explaining the whole thing tonight. Tomorrow would be soon enough.

“Wolf bite. I got there just in time.”

“
Yikes. The wolves are getting braver.”

“
Hunger creates courage in them.”

“
And in us.”

“
Did you get bitten, Rand?”

“
No. I stabbed him in the shoulder with my silver blade. He had a hold of her right arm or she would have got him with her scythe.”

“
Good thing you were there.”

“
Yeah.”

“
I’m gonna go bunk in somewhere else, man. You two should be alone tonight.”

I nodded, but asked, “Where are you going?”

He grabbed a pillow and blanket. “I doubt Nariko would kick me out of her bed.”

“
Nariko? I didn’t know you two...”

“
You weren’t supposed to know. There aren’t any rules, per se, about us not fraternizing with the Sisterhood of the Scythe, but I like to keep things close to my vest.”

“
As do I,” I said. “Your discretion is appreciated. A lady’s reputation is a precious thing.”

Mikhail smiled. “Anyone could look at either of you and clearly see what is there.”

Ambra hid her face in my shoulder. Obviously, she didn’t want to talk to Mikhail tonight.

“
You two have been connected since day one. She’s lucky you were right there to save her.”

“
She’s saved my dumb ass a couple of times, at least.”

“
So now, you own each other’s lives?”

“
Something like that,” I agreed. “Or so the legend goes.”

“
Godspeed,” he said, opening the bedroom door to the drafty corridor.

“
And to you, my brother of the blade.”

“
Goodnight, Rand and Ambra.” Mikhail closed the door softly behind him and I heard his feet padding down the stone corridor. I heard a distant knock, a click, and a heavy door shutting. He was in Nariko’s room.

“
You should put me down. I’m not a bride,” Ambra finally said.

“
The hell you aren’t.”

She gave me a smile I had never seen before. It was very feminine and becoming.

I laid her gently on the bed and undid the fastenings of her clothing and her bra and then I took off her panties, boots, socks, everything.

“
I lost my scythe necklace in the snow.”

“
We’ll find it in spring, after the thaw.”

I had never before seen her without it, except on the night that she had loaned it to Gabrielle.

“I feel naked without it.”

“
Good.”

Our eyes locked together and hers were moist, which made mine moist. The satin proximity of her unspeakably ivory skin poured over me like warm milk. I leaned closer to taste her cherry-red lips. I devoured her with my eyes.

She invited more with just one word, “Rand.”

“
You’re beautiful, Ambra,” I said. “You’re so brave and true, more than any woman has a right to be without having angel wings.”

She smiled. “I’m very mortal and I’m very cold,” she said. “Can I take a hot bath? Before we…”

“Yes.” I paused. “Not to break the mood, but I feel stupid because I don’t have a condom. I’ve never even thought I would need one. Not here, in my new life as a vampire hunter.”

She laughed, and it was a sad laugh.

“Why are you laughing?”

“
Because you are the man with whom I would most like to have babies and I can’t get pregnant.”

“
Ever?”

“
No, it’s temporary. Just a Depo shot.”

“
Why?”

“
We all decided—me and the other Sisters of the Scythe—that any pregnancy would make us too vulnerable to vampires and put our kids in jeopardy if we had any.” She added, “Look at Samantha Moon. She betrayed her own kind to protect her human children. And ours and the future of humankind, as well.”

“
So, you all—”

“
Yes. We all…none of us can have kids for a while. It was unanimous. If any of us gets pregnant, we have to go on a leave of absence.”

“
There’s plenty of time for children, Ambra.”

She swallowed hard. “No, there isn’t. Nobody knows when they are going to die. Everyone thinks they have forever to decide things.” She raised a shapely hand and stroked the side of my face. “Your daughter is still missing. You must be going crazy.”

I nodded. “I bury it deep. But I think of her every waking hour.”

“
So do I,” said Ambra.

“
You?”

“
Yes, your pain and sorrow has become mine, as I grew to know you, to care for you.”

“
Ah, the burden of an empath,” I said.

“
I do feel the pain and worry of others. Likewise, Rand, your love and your hope for her has become mine. It is not just that I hope we can find Kristen and bring her back safely, but that we can take back the night from all of the vampires, and make those nights ours again. That we may once again live in peace, not fear, keeps me at my task of killing the bad ones.”

“
Wow. So, do you know about my doubts that every vampire is evil?” I couldn’t think of what else to say.

She nodded. “I have felt very much the same.”

“We need to talk to everyone about getting some more intel and adding more names to the Do Not Kill List.”