Darkness Falls (21 page)

Chuckling, he handed her a towel that he must have pulled from his ass because she certainly didn’t carry a towel around in her glove compartment. But it was dry and she was wet so she used it to sop up the liquid, glad the tea hadn’t burned her too badly. “Seriously, Mal, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she said defensively, plucking the damp material away from her skin and grimacing. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Spying on that house across the street,” he answered, nodding his head towards Nadine’s house. “Are you?”

“Pshaw,” she snorted, ignoring Jiro’s probing gaze by fumbling with her now empty Styrofoam tea cup. “Why would I do something like that?”

“Well, you’ve been sitting here all morning and I was just curious.”

“I’m just sitting here thinking,” she answered. “Trying to figure out where to go from here since New York was a bust.”

“And why is it that you’re no longer in New York?” he asked, arching his eyebrow.

“Because it was a bust,” she repeated slowly. Her brows drew together as she realized something very important, something she would have realized sooner had Jiro not caught her off guard and made her spill her tea. “Where’s Toby?”

“With Jack….”

“What?” she practically screeched, her skin crawling and her heart racing. “Are you insane? Until last week he was a vampire. What the hell, Jiro, I trusted you with my son.”

“Malorie….”

“Send me back,” she demanded through clenched teeth. “Send me back now.”

Heaving a sigh, he waved his arm and a black hole opened up next to her car door. Without sparing him a second glance, she pushed the door open and stepped through the tear in reality. In her anger, she had forgotten how awful the trip through Netherspace was but she didn’t care since she had to get back to Toby. As much as she wanted to trust Jack, she couldn’t, not yet.

Closing her eyes didn’t help so she concentrated on her son, on his smile and his hugs, falling into the nothingness instead of fighting it. It felt like dying and she hated traveling this way. If she was going to have a life outside of Feryn, she was going to have to figure out some other way to travel between dimensions because this way was awful. It scrambled her brains and turned her insides out and while it didn’t necessarily hurt it felt unnatural and she didn’t think it was something she would ever get used to doing

The sun blinded her eyes as she landed on a rough surface. Desperate to release the energy building up within her and tearing at her skin, she buried her fingers in the sand but nothing happened. There were no seeds nearby.

“Malorie?” a familiar male voice whispered as a warm hand touched her shoulder.

Sensing a vessel to release the energy, she curled her fingers into the soft material of his shirt and pulled his head down to hers, blindly searching for his mouth. His lips parted and she kissed him, pouring her excess energy into his body, tangling her tongue with his as he fell onto his back and brought her over him. As the power lessened, she continued to straddle his body, her mouth still smashed against his.

Strong fingers wrapped around her shoulders but they weren’t pushing her away. A groan came from the back of his throat and she realized that while his lips and taste were familiar, they weren’t Feryn’s. Jerking free, she stared down into the pleasure-glazed eyes of Jack and let out a horrified gasp, hissing one word, “No.”

His dreamy expression twisted as his back arched and he grabbed his groin, crying out in pain and ecstasy, “Oh, Jesus. Fuck.”

Looking down between their bodies, she saw the stain spread over the front of his swim trunks as he came all over himself and she realized that she was responsible. Horrified by her actions, she pushed away from him and fell on her backside, looking around and seeing Toby’s confused expression and Feryn’s furious glare. Pain rippled across his handsome face as he turned around and stalked away from her.

Scrambling to her feet, she chased after him, grabbing his arm and making him face her. “Feryn.”

“Welcome back, Malorie,” he ground out, avoiding her eyes as he looked over her head.

“Look at me, damn it,” she growled, reaching up and grabbing the back of his head. He fought her so she punched him in the gut, which didn’t really affect him but it did make him look at her. “You don’t know what it’s like for me to go through the Netherspace and when I come out, I’m barely aware that I’m human.”

Finally, he lowered his head and looked at her with guarded eyes so she continued on, “I have to discharge the energy build up or I’ll go mad. If you had gotten to me first I would have kissed you instead.”

“So you would have kissed any random stranger?”

Heaving a sigh, she shook her head, “There was a familiarity about him.”

“Fine,” he bit out, his eyes frosty as he looked at her. “But why didn’t you tell me that Jack was back?”

“When have I had a chance?” she demanded to know, throwing her arms out to the side but not backing down an inch. “He showed up after you left and then I headed out in the morning, like we agreed.”

“I had to find out from my brother when he asked me to babysit your son. Yet the moment Jiro leaves, you showed up,” he growled, his aura expanding outwards and crowding into her space. “Do you not trust me to watch Toby?”

“What?” she asked, confused by his question. “I didn’t even know you were here. Jiro just showed up and I demanded he send me back because I thought he left my son alone with my dead husband.”

“Malorie,” Jack groaned from behind her.

“What?” she growled, spinning around to glare at Jack and freezing when she saw that he was curled in on himself. He was clutching his stomach with one hand and pressing the other against his crotch. Her eyes widened as she stared at the twisted pleasure-pain expression on his face.

“What did you do to me?” Jack panted as his body jerked. “Jesus, Mal, what have you done?”

Helplessly, she turned to Feryn for answers but he was gone and she didn’t know what to do. Staggering over to Jack’s side, she kneeled down, realizing that Toby was there, too, concern and love etched on his tiny face. Cautiously, she took Jack hand in hers and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Jack barked out a humorless laugh as he glanced at Toby before answering, “I went from flaccid to orgasmic in a matter of heartbeats, Mal. The only problem is it’s not going away.”

Toby stood and walked a few feet away to a grove of banana trees, returning a moment later with a handful of rich soil. “I found a seed.”

“Toby,” Malorie said, wondering what her son was doing. But Jack seemed to understand, scooping the dirt into his hand and closing his eyes. A moment later, a plant burst upwards and Malorie fell backwards onto her ass, staring at her ex and her son. “What? How?”

Letting the plant drop, he looked at Malorie as pain still twisted his face, “It’s not enough.”

“Jack….”

“You can’t tell anyone,” he pleaded with painful breathlessness.

“I won’t,” she promised, looking at Toby and seeing the satisfaction in his small face. How had Toby known Jack was a Breeder?

“It hurts, Mal,” Jack wheezed.

“Jack,” she breathed, her words cut off when Feryn wrapped his hands around her shoulders and pulled her to her feet. Then he swept his arm around Toby and lifted her son into the air and pressed Toby’s face against his neck. In the next moment, there was a gorgeous, female Aradian kneeling next to Jack, making quick work of Jack’s clothes. It took only a moment before Malorie realized the blond Aradian was making love to Jack, taking him into her body as she leaned forward and pressed her teeth into his throat.

“No!” Malorie cried, grabbing the woman’s slender shoulders and trying to pull her off Jack before he could be converted back into a vampire. But the Aradian didn’t budge, no matter how hard Malorie fought.

The woman gasped as she pulled her teeth from Jack’s neck, her eyes rolling up as she licked her lips. “His blood is exquisite, unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. Thank you.”

“Feryn!” Malorie cried when it became obvious the woman was ignoring her as she sank her teeth back into Jack’s throat. Feryn was covering Toby’s face as he walked away with her son so she had no choice but to follow to discover what the hell he thought he was doing. “Feryn, why?”

“She’s not going to convert him,” he said deliberately, sounding almost offended that she would think otherwise. Turning around to face her, she saw the hurt in his eyes at her lack of trust as he shook his head, “It was obvious your dead husband was suffering and it seemed only logical that an Aradian would be able to help, since it seemed sexual in nature.”

“Of course,” she said dryly, wondering how his logic worked. Reaching up, she gently touched Toby’s back and didn’t quite meet Feryn’s eyes as she murmured, “Thank you for protecting Toby.”

He was silent for a long moment and when she finally looked at him, he was studying her with inscrutable, brilliant green eyes. Gently, he ran the tip of his finger along her jaw as he whispered, “Do you really think I would do anything less?”

She shook her head no, knowing he would do anything for her but also knowing he had his own idea of why she was so wary. Ignoring Jack and the Aradian, she murmured, “I don’t want Jack to lose his life again and I’m frustrated because I’m no closer to finding my father and now I have even more reasons to find him.”

Cupping her cheek, sliding his fingers into her hair, he smiled down at her, “I’m sure he’s fine.”

She had to smile at his words but, of course, he didn’t understand. Waging an internal war, she debated whether or not to tell him about Hunter, knowing that to do so would be to condemn the poor boy to a fate he might never want. But how could she keep something so huge from her mate? There was also Jack, though she had promised not to say anything just yet. She opened her mouth when the purr of her car drowned out the sounds of sex on the beach and she turned around as Jiro came to a stop in the small parking lot, a broad grin on his face and a sullen passenger in the front seat.

“Malorie?” Feryn asked in a deceptively calm voice. “Is there anything you’d care to tell me?”

“Yeah,” she managed, gulping air. “Jiro has incredibly awful timing.”

Jiro bounded out of the car but her brother stayed behind, with his arms tightly crossed across the front of his chest. Hunter’s eyes widened in his abnormally pale face as he saw the spectacle on the beach of Jack and the Aradian and Malorie blushed on his behalf.

“Look what I found when I went and tracked down your wayward mate! Another male Breeder!” Jiro called out, coming to a stop besides Malorie and throwing an arm around her shoulders. Squeezing tighter than necessary, he said through a false grin, “It looks like our little Breeder has been keeping something from us.”

Shrugging out of Jiro’s embrace, she spun around and glared at him, “Feryn knows everything there is to know about me.”

“I didn’t know about Jack,” Feryn murmured softly from behind her.

Throwing her hands up in the air, she turned to face Feryn with frustration, “Dear God, how many times do I have to tell you? There wasn’t time to explain Jack.” Turning back to Jiro, she growled, “And you can’t just kidnap a sixteen year old boy from his home, Jiro!”

“I didn’t kidnap him. You can’t kidnap someone who doesn’t exist,” he taunted, fire burning in his silver-green eyes as he glared at Malorie. Without taking his eyes from her face, he bellowed, “And could you do something about the fuck-fest on the beach, Feryn? Jesus, it’s distracting.”

“Sorry!” a soft voice called out from the beach. With a shimmer, the Aradian and Jack disappeared until it was just the five of them: Feryn, Malorie and Toby, Jiro and Hunter.

“What did you do?” she asked in a horrified whisper.

“I erased his life,” Jiro said proudly, smugly.

Planting her hands on her hips, Malorie returned Jiro’s glare with just as much fire, “Take him back now.”

“You’re my brother’s mate, not mine,” Jiro fired back. “You have no power over me.”

“Take him back.”

“We have already lost two Breeders because of you….”

“You didn’t even know we existed until me!” she shot back in disbelief at his selective memory. “He is just a boy, Jiro. Let him go.”

“He’s sixteen,” Feryn said softly from behind her. “In the past, he would have bedded his first female by now.”

Spinning, she stared at her mate in horror, “He’s just a child.”

“He’s sixteen and a Breeder. It would mean less pressure on you and your son.” Reaching up, Feryn cupped her cheek in his warm hand and looked at her with sympathy, “Who is this boy to you, love? You’ve just met him and I don’t understand why you’re getting so upset.”

“Feryn,” she breathed, her eyes swimming with tears because he was truly considering adding Hunter to the breeding program. She glanced at Toby who listened intently, understanding far more than a six-year-old should. With a wry look, Feryn whispered something in Toby’s ear and set him down. With a glance at Malorie, Toby went back to playing in the sand, close enough to be safe but far enough away to not hear anything more. Moistening her lips, she said in an under-tone, “I promised him he would be safe.”

“We’ve discussed this before,” Feryn murmured, calm and logical. “Your father is AWOL and your son has been allowed to make his own decision so this boy is the future of my people. If you wanted to keep him safe, you should have stayed far, far away from him.”

He wasn’t even aware of how cruel and callous he was being. Stepping away from him, she felt her face twist with emotion, with sorrow and anger. “I don’t know you at all.”

She saw the way he flinched and she knew that her words wounded him but he didn’t back down. Heaving a world weary sigh, he looked at her with pity, “You act as if I’m human, Malorie, but I’m not. And, for that matter, neither are you and neither is this boy.”

“It will give us one more Breeder to run tests on,” Jiro said fervently, unable to hide the dark excitement in his eyes. Both Feryn and Malorie turned to him in question and the carefully controlled expression morphed into a brilliant smile, “I figured out how Jack became human.”