Death Wish (9 page)

 Arys scowled. “I don’t want to lose you. Why must you hold that against me?”

“You know I don’t. But, this is my life, and I’m tired of having it manipulated by others. I can make my own decisions. They may not be the best ones, but they are mine to make.”

“The dreamwalker’s life is not yours to save.” Arys’s tone was low and smooth but deadly. “You won’t be any help to him or anybody else if you’re dead. Or worse. I don’t control you and neither does Shya. If you want to run around alone taunting people to take a shot at you, go right ahead. Maybe fucking up a few too many times will cure you from your insane obsession with death.”

“Don’t be a dick, Arys,” I warned. I looked at him through wolf eyes, staring intently until he shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest.

We faced off across the living room, adversaries in the heat of the moment. Arys brought out my feisty, defensive nature like nobody else. I think we both enjoyed the conflict; we fed off the fire.

“So, if you guys are done,” Shaz broke in. “Well, even if you’re not done, I’d like to state for the record that I think finding out who has a hit out on Lex is more important than arguing about whether or not she can take care of herself. I think she’s more than capable.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly. His support meant a lot, but it would have meant more if he hadn’t just been getting his rocks off with someone else. It wasn’t fair of me to think like that.

Arys smirked and Shaz gave him a derogatory look. It still astounded me how much Shaz had changed since we’d first met. I tried to pinpoint exactly when he’d matured from a frightened teenager to the Alpha wolf he now was. Had one specific event brought it forth, or was it always there beneath the surface? The years had gone by so fast. So much had changed, including us.

“I can’t let myself be intimidated by an asshole with a crossbow. I caught that damn thing, Arys. Inches from my face.” I refused to let him plant the seed of worry. “I know I’m not invincible, but I have power, and I’m finally learning how to use it.”

“We’ll find out who it is,” Arys declared. “But in the meantime, all I ask is that you be careful. Don’t be so reckless.”

He was hiding something, some thought or fear. There had been a time when Arys considered my ties to the human world to be little more than an inconvenience. What had changed?

The vampire looked between Shaz and me, contemplating. “As long as you’re here, pup, there’s something else you should know.”

“What?” Shaz was immediately suspicious.

I shook my head and shot Arys a warning glare that he ignored. Keeping his gaze on Shaz, he told him all about the journal and the twin flame revelation. Hearing the twin flame information repeated didn’t make it any easier to swallow. If anything, it was harder because I was coming to accept it as true.

My white wolf looked devastated. He sat heavily on the end of the couch, staring at the floor. “So it’s not just circumstance. You’re really part of him.”

I knew what he was thinking. He was wrong. I exchanged a look with Arys. He must have seen the helplessness in my eyes.

“Don’t miss the point, pup,” he said. “Alexa and I are halves of a whole, but we were never meant to exist together. Not without a reason. And, the odds of us finding out what that reason is before our bond destroys us are slim.”

When Shaz looked up, he had a heartbreaking weariness in his eyes. “I think I knew. Somewhere deep down inside, I knew it would be him.” 

“It isn’t like that.” I went to him, grasping his hand desperately. “I always said you balance out what he does to me. It’s true. I need you.”

I truly did. Shaz had always been my source of comfort, my wolf, the one who made me feel like I belonged somewhere. I had always felt that he was just as much a part of me as Arys was.

“I am a danger to her, Shaz. It’s you that grounds her.” Arys’s expression betrayed nothing, though his tone held a somber note. “We’re bonded outside the natural scheme of things. If I’d remained mortal, I never would have known her. But, you still would have.”

 Shaz let out the breath he’d been holding. “This is a lot to process. It’s just so… huge.” He turned intense wolf eyes on Arys. “Why the hell did you wait so long to tell her?”

There was silence as the two of them stared into one another. Shaz always rolled with the punches better than I did. Now that he’d accepted what we had told him, he wanted to know more. He stared expectantly at Arys who wore a mask of guilt.

“I wasn’t sure I’d ever tell her,” Arys admitted. “But, some people know about us. And, it’s changing her. Keeping it to myself wasn’t going to stop that. I only wished it would.”

  I wasn’t surprised to hear that. “You’ve got to stop that shit, Arys. You can’t hide anything from me. It’s always going to come out.”

 “I know. Try to see it from where I’m standing. I never knew if I’d find you, and now that I have, I don’t want to lose you.” To his credit, he had the decency to look chagrined.

His tendency to hide information and criticize my decisions was at the heart of most of our arguments. Seeing the raw emotion in his blue eyes made it hard to be angry.

“I understand. As hard as this is for me, I got the better deal. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you.”

Arys gazed at me with those entrancing eyes. There was a seductive pull to his energy. It was manipulative, getting under my skin like a metaphysical itch.

A frown graced Shaz’s youthful face. “It’s always about you, Arys. You already had her, and that wasn’t good enough so you blood bonded her. You made her what you are. And now, it’s devouring her. You’re a real piece of work, pal.”

Arys tilted his head to the side and regarded Shaz with bitter amusement. “Watch your mouth, wolf. You were right there encouraging her to accept the blood bond. It was to keep her safe.”

“Safe from everyone but you.” Shaz was fearless, rising to challenge the vampire with his cold stare.

“Wrong!” Arys hissed. In a flash, he was up off the recliner, in Shaz’s face. “Everything I am was already inside of her. You saw signs of that before I ever bonded her. What we share isn’t about blood. It’s beyond life and death. My darkness tempts her, but you keep her wolf alive. You keep her human. But, you’re too busy whoring at The Wicked Kiss to see that.”

Shaz growled and bared fangs. I shoved my way between them, forcing them apart.

“Cut it out! Finger pointing doesn’t do a damn bit of good. I’d like you both to keep in mind that I am not an object. I don’t belong to anybody. I am my own entity, a person joined to you both in different ways but owned by neither. Got it?”

Grudgingly, they each nodded. Arys didn’t believe it. I could see it in his eyes. He believed I was his to claim, and maybe if I’d been in his place, knowing what he knew for so many years, I’d have felt the same way. Still, I wasn’t above handing out an ass kicking to either of them.

Swiping his dropped keys off the table, Shaz headed for the door with an angry stride.

“Shaz, wait.” I hurried after him and grabbed his arm, trying to make him look at me.

He shook me off and flung open the front door. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Please? Don’t leave. Not like this,” I pleaded. Fear gripped my heart as the wall between us grew.

“Sorry, Lex. I just need some time alone.”

I turned away when he disappeared through the doorway. I felt ill every time he left my side. I couldn’t shake the fear that one day it would be the last time. I didn’t want to have that vision etched in my memory forever.

Chapter Seven

I returned to the living room to find Arys settled back into the recliner. He beckoned to me with a crooked finger.

 “That went well.” Crawling onto the lounger, I squeezed in beside him. “Why the hell did Shaz come to you of all people?”

His bare chest was slightly cool to the touch. He hadn’t fed recently. I ran my fingers over the hard expanse and down to the thin smattering of hair that disappeared below the waistband of his pants.

“He came to ask me for help.” Arys paused, letting me wrap my brain around that before continuing. “I’m glad he did. It took balls for him to come to me.”

“Agreed. Can you help him? I mean, what can we do?”

“What drew him in was the rush of the power and the excitement of the intimate nature of being bitten. That started with us.” Our eyes met and we shared a look. “Shaz’s problem began when he started seeking out the same thrill without us. We had no way of knowing what was going on with him. He’s too damn stubborn.”

I nodded knowingly. “He didn’t want to admit that he got off on being with you that way.”

  “There’s not a damn thing anyone can do for him until he’s ready. If he wants my help, Alexa, you need to be aware of what that might mean. If he were to come to me, if he were to ask for it…”

Arys fell quiet, letting me put the rest of that sentence together. I shook my head. I couldn’t think about this right now. Sleep began to call my name, tugging at my eyelids. I didn’t realize I was drifting off until Arys touched a hand to my face and I jumped.

The chair jerked as he closed the foot extension. Gathering me in his arms, Arys brushed a kiss across the bridge of my nose. It tickled and I laughed sleepily.

“Bedtime,” Arys declared. “You don’t sleep enough.”

“There’s no time to sleep,” I mumbled into his shoulder, my arms clasped around his neck. “My sister is alive, and I’m being investigated for murder by the FPA.”

“You’re just full of surprises tonight, aren’t you?” Arys carried me down the hall to his bedroom. Spending the day in slumber buried in the fluffy marshmallow that was Arys’s bed didn’t strike me as a bad idea. As sleep crept in further, the worries of earlier slipped away.

After gently laying me against the mountain of soft blankets and pillows, he stripped my clothing off and drew a satin sheet up over me. Arys shed his pants and crawled in next to me. The touch of his naked flesh against mine brought a sigh to my lips. 

It didn’t take long for sleep to claim me. Unfortunately, it was restless and disturbed. It was just past three in the afternoon when I couldn’t take the tossing and turning anymore. Arys remained in the slumber of the undead. He didn’t really need to sleep. Not often anyway. I think he just enjoyed the luxury of it.

Once I tired of staring at the ceiling, I slipped from the bed and padded down the hall, through the living room to the kitchen. I dug through my shoulder bag, looking for Arys’s journal. I didn’t like to leave it at home where it could be found by anybody who might decide to bust in and paw through my stuff.

I paused to check my cell phone for messages: one from Jez and one from my best friend and beta wolf, Kylarai, but nothing from Shaz. I’d hoped to find a text, something to let me know things were cool. So much for that.

I slipped my phone back into my bag, grabbed the journal and headed back to the bedroom. Arys stirred slightly, reaching to touch me as I settled back in beside him.

The pages felt so fragile. I turned them with care, skimming through as I went. There was more on Alice. It didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t already figured out. Harley’s name caught my eye several times. Morbid curiosity drew me to an entry I’d previously skipped over.

Once I turned my full attention to Arys’s memories, recorded decades ago, I got caught up in his words. Everything else fell away but that night captured on the pages in my hands.

December 5, 1849

They were lovely really. Like usual, Harley’s choice. He has a weakness for virgins. Personally, I prefer a woman who knows what she’s doing and can appreciate the things I do to her. The virgins…they tend to scream. A lot. Of course, I have found virgins to be very quick to beg. And, that I just can’t get enough of.

It was easy enough to lure them home. It always is. The right word or gesture, and they’re more than happy to sneak away from a party before their companions notice their absence. Harley can sniff out a virgin anywhere. He claims virgin blood to be the nectar of the gods, but I find it to be a little too pure for my tastes. These women though, they were divine. A blonde and one with deep scarlet hair who was surprisingly eager when I had her spread-eagle on the chaise lounge. 

Once Harley’s shy little blonde began shrieking, things really became interesting. Everything had been going splendidly. My little virgin temptress writhed beneath me as I pleasured her with my mouth. She begged for more, and I savored the heat of her womanhood against my tongue as I fed on the burning energy of her desire. It was intoxicating, a prelude to the moment when I would taste her blood.

I had to pause, to focus on taking a breath. I realized I’d held mine while reading. The words sprang to life, pulling me into the scene as Arys’s memory of this night crashed into the front of my conscious thoughts. I was seeing it through his eyes, reliving it as if I’d been there myself.

Screams rang out and my innocent beauty became alarmed. I assured her that there was nothing to fear. Drawn into the lull of my manipulation, she pulled me close, offering herself to me. Harley would have his victim screaming for hours if he could manage it. I wasn’t ready yet to make mine fight for her life. All in good time.