Falling from the Light (The Night Runner Series Book 3) (12 page)

Then his hand left my shoulder to slide across my throat and urge me upright. His other hand slid down my front and between my legs, and I gasped as his fingers pressed and swirled.

“Tell me you want this,” he whispered, influence brightening his words. His voice was pure hunger, as if he was desperate to hear me say it.

“I want this. I want you.”

His hand slid around until his forearm was pressed against my throat, and he bit into his wrist. I winced when I heard it, shivered when hot drops of blood fell on my shoulder. Mal’s rhythm changed, his fingers moving more insistently, and I came again as he drove hard. I dropped onto my elbows, gasping for air.

“Done so soon?” Mal whispered against my ear. Wicked, wicked male.

“I need a sec. My legs are trembling. Or quivering. Or maybe the quivers are shuddering. There’s just…all kinds of sensitive going on.”

He laughed. Then he flipped me over and pulled me to the edge of the couch. His cock pressed against me. I screamed hoarsely and he stopped, giving me a moment to adjust, which mostly consisted of writhing and swearing, then reaching up to pull him closer.

His tongue glided along the pulse at my throat as he sank into me, excruciatingly slow. My mouth fell open, only to be filled with his kiss.

“
I
s
it weird that I want a cigarette even though I don’t smoke?” I asked. From where he rested his head on my bare stomach, Malcolm smiled. His eyes were closed, but shallow lines fanned out around them and I traced them with my fingers.

“Shall I call room service for you?”

“Yeah, but you have to get the door. I’m too weak to put clothes on.”

His smile widened. “Perfect.”

“You’re diabolical.”

“That’s not what you were screaming an hour ago. I believe your exact words were ‘give me more or I’m going to punch you right in that beautiful—’”

“I was quoting something. It was an after-school special, or porn. I can’t remember which.” I squirmed away from his fingers when they found a ticklish spot behind my knee. “Did you see that dust storm?”

“From a distance. It was hazy where we were, cloudy. Those burns would have been worse if it hadn’t been.”

“That’s lucky, I guess.” And there went my lazy euphoria.

He disappeared from the bed, moving like tracers in my vision. He didn’t do that in front of me unless we were in a dire situation or he’d forgotten himself. I sat up and pulled the sheet to my chest.

He landed on the bed again a moment later, a robe hanging loosely from his shoulders, a bottle of cold water in his hand. I took it.

“Did you discover something else?”

He nodded. “The others went South to scope out a couple of houses. They weren’t supposed to go in until Sora and I got there. You saw the results of them ignoring that direction. We were double-checking a couple of the haunts Abel had occupied here, to see if he’d circled back. Someone had been to one of them but we don’t believe it was Abel. There were several people, and at least two humans among them. They were gone when we arrived.”

I uncapped the water and took a swig. “There’ve been vampires out in the city, soliciting some of the feeders from here. Do you think that Abel’s hooked up with them?”

Malcolm ran his fingers along my eyebrow to my temple, then down along my jaw.

“He wouldn’t do so unless he considered it advantageous.”

“But they were at one of his places? Could they have stumbled upon it by accident?”

“It’s too much of a coincidence. Those vampires, Abel would consider them soft. They’re basically refugees, not fighters. He’d have no use for them.”

“Unless his strategy has changed. He tried to pledge himself to Bronson. That didn’t work. Then he was part of an attack. That also failed. What other tactics would he resort to?”

“The Vasilievs sent brutal messages to Bronson, thinking they would scare him into giving in.” Mal’s hand fell away and his energy drew tight around him. “When they got Lucille, something changed in the Master. There was no more negotiation, and there was no mercy in what Bronson had us do to them. In the end, they took the fighting to the streets because, if humans were watching, their deaths would be quicker. Abel’s hive wasn’t just defeated. It was torn apart.”

Mal was hard when he’d come to find me in Hawaii. Cold. I’d been afraid of him until he’d touched me, so carefully. And now I felt like we were coming into balance with each other. At least, I hoped. Except, every time we made progress, something new and terrible showed up.

“Is he aligning with these refugees in the hopes of finding mercy?”

“Bronson won’t forget who he is, no matter who he surrounds himself with.”

“This group is really pro-human, right? Abel isn’t exactly adept at dealing with us.” I played with the plastic ring around the neck of the water bottle. “Bronson needs his people to be able to appear sociable to humans, especially after what happened in Alaska. Maybe Abel is trying to reinvent himself in the image of these refugees. To make himself appear to be a contender in Bronson’s current regime.”

“Maybe. Plus he’d have a few allies. Whatever he’s doing, I don’t like it, Syd. He’s too close. I want you to leave. You’ve done what Bronson asked. Go back to Alaska where Abel won’t dare to go. Until this is over.”

“I don’t think Bronson will consider my favor completed. I said in my letter that there were traces of vampire in that lab, and that guy Bill—”

“I will deal with his disappointment.”

My rising protest must have shown on my face because Mal made a frustrated noise and reached for me. The knock on the door made me jump, but the energy surrounding our visitor was familiar.

“Soraya,” we said at the same time.

I rolled out of bed and into the bathroom while he went to answer the door. I ached sweetly, though the couch burn on my knees left something to be desired. Showering as fast as I could, I came out to find Malcolm dressed, his hair damp. He’d used Mickey’s shower. She’d squeal when I told her.

Soraya was also there, which wasn’t going to make anyone squeal except maybe out of fright. Her arms were crossed over a fitted black tank top and, while her expression was blank, her eyes were bright with orange light.

“He was explicit,” she said. Mal paced the room, hands on his hips.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Master Bronson’s directive,” she said without looking at me.

“He should be dead,” Malcolm snapped. The pictures on the wall nearest him vibrated.

“Wait, who?” I asked.

“Abel. But Bronson believes that there are cells of Vasiliev soldiers in Alaska,” Soraya said. “He believes Abel knows where they are.”

“Wouldn’t that make Abel his enemy?” I asked.

“Not if he has useful information about them rather than allegiance to them.” Mal turned, pinching the back of his neck. “Bronson’s paranoid, nothing more.”

“He’s insistent, which is the only thing we need to be thinking about,” Soraya replied, glancing pointedly at me. I returned her look with a scowl.

“Then let’s move the clock up on this. Stop following and call him out. We’ll lay an invitation in Bronson’s name, specifying that he is welcome for a set appointment only. If he doesn’t come, we hunt him down. What do you think, Syd?”

When Mal’s attention turned to me, Soraya left. She moved silently, but the slap of her energy made it feel like she was storming out.

“I’m trying not to think about it.” Being surrounded by vampires within the confines of Chev’s rules was one thing. Inviting that particular one was something else entirely. I shivered. “I’m going to try to get into that test lab tomorrow, see if I can catch something stronger than what I sensed today.”

“It’s a wild-goose chase.”

“There was something there.” My hands fisted on my waist. “This isn’t about doing what Bronson told me to do. It’s about finding a way to stop that shit from spreading.” And it was about shielding Malcolm from more of Bronson’s wrath.

“After that…I’m all set with this mortal peril business. Mickey and I will head north.” I leaned against him, pushing back the images in my head of Abel lunging for me. “How long will this take? How long before I see you again?”

“I’ll join you as soon as I can.” His palms stroked my arms. I relaxed, the cold rock melting away from my stomach. “We’ll go anywhere you like. We’ll take some time to simply float.”

“I like the sound of that. Can we go to Detroit?”

“I say anywhere in the world and you say Detroit?”

“Don’t look all offended. It’s
the
Motor City. The Automotive Hall of Fame?” I spread my hands, trying to show him how obvious the choice was. “You said anywhere.”

“I’ll have to think about…that.” He sounded like he wanted to do no such thing.

“There’s this place where you can build a Cadillac, one of those pimp seventies models.”

“You want to build a car for a nonexistent pimp?”

“Oh, come on! It’ll be fun. We can go to Joe Louis, home of the Red Wings. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Stevie Yzerman?” My gesticulations widened when he scowled. “He made captain at twenty-one and was the greatest center in the NHL. And you know why he was great? ’Cause he sacrificed for the team. He could have been a hotshot, focused only on his… Why are you smiling like that?”

“I’m not laughing at you. I like…arguing with you.”

I snorted.

“I do. It’s so…”

He grabbed me and, for a second, I thought we were about to start round four. But then his hold relaxed and drifted to my lower back, pulling me to sway against him.

“It’s nice, to talk like this without…” He gestured toward the door. “…interference. And it heartens me to know that you’re still passionate about the things you loved before, that my preferences aren’t overriding yours. It’s…refreshing.”

It clicked all at once. Vampires interacted with their agendas and rank firmly in mind. And humans, even if they weren’t intimately involved with vampires, would soon start to roll over to their influence, their power. While I could be—had been—manipulated and scared and charmed, I was immune to glamour. Being with him hadn’t changed me, except where my feelings for him were concerned.

“How long’s it been since you’ve had someone to argue with?” I asked. How long had it been since he’d been in a relationship where he could trust the other person’s feelings to be genuine?

“A long time. And then I didn’t know enough to appreciate it.” He kissed me, one hand tightening on my nape, the other entwining with mine. “If you wish,” he murmured against my lips, “we will visit the Automotive Hall of Fame. But you should know that, if you start moaning about the classic cars, that’s going to be the end of the electronics there.”

“Hmm. It’ll be a quick trip then. We can go to all the places that Diana Ross sang at before she got famous.”

“The Supremes? I thought you were a Shinzu Cormera girl, first and last.”

“Look who’s been paying attention.” Maybe it made me grin like an idiot, the fact that he knew what I liked. Maybe I didn’t mind being an idiot, not when he looked at me like that. “What about you? Where do you want to go?”

“It’s hard to come up with a good second, what with majestic Detroit being the first option.” He brushed my hair back from my face. “Shanghai. It’s at its best at night.”

“You’ve been there already?” I tilted my head when he nodded. “Why not go somewhere new?”

He hesitated, then his chin jutted out a bit. “I want to see you seeing it for the first time.”

My heart squeezed itself tight then expanded into a running rhythm. Malcolm kissed me, his fingers winding into my hair, and my entire being lifted toward him. Running around the world together was a fantasy, but the idea of it lit me up. He broke contact and stroked the backs of his fingers down my cheek.

“I’ll be back before night falls,” I said, “for a real good-bye.”

He slipped away and I felt a part of myself unfurl in his absence. Le sigh. I straightened up the room. Put the cushions back on the couch. Righted the coffee table. Used a towel to sweep up the glass from a frame that had fallen off one of the surfaces we’d collided with.

Petr and Thurston arrived, forming an odd couple of small, grinning human and big, somber vampire.

“Did Chev catch you doing vampire first aid on her human floor?” I asked.

“She actually preferred that we did it there,” Petr said. “Her human guests are less likely to be riled up by weakened vampires.”

Oh yeah, that old thing where they took each other down while injured in order to gain status.

“Master Bronson appreciated your prompt update,” he added. “He’s eager to receive your next report.”

“There’s no way he’s responded to my message already. I only wrote it a couple hours ago.”

“I called it in and his secretary delivered it to him and called back with his response. Couriers are for strangers and supplicants. He wants more.”

Friends had been glamoured, burned out, and been killed in the years I ran Bronson’s mail. And for what? Stuff he considered insignificant. Junk mail. I’d been yelled at and spit on by anti-sucker humans. My hands fisted. Petr noticed.

“Pleas are important,” he said. “And most alliances begin through couriered missives.”

“Good to know.” But it didn’t help. What good came from consorting with vampires?

Petr smoothed his short-sleeved blue shirt. He’d buttoned it all the way up, the little nerd. “He asked that I remind you of your payment.”

“My payment?” I snapped.

“It wasn’t my place to ask what you bartered for,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest, “but you should know that he doesn’t shell out for partial results.”

I swallowed all kinds of nasty words. Malcolm was my payment, his continued safety. Bronson felt the need to remind me of that, but hadn’t defined what a full result would be. So much for good-faith dealings.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll scale the wall, disable the alarm, ninja in and out, and have dossiers on all the offenders by dawn.”

“Try not to leave fingerprints.” Petr began humming as he left the suite. I flopped across an overstuffed cowhide chair and stared at the ceiling.

“Why’s everything gotta be so hard, Thurston?”

“You’re inside the empire of a master vampire. Why would you expect freedom of movement?”

I opened my mouth to protest, but even if I’d been able to put my frustration into words, there wouldn’t have been any conviction behind them. Even though I resented it—with one massive exception—I wasn’t on the fringe of the undead world anymore. I hadn’t been for a long time. I’d only pretended I was. What else was I fooling myself with?

He crouched, and picked up the pieces of a chair leg that had splintered. I grabbed the trash can and knelt next to him.

“Do you still feel like you?” I asked. “Being…pushed from one master to another?”

“Sometimes.” He tested the other chair before he sat. “Sometimes, in this existence, it’s better to accept the joy you’re given than seek your own.”

“I’m sorry for your situation, Thurston. Can I…” How did you take care of someone who expected severity? “What would improve things for you? Is there anything you want to do?”

“The hopeless require nothing.”

Oh, for the love of… “You should write greeting cards. Seriously. That’s like,
wow
. Gets me right here.” I tapped my heart, then rocked to my feet and clapped my hands together. I’d try this again later, when I’d developed superhuman patience and gotten a degree in psychiatry. “I need food. Do you know if Mickey’s back?”