Midnight Ash (A Blushing Death Novel) (2 page)

“Danny, are you ready to go?” I asked, still watching the door shut behind Dean’s large frame.

“Anywhere you want, Suga’.”

Jackson’s hot breath slithered across my ear as his words moved the hair away from my neck. My skin crawled with disgust at the thought of him, any part of him, touching me. I hated nicknames, especially nicknames from people I didn’t know and didn’t like.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Danny growled behind us. “She’s covered in weapons and not afraid to use ‘em.”

I already had my silver-plated knife in my hand. I didn’t remember drawing it from the sheath at my thigh. I felt that coy, dangerous smile creep across my lips as Jackson’s hand slipped from my shoulder.

I turned with the knife firm in my grasp, jabbing the tip into his gut. He glanced down at the blade between us and then back up at me. He had an expression on his face that hadn’t been there before, surprise. It wasn’t quite fear but I’d take it . . . for now.

“Come on, Dahlia,” Danny said with a small smile as he held out his hand to me. “We need to go.”

I slipped my fingers into his warm grasp and slipped the knife back in its sheath without looking down. I kept my gaze focused on Jackson. There was no way in hell I was taking my eyes off of him.

“The bloodsucker,” Danny snarled, “wanted to talk to us.”

We walked hand-in-hand out of the bar to the coat check. Damsel looked like a completely different place during daylight hours. It looked almost harmless.

Danny handed my heavy wool winter coat to me and slipped his own on as I stared at him. His shoulders were slumped, his movements were sharp, and he was doing his damnedest to avoid eye contact. We went through this routine every time he dropped me off with Patrick, leaving him morose and distant.

“So who’s that guy?” I asked, breaking the silence. Someone had to, the tension was getting thick as molasses and making the coat check room feel smaller than it already was.

“Jackson?” he answered, zipping up his coat. “He moved up here a few years ago, after Katrina.” A soft snarl curled his lips with a hatred he usually reserved for Patrick.

“You don’t seem to like him very much.” I took a careful step, closing the distance between us. Danny’s anger prickled around his edges like static. I didn’t like what that did to him, how it furrowed his brow and made his shoulders tense.

“Well, he’s an asshole but I never hold that against someone,” he snorted.

I thought I saw the corners of his lips curl up into a soft smile but his hazel gray eyes never twinkled with the happiness I craved. I moved into the warmth of his arms and pulled him to me, ignoring the dig.

“I’m an asshole and you never hold that against me,” I quipped with a big teasing smile. If I could just make him laugh, all the other bullshit would melt away.

“That’s true. It must make me some kind of saint,” he said, smirking down at me.

I kissed him on the cheek with a big smack of lips just to prove what an asshole I was. He wound his arms around my waist, finally giving in to me. I snuggled into the warmth of his body and the hard press of his chest. He could crush me with one simple squeeze but he was always so gentle. I felt special there, trapped by his strength.

“Is that all I get?” he whispered in a husky rumble that made me warm all over and curled my toes.

I smirked up at him with an intimate twinkle in my eye that only he and Patrick got to see.

“That’s what I was looking for,” he said, leaning down into me. He pressed his lips soft and gentle against mine, opening his mouth only a breath, allowing the barest touch of his tongue to lick across my bottom lip. He backed away, leaving me panting in anticipation and expectation of more.

He made my knees weak and my pulse race. At that moment I couldn’t remember why he wasn’t in my bed, which was his point. He smirked down at me with self-congratulation written all over his face. Sneaky bastard.

Patrick’s home office room had become like my second home in the last few months. The walls had been painted a soft basket taupe that was supposed to sooth the nerves. It reminded me of baby poop. I’d said that to Patrick once and he went into a very long diatribe about controlling people’s moods and the importance of a soothed mind. I didn’t bring up the baby poop color again. It wasn’t worth it.

Patrick had ripped up the shag carpet and laid brick flooring with a clear epoxy overlay. Blood is easier to clean up that way. The furniture was a high gloss mahogany finish that gave the place the look of an Ivy League University library. Patrick had a high-back leather chair behind the enormous desk, which was always covered in papers and Post-it notes. I never thought of vampires using Post-it notes but his desk was covered in bright neon colors, which always delighted me. He said he had a system but I couldn’t figure it out.

The first time I’d looked into this office when it’d belonged to Ethan, it hadn’t looked like anything more than a study, filled with research books and a comfortable couch. Now, the desk was filled with reminder notes, contracts, building specs, and a computer. God help us, a vampire using a computer. It almost blew my mind.

Some of the vampires in Patrick’s colony were techies and loved the modern age; they drove cars, had cell phones, even a few laptops. There were others that refused to even use electricity. I saw more than one room in the mansion with nothing but candles lining the walls. All of them had an obligatory cell phone in case Patrick needed to reach them but I was sure one or two wouldn’t even know what to do if it rang.

Patrick had taken the reins of Ethan’s empire and doubled, probably tripled, its profit margins. Patrick had managed to move all of Ethan’s illegal activities into the mainstream and was making money for everyone.

Patrick had opened Damsel to rave reviews and a packed house every night. He’d started a transportation service for vampires to the other major cities in the drivable areas, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, and others with regular trucks shipping to Chicago, St. Louis, and D.C. at least three times a week. Patrick was working on getting a Cessna to expand that business across the country. Who said vampires couldn’t travel during the day?

I sat with my legs crossed leaning over the arm of the couch on the red leather couch I’d picked out, the only splash of color in the room. Patrick was on the phone, yelling at one of his liquor distributors who had shorted him, again.

I glanced up at the slight brush of wind that blew my hair into my face. Alex stood in the doorway, her hair was bright fuchsia pink. She was petite with large, chocolate-brown eyes that matched her rich Spanish skin tone, unblemished and shimmering in any light.

Alex nodded to me and sat down at the other end of the couch, barely moving the cushions with her added weight. We sat in companionable silence as Patrick slammed the phone down on the cradle. This house was probably the last in the nation that still had rotary telephones. I tried to upgrade them to cordless but Patrick had said that the rotary phones made him feel nostalgic, so they stayed.

He gawked at me and then shifted his gaze to Alex as if he hadn’t known we were there. His tension pinched at my shoulders like I had a crick in my neck and couldn’t quite work it out. The empathic bond we shared was a pain in the ass most of the time but sometimes, like now, it helped . . . a lot.

Anyone who didn’t know him wouldn’t see the continuous clenching of his jaw and the jump of muscles underneath his ear each time he did it. I saw it. He was usually so confident, cool, and detached that each jump of his muscles set my teeth on edge.

“What’s going on?” I asked, leaning forward and resting my elbows on knees.

Patrick came around the desk, his long frame making even and quick strides before he leaned up against the outside edge of the desk. He tried to settle himself and appear as if nothing was wrong, failing miserably.

He nodded to the door and I reached over the arm of the couch and yanked it shut. This was bad; he never shut that door.

“I discovered who our visitor in December was,” he said, staring at me as if Alex wasn’t even in the room.

Someone had taken a shot at Patrick in December right in the middle of Damsel. They’d come close, too, a couple of inches too close. Jade and I had chased the assassin down, run him off the road, and put a bullet in his head. He wasn’t a problem anymore.

I relaxed back into the cushion of the couch, shoving my anger down as I waited for the other shoe to drop.

“The man’s name was Stacey Fingold,” Patrick answered.

“No wonder the guy was pissy. I would’ve shot up the joint too with a name like that,” I snorted.

Patrick didn’t react.

I glanced at Alex for help but got nothing. I guess they didn’t get the joke.

“Someone wasn’t happy with Ethan’s demise or me taking his place.” His temper flared, making his dark eyes sharp and dangerous. My gut twisted under that look.

“Do you think it was the board?” Alex asked as she brushed some nonexistent lint from her thigh.

“If it was Lebensblut, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Patrick said.

“What does Lebensblut have to do with anything?” I asked as the familiar name twirled around in my brain. I’d seen that name on more than a few contracts on Patrick’s desk and on a contract or two on Ethan’s desk the afternoon I’d broken into the mansion. I’d never gotten a clear answer on anything having to do with Lebensblut when I’d asked before. Now was as good a time as any to push and get those answers.

“If you want to keep involving her in our business, you might as well tell her. She’ll need to know what we’re up against,” Alex said, her tone annoyed and disapproving.

He pursed his full lips and exhaled a deep sigh of defeat. He wanted to keep me safe but that was impossible. His colony adored him, followed him, and feared him in large part because of me. He used me as a means to keep them under control. I didn’t mind being used as a threat. If the colony was under control and followed Patrick’s rules, no one died. I could live with that and still sleep at night.

“You can’t keep me half in and half out.”

He pursed his lips again and gave me a quick nod of resignation. “Lebensblut isn’t just a corporation. Its board is made up of some of the oldest and most powerful vampires in the world. They . . .”—he paused as he searched for the right word—“
oversee
us. They maintain order and those of us who work for them directly are under even more scrutiny.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Soon, we’ll be disentangled from them.”

“We’re close?” Alex gasped with the first sign of emotion.

“Closer than they know to being free of them.”

I’d grown to appreciate that stance and the understated authority he managed to hold with it. My lips curved up in appreciation. My heart raced a little faster at the thought of those full lips and large hands all over my body. I gazed up at him with hunger making my mouth water and my body heat. I knew he heard my heart beat faster and the scent of my arousal as it filled the room. His dark eyes turned to me, a frown ruining his perfect face.

“Why would Lebensblut be wrapped up with an assassin sent to kill you? It doesn’t make sense.” I glanced back up at him with a question on my face. I narrowed my focus on him, evaluating, seeing him the way outsiders would see him. He was honest, cunning, charismatic, and
dangerous
.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” Alex chastised.

Patrick shot her a threatening glare.

“They fear you, your power, and the power we can accumulate,” Alex bit out.

“You have brought this colony out of the dark ages and it’s thriving,” I said as an afterthought, talking mostly to myself.

“If you prove that our way can work, they lose all credibility. If it were me,” Alex snorted, “I’d want you dead, too.”

I remained calm, shoving all the fear her words invoked down deep so that it wouldn’t show. No matter how prickly my skin felt or the gooseflesh that rose all over my body at the cold wash of Patrick’s power that flooded the room, I wouldn’t let them see it. Patrick had made changes, drastic changes. Patrick had constructed a subculture in the local clubs with plenty of willing donors. Vampires weren’t killing anymore and bodies weren’t piling up. Patrick and his colony could stay in one place longer. It meant . . . Patrick could build a base and continue to grow. I understood why Lebensblut would be nervous.

“You’re consolidating and building a power base, aren’t you?” I asked.

“I told you she’d figure it out,” Alex said.

I felt like a puppy that had just learned to sit.
Jesus Christ.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to Patrick, ignoring Alex.

“I’m merely giving those who choose to do so a different way to live than the archaic, ritual-based life of the ancients,” he huffed in a low angry sound that gave me shivers all over. “Many of us are modern men and women and choose to live as such.” His shoulders squared. His voice rose in volume and became sharp with his anger.

I almost wanted to applaud at the end of his speech. I knew without a word of confirmation being spoken, it wasn’t his modern thinking that scared them or his business savvy; it was his charisma, it was Patrick himself that scared them. He was a threat to their very existence. If given enough time, Patrick could challenge them all. I closed my eyes and released a deep breath, freeing my lungs of the heavy weight of air. We were in real trouble.

“What kind of bad are we talking about here?” I asked. I’d killed Mr. Stacey Fingold, among others—namely Ethan. I was in just as deep as any of them. Probably deeper.

“Well,” Alex stated, standing up and sauntering behind the desk. She snatched a pack of cigarettes from the top right-hand drawer of Patrick’s desk where she’d hidden them. “That depends.” She flipped a cigarette up between her thin lips, lit it, then took a long drag off the cigarette. She exhaled, filling the room with the hazy stench of cigarette smoke before she continued.

“If they’re just looking to take out Patrick, then they could just send another assassin, and another, and another until the job is done. Or—”

“We would be looking over our shoulders forever,” I said, slumping back into the couch cushions.

“Or, if their intention is to eliminate any possible threat, present and future . . .” she said before taking another long drag on the cigarette. She exhaled up to the ceiling with a look of pure ecstasy on her petite heart-shaped face. “If I were them, I’d make an example of us? I’d send the Takeda Daimyo.” Her hand trembled, making ash sprinkle the floor around her as her gaze drifted and her expression became vacant.

“What’s Takeda Daimyo?” I asked with a quiver in my voice. If Alex was nervous, then I probably should be, too.

“A group of very old and very lethal assassins. They were originally five but over the years have grown to ten members or more,” Patrick answered. “No one truly knows their actual numbers but the Takeda Daimyo themselves. The original five were turned in a single night, more than a millennium ago. Ninjas, however, are mercenaries, assassins for hire with no loyalty. And they quickly turned on their sires, killing them and freeing themselves.”

“I’m sorry?” I asked. “Did you just say ninja? As in Teenage Mutant? Or as in head-to-toe black with big swords and throwing stars?” I asked, flabbergasted.

Patrick stared at me with an expressionless face and blank eyes. Alex’s eyes came back into focus and she grinned as she snuffed out her cigarette behind him and lit another one. Her face fell and the lighthearted expression that had lit her chocolate eyes disappeared as her gaze met mine.

“Maybe we should distance ourselves from her, Pat.”

He seemed comfortable with the shortened name but I wasn’t. It didn’t suit him. The nickname seemed less debonair, less threatening, less dangerous, less sexy, just . . . less.

“If they send the Takeda Daimyo, she won’t stand a chance. She’s mortal,” Alex added, moving back around the desk on my left. She sauntered over to the couch and plopped down on it hard.

Patrick was silent for a long while as he examined the two of us. To the outside, he looked like he hadn’t a care in the world but the slight furrow in his brow and the tension he carried in his stiff broad shoulders said volumes as the muscles ticked in his jaw. He seemed scared, honestly scared which meant he was considering keeping me out. He had the same look in his eye he’d had the night I’d killed Ethan. The same night, incidentally, that I’d cemented his power and brought about this whole problem in the first place.
Damn it!

It didn’t matter what Patrick said; I wasn’t going anywhere. I clenched my jaw tight and felt my lips disappear in a thin line of determination. I let him feel my certainty, radiating my grit through our empathic connection. It rolled off me and over his skin like a forest fire eating up all the oxygen, prickling each hair on his body as my emotion climbed up his long, lean frame and sunk into him.

“None of this is because of you,” he whispered. His eyes and face softened and his body relaxed as he gave me the look I only got when we were alone. His eyes burned with hunger and intimacy as his delicious lips curled up into a roguish smirk that curled my toes and made me warm all over. That look made me feel wanted . . . loved, but we never talked about that.

“The hell it isn’t,” Alex snorted. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s better now that you’re in charge but let’s not kid ourselves. The situation is what it is because of her, who she is
and
because of you. Let’s at least be honest.” Alex sat back in the couch, sliding her arm up over the back of the soft leather couch.

“Placing blame won’t solve our situation,” Patrick snarled.

I felt Patrick’s patience wearing thin in the rise of my blood pressure and the grinding of his jaw. Alex pushed the lines of familiarity, especially in front of someone else. He let her get away with more in private but he wouldn’t let her defy him. She pushed dangerously close to that line.

“Pat, the bottom line is if they send the Takeda or there’s an inquisition, she won’t survive. You didn’t live through the last inquisition. You have no idea what it’s like. Trust me, neither of us wants that.”

“Why wouldn’t I survive either scenario?” I asked.

“The Takeda will kill you before you even have a chance to pull your weapon,” Alex said with finality. “They’re fast. Well trained. Deadly.”