Night Series Collection: Books 1 and 2 (59 page)

But the beauty of a berserker was that they were one of our oldest and strongest allies within monster society, because a berserker could only be born from the mating of a pure-blooded Nephilim and a human.

Leaning forward, I took the folder and went to tuck it beneath my arm. Gnarled but strong fingers grabbed me.

“Read it, then burn it. Vow it, Dora.”

Tingling with curiosity, I nodded.

Sighing with relief, Grace pushed off the bed and held her arm out to Thanatos, who walked around me, still eyeing us hard though not with aggression.

Something about the boy’s dark hair and deep-set eyes jangled a memory. I frowned. “Do you belong to Adam?”

Adam was my cousin and ran our sister carnival in the Southland.

He licked his canines and I knew they were probably aching. Thanatos was much closer to his change then I’d initially suspected. Up close, I could smell the bitter flood of adrenaline riding him. He was days, possibly even hours, from his transition.

“Adam isn’t my sire, but I know him,” he said.

Grace nodded. “That’s where we’re headed—I’ll also tell them to hunker down. Though I don’t believe that group is in any danger.”

“Give him my regards.” I nodded. It’d been a long time since I’d last seen Adam, but time meant very little to an immortal.

Stepping into me, Grace wrapped soft arms around my neck. She smelled of iron and Bengay. “Guard yourself, Dora. This war has only just begun.”

Asher slid his arm around my waist. “You need to go, Grace, as do we. Trust me to keep her safe.”

And as weird as it was, I did feel safe. Even though I knew we had threats coming at us from every side, I wasn’t scared.

“Yes.” And just as she went to move away, I pulled her back.

I couldn’t tell her I forgave her, couldn’t tell her I loved her. But I wouldn’t forget her sacrifice either, and maybe that was a start.

Wiping at her cheek, she nodded. “Come, Thanatos.”

Thanatos stepped in quickly, grabbing Grace’s elbow with one hand and her box of treasures with the other. Grace was a simple woman. The entire contents of her life didn’t even fill half of it.

Walking out the door, I heard the gravel crunch as a car slid up to the front door. Without a backward wave, they got inside the rusted blue Toyota sedan and were gone in a peal of pebbles and dust.

“We need to go too.” Asher pulled me against his chest, gathering the shadow to us like second skin.

I traced us out of there.

Luc must have had a lookout waiting for our return. Not even ten seconds later, there was a bang at the door. Opening the door, Asher stepped to the side as Luc, Vyxen, and Kane barreled in.

They all wore grim expressions and were armed to the teeth. Each one of them was scratched and torn open at the neck, legs, and stomach.

“Zombies set in on us the second I got back. Someone planted another generator inside the electrical trailer. Took us fifteen goddamn minutes to find it. Bubba’s out back disposing of the evidence.” Luc snarled and wiped his jaw with his fist. “You okay?” He looked at me.

The Triad wasn’t even trying to be secretive anymore.

“I’m good, but maybe it’s time we gathered the family and brought them up to speed, Luc. We were at Grace’s and it’s bad.”

Vyxen’s thin brows dipped, and Kane scrubbed blood-stained fingers through his dark hair, eyeing Luc with a venomous gaze.

Wrapping my fingers around Vyx’s wrist, I bowed my head. Now wasn’t the time for our petty hatred to interfere with the safety of the family. “Gather everyone up, Vyx, tell them to meet at the chow tent. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Luc and I need a second.”

She must have come to the same conclusion as I had, because for the first time in recent history there was no push back on this. Nodding, she grabbed Kane’s hand. “Let’s go, Lust boy.” They both traced, leaving the stench of sulfur in their wake.

Crossing his arms, Luc waited for us to continue.

Shrugging out of my top and jeans, I tossed them to the floor. I was tacky from the clotted blood of earlier and needed to get that stench of rot off me.

“Don’t look at her ass,” Ash growled as I sailed between them, grabbing whatever I found first and heading to the shower.

Luc snorted. Me, I could care less if he looked, not like Luc hadn’t already seen the goods, but it was sweet that Asher cared. Turning the water to high heat, I jumped in and slid the curtain shut.

“Grace gave me a file,” I began, lathering some tropical-scented soap into my hair. “Asher, I set it down on the nightstand—can you please read it out loud?”

I heard the thud of heavy feet walk away and then return. The silence was thick.

“You plan to tell us what it is that’s in there?”

Wiping soap away from my eyes, I peeked at them around the curtain.

Asher was bent over the file, looking serious and intent as he tapped the sheet with his finger.

“Basically proves the Triad’s behind this.” Mumbling under his breath as if reading to himself, he nodded. “Says here the zombies are genetically modified.”

“Let me see that.” Luc snatched the file out of his hands, reading it for himself.

Scrubbing my nails against my scalp, I stepped under the spray. “Is that all it says?” I asked, spitting some water out of my mouth. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to get this putrid smell off me.

Now instead of smelling just like death, I smelled like death mixed with coconut. It was a nauseating combination.

The shower curtain was shoved back. Brown eyes swept down the length of my body before returning to my face. Asher looked as serious as I’d ever seen him. “Pandora, do you remember at any point having your blood drawn?”

I frowned, shaking my head. “No, I was…” My words trailed off as I suddenly remembered the vampire who’d stabbed my arm with one hand and shoved a needle into me with the other. “Wait. I did. In South Dakota, the vampires. One of them drew some. I wasn’t sure why, but I was able to shatter the needle and nothing came of it.”

Luc flipped the file on his hand. “Well, you must have had some drawn at some other point.”

My heart started pounding furiously at the heat building between the two men.

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s why those fucking bites almost killed you!” Slamming the file down on the sink counter, Luc hung his head, heaving in breaths to calm himself.

Thoroughly confused, I fluttered my hands. “What does that have to do with the zombies?”

Reaching over, Asher turned off the water and handed me a towel. “The Triad used your blood to create a sort of super zombie venom that would only affect you—not only affect you, but eventually it should have killed you.”

Luc growled, fingers clenching the sink with white-knuckled intensity.

Finished drying, I dropped the towel at my feet and yanked my clothes on. “So this really is all about me?” Not like we didn’t already suspect it, even know it on some level, especially after all the talk of prophecy and being the key and whatnot. But one some level I’d hoped it wasn’t true, that maybe everyone was barking up the wrong tree about this. But when the incontrovertible truth was spelled out in black and white in front of you, it was impossible to deny it any longer.

It made my stomach sink to the region of my knees.

He nodded.

“Sonofabitch,” I snarled.

Hard fingers dug into my shoulders. “But you healed yourself. I don’t think they expected that.” Asher’s look was angry and glinted with a hint of fear. I rubbed his cheek, needing that contact, even if only briefly to settle my own raw nerves.

“I’m going to kill those bastards, rip their heads from their necks and let Bubba feast on their bones.” Luc turned his back on us and I knew it wasn’t out of any gentlemanly sense of trying to preserve my modesty. He was angry and didn’t want me to see it.

Grabbing a hairbrush, I hurriedly swiped the tangles out and had a sudden, almost violent epiphany. I laughed. “It should have killed me. They were brilliant. Lust was no match from that venom. Every time I tried to coax her out recently I’ve noticed she’s sluggish, depressed. She’s been like that since my return from Hell. They did something to her down there, because she’s definitely not the same. Pestilence saved my ass.”

“Disease neutralizes disease.” Asher rubbed his chin with strong, blunt fingers. “If it hadn’t been for that…” He couldn’t finish the words as he swallowed thickly.

Wrapping my arms around his waist, I kissed his chest, right over his heart. “Whoever created that serum didn’t count on that.”

In the ensuing silence I realized something else, something just as big, if not bigger.

“My mark was torn from me.” I held out my ankle, looking at the newly formed one. “In the last zombie attack.”

Luc punched his fist through the mirror, shattering it and bloodying himself.

Great, now how was I going to get ready in the mornings? If I left him in here too much longer I might not have a bathroom left.

“Seven years bad luck, Luc, ugh.” I rolled my eyes but didn’t give him a chance to respond. “What do you think they’re planning to do with it?” Because it was now obvious to me that if they’d taken my blood to kill me, they planned to use my mark similarly. I wish I had a crystal ball about now.

Dropping to the bed, Luc grabbed his head and rested his elbows on his knees. Asher nudged my shoulder, lifting his chin in Luc’s direction. “I’ll meet you guys at the tent,” he said.

I took his fingers and gave them a gentle squeeze of appreciation. “I’ll be there in a second.”

Brushing his knuckles across my cheek, he nodded. “Don’t take long, little demon. The sooner we leave, the better.”

Calling his shadows, Asher disappeared from sight.

Sighing, I walked toward Luc and took a seat, then grabbed his face. “Hey, you.”

The blue of his eyes was liquid with pain, with self-loathing. For all the shit I always gave Luc, the one thing he was best at was his ability to care for his family. A threat against one was a threat against all.

“Dora, those generators aren’t just sonic bombs, they’re also mind-control devices. Vyxen was able to figure out the undulating waves of the pitch were what whipped the zombies up into those homicidal frenzies. It’s how the Triad took control of them. How can we fight them?” His whisper was so low I wasn’t sure I’d been meant to hear it.

“One at a time. Just like everything else. But, Luc…” I squeezed his hand. “Maybe it would be best if I just left.”

His grip became painful, almost bone crunching. “Don’t even consider it. I’ll kill you myself first.”

I clenched my jaw, ignoring the throbbing in my fingers. “But you would all be safer that way. I don’t think—”

“Don’t think. That’s right, don’t think. We’re only safer until we’re not. What’s to stop them from finding some new scroll about Bubba, or Lilith, Vyxen, Kane, Corrine, huh?”

I bit my lip.

Opening his body to mine, he twisted on the bed so that his knee bumped mine. “We’re family—that’s the most important thing. They took Kemen, you know they did, they took Lynx, they don’t care who they have to kill to get to you. If you left, they’d come after us, all of us, to try to find out where you’d gone off to.”

“But if I kept it secret and told no one—”

“Stop!” He shook my shoulders. “Do you hear yourself? That way lies madness.”

My lips twitched as I wondered if he realized he was quoting King Lear. Luc had never been a reader; maybe I’d rubbed off on him after all.

“It doesn’t matter if we don’t know, they won’t care and they’d think we’re lying anyway. Demons lie, everyone knows that.”

His blue eyes pierced mine; I swallowed hard as my stomach fluttered.

I didn’t have a second to grasp what he was about before his lips were on mine. Hard, but not punishing. His fingers threaded through the ends of my still-wet hair and a moan of longing and need purred from his throat.

His lips were as soft as velvet, moving against mine as if in prayer and worship, and I settled into his touch, pulled to him like a magnet. He tasted of licorice and mint and in his kiss I tasted his hunger, his need, but there was more. Something heavy and terribly sad. I tasted good-bye.

“I love you, Luc.” I said it with a strong voice, resting my forehead on his, knowing he’d never say it back, but this time I’d felt it. “I always will.”

Crushing me to his chest, he held me tight and I clutched his back for the last time.

“We’re family and family always stays together,” he whispered, and it was a promise I sealed in my heart.

T
he faces staring back at the three of us weren’t just pissed. Oh no, that was too nice a word to describe the animosity rolling off them in waves.

Never show a demon fear, because if they sense it for even a second, they’ll pounce and tear you to shreds. Regardless of the fact that this was family I’d known for eons, they weren’t happy that Luc and I had kept so much from them.

Bubba narrowed his eyes at Asher. “So the Order’s betrayed us—you’re no human.” He scoffed and turned back to me and Luc. “So who the hell is that?”

Everyone let Bubba be their mouthpiece, content to hang back and digest this sudden turn of events. Fine, I felt more comfortable talking with the big man over any of the others at this point anyway.

Notching my chin higher, I said, “I’m beginning to suspect that what’s going down doesn’t have as much to do with the Order as it does with upper management. Grace has gone into hiding and suggested we immediately do the same. To be honest, I know very little of this Triad. In fact, I’ve never heard of them before now. All I do know is that the prophecy is leading them to believe that they have no choice but to silence me.”

“Then let them have you. We’ve lost Kemen, now Lynx—I’m tired of burying my friends.” A normally quiet Envy Neph—Greta—had no problem piping up.

The very last person in the world I’d ever expect to come to my defense hissed. “Shut your trap, Greta. We ditch Pandora now, what’s to say down the road you’re not next. You want us to bail on you too?” Vyxen narrowed glittering jade-green eyes.

Greta fluttered her fingers across her white-blond hair but didn’t utter another word. My lips twitched when Vyxen refused to look back at me.