Prince of Shadows (11 page)

His jaw tensed, his mouth thinning as if he could sense her reluctance to answer, which couldn't be true; the blood bond was a one-way street when it came to reading another's thoughts and feelings. “What did he do to her, Gabby? You know, don't you?”

She shook her head, closing her eyes tight so she didn't have to look upon his misery-ridden face. No, she couldn't tell him that. To do so would be beyond the cruelty she'd already inflicted. To know the details of his mate's death would be…soul-consuming.

He smacked the door next to her head, scattering flaking paint chips and leaving a good-sized dent in it. “Damn you! You started this. Tell me how she fucking died!”

Gabby swallowed, sickened when the action brought with it the glorious aftertaste of his blood. She had started it. And if she had that backbone she claimed to have she'd finish it.

“He saved her for last. So Roland…” She swallowed, pushing away the vivid image her maker had painted of that fateful night and sticking to the facts that mattered. “So she'd die knowing what kind of monster her brother had been turned into and so Roland would know that his failure was at the cost of her life.”

Air hissed in and out of his flared nostrils, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “Do you know…was it quick?”

She could read the plea in his eyes. Knew he desperately wanted her to tell him it had been. But she couldn't, not without lying, not without showing him a compassion that would go against everything she hoped to accomplish when she started this cruel task of driving him away. Still, the next words she said seemed like the hardest ones she'd ever uttered in her life. More than any lie. More than anything Christos had ever forced her to do or say.

“No. She screamed for a very long time. But never for help; it was too late for that. She screamed for you. Prayed that you would be okay…and begged for you to save not herself, but her brother.”

There wasn't enough space on the face of earth to run from the pain, so Valin resorted to the one other place he knew he could hide—the black and gray shadows of the shade embracing him into its bleakness. Not part of His realm of holy creation, nor part of the black chaos of Lucifer's evil workshop, the shade was a kind of neutral zone on the battlefield of good versus evil; a mixed motley of not quite good but not all bad where neither could comfortably tread. Valin didn't have such problems. He found a strange solace in the shades of gray between His light and complete darkness. He didn't have to be perfect here. Unlike the bathing radiance of heavenly light, in the shade there was no itch or subconscious need to squirm under the weight of his failures, nor was there room for such nagging things as extreme emotions.

At first he raced from shadow to shadow, hiding from reality. With the suffocating feelings of grief, loss, and impotence crashing over him, it had been all he could do not to strike out at the source of his renewed pain.

God, Gabby. He'd been so angry at her. She might not have been there to be part of the destruction of his life, but the fact that she'd known the details, had spoken of them so casually, heartlessly even…It had hit him low in the gut that he was mated to a coldblooded monster. But now, here in the gray shadows that took the edge off the sharpness of reality, he could look back on that moment and see more. The little movements that spoke of her discomfort, the tension in her body: She hadn't wanted to tell him about Angeline's death. Yes, she'd started the conversation, but he'd been the one to drag the details of Angeline's death from her, ignoring the nagging tickle from their bond that told him she hated herself for every word she uttered.

The truth was Gabby hadn't failed him by being who she was or knowing what she knew, but he sure as fuck had failed her by rubbing her nose in it.

Just like he'd failed Angeline all those years ago.

Save Roland. He hadn't. Instead he had hated Roland because he'd been there and not saved Angeline. Hated that while his family had been taken from him the vampire-Paladin had been granted a state of existence—no matter how horrible it may have been. Until Karissa, that is. Karissa had saved Roland. Karissa's love. Karissa's blood. Her blood had saved Gabriella too, which is why Gabby could tolerate the sun and wasn't killed last summer when Logan used His light to defeat the enemy. Yet Gabby seemed willing to throw that gift away by drinking the blood of her enemies, a slow-acting poison. The perfect way to self-destruct.

He'd be damned if he let her check out that easily. Life sucked. You moved on. And then you made something of it. He hadn't saved his child or Angeline. Hadn't honored Angeline's last wish by saving her brother. But there was one person he could save.

With a new goal in mind he shifted through the shade in a purposeful direction. It didn't take him long to reach his destination, and even less to find a crack in the seal around a window and wiggle his shadow-self through. He was definitely going to have to pick on Roland about his downgrade from his last fortress. But first things first.

Reforming in the middle of the room near where Roland was just about to settle down with a remote and a tumbler of scotch, he got a small thrill from seeing the vampire practically jump out of his skin. The moment was short-lived as the vampire collected himself, carefully setting both remote and tumbler down on the nearby end table and straightening to his full height, which was a good head taller than Valin. Bastard.

“Valin,” the Paladin-turned-vampire said casually, as if having former mortal enemies appear in his living room wasn't an irregular occurrence.

“Roland,” Valin replied similarly.

Roland lifted his brow, his gaze briefly flickering over Valin. “Think you could at least conjure up some clothes when you break and enter into a man's home?”

Valin smiled. “Now, Roland. That would require a measure of giving a fuck that we both know I don't have.”

Roland shook his head, grumbling as he turned and popped open one of those ottoman storage units and began to rummage through it. A good twenty seconds of tap-foot later, he pulled from the very bottom an ugly-ass green throw that he promptly offered to Valin with a disdainful twist of his lip.

Stuffy, tight-ass, OCD bastard. And if the thought of Valin's naked jangles mixing with the air of his apartment set him off, how did he stand himself and his rather eccentric cravings? Blood was not exactly the cleanest of supplements. Especially when it came from the Red Cross discards pile.

Valin took the offered throw, wrapping it around his waist as he took stock of the apartment. Not nearly as nice as Roland's last digs. No voice-activated systems here. It was smaller too, though it looked like he'd managed to cram in all of the high-end furniture from his previous penthouse apartment. The place was cramped, though in a homey sort of way. It had all the extra touches that his last place hadn't had. Things like framed photos, bowls filled with smelly potpourri…throws. All things that spoke of a woman's touch. Speaking of which. “Where's Karissa?”

“It's her turn to sit with Logan.”

Valin nodded, well aware of the babysitting detail. He'd taken his own share of turns the first few days after the loss of Logan's mate until duty had thankfully relieved him. The problem was not that he couldn't stand the Paladin's mopey silence, but that he could truly feel for the poor fucker. Even if Valin and Angelina had never been mate bonded, the severing of their pair bond had been like being degutted. The fact that he'd lost his best friend at the same time was almost like having his heart carved out of his chest cavity. Sometimes he still thought it had been. In fact, he would have sworn that was the case until four months ago when a cheeky little vampire had made it stutter back into rhythm.

And now she was trying to leave him too.

He worried the fringe of the throw wrapped around him. “I need the name of your supplier.”

Roland smiled, his fangs flashing. “Why? You thinking of a lifestyle change? Want me to aid you in your transition?”

“You wish,” Valin muttered with a shake of his head. Roland felt about him about the same as Valin did about the vampire. Tolerable during times of need, but otherwise the world would be a better place without his presence. Still, he seriously doubted the vampire would actually turn him. Fangs aside, the excommunicated Paladin was still one of the most honorable bastards Valin had ever met. Which is why he was here; as much as it grated on his nerves, the Paladin cared about Gabby too. “It's not for me but rather a mutual friend that I happened to run into recently.”

“Gabriella? She's alive?” Roland took a step forward, his eyes flashing crimson. Almost as quickly, he visibly checked himself, turning his head away. “Sorry. I'm used to the kid popping up all the time, so when she didn't, I assumed we were wrong and that she was dead. Or worse, that Ganelon had her.”

Valin narrowed his eyes to study Roland's features. Squared-off jaw, high cheekbones, a heavy brow that shadowed… no fucking way. That was it: his eyes. There was something about how the wide-set orbs had framed the flash of crimson just now that set his gut to churning. It wasn't possible. Couldn't be, unless…

That
night. Why would Christos use that night out of all the other massacres to torment Gabby?

Valin swore long and hard, his entire body itching to poof and zip away. He so didn't want to deal with this shit. Not on top of all the other crap.

“What? What is it? Does Ganelon have her?” Roland asked sharply, his eyes flaring red once more.

Valin shook his head, partly to assure Roland and partly because he wanted to deny what the logical part of his brain was telling him. Unfuckingbelievable. He'd just assumed Gabriella was a merker because that was the easiest explanation. And though, with any other Paladin he would have thought it damn odd for them to be mated to a merker, he figured being the “black” knight made it a moot point. Unlike his brothers, Valin had never thought twice about performing some of the…darker…tasks assigned to him—hence the name. Spying, lying, manipulation, killing…as long as the result was the desired one, it was no skin off his back. Hell, even if things didn't turn up daisies, he had no compunction shrugging it off and moving on. Just part of the job, right?

Oh yeah, he was far from pure as the driven snow. More like the muck kicked up from the plows after the salt, sand, and gutter slime had been mixed in. So when his often absent heart had made its presence known again at his first sight of the succubus/vampire, he'd just thought it fitting that she had been born from darkness. But Gabby had seemed truly offended when he suggested she could be at all related to Ganelon. Maybe part of it could be attributed to denial, not wanting to believe there could be more evil in her blood than what her succubus mother had already given her, especially given she'd been further cursed when Christos had turned her. But…what if she knew for sure she wasn't? What if she knew exactly who her father was and clung to the fact that he didn't have an ounce of evil blood in him?

A hand clamped around his throat and he found himself blinking into those damn crimson eyes again. “So help me, Valin, if you don't tell me where she is…”

“Ganelon doesn't have her,” he said, wrenching the hand from around his esophagus. He couldn't say she was all right. Not after he'd seen what she was doing to herself. Roland must have made the assumption though because he nodded, his breathing easing as he took a step back, the crimson fading from his pupils. The nearly black eyes that replaced those glowing coals were almost as harsh looking as the freaky red had been, but still…the shape, the tilt.

He cleared his throat, cringing mildly at the burn. Fucking bastard.

“How is she?” Roland asked.

Yeah, still not going there. “I never asked what happened that night.”

Roland's brow furrowed. “What night?”

“The night you were turned.”

It was kind of interesting watching the vampire shut down, his mouth cramping up into a hard line in his face. A knot of muscle rolled across his jaw, his teeth grinding once, twice, before he responded. “It's not something I share.”

“Especially with motherfuckers like me, right?”

Roland's mouth quirked up, a self-depreciating chuckle rumbling in his chest. “Takes one to know one.”

Hell yeah it did. And if what Gabby told Valin were true, then perhaps Roland's silence had been as much out of compassion as anything else. Valin sobered. “Tell me just this one thing.”

Valin could see the tension pulsing through Roland's body simply by the stiff set of his shoulders, but somehow the ex-Paladin managed to grind out a, “What?”

“Was there a succubus involved? Maybe one with red hair?”

“What the fuck does that have to do with Gabriella…” Roland trailed off, his face paling as all sorts of light bulbs and connections flared to life in his brain. Oh, yeah, darkness was indeed bliss.

Valin rubbed a hand down his face. “Shit. I'd kind of hoped I was wrong. But damn if she doesn't have your eyes.”

Roland stumbled back, grabbing the arm of the couch to find his way down.

Valin shook his head. Wasn't this fucking priceless? Gabby must know who her father was. And he was Paladin. The question was if she'd known, then why the hell hadn't she come to Roland for help instead of fucking over her own soul?

“Congrats, daddy.” Valin slapped Roland's stiff shoulder, counting on the fact that the man was too shocked to say anything as Valin passed by him and dived into the innards of the rumbling fridge. In fact, Valin made it all the way to the door, the squeak of the ancient knob the thing that finally drew his former Paladin brother's attention.

“Where are you going?”

He hoisted up the sack of A-negative, the liquid squishing and slurping in his hand. “Going to go have a little talk with your daughter.”

And then? Then he'd have her over his knee for a good spanking.

***

Valin didn't get very far. He made it two feet down the hall before he was brought up short by a rather awkward obstacle: clothing, or rather the lack thereof. The need for something other than a puke-green wrap became obvious when he'd stepped out of Roland's apartment and been greeted with a shocked gasp. He'd spun around in time to see a pair of wide eyes topped by a towering white bun duck her head back into her apartment. Luckily the door to Roland's apartment had yet to close behind Valin, and a few moments later he tried the trip again armed with both the blood bag and an outfit that could be termed flasher-chic at best: a long dark duster…and nothing underneath.

He'd chaffed at the admittedly minimal amount of time taken up by the task of raiding a still-stunned Roland's hall closet. But worse was the sweltering cab ride that he'd suffered through smothered in the fully buttoned duster during more than a few blocks of clogged up cross-traffic. How did people stand to travel this way?

He'd finally made it back to the right end of town, and in another frustrating, but necessary, action had the cabby drop him off a few blocks away from the old school. When he was assured of no tail, he'd hastened to the base and managed to have a break of luck when the guard at the back door recognized him.

Once inside, it didn't take him long to track down Gabby in the old nurse's office. The place was amazingly quiet, the door propped open with one of those wooden triangles, and only two people in the room: Gabby and Aaron. She sat in one of those child-size chairs, her knees bent up uncomfortably as she leaned over an unconscious Aaron, both of her hands wrapped around his bandaged one, as if by holding tight enough she might keep him there.

Valin wasn't proud of the twist of jealousy that rose—the man looked like he was on death's door, for fuck sake—and ruthlessly squelched the mating instinct that all but screamed for him to go caveman and drag her away from Aaron.