Wrath: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 2 (40 page)

I couldn’t figure out where the blond hair would come in to play, either. The killer had thought to accomplish something specific in leaving it first at Hellion’s and then at Amaly’s. What if it was as simple as being able to materialize in their homes? It made the most basic sense, because where Hellion was, so was I. Being able to circumvent the protective wards around the houses—well, that was a huge bonus. It gave the killer the ability to bypass some of Hellion’s most important safeguards.

The smell of burning hair was another stumper, and as I walked and considered it, it was almost as if I could smell it again. I shook my head and smiled at my overactive imagination. I had to chill out about this stuff. I was working myself into a real—

Like before, the blow came from behind and sent me sprawling into the dirt. I rolled over and threw my hands up as silver flashed toward my face. The slashing pain of the blade cutting into my left arm was wicked, and I screamed, kicking out with my legs. I swung my good arm out and connected with the knife hand, and I knocked the knife loose, sending it skittering across the gravel. The black, smoky mist began to coalesce into the form of a human and, then it scattered to the breeze as Darius grabbed me up off the ground and ran with me at frightening speed. It wasn’t until we came to a stop and I wiped my streaming eyes that I realized we’d made it all the way home.

The front door flew open and Mark ushered us in, pointing us toward the kitchen and calling for Stearns. The magus appeared quickly, carrying a small first aid kit. Ripping my sleeve away, he sighed. This was heavy conversation for the normally silent man. I smiled at him and was about to offer him some light-hearted banter until he began to clean the wound. I instinctively tried to snatch my arm away but Darius wasn’t having any of it. He held me in place as Stearns cleaned me up and bandaged the arm.

“Hellion’s going to kill you,” Stearns said, looking squarely at me for the first time as he put the final wrap on the Ace bandage holding the butterfly bandages and gauze in place.

“He’ll have to get in line,” I muttered.

“I’m already there.”

Hellion was home.

Darius stood and moved between us. While I appreciated the gesture, this was between Hellion and me.

“Darius?” I said gently. “Can you give me some time with Hellion, please? I’d like you to stay here tonight and help gather information about the events that happened, particularly after I was attacked.”

“You were
what
?” Hellion yelled.

“You weren’t here, mate, so she had to go it with her secondary players,” Darius said in the voice I was beginning to think of as his Glacial Voice. He’d used it a lot lately, and always on my behalf.

Hellion said nothing, just stood glaring at the wound on my arm.

“I’m going back to the park to clean up any mess left behind, and I’ll meet with you either just before sunrise or first thing this evening.” Darius bent and bussed my cheek before turning and rushing out of the room without another word to Hellion.

“Care to bring me up to speed?” Hellion asked cautiously. I looked up and realized all the other coven members had left when the vampire did. We were alone in the kitchen.

“Sure.” I flexed my arm and grimaced at the tight, raw feeling of the wound. I told Hellion about the plan and the park, and calling the Council together, and his face grew more and more grim, the lines around his mouth become deeper, the black of his eyes broader, and his breaths shorter. I finished with my arrival here in Darius’s arms. Hellion stood there, unspeaking.

“Do you realize I could have lost you tonight?” he asked, trying to master the emotions leaking into his voice.

“Don’t you realize you could have lost me when you left?” I fidgeted with the edge of the bandage, refusing to look at him for fear it would be my undoing, and I’d either beg him to stay or demand that he go.

He stepped close to me, the tips of his shoes quickly breaking the plane of my vision. A hand reached out and lifted my chin and I let him, though I closed my eyes.

“Please, Maddy. Look at me.” I hesitated and he squeezed my chin. “Please.”

I slowly opened my eyes and stared at him.

“I will get down on my knees, I will lay prostrate on the floor, I will abject myself in whatever way you deem necessary, if you will only forgive me.” True to his word, he went to his knees, but I was somehow unmoved, my heart guarded against his pleas for absolution. “Do you want me to beg? Because I’ll do that too.”

Swallowing hard, Hellion reached out and took my hands, fingering the ring I still wore though it was now coated in my dried blood. “When I left, I went to Ballinlough and spent the day at the lake, thinking. I was so angry with you for denying me my vengeance, not only on Amaly’s behalf, Maddy, but also on yours. You crucified me when you said I’d failed in my best efforts to keep you safe.” He rubbed his jaw and sat back on his heels, finally resting his fidgety hands palm down on his thighs. “I’d failed you, Maddy, after doing what I’d considered my best. I was terrified that if I couldn’t protect you in our own home I’d stand no chance in the outside world. I’ve been so powerful for so long that it was debilitating to realize what I have, what I
am
, might not be enough.” He reached out a hand and gripped my ankle, bending forward to lay his forehead on my knees. I didn’t touch him, but he continued anyway. “I thought of the million ways I might lose you, Maddy, but it wasn’t until I watched the sun set across the lake that I realized the biggest threat came from within our own home.”

I fought to keep from reaching out and stroking his head. “And what’s the biggest threat, Hellion?”

“Me. My tendency to walk away in anger may find me coming home one day to an empty house. I nearly died at the thought, Maddy, and then when I got home and you weren’t here… I nearly went berserk. I’d only been back a few minutes when Darius came in with you.”

I nodded and gave in to the urge to lay my hand on his head. “You can’t leave me every time I make you mad, Hellion, or we’ll never spend any time together.”

He snorted with laughter, and his shoulders shook slightly with an emotion his hidden face protected. “I’ll give you my word, Maddy, that I’ll never walk out on you again. Forgive me, I’m begging you. Forgive me, and I’ll show you a staying power you’ve not experienced from me. Just…forgive me.” He lifted his face and met my eyes.

I reached down and grabbed his face with my hands, ignoring the pain in my arm, and said, “Don’t you ever,
ever
, leave me again, Hellion. The next time you walk out on me in anger will be the last time. Do you understand?”

“I do. But I’ll ask the same of you. Don’t you ever walk out on me. I’ll covenant with you now to stay, but you must do the same. I may be your destiny, Madeleine Niteclif, but so are you mine. And even destiny leaves room for choices made of free will. Do you choose to fight with me, not against me?”

I nodded, unspeaking.
Destiny leaves room for choices made of free will
. Hellion might be my destiny, but I’d reaffirmed that destiny by choosing him in every way that would tie me to him permanently—by wearing his ring, publicly moving into his home, dismissing my dragon in Ireland and again last night in London, and confessing my love for this magus. I’d exercised free will in my decision-making, though it had all been done in his favor.

So how much is actually free will, then?
my subconscious asked yet again.

I sighed and admonished myself to, for once, just shut the hell up. Scrubbing my good hand over my face, I nodded at him. “I don’t want to fight with you, Hellion. There will be so many times I can imagine we won’t agree, particularly when it comes to my function as Niteclif, but you have to remember justice is mine to interpret, though not necessarily to administer. You can have a hand in the second, and influence the first, but it’s ultimately mine to determine. If you take that from me, you may doom me to an existence worse than death. I love you, but I won’t choose to fade for anyone. I deserve more consideration than that from you.”

He started in surprise, and fresh hurt flashed across his features. “I never considered my demands to be a choice you had to accept or decline, Maddy, but you’re right. And to potentially cause you to fade? Gods and goddesses alike would have to fight me to keep me from following you. I don’t know how I’d manage, but I’d find a way. I won’t leave you again.”

I had a horrid question to ask, but if I could face Bahlin down alone, I should be able to confront Hellion. “I’m going to ask you one time, because I have no choice, and I expect you to answer me without arrogance or anger. Are we clear?”

He nodded, curiosity decorating his face. “Anything, Maddy.”

“You were gone tonight when I was attacked, then you were here as fast as we were. The mist that struck me was just like the mist that hit me in the park when we were separated but you were near. Hellion, do you have any part in these attacks and/or murders?” I held my breath, anxiety beating on my back so it was hard to draw a lungful of air, but I wouldn’t give my fear over to it. I sat still, waiting for his answer.

He stood slowly, his eyes pulsing and his face pale and taught, pulled tight over the bones of his skull. “I will answer you this one time, Madeleine, in your capacity as Niteclif. I swear on the magic and capability within me that I did not do these things. I swear I have never, nor will I ever, raise a hand to you with harmful intent. I swear I have been honest and genuine in my desires to help solve this case.” He voice was formal and cool, though not nearly as frigid as the vampire’s.

I nodded and stood, weaving slightly with exhaustion and hunger. Still behaving in a reserved manner, Hellion was solicitous and careful with me as I returned to our bedroom, going so far as to order dinner be delivered to my room since I hadn’t eaten tonight. Once there, he sat next to me on the covers and waited on the food. The silence was heavy and uncomfortable, and I knew he felt it too because he was unable to sit still, forever moving around and straightening things: the front of his shirt, the duvet, the clock on the nightstand. It was driving me nuts.

A knock at the door had us both yelling, “Come in.”

Mark entered, carrying the dinner tray, and I was relieved to see him until I realized he was avoiding looking at me. Apparently there would be no camaraderie from that corner. He set the tray down and left, the click of the door as he closed it seeming to smash through the room.

At my wit’s end, I finally broke. “Look, are you going to speak to me or just hover? Because, frankly, it was easier when you were gone than it is to endure what’s going on now.”

Hellion jerked as if I’d slapped him. “You want me to leave?”

“For such an intelligent man, you are such a moron sometimes,” I bitched, lifting the lid off the tray and finding my favorite meal: a McDonald’s burger and fries. I sighed. I’d have to kiss Mark full on the lips for this one.

He stood and towered over me. “I’m not leaving. I’m just banjaxed that you’d consider it of me.”

I set my fries down slowly and laid my hands one on each side of the tray. “I’m going to say this slowly so you’ll process it clearly. If you’d been here when the attacks happened, would I have had to ask?” I answered my own question before he could. “No. I wouldn’t. I don’t understand you sometimes. For such a logical guy with an alchemist’s mind, you allow your arrogance and emotions to impede your vision. You’re angry at me for having to ask, when my actions are a direct result of yours. Why is it my fault?”

His shoulders slumped some as she stood at the end of the bed, one hand hooked behind his neck and the other in his pants pocket. “I’m sometimes disturbed I understand you. You make me feel like such a gouger, love.”

“Gouger?” I asked around a mouthful of burger. I was frustrated but I was also hungry, and I wasn’t letting my burger go to waste.

“Irish slang for an aggressive asshole.”

I raised one eyebrow and kept eating, not disagreeing with his sentiment.

“Fair enough,” he muttered, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry. Again. I just don’t want to believe you’d think these things of me!” he shouted, making me jump.

I smashed my hamburger down on the tray and scrambled out of bed, furious. “I don’t
want
to think these things! They come to me, like I’m logic impaired with a gift of vision! Half the time I don’t know what the hell to do with the thoughts that come into my head. Do I share them, and risk looking the fool, or do I sit on them and risk someone else dying? And if I
do
share them, and the wrong conclusions are drawn, who am I condemning to death with my ignorance!” I screamed, shaking with rage and terror. I’d just unwittingly vocalized my deepest fears since this whole life evolution had begun.

Hellion stood in front of me, gobsmacked at my outburst. He opened his mouth several times as if to begin to say something only to close it and start again. Finally, he sat down on the foot bench and bent forward, dropping his elbows to his knees and letting his hair hide his face as it fell forward.

I stood there shaking, angry and scared that I’d just bared this piece of my soul to him and he’d been unsure what to make of it. I needed him to help me build a foundation for this responsibility, not wonder where to put the next stone.

A strange sound, similar to wind whipping through tall pines, caught my attention. Without any other warning than that, I collapsed to the floor in a boneless heap as I was lifted from my physical self into the astral plane.