Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“So what happens now?” Marna asked. It was still dark, and she still wanted Tanner.
Wanting him was becoming natural for her. She didn’t think about it. Didn’t question it. She just…did.
“Now it’s our turn to hunt.”
She glanced at him. Saw the hard line of his jaw. “What do you mean?”
He was driving fast with his eyes on the road, not her. “It means we both know that vamp has info on what’s happening in this town.”
That vamp. Riley Kane. “You want me to give him my blood.” She hadn’t expected that. Marna swallowed. She didn’t know if she could do it. The vamp’s teeth, in her neck? “Tanner, I?—”
“Hell, no. ” He tossed her a fast glance that called her crazy. “We’re gonna track that vamp down to his hole, and we’re gonna make him tell us everything he knows.”
Oh, yes, she liked that plan much better.
His stare slid back to the road. “It’ll be daylight soon. We’ll wait for the sun to rise, then we’ll find him.”
Because vamps were always weaker during the day. So weak, they were almost human.
But weren’t they overlooking kind of an obvious point? “How do we find him?”
He laughed, and the deep rumble had her tensing. Had she ever heard him laugh before? Marna couldn’t remember him laughing. She liked his laugh. It made her almost want to smile.
“Easy, baby. All I have to do is follow my nose.” Shifter senses. She realized that he was taking them back to the Quarter. He’d circled down some narrow streets and was returning to the city. “I’ve got his scent. I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.” Anger roughened the words. A promise of retaliation. “All we have to do is follow the smell of blood and death all the way back to that vamp’s hiding spot.”
Then they’d find out what secrets the vampire held.
Two police cars raced past them, lights flashing.
Tanner frowned, but kept driving.
And Marna wondered just what they’d have to do in order to make Riley talk. She’d seen plenty of tortures in her time, and they’d always made her… sick.
The other angels hadn’t seemed to care what they saw. They’d witnessed carnage. Hell on earth. Heard screams and pleas. They’d been unaffected.
She hadn’t.
“Bastion, please, I don’t want to do this.” Her broken confession from so long ago. He’d been the only one she told. She’d turned to him because she’d thought he could help her. He’d been higher in the angel rankings. So powerful.
But there’d been nothing he could do.
“What, Marna? Do you want to fall?” He’d shaken his dark head. “Life down there, for us, it’s agony. You would never survive being earthbound.”
Her hands fisted.
They were snaking through the back streets now. Tanner had lowered his window. The better to catch the vamp’s scent?
Shifters and their noses.
“What was Bastion to you?”
Marna blinked, surprised by the question—and the deadly intensity that had entered Tanner’s voice.
“He meant something, I could tell.” He wasn’t looking at her. “I couldn’t see the bastard, but I smelled him.” A muscle flexed along his jaw. “And I recognized that scent. That angel, he came to Sunrise when you were hurt.”
Yes, Bastion had come to her during those terrible days. He’d promised to help her. But what could he do? He still had heaven.
She had hell.
“Bastion.” Marna sighed when she said his name. Was she sad about what she’d lost? Or sad that her friend had seemed pained just to look at her?
“You…care for him.”
“Yes.” Another fault. Angels didn’t form attachments, but she had. Humans could love. Why couldn’t angels? “He tried to watch out for me.” How many times had he covered for her? When she’d been afraid? Weak?
“And now he’s following you.”
That had her shaking her head, then realizing he couldn’t see the move. “No, he was just there—” Because you killed a vampire. Ripped his throat wide open. Um, better not to think too long about that particular visual. Her stomach was already clenching. “He was just there to ferry a soul.”
“And the other times?”
Now she was lost. “What other times?”
“I’ve caught his scent before. At my house. In that bar last night. He’s been watching you.”
Tanner was wrong. “I didn’t see him.” And she would have. She could always see her own kind, even without her wings.
“Maybe he didn’t want you to see him.” He parked the SUV on the side of the road, near a line of broken down buildings that hadn’t recovered after the storm. “Maybe he just wants to see you .” There was an edge in Tanner’s voice that had her tensing. Then he glanced at her, cutting her with his intense stare, and admitted, “The same way I did.”
“What are you talking about?” The sun was rising, sending streaks of pink and gray across the sky.
“I had to watch you, too. You didn’t know. You never know when danger is close.”
He’d been watching her? “Why?” Her nails dug into the leather seat.
“Someone had to make sure you were safe.” He turned away. Climbed from the vehicle.
She hurried out and rushed to confront him. “Making sure I was safe?” Marna shook her head and stabbed her finger into his chest. “Or making sure I wasn’t killing?” She knew how Tanner’s mind worked. He was a shifter, a paranormal, but a cop, too. He’d been staking her out just like he did the other criminals he hunted.
One shoulder lifted in a shrug as Tanner confessed, “Maybe a little of both.”
Right. Figured. She turned away and rubbed her arms. Her gaze raked over the dark lines of buildings that rose into the sky. So many boarded-up windows and doors. Giant KEEP OUT signs. Yes, this place was a vampire paradise if she’d ever seen one.
“Or maybe,” Tanner drawled, “maybe I just wanted to make sure you weren’t fucking anyone.”
Her jaw dropped. She snapped it closed and whirled on him. “What I do isn’t?—”
He put a finger to his lips. “He’s close.”
Her eyes narrowed. He was just trying to stop the conversation.
“There.” He pointed to the second building. An old house. Tanner’s nostrils flared. “I can smell him.”
She could only smell the scent of decay and garbage. Not exactly pleasant.
Tanner marched toward the building. He grabbed the heavy wood in front of the door and yanked. It broke away like a twig snapping. Sometimes, she forgot just how strong the panther was.
He shoved open the door with a push of his hand, splintering any lock that might have been there.
“So much for going in quietly,” she muttered.
But Tanner was already lunging forward, racing into the dark interior, and she followed fast behind him.
Tanner didn’t waste time. Just ran straight for a door on the left side of the house. He kicked it open, and when Riley lunged for him with a silver blade, Tanner just laughed.
Marna lifted her hands, ready to send fire racing toward the vamp, only… nothing happened.
What? Where were the flames?
Riley sliced out with his blade. Tanner kicked it aside. “That the best you got?” Tanner wanted to know.
Marna’s head whipped back toward them. They were in an apartment, of sorts. Big bed. Heavy oak desk. No other vamps that she saw, but wasn’t Riley enough of a threat?
The vamp’s brows rose. “I was wondering when you’d get here.”
“Yeah.” Tanner’s claws tore from his fingers. “And I bet you were hoping we’d be dumb enough to arrive before dawn.”
The vamp’s mouth kicked up on the right. “I was.”
Tanner inhaled. “You’ve got no backup in this place. No other vamps for you to throw in my way this time.”
Marna dropped her hands and stepped forward. “You’ll tell us what we want to know?—”
Tanner lifted his claws. “Or you’ll be losing that head of yours.”
The vamp’s half-smile didn’t fade. “You think death is going to scare me?” He laughed. “I watched my whole family get slaughtered by vampires. My father, mother, my wife. Everyone died, and guess what? I got to turn into one of the murdering bastards. For two hundred years, they led me around on a puppet string, had me killing. Torturing.” He grabbed his head between his hands and closed his eyes. “I got as fucking far away from the Born as I could, but I can still hear him in my head! ”
Marna’s breath caught. Born. She knew the term. Most vampires were humans who became infected with the vampire virus. That was all it was, too—a virus. One that had been transmitted through a very, very bad mistake so long ago.
Those humans who were transformed were called the Taken. But every Taken was linked to the vampire who’d made him or her. All Taken could be traced back to the Born.
A rare few were actually born as vampires. They aged like any other human, until about their twenty-fifth year. Then the change came. The virus in their bodies activated, and they became immortal.
“They were supposed to be guardians.” She’d heard this whispered story once, from Bastion. Stronger than most of the other paranormals, the Borns should have kept the others in check. They hadn’t.
Power and bloodlust had driven most of them insane.
Now those unlucky enough to be Taken were bound to their Borns. Linked through the blood. They had to follow every command given by their Born. Do every task, no matter how dark.
The only way to break that bond? Kill the Born. Not so easy.
That had been where everything went wrong.
“I’m tired of killing,” Riley muttered. “I’m ready to just…stop.” His head had sagged forward, and she couldn’t see his face. His shoulders hunched. “But he won’t let me.” Then he lunged forward, fangs bared, and tried to sink his teeth into Tanner’s throat.
Tanner sighed. “Sad fucking story.” He punched Riley in the face.
The vampire staggered back.
“Now let’s hear another story. One that involves two dead shifters in an alley.”
Riley swiped the blood off his chin. “Make me a deal first.”
He watched his family die. A whisper of memory teased at Marna. Two hundred years ago? And the vampire…with his slanting cheekbones and that sharp nose. He’d seemed so familiar to her.
Two hundred years. A bloody night. A man’s screams.
And she remembered.
A man on the ground. Begging. Screaming. Shaking the bloody body of a woman. That woman, with her blond hair stained red, had been so still.
Victoria! Don’t leave me.
But Marna had already taken her away. She’d taken her as quickly as she could, so the woman wouldn’t suffer any more. Victoria had suffered too much during those last moments of life. She hadn’t needed the agony to continue in death.
“There’s no deal. You talk or die.” Tanner’s brutal words pulled her from the past.
Riley nodded. “That’s what I want.” A rough sigh expelled from him. “Kill me so I can finally be free.”
She’d taken Victoria and left the shattered man behind. There’d been nothing that Marna could do for him. She’d wanted to help him, but that had been forbidden. A different fate waited for the man who’d mourned so brokenly on the bloody field.
This? This is what waited?
Riley lowered himself to the edge of the bed. “Cadence was in the alley that night when the two shifters were killed. She told me that she saw a blond, just like you”—he inclined his head toward Marna—“heading after those shifters.”
It wasn’t me.
“Cadence said she’d never seen an angel, not until that day. But when the blond touched and killed, she knew just what she had to be seeing.”
How many times would she have to say it? “ I didn’t kill them. ”
“Cadence just wondered…” Riley kept talking as if she hadn’t spoken. “She wondered why the angel didn’t have any wings. She’d heard that even if angels fall, strong demons can still see the shadow of their wings behind them.”
Marna frowned and glanced over her shoulder.
“Whoever that was killing those shifters, she didn’t have wings.” Riley rubbed his chin. “If you don’t have wings, then I guess you aren’t really an angel.”
No, you weren’t.
“Maybe she just couldn’t see the wings,” Tanner said, frowning as he glanced back at Marna. “Not all demons?—”
But Riley shook his head. “Cadence was a pureblood. She had enormous power. Hell, that’s why she was so screwed up in the head. She couldn’t control the voices that whispered to her. Voices that always told her what was coming.” Riley pointed at Marna. “She saw your wings the instant you walked into Hell. I was at the bar with her. How did you think I realized what you were so fast?”
Marna rolled her shoulders and felt the phantom pull of wings that were gone. She couldn’t see any shadows when she looked over her shoulder. You weren’t allowed to see what you’d lost. That was one of the rules.
Punishments.
But she’d seen the shadowy images on other Fallen. On Sammael.
So if a Fallen wasn’t doing the killing, then who was? And how?
“That’s all I know.” Riley tipped back his head and offered his throat. “So, now, do it. Put me out of this sick-ass misery of an existence.”
Marna tensed. “Tanner…”
But he shook his head and turned away from the vamp. “Despite what you think, I’m a cop, not just a killer. And I’m not executing an unarmed man, vamp or not.” He offered his hand to Marna. “Let’s go.”
She couldn’t walk away.
And Riley didn’t give her the chance.
“I’m not unarmed.” His hand had disappeared under the mattress, and, in a blink, he yanked out a gun. Only he didn’t aim it at Tanner.
At me.
“Dumbass move,” Tanner snapped as he spun back to face the vampire. “Bullets won’t kill her.”
“Brimstone bullets will.” Now the vampire’s smile was just sad. Tired. “I’ve done my research. I heard about the shit that went down in this city just a few months back.”
When Azrael had battled Brandt Dupre. Because Brandt had been a hybrid—the product of a rare mating between a shifter and an angel—it had taken a lot to kill him.
Bullets made of brimstone—bullets formed from a hellhound’s claws—could kill any angel, no matter how old or strong. Brandt had learned that lesson.
She stared at the barrel of the gun. “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck this—” Tanner began.
“I was the one who took your wife,” she cut through Tanner’s words and took a step toward the vampire. He deserved to hear the truth. “That night, so long ago, it was me.”
The gun barrel shook. His hand tightened. “You bitch. ”
“Once I took her, Victoria didn’t hurt anymore.”
“My Victoria ? —”
“But I had to leave you behind.” The words were hollow. No, she was hollow. Why hadn’t she rebelled back then? Tried to save this man, before he’d become a monster?
What he was…all the things he’d done…could she have stopped this?
“They fed on me, for hours?—”
This part hurt to confess. “I was gone by then.” The memory of his screams had chased her as she flew away. No wonder the vampire had looked familiar to her. But there’d been so many deaths over the years. So many souls. Sometimes, their images dimmed in her mind.
He leapt at her even as he fired the gun.
Tanner took the bullet. Marna never even had a chance to scream. Tanner jumped in front of her, and the bullet thudded into his chest.
He barely staggered. One step, then he lunged forward and ripped the gun from Riley’s hand before the vamp could fire again.
“Now you’ll kill me,” Riley whispered, and he sounded so grateful. “Now.”
No. “Tanner!”
His claws were at the vamp’s throat. Blood soaked Tanner’s shirt. The bullet had sunk in near his shoulder.
“I knew…” Riley wasn’t fighting. “If I shot at her, you’d kill me.”
Tanner’s claws shoved into his own shoulder, and he yanked out the bullet from his flesh. “Nine caliber.” He tossed it aside. “Brimstone, my ass.”
Why did everyone get to lie but her?
Tanner shook his head and glared at the vamp. “You think you’re the first suicide junkie I’ve gotten? Death by cop isn’t in the cards for you. Why don’t you just try fighting for life instead of clawing your way to hell so fast?”
The knife that Riley had dropped lay just steps away from Marna’s feet. She bent and picked it up.
“I can’t fight!” Riley’s teeth flashed. “I’m not strong enough! The Born is in my head every single—” He stopped and his head snapped to the right.
His eyes locked on Marna.
And on the blood that dripped down her arm. She’d sliced into the skin just below her elbow, and she lifted her arm, offering it to the vampire. “Maybe my blood will be strong enough to help you.” Didn’t she owe him that much?
He’d been a good man, once. He would have been a good father. Had he even known that his Victoria was pregnant?
Everything had been ripped away from him.
While I watched.
Riley stumbled forward.
Tanner blocked him. “Hell, no, you aren’t?—”
“Tanner, make sure he doesn’t take too much.” She didn’t even know if this would work. Angel blood was supposed to contain power, she knew that. But would it be enough power to help him break free of his Born? As far as she knew, no one had ever used angel’s blood to sever a link like that.
I have to try.
Tanner’s hands had locked around the vamp’s shoulders as he held Riley back. “Are you sure about this?” he asked Marna.
Atonement. She had to do her part. “Yes.” But she needed the shifter to help her because she didn’t trust the vamp to stop once he started drinking. She only trusted?—
Tanner.
When had that happened? Maybe the “when” didn’t matter. Marna pulled in a deep breath. “Just stop him when I say so.”
Jaw clenching, Tanner nodded. “But let me just say,” he muttered as he jerked the vamp closer, “I really don’t like this shit.”
Riley stared at her blood with wide eyes. “Wh-why?”
“Because you are more than a killer.” And I’m more than just a lost angel.
Time to start showing it. She lifted her arm to his mouth.
Tanner shoved the vamp to his knees and kept Riley’s hands locked behind his back. “Don’t even think of hurting her,” her shifter ordered.
Riley nodded. His head lowered to her arm, and Marna closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see this. She could feel his mouth on her skin, tasting her blood, and goose bumps rose on her body.
The other angels she knew would never have allowed themselves to be used this way. They would have found it degrading. Shameful.
She’d never been like the others. She found this to be…
Atonement . The word slipped through her mind again.
The edge of his teeth pressed into her skin, and her eyelids flew open as she gasped at the sting.
“Easy,” Tanner shouted.
Her gaze flew to Tanner. His own fangs were out. His eyes glowing. There was fury on his face. A dark and savage rage. One that she’d never seen there before. He stared down at Riley like he’d take joy in killing the vamp. But, before, he’d wanted to spare him.
Tanner’s gaze met hers. “Enough.”
But Riley was still drinking. Marna tried to slide her arm back.
Riley followed.
He didn’t get very far. Tanner ripped him away from her and sent the vampire hurtling into the wall. “I said enough. ”
Her breath heaved out. Tanner caught her arm. Stared down at the wound. A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Never again.” A lethal promise from him. But for all of his rage, his touch on her was incredibly gentle. His body surrounded hers. “Whatever the hell this was about, whatever debt you think you owed him, consider it paid in full.”
She managed a slow nod. Her arm throbbed where she had cut herself and where Riley had bitten down a bit harder, but the wound was already starting to close.
Angel healing. She loved that perk.
“And you…” Tanner glanced back over his shoulder. “Stay away from her. Because if you don’t, I’ll decide to give you that death you seemed to want so freaking badly.”
Marna turned away from Riley. Tanner’s body moved with her, in perfect time, shadowing her, as she headed for the door.
“The call…” Riley’s voice stopped her. She didn’t look back. “I-I…the Born’s voice is already getting dimmer. I can barely hear him.”
Something hit the floor with a thud. Helpless, Marna turned back. Riley had shoved the nightstand to the ground. He was on his feet and staring at her with wide eyes.
“He’s gone. He’s gone from my mind.”
Then maybe Riley could be the man he used to be.
The man he should have been?
“Come on.” Tanner pushed open the door. Led her out. His hand was wrapped around her arm. Did he even realize that he kept caressing the now-healed wound with his fingers?
And why did his touch push away the cold she’d felt? How could he do that to her so easily?
They didn’t speak again. Just marched out of that dark house. The sunlight seemed far too bright when they hurried back toward the street and the SUV that waited.
So bright.
Marna reached for the passenger door. Before she could grab the handle, Tanner spun her around. “What?—”
His mouth took hers. Not easy. Not gentle. Hard. Deep. Burning with lust and need, and she opened her mouth wider. Kissed him back just as hard.
“Never again,” he growled against her lips. “I never want him touching you again.”
Her fingers sank into his hair, and she pressed her body closer to his. Marna rose onto her tiptoes so that she could reach his mouth better. The hunger inside her, the hard lust, was driving her wild, and she wanted.
Tanner caught her hips. Lifted her higher. Her legs wrapped around him, and the erect length of his cock pushed against her sensitive sex.
A gasp slipped from her.
Tanner’s head rose. “Not…here.”
He managed to get her into the SUV, then he rushed around to the driver’s side. Tanner gunned the engine and spared her one more glance. The heat from his stare singed her skin. “I tried to do what was right,” he said.
Her body ached for him. How did humans stand it? How did they live with the lust?
And now that she knew what pleasure waited, she wanted to feel that rush of release again.
“Remember that, would you?” His voice roughened as the SUV leapt away from the curb. “I tried, but I was too weak.”
Weak? Not Tanner. He was the strongest man she’d ever met.
And it looked like the shifter would also soon be her first lover.
“What the hell happened to you?”
Paul tried to open his eyes. Couldn’t. He heard sirens and voices, and he wanted to talk, but it was just too hard.
Someone lifted him up. Put him on something soft. The world started to move. Or maybe that was just him. A sharp pain jabbed in his arm. Needle?
“Just hold on. We’ll be at the hospital in five minutes.” Another jab. Somewhere, machines started beeping.
An ambulance. Understanding sank in slowly. Help had finally come. He tried to open his eyes once more, but he still just couldn’t do it.
“Someone did a real number on him. Poor SOB.”
Paul fought to swallow. He had to tell them what had happened.
“He’s a fighter. I can’t believe he’s still holding on. Jesus, look at his legs!”
Paul coughed, choked, but managed to say, “T-Tan…ner…”
A hand grabbed his arm. The fingers curled tightly around him. “What is it? What are you saying?”
“Ch-Chance…” A whisper was all he could manage. “T-Tanner…Ch-Ch?—”
“You want us to call someone for you? That a friend?”
No. Not a friend.
The machines began to beep louder. Wilder.
“He’s seizing!”
The sirens were screaming.
Something pounded against his chest.
And Paul managed to whisper, “He…k-killed…me.”
Then he couldn’t talk at all.