CHAPTER TWENTY
Zandren
“Where the fuck is she?” Maxar boomed, his voice echoing out into the darkness. “You left her?” A hand gripped me by the hair and yanked my head so I was forced to tilt my neck backward and stare up into the angry eyes of the mage hovering over me, fire flickering in his amber irises. “How could you—”
His words were cut off as the portal opened up and another body came barreling through, landing in a heap with a pained, “ Oof.” Followed by a, “Fuck.”
Little One .
Thank gods.
Maxar released my hair and went to help her up. “There you are,” he said, checking her out, patting her down to make sure everything was in one piece.
“I’m fine,” she said, dismissing him as she ran to my side to help me up. “How are you feeling?” She made me sit up first, not allowing me to stand. I didn’t like this helpless feeling one bit. I was a protector. Not the other way around. “Zandren?” Her voice filled with worried urgency. “You can hear me, right?” She glanced at the other two, who looked no worse for wear. “Could he have lost his hearing in there?”
Maxar frowned and shrugged, all the ire from a moment ago snuffed out now that our mate was with us again. “I mean, it’s possible his ear canals didn’t reassemble. Never heard of that happening, but maybe. Or his eardrums burst from the impact?”
“I’m fine,” I said with a groan, reaching up and cupping Omaera’s cheek. I brought her face down to me for a kiss. “Just reorienting myself.”
She exhaled in relief, smiling against my mouth. “You scared me.”
With another kiss to her perfect mouth, I pulled in the deepest breath of my life, inhaling her sweet scent of honeysuckle, lilacs, and cayenne. “Sorry, Little One. Just … enjoying being home.”
Her smile was small and sweet. “Being in Hell definitely makes you appreciate where we’re from, huh? Earth’s all kinds of fucked up too, but at least it’s beautiful. And cooler.”
I grunted and slowly pushed myself to stand.
“You good on your own?” she asked, running her hand down my arm.
“Never better. Now that I’m not being boiled like a lobster, I’m awesome.” And that wasn’t an exaggeration. The cool desert temperature revitalized me like a bath in a glacial brook. My strength came back. My senses were all in top-notch working order once more, and I could even feel Omaera’s emotions again. She was still worried about me, but also relieved.
“Let’s head to the truck then,” Maxar said, hiking his backpack onto his back. “Hopefully, it’s still there.”
I didn’t even consider the possibility that our vehicle might not be where we left it. But abandoned cars tended to draw the attention to law enforcement. Or people who liked to chop them up and sell them off for parts.
There was also the annoying little fact that Howar probably knew by now that his ambush assassination attempt didn’t work and we were still alive. If the vehicle was still there, the likelihood of it being booby trapped, or surrounded by more vampires out to kill us, was pretty good.
I didn’t have to say any of this out loud though. I could feel that Omaera’s head was already there, as I’m sure she could feel mine. Maxar and Drak would easily be thinking the same thing. Even though we didn’t see eye-to-eye-to-eye on most things, we were all pretty well versed in the ways of subterfuge and war.
“So, how are we going to handle this?” Omaera asked, leaving me in the back of our little four-person convoy and catching up with Maxar.
“I’m thinking the Care Bear back there can sniff ‘em out and let us know if there are vampires hiding out around the vehicle—if it’s still there.”
It was impossible not to miss Drak’s posture change. The man’s normally ramrod-straight back went even straighter—if that was possible. Like someone had just jammed a stick up his tight ass.
“And if the vehicle isn’t there, then we walk until we can hitch a ride to the nearest motel. Then rent a car tomorrow.”
I honestly couldn’t come up with a better plan myself, not that this plan was very good to begin with. We knew coming back to Earth would have its challenges. At least there wasn’t an ambush at the sight of the portal.
“Do you think Lerris used this portal too?” Omaera asked.
“He did,” I said, catching up with her so she was flanked with me on one side and the mage on the other. The vampire was behind us with his bad mood and consequences keeping him company. “I smelled him as soon as I landed back on Earth.”
Omaera exhaled through her nose and her shoulders rounded. “I’m sure he smelled me there then.”
“So what, babe? He’s not going to win. We have a plan that will work. I know it.” Maxar looped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in to press a kiss to her temple. “Zandren will reach out to his dad in the morning, and we’ll tell him the plan, then have him reach out to Howar and Anysa.”
Omaera glanced over her shoulder at the sullen vampire as we walked through the desert toward the outline of trees that comprised the oasis. He was busy staring at the ground as he walked. She didn’t say anything, but I could see the pain in her eyes, and more importantly, feel it. There was anger there too.
Drak kept a very serious secret from her. A secret that impacted the safety of our group. Because now his decisions, behavior, and health over the last few weeks all made sense. The longer Omaera waited to mate-bond with him, the more extreme his Mate’s Ache became. Now that she’d mate-bonded with Maxar and me, the Mate’s Ache for Drak was worse. And every time she had sex with Maxar or me, the Mate’s Ache was worse. Not to mention, the distance thing. That’s what was the most fucked up of all. The further he was away from her, the worse it got. Which made sense now, because like a fucking weirdo stalker, he refused to let her do anything on her own. I thought he was just a massive control freak, but it turns out he was in agony if he was too far away from her. Serves him right, kind of.
Facing forward again, we stepped into the copse of trees where the vampires attacked us that first day. I sniffed the air, turning my nose into the wind. I’d smell them if they were downwind too, just not as strong.
“Any sign of trouble, Lassie?” Maxar asked.
Growling, I glared at him. “No.”
With a smirk, Omaera laced her fingers through mine, giving them a squeeze. “I don’t smell or sense any danger either, Pooh Bear.”
With our nerves in our throats, we carefully navigated through the trees, using the torch Maxar conjured as our only source of light. The stars above were bright, but not so bright that we didn’t need the torch to keep us on the path.
The trees thinned out eventually, leading us to the flat sand, speckled with bulky shadows of small desert shrubs and the odd cactus standing like a sentry in the distance.
“Wait, didn’t we drive right to the edge of the oasis?” Omaera asked, making us all stop abruptly and glance around.
Now, I couldn’t actually remember. But it made sense. Being in Hell for so long fucked with my brain and had me questioning things. Maybe my memory got broiled a bit and was still recovering.
Maxar grunted and scratched at his chin. “That would make sense.”
“We did,” Drak said matter-of-factly.
“Then where is it?” Omaera asked. “Did we park on the other side?”
“No. We parked on the west side and that’s where we are now,” Drak replied.
Unease crawled through me.
“Fuck,” Maxar murmured. “Cops must have towed it or something.”
“So we walk?” Omaera asked, exhausted.
“We walk,” I answered.
“We’re not that far from the road,” Maxar said. “I’m sure we can flag down a car quickly.”
“I can smell the hot asphalt,” I said, continuing to keep my eyes, nose, and ears tuned into our surroundings.
A skittering of something to the left made us all freeze. Omaera held her breath.
Maxar swung his torch in the direction of the sound, but all that revealed itself was a little desert lizard, blinking big eyes at us before its tongue flew out to nab a mosquito in the air.
Omaera released her snagged breath, and we continued on our way.
“Wait, is that it up ahead?” Omaera asked, pointing toward a vehicle-shaped shadow about forty yards in front of us.
“Maybe we did park it here and walk to the oasis,” Maxar mused.
“No, we didn’t,” Drak argued. “We parked it on the west side of the trees.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t face the vampire.
The relief I felt through Omaera made my heart hurt. She was so tired, and yet, a part of me knew not to get my hopes up about this vehicle up ahead. When Drak said we parked on the edge of the oasis, the memory of doing it returned to me.
As we drew closer, that relieved feeling in Omaera disappeared like a fart in the wind. It was the Ford we borrowed from the healer-mage all right, but it wasn’t alive anymore.
“Fuck,” Omaera breathed. “It’s been stripped down to its frame.”
“Motherfuckers,” Maxar grumbled.
I glanced at the vampire, who seemed to have suddenly become a mute, or at the very least, a mock-monk in a vow of silence.
Omaera’s gaze skimmed over the deserted area. “Now what?”
“We walk until we can catch a ride,” I said, repeating the mage’s words. We were all bone-tired, but there was really no other option. At least we weren’t going to wind up bisibra food wandering the desert at night. The biggest thing out here was a coyote, and I ate those as a snack. There were rattlesnakes too, but none of those would kill us. We were back to being at the top of the food chain, and I liked it.
After we redressed—pulling sweat-logged clothes back over our grimy skin—and with fatigue in our steps, we wandered down the dusty highway with not a single vehicle stopping for our upturned thumbs. I’m sure we looked like a ragtag crew of highway men out to shiv and steal, particularly with how filthy we all were.
City lights shone up ahead the further toward Reno we trudged, and before we knew it, we were rocking up to the Smiling Lizard Motel.
The front desk clerk, a short guy with rat-like features and a big coffee stain on the front of his plaid shirt, went wide-eyed and slack-jawed when he saw us step into his tired little lobby. “We’d like a room, please,” Maxar said. “Or two, if you have joining ones.”
“I … uh …” the clerk stammered.
“We can pay, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Maxar said, pulling out his wallet and slapping a credit card on the counter.
The clerk’s eyes were mostly focused on me. That’s when I caught a glimpse of myself in the window. I looked rough. My skin was caked in red dust, even my face and beard were red. My eyes shone bright white through the scarlet, and big streak marks from sweat ran terrifying tracks down my cheeks, arms, and chest. I was terrifying looking.
“Don’t mind him,” Maxar said, taking in the clerk’s fear. “We just found him roaming the desert. Need to get him cleaned up and back to the mental hospital.”
Omaera slapped Maxar’s arm. “He’s kidding,” she said. “Zandren is perfectly sane.”
“Why’s he look like that though?” the clerk asked as he processed Maxar’s card. Clearly, he wasn’t so scared of me that he was unwilling to take Maxar’s money. “Why are you all covered in red dust?”
“We were in the desert on a hike when a big windstorm hit us. That’s what happens when you sweat and the wind hits you. Then we got back to our car, only to find it stripped for parts.” Omaera glanced at me and smiled.
Better to be honest than try to contain a lie and keep it straight.
That seemed to satisfy the clerk too, and his hazel eyes turned sympathetic. “ That’s becoming a big problem here. People are getting their cars stolen and chopped up more and more.”
“We’ll be looking for a rental in the morning,” Maxar said.
“I can help you with that.” The clerk, whose name tag was flipped over so we couldn’t read it, placed two keycards up on the counter. “You’re in rooms 6A and 7A. They’re upper floor.”
Maxar grabbed them. “Thank you, my good man.”
With a cursory head nod at the clerk, we followed Maxar back out of the lobby and through the parking lot toward the stairs.
“I’m sharing with Omaera,” I said in a tone that left no room for argument, or negotiation for a third person to join us.
Drak certainly didn’t argue, but I caught a mild look of irritation from Maxar before he rolled his eyes and climbed the stairs.
“We should order some food,” Omaera said beside me. “I’m starving.”
“I knew there was a reason I loved you so much, Little One,” I teased as we reached the second floor and counted the doors to 6A.
She smirked. “Let’s order all the things we missed while we were in Hell. Like pizza, burgers, pasta, Indian. Ooh, I could go for some tikka masala. And some Thai food. I’m going to eat until I’m sick.”
Chuckling, I leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “My kind of night.”
“Here we are,” Maxar said, stopping at the door marked 6A. He handed me the corresponding card, and I tried it. The light flashed green and I opened the door, stepping inside to make sure there weren’t any threats—besides the smell of mold and stale urine, which were not in short supply.
“All clear,” I said, flicking on the light and opening the door for Omaera. Maxar let him and Drak into their room, where they checked for threats.
Then the joining door opened. “Howdy, neighbor,” Maxar said with a big, dumb smile.
Omaera was already half naked. “I’m having a shower. One of you, please order us some food.”
“On it,” I said, grabbing the landline phone from the nightstand and opening the drawer to find a phonebook, which spoke of just how dated the motel was. I was about to order a pizza, the shower in the bathroom running, when Drak walked into the bedroom with the phone to his ear, his face ashen.
“Yes, sir,” he murmured into the phone. “Of course, sir. Yes, Your Majesty. I will relay the message to the Queen. Of course. Thank you for your concern. It is appreciated. All right then. Talk soon. Thank you.”
“What the fuck was that about?” I barked, setting the phone back down on the receiver. Maxar plunked his hands on his hips and stared down the vampire, waiting, while I crossed my arms over my chest and allocated all spare energy reserves to not beheading Drak once and for all.
“That was Howar. He said he was concerned when he didn’t hear from me for so long.”
Maxar scoffed. “I’m sure he was.”
Drak didn’t react. “He said that he and Queen Anysa are concerned about Omaera’s leadership skills, and that they are going to get in touch with King Ryden and propose a vote of non-confidence unless Omaera agrees to meet with them. He said that the time has come for Omaera to accept her role, or pass it on to someone who wants it. That she’s been playing around long enough, and the Realm is in real trouble. Then he brought up the most recent deaths of vampires that seem to be by the same assailants as before.”
A world with fewer vampires didn’t sound too terrible to me. But I kept that thought to myself.
“Well, this is perfect,” Maxar said. “We were going to set up a meeting for the four of them anyway.”
Something in Drak’s eyes said it wasn’t going to be that easy though.
“Spit it out,” I growled. “No more fucking secrets.”
If I hadn’t been staring right at him, I would have missed the flash of anger in the vampire’s blue eyes. But he steeled his expression quickly. “Howar said he has had several members of the four courts approach him and discuss challenging Omaera for the throne. News of her … parentage, particularly her mother, has been publicized and people are not happy with the idea of a half-human anything ruling the Realm.”
“Let them try,” I said. “We’ll take them all on. ”
Drak shook his head. “You know as well as I do that it doesn’t work that way. If she is challenged, we cannot intervene.”
Hot rage lanced through me. “Fuck that noise. Try to stop me.”
“It won’t be me that stops you,” the vampire said smoothly. Even though I knew he was right, his calm and collected tone just made me want to punch his smug head right off his neck.
“Well, the meeting should still go as planned. We have our own agenda, and we can’t deviate from it,” Maxar said, about to sit down on the end of the king-sized bed but then stopping himself when he realized he was still filthy. “Hopefully, it doesn’t get to the point of a challenger coming forward.” He glanced at Drak. “You think Howar’s on that list of potential challengers? Or he’s speaking for Lerris?”
“Either. Both,” Drak replied.
“Omaera’s also the most powerful fucking demon alive,” Maxar said. “Nobody knows that but us. To challenge her would be suicide.”
“And how would that make our queen feel?” I asked. “Knowing that she had to kill someone—a subject—in order to secure her throne. A throne she didn’t know existed less than a month ago, and a throne she reluctantly sits on.” Since I was the first to mate-bond with Omaera, I was the most emotionally in tune with her. And I knew she hated having to take a life. She didn’t want to hurt anybody if she could help it. Killing that Phaceanesh in that alleyway a few weeks ago nearly destroyed her, along with every other death that followed. She knew they were necessary, and she talked a big game about showing Lerris no mercy, but I knew deep down, she didn’t like to kill. That was what made her as unique and wonderful as she was. She was kindness incarnate, and having to kill a challenger—because in these circumstances, it would ultimately have to end in death—would wreck her.
Maxar and Drak stared at the faded, stained, beige carpet as my words sunk in.
“Once we’ve all showered and had something to eat, we’ll come up with a plan,” I said. “The same plan, but modified in response to this news. It’s still a good plan. It will still work. But we need Omaera’s opinion on this too. ”
Maxar nodded, as did Drak.
“I’m gonna go scrub off a few layers of skin,” Maxar said, tearing his shirt off over his head, throwing it in the trashcan next to the television, and disappearing into the room he shared with Drak.
That left the vampire and me.
I glared at him.
He slowly lifted his gaze to meet mine. “You’re right,” he said cooly. “The Queen will not want to kill a challenger. And to be forced to, could destroy her.” He swallowed. “I’m … I’m glad she has you to look out for her emotions.”
My nostrils flared, and I shook my head. “You could have what I have with her if you’d get out of your own fucking way.”
His expression was full of remorse, and he nodded just barely. “I’m beginning to see that a lot of what I believed was true … was right … is in fact, so very, very wrong.”
He didn’t just mean the way he handled Omaera and lying to her about the Mate’s Ache. He was referring to King Howar as well. A sliver of sympathy wedged its way into my heart.
I shrugged. “Well, it’s not too late. Cut the bullshit, figure out your allegiances once and for all, and stop keeping secrets. Pretty easy, if you ask me.” Then I left him standing there as I tore off my clothes and went to go find a little demon in the shower who needed her back scrubbed. I was done putting Band-Aids on his feelings. I had a mate to take care of.