Chapter 19
Two weeks later, we were no closer to discovering the identity of my attacker.
We spent night after night pouring over resources that Gabriel brought to us and trying to get closer to Virtus.
During these visits, Luke was either scarce or nowhere to be found at all.
If he did show his face, it was when Gabriel wasn’t in the room.
There was still tension between Luke and Dani though.
At least, there was for the first few days.
With Dani getting stronger and gaining more control over her new life, Gabriel was quick to relocate her into a place of her own.
She still had to lay low, considering that the entire town thought she was dead, but gaining her independence was a huge step for her recovery.
Our light in all of the chaos was the upcoming wedding.
The big day crept closer, so close and yet so far away at the same time.
Our suits were delivered, Hannah dug her dress out of the back of her closet and sent it to be cleaned, and our rings were dropped off to be repolished before the ceremony. Everything was coming together.
“What’s got you smiling like that?”
I raised my head from my phone, finding James by the front door, predictably dodging his nightly greeting from Carlos—the one thing he hadn’t quite grown used to.
He’d spent the day overseeing Kian’s first solo shift, and since I hadn’t heard anything, I assumed that it had gone well.
I’d hoped it would: All he needed was a bit more confidence.
He was shaping up to be an amazing bartender.
Not as good as me, but he might get there someday.
“Raleigh,” I responded. “He’s asking what color jockstraps I want for my bachelor party and whether glitter is an acceptable option.”
James snickered. “I don’t know what kind of strippers he thinks he’ll find around here but he’s welcome to try.”
I watched him as his long legs ate up the space across the living room. He ducked into the kitchen, returning with a glass of whiskey for each of us. It wasn’t until he fell into the seat beside me that I spoke again. “You’d be okay with that?”
“Glitter? Hell no, we’ll never get it out of the house.”
I gave him a playful shove, accepting my drink. “Smartass.”
“We’ve come a long way since that night. I trust you.”
As he spoke, his hand drifted into my hair, his nails scratching my scalp. Like a cat, I practically purred and leaned into his touch.
“Hannah called me, by the way,” he continued. “She said if your mom calls about dress colors, ‘red’ and ‘black’ are not sufficient answers.”
My heart fluttered. I knew I was being teased, but I didn’t care. My vampire knew me so well. “I’m so ready to marry you.”
James’s mouth eased into a genuine smile, the one reserved for when I’d truly caught him off guard. His eyes swirled, and he dropped his attention to his feet. “And I’m ready to marry you, Ryder Clark.”
“You’re cute when you’re bashful.”
James scoffed incredulously. “I am not bashful!”
“Oh, yes you are—if you could, you’d be blushing.”
“Vampires don’t get embarrassed.”
“Oh, just like they don’t get tired?”
We bickered all the way down the hallway, right until the bedroom door shut behind us.
After drifting off into a deep, sated sleep, I awoke only a few hours later.
James was in the shower, if the running water and the light creeping under the bathroom door were anything to go by.
I wasn’t sure what had woken me up, but as soon as I had the thought to join him, my phone lit up beside me.
Another vibration demanded my attention. It was Kian, and he was asking if I was awake. I replied, and Kian responded almost immediately.
I’m outside. Can we talk?
I glanced toward the bathroom again. The water had shut off, which meant that James was already aware of Kian’s presence. Hiding anything from him—even if I wanted to—was pointless. So, I told Kian I’d be right out, then waited for James to emerge.
He opened the door a moment later, towel wrapped around his waist. I sat up in bed, reaching for my sweats that had been tossed on the floor in our earlier scuffle.
“What’s he doing here in the middle of the night?” James asked, already pulling on his own clothes.
He tried to follow me out the door, but I stopped him with a hand on his chest. “I don’t know, but could you give us a minute?”
James didn’t answer right away. I didn’t need the bond to understand his reluctance: I was his mate, and if his protectiveness over me was even close to what I felt for him, then everything we’d been through only made him more nervous to let me out of his sight.
I curled my hand around James’s hip and tugged him close. He let me, which meant that he was about to give in. “I know you’re just trying to protect me, baby, but it’s Kian. He already knows you’ll hear everything we talk about, and you’ll be right here if we need you.”
I could only hope that Kian had learned his lesson about getting involved with shady people—who only met him at night and didn’t show their faces—after he’d nearly lost his life and taken others down with him.
James closed his eyes and unclenched his jaw. When he looked at me again, he nodded his head slowly.
“I won’t be long,” I assured him with a kiss to his cheek.
Kian was standing at the front door when I opened it. I stepped aside to let him in, using my body to block Carlos from bolting out. Kian knelt by the door, scrubbing Carlos behind the ear and allowing him to lick his face for a few moments.
When Kian finally looked up at me, his watery hazel eyes told me everything I needed to know: This wasn’t good.
“Is everything all right?” I asked. Then I remembered Hannah had been driving him everywhere during his recovery. “How did you get here?”
“No one’s hurt,” he blurted before I could assume the worst. “Hannah’s home in bed. I was cleared to drive earlier today, and I needed to tell you something that I couldn’t say at the bar in case they were listening.”
What? “Kian, slow down. Who would be listening?”
He straightened and guided Carlos to the couch, where he continued to soothe his anxiety by petting the dog. “Those vampires that have been coming to the bar.”
It took me a moment to realize who he was referring to. “Gabriel and his sister?”
“Sisters,” he corrected, stressing the word meaningfully.
Abigail hadn’t been to Liz’s, so how did Kian know Rebecca was a twin? A chill went through me. “What about them?” I asked, already fearing the answer. James didn’t appear by my side as I expected he would, but I knew he was listening to everything.
“They… they’re, um…” Kian was pale. “They’re the ones who gave me the cursed diamonds. They were at James’s house the night Dani attacked me.”
My mind flashed back to the events of that night, months ago, before we ended up in the hospital in an attack that almost killed James and Kian.
Two sets of evil, glowing red eyes. A low voice hissing, “He knows who we are.”
My pulse increased, and I broke out in a cold sweat. “You’re sure?”
He nodded. “I didn’t know they were vampires until that night,” he explained.
“Whenever I met with them before, they had brown eyes, not red, and they must have been darkening their skin with makeup. They said they worked with my brother, but I thought he was hunting vampires. Why would the society Luke worked for involve vampires?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. This only confirmed Luke’s theory further.
Kian flinched as James appeared behind me. His arm wound around my waist, his hand flattening over my stomach.
“How do you deal with him doing that?” Kian asked, clutching his chest for breath.
“You get used to it,” I answered fondly, remembering an eerily similar conversation I’d had with Angel before I even met James.
“How do you live with him creeping around like that?”
“I always know when he walks into a room.”
At the time, I didn’t quite get it. I’d even rolled my eyes at them. Now, I practically swooned the same way Raleigh had.
“I heard everything,” James said, pulling me from my thoughts. “You’re sure that Abigail and Rebecca were the ones you met with?”
Kian nodded, swallowing. “They disguised themselves, but it was them.”
“What about Gabriel?” I asked.
“I’d never seen him before, not until he walked into the hospital. They never spoke of him either.”
“And they took off when they sensed Gabriel coming,” I added, remembering the events of that night.
“They wouldn’t do that if he were working with them,” James agreed.
“But if they could sense him, why couldn’t Gabriel sense his own sisters?”
James frowned. “I don’t know.”
Kian spoke up nervously. “C-could garlic have anything to do with it?”
“That’s just a stereotype,” I said dismissively. Then I glanced at James. “Right?”
“It’s a misconception,” James allowed, turning his attention to Kian. “Why?”
“Every time I met with them, I noticed the smell of garlic. I figured that made sense for vampire hunters, but remember smelling it at James’s house too. Later, I chalked it up to the concussion.”
“Wait,” I interjected, “the garlic myth is true?”
James shook his head. “Not in the traditional sense. Garlic isn’t harmful to us, but it can distort our senses, especially smell. In this case, Gabriel might have been able to sense the two of them but not recognize their scent.”
What do we do?”
“Nothing right now,” James said, shocking both of us.
“We’re getting married very soon. If Kian’s right and those two are leading a whole organization to take me down, they’d have to be pretty bold to strike when there are so many eyes on me.
We need to be strategic with this information and extremely careful about bringing it up to Gabriel. ”
“The twins aren’t coming with Gabriel to the wedding?”
James snorted. “No. They’re remaining behind to run the PI business.” Kian and I both slumped in relief.
Feeling exhaustion sweep over me, I relaxed into the couch cushions. “If we leave this until after the wedding, can you promise my kids are going to be safe?”
I heard the words as soon as they left my mouth. James arched a brow at me, and Kian tilted his head.
“Kids?” he repeated.
I smirked. “Well, you are my son-in-law, after all.”
That knocked the cocky grin right off of his face.
“Yes,” James finally answered, distracting both of us. “If I have anything to say about it, everyone is going to be safe. For now, the only thing we can do is put it out of our minds.”
Easier said than done, but what wasn’t? I turned my attention to Kian. “Do you want to stay here tonight? It’s a long drive to Cambridge.”
“Hannah might panic if she wakes up alone in the morning. I should get back.”
After an obligatory goodbye to Carlos, and with a promise to let us know the second he made it home, Kian left. Despite the stress, the only thing I wanted to do was go back to bed.
James picked up on it and we quickly fled to our bedroom. But instead of drifting off to visions of our wedding, of music, cake, and our lives beginning together, two pairs of glowing red eyes reflected behind my eyelids.
We’d just confirmed that vampires were behind everything, and we’d practically spent the last year putting information right into their hands.