13. Asher
Thirteen
Asher
If I could curse whoever makes the rules in this forsaken world, I would. Not being able to enter Chloe’s house will be my undoing if I can’t find a way to get her out of there.
Damnable laws of the underworld.
Moving swiftly to the closest car I can find, I look around at my surroundings in the predawn light. It’s as bright as daytime to me, and my eyes begin to get that awful ache behind them.
The sun is my enemy this day, more so than ever before. It’s interceding in affairs it has no right to stop.
Nothing along this fucking cursed street offers a place to rest away from the sun. Every home is connected to the one next to it. I fucking hate brownstone housing streets. They offer zero defensibility, no privacy, and no places to lurk in the shadows.
And that’s exactly what I want to do right now—lurk in the darkness like some simple-minded predator.
Dammit.
Pulling my cellphone from my pocket, I dial Raphael’s number.
“Where the fuck are you?” Raphael bellows into the phone.
“The fuck you talking to?” I snarl at him.
“ You . What the hell happened and where are you?” he says more quietly.
I get his sense of worry through the phone and through our connection. He’s not my child by blood, but when I shared my blood with him to save him from an almost certain death five centuries ago, we developed a connection. Which, as far as we know, shouldn’t have happened.
Only sires and their children should be able to connect like this.
Glancing around the streets again, I spot the closest intersecting street sign. “Lincoln and Eighth.”
“We’re on our way,” he says, and I can hear him relaying my coordinates to the guys in the background.
“Whose car are you using?” I ask with a deep-seated sense of annoyance.
“One of that psycho fuck’s.” Raphael lets out a breath. “What the hell happened back there?”
“Nikolaos was trying to take my soulmarked,” I say as I stand at the corner of the street, staring back at Chloe’s brick home.
I could set the row of houses ablaze, eventually she’d be forced out…
Calling the police for a life check would also work…
Getting some homeless fool to kick the door in and drag her out also its appeals.
But just like the laws that keep me from entering her home without permission, I must follow the edicts to a point.
Human society is aware of us, and some even accept us, but doing something like drawing public attention to ourselves or our pursuits is dangerous.
“That’s… that’s…” Raphael trails off in complete confusion.
“It’s impossible, right?” I say with annoyance.
It should be impossible, to my knowledge. As far as I know, she’d be turned into a ghoul. Nothing better than a drone bee.
But Ambrose drank from her… I smelled her blood on him as I raced out of the club.
“Did you grab the nut?” I ask as I pace back and forth.
The coming light is starting to break into my defenses. It’s impossible to stay here. There’s not a single store on this street. It’s all homes with warding put up.
If there was a single vacant building on the street, I’d use it, but I can’t feel it.
This has to be by design. Smart design. The Order must ensure their Marked are always surrounded by filled housing. We’ve known that to an extent, but it confirms my suspicions.
“Yeah, he’s in the trunk, rambling about his dance partner one second, then gibbering about someone not being his the next.” Raphael sighs. “I should have killed him in 1868.”
“Maybe so, maybe not,” I think aloud. “We need to pump him for information. Be ready for that.”
“Got it,” Raphael says. “What’s the plan, though? Are we able to shelter in place around your girl?”
Checking the road, I see sewer grates and manholes. “Maybe.”
Moving to the closest manhole, I try yanking it up, but much to my surprise, the pavement starts to come up with the lid.
“They’ve got the fucking manholes attached to something,” I growl.
“What the fuck? Just pull the thing up.”
“It’s taking the pavement with it,” I say, and look to the sewer grates. “The sewer grates are welded shut and I’m willing to bet anchored down as well.”
“Fuck. We’ll find a vacant close by then.”
“Doubtful. I bet The Order has every home and apartment in a four to five mile radius filled.”
“What?” he asks.
Moving to stand beside a house that still offers some shade from the oncoming sun, I growl into the phone before disconnecting. “Just fucking get here.”
Pushing myself up against the wall, I focus on my heart. It hurts. It feels like a vise is squeezing the life out of it slowly, one breath at a time.
I’m far enough away from Chloe that I’ve lost the sound of her own heart beating. I’ve also lost the ability to feel her emotions clearly. But I know that if I move any closer to her, it will kill me. I can’t be near her right now, not with that kind of barrier between us.
It’s a torture of the soul, body, and mind.
Nikolaos is to blame for this colossal fuck up.
He’s to blame for whatever the fuck it was that was happening there last night. He’s the one who has two fucking soulmarked in this city.
How the fuck does that even happen? One, I can see. But two? Something’s fucking rotten.
Chloe’s not his fated. She’s not drawn to him as he is to her. Yet he was going to turn her to him, as if every single fucking known rule is null and void. It makes no logical sense. It would have turned her into a ghoul.
Right?
A ghoul .
Unless there’s something I’m missing…
Granted, I will take that into account. There could very well be something I don’t know, but if that’s the case then there’s a whole new worry for every single marked woman in the future.
If they can be turned into someone else’s fated, there will be nothing stopping us from descending into chaos every single time a Marked is found.
I had to fight that son of a whore tonight.
The fact that he still lives is a testament to how strong my bond to Chloe is. I only left him alive so that I could find her. And I have no doubt that if he was able to catch her once, he can surely do it again.
Tapping my foot against the pavement, I start to pace back and forth between the houses again. I can hear the humans inside sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware that I want to rip their throats out for being so bold as to live in my presence at this very moment.
I could force someone to allow us to enter their home… but they would have to step outside first. Unless they invite us inside, a human can’t be glamoured until they cross the threshold of their home.
It’s another one of life’s little mysteries.
Options of staying here are looking slim to none at this point. Unless we all sleep in the car. That’s not an option, being that vulnerable in a city that’s not mine won’t work.
A big black SUV comes racing up the street, and thankfully I can sense my men in the vehicle from here. A fight with any others right now wouldn’t be easy. I’d survive, no doubt, but it would be costly.
As soon as the car pulls up, I jump into the passenger seat. “Where’s the nearest safe house?”
“There’s a hotel about four miles away from here. The safe house we’ve got is on the other side of the city,” Andrei says from behind me.
I look to Raphael. “What about the local pack?”
“There are two rival packs currently. One is deeply entrenched with Nikolaos. The other one is losing ground every month,” he says then looks around. “Which house?”
“Twenty-four houses south of here, left side,” I say, and can feel every neck in the car swivel to look.
“You know you’re not wearing a shirt anymore, right?” Matthias asks.
Looking down at my bare chest, I growl, “I’ll fucking kill him.”
Matthias grunts. “You’ve certainly killed for less.”
“Call the pack that’s losing turf. Offer them whatever it takes to get a security net around this block and the one behind hers,” I say.
“That could cost us,” Raphael says from beside me.
My voice comes out cold and sour. “They’ll be repaid in land.”
“Fuck,” Andrei mutters to himself.
“We going to war?” Raphael asks.
I sigh loudly.
This isn’t going to go well. A war here and now is going to be very costly if I can’t keep the death count low.
But Nikolaos should have known better than to try and steal my woman. Because right now, even if I have to fight every single council member to take what’s rightfully mine, I’ll fucking do it.
“We’ll leave here as soon as the pack arrives. Who’s the leader of our wolves?”
Raphael pulls his phone from his jacket pocket. “Dav Dalton.”
“Tell him if he can have a crew here within the next forty-five minutes, I’m willing to sign a forty-five year peace treaty with them, and they’ll have full run of their own enterprises.”
“Fuck,” Andrei says loudly.
“To answer your question, Raphael…” I say, my voice stopping everyone from talking for a moment. Even Ambrose in the back of the SUV stills. “We’re going to war.”
As we turn away from Chloe’s street, I growl and think about putting my hand through the dashboard.
“Turn around. Stop at her house.”
“Ash,” Raphael says quietly, “I need you crystal clear here. No time to go wandering off into the void of your head again.”
“I need to get something,” I snap and slam my fist into his arm. “Fucking do it.”
The rocking of the SUV stops as he pulls over and whips us around in a u-turn.
“What in the ever-living fuck, asshole?” Raphael growls as he slams his foot down on the accelerator.
“Asher,” Andrei says from the back, “you shouldn’t beat your kids.”
“I’ll fucking end you, Andrei,” I say with a laugh.
“End my existence because you’re an abusive parent? That’ll go down well with CPS.” Raphael laughs next to me.
Pulling up in front of Chloe’s house, I jog over to the body I left on her doorstep.
Pausing to listen to her sounds, I hear the deep rhythmic breathing of her sleeping. If this has been the living embodiment of hell on me, I don’t know if I can bear to think of what it’s done to her.
But she didn’t listen to me.
Bending down, I grab the man by his ankle, and by some miracle I hear the faintest of heartbeats coming from him.
I’ll be, the fucker is still alive.
Winding up my arm, I fling the body up and over the house across from Chloe’s and watch as it sails into the yard behind it.
Jogging back to the SUV, I feel the last of my strength ebbing from me.
“What the fuck?” Matthias asks from the backseat.
“I don’t reward bad girls with treats or gifts,” I say and cross my arms over my chest.
* * *
The wait for the pack is both unbearable and good for me. I’m close to her, nothing and no one can take her under my watch.
But the closer I am, the more pain I feel from her, and myself.
I’m causing this pain she feels, it’s my presence that makes her hurt. If I could take all that pain away and put it solely on my shoulders, I would. I’d do it without a second thought.
But I can’t.
Leaving her is the best I can do for her, for now. When I can finally have her by my side, I’ll truly be happy, but until then I force Raphael to drive us to the closet motel.
“Get everyone but a skeleton crew out of New Philadelphia,” I say to Andrei. “Have them bring your laboratory, as well. I want you researching what the fuck just happened.”
“They’ll break things that are priceless if I’m not personally involved with the shipping,” Andrei growls.
“I’ll personally replace anything that ends up damaged.”
“Everyone?” Raphael asks.
“Yes, even our roaming brothers are called into the fold,” I say, and look at the shitty little motel we’re pulling into. “This city will be ours, and Nikolaos’s coven will be ashes when I’m done with them.”
“The Council won’t like this,” Matthias says once we’re parked.
“The Council won’t like what Nikolaos pulled tonight, either,” I snap at him, shoving my fury through our connection. “Push the word out about what happened. I want the whole community aware of his betrayal.”
“Yes, sire,” Matthias says between gritted teeth.
We pull around back once Raphael secures us rooms. This isn’t a defensible place to hole up in, but I can’t go any further.
Getting out of the SUV, I hook my thumb in the direction of Ambrose. “Bring gibbering beauty to my room. I have questions.”
The sunlight shining down into this shithole’s parking lot is driving me insane. The pain is there, as it’s always been, but it also brings unease. I feel the nerves in my joints twitching and my hands aching to do something .
I’m the leader of one the most powerful covens in the world, and here I am brought to my knees. Powerless to fight invisible rules.
Powerless against the being that is Chloe.
Of course, I have to remind myself as I walk into the dingy motel room, I’ve read all the memoirs of those who have found their mates. They describe the feelings, the emotions, and the longings.
But the problem is, each and every memoir or vampire I’ve spoken to have said different things. No two pairings have been alike. Fuck, there are mates who loathe each other but are bound for all of eternity together.
The sadness and loneliness I felt in their presence was palpable.
After looking around the room, I know I would destroy every bit of furniture if I thought it would bring me some sort of relief. Violence and utter destruction are wonderful tools to ease any mood.
That is until I found her .
A rap on the door brings me out of my thoughts. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting on the bed, nor how I even came to be on the bed in the first place. My thoughts continue to race to her, to everything I’ve seen, heard, felt, and sensed.
Her deep gray eyes, her golden hair. The shape of her neck and shoulders. The fine craft of her lips and cheekbones. Each part of her entrances me further and further. Each calls out to me to touch, to kiss, to smell, and taste.
I long to wrap her thin fingers inside my own hands, to give them the support they so desperately need in this moment.
If only I could wrap my body around her smaller frame. Wrap her in my arms and keep her safe from the world. Right now, I’d do anything for it.
I’d even risk my immortality to keep her safe.
Standing in front of the door, I notice Andrei has been pounding on the other side now for longer than I can quite remember.
I swore I just stood from the bed...
But staring at it, I’m not sure if I just got to the door or if I’ve swam back into my mind again.
Finally opening the door, I stare at a very exasperated Andrei and the rest of my brood. Ambrose stands between them all, rocking from one foot to the other.
“Sorry…” I say. “Were you waiting for long?”
“Asher, we’ve been here for four minutes,” Raphael says before barging past me to check out the room.
“Oh.” I head back to where I was sitting on the bed.
“Oh?” Matthias grouches as he throws his hands in the air. “Oh! Asher, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
I don’t really know.
For the last twenty years I’ve been moving, hunting my soulmarked.
But I’ve also been dying.
Not fast enough that it would be noticeable to any but those closest to me, but I am. Something deep inside is killing me. A rot that’s festering and eating its way slowly down to my heart.
Time is ending for me, I can feel it. If I don’t take Chloe as mine, if I don’t bind our souls...
I’m dead.
Andrei has done tests. For the past ten years, he’s ran every single test he could muster up.
Cellular regeneration, or the lack thereof. Dead cells infesting live cells. Dementia. Alzheimer’s. Anything and everything he could test me for, he has.
Two years ago, he came to me one very dark and stormy night, quite literally. Drenched from the rain, exhausted beyond belief, with dark bags under his eyes from the lack of a proper diet.
“You’re dying, Asher,” Andrei said quietly.
“That’s impossible, unless you’re planning to…” I trailed off at him with a smirking frown.
“It’s like a cancer,” Andrei said, passing over my poor attempt at a joke.
“What?” I asked in confusion.
“You’re dying, and I don’t know if I can stop it,” he said, sitting heavily into the chair beside my desk.
“Again, what are you saying, Andrei?” I sat forward, looking at him. Trying to peer inside that entirely too complex mind of his.
“These bouts of blanking out, the rages, the insomnia, the listlessness, the somber moods… The aches and pains a vampire shouldn’t have… You’re feeding less and less.” He ran his hands through his soaked hair, pulling at the ends as he looked at me. “I can’t identify it. Not even under microscopes that cost more than this house.”
Silence filled the room as he stared at me. I could smell the salt leaking down his cheeks that I would have put off as water.
“I think we’ve both known something’s been wrong, especially the last couple of years. You’re shutting down. The blank moments in your life are getting longer and longer.” He spread his hands at me.
Nodding my head slowly, I said, “I suspected you knew.”
“How long have you?”
“Since she was born I’ve felt as if the hourglass of my life is draining faster and faster. I’m not entirely sure how many grains of sand I have left.”
“It’s cancer, or at least something like it.” He leaned toward me. “Cancer of the soul. If you don’t find her… if you don’t bond… Father, I don’t want to lose you.”
Leaning forward, I grabbed the back of his head and kissed his forehead. Then, for a long moment, I rested my forehead against his. “None of the others can know.”
A sharp slap across my face knocks me out of the past.
It’s funny the way my mind works now. I notice it sometimes. I feel myself fading, remembering things and people I haven’t thought of in centuries. Little moments in time that come back to me.
“Asher, fucking focus!” Andrei roars.
Nodding my head, I look up to all my closest friends. “I’m here.”
There’s stunned silence in the room. All of them staring from Andrei to me, wondering what the fuck is happening.
Andrei isn’t violent, not like that, and never to his sire.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Raphael mouth to Matthias, “What the fuck?”
Standing up from the bed, I shake the cobwebs from my foggy brain.
“We need to tell them, Asher,” Andrei says loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Tell us what?” Raphael asks quickly.
“Later,” I say, waving my hand at Andrei. “I promise, as soon as we’re done with him.”
Pointing, I motion for Matthias to put Ambrose in the chair next to the room’s little coffee table.
Tilting his head, Ambrose stares so long into my eyes I think he’s fallen asleep.
But then he sighs so quietly I almost miss it. “She tasted of the goddess’s nectar and cyanide.”
Well, that wasn’t what I fucking expected him to say.
“So delicate, so decidedly poisonous.” Ambrose looks to Andrei. “I wished to dance.”
Moving to stand in front of Ambrose, I look down into his eyes. “You tasted my soulmarked, Ambrose. I have full rights to remove your head for that.”
“Full rights, yes, but you’d be a fool to do it,” he singsongs at me.
I backhand him hard enough to send him flying from the chair. I may be fading and my strength is waning, but I have enough left to hopefully get to her.
Reaching down, I grab the lapels of his frock coat, hoisting him back up to the chair. “Why did you drink from her?”
Woozily, he sways around in the seat, his smile not fading one bit. “She smelled. Yes , smelled of mine. But she tastes of hemlock and honey. Strawberries and strychnine. She is death and beauty.”
Andrei kneels beside Ambrose and asks, “Death for who, Ambrose?”
“Whoever drinks from her fountain too often. She is not mine, though I want and crave her to be.” Ambrose begins to wail, great big heaving sobs shuddering through his frame.
“We need food,” Raphael says to no one in particular. “Whatever is going to go down tonight, we need food and our strength.”
Nodding my head, I look to Raphael and Matthias. “Raph, call the pack. See if they can bring us some food and do a disposal.”
Raphael nods and moves toward the bathroom to make the call.
“Wait. Also see if can see if Dav can meet us here… or near Chloe right after sunset,” I add.
“Got it,” he calls out in confirmation.
Returning my full attention to Ambrose, I say, “Talk to me about Nikolaos.”
Ambrose stares off into space. “What about him? He’s an ant in a much larger world.”
Snapping my fingers in front of his eyes, I say, “Come back to earth, Ambrose.”
Andrei grunts. “That sounds familiar as of late.”
“Fuck off, Andrei.” I snap my eyes to him. “You fill in Matthias and Raphael when he gets off the phone… about things.”
“I think you need to be a part of that conversation,” he says back to me before getting up and moving away.
“Well, one of use needs to deal with Ambrose here.” I grin. “When’s the last time you were tortured?”
Ambrose looks me in the eyes. “1813, Paris, France, but they were not friends so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I might have.”
“Well fuck, that was a rhetorical question,” I say with a laugh.
Ambrose waves his hand around. “It was an unsolicited answer, I suppose.”
“One more time here, Ambrose, talk to me about Nikolaos. How in the thirteen gods of darkness did he have two soulmarked girls in one city?” I ask.
Ambrose does something so startling I’m forced to stand up and take a step back. The mask of insanity slips off his face so suddenly I wonder if the crazy was all an act.
“Impossible,” Ambrose says coldly.
“I saw them both with my own eyes. Mine and another’s. I experienced what you did, I think, with the one in the back room.” I hold up my fingers to show two. “One was in the back room and mine was taken to Nikolaos’s private room.”
“Two in one city at the same time?” he snaps angrily. “That hasn’t happened for centuries.”
“Exactly,” I say, and sit back down on the bed. “You’re nearly as old as me. We’ve never met, but I know your name Ambrose Handel.”
“And I know yours Asher Sturluson, but you didn’t have last names when you came about,” he says, and I can see a glaze slowly forming back over his face. He’s going back under his mask. Whether it’s one he controls or not, I don’t know.
“Ambrose, I want you to search your memories. Has another ever turned someone else’s soulmarked to be their own?” I ask.
“Never. It would never be allowed. Abominations….” he trails off, and his fingers begin to lightly flicker across his knee as if he’s playing a piano only he can hear. “Arsenic and vanilla. I only wished to dance, yet poison took Cinderella.”
I ask something that’s been bothering me. “Ambrose, what happened to your sire?”
“I ripped his head off when he murdered my fated love. She died in my arms while we were dancing,” he answers and slowly slips back into his madness. His eyes no longer seeing the world around him.
Every single person in the room stares at Ambrose in uncomprehending shock.
Not even a breath is heard as we turn to each other, as if to confirm what we just heard.
“I shall keep watch over you all, my dear friends. I do not sleep often. Every time I do? I feel further and further away from her,” Ambrose says sadly before standing from his chair and beginning to slowly dance in front of the window.
“Fat fucking chance of that,” Raphael says with a laugh. “I’d sooner eat a werewolf.”
“Ambrose,” I say, getting his attention. “Are you hungry?”
“I could use a bite, if you have it,” he says in his singsong voice. “I would love to dine on a beautiful red-haired woman with green eyes, freckles, and perky breasts.”
“Picky bugger, aren’t ya?” Matthias laughs and turns to me. “No way is he keeping watch.”
Ignoring Matthias, I walk over to Ambrose and snap my fingers in his face to get his attention.
“Hmmm?” he asks, pausing in the middle of what I’m assuming is the waltz.
“I was thinking of something more akin to the northern climes,” I say.
Taking a deep breath of air through his nose, Ambrose looks at me and frowns. “No.”
I lift my wrist up to him. “You have two options, Ambrose. Only one of them has you leaving this rat-infested motel tonight.”
Andrei is instantly by my side, trying stop me. “Not a chance, Father.”
“Silence,” I bellow as both Raphael and Matthias also rush to me.
The room stills before I nod my head to all of them. “Ambrose will be joining the family within the minute.”
Lifting my wrist closer to Ambrose’s mouth, I say, “Drink from your new father.”
“She’ll disappear if I do. You would order me to sleep, to lose what is left,” Ambrose whispers.
“Never, but this may help you heal enough to find her again,” I say just as quietly.
Shaking his head, I see tears flowing down Ambrose’s cheeks. “I don’t remember her voice.”
“Then let this quicken your healing and freshen your mind.”
I’m so very tired already from last night’s events. My body aches and my soul feels as if it’s finally beginning to shred its last pieces.
This may very well be the last thing I’ll ever do if I don’t get Chloe back tonight.
Taking my wrist into his hands, Ambrose raises it to his mouth. “I just wanted to dance but the poison turned to dust.”
I feel his teeth slowly sink into my skin. It’s been a few centuries since I’ve allowed others to drink from me as Ambrose does. It always feels like I’m a mother feeding her child when it’s done this way.
He drinks roughly at first, his body demanding the enriched blood of his kind. But eventually he slows, drinking gently and swaying on his feet.
Once Ambrose has fallen into a stupor, I nod my head at Raphael, and he darts over, carefully detaching Ambrose from me.
I motion for Raphael to put him in one of the two double beds.
“Asher,” Andrei rumbles deep in his chest, “that was very rash. Just because it worked on Raphael….”
Shrugging my shoulders, I walk over to the corner of my bed. “It’s the only way we have of keeping him on our side. Not that I believe he would have betrayed us.”
Matthias shifts quickly to the door when we all hear a couple of large SUVs entering the parking lot.
Looking out the window, he smiles at whatever he sees. “Food’s here.”