Chapter 20
Vash didn’t realize how furious Elijah was until they returned to the hotel and he began shoving things into his bag.
“Elijah.” She reached out to him as he stormed past her.
“Get your shit. I want you out of here. I don’t trust this place. Don’t trust what’s left of that pack.”
“Elijah.”
“I’ll throw it together if you won’t,” he growled, grabbing toiletries out of the bathroom. “But you’d better not bitch at me if something gets left behind.”
When he emerged, she stepped right into his path. “Will you talk to me, damn it!”
“What?”
“You’re pissed.”
“Goddamn right I’m pissed.” He tossed the things in his hand on the bed and growled.
“You know what Rachel said to me before she incited the rebellion at Navajo Lake? She said, ‘It’s all on you.’ Now I have to wonder if I’ve been manipulated in ways I haven’t figured out yet.
It’s certain they wanted you and me to kill each other.
If we hadn’t fallen into rut the minute we scented each other, one or both of us would be dead.
We’d never have spent the time together that led to where we are now, and Syre would be out for someone’s blood. ”
“You think Micah’s the one who planted your blood for me to find?”
He crossed his arms, straining the armholes of the T-shirt he’d borrowed after getting blood on his own. “You killed Micah’s partner but kept Micah alive to interrogate. Why not the other way around?”
“He had a big mouth. Taunting me and being an all-around asshat. It was easy to pick him.”
“He made it easy. And I think it’s possible you recognized his scent from Charron’s attack without realizing it. Maybe you even recognized it from Nikki’s abduction. That knowledge might’ve been there in the back of your mind.”
“I have Char’s killers’ scents ingrained in my memory. I wouldn’t miss that.”
“I once had to argue my right to claim a kill because a badly wounded lycan had bled all over the body. It smelled like her, more so than me, because of the blood. If Micah had access to my blood to frame me, certainly he had access to others’.
Considering the trouble involved in creating that paper trail, dumping a couple of bags of blood around Charron’s body would be the easy part.
And we both know how a disemboweling smells.
That could explain why the attack was so vicious—they wanted the stench to cover up their identities. ”
She sank heavily onto the bed. “Why?”
Elijah crouched in front of her. “To break you. I think they’ve been trying to do that for years. First through Charron’s death, then through me. Micah’s the thread there. You can’t tell me that’s a coincidence. I won’t buy it.”
“No.” She exhaled harshly. “I’m not buying it either.”
“And we can’t forget about your double attacking Lindsay’s mother. Lindsay grew up planning on killing you her whole life.”
“They would’ve had to know who she was. That she had Shadoe’s soul inside her.”
“Yes. Just as they’d know Adrian or Syre would find her, and through them, she’d find you. It explains why she wasn’t killed along with her mother. In my experience, the minions who go batshit have a liking for children’s blood.”
“I’ve heard it’s sweeter,” she murmured absently, rubbing at the ache in her chest. To think of Char dying because of her… “I’m not important enough to go to this much trouble for.”
“You’re important to Syre. Very much so.
And so was Phineas to Adrian.” He caught up her cold hands in his.
“This is psychological warfare—cripple the primaries by taking out their seconds. Micah likely deliberately sacrificed himself for the cause—just as I now suspect Rachel did. They wanted me in a specific headspace to achieve their aims.”
“To put you and the lycans on the high ground? Is that what this is all about? To make you the dominant faction?”
“I don’t know.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “That wouldn’t explain the doctored files and missing blood; only Sentinels had access to cryostorage and data centers. And your double brings vamps into the mix, too. Why would they want lycans at the top of the food chain?”
“Vamps delivered Lindsay to Syre…after she was taken from the Point by a Sentinel.”
“Right. We’ve got the wrong vamps, lycans, and Sentinels involved here. The question isn’t just who’s dirty, but are they dirty together?”
Pulling a hand free, Vash cupped his face with it, then told him about the conversation she’d had with Syre.
He cursed and pushed to his feet. “I have to go back. I have to go back to Adrian.”
She gained her feet, too. Her heart pounded. “What?”
“The Sentinels are wide open. Once it gets out that their blood is the cure, they’ll be sitting ducks. They need help. I have to at least attempt an alliance.”
“They can take out a hundred vamps a minute if they wanted to. They never really needed you.”
The look he shot at her was dark…and decisive. “We need them. For all their faults, they keep the minions in check.”
“Minions are dying, El!” But she knew with a sinking heart that she wouldn’t be able to sway him.
“I need to go back if only because Micah worked so damned hard to force me to leave. There’s a reason for that, and I’m not going to just play along.”
“What about me? I need you. My people need you.”
Elijah tugged her close and pressed his lips to her brow. He held them there for a long moment, the beat of his heart slightly faster than it should be. “They’ve got you, sweetheart. You’re a one-woman army.”
She caught his belt loops, holding on tightly. Her chest and throat burned. “You can’t ask me to make this choice. It’s not fair.”
His hands pushed into her hair, brushing it back from her face. He looked down at her with such tenderness, she could hardly breathe through the pain of it. “I’m not asking you to do anything, Vashti. I’m telling you what I have to do.”
She stood frozen as he extricated himself and walked away. She watched him collect the items from the bed and take his stuff to his bag and her stuff to her bag. Separating them. Dividing them up.
“Fuck you, lycan.” Her fists clenched at her sides. A surge of malicious satisfaction moved through her when he paused in surprise. “You can’t make me love you, then just fucking walk away. We’re in this. You and me.”
“I’m not walking away.” He faced her and crossed his arms. “You’re mine, Vashti. Nothing can change that. If you haven’t figured that out yet, we’ve got bigger problems than the war breathing down our necks.”
The fist around her heart loosened. “Then what the hell are you doing?”
“Letting you be who you need to be. Letting you be the woman I love, even if that means you’re on the other side of the world, on the other side of the line. If I make you go my way, I’ll lose you. I know that, because if you try to force me to go yours, you’ll lose me.”
“I can’t live that way, El.” Anxiety slithered through her, making her sick and cold. She began to pace. “We can’t be apart, working against each other. We have to find a compromise we can live with.”
“Tell me what that is,” he said softly. “I have to call Lindsay and tell her the vampire most likely responsible for her mother’s murder is dead, which will be both a relief and not, because she wanted to do the killing herself.
Then I’ll follow that up with the news that I probably got her father killed, since I handpicked the team of lycans sent to guard him, and one of those team members was Trent.
After that, I get to tell Adrian that Syre knows Sentinel blood is the cure, and pretty soon, more vampires will know, so now the clock is ticking.
In the meantime, Syre’s got rogues infecting his ranks, and I’ve got lycans who are deliberately sabotaging my relations with both sides. Where’s the middle ground?”
“Switzerland.”
His brow arched. “You want to run off to Switzerland? That’s your plan?”
“No, we’ll be Switzerland. You and Lindsay will form a loop, Syre and I will form a loop, and you and I will remain one unit.
We’ll bridge the gap between the two. Right now, the biggest priority for everyone is the Wraith virus.
If we’re all fighting the same enemy, it makes sense to combine forces. ”
“Since when did common sense prevent war?”
“I don’t think Syre would go to war without me.
He would certainly think twice about it if I objected.
If you can convince Adrian that the risk to the Sentinels is too great without your support, we might be able to hold them both back.
Especially if they know we’re all being set up.
They’re not going to want to play into that any more than you do. It’s worth a shot.”
“Okay.”
Vash came to an abrupt halt, shocked that he’d capitulated so easily. “Just like that?”
“It’s messy, complicated, and will probably come back to bite us in the ass. And the Wraith virus isn’t really a lycan problem—”
“Aside from the fact that you seem to be especially tasty to them,” she interjected.
“There’s that, I suppose.” He resumed packing. “But we’ll do our best.”
Relief hit her like a Mack truck. That might’ve been why she blurted, “And I want to mate with you.”
Elijah froze, his hand suspended mid-zip on his duffel. “Vashti.”
She spoke in a rush, her heart racing and her palms damp. “I know it’s selfish. If someone’s really out for my blood and they manage to get to me, I’ll take you down with me. I know lycans don’t live long after losing a mate, but—”
He faced her, and the look in his eyes nearly leveled her. “I’ll go down whether we’re mated or not. I thought you knew. I’m already there, Vashti. I think I’ve been there since you gave me that pep talk in the cave.”
Vash stumbled straight into his arms. “You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. You’ve fucked up everything.”
He laughed, and the sound unknotted the stress and fear inside her. “And we’re just getting started.”
“We’ll be able to communicate without words, right? We’ll have that advantage.”
“Among others.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “We’ll be stronger as a connected unit…and more vulnerable. They’ll know how to hurt us.”
“So we won’t tell anyone. I’ll be your fanged sidepiece, and you’ll be my boy toy. We’ll let those who want to believe that we’re using each other believe it, but we’ll know better.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he said softly. “I can wait until you’re ready.”
“I’m more than ready. Just try and stop me, baby.”
She called Syre and told him about what she’d learned of Charron’s attack. While she did so, Elijah called Lindsay and told her he needed to meet with both her and Adrian. Then Vash and El finished packing and headed to the Huntington Jet Center to wait for one of Adrian’s private planes.
They were finalizing the paperwork for the return of their rental car when an agency employee rushed in with a manila envelope in her hand.
“Mr. Reynolds,” the pretty strawberry-blonde called out, wearing a winsome smile that made Vash take a possessive step closer to her man. “You left this in the backseat.”
“That’s not mine.” He frowned and soothed Vash by failing to even register the clerk’s attraction to him.
“It has your name on it.”
He accepted the envelope and opened it, withdrawing the contents. Photographs. Shots taken through a paned window, like something a private investigator would snap of subjects unaware they were being surveilled. Vash recognized the Sentinel in the photos instantly.
“Helena,” she murmured. “Wow. She’s being naughty. With a hunky guy.”
“Mark,” he identified grimly. “A lycan from the Navajo Lake pack.”
The import of a Sentinel shagging a lycan slowly sank in. Hell, a Sentinel shagging anything was earth-shaking news. “Fuckin’ A.”
He flipped faster, turning the frame-by-frame shots into a mini-motion picture. The couple came together in a passionate embrace, their mouths melding…clothes shedding…
Then a masked figure was in the room with them, standing over the bed, his posture so menacing that it made the fine hairs on her arms rise.
The next shot was of the window with the curtains drawn, followed by several photos from inside the room, scenes of a carnage so horrifying her stomach knotted—Helena with sightless eyes, her beautiful wings clawed from her back, her lover lying pale and bloodless on the floor with twin punctures in his neck.
The time stamp in the lower-right-hand corner of the pictures told her the shots had been taken nearly a month ago.
“What is this?” she whispered, devastated. “Where did it come from? What the fuck are we supposed to do with it?”
Elijah shoved the envelope into his duffel. “Someone’s sending us a message we’ll have to decipher.”
They swiftly wrapped up their business at the rental counter and headed over to meet their plane. The silence stretched out, comfortable between them even when thick with a clusterfuck of lies and questions.
Vash linked her fingers with his while they waited in the concourse. “Are you sure about going to Alaska? It’s a long flight, El. Maybe a video conference would be better. Or we can wait until Lindsay and Adrian get back.”
He glanced at her. “Didn’t I mention that Adrian’s jets have a sleeping cabin?”
“Oh?” Heat swept through her, melting her trepidation over the days to come. “No, I think you forgot that part.”
He bent toward her and pressed a kiss to her temple. “You’ll be a mated woman when we land.”
“Well, then.” She rested her head on his shoulder, allowing herself to savor the precious gift of having someone to lean on. “You may just learn to like flying after all.”