Chapter 9 #2
I frowned, silently cursing that promise I’d made Nyx not to out her as The Haunt. Brien owned three of her paintings—hell, he’d been one of her earliest supporters—and I couldn’t give him the one truth that might’ve tipped the scales in her favor.
“There wasn’t time. I had to make a decision then and there.” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I have a bad feeling about this, Bri. Like time is running out for her. Nazaire isn’t stupid. He may know more than she thinks.”
“You’re not some damned white knight,” he said between his teeth. “The last thing I want is to hand that SOB a legitimate excuse to come after us. This way, when we finally take him down, Dussault can’t claim he didn’t bring it on himself. Let it go, Cain.”
“I have to,” I said. “Like I said, she turned me down.”
But if she came to me for sanctuary, all bets were off. I’d be damned before I’d let her twist in the wind.
She wasn’t the only one with honor.
Or that’s what I told myself. The truth was more complicated: that primitive thing in me couldn’t let this go. Couldn’t let her go.
Like I’d told her—we weren’t done.
“What about here on the island?” I retook my seat. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah—quiet, actually. Talon’s been glued to his suite. Dude’s afraid to let Eden and Jude out of his sight for more than a few minutes.” Brien grimaced. “Can’t say I blame him after everything that went down.”
I jiggled my knee, hating that he even had to worry about that kind of crap. “How the fuck did this happen? Lilith Island’s ours. We rule here, for gods’ sake.”
We’d ramped up security—doubled patrols, increased the number of hidden cameras, sent up drones—but the island was too big. Forty-five square kilometers of tangled forest, jagged cliffs, scattered orchards, and open fields. Too many places to hide. Too many angles to defend.
Brien exhaled. “It all goes back to my mother, doesn’t it? They got to her right here on the island.”
“Yeah, but that was the slayers, wasn’t it? They’ve got no reason to go after us these days.”
“That was my father’s theory, yeah. But he never found out for sure, and Lilith knows he tried. If he’d gotten even an ounce of proof, he would’ve personally hunted down the slayer responsible and damn the consequences.”
I nodded grimly. Jules Leclerc had never really come back from losing his mate.
Something in him had broken. He’d haunted the castle walls, eyes locked on the blood-soaked ground where the prima had been staked.
Like if he stared long enough, hard enough, she’d claw her way out of her final grave to him.
“And meanwhile,” Brien said, voice tight, “they keep coming at us. I don’t blame Talon for keeping Eden and Jude close. I’d do the same with Twilight if she’d let me.” He blew out a breath. “But as she likes to remind me, she’s as good a fighter as anyone I’d assign to guard her.”
My next stop was Talon’s quarters. He opened the door with Jude tucked against his shoulder, swaddled in a tiny purple sweatsuit, soft brown curls just like his dad’s springing up all over his head.
Talon lifted a finger to his lips. “Eden’s asleep,” he said in a hushed voice. “But Jude keeps vampire hours.” His mouth twitched with amused resignation.
“Should I come back?” I asked in equally quiet tones.
Jude lifted his head, straining to turn in my direction. His gaze found me—or tried to. His head wobbled, then dropped back onto Talon’s shoulder, a small, trusting collapse that did something to my chest.
“No, come in. Just keep it down, okay?”
“You got it.” I stepped inside, easing the door shut behind me, watching as Talon stroked a hand over his son’s curls. “How’s he doing?”
“Growing like a weed.” Talon gave Jude a proud look. “Olivia was here earlier for his two-week checkup. Said he’s already up six ounces.”
“Six ounces, eh?” I eyed the small, sweatsuit-clad lump. “Kid’s a bruiser.”
Talon chuckled. Jude gummed his dad’s neck.
“Hang on there.” My friend made a face at me. “Little mofo’s already got a taste for blood.”
My brows lifted. I shot a look at the kid’s round, toothless mouth. “Doesn’t he need fangs?”
“Not to suck. I opened a vein for him.” Talon held up his wrist, showed me the faint, silvery line where the skin had healed.
“They drink blood this early?”
“Depends on the kid, I guess. He was trying so hard to get to my vein that we gave it a try, and he took right to it.”
Jude moved his head around again in uncoordinated, jerky starts and stops, somehow managing to land on top of one fat wrist, which he promptly started gnawing on.
“See what I mean?” Talon rubbed the little guy’s purple-fleece-clad back. “Kid’s always hungry. Eats every couple of hours or so. Olivia says my blood is just as important as milk while he’s growing this fast.”
I stared at Talon, half-incredulous, half-bewildered. He was juggling the kid like he’d been doing it for years and bragging about a six-ounce weight gain. Who was this man, and what had he done with my best friend?
“Right,” I muttered.
Talon dragged his gaze from Jude—who was trying to shove both fists into his mouth now—to meet my eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you to get back. Eden and I wanted to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“We want you to be Jude’s syndicate sponsor.”
“Me?” My pulse hitched. “I’m honored, Tal. But I can’t. I don’t know a thing about kids.”
He scoffed. “Like I do? You’ll learn, same as me. Brien is Jude’s primus, so he’s out. And I would’ve picked you anyway. You’re the closest thing I’ve got to a brother. No, screw that. You are my brother.”
Damn, damn, damn.
My gaze flicked from Talon’s face—open, earnest, terrifyingly certain—to the tiny, helpless bundle on his shoulder. Jude shifted, letting out a soft whimper, and suddenly, the air got thinner. Like the room had shrunk around me and left no space to breathe.
I stepped back, palms up. “I’m the wrong guy. I’m honored—gods, I am. But if something happens to you, I’d be responsible for him. Right?”
Talon’s thick brows pulled together. “Where the syndicate is concerned, yeah.”
“So I’d be like his godfather. The way Wayne Baker was my godfather.”
My uncle Wayne Baker, to be precise, although he’d never let me call him “uncle.” I called him sir when I was a kid, and now, I didn’t speak to the bastard at all.
“That’s what a sponsor is. But don’t forget Eden—”
“If we disagreed, as his syndicate sponsor, I could overrule her. You know that.”
“Hey.” Talon crossed the room toward me. That’s when I realized I’d backed up until my shoulders hit his door. “First, I’m not going anywhere. So this is a ceremonial position. And I want you, no one else.”
“Don’t say that.” I pressed against the thick wood, knee bouncing double-time. “I can’t do it. What if something did happen to you? I won’t risk it. You shouldn’t risk it, and if Eden knew how messed up I am, she’d say hell no.”
Talon was wrong to even ask. No way should I be the one standing behind his son in any official capacity. Not as a sponsor. Not as anything that implied I was whole.
I was too broken inside.
“Listen to me.” Talon crooked his free arm around the back of my head, bringing my face to his, Jude between us.
“Are you listening?” He waited for my muttered agreement before continuing, “You are nothing like that motherfucker. I was there, remember? I know what he’s like and I know what you’re like.
You might not know what you’re doing, but you’ll figure it out.
The one thing you would never do is terrorize an innocent kid.
I trust you, bro. Understand? I. Trust. You. ”
His powerful arm around my head grounded me. That, and the small weight snuggled between us. The fear and anxiousness—and anger—subsided to a level where I could think more clearly.
“No, you don’t understand. I don’t have any good memories about being a kid, and I know nothing about raising one. I never even knew my mom, and I don’t remember my dad.”
Yeah, maybe I had a couple of memories that might be my dad—tickling me until I was laughing hysterically, kicking a ball around with two-year-old me.
But I wasn’t sure if those were real or imagined, something I’d made up to comfort myself when my aunt and uncle had punished me yet again for breaking some rule I hadn’t even known existed.
Talon had pretty much adopted ten-year-old me, even though he’d been only a few months older, and I’d been an angry, insolent little shit who only went to school for the free lunch.
The man had literally saved my life, giving me a place to hide from my dick of an uncle. By thirteen, I’d been planning Wayne Baker’s murder. In detail.
It had been Talon who talked me down, pointing out I’d go to juvie for years. “When we’re older,” he’d promised, “we’ll stick it to the sonuvabitch.”
“Yeah,” I’d said around the lip my uncle had bloodied. “We will.” Then I’d punched a hole in Talon’s bedroom wall, and he’d taken the blame for it. Together we’d patched the wall and repainted his whole damn bedroom so his mom wouldn’t forbid me from coming over.
My eyes had closed. My face had blanked. I could feel myself retreating into numbness. My safe place, the place where no one could hurt me. I kept my knee going, though, the rhythm both soothing and a reminder that I could run like the wind now. Nobody touched me now if I didn’t want them to.
Nobody.
“Hey.” Talon gave me a shake. “You still with me?”
I forced my eyes open again. “I’m sorry, but—you were there, Tal. You saw what he was like. What if I’m like him? What if I…lose control?”
“You won’t,” he said, voice steady, firm. “You’re always in control. You used to scare me a little when we were kids. You’d get that look on your face—that laser focus—and even the bigger kids would back off.”
I pulled back, shaking my head.
He released me but stayed close. “Please, Cain. There’s no one else I’d rather have looking out for Jude.
Brien will be his primus. I know he’ll do his best, but he has the syndicate as a whole to consider.
You’ll be Jude’s person—the guy he can count on to always be on his side.
If you’re worried, let Brien and Eden make the major decisions. You just be his advocate.”
“Fuck.” I scrubbed a hand over my face, eyeing the tiny dhampir.
He was so small. So breakable.
So damn easy to hurt.
“Look, forget I asked.” Talon turned away, rubbing slow circles on Jude’s back. His voice was quiet, but I heard the disappointment in it. “We’ll just have to find someone else.”
A hot, acid shame spilled into me. Talon had fed me, given me a place to sleep, made sure I got to school—when he’d still been a kid himself. His own life had been almost as screwed up as mine, with an alcoholic mom and a dad who spent half his time off-island.
Man up, dude. This is Talon’s son.
He was right. No one would fight for Jude like I would.
“No.” I straightened. “I’ll do it.”
Talon broke into a grin. “You’ll be fine, you’ll see. Practice for when you have your own someday.”
I grunted. I did want to have my own spawn someday, but not for a long, long time—like a couple of centuries or so. And I’d hire experts to raise the kid so I didn’t mess him up.
“Here.” Before I could stop him, Talon had shifted his son to my arms. “He likes to be upright so he can look around.”
“Whoa.” I froze, clutching Jude like he was a live grenade and one wrong move would set him off. “Give a man some warning. I told you—I don’t know how to do this.”
“Then you’ll learn. First lesson: support his head.” Talon moved the hand I had on Jude’s shoulders to the back of his skull. “He’s getting stronger, but it’s still too heavy for his neck muscles to hold up.”
I wrapped my fingers around the baby’s fragile cranium, heart thudding like I’d just stepped off a cliff.
“Sweet Lilith, he’s small. The size of a rugby ball.”
“Right?” Talon gave a wondering shake of his head.
Jude squirmed, whimpering.
My stomach dropped. I shoved him at his father. “Here. He’s not happy.”
“Loosen your hold.” Talon gently pushed him back to me. “You won’t drop him.”
“Says you,” I grumbled, but followed his advice.
Jude scrunched up his small face and dragged in air. What I knew about kids would fit in a thimble, but I was pretty sure he was gearing up to scream bloody murder.
I tried again to pass him to his father. “Take him, damn it.”
He backed away. “Try jiggling him. He likes that.”
“Yeah?” That, I could do. I gave Jude a tentative bounce.
He unleashed a loud cry. I gulped, shooting Talon a helpless look.
My friend crossed his arms. “More.”
I started bouncing in earnest, and to my shock, after letting out a couple more cries, Jude burrowed his head into the space between my shoulder and neck, snuffled for a few seconds, then fell silent.
When I chanced a look at him, he was sucking on his fist and staring into space. “Huh,” I said without ceasing my up-and-down movement. “It worked.”
“You’re a natural,” Talon returned.
I snorted and gathered Jude closer, sniffing his nape. “He smells good,” I said when Talon chuckled. “Like powder and baby.”
Talon grunted, and I glanced up to find him watching us with a sappy smile. “Look at you, Uncle Cain.”
I went rigid and Jude murmured unhappily against my neck.
“No ‘uncle,’” I gritted, bouncing like a demented rubber ball until the kid calmed again. “Just Cain.”
“Got it. Should’ve realized.” Talon’s tone was apologetic. “I’ll make sure Eden knows, too.”
I gave a tight nod, jaw locked.
“So we’re good?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah.” I adjusted Jude, who’d gone boneless against me, eyes shut, mouth slack with sleep.
I’d put him out. Me. And damn if that didn’t spark a flicker of pride in me.
I met Talon’s eyes. “I’ll be a good sponsor, I swear. The best. Anything he needs, he’s got it.”
He just smiled. “Why d’you think I asked you?”