Adam (37 page)

Jacob nodded, sitting beside her in bed with a hairbrush in hand.

“Let me brush some of the tangles out of your hair,” he said quietly.

“O-okay.” She leaned forward, her body jerking as she tried to correct her balance and control her movements. Then she rested her cheek on his shoulder and he sensed she closed her eyes. He brushed her hair in silence, needing a few moments of quiet, a few moments in which she wasn’t struggling for everything she did.

“A-Asher,” she said softly.

It was peculiar to hear his father’s name on her lips. He hadn’t even realized she knew his parents’ names. He leaned back and tipped her chin so he could see in her eyes.

“What was that, little flower?” he asked her.

“A-Asher. F-for t-the b-boy.” She closed her eyes and shook her head a little, clearly forcing herself to get it right. “The ba-baby. O-our son.”

And there she was. Bella. His Bella. In her eyes and in that stubborn moment of fighting her way through, he saw his wife, her spirit, for the first time in days. Tears had come quickly, and he had been forced to work hard to keep control of them. He wouldn’t let her see his fear, even when the reaction was relief from that fear.

“It is a good name. A strong name,” he said.

She nodded. A smooth, decisive nod.

And so they had named their son.

Now, in the solitude of the cavern, with nothing but etched walls surrounding him, he let himself exhale a shaky breath, let himself lean against one of those walls for support.

“Jake.”

Jake. He hadn’t let anyone in four hundred years call him that. Honestly, Adam had been the only one he’d ever let call him Jake. It had been special. Personal. A connection that had signified Adam was the elder brother and Jacob the younger. Adam was the protector and mentor, and Jacob the one he sheltered and cared for.

He had not had the benefit and comfort of those things since the day Adam had died.

Disappeared.

Been taken away.

“Adam.” Jacob opened his eyes and turned his head to look at his brother. It was like a vision. Or perhaps a hallucination. The Adam he knew was all there, big and powerful and taking up so much space in the closed-in caverns with just the energy of his presence. Only he had been tucked into modern clothing, his hair had been shaped closer to his head and trimmed short against his collar. He was incredibly kempt. It made Jacob chuckle.

“My metrosexual brother. I would never have imagined it.”

Adam raised a brow. “I hope that was not an insult. You are older than me and no doubt more skilled, but I have no doubt I can hold my own against you. I will not tolerate you disrespecting me.”

Jacob had to smile. “It is true. I am actually the elder brother now.” The thought amused him. But not for long. “I would rather not be,” he said gravely. “I—” He stopped. He wasn’t going to spend time or energy wishing for things that simply could not be. “I feel I have to apologize. First for my daughter and what she did to you. It was selfish and very unfair to you.”

“And yet,” Adam said, “she saved countless lives. Protected a number of innocents, including Noah and his Queen. If I had not been here, I could not have played a crucial part in Ruth’s capture. And your daughter brought me to this time, this perfect time, where I could claim a Vampire as my Imprinted mate.”

“A Vampire ...” Jacob gaped at him. “A
Vampire
?”

“Jasmine and I are Imprinted. Something that never would have been accepted—”

“Jasmine!” Jacob blurted out incredulously, cutting his brother off. “
Jasmine?
”

Adam cocked his head and narrowed his eyes on his sibling.

“Is something wrong with Jasmine?” he asked coldly.

“I ... uh ... no,” Jacob said wisely. “I like Jasmine a great deal. She is a strong fighter and is doggedly loyal to Damien. She has made a fine commander of the Nightwalker Sensor Network. She ...” He looked at his brother, his brows lifting in a bit of surprise. “She is rather a great deal like you in those aspects.”

“I think I will take that as a compliment,” Adam said with a smug little smile.

“Enjoy it. I doubt you will have many more from me,” Jacob shot at him.

And just like that, four centuries melted away from Jacob. It was as though they were standing around the practice ring again, trading barbs and boasts. As if no time at all had passed.

Adam smiled and sighed, glancing at his brother through lowered lashes. “Was it very hard on you? Like you said? Whether I meant to leave the job to you or not ... it became yours. And I know very well the weight of that mantle. How heavy it can be. But to inherit it in such a way, and when you never aspired to it ... I can only imagine how hard it must have been for you.”

Jacob drew a breath and let it out slowly as he looked into those light green eyes he remembered as sure as he knew his name.

“I was alone, Adam. Very alone. The worst of it was not so much being compelled to become Enforcer; it was becoming Enforcer without benefit of your guidance. I missed my brother. I could not figure out what had happened to you. I searched for answers, but there were none to be had.” Jacob shrugged. “None of that matters now. I have my answers and I have my brother. I was wrong to lash out at you. I was wrong to feel anything but grateful that you are here.”

Jacob reached for Adam’s hand. His brother caught hold of it and pulled him close. Adam embraced Jacob with love and strength, with affection he probably wouldn’t have shown him four centuries ago. But this past week with Jasmine had taught him a great deal about exposing his emotions and acknowledging them quickly, because there was no telling if he would have the opportunity to do so ever again.

“Come,” Jacob said with the first real sense of rightness he had felt in days, “there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Jacob brushed off Adam’s curious expression long enough to take him back to Bella’s room. Adam saw his brother’s wife, conscious and seemingly alert. A beautiful woman with a cape of red curly hair was sitting on the bed by her side. She and the man standing beside her looked up at him in unison when he entered.

He was a dead ringer for Jacob. A little stockier, perhaps ... but there was no mistaking the blood that ran through his veins.

“Adam,” Jacob said, “I want you to meet your brother, Kane.”

If you loved ADAM: THE NIGHTWALKERS,
read more of Jacquelyn Frank’s unique
blend of fantasy and romance in
JACOB, DRINK OF ME, and SUPERNATURAL,
all of which are available now from Zebra Books.

JACOB

How ridiculously simple it would be to cause them harm.

From far above, he watched with unwavering dark eyes as they walked down the shadowy street. The human male was so absorbed in his flirtation with his female, he would have no chance of protecting her from harm should they be surprised by a threat. What if he were to drop onto them from his current height?

Although in that instance, “surprised” wouldn’t be an adequate descriptive. The debate of defense would be futile as well. A human versus one of his ilk?

Jacob the Enforcer exhaled a sardonic laugh.

The redheaded woman had chosen poorly, in his opinion. No respectable male would have encouraged his partner to venture out on such a forbidding night. Mystical portents aside, the street they walked was notoriously disreputable. Menacing shadows shifted with threats unknown to simple human senses as clouds skimmed over the fickle light of the moon.

The couple walked beneath him, oblivious to his camouflaged presence.

Not to mention the coming of the other.

Jacob cocked his head, taking careful note of the other’s distant movements. Though the man-made features of a glass-and-concrete city numbed the Enforcer’s favored senses, he could still follow the comer’s progress easily. The younger, less experienced Demon was being careless, his focus riveted to his objective.

The human female.

Jacob recognized the younger Demon’s hunger, feeling it as it eddied into him, oppressive and pungent with the musk of unrestrained lust. The young Demon, Kane by common name, was stepping in and out of solid existence as he progressed toward the redhead. Kane’s fixation was making him uncharacteristically single-minded. He had no idea that the Enforcer had pursued him, that he was now lying in resolute wait for him.

Kane abruptly appeared on the pavement below in a burst of roiling smoke and the distinctive odor of sulfur. He was several yards behind the unknowing couple, his teleportation going completely unnoticed despite its display.

Jacob waited, the tension stretching his nerves taut. Although it pressed on him to interfere, it was his duty to let the other Demon commit to his course. Only then would he have justification for bringing the laws of their people down on him. All the while, he prayed to Destiny that Kane would regain control and walk away.

As Jacob gave the other Demon his chance to change his mind, he sat as still as a stone, watching Kane step into the recently trod path of the couple. When he passed beneath the Enforcer’s unseen perch up on the light pole to gain on his prey, Jacob launched upward into the air in a light, airy leap from one lamppost to the next several yards down the sidewalk. There was no sound as his feet touched the cool metal, no rustle of the clothing he wore as he crouched down once more in perfect balance. The only telltale sign of his presence was the sudden flickering twitch of the light. It only took him a moment to compensate, making the others below him perceive all as normal, though in actuality the light continued to flash with increasing spasms of protest.

He kept his thoughts hidden behind this projected camouflage as well. He knew that even in the grip of these basest of instincts, Kane would sense him if he did not. And yet, a whisper in the back of his mind was begging the Enforcer within him to just once, only this once, make an error.
One small error
, it murmured,
and Kane, who is so dear to you, will sense your presence and your thoughts. Let him have the chance that you have denied so many others.

No one would ever know what Jacob sacrificed to deny that insidious whispering. Regardless of the voice’s entreaty, he could not forswear his duty.

So instead, he watched as Kane sent out his summons to the vulnerable couple. Abruptly, the male human turned and walked away from the female, abandoning her without reason or the awareness that he was doing so. The redhead turned completely around, facing the approaching Demon. She was quite beautiful, Jacob noted as she faced the lamplight, with a lush, long body and auburn curls hanging in lengthy coils down her back. It was clear why she had attracted Kane. It wasn’t the Enforcer in Jacob that allowed a small, quirking smile to play at the corner of his otherwise grim lips.

Kane sauntered up to her, completely confident of his power over her, and reached to touch her face. Jacob could see the thrall in her eyes, the manipulation of her mind making her soft and pliant, making her turn her cheek into his affectionate caress.

The affection was a lie. What would start with this gentility could not possibly end with it. It was the nature of the creatures that they were, and it was inevitable. This was why he could never have allowed Kane any more warning than he had already given hundreds ... no ... thousands of times before this.

Jacob had seen enough.

He leapt lightly into the air, his long body tumbling gracefully in a backflip until he came full around and landed soundlessly behind the redheaded woman. He discarded his camouflage so abruptly that Kane sucked in a loud, startled breath. He froze when he saw Jacob, and the Elder was easily aware of what the young Demon’s thoughts must be.

The Enforcer had come to punish him.

It was enough to make Kane swallow visibly in apprehension. His hand jerked away from the redhead’s cheek as if she’d burned him, and his concentration broke from her. She blinked, suddenly becoming aware that she was sandwiched between two strange men and had no idea how she had gotten there.

“Take hold of her mind, Kane. Do not make this worse by frightening her.”

Kane obeyed instantaneously and the lovely woman relaxed, smiling softly as if she were in the easy company of old friends, now completely at peace.

“Jacob, what brings you out on a night like this?”

Jacob wasn’t deterred by Kane’s casual quip or his attempt at saving face through levity. The Enforcer already knew the other male was not wicked at heart. Kane was still relatively untrained and, considering the conditions of the night, it was easy for him to be led astray by his own baser nature.

That did not change the stark facts of the moment. Kane had literally been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His knee-jerk reaction, understandably, was to bargain his way out of the punishment he knew was impending. He would start with humor and continue on to every other tool in his arsenal.

“You know why I am here,” the Enforcer said, nipping those tools right in the bud with a chill, disciplined tone that warned Kane not to test his mettle.

“So maybe I do,” Kane relented, his dark blue eyes lowering as he shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I wasn’t going to do anything. I was just ... restless.”

“I see. So you thought to seduce this woman to appease your restlessness?” Jacob asked bluntly as he folded his arms across his chest. His entire manner radiated the image of a parent scolding a wayward child. It could be an amusing thought, considering Kane was just about to enter his second century of life, but the matter was too serious by far.

“I wasn’t going to hurt her,” Kane protested.

Jacob realized that Kane actually thought that was true. “No?” he countered. “Just what were you going to do? Ask politely if you could visit the savageness of your present nature on her? How does one word that, exactly?”

Kane fell stubbornly silent. He knew that the Enforcer had read his intentions from the moment he’d decided to stalk prey. Arguments and denials would just worsen the situation. Besides, the incriminating evidence of his transgression was standing between them.