Black Heart (11 page)

“
You fucking animal!” she cried
vehemently.

“
Do you want me to bring Marcus
home with us? He can service us both, sleep at the foot of our bed
like a beloved pet.”

Raylene curled her lip. “You have a nerve.
What if I said yes? He is quite beautiful and well-hung,” she
taunted.

“
Your hand on his cock is
testament to that,” Deegan snarled.

“
And he had his hand on yours,
what is your point? We all have Vampire blood!” she huffed. “I want
to contact the Bureau.”

Her shift in conversation made his eyes
widen. “What the bloody hell for?”

“
There must be a way to sever
this bond between us, this mate thing. There must be a ritual or
ceremony. They have them for everything else!” Her hand waved in
the air in irritation.

His insides dropped to the ground, but
he kept his face passive.

“
You want to end this?” His
voice was soft, but menace caressed his tones.

“
It is obvious this was a
mistake. We got carried away during hot sex, nothing more,” she
sniffed.

He didn’
t buy that for a minute. His
cell vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and
answered.

“
Fine. See you there.” He
snapped it off and returned it to his pocket. “That was Tristan.
They are on the 102 just passing Bedford. They should be at the
house in thirty minutes. Come, Raylene, I want you to be there when
Julian arrives. You both should know what you might be
facing.”

Her face changed. The angry coolness
slipped away, revealing the grief and heart wrenching hurt and
worry. His annoyance and jealousy dissipated slightly. He wanted
nothing more than to pull her close, comfort and protect
her.

“
I'll follow you back to the
house.”

He pointed to his 1971 Dodge
Challenger. Her shoulders slumped. He winced at the torn sleeve.
He
was
a fucking animal. She merely nodded and climbed into the
Thunderbird. Turning the ignition, she sat and waited.

His fingers lingered over the hood of his
white sports car. He didn’t drive this much, usually late at night
when there was no traffic and he could rip it wide open on the
divided highway. He had a few speeding tickets thanks to his baby.
He loved cars, embraced them as soon as they were invented. He had
a storage garage on Black Transports property that held six other
cars from various decades. He climbed in and gunned the engine,
waving his arm at Raylene indicating he wanted her to go first. She
frowned, and then peeled out of the parking lot leaving a trail of
rubber.

He followed right behind her. He snapped
off the radio, needing to think. End the Mate Bond? She hated him
that much? Though he couldn’t blame her, as he’d mismanaged their
relationship from the very first. All those decades, though to him
it didn’t seem that long, time had gotten away from him as it often
did for immortals. He knew he hurt her, over and over
again.

Saying he loved no one in the
pub, that was
not true. He didn’t
want
to love anyone. It hurt too damned much. All his
efforts to stay cool and removed fell apart like a deck of cards.
He was a stubborn shite; he knew that as well. At times, he didn’t
like himself much. The protective shield he built around him all
those centuries ago had been well battered and breached many times,
but never broken completely down until—Raylene. He was angry with
her for making him feel again. Hence his hurtful words. No excuse
really, only a right bastard acted the way he did.

Deegan
lowered the window, letting the warm
summer air fill the interior of the car. He exhaled. Enough of
this. He would tell her everything and Tristan as well. His son had
asked many questions over the last century and a half, and he’d
rarely answered any of them. With Raynor gone all he had was his
beloved son and Raylene. Well, his grandson too. His Quarter-blood
grandson, Lucius, would soon be home from his extended visit to the
UK. With a mate of his own no less. The family would be reunited.
He missed him. He knew Tristan missed him as well. Being a Vampire
could be a solitary, lonely existence. Their clan was lucky. They
managed to produce some children and form cohesive, tight family
units. Yet he turned away from all that. He made a decision, just
that quick. Yes, he would bare his soul. Expose his heart for the
shriveled, damaged organ that it was.

He pulled into the driveway behind
Raylene. She was already out of the car and marching angrily toward
the house. He sprinted to catch up to her and grabbed her
arm.

She pulled it out of his grasp. “Don’t
touch me.”

Feck that.
He grabbed her arm and dragged
her into the house, her curses filling the front entrance. He
slammed the door and pushed her none too gently against it. He
grabbed her cheeks in his hands and laid a devastating kiss on her
lips. She fought him, kept her mouth closed, would not give him an
inch nor allow his tongue entrance. That just ramped up his
determination. He kissed her with a desirous ferocity, nudging
those soft lips open. He felt it the moment she acquiesced. They
could fight, curse and lash out, but they couldn’t deny this raging
inferno between them. She groaned and threw her arms around his
neck, opening her mouth in invitation. He plunged in, that
delicious warmth of her mouth he had got to know intimately these
last couple of days. The kiss went on and on. Finally he pulled
away.

“
You love me, Raylene. Say
it.”

She looked well kissed, her face ruddy
from the burn of his goatee and her lips swollen from his sensuous
assault. Her eyes narrowed, but she kept silent.

“
You love me, Raylene. Even now,
right here. You love me, and I don’t deserve it.” He reached down,
and with one finger, gently stroked her cheek. “I have so much to
tell you, things I have told no one, not even my son. But Raynor
knew. He was with me from the beginning. Will you hear me out? I
want to wait until later when I can have both you and Tristan
alone. Can you give me that?”

Raylene tried
to fight him, fight
the feelings; he could sense her inner turmoil. He kissed her
frowning lips gently, and then rested his forehead against
hers.

“
I don’t want to sever the bond,
Raylene,” he whispered hoarsely, surprised at the raw emotion in
his voice. “I want us to be together for as long as we are able.
Always and forever. As long as forever is for us. Will you hear me
out first? I know I have been a bastard.”

His insides trembled, waiting for her
response.

“
I don’
t think I care to hear what you have
to say.”

Chapter Seven

The look of shock on his face
picked at her conscience and her battered heart. But damn his eyes,
he deserved it. As if an
earth-shattering, molten kiss from him would turn
the tide. It almost worked. Maybe it worked more than she let on.
She did love him, even after all this. But he also plunged an ice
pick through her heart. The frosty tentacles had spread, encasing
her soul as well.

He opened his mouth as if to reply, but
the unmistakable roar of Tristan’s Benz Roadster drowned out
anything he started to say. She moved away from the door and opened
the hall closet. She tore off the ripped blouse and changed into a
front zipper sweater she had left behind the day before. Raylene
headed into the living room, keeping her chin stubbornly and
defiantly raised.

She heard the male voices in
the hallway. Vampire testosterone and pure rugged male scents
filled the air. Her brother, Deegan, and Tristan were all potent
specimens. Her heart began to ache. She had not seen her brother
for a couple of months. As soon as he walked through the entryway,
Raylene’s heart burst in her chest and the tears flowed. She ran to
her brother’s arms and cried unashamedly. Julian stood as tall as
Tristan, around six feet-four with the powerful, muscular build of
their father. She buried her face into his broad chest, wetting his
shirt with her hot, mournful tears. Raylene didn’t care. Their
parents were gone, destroyed. And the Destroyer, the Terminator,
stood nearby with his face impassive as always.
Bastard.

Finally, they all moved into the living
room. Julian had his arm still around her and led her to the
leather sofa. Tristan pulled over one of the leather wing chairs
next to it. Deegan remained standing.

“
I am sorry for your loss,
Julian. How much did Tristan tell you?”

Julian glanced up at Deegan. Raylene knew
her brother enough to know he emotionally hung by a
thread.

“
He mentioned The Concealment
and the fact Mother was mad, a mindless animal. Father elected to
be destroyed with her. Is that the truth of it?”

“
Yes. There was no collusion
between us or the Bureau. They know nothing. I told them your
mother came out of a coma and quickly succumbed to her illness.
Your father, in deep grief, wished that both of them be destroyed
together. They took my word for it, and it is not far from the
truth. Your father left you both letters and instructions about his
estate. When you are ready to read them, let me know. Would you
like me to call Edward to join us?”

Julian shook his head. “Not tonight, just
tell us what you know about this Concealment.”

Raylene watched as Deegan moved about the
room like a professor giving an inaugural lecture to a roomful of
university students. He told them it seemed to be some kind of
genetic hiccup in certain Vampires. The Concealment appeared in
varying degrees from mild, moderate to extreme. Their mother was
extreme, a snarling, drooling and mindless killer. Raynor’s
position sat on the high end of mild. His moments of madness came
over him about every two hundred years, the first being around 1560
almost two hundred years after he was turned.

“
So you did this to father? You
turned him, right?” Raylene could not keep the hateful venom out of
her voice.

“
No.”

“
How can you be so
sure?”

“
I turned Edward, and he does
not suffer from it. Nor do the few others I have turned over the
centuries. Whatever happened during Raynor’s transformation, it was
some rare anomaly. Our best scientists cannot explain it as it
manifests itself differently in every infected Vampire.”

Julian stroked her arm in comfort. “And
what about us?”

Deegan clasped his hands behind his
back and looked down for a moment as if organizing his
thoughts.

“
We don’t know. Vampires are not
supposed to procreate. We are the first clan since the twelfth
century to breed with humans and have half-Vampire children and in
the case of Lucius, a Quarter Vampire. Edward would like to run
some DNA tests, but I doubt it will show us anything. Are you both
willing to submit to testing?”

Raylene glanced at her brother. For the
first time since finding out about this Concealment thing, she felt
cold, numbing fear move through her veins. He clasped her hand
tightly. She nodded.

“
We will,” Julian answered, his
voice firm and strong.

Deegan nodded. “Good, good.”

He commenced with walking about the room
again and talking, Raylene had never heard him speak so much. He
told them “we asked Raynor to wait, to say good-bye, but Raynor
couldn’t, not only because of Laura’s condition, but, he could not
face it”. He asked Deegan to ask his forgiveness of his beloved
children. Raylene’s tears spilled down her cheeks. Her accusations
of Deegan murdering her parents were unfair. She could see the
anguish on Deegan’s face. The grief. He was not masking his
emotions now.

Julian looked wretched. “All these years I
blamed Dad, botching Mother’s turning, but it was not his fault,
not really. Why didn’t he tell us of what he endured all these
centuries? He abhorred violence and killing. What a burden for him
to carry. How many victims—and how did he escape any Sectator
Hunters or the Bureau?”

Deegan raised his hand to silence Julian.
“I covered up for him all these centuries. There were five victims.
The most recent incident occurred a few weeks ago.”

Raylene cried out, and her hand flew to
her mouth in shock. “Did Mother know about
his—condition?”

“
She did. She protected him as
well. His last incident was 1840 just before he met your mother.
There is no rhyme or reason to the attacks. Sometimes over two
hundred years would pass, other times only one hundred and thirty
years. Your father suffered dreadfully, but the love he held for
your mother and the both of you kept him going. Until your mother’s
turning went horribly wrong. These last decades he barely
existed.”

Deegan told them about the
T
hropes, the
Blood Oath, Tristan’s involvement and turning Devlin Steele’s
brother, though he didn’t give his name. Raylene knew he spoke of
Marcus.

Julian stood suddenly. “I can’t hear any
more. Not tonight. Forgive me. I have to get out of
here.”

Tristan, who had been sitting silently,
tossed Julian his car keys. “Take my car, man.”