Into Death's Arms (26 page)

    I felt the color drain from my face
. She was sleeping with
Bouncer
-
Vamp
? Did I really have any room to say anything? I could protect myself she couldn’t. Yeah
,
Mace keep telling yourself that
,
Dayton could have killed you seconds after entering your room if he had wanted to.
You underestimate yourself my sweet.
His voice slid through me again.

    
I doubt it.
I replied. Laith moved forward again. 

     I am going Macyn.
I will return to you later.
  I felt Dayton move behind me. Laurna gasped. Laith growled. I knew he was gone.

  
I sighed,
“Let’s go get something to eat.” I moved past the giant angry lion
Shifter
growling at the spot the
Vamp
ire
had just vacated. Laurna laughed again and touched Laith’s shoulder.
He flinched like she’d slapped him.

       Her voice was soft, “h
e’s gone, come on Laith lets go eat. Macyn needs food and if you’re anything like her shifting and using up that power is going to leave you hungry too.” He looked down at her. Those predatorily eyes raking her she just continued to smile at him. I was amazed at her bravery. I was shaking in my boots and I had always known
Shifters
existed.
He watched her closely, he took a deep breath through his nose and let it back out.

    Then
nodded once and shifted back to human. “Go ahead I’ll be down in a moment. I
need to breathe a little first,
” Laurna nodded. We went down stairs leaving a rather angry looking werelion in my bedroom. Have I mentioned my life was falling apart?

   Laurna had prepare
d enough food to feed an army.
I dug in. “So you are involved with
Bouncer
Vamp
?” I asked
using nicer language than I had used earlier
. 

     “
Ashley
and yes I am,
”
t
hat was Ashley, who had named him? Well no wonder I didn’t remember Ashley she had deliberately mislead me.
Well at least she was being honest
now
. “I’m in love wit
h him Macy,” s
he sighed. “I know you don’t like this but I really do love him and he loves me.” I managed not to snort at her.

     “Laurna they don’t,” I had to stop
,
how could
I say they didn’t think like us
?
I could feel what Dayton
Tameron
had been feeling. He
certainly wasn’t
the cold emotionless psychopath my father had lead me to believe
they were. Tameron
had been jealous
,
he had been
angry
,
and
he had been aroused.
Suddenly I couldn’t spout the rhetoric I had been told my entire life. 

    
I am still aroused my sweet.
  His voice made me shiver.
Send the
Shifter
and your friend away and I will return to you.
We could spend hours concentrating on my various emotions
.
Oh how I was tempted.

   Stop it,
I hissed mentally.
I am confused and you’re not helping.
That laughter filled me up again it was so soft and seductive. I could almost feel his lips on my throat again.

  
“Tell him I can smell his power and he needs to leave you alone.” Laith came down the stairs. “It’s been a long time since I hunted anything let alone something as challenging as a
Vamp
ire
.”

     Huh, he could smell his power. How was that possible? “What
are you doing here anyway Laith,
” I asked
.
I was confused by all this and needed some answers. 

    He sat down next to me and piled his plate with food. “I promised Iris I would protect you. Kinsley is trying to kill you. I came to do what I promised.” He filled his mouth. “I know this is hard for you but I have known you were my sister since before your birth. I remember the first time Mom brought the ultrasound pictures with her to lunch.”
His smile was brilliant. I was really starting to see Iris in him. 

   I nodded, well hell what else was I going to do. “How old are you?” I asked I knew
Shifters
lived long lives.

   He chewed thoroughly. “I’m a little under a century, a baby by our standards really.” 

   Laurna poured coffee for all three of us and finally sat down with us.  She laughed
,
“I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to people saying under a century is a baby. Ashley says he is young too
,
but he remember
s when
cars were invented
.” She sipped her coffee.

    Laith looked up at her. “You don’t care that he’s a
Vamp
ire
,
” he asked
, the timber of his voice had changed ever so slightly
.

   She shook her head a vigorous no. “I don’t care that Mace is an AoD, I don’t care that you’re a
werelion
. I don’t care that Ashley Donovan is a
Vamp
ire
. What I do care about is what he carries inside him. Like the two of
you,
he is a good person. Human or not and unlike Macyn I don’t believe
Vamp
ires
and
Shifters
are demons. A differ
ent species sure but demons, no,
” she
moved the sugar bowl closer to him.

   He heaped sugar into his cup. “It’s nice to know that not everyone believes we are monsters. You
sure Donovan’s the one for you,” h
e winked at her.  We all laughed. It felt good.  It felt normal compared to the rest of my day. 

     You are an Ao
D do you really expect normal? 
His amusement
matched my own, d
amn
Vamp
ire
in my head.
You know if Donovan knew how your brother was cozying up to his woman, he would kill him
,
I sighed
.

     You guys are too territorial Laurna is her own woman
,
not his woman. I growled back.

    She is his
,
just as you are mine
,
Macyn. There is no point in denying it. He was feeling smug. I have mentioned I hate smug. 

    I am not yours!  I yelled into his mind.  I don’t even like you.

   His laughter was
rich;
it certainly felt like you liked me earlier my sweet. Are you so fickle?

 
 
Shut up
,
I
put up my shields again, now that I was strong enough.
I ate I really needed to intake as much as possible build up my strength naturally again. I couldn’t count on a
Vamp
ire
to bail me out every time I got myself good and hurt.

  
He was an AoLi how was that possible?

  
I had a truly terrifying thought, w
hat if he was my AoLi
?
Shifters
weren’t the only ones who had only one mate in their lifetime. AoD did too. We could only breed with our AoLi, life to our death.
Apparently,
AoLi were life incarnate they didn’t have the s
ame limitations we did. That must have been
how my mother had, had Laith but my father only had me. Iris was his true mate the only one in the world for him. What was I going to do? I finished my food.

   
Laith and Laurna chatted quietly about
the
Shadow-born
. She had lots of questions and I still wasn’t entirely
comfortable talking about it.
Besides he had a viewpoint I really didn’t.  It was almost dark I needed to get ready to go hunting.

 
“Mace, where are you going?” Laurna asked as I got up and stuck my dishes in the sink.

    I shrugged, “I have to get ready to go hunting. Laith might not be the bad guy but I’ve run into enough
Dream-walkers
and
Vamp
ires
lately to know that isn’t the case with all of them. It’s my job to protect humanity.”
I headed toward the stairs.

    “I’ll come with you,
” Laith got up and headed toward the stairs to.

    I stopped effectively stopping him. “I want you to take Laurna home then we can meet up. Can you do that for me?” I asked. I really thought she had a better chance with the big mean werelion than with me.

   He looked back at Laurna. “Yeah, that’s pro
bably a good idea,” h
e nodded. “Come on
sweetheart,
I get to body guard you till you get home.” He grabbed his jacket from the rack near the door.
He raked his eyes over her, “It’s such a good body to guard.”

     Laurna frowned a little, and then stood up. “I don’t like this Mace but I’m not gonna fight
you on it. Be careful out there,
” She warned.

    I nodded, “Don’t worry about me hun.” I ran up the stairs. I didn’t want to deal with her fear. I was scared enough all by myself. Laith had said the
Shifters
were looking to kill me.
Not that I hadn’t already known that but having one of them admit it to my face just made it more real.
Just what I needed a pack
of monsters chasing me down. 

     I could sense the creature not far from me.  The alley was dark. It smelled funky like three-week-old trash and sewage. How did creatures with a better sense of smell than me stan
d it?  The streetlights were
blown out. Good thing I could see in the dark.

  
There it was… hunched over a body it made wet sucking sounds
. T
he body in it
’
s clutches was silent
.
I let my senses rush over them. Damn
,
I was too late the
human
was already dead. I ignored the disappointment I felt. I
whistled, loudly
, the
Shifter
’s head snapped up
pulling something
that looked distinctly like entrails with it. I will not vomit
,
I told myself.  “Hey dog boy,” yeah he was of the wolf variety, “look fresh meat.” I wiggled suggestively at him. Hopefully he was too gone in blood lust to realize I was an AoD. He charged me, yep
too
far gone. Score
one for me. 
He was easy
,
too lost in anythin
g but the need to kill. I pulled
my sword and took his head. See easy, messy
,
but easy.
Blah, I wiped the blade on his shirt.

     Unfortunately, for me
,
it was a trap. I heard the clapping as his body hit the concrete. I turned toward the sound.  Orson
,
that
big bastard from my
dream
,
stood about a hundred yards from me. Two of his buddies stepped out of the surrounding buildings
.
Why
,
oh, why hadn’t Laith called me back yet? It sure was taking him a long time to drop Laurna off.
One
of the new guys
was big like Orson and looked like he’d had his nose broken more than once. The other skinny and rather rat like.
Another
two stepped
out from behind the dumpster.
These two were the same size
,
same make
,
twins maybe. One had dyed his hair fire engine red. The other had dyed
his
bright blue.
Five of them a whole pack just for me… I took a deep br
eath. “Nicely done,
”
Orson
said. “Are you an AoD or AoLi,
” he a
sked.
Obviously,
brains hadn’t been a big priority in his genetic makeup. AoLi couldn’t kill.
 

    I shrugged moved my hand on my gladius so I had
a better grip. “Does it matter,
” I asked.