Life Cycle (26 page)

“No, thank Cain,” Cain said.

Anna looked conflicted. “Thank you,” she finally
said. “I’m sorry I said you didn’t care about her. I didn’t know
what I was talking about.”

“You’re young. You can’t help these things,” Cain
said.

“Luc!” Anna shouted. Her mate ran in.

“What is it?”

“Hold my hand so I can hug the friend I almost
lost.”

Luc’s eyes widened at the sight of them together.
“You took a mate?”

“Why does everybody think I don’t have layers,” Cain
said, beginning to sound irked.

Anna grabbed Luc’s hand and hugged Tam. “Welcome to
my ghostly world,” she said. “Parts of it suck. Parts of it are
awesome.”

Tam laughed.

When they got back to the demon dimension, Cain
pulled her away from the others, taking her off to the caves.

“You know, we can probably just do it wherever we
want now,” she said.

“That’s not why I’m bringing you out here.”

Once again, he was holding her hand, taking her out
to the caves, only this time she knew it meant something.

“Are you going to regret doing this?” she asked, the
slightest bit of insecurity creeping in. The whole thing had sort
of happened very suddenly and under duress. For both of them.

“No,” he said, firmly. “I realized before you were
dying that I wasn’t just keeping you around for amusement. I like
that you aren’t some twenty-year-old, bubble-headed twit. I relate
to you. I like that you’re not scared of me.” He paused for a
second, and she knew he was still moved that she’d asked for the
demon form. No other woman in existence would have done that for
him. He quickly regained his composure. “And I like that you can
kick my ass—or make a valiant attempt, at least. Though that won’t
be true for a while because of your change. But I’ll live until you
get unruly again.”

“Oh, I’m queen of the verbal sparring match, you
won’t be bored,” she promised. “Speaking of queens, does this make
me queen of the demons? Oh oh oh! Or queen of the underworld, like
Persephone?”

He winced. “Please, those are such human labels.
Aren’t we above all that?”

But she was just screwing with him. Though she did
sort of love the Persephone and Hades myth. Maybe there had been a
clue in there all along.

Things turned serious when he took her into the
caves. Hadrian was chained to a wall, badly beaten and
tortured.

“You did this,” she said quietly. For a moment she
wondered if she would be the one to regret the mating. The evidence
of her mate’s brutality was stark as Hadrian groaned in the
shackles. He was healing, but if he was still this messed up as a
vampire, it had to have been really bad.

“I did. And I would do it again. I told you before
we got split up that you were mine. Did you really think I wouldn’t
move Heaven and Earth to get you back?”

She’d known demons were possessive
and that words like
mine
didn’t spill out of their mouths casually, but
she’d been in denial at that point.

He turned her face toward him, his
hand cupping her chin. “Do
you
regret the mating?”

Tam looked at Hadrian, then back to Cain. “No. I knew
what you were when I agreed. I’m not a twenty-year-old,
bubble-headed twit,” she said, tossing his words back at him.

He smirked. “Something we can all be grateful for. I
bet you were a terror when you were twenty.”

“Every single time.”

He got serious again. “What do you want to do with
him?”

Tam sighed. “Just let him go. I’m too old to be that
petty.”

He unchained the vampire and offered him a hand to
help him stand. “You’ve no doubt made enemies of everyone,
especially Anthony. I’d steer clear if I were you. You might also
want to change where you sleep for the day. It’s only a matter of
time before things escalate in the human world, even with Jack
gone.”

The vampire nodded. “I’m sorry it went like this,
Tam. Truly. But bad things will happen from Anthony’s control. Jack
was evil, but he was a means to an end for me.”

Tam didn’t reply. She didn’t feel like he wanted her
to, just that he had to get that said. He’d probably been holding
onto it for a while. Father Hadrian left them alone in the caves,
and Tam looked over at her mate.

“Can I still eat food?”

Cain chuckled. “If you like. When
you’re not in the ghostly form.”

“But it’s not really what keeps me
going?” These, of course, were the questions you typically
asked
before
you
gave your soul to a demon, but
meh
.

“No. We’re tied together now. I can only feed
successfully from you, but you gain strength through it, as
well.”

“Neat.” She looked down at the sand she couldn’t
really stand in. “You know, I’d just love for one century to go by
where my life was normal.”

“Good luck with that.”

She turned her palm up and was surprised when she
could still form an energy ball, though it was ghostly and wouldn’t
do any damage. Someday, though. Cain grabbed her and pulled her to
him for a kiss as the glowing purple ball fell from her hand and
sizzled in the sand.

Click to the next page for an excerpt of my novella:
Dark Mercy, which introduces the couple in the next full length
novel in the series.

Dark Mercy Exerpt

1955, Las Vegas, Nevada

Angeline swayed on her feet, twirling in circles as
the lights of Sin City spun around her, her head thrown back in a
giddy laugh. When she stopped, the lights kept spinning, turning
into long, wispy snakes hissing and flying around her head. She
made her own hissing sound back at the apparition and giggled as
her fangs snicked back into her gums.

The woman now lying at her feet had been on mescaline
and the trip had made it all the way to the vampiress. Her gaze was
caught by a church, glittering in psychedelic glory in the
distance. It rose out of the ground like a sign to Angeline,
glowing and shaking and warping and moving, asking her to join the
dance.

The drug expanded her awareness, and she felt there
was nothing she couldn’t know. Her future mate was in that
building. He was there, waiting for her to turn him and open his
world to all the possibilities she held in her hands. She held the
world in her hands. Or maybe that was the mescaline talking.

Angeline stumbled over the body in the alley, then
righted herself, straightening her black, Victorian-style dress.
Her manner of dressing occasionally drew stares in other cities,
but she didn’t care. Here in Vegas, people assumed she was some
type of performer and didn’t look twice. She could blend while
keeping in use a wardrobe from her last favorite era.

She grabbed a sober man off the street and pulled him
into the alley, drinking deeply of his blood to rid herself of the
effects of her last victim. Then she made her way to the formerly
glowing church that now stood austere in simple gray stone.

It had been centuries since she’d been inside a
church. Would she burst into flames when she crossed the threshold?
She imagined walking through the door and catching on fire to the
shock and fright of all the assembled faithful. Of course she was
being silly, she’d risen inside a church in the arms of her sire.
She hadn’t combusted back then. As long as she didn’t touch any
crosses or holy water, she’d be fine.

If I have any humanity left, I’ll be fine.
She was well aware it was only her human side
that could keep her safe, a side she’d spent the better part of the
last several centuries suppressing.

She’d just reached the steps when the church clock
began chiming out the midnight hour in ominous greeting. She jumped
when the door swung open.

“Miss, are you here for the midnight service?”

A deep, graceful baritone. Angeline’s heart almost
stopped. He was so damn beautiful. So tall—at least six foot five,
and broad. He filled the entire double doorway with his presence.
He was the one. She could feel it. Still she just stood there,
unable to speak and partially afraid to go in.

He extended his hand to take hers. “I’m Father
Hadrian. We’re just about to start. You’re welcome here.” His hands
wrapped around hers were so warm.

The invitation took away the last of her fear of the
place
. Although vampires didn’t need invitations
to get into human homes, a church felt more dangerous, as if the
demon half of her could condemn her. S
urely his invitation
as well as her partial humanity would protect her. She glanced up
at him through a fringe of lashes, overtaken with a sudden bit of
shyness as she stepped inside the church.

What was wrong with her? She didn’t get shy around
men. She moved to an empty pew and sat, her gaze moving back to
him, tracking his every movement. She couldn’t help it, he was the
most interesting thing she’d ever seen.
Hadrian.
She rolled
his name over in her mind. She was a great fan of etymology. Her
name, of course, no longer fit—she was far from an angel. Hadrian
meant
dark one
.

His looks matched. In addition to being tall and
broad, he was swarthy, with dark hair and eyes black as coal.
Everything in his image screamed danger, but the kindness he
projected was warmth and light. The contrast fascinated her. She
wanted to tease out the dark edges, to have a partner in crime, but
she also wanted someone she could trust.

In its own way, the church was a welcome
retreat—familiar. It was dark—almost sinister—illuminated only by
candles. The ornate Our Lady of Guadalupe statue glowed in the
candlelight, as did the crucifix over the altar. In the dark it
looked like a scene from a horror film rather than a symbol of hope
and forgiveness.

Angeline reached absently inside her bag, clutching
the beads of the old rosary inside. She let out a sharp hiss as her
hand accidentally brushed the cross, leaving a condemning burn in
its wake. She quickly composed herself, looking around to see if
anyone had noticed a visible change in her demeanor. Had her eyes
glowed? Had her fangs popped out? If either of those things had
happened, no one noticed before her human mask fell back into
place.

She looked at her hand as the red mark faded and the
cross-shaped scar disappeared completely, the healing process
completed in a matter of seconds, since she’d just consumed so much
fresh human blood.

God didn’t want her anymore. Well fine, fuck him
anyway. She’d carried this anger for a long time now, and yet, she
stubbornly kept the rosary, carrying it around with her like a
tarnished ticket into heaven.

Every time it burned her skin it was a reminder the
ticket was no longer valid. It was of little consequence how
faithful she’d been in her human life. It was that faithfulness
that had ultimately killed her. If she hadn’t been at church that
night…

Angeline brushed the stray tear off her cheek,
pulling the wall up high around herself. It was easier to be the
monster than the woman. The woman was still too vulnerable. She
turned her attention back to the priest and the liturgy that was so
familiar and yet so alien now.

She didn’t participate; she merely sat and observed
the standing, sitting, kneeling—rote repetition that carried her
off into another experience more quiet, but no less profound than
the drugs that had moved within her earlier in the evening. The
priest’s voice held a trace of an accent, but she couldn’t place
it.

Occasionally his eyes drifted to hers. It took
everything in her not to enthrall him, not to put suggestions into
his head. She wanted to observe him in his natural state, like a
researcher in the savannah watching a wild animal. She wanted to
know who he was, not who she would mold him to be. That would come
later.

His hands were mesmerizing, strong, and sure.
Compared with her strength he was feeble right now, but he would
become an awesome force of nature, like a tornado that couldn’t be
contained. Her shyness had evaporated inside the cocoon of the
church. Now she was only a predator watching her prey.

She licked her lips almost unconsciously.

The congregants began to stand and form a line to
receive the bread and wine. She felt Father Hadrian’s eyes burn
through her and looked away. He must have noticed she didn’t take
part in the service. She felt exposed, and wanted to leave. She
wouldn’t turn him tonight, but she remained in her seat. Angeline
wanted to feel his warm hands over hers again and didn’t want to
wait a week for the experience.

***

Hadrian had tried to keep his focus on the Mass, yet
he couldn’t stop looking at the woman he kept thinking of as
the
dark angel
. He’d seen human nature in all its intriguing,
delightful, and disappointing forms, but this woman was a study in
contrasts he couldn’t quite unravel.

His gaze lingered on her lips, which were painted a
lush red that invited him to taste her. Her skin was a smooth,
milky white that contrasted sharply against her long dark hair. Her
glittering blue eyes offered an additional contrast to her shiny
brown locks.

Given the style of her clothing and the smallness of
her waist, Hadrian wouldn’t be surprised if she was wearing a
corset underneath the dress, a corset painstakingly laced and tied
by the hands of another. A lover perhaps? He imagined her flushed
after a hurried coupling, leaning against the bedpost, sucking in a
breath so the corset could be cinched just a little tighter.

She seemed barely real, and he feared she might
disappear into the dark, cold night from whence she came, never to
be heard from again. As he moved to the next parishioner kneeling
at the bench, he glanced again at the dark angel.