Steal the Day (25 page)

Daniel wasn’t buying it. “That’s not what you meant, Z. I can see it in your face. I saw it when you went to him after that demon let you go. Why did he let you go, Zoey? What the hell did you promise him? Screw that. Just tell me why you didn’t run. Just say it. Say it!”

“Because I love him.” I shook a little as I said it, but he left me no choice.

Daniel’s fangs popped out, his claws lengthening. For a split second I was afraid of him, but he took his anger out on a large tree, shoving his fist clean through it. He stood there shaking with emotion, and I started to come down from my volcanic rage. It was like this between me and Danny sometimes. We pushed and pushed until something broke, and we had to put us back together. I just didn’t know how to fix it this time.

“It doesn’t change how I feel about you, Danny.” It was a stupid thing to say, but it was all I had.

He laughed, a nasty, bitter sound. “It changes everything, Zoey. I love you and only you. My whole life it’s only been you. I’ve never even slept with anyone else. Even while you fucked him mindless, I was faithful because I knew you would come back to me. No, there weren’t any hookers, baby. I spent that money protecting the new vamps. I spent it building something to protect you. I was willing to wait for you because he might have your body, but I had your heart. Now you tell me you love him? Maybe your love isn’t worth what I thought it was.”

It no longer mattered that there were other people watching because I couldn’t stop the tears. All I could see was years of my life, years of my love, being tossed away. “Guess that whole ‘I’ll fight for you’ thing didn’t last very long, did it? After everything you did, Danny, all the lies, all the times you pushed me away and told me to move on because you didn’t love me anymore, and you want to end it this way? By telling me I wasn’t worth it? Fine. That’s what you want, fine.” I took a second to breathe through the pain, but there was something else I needed him to understand. “I wouldn’t take back a minute of it, Daniel. Not a minute. Not even this one. Now we do this one last job and then we can be done. I’ll even leave the city after we get Sarah back. I wouldn’t want to contaminate your power base.”

Daniel was finally calming down. His claws retracted, his shoulders slumped, and he sighed as he looked at me. “Zoey, I’m not doing this job with you. I’m sorry for what I said before. You took me by surprise, but I shouldn’t have said what I did. That being said, I won’t take you with me to Vegas. If I learned anything tonight it’s that you’re not up to this. You can’t be unemotional or professional. You’re going to get yourself killed, and I won’t be a part of that.”

“You owe me this,” I stammered, shocked that he would threaten to torpedo my operation. He knew how important this was to me.

“No,” he said implacably. “I need to keep you alive. That’s what I owe you.”

“I’ll find another way, then.” I felt like he’d punched me in the gut. How could he take away my best option to save Sarah? It didn’t matter what she’d done. She was a part of our crew. We didn’t leave our crew behind.

He shook his head, his jaw a stubborn line. “You need an invitation to that ball, Zoey. I assure you, you won’t find another vampire willing to escort you.”

A dumbass, stupid, likely to get me killed plan went through my head. “Who said I was going to ask a vampire, Danny? I believe the demons will be looking for dates, too.”

Daniel stopped cold. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“If you can say that and mean it, then you don’t know me at all.” I stared at my husband, my first love, and let him feel my will. I’d never let him tell me what I could or couldn’t do. I hadn’t done it when we were together, and I would be damned if I let him do it after we broke up.

Daniel’s blue eyes widened. “Who the hell was that in the field, Zoey? What did you do? What did you promise that demon in order to save Dev?”

Because I was no longer interested in answering his questions, I turned away and started to go back to the van. I was already thinking of all the things I would need to do when I got back to the city. I was going to have to call Stewart to me in order to arrange an invitation to the ball. It would be hard because my witch was in Hell, but Christine would help me. The good news was with Danny out of the picture, I could leave my lover out of it as well. I could protect Dev by running the job alone. He wouldn’t like it, but he wouldn’t have a choice. I had the Revelation. I could get Sarah out myself.

Daniel pulled me around. He wasn’t taking the silent treatment well. “Tell me, Zoey.”

“It was Stewart,” I told him because he would probably find out anyway.

“Shit.” Daniel slapped at the van, his hand denting the metal.

I pushed at his chest because he was crowding me, but it didn’t do any good. Until Danny wanted to move, I was trapped. The only weapons I had were words. “I would think you would be thrilled. According to Stewart, the demons are all rooting for you. You have a real cheerleader in our old friend. He wants to get in your good graces, Your Highness. Would you like to know how he thought he could really please you?”

Daniel’s eyes strayed to Dev’s sleeping form. “I have never…”

I hit his chest because I could see in his eyes that he had thought it. He’d thought about someone doing that job for him so he could get the benefit and not pay for the crime. He would never say the words out loud, but it had clearly crossed his mind. “How long, Danny? How long until one of your minions decides to move up the ladder by killing Dev?”

I could see Daniel was upset by the thought. He shook me lightly by my shoulders. “I have done everything I can to protect your lover. I could have killed him many times over, but I allowed myself to look like a pathetic chump while you worked out your angst. Don’t you blame me for this. You’re the one who brought him in. And don’t you dare blame me for wanting him out of the picture. You know how I feel about you. Do you think it’s been easy watching you with him? I want to rip his heart out every time he touches you. You’re mine, Zoey. You’ve always been mine.”

“Then you should have taken me with you to Paris.”

The night after Daniel and I performed the ritual that made us man and wife, he’d been carted off to answer to the Council for his actions concerning Lucas Halfer. I was his companion and I was told there was a seat on that plane for me, but Daniel had forbidden it. He took Neil and left me behind to wonder about his fate. I would have followed him anywhere in that moment. I would have faced anything. I would have accepted our marriage and never thought to even speak to Dev again. I would have been his faithful wife and done the job Stewart said I was born to do. It was Daniel’s rejection that caused me to seek Dev out, but I couldn’t go back now. I realized now that moment when he looked up at me and said “I forbid it” had broken something in me. I was no longer sure it could be fixed.

Daniel’s face fell, his eyes nearly pleading. “I wonder if you’re ever going to stop punishing me for that. I was protecting you.”

Weariness threatened to take over my system. This was an argument that never seemed to end for us. “You do an awful lot of that, Danny. Maybe I didn’t want to be protected. Maybe I wanted to be your partner not your possession. You don’t trust me. Now that I’m standing here, I realize that you’ve never trusted me. The whole time we’ve been working together you’ve been indulging me. You’ve just been waiting for me to make a mistake so you could shut it down.”

“I trust you, Z.”

I sniffled a little, finally coming down from my anger. Only a stark sadness was left. “No, you don’t. When you came back and we decided to try the whole friendship thing out, you promised me no more secrets. That was a lie. You didn’t tell me about the little army you’re gathering until I forced you to. You’re always going to do it because you need to protect me. Because you don’t trust me to be able to handle your world. What you need from me, what you want from me, is sex and blood and the joy of ownership. You want a queen by your side, but you want her to be a pretty plaything.”

Daniel shook his head and tried to pull me into his arms, but I shoved a hand between us to keep my distance. “That’s not true, Zoey. I don’t see you that way. You’re my whole world. Everything I do is for you. Everything I’ve done since I was eight freaking years old has been with you in mind.”

My heart ached as he brought up our past. “You think I don’t remember? You think I don’t remember when we were so much more than this? I was your best friend. I was your lover. You wouldn’t have thought to keep secrets from me. We were partners. When we built something, we did it together.”

Daniel ignored the distance I placed between us and pulled me to him. I stood in his embrace wanting to return it, but if I gave in now, I would become what he wanted. I would be his sweet companion to be coddled and protected. Maybe I could have been that at one point in time, but I was a different person now.

Daniel held me as if he was afraid to let go, but I just stood there. “This is stupid, Zoey. I was angry and scared out of my mind. I was watching the whole time. I watched those witches die, and I just knew you were next. Then I watched them arrest you. We’re both tired and angry. Neither one of us means a damn thing we’re saying. We’ll pick up the conversation when we get back to Dallas.”

He took a step back, but I couldn’t look at him. I heard him walk over to the boys who’d sat silently while Danny and I had blown up eighteen years of our lives. I suppose it would have been politer for them to have walked away, but it wouldn’t have mattered. They still would have heard everything.

“Come on, Chad. We’re going to fly home,” Daniel ordered quietly. “It’ll be faster anyway.”

I finally looked over at them. Chad was shaking his head and Neil remained in his wolf form, a gorgeous arctic wolf at Chad’s side.

Chad’s eyes widened. “I’d rather drive. I don’t really like heights.”

Daniel straightened his duster, buttoning it up. “You’re strong, but you’ve only been a vampire for a week. You can’t be trusted around her.”

“I’m not the one with control issues around your wife, tonight, Master,” Chad said solemnly. He knew that there was no arguing though, and he knelt down to hug Neil. The wolf thumped his tail and licked his lover’s face. “See you soon.”

Daniel turned and our eyes met again. “I’ll call you tomorrow, and we’ll go somewhere and talk. I meant what I said about Vegas, but we can talk about finding alternatives. This isn’t over, Z.”

But it was, at least for tonight, as Daniel put an arm under Chad’s shoulders and they were gone. I slumped to the ground, my back to the van. Neil came to sit beside me and nuzzled my neck. He licked my face until I put my arms around him and let him comfort me.

“You can change back, Neil. I’m not going to yell anymore.” Sometimes Neil stayed in his wolf form to avoid arguments, but I wasn’t angry with him.

Neil thumped his tail twice for no.

I looked down at him and realized what was wrong. “You can’t find your pants, can you?”

One thump confirmed it. I sighed. “Come on, then. We have a long drive ahead of us.”

Chapter Sixteen

I looked down at the amulet in my hand. It felt good to hold the Revelation. In the two days since I’d driven back from the Ozarks, I spent a lot of time with the item. I held it and inspected it often. When I wasn’t using it, I wore it around my neck and found my fingers playing with it even as I thought and did other things. It was mine, and it liked being mine.

It was, as Felicity had said, an odd little piece of jewelry. It was fashioned from gold, although knowing it had been made by an alchemist’s hand, I wondered what that gold had started out as. The amulet itself was teardrop shaped, the center a large, near-perfect diamond. If I looked closely I could see a golden strand of hair trapped in the diamond. It was oddly beautiful. It stopped glowing around me the second day I wore it. According to Felicity’s information, this was because now the amulet was used to me. It was primed to its owner.

All around me, music throbbed and club goers danced and drank and generally partied. Ether was packed. The moon was new, and when the wolves weren’t running, they liked to get their drink on. I ignored everything around me, watching the amulet as it started to gently pulse. Every time I managed to get the sucker to work, a little thrill went through me.

West. He wasn’t making this easy on me. The dance floor was between me and my target. Using the amulet was like a game of hot or cold. I had to pay very close attention or I would get off track and have to figure out where I’d gone wrong. If I tried to go around the gyrating werewolves, I could lose the signal. It was odd. I could get fairly close to some wolves, but the minute the bouncer named Kevin walked into the room, the Revelation went dead. I had to make sure Kevin was working the line outside the club if I wanted to practice with it. I’d decided it had to have something to do with how strong the wolf or vampire was. It immediately went dead when Neil walked in the room, even faster than it did with Kevin.

Dev had made sure he was off tonight, and Neil had a date with Chad, so I could practice with relative ease. The pulse became stronger, and through the crowd I caught a glimpse of what I sought.