Heart of a Warrior (10 page)

“Fiona, please. I’m sorry. I was out of line.” Silence met him. He could hear her ragged breathing on the other side of the door.

“Please, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, Nic.” She didn’t open the door.

“Sheesh, will you two just kiss and make up?”

“
Shut up, Cho
.” In stereo.

Fiona opened the door and looked up at him. “All right. What’s next?” Her tears were gone, and her eyes were only a little puffy. He hated he’d made her cry; it was the last thing he wanted to do. He’d wanted to make her sigh in contentment, to satisfy her every need. To hear her laugh.

“Can we just talk?” she said.

“Okay. No touching. Just talking.” Nic nodded.

She stepped into the hall. He gave her space as he turned and headed to the living room. Neutral territory. They took up seats on opposite ends of the couch.

Fiona curled her legs under her. Nic leaned back into the corner of the sofa. For a moment, they just regarded each other. Then she tilted her head and spoke.

“How did you get started? Did somebody come up to you and say, ‘Hey, big guy, you’re good with a sword. Want to work for us and kill vampires?’”

“Not quite.” He grew very quiet as he tried to decide how much to tell her. He wanted her to know more. That’s how it’s supposed to work, he guessed. First, you get to know each other.

“What happened, Nic?” Her gentle voice encouraged him.

Nic licked his lips. When he spoke, his voice was soft and low. “My brother and I were sixteen when our folks were killed.”

“I’m so sorry, Nic. Was it an accident?”

He shook his head and looked at his sword on the wall.

“By vampires?”

“Yeah.”

“So you started training? Or did this group contact you?”

“I don’t know how they found us. Probably with an orb.” He shrugged. “They offered us the job. I took them up on it. Zeke turned them down.” Nic’s eyes looked into hers. “So, they trained me.” He held out his arms to present himself. “Here I am, their sworn warrior.”

“What about your brother, Zeke? Are you older?”

“Zeke’s two years younger than me.”

“If he isn’t a warrior, what’s he doing?” She reached across the divide and curled her fingers around his.

“He’s a cop. Down in Mobile.”

“Do you see him often? You said he helped you with the house?” They stayed in contact, just fingers touching, but somehow, for Nic, it was all he needed. Just her touch.

“We visit about once a year. He came a few months back, so I won’t see him for some time, I guess.”

“Did your parents die or were they, you know, made into vampires?” She’d waded right into it, and he hadn’t seen it coming. His breath froze in his lungs as he stared at her. How did she know?

“She’s the one, Nic. We both know that.”

“Maybe.”

“They were converted. They call it converted, like you decide to change your religion or something.” He looked away. God, this hurt. He’d told her more than he’d ever told anyone. Even he and Zeke didn’t talk about their parents. Not after he’d joined with the Council and Zeke split to find his own way.

She slid across the couch to his side and wrapped her arms around him. Her arms were like home to him, gentle enough to soothe him, yet strong enough to support him.

Somehow, she knew not to press deeper into that ragged wound.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered into his ear. He pulled her to him and hung on. She held him safe for a long time. Burying his face in her neck, he wanted to climb inside her and just stay there. Once he’d regained his control, he cleared his throat and moved away from her.

“I’ve never told that to anyone else.” He gave a little half-laugh, surprised by his admission.

Fiona brushed his hair from his forehead. “I know how hard it is to open up. You told me about your parents, so I’ll tell you about mine.”

She still held his hand. “My father left when I was born. He never married my mom. She was real young. She never finished high school and had no job skills. Her father, my granddad, threw her out of the house when he found out she was knocked up.” She stopped and took a deep breath.

“Anyway, we lived with a bunch of different people, anyone who’d let us crash with them. I don’t think she had a steady job because I don’t remember being in daycare.” She shrugged. “When I was about nine, my mother met this guy and fell in love. Gary was good-looking and he moved in. He never married her. I never liked him. He looked at me… Shit, by the time I was twelve, I knew why he looked at me.”

Nic shook his head. “Damn, Fiona.”

“He turned her out. Made her a prostitute. She turned tricks to pay the bills, buy his drugs and her booze. I stayed until I was fifteen, and then I split.” She moved her palms across each other to show how fast she’d left. “My granddad had died, and I moved in with my grandma and lived with her until she died just a few years later.”

“Where did your mother…”

“Getting a cheap motel room cost too much even for an hour, so she brought the men home.”

“Where were you when your mother was with the men?” Nic wasn’t sure he wanted to know this.

“Usually in my room down the hall. I could hear them sometimes.” She licked her lips and went on. “She used to get beat up a lot by the johns. Gary would beat her too, if she didn’t make enough money.” Her voice got small. She shifted in her seat as the words spilled out of her. “Sometimes after he beat her, Gary would come to my room.” She curled tighter in on herself and twisted her hair around her finger. “I would hide in my closet under the dirty clothes. Then I got a job washing dishes at a diner and used the money to take self-defense. I never let him touch me.” Tears spilled over, and she bit her lip to keep it from trembling.

Jesus, and he thought his life had been rough. At least he’d had his brother, and they had his uncle to live with after his folks died.

“You never let anyone touch you, did you, darlin’?”

She shook her head and her eyes lowered. “I swore I’d never be like her.”

“Oh, darlin’.” His voice was like gravel as he pulled her to him. She came, clinging to the strength and warmth of his arms.

He knew Gary was probably long gone, but the urge to find the son of a bitch and make him pay was overpowering. Fiona was incredible, a real survivor. In so many ways, they were very much like each other.

They sat on the couch for a long time, just holding on, passing their strength back and forth between them, each giving what the other so desperately needed.

At last, Fiona wiped her eyes and sat up. “You think your guys need some extra help? Could they use a woman warrior?”

— • —

“Ivan, stop here,” Annie whispered. Ivan pulled the van over to the curb and waited.

Annie peered through the windshield at the house just ahead of them. She put her hand on the door, as if to get out.

“Is this the place?” He was surprised Draco’s place was in this neighborhood. Ivan’s lair was in an older part of the city, but this area was filled with new one- and two-story family homes. Very upscale, high-dollar real estate.

“No, it’s not.” Annie took her hand off the door handle.

“Then why are we stopping?” Slightly irritated, he threw the shift lever into park and sat back, waiting for her explanation. Honestly, this woman was driving him nuts. His head hurt. She forced him to think too much, and he wasn’t used to it.

Annie’s head rested against the cool glass of the passenger window.

“That’s my house.” Her voice cracked with pain.

“Oh. Annie, this isn’t a good thing to do. You’re just going to make yourself miserable.” Ivan reached out and touched a tress of her long, blonde hair.

“More miserable than I am? Possibly. But, Ivan, I don’t
ever
want to feel good about the way I am now.” Her voice was quiet but sure.

Ivan looked at the house. It was a brick two-story on a nice street in a newer part of town. He wondered about the life she’d had ripped from her.

She reached up and touched the glass in front of her and sighed.

It was hard to ask, but he got it out without his voice catching. “Were you married?” He’d never even thought to ask her if she’d left anyone behind.

“No, I wasn’t married. Wasn’t with anyone, either. No, my parents live there, and my little sister, Amy. We were going to share an apartment after college. She’s going into law, and I was going to be a doctor.” Her voice held wistfulness, a sorrow for things and people lost.

“Come on, Annie, let’s go.” Ivan put the van in gear and waited. If he knew anything, he knew they needed to leave this place. Annie may want to suffer, but it was too much for him.

“Right. Put it behind me.
Hakuna matata
.” Her laugh was bitter.

“Haku what?” Ivan looked at her, wondering what she was talking about.

“It means no worries.” She turned away from the house. “Let’s go.”

— • —

Ivan stood in the middle of the great room that had been the heart of Draco’s lair.

Phallic art was everywhere. A Hindu-styled painting of two men fucking hung on the wall. A bronze statue of a Roman and a centaur stood on the coffee table. The Roman rode the centaur, but not on his back. There were actually etchings of naked men. Real etchings. Ivan hadn’t seen anything so decadent since he’d spent a month at court in the Dauphin’s palace at Versailles. Come to think of it, the Dauphin had a penchant for erotic art too.

“He would bring these young male prostitutes he picked up. He said he paid them to let him fuck them and feed from them. Some he paid extra to go in there.” She waved her arm to indicate a door in the wall. “I think most of them didn’t count on being tortured, even if he did pay them.”

Ivan opened the door, flipped on the light, and stood in the doorway. He’d seen his share of rooms like this one. A selection of equipment for torture hung on the walls. His eyes moved across the room to the table. Leather straps hung at the four corners. Draco’s collection of whips was extensive.

David, his apprentice, would have enjoyed this room. The little bastard loved pain, but inflicting it bored Ivan. David would have suited Draco more, certainly more so than Annie.

“Did you ever…” He found it hard to finish his question, as his throat tightened.

“No. Just your run-of-the-mill ordinary beatings. I suppose I was lucky.” She shook her head, her brows furrowed.

Ivan felt relief flood through him. The beatings were bad enough, but to think of Annie strapped to that table, being hurt just so that asshole Draco could get off, made him crazy.

"He should never have taken you."

"What?"

Turning away, Ivan closed the door and frowned. “Draco knew the rules. You don’t take anyone who matters. Only the refuse of society, the ones that no one cares about. That way, no one comes looking.”

“Ivan, really!” Annie snapped. “You’re not upset he tortured those guys, just that he might have brought attention to himself and ultimately to you?”

“That’s right.”

“What about those young girls tonight? They were teenagers!” She fired back at him. “And your pet, David, looked young to me.”

“He was seventeen and had been on the streets as a male prostitute for three years before I picked him up. And he asked me to turn him. He thought it was better than how he was living, the fool. I can’t be responsible for Vlad and Romano’s choices. The rules are there for a reason. To protect
all
of us. As for the other, I don’t go in for children. I may be many things,” he left them unsaid, “but I have
never
touched a child. Those bastards deserved what they got.”

“But your virgin?” she pressed. “Was she a nobody?”

Ivan looked at his feet. Annie had him there. “No, she wasn’t. Look, we
are
allowed to take virgins, but only for special occasions. I had to get a fucking
permit
, for God’s sake. And she was for David, not me.” He tried to keep the defensiveness from his voice, but Annie had a way of pointing out things he didn’t want pointed out. He hadn’t had to explain himself to anyone in hundreds of years, if ever. “At least mine was much older than the others. From what I could see, the others were barely in their teens.” He didn’t want to fight with her; it made him tired. He rubbed his temple with one hand. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a headache. Must be low blood sugar. It couldn’t possibly be the arguing, could it?

“Just like people, I guess there are good, bad, and in-between vampires.” She looked at him, but there was no accusation in her eyes.

He’d never thought of it that way. To his way of thinking, vampires were bad, nothing more and nothing less. But then, there was Annie. He’d never met anyone, dead or alive, like her.

“Let’s just gather what we can and get out of here.” It hit him that he was very hungry.

She nodded, picked up some bubble wrap, and walked off. He started wrapping the laptop and printer.

Standing at a large round table, Annie wrapped a crystal vase.

“What’s that for?” Ivan stopped as he walked past her.

“It’s a vase. You put flowers in it.”

“I know what it is. What are you going to do with it? Can we sell it?”

“I’m not selling it. It’s for flowers. I like flowers.”

Ivan looked at her. He almost asked where she thought she’d get flowers from, and then he shook his head. No need to start another argument, and besides, he didn’t have the strength.

“Fine.” Ivan continued searching dresser drawers. “There’s a lot of women’s clothing here.” He held up a slinky, black negligee. “He made you wear all this?”

“No, he wouldn’t let me touch that stuff. I had to stand around naked, freezing my ass off, like some pet cat. He did it to humiliate me, I guess. I think someone else wore it, before me.” She fingered the material.

“You like it?” Ivan lifted an eyebrow. She nodded. “Then it’s yours.” He shoved it into a bag, along with some other clothes he’d picked out for her.

From a corner of the room, Annie let out a whoop. “I found it!”

“What?”

“My purse. I have all my stuff in here. Wallet, makeup, you know, all the things a dead girl can’t live without.” She went through it to see what was missing. “The cash and credit cards are gone.” She groaned.