Immortally Theirs [Legends & Myths] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (3 page)

The tall, white-haired man grinned at him. “Christian. Still trying to protect the tourists?”

Christian cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at the fallen angel. “Still trying to steal their souls?”

“Tsk, tsk, Christian. I am merely informed of their impending and inevitable demise. Their deaths are never my doing.” Atticus’s steel-gray eyes scanned the room.

“Maybe not, but you’ve always been quick to stake your claim as soon as they’re dead.”

Atticus shrugged. “Can I help it if my master craves human souls? It’s not my fault when the other side doesn’t get to them first. Besides, I’m very good at what I do.”

“Although you do have your failures, don’t you?” Christian knew Atticus hated it when Christian brought up that old and bitter loss, which was why he always brought it up.

Atticus scowled. “Must you remind me?” He turned a speculative stare on Christian. “Are you ever going to tell me how you and Stefan avoided death that night? And every day since?”

Christian shook his head. “We didn’t avoid it. But no, I have no intention of sharing our secret of longevity.”

Atticus huffed and turned his attention back to the crowd. Christian had never liked the dark reapers, and Atticus was one of the best he’d encountered. He had nothing against him on a personal level, since Atticus had always been cordial enough. But it gave Christian more than a small sense of satisfaction knowing Atticus had been denied two souls the night he and his brother had died. From what Christian had heard, Atticus’s master had not been pleased.

“I hear the prodigal brother has returned.” Atticus cast a glance at Christian, one eyebrow raised in inquiry.

Christian nodded. There was no reason to lie about Stefan’s arrival. “He has. It’s been a long time in coming.”

Atticus turned his full gaze on Christian. Atticus’s brow furrowed. “I hope he stays, for your sake.”

Puzzlement washed over Christian as Atticus turned his attention back to the crowd. Christian had never heard well-wishes cross the dark reaper’s lips. Was Atticus growing soft? Christian scoffed at the ludicrous thought and scanned the crowd, following Atticus’s searching gaze. “So, who is to be your next victim?”

Atticus chuckled. “I’m not sure. I can sense the human will be here tonight, but I don’t think they have arrived yet.”

Christian pitied the soul of Atticus’s target if a light reaper didn’t show up in time to thwart his plans. Christian had long given up trying to prevent the work of the reapers, except to delay a dark reaper long enough for a light reaper to arrive. The dark reapers never took the souls of children, but anyone of age was fair game.

“Will the death be tonight?”

Atticus grew thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t think so. I sense it is still some time off. Maybe a couple of weeks.” The flicker of a smile played across his lips. “But it is inevitable. That much I do know.”

Christian leaned back against the bar and sipped his beer. He wished it could make him drunk, so that he could forget about Atticus and what he was doing here, even if it was just for a little while. Hell, Christian wished he could forget about what he, himself, was sometimes. But the beer would do nothing for him. He simply liked the taste. Strong alcohol was the one substance that could provide him with even the slightest nerve-calming effects.

The pub continued to fill up as tour participants straggled in from the last haunted site they had visited. Atticus had been right. Christian had, indeed, made it somewhat of a mission to follow these groups of tourists through the dark streets as they made their way to the various old pubs within the Historic District. Most of the time he encountered nothing out of the ordinary, but there had been more than a few times when he’d prevented an unsuspecting tourist from becoming prey for the malevolent beings, both human and non-human, that roamed these streets at night. He and his brother weren’t the only immortal creatures in town, and some of them were not quite as compassionate.

There were also others, like Atticus, who played for even higher stakes than just taking a random life. But Christian had learned there were some things he could not, and should not, control. Even though he knew how to prevent death, or at least how to prevent someone from remaining dead, he also knew the cost was higher than most would want to bear.

Christian wished Stefan had come with him tonight. His younger brother had lived in a world of bitterness and hopeless, wandering for so many years. Christian had found his solace in helping others, in providing protection for those who had no sense of the dangers lurking around them. It was what had kept him from sinking to the depths that his brother had plunged to. Oh, Christian had faced his own demons after he and his brother were killed and resurrected, but he had vowed not to allow them to consume him. Loneliness had been his primary foe and one he still battled, though he felt he had made great strides over the years in minimizing its effects. He feared his brother still hadn’t conquered his demons, but Christian was glad that Stefan had at least returned home after all these years. Maybe, with time, the rift between them could be healed.

Atticus stood taller and peered toward the front door. “Ah, here she is, now.”

Christian turned and followed Atticus’s gaze. In the doorway stood a woman with long brown hair, young and beautiful and in the prime of her life. But even from this distance, Christian’s keen eyesight caught a look of pain and sadness in her eyes. He also saw something else there, though. It was a look that spoke of rebellion and determination. She fought to hide a limp as she walked toward the mingling tour group, but Christian could tell it wasn’t easy for her. He also noticed the way she protected her left arm as she moved around the crowded space. She held it close to her body, trying not to bump it against anything or anyone. Christian had seen enough suffering and cruelty over his many years to know that this woman had been hurt by someone, both her body and her heart. But he saw signs in her eyes that told him this woman was a fighter. He sensed she had fought her own demons and survived.

The tour guide greeted her and she smiled. Even though her pain was still evident in her eyes, her smile seemed to light up the room. Christian glanced sideways at Atticus. The hungry look in the reaper’s gaze triggered Christian’s possessiveness, something that had never happened with other humans he had watched Atticus target over the years. Every protective instinct Christian possessed fired up at once. He didn’t understand his overwhelming feelings, but in that moment, Christian vowed he would find a way to prevent the dark reaper from taking this woman’s soul.

Claire sipped her beer as she listened to the tour guide regale the group with a story of yet another gruesome death. This was the third stop of the night, and this latest tale hit a little too close to home for Claire’s comfort. According to the tour guide, a jealous husband had killed his wife in a fit of rage. Legend held that the murdered woman’s spirit refused to leave this building, the place where she and her husband once lived and which had been turned into a bar years ago.

Claire didn’t know if she believed the accounts of strange noises during the night, a mist-shrouded figure appearing to the bar’s owners and employees, or items seeming to move on their own. But she did feel something. It was as though some odd, cold sensation crawled over her skin. She glanced around, the feeling of being watched making the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

The sensation intensified when her gaze swept across two men standing at the back of the room, leaning against the bar. Their stares were focused on her. Claire’s pulse quickened. Her breaths came in rapid gasps. She turned her head away and tried to look at something else, anything else. She concentrated on the old black and white photos hanging on the wall behind her, depicting images of St. Augustine’s past. At any other time, she would have been riveted by the old buildings, the distinctly Spanish architecture, and the stories they held. But tonight, with two hard stares focused in her direction making her skin prick, her gaze wandered back to the two men.

The taller man had short-cropped white hair and gray eyes that seemed to look straight through her. He was strikingly handsome with an almost surreal quality about him, but she didn’t like the way he looked at her. His stare made her want to run. She locked her knees and forced her legs to remain still. She had seen that look in Mark’s eyes far too often. This man was a predator.

The other man also focused on her with a hard intensity, but oddly enough, Claire didn’t feel threatened by his stare. He was almost as tall as his companion, but his demeanor seemed contrary to the man next to him. Dark blond curls covered his forehead and brushed his nape, giving him a boyish look. Where the white-haired man’s stare repelled her, Claire found herself drawn to the warm gaze of the blond-haired man. She almost wanted to walk over to him.

She shook herself and forced herself to look away again. It didn’t matter how tired she was of being alone and isolated, she wasn’t here to be drawn toward anyone. She was here to disappear for a while and to try and enjoy what little time she had before Mark tracked her down.

The odd feelings she had must be due to the spooky stories she’d been hearing all night and her reason for being in St. Augustine in the first place. She’d spent the last week driving from city to city, looking over her shoulder and expecting to see Mark’s pulling up behind her. It was to be expected that she was going to be a little paranoid. Okay, a lot paranoid.

Claire had invested a great deal of time and patience in this escape and she feared Mark would catch up to her before she had a chance to taste freedom. She had fought the urge to fight back on so many occasions, instead pretending to be the meek and cowering wife Mark thought she was. He thought she was too weak and too intimidated to even think about leaving him. And so Mark had finally left her alone with his bitch of a mother who lived with them, while he went on another one of his trips. He’d even been so confident in his control over Claire that he’d taken a limo to the airport and left the keys to his BMW in the drawer of his nightstand.

His mother’s sudden and severe case of the flu after Mark left was the perfect opportunity Claire had been waiting for. She had played the dutiful daughter-in-law for the first day, waiting on Mark’s mother and seeing to her needs without complaint. Claire grinned as she thought about the pot of chicken and rice soup she had cooked for the old hag. The sleeping pills she had slipped into her mother-in-law’s soup had done their job well. Claire would bet she had made it to the Colorado state line before their effects wore off.

Her grin faded. She wished she had known who Mark was, what he was, before any of this had become necessary. But she had been young and in love. Or so she had thought. In reality, she had been blinded by Mark’s extravagant lifestyle and his sometimes charming demeanor. She had sensed a darker side to him from the very beginning and had even been attracted by the excitement of it. She hadn’t seen the cruelty he was capable of inflicting until he had her trapped. And his mother had been a willing accomplice, taunting Claire at every opportunity and laughing at her pain.

But no more. Claire had found out what Mark was when she snuck into his private study during the middle of the night. Mark would barricade himself in it for hours and she wanted to know what was in it, but she was never allowed to enter. Her curiosity got the best of her, though. She had waited until he was asleep one night, took his keys, and then she snuck downstairs to find out what was so mysterious behind the always locked door.

The dread she had felt while sneaking through the house, worried what Mark would do if he woke up and found her, was nothing compared to what she had felt once she gained access to his office. An open file had been sitting on his desk. Claire still felt appalled by what she had seen in the file that night. There were photos, instructions, and a personal profile of the man in the photos, the executive of an overseas shipping conglomerate. The instructions and Mark’s reason for having the file were clear. Claire’s husband was a paid assassin.

That was the night Claire had solidified her resolve to get away from him. She had looked through the other files he kept in his desk drawer, her disgust rising with each folder. All those cities he had dragged her to, leaving her in hotel rooms and threatening her not to leave, were so he could kill another target. It still made her sick to her stomach to know that the house she had lived in had been bought with blood. She knew that’s where Mark was now, hunting down his next victim. She wondered what the target of Mark’s latest contract had done to be put on a hit list.

Claire shuddered at the knowledge that the man in the photograph she had seen on Mark’s desk might already be dead. Under the circumstances, she realized a ghost tour hadn’t been the best idea. It had sounded different and exciting, and besides the tour and lunch, it was the first extravagant thing she had done for herself since she’d left Denver. But now she was just tired and spooked. After the long drive and walking around the Historic District all afternoon, her right leg was aching. It had ached for over a year now, thanks to another one of Mark’s punishments. At least he had let her get medical treatment for that injury, but the bone-deep ache never seemed to go away. She wondered if it ever would. It was a little after eight o’clock in the evening, much earlier than her normal bedtime, but all she wanted to do was crawl into a big, comfortable bed and sleep.

Claire’s heart sank. She had been sleeping in the car all week in an effort to stretch the money she had managed to hoard over the last few months. She had also stopped at a pawn shop on her way out of Denver and sold her wedding ring and a few other pieces of jewelry. Her money wouldn’t last forever, but she knew it wouldn’t need to. As long as it lasted until Mark found her, she would be fine. But if the money ran out before he tracked her down, she was going to have to figure out a way to survive when it was gone.