Roaring Shadows: Macey Book 2 (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 8) (17 page)

Next to her, the bed sagged a little under Chas, who still appeared to be asleep—“appeared” being the key word. She was certain he could fake sleeping as well as he did most everything else.

Everything
else. She gave a pleasant little shiver at the memory of last night.

She hadn’t intended to end up here in his bed, but after her bath—and a long, steaming interlude of unpleasant thoughts—he’d poked his head in as she was wrapping up in a towel.

“Thought you might have drowned,” he said. “You were in here so long.”

“Takes more than a bath to get the best of a Venator,” she told him…and found herself distracted by his dark, broad shoulders—still bare and now marked by her fingernails—and the rest of his nude torso. He was simply the most darkly attractive man she’d ever seen, and he tasted and felt as good as he looked.

“I’m going to bed,” he said casually. It was neither an invitation nor a rebuff. Simply a statement.

“Alone?” The word popped out before she thought it through. Or maybe in the back of her mind Macey already knew she no longer wanted to be alone with her thoughts. She’d had plenty of time in the bath to relive those moments with Iscariot, to see the evidence of his power and malevolence in the slender red line down her sternum and around her breast, and to battle back reams of confusion and fury—and even guilt. To wonder and regret and stew.

Being with Chas would keep her from thinking about Iscariot and Capone, Sebastian and her father…and Grady.

“That’s up to you, lulu.” He made it clear he could go either way, and for that Macey was both grateful and insulted.

Nevertheless, she gave him a slow smile and dropped her towel. When his eyes narrowed with invitation, she lunged toward him. He staggered a little as she slammed him into the wall, and they almost slipped on the tile floor of the bathroom before he yanked her out into the hallway, muffling her mouth with his.

They took a little longer this second time, but their joining was no less rough and hot. She liked that, she realized, as she lay there damp and panting next to him afterward. She liked that it wasn’t tender or sweet or sensual.

They—she and Chas—were people of violence. It seemed only right they should have sex the same way.

Still, though sated and loose and exhausted, Macey had a hard little knot of something in the center of her being—something sad and empty that kept her eyes wide open in the dark for far too long.

You’ll get over it
.

You’ll get over him.

Now, it was the morning after and she looked over at her sleeping bed partner. His hard-planed face was soft and relaxed with slumber, and he had a lot of dark stubble—which had scraped and abraded her skin in several intimate places—and thick, tousled masses of hair brushing his shoulders and tumbling onto the white pillowcase. His shoulders and biceps were scratched by her, but they were also faintly scarred with fang marks.

Macey felt a little jolt of understanding when she looked at those scars. Some were perhaps a century old—perhaps even from the infamous Narcise, who’d apparently broken his heart—but most of the others were recent. Perhaps they were even from the night when she killed Alvisi last autumn. The memory of what she’d seen—Chas and some female undead, panting and writhing together—gave her both a flutter of arousal and a wave of repugnance.

And she’d seen precisely the same emotions on his face that night as well.

What a pair we are, the two of us.

The life of a Venator is a lonely one, lulu.

Perhaps they could be lonely—or less lonely—together. She looked at his face—blank and still and breathtakingly handsome with full, pursed lips and smooth olive skin dark with stubble, and all that black hair—and thought,
I could love him
.

Chas’s eyes opened suddenly, and Macey caught her breath as their gazes locked. Heat rushed to her cheeks and she realized she was uncovered from the waist up, and that she’d been staring down at him like a lovestruck girl.

“Good morning.” He spoke but didn’t move; she got the sense that he felt as awkward as she did.

She supposed he rarely woke up with his lovers. After all, he generally staked them when they were finished having sex. Or perhaps during; she didn’t really know. The thought made her belly shift unpleasantly and she licked her lips.

“I suppose this is a little unusual for you,” she said, then immediately regretted her bluntness. Her cheeks burned hotter and she automatically pulled the blanket up over her breasts. “But…thank you.” She added the last part quickly in an attempt to cover her blunder. “For last night. I was…”

“No thanks necessary, lulu,” he replied smoothly. “Like you said…it’s been brewing for a while.”

She looked down and picked at the decorative knots in his quilted bedcover. “Do you think my father could really be alive?”

Chas propped his head up on one hand. “I truly don’t know. And I’d tell you if I knew, Macey. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Oh, I believe you. When have you ever not spoken the bald, blunt truth?”

He gave a short laugh. “Never. Or not for a long time, anyway.”

Silence for a moment as she picked at the coverlet threads. “Is she still alive?”

The bed gave a short, sharp tremor, he tensed up so sharply. “Narcise.”

Macey nodded.

“No.”

“Is that why you came here—moved ahead in time? What was it like? How did it happen? I can’t…I can hardly believe it. But then again, I’m a vampire hunter, so I suppose anything is possible.”

“She—Narcise—was very much alive when I left. And she was very happy. With someone other than me.”

“But you weren’t.”

He shook his head, his lips twisting in a sad, pained manner. “No.” He sat up abruptly, one powerful arm sweeping his pillow out of the way. “But I got over it.”

Macey didn’t think he’d really gotten over it. He still slept with vampires, didn’t he? He still had a combination of pain and pleasure stamped on his face when they were having sex. Surely that wasn’t “getting over” someone.

“And you’ll do the same.”

Her gaze bolted to his, and she saw cool comprehension there.

“Don’t think I don’t know what prompted all of this.” His smile was wry and knowing. “Not that I’m complaining. But.” He shrugged.

“I just don’t want him to get hurt—any of them to get hurt—because of me,” she added quickly.

It wasn’t just about Grady. It really wasn’t. She needed to protect all of them—Dr. Morgan at the library, Dottie, Sandy and her other friends. Even Flora.

“I can’t have a normal life, with normal people around me. I can’t have normal relationships. They’ll get caught in the crossfire—just like my mother did. My father learned that the hard way, and so did Victoria Gardella. I’m not going to make the same mistake they did.”

“I wish I disagreed with you.” He laid a hand over hers. “But I don’t.”

I could learn to love him
, Macey thought again, looking down at their hands.
I should
.

Because then it would be easier to forget Grady. It would be easier to face Iscariot and Capone. It would be easier to ignore her father—whether he was dead or alive.

If she had someone with her. A partner. Someone to touch and talk to and hold, and someone who understood. Someone who was as violent and dark and angry as she was.

FIFTEEN

~ Of French Grammar and Semantics ~

Sebastian was alone in the pub
, as he usually was just after dawn broke. It was a quiet time of day, and though the place tended to smell like stale spirits and body odor until he mopped the floor and wiped the counters, it was nevertheless quiet and provided welcome solitude. The simple tasks of cleaning and preparing for the night to come were a welcome routine for they were mindless and satisfying.

He had just returned from his almost-daily visit to St. Patrick’s Church at four o’clock in the morning, leaving the sanctuary just before the sun was about to rise.

This schedule necessitated him wearing a heavy cloak when he ventured into the infant light of day, and required his driver Ned to be on the watch for enemies of either the mortal or undead type. After last autumn, when he’d been taken for that unexpected ride in Al Capone’s limousine after one predawn visit, Sebastian took no chances.

Today he’d gone with a sense of expectation and hope. He sat in the church, basking in the silence as he twisted the loose ring on his right hand. But if he’d expected some great revelation or unexpected miracle now that one Ring of Jubai had begun to shift, he was disappointed.

Instead, he was alone but for a cloaked, veiled woman who knelt on a
prie-dieu
in front of the Blessed Virgin Mary and hardly moved the entire time he was present. She gave no indication she was aware of his presence, though she was here nearly every morning when he came. She rose to her feet just before Sebastian was about to leave himself, and he saw from her movements that she was very elderly, stooped, and took great care with each deliberate step.

It was a stark reminder that he’d lived as long as—likely longer, for surely she couldn’t be 120 years old—this old woman, and yet he bore no outward sign of those many decades. A blessing and a curse.

Having made his sabbatical to the church, and having been disappointed that nothing seemed to have changed, Sebastian was in a foul mood when he returned to the pub. Surely it didn’t help that the explicit, discomfiting dream still lingered in the back of his mind, and that he hadn’t heard from Wayren for months.

Why was the bloody female never around when he wanted to talk to her? Wasn’t that just like a—

The interior door opened across the room—the one attached to the hidden private entrance from Temple’s aunt’s millinery shop—and Sebastian stiffened. Before she even came into sight, he’d sensed, smelled, recognized Macey’s presence.

Devil take it, not today.

But the minute she came through the door, he realized things were going to be even worse than he’d anticipated. She had fire in her eyes, and her entire being was a ball of fury and demanding.
And
the faint smell of coitus, of satisfaction and musk and sensuality, clung to her in a hot, red aura.

Sebastian kept his expression calm, even managing to show his normal, insouciant smile. He opened his mouth to greet her, too, but didn’t have the chance.

“
Is my father alive?
”

She barreled across the room and didn’t stop till she gripped the counter, leaning toward him, her chin thrust out and her eyes blazing.

Taken completely by surprise, Sebastian didn’t respond immediately, and Macey’s hand whipped out and grabbed the front of his shirt. Half up on the counter herself, she yanked him toward her so their faces were very close. Her energy, power, and essence enveloped him. “Tell me the damned truth, Sebastian.”

He managed to keep his demeanor calm despite the riot of emotions charging through him, and firmly uncurled her fingers from his shirt. “Don’t wrinkle the cotton,
cher
,” he said with a mildness he didn’t feel. “And to answer your question…is Max Denton alive? Not as far as I know.”

He stepped away from the counter, ostensibly to retrieve a bottle of brandy and two glasses from beneath—but really to put a little distance between the two of them. His gums were swelling, threatening to push out his fangs, and the fact that he seemed to have as little control over them as a pubescent boy would have over an erection didn’t help his mood.

The glasses made quiet, hard thunks as he set them on the counter. “Why are you asking?” He poured Macey a drink and filled his own halfway, then turned his back on her for a moment to add a generous dollop from the bottle of cow’s blood he kept for his sustenance and sanity. Unfortunately, this particular morning he needed it more for the latter than the former. He turned back, taking a large gulp, as she spoke.

“I had an encounter with Nicholas Iscariot last night.”

To Sebastian’s continued consternation, she yanked open the top of her buttoned blouse to reveal a deep vee of cleavage, creamy white skin, the hint of a laced-up undergarment…and a bright red line that disappeared behind said undergarment. There were also two bites on the side of her throat.

Under normal circumstances, and with pretty much any other female who might have torn open her clothing, Sebastian would have thanked her for such a lovely sight…and would have taken full advantage of the gift.

Instead, he forced his attention from her exposed skin up to her eyes. “Tell me what happened.” And, surreptitiously, he felt beneath his shirt to touch the
vis bulla
, pushing away the lingering temptation from his dream, the scent and sight of too much Macey, and focused on the grave matter at hand.

The shimmer of power from his amulet and the blood-saturated whiskey cleared Sebastian’s head, for which he was immensely grateful. But when Macey told him what happened in the morgue between her and Iscariot, the tension returned—albeit for an entirely different reason. The entire altercation and its implications did not bode well. Nevertheless, he addressed the most pressing item first.

“If Max Denton is alive, I’m not aware of it. The last I knew, he’d died during the War. But I’m here in Chicago. Your father—and you—are from England, and he spent his time in Europe. I haven’t had much communication from Bellitano—he is the acting
Summas
Gardella and stays in Rome. I am, so to speak, on my own.”

Macey seemed to have calmed a little, though her dark Pesaro eyes were still a little wild. “So apparently the person I would need to ask is Wayren.”

“Good luck with that,” he said with a wry smile. “I haven’t seen her since you received your
vis bulla
.” He leaned on the counter, keeping a prudent space between them. “But,
petit
, it is mostly this that concerns me.” He gestured to the red marks on her skin with a surprisingly steady hand. “You say Iscariot didn’t even touch you, and yet you began to bleed from already healed marks? Marks he’d given you.”

She nodded, yet he could sense the underlying terror she masked well. “It was as if my blood…my veins…stirred at his command. As if he had some sort of magnet or—or draw that made it ooze again. It wasn’t a full rush of blood, as if he’d just cut me. But like whatever had begun to heal broke through. As if I were—or my lifeblood was—enthralled or hypnotized.”