The Better to Eat You With: The Red Journals (29 page)

I scowled at his smug expression, but took the hand he
offered, pulling me to my feet. He tilted up my chin to check my throat, his
touch sending tingles through me as his thumb brushed back and forth over my
skin.

“I’m fine,” I told him, softly.

Lime and mint colored eyes met mine. “And you better
stay that way.”

Grinning up at the sexy Vampire whose lips I could
still feel, I turned back to the booth where our quarry was sitting. I saw
Vince on the other side, teeth fully distended and claws positively
huge
,
smack two guys head together like a couple of coconuts, while Des and Mark
watched his back.

Surprisingly, all but three of the guards ended up
unconscious on the floor. The remaining ones crowded calmly around Ambrose, two
in dark, uniformed suits and ties, the third in a silver suit with no tie
whatsoever. His eyes were sharp, pitch-black pools of disdain, missed nothing,
and took in my little team with the arrogant superiority of the upper-class. I
didn’t know who he was, but already I didn’t like him.

“Ambrose.” Felix growled, low and predatory.

A plume of smoke, but no answer.

“I’m here to arrest you for several counts of murder,
treason and exposure of the Immortal Races under the authority of The Immortal
Commission.”

That sounded great to me, but silver suit just
sneered, like the very idea of arresting this psycho was preposterous.

Ambrose stood, his back to me, his movements slow and
unhurried. “I do not adhere,” he tugged the smart lines of his suit-jacket
forward to button it, “to rules instigated by an ancient collective borne of
millennia-old fear and a contract that became void once the mortal line that
made the deal died out.”  There was something uncomfortably familiar about the
breadth of his shoulders, the sweep of his spine, and the coffee-colored
streaks in his chocolate-colored hair.

“Nonetheless, as a Vampire, you fall under those rules,”
Felix replied, stern and unrelenting.

Vince shifted closer, his eyes glancing between me and
Ambrose as I frowned at the Vampire, a heavy weight of dread starting to form
in my stomach.

“I fall to no one,” Ambrose replied, an edge to his
voice.

Then he turned around.

And my heart stopped.

My world stopped.

Everything I had ever thought to be true up until that
single instant disappeared, and my most cherished, most hated memories were
blown to pieces like delicate porcelain. I couldn’t move, speak, or breathe. I
couldn’t take my eyes off the man I had married over three hundred years before
and thought to be dead.

“Glenn.” My lips formed the name, but barely a breath
emerged to sound it.

Dark eyes fixed on me, wide, shocked, disbelieving.
“Willow.”

Run, Willow…. Run…Blood… so much blood…

I drank him in like I was starved. His deep brown eyes
that lit up with amber in the sun. His two-toned brown hair that curled at the
ends, and was always wind-tossed and always in need of cutting. His high, sharp
cheekbones, the slashes of dark brows, his nose long but a little crooked from
fights with the boys from the neighboring village. His lips, full and soft,
almost heart-shaped. Everything was so familiar, right down to the warmth and
love in his eyes.

Then the mask dropped into place, turning the warmth
to ice, his disbelieving expression to frigid indifference, and he turned to
silver-suit without another word to me.

“Alexander.” A vague hand gesture. “If you please.”

“Sir.” Alexander gave a clipped nod, and pulled a cell
phone from inside his jacket. Ambrose was already turning away.

I lifted a hand, wanting answers. “Wait—a”

BOOM!

Blinding light. Searing pain. The feeling of
weightlessness as I was thrown through the air and the instant breathlessness
that comes with having the wind punched out of you on landing.

The last thing I saw before the world went dark was
rubble, flames, motionless bodies, and my husband walking away without a
backward glance.

In the Spring of 1694, Glenn Cutter asked for my hand
in marriage. By the Summer I was his wife. The following Summer, we had our
first child. I never knew such joy could be had. But fate was a cruel mistress,
and by that same year’s winter, our baby died.

Three years later, we were still barren.

I could see the longing for a child in Glenn’s eyes
when he watched the children run free in the village, but he was too much of a
good man to ever say so to me. I was nineteen. He could have left me, found
someone more fruitful, but our love was borne of too much history. Glenn was
one of my first memories, and one of my last as a mortal woman.

Run, Willow…

I squeezed my eyes shut against the whisper of his
last words to me. They’ve followed me every day since I woke to a cold dawn and
bloodied snow, alone. My conscience spoke always in his tone, his words, as
soothing and familiar to me as my own voice. How could I not have known his
voice the moment he spoke?

Glenn is Ambrose. Ambrose is Glenn.
What
happened? What the hell happened?

The Glenn I knew wouldn’t have gutted and hung a
woman. He wouldn’t have skinned an innocent maid. He wouldn’t have ambitious
designs of over-turning millennia of tradition to become a dictator. He wasn’t
the cold, unfeeling, stranger I had seen in the club mere hours before, who had
blown up said club, killing and injuring nearly one hundred people. That man
was a heartless Vampire called Ambrose and was wanted by the Immortal
Commission for various crimes against the races.

How had my gentle, woodcutter husband become
that
?

And how the hell had he survived?

Had he left me lying there in the snow? Dying? Alone?

I’d never found his body, but something inside me had
told me he’d died. Like a part of my soul had been ripped away, leaving the
rest shredded, bloody and raw. Oh, so raw.

“Red?”

Had the Glenn I’d known and loved died that night like
I’d believed, only to rise as Ambrose? The soft-spoken man to the out-spoken
murderer?

“Red?”

His eyes had been so cold. I’d never seen them so
empty, so bland of expression. Glenn’s eyes had always sparkled, with laughter,
love and passion. The man I had seen, the Vampire, had eyes so flat that they
were like glacial pools of ink. The same thing that told me my husband was
dead, also told me that Ambrose might well be beyond saving.

“Red?” A hand atop mine, stilling the wooden spoon I
had gripped in a distracted fist. I looked up from my bowl of mix into emerald
eyes dark with concern. “You need to stop.”

I blinked up at Felix for a moment, taking in the
familiar plains of his face as my mind slowly resurfaced from my thoughts.

I kissed him right before I met my
thought-to-be-dead husband.

I looked down at the bowl full of blueberry muffin
mix, then to my blue socks with white polka dots, and then around Jade’s
kitchen at all the cakes, muffins, breads and pastries I’d made since the night
before. Trays and tins, ingredients and utensils littered the counters and
floor, along with the results of my baking binge. No doubt my dark red tank and
baggy plaid pajamas were batter-smeared and flour-puffed all over too. Wow. I’d
really been on a roll.

My husband is alive.

I looked beyond the mess I’d made and saw Jade and
Fletch, rumpled and weary from a night spent at the club talking with police
and giving statements. The Weres were there too, standing nearby, watching me
with varied expressions from hostility to suspicion to showing absolutely
nothing at all. That was Vince. His expression was carefully neutral.

“You have questions, don’t you?” I said, and was
surprised to hear my voice was nothing but a husky murmur. What time was it?
How long had I been baking? I had vague recollections of making it home in a
daze, and then making a beeline for the kitchen. I remembered screaming for
more vanilla extract, or had it been it muffin cups?

“We all have questions, pet,” Felix replied softly,
drawing my attention back to him, his fingers brushing along my cheek. “Only
you’ve been a little—“

I jerked away, moving around the island with my bowl.

He frowned. “—distracted.”

Numb. I was numb.

“Red?” Vince’s voice was a deep rumble from the
shadows near the kitchen archway.

I looked up and met wolf eyes gone night-glow. “He
said something to you.”

I turned away again, setting the bowl down and
grabbing a muffin tray.

“What did he say?”

“He said a name,” Des piped in, the jeer in her voice
let me know without looking that she had a vicious sneer on her face. “One to
add to your list, wolf-killer?”

“Watch your tongue in my house, were-bitch,” Jade
hissed, low and laced with dominance, despite her tired appearance.

She could probably take Des too, come to think of it. Des
might have the power of a wolf behind her, but Jade’s panther was a Shifter-born.
They were inherently stronger-willed, if not more physically imposing.

“What name?” Felix asked, though his gaze did not
waver from me.

“He didn’t say a name.” This from Mark, who shrugged
when everyone turned to him. “Well, it didn’t sound like it to me.”

“What did it sound like to you?” Vince asked softly,
his icy night-glow eyes making me twitch as I spooned out mix.

“Like… ‘we know’”

“Ha!” Des barked a laugh, cutting Mark off. “You
haven’t got a clue.”

I gritted my teeth as I toed open the oven and slid in
the tray.

“I know what I saw!” Mark snapped back. “And I saw Red
say something back to him.”

I slammed the oven door shut and stood there staring
at the glass. The burning sensation running up and down my spine was everyone
looking at me, and I could do nothing but stand there and clench my hands under
their scrutiny.

But what did they expect me to say?

I could see the judgment in their eyes, could feel it
crawling over my skin, and yet, I had no idea how I felt. Well, actually, I
knew exactly how I felt. I felt elated that Glenn was alive, despair at the
coldness in him, anger at the wasted years and disgust at what he’d done. Then
there was the denial. Maybe all the crap I’d read, seen had been told were done
by someone else. Oh, how I wish my instinct would have let me believe it was
someone else.

So what did they expect me to say?

Hi, there. That was my husband. Yes, the evil dude
who gutted a Vampire, skinned a maid and is plotting to take over the Immortal
world and enslave humans.

Sounds better in my head.

“Red.” Felix’s hand touched my elbow, and I instantly
moved away from him.

How could he stand to touch me? How could I stand to
let
me
touch me? I was married, and I was married to a murderer.

“Red, what did he say to you?”

I turned on the tap at the sink and stuck my hands
under the hot water, suddenly cold to the bone. “He said a name.” I pumped a
massive blob of hand wash from the dispenser into my palm. “My name.” It smelled
like honeysuckle.

Mark growled. “I
know
he didn’t say Red.”

A beat of silence, then, “Red?” Felix’s tone was soft
with confusion.

“You’re right; he didn’t say ‘Red’.” Scrubbing.
Scrubbing. Clean. So unclean. “He said ‘Willow’.”

“Willow?” Des echoed, the derision still in her voice,
along with incredulity now.

“Yes.” I flicked off the tap and spun, irritation
lacing the word and making it harsh. “Willow. My name. Is Willow.” I began
walking towards her, enunciating each word as she straightened from her slouch
against the far wall. “Willow Ashwin. Are you happy now? You know my real name.
Congratulations.” I stopped a foot away, and dropped my voice to a low murmur.
“Congratulations. You know it, and so does he. He knew it, and he said it. You
want to know why he knows my name? Hmm? Well, let me tell you. I’ll tell you
it’s because he knew me once, over three hundred years ago. Very well, in fact.
And I know his name too, because he was the center of my world. Wanna know why
he was the center of my world, and I know his name? You sure? It’s a real
gut-wrenching shocker, a super heart-achy piece of knowledge that I’ve been
working my way through trying to understand, but can no longer brood on because
a bunch of half-strangers want to know my deepest, darkest secrets, so prep
yourself, sweetheart.” I slammed my wet hands on the wall on either side of her
head, taking a perverse pleasure in her flinch and how wide her eyes went.
“He’s my husband.”

“Jesus…”

“Bloody hell.”

“Shit.”

“I thought you said wolves killed him,” Felix said,
and I turned to face him. His body was tensed right up, like a band stretched
to the limit.

I gave him a bitter smile. “Yes, well…not only is my
husband alive and Immortal, but he’s also a cold, murdering Vampire intent on
world domination, and we have to hunt him down and probably kill him.” A bitter
laugh. “And I’ll mourn all over again.” I reached for a hand towel. “You see
I’m working through a few issues right now.”

“Wow,” Des said, and I physically tensed. “Looks like
we got more than one wolf-killer to worry about—”

“Des.” Vince’s tone was sharp, cutting off his
lieutenant with a fierce wave of dominant Alpha power that raced over my skin
like a hot wave. Des cringed and subsided. Then her words sank in.

“What does she mean ‘more than one’?” I asked, and she
snorted disbelievingly, but didn’t say a word.

Fletch moved to stand beside me, but didn’t touch,
sensing, as was his way, that I just needed someone there to support me. Jade
wasn’t far away either. I couldn’t look at either of them. What kind of role
model marries a merciless killer? That’s not just bad-judgement. That’s just
plain stupidity.

Vince uncurled from the shadows and moved to stand
before me, and I craned my neck back to meet the eyes of my Alpha. “I think we
should sit down for this story.” And he offered his hand to me. “Come sit
outside with me.”

I glanced around at all the other faces, at the
concern etched in Felix’s eyes, to the weary pull of Jade’s, to the enmity in
Des’s. Then I looked back up into clear blue, and saw nothing but an Alpha who
had business with one of his pack. I swallowed several times before I could
speak, so unexpectedly grateful that he wasn’t judging me too.

“Just you and me?”

He nodded. “Just you and me.”

I took his hand.

The clear sky was just beginning to turn pink with the
coming dawn as I took a seat beside Vince on the wide swinging bench. The air
was cool and crisp as I sank into the mattress-thick cushion and propped
additional pillows all around me, but the icy breeze was cut off by the
strategically placed evergreens positioned around the porch that stretched the
width of the house. I crossed my legs, tucked in my sock-clad feet, and waited
for Vince to start talking as the sun began to rise.

“Do you remember when I asked you to tell me about the
night you were bitten?” He asked at least.

“Yes.” I looked over at him. “I asked you why.”

“And I said,” he balanced the ankle of one biker-boot
clad foot on the opposite knee. “Because of your reputation as a wolf-killer.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I kill lots of
things.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Vince cleared his throat
and shifted on the seat to face me. “When Des calls you ‘wolf-killer’, it’s not
because of your reputation as a bounty hunter, or the fact that you operate
under the Red Riding Hood guise. It’s the original legend of Red Riding Hood,
among others, in
our
history.”

I frowned. “As in…your Werewolf history?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “The mortal version has a few
variations, but the basic concept is; wolf stalks little girl, little girl
leads wolf to grandma’s house, wolf sneaks in, eats grandma and takes her
place, tricks little girl and eats her, then the huntsman comes, cuts open the
wolf, and saves the grandma and little girl. Right?”

Was this a trick question?
“Right,” I dragged
out the word and eyed him suspiciously.

“Well, the wolf version is a little different. Little
girl was the wolf’s mate and grandma didn’t want a Were husband for her
granddaughter, so she had the local butcher set a trap using the girl, captured
the wolf and butchered him. Grandma died under the blood feud laws of our kind.
Laws that have been around for as long as Immortals have been. We have a lot of
these kinds of legends, Red.” He watched me intently. “Such as, specifically in
this case, what happened with The Cutter and his wife.”

The Cutter.

Glenn Cutter.

I swallowed hard and stared out at the pink sky, the
weight in my stomach like lead, my heart clenching. “Glenn was a woodsman. A
carpenter.”

“He felled trees for a living. Carried an axe
everywhere he went. Liked to whittle and carve. We
know
, Red. He’s part
of our archived history.” Vince’s fingers brushed over my hair, drawing my eyes
back to him. “He and four others went out every day with axes in their hands
and blades on their belts. They cut down trees and then set traps for animals. Big
animals. The kind of traps that maim and incapacitate.”

“No.”

“They were poaching.”

“Please.”

“And killing.”

“Stop.”

“Not for food, but for money.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, and then coughed. Physically,
it felt like he’d just struck me in the chest so many times I couldn’t make my
lungs work anymore. I couldn’t breathe, choking on my own shock. “He’d
never…never…he wouldn’t…not
my
Glenn.”

So much blood…Run, Willow…

“Our archive documents say that he, and several others,
were killing wolves and selling their pelts for gold.”