Call of the Siren (6 page)

Not even Belpheg.

Chapter Six

After driving aimlessly for an hour, Dagan finally headed home. He drove his baby—a steel gray BMW 6 Series convertible—into his building’s parking garage and left it with the valet, then took the elevator up to the apartment he shared with Ronin and Amara. Usually driving around in his car cleared his mind, but not today. He couldn’t get Lina out of his head.

What the hell had happened to her in her past? Instinctively, he knew it wasn’t good. He also knew she wasn’t going to willingly share it.

She’d been married—with a baby and everything, damn it—and she hadn’t told
anyone
.

How could he keep this from Ronin?

Yet how could he possibly tell him?

Aw fuck, he’d known it was a bad idea to stop by and see Lina, even though he
had
been in the neighborhood. But he hadn’t been able to stop himself. After the events of last night, he’d been concerned. Not like Ronin had the market cornered on worrying about her or anything. And now, for his trouble, he had another freaking secret to keep.

Serves you right, ass munch.

Dagan stalked across the blond wooden floor of his living room to the small bar he and Ronin had set up in one corner. He dug out a glass from under the counter and filled it to the brim with his favorite whiskey before taking a big gulp. Man, he wished Taeg were here right now. The need to tell someone what he’d learned burned a hole in his gut, but Taeg was out of the country and it didn’t feel right sharing this bit of news over the telephone. He supposed he could go upstairs and find Keegan, but he already knew what his big brother would say.

You have to tell Ronin…family duty.

And all that shit.

Family duty would be not hitting on his brother’s adopted sister, and look how good he’d been at keeping himself from doing that.

Hell, why couldn’t things ever be easy?

He took another sip and slid from behind the bar, heading toward the wall of windows which was only slightly less spectacular than the one at Keegan’s apartment. The darkening sky painted an orange tinge on the horizon, giving the view a watercolor effect. Not that he could appreciate its beauty right now, with all the things he had on his mind.

What was it about Lina? It could be the forbidden aspect of any potential relationship with her, but he didn’t think so. It was something about
her
in particular. The way she smelled, like sunshine and rainbows. The way she talked, like she commanded the room. The self-assured way she glided across a floor, like she didn’t give a shit about anything and wanted you to know it.

Lina made no apologies for being who she was, for being different. He loved that about her.

If Dagan were to admit it to himself, from the very moment he’d first seen her, something about her touched him in a way no one else had. Now he realized where it stemmed from—the loss she’d suffered in her past.

Yet none of that truly mattered. Ronin had asked him to stay away from her, and he should honor that.

The sound of the front door unlocking made Dagan stiffen. He caught Ronin’s reflection in the window, and his chest tightened. He didn’t like keeping secrets from his brothers, and Lina’s past was a big one.

“Any luck discovering Sam’s whereabouts?”

When Ronin didn’t answer, Dagan turned toward him. He caught the flash of his brother’s fist an instant before it collided with the side of his face. Dagan flew backward, and the glass in his hand fell to the floor, shattering on the wood.

“What the fuck?” When Ronin’s fist came at him again, Dagan blocked it with his forearm. His confusion morphed to anger. True, he and his brothers had been known to get into fistfights over just about anything, but in the past, he’d at least known why. “What’s your problem, asshole?”

“
This
is my problem.” Ronin held up a pair of sunglasses, which had been crushed so that they were practically unrecognizable.

Dagan stared blankly at his shades until memory kicked in and he recalled exactly where he’d left them.
Shit.

He flushed, which probably didn’t help manners any. “Listen, I can explain.”

Ronin dropped the glasses to the floor and closed his fingers around the front of Dagan’s shirt. “I told you to stay away from Lina.”

“There’s nothing going on between us.” Although there might have been, if Ronin hadn’t interrupted.

“Have you been hitting on her, because I swear Dagan—”

“I said no.” Guilt lent an edge to his tone as Dagan wrenched himself out of Ronin’s grasp. “Besides, we’re both adults. She’s not a little girl anymore, Ronin.”

Ronin swore, looking more furious than Dagan had ever seen him. “Don’t try to talk your way out of this. I told you to keep your hands off her, and I meant it.”

Dagan took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. “Like I said, there’s nothing going on. I just stopped by to make sure she was okay.”

“Well, don’t,” Ronin said flatly. “The last thing she needs in her life is someone who’ll hurt her and then walk away.”

Now that pissed Dagan off. Why couldn’t Ronin just leave well enough alone?

“You mean you like you did?”

Dagan immediately regretted his harsh words, but Ronin didn’t give him a chance to say anything else. His face screwed up in anger. “Lina can do a hell of a lot better than a one-night stand with an emotionally damaged man-whore.”

His hurtful words made Dagan stop short. A sharp pain stabbed his chest, and he choked in a shallow breath. “You really think that of me?”

“Tell me if I’ve said anything that isn’t true,” Ronin answered, his face a cold, expressionless mask.

The worst thing of all was that Ronin knew Dagan couldn’t, and he’d used it against him. Dagan stared at his brother, wondering which of the two of them he hated more right now. “Fuck you.”

“Why don’t you find one of your women to do that for you?” Ronin said coldly.

Dagan recoiled at the invisible punch his brother’s words packed. “Screw it, I’m out of here. I don’t need this shit.”

Bitter chords of anguish and regret threatened to burst out of him as he turned and blindly headed for the front door.

…

Ronin’s anger slowly receded as he watched Dagan go. The recollection of the expression on Dagan’s face when he called him man-whore sent a shred of guilt spiraling through his chest. Maybe he’d overreacted.

He thought back to the endless list of women his brother had slept with. Dagan hadn’t made any promises to any of them. In fact, he’d been very clear to all of them where he stood, making an obvious effort to ensure nobody got hurt. But that was beside the point. Dagan wasn’t capable of monogamy, and Lina deserved nothing less than someone who would worship her. Even if she’d convinced herself into thinking casual sex was all she wanted, Ronin didn’t believe it. What she really needed was someone who cared about her.

Ronin had failed Lina in so many ways. He hadn’t been there for her when she needed it. But this was one way he could still protect her. And so he would.

The rhythmic click of heels along the apartment’s wooden floor alerted Ronin to someone’s presence. A moment later, Amara appeared in the hallway leading out from the bedrooms. She wore a wary expression as she glanced about the room. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”
Not really.

He turned to face the windows. Amara slipped behind him and slid her arms around his waist, resting her cheek on his back.

“I couldn’t help but overhear your argument with Dagan.”

Of course she’d heard it. Succubi, like all demons, had hyper-sensitive hearing. “I hadn’t realized you’d returned from your shopping trip.”

Amara’s low laugh sent a familiar tremor of awareness through his body. “I cut out of there as soon as I could. Shopping with Solara is…
scary
, to say the least. Once she pulled out the crotchless panties, I was gone.”

Ronin let out a sigh, knowing Amara was waiting for him to broach the obvious subject. “I just want Lina to know I still care, despite everything. I want to protect her.”

“You wouldn’t be a big brother if you didn’t.” Amara twisted around to his front and pressed a kiss to his chin before hitting him with her piercing gaze. “But don’t forget about Dagan. He needs your love and understanding too, even if he would never ask for it.”

He couldn’t help but stiffen. “He shouldn’t have gone over there.”

“Maybe not, but maybe you should give him the benefit of the doubt. You’ve made your position clear, and he’s never let you down before, not when it really counted. Why not trust that he’ll do the right thing?”

“Yeah…maybe.”

“I think we both need a drink.” Amara gave him a squeeze before stepping back and heading for the bar. She dug two glasses out and uncapped the bottle of whiskey before casually saying, “You know, Dagan is a good man. He might be willing to change a lot about himself…for the right woman.”

Ronin considered her words. For about all of a second.

Dagan, content with sleeping with one woman for the rest of his life?

No, he wasn’t buying that.

Chapter Seven

At a quarter past eight in the evening, Lina found herself at the entrance to Eros. After the way Ronin had stormed out of her apartment earlier, she’d wavered about whether or not to come, but in the end, she’d concluded the money was too good to pass up. And if a little part of her hadn’t wanted to let Ronin down by standing him up, well she could just ignore that. The last thing she needed was to start worrying about other people’s feelings.

A quick glance around the crowded space was all it took to confirm Ronin hadn’t yet arrived. Lina made her way to the bar and snagged a barstool one of the patrons—a shifter of some sort by the looks of him—had vacated upon seeing her. He grinned and tried to start a conversation with her, but she ignored him, pointedly turning her back to search out the bartender.

The bartender, a beautiful fae with long, dark hair, spotted her and sidled over. “What’ll you have?”

Lina ignored the uncomfortable flutter of jealousy that the sight of the fae had sparked in her stomach. She’d come here once, about a month ago, and had seen Taeg and Dagan sitting at the bar. Dagan had been hitting on the bartender, who hadn’t seemed to be buying what Dagan was selling. That still didn’t stop Lina from hating her, just the slightest bit.

“Hey, you seen Sam around lately?” When the bartender stared at her blankly, Lina added, “Lorne demon. Mercenary. Has a pretty distinctive black Mohawk.”

“Oh yeah.” The bartender shrugged. “Haven’t seen him around for awhile.”

No surprise there. “I’ll take a lager, then.”

Brownie lager had a hell of a kick to it, but it went down a lot smoother than the whiskey she normally favored, and she wanted to stay on the top of her game tonight if there was a chance they’d be apprehending Sam.

Sam—the dirtbag. She still couldn’t believe he’d rolled over on her. They hadn’t been the best of friends or anything, but she thought they’d had an understanding. He’d once been hooked on score too, the hallucinogenic drug made from ground unicorn horns, and after he’d confessed he still couldn’t think about the stuff without breaking into full-body shakes, she’d confided it was the same for her.

Once a score addict, always a score addict.

Even if she hadn’t touched the stuff in two years…ever since the day Sara had died.

“You came.”

Lina turned toward the sound of Ronin’s voice, fighting back guilt at the undertone of surprise in his words. She took a long swallow of her lager before casually saying, “Money talks.”

Ronin’s eyes flickered, but all he said was, “My contact should be here soon.” He slid into an empty barstool beside her and flagged down the bartender.

Forty minutes and three brownie lagers later, there was still no sight of Ronin’s contact, and Lina was beginning to suspect Ronin had lured her here under false pretenses just so she would be forced to talk to him. Though he’d given it his best, he hadn’t gotten too much out of her, and since he hadn’t mentioned anything about Sara, she figured Dagan had kept his word about giving her time to broach the subject. That was a relief. She wasn’t ready to talk about her yet.

“Sorry I’m late,” a high-pitched yet croaky voice sounded out behind them.

Lina whirled in her seat to see a short, squat man facing them. Though he was glamoured to look human, his physique and voice unmistakably placed him as a goblin. Yeah, there was only so much cloaking certain species could do.

The goblin noticed her staring and prickled defensively. “Looked your fill?”

“For now,” she replied.

Clearly unnerved by her nonchalant response, he inched away from her and pointedly looked toward Ronin.

When Ronin threw her a warning glance, she shrugged. What did he want her to do, use her calming ability to charm the guy? It wasn’t her fault Shortie had gotten offended.

“Took me awhile, but I managed to track down some info on your guy,” the goblin said to Ronin in a low tone. “He’s been living under an alias.”

Lina took another sip of her lager while he recited the address, which was about eight blocks from Eros. “Any other information for us?” she asked.

The goblin gave her the death stare.

She laughed, unable to help herself, but when Ronin hit her with another warning glance, she shrugged. “Fine, you handle it.”

She turned to face the counter, waiting for Ronin to finish his conversation with the goblin. It served him right, though, for having her meet him here early and forcing her to engage in conversation with him.

Ronin and the goblin concluded their conversation, and the goblin left without a backward glance.

“Bye,” she called out to him, cheerfully holding up her glass in a farewell salute, but he ignored her.

“I think you’ve had enough of these.” Ronin snatched the glass out of her hand and plunked it onto the counter.

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged and turned to face him. “What do you think?”

“I think we should see if Sam’s home.” Ronin let out a sigh and impatiently flexed his back as he stared at her. “I also think you’re halfway drunk, which makes me question whether you should come along at all.”

“Come on, let’s do it. I’ll be sober by the time we get there.” Which was sadly true. As a full-blooded angel, her body healed itself of most afflictions fairly quickly. That was what had made score such a horrible addiction. Her fixes had never lasted long, and she’d always been left wanting more.

Lina stifled a shudder at the memory of the thick substance coursing through her veins. Never again would she experience the sweet agony of that particular high. She was happy about it, truly. She just wished she could stop thinking about the damn drug.

Ronin searched her face and was apparently satisfied by what he saw there, because he nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

Lina rose and followed him out into the street. When a gust of wind threatened to send the sides of her leather jacket flapping back, she zipped it up. The last thing she wanted to do was expose the arsenal of weapons strapped to her sides.

Ronin must have caught a glimpse of her weaponry, because he asked, “When did you get the dagger holster?”

“A few months after I moved to the city. I’ve got a few different kinds, depending on how many daggers I plan on holding.”

His brow arched. “Smart.”

“Yeah. Getty was a clever one, I’ll give you that.”

He pounced on her words with all the finesse of a Council interrogator. “Who’s Getty?”

Lina stiffened at the realization that she’d unintentionally revealed more than she’d intended. She was starting to get soft around Ronin. She’d have to watch that. Or maybe it was the damn lager.

“He’s no one.”

Ronin stopped dead and turned to face her. “Bullshit, Lina. Can’t you—just once—tell me
something
about your past?”

Lina stared at him, the need to protect her secrets warring with the conflicting desire to alleviate just a little of the pain she saw in Ronin’s eyes. In the end, the words reluctantly tore themselves out of her mouth.

“Getty was the mercenary who trained me when I moved to this dimension. He gave me these”—she motioned toward the weapons hidden under her jacket—“and he taught me how to fight.”

“But why? Why choose a career as a mercenary? It must have gone against every instinct you had. I’m only half angel, and at times, I still have to fight my impulse to maintain peace when I’m on a job. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for you.”

Not so hard, it turned out, when one was dead inside. She started walking again, and he followed. “I found the job suited me. Getty helped me to look past my squeamishness, taught me to use speed to compensate for my physical weaknesses. He made me stronger.”

And then, like everyone else in her life, he’d left her.

“Sounds like you cared for him,” Ronin said.

“I did. He was like a father figure.”

“Where is he now?”

“Dead,” she said flatly, the delicious aftereffects of the lager dissipating faster than she would have liked. “The years of hard living finally caught up to him. His heart gave out on him about eight months ago.”

Ronin walked beside her in silence for several beats before saying, “Sorry.”

“Yeah.”

Me too
.

A few minutes later, they came to a stop in front of the address the goblin had provided. It was a small, six-story building on the end of the street which, like hers, appeared to be a walk-up. Lina rested her hands on her hips and surveyed it. “There have to be at least twelve apartments in here. How do we find the right one?”

“Search one at a time, I suppose.” Ronin walked to the front door and tried the handle. As expected, it was locked. The lock was of human construction and could easily be broken, but such an obvious break-in might attract some unwanted attention.

When Ronin looked back at her, Lina glanced up toward the roof. “Work our way down?”

“Sounds good.” His boyish grin indicated he was looking forward to letting his wings loose just as much as she was. Guess they couldn’t escape that part of their heritage.

They rounded the corner to the side street, which wasn’t as brightly lit as the front. Ronin tugged off his lightweight sweater while Lina unzipped and shrugged out of her jacket, leaving her top half clad in nothing more than her black tank top. Then with a pop of her shoulders, her wings grew out of her back.

She let out a moan of relief.

Otherworlder scientists had intellectual reasoning for how winged species like angels could absorb their wings into their body and then grow them back out at will. To Lina, it was and always would be pure magic. What else could explain the tingling sensation, the feeling of
rightness
, that accompanied each spread of her wings? It was the closest she ever came to happiness these days.

She glanced at Ronin’s folded wings, once again struck by the majestic beauty of the angelic appendages. Long, full, and white, they arched over his shoulders and tipped low to the ground. He stretched his wings and, with a practiced flick, propelled upward into the air. Lina fought the desire to break out into a smile as she followed him, her leather jacket clutched firmly in her hands.

All too soon, they landed on the roof and reabsorbed their wings. The feeling of euphoria fled almost as quickly as it had come. Sometimes she wondered whether angels were meant to absorb their wings at all. Doing so always sparked such a sense of loss.

Well, if that was the case, then she deserved to have them clipped. What right did she have to mourn the loss of wings, when she’d lost far worse than that?

“You seem awfully introspective all of a sudden,” Ronin noted.

Lina schooled a smirk onto her face. “And that’s abnormal?”

“Touché.” His lips quirked into a smile as he tugged his sweater back over his head.

Lina slid her jacket on, leaving it unzipped so her weapons were within easy reach, and followed Ronin to the roof exit. He reached for the door handle and frowned.

“It’s unlocked.”

“Maybe whoever was up here last forgot to lock it.” But when Lina took a closer look, she saw the lock had been smashed. “This was broken from the outside.”

Ronin gave her a loaded glance. “Someone flew up here and broke
into
the building.”

A second later, the faint sound of a muffled scream drifted up from the stairwell—barely discernible even with her hyper-sensitized hearing. Instinctively recognizing that the two things were connected, Lina threw the door open. In an effort to save time, she jumped the length of the stairs and swung open the door leading onto the top floor, where the scream had originated from. A second gasping cry sounded out. With Ronin hot on her tail, Lina turned left and rounded the corner. She came to a stop in front of an opened doorway.

Just inside stood an elderly woman. A casserole dish lay on the floor at her feet, the cheesy contents spilling out onto the worn beige carpet. A few feet away lay a body in front of a battered leather couch. Blood pooled out several feet onto the carpet. It only took one glance for Lina to confirm the corpse was Sam. There was no mistaking the black Mohawk.

Behind Lina, Ronin let out a muffled curse. “Calm her down before someone else hears her.”

The elderly woman turned at the sound of his voice and, upon seeing them, screamed even louder. She backed away, tripping over her casserole dish and almost falling to her knees.

“Lina. Use your
calm
,” Ronin urged, but she stayed there, frozen. She hadn’t used that particularly ability in years—had sworn it off the day Sara had died—and she wasn’t about to turn to it now. Truth be told, she didn’t even know if she remembered how.

Finally Ronin swore and brushed past her, closing his arms over the woman’s shoulders. Tendrils of calming energy poured out of him, enveloping and soothing the surrounding space. Lina took two clumsy steps backward, until she stood safely outside of its reach.

The woman calmed down, and Ronin asked, “What happened?”

“I…I live across the hall. Samuel always helps me up with my groceries. Such a nice boy, despite his appearance. So I occasionally drop off a casserole to say thanks. Poor young man, all alone. I worry that he doesn’t eat enough.”

When her gaze began to drift back toward the body on the floor, Ronin gently edged her to the side, so she faced away from it. “What did you see tonight?”

“The door was unlocked and slightly open. So unlike him. I thought he might have forgotten to close it, so I pushed inside to call out his name. That’s when I saw…oh my heavens.”

Her mouth quivered, and Ronin rubbed his arms over her shoulders. “Shh. It’ll be okay. Come, I’ll walk you back to your apartment.”

“But the police—”

“We’ll take care of it.”

He propelled her toward the door, and Lina automatically stepped aside to allow them room to pass.