Chaos and Moonlight (Order of the Nines Book 1) (16 page)

“I’m sorry about Zillah,” he said. With his uninjured hand, he turned on the water faucet and ran his cut palm under the warm stream. Once it was completely clean, he lifted it to his mouth and sucked on his palm until he felt the skin beginning to close. “She’s a bit of a powder keg sometimes.”

“It’s okay,” she muttered. She was now staring at the floor.

“Not, it’s not,” he said. Taris pulled a rag from the drawer and ran it under the water before kneeling in front of her. “I brought you here to keep you safe, and you ended up getting cut. That’s not cool.”

He looked down at the wound on her chest. Zillah’s cut went deeper than he’d initially thought. The smell of her blood was beginning to float around him. Without so much as asking her permission, he slid between her legs and began to unbutton the silk pajama shirt. She muttered a halfhearted protest, but Taris lifted a hand to her face and cupped her cheek.

“Please,” he whispered, “let me help you. Let me make this better.”

His fingers made quick work of the buttons. Once her shirt was completely undone, he pulled back the silk folds, exposing the lacy, lime green bra that had set him on fire the first time he saw her. Trying not to think too much about it, he focused instead on the laceration on her chest. A fresh bead of blood was blooming on the surface, so he licked his thumb and ran it across the cut, drawing away any wayward traces of blood.

On impulse, he lifted a finger to his mouth and flicked over the drop with his tongue, pursing his lips against it to make sure he had gotten every bit of it. He looked away from her and squeezed his eyes shut. The taste of her sent a shocking tingle coursing through his body, and a subtle moan escaped him.

He couldn’t help himself. The smell of her skin, the taste of her blood, it was beginning to make his insides burn. Taris tossed the washcloth he’d been holding in his hand and dipped his head to her chest. As his lips touched her skin, he felt the sharp inhale of her breath. The rapid racing of her heart pounded in his ears as he made the first slow pass with his tongue. He paused and waited for her to tell him to stop.

But she didn’t. Instead, he felt her fingers slowly beginning to make their way over his shoulders and into his hair. He glanced up at her, trying to read her expression, but her eyes were closed, her lips parted, and the vein in her throat pulsed so hard he could hear it. His hands slipped around her waist, and he pulled her closer as he lowered his mouth again.

This time, he felt the moan rumble in her chest.

It was supposed to be clinical. It was supposed to be a simple repair job, but as his mouth made contact with her flesh again, he felt his pants getting tighter and need taking over.

The cut was healing now, the skin stitching itself together before his eyes. The job was done, and whatever was happening between them needed to either stop or go to the next level.

Do it
, he thought as he lowered his mouth again, only this time, the pass he made with his tongue didn’t stop at the borders of the cut. Instead, he left a slow burning trail across her collar bone, lingering at the hollow of her throat.

She tilted her head back, silently directing him. His mouth ran up the center of her throat, and he ran his hand across her torso, gently caressing her shoulder. The feel of her soft skin against his calloused hand made his body nearly jerk out of control. Dragging his fingers across her cheek, he cupped the side of her face and brought her head down, her mouth barely a whisper from his.

“Sarah,” he whispered, licking his lips. Her eyes were narrowed, her breath labored, and he moved in to take her mouth with his.

“Taris!” The loud banging on the door shook them both out of the trance.

“Fucking asshole Achan,” he groaned, dropping his hand and moving back from her so that she could stand.

“Taris!” The loud bang on the door sounded again. “You okay in there? You guys didn’t fall in, did you?”

“We’ll be out in a minute,” Taris barked at the door. He stood up and turned away from Sarah, readjusting himself. Once he’d fixed his jeans, he turned around and saw her waiting patiently at the door, her pajama shirt not only buttoned again but pulled tightly around her. Seeing her like that, he felt like an ass yet again.

Except she didn’t look pissed. She looked…disappointed.

“Come on,” he said, breezing past her. “Your fan club is waiting.”

* * *

Sarah followed Taris into the enormous kitchen, determined not to make eye contact with anyone. Her head was down, eyes on the backs of his boots.

“All better?” Rhiannon smiled over her cup of coffee, her voice just as melodic and cheerful as Sarah had come to expect.

Taris grunted, Sarah nodded, and they all went back to their drinks.

She desperately wanted to tell her that no, nothing was better. If anything, it was worse and that much more weird.

The awkward and undeniably sexually charged atmosphere carried into the cozy little breakfast area where four other vampires were waiting for them.

For her.

Rhiannon handed her a cup of coffee. “I didn’t know how you take it, so I left it black. If you want some sugar and cream it’s right there on the counter.”

Sarah shook her head and gave Rhiannon a smile. “No, black is perfect. Thank you.”

She tried not to notice when Taris flung a chair out from under the table and slumped down into it. In his hands he held three beers, two of which he slid to Judah, who was now wearing a black cotton long-sleeved T-shirt, and Achan, who was wearing a novelty tee that Sarah had to read twice to make out the message: “Break the Silence.”

“Thanks, T,” Achan said before turning to Sarah. “So, Doc, I gotta tell you, that interview with what’s-her-name. Priceless.”

“Oh,” Sarah smiled down into her cup. She could feel her cheeks beginning to flush. “You, uh, saw that?”

“Hell, yeah, we saw that. We watch ol’ Maven like clockwork, mainly because I spend the entire time thinking of interesting ways to fill her mouth with something other than hot air, but—”

“Achan!” Zillah turned in her chair. “Don’t be vulgar.”

“My bad,” Achan shrugged. “Yeah, we saw it. Didn’t put two and two together until T called us about it, though.

Sarah glanced over at Taris, who was absently peeling the label off his beer bottle.

“We are delighted to have you here, Dr. Bridgeman.” Judah set his beer down and leaned forward, taking her free hand in his. They were warm and comfortable and Sarah felt instantly safe with him. “We cannot begin to tell you how much it means to us that you are going to try and help.” He smiled at her, and she couldn’t help but smile back. The blue in his eyes was tantalizing, and his smile was devastating. Judah was gorgeous. Just plain gorgeous.

“You are very welcome,” she said before clearing her throat. “And please, call me Sarah. All of you.” They nodded, and she sipped her coffee again before asking the looming question.

“But…what if it doesn’t work?”

A dark pallor cast over the table, and Judah pulled his hand back after giving her a gentle pat.

“Then we start over,” he said.

Sarah nodded. Starting over meant more lives lost. More pain for all of them. She couldn’t help but think of Kalin. She remembered the look in her eyes when she had talked about her daughter.

“I promise you, all of you,” she cast a brief look to Taris, “that I will do everything within my power to fix this. It won’t be easy. I am going to need a massive amount of lab equipment and—”

“We already have it,” Judah interrupted.

“You what? But how?”

“We kind of broke into your hospital, and well, we took it.”

“You did what?” Sarah stood up, setting her coffee down on the table so hard that it sloshed over the edges of the cup. “You mean you just waltzed into my lab and took all of the equipment out? How did you do that? You know how long it took for me to write the grants for that equipment? I had to—”

“Sarah.”

Every head turned to the corner where Taris sat. His legs were stretched out in front of him, his fingers still intently peeling the label from the beer bottle.

“They followed an order. You needed it here, so we brought it here. End of discussion.”

“But—”

“I said that’s the end of it.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes at him and put her hands on her hips, completely ignoring the fact that they were surrounded by people whose mouths were hanging open because of his outburst.

“You know,” she said, “I’m here to save your ass. You should give me a little bit more gratitude there, buddy.”

Taris muttered something under his breath. The only thing she managed to catch out of it was “I’ll give you something.”

“Enough,” Rhiannon slapped a hand down onto the table, drawing everyone’s attention back to the subject at hand. “We can mince words about who wants to give whom what later. Right now, we need to set up a space for Sarah so she can get to work. And, Taris, what is it now?”

“Bite me, Rhiannon,” he said as he was fumbling in his front pocket for something. They all heard the dull vibration from within his leather trench that got louder as he pulled out an iPhone.

“Here,” he slid it across the table to Sarah, who stared at it curiously for a moment before she realized it was hers. “I completely forgot I put it in my pocket.”

“No worries. I’m glad you had it.” She picked it up and thumbed through the menu screen, trying to access her voice mail. “Just a second,” she held up a finger to the table.

You have one new message
.

First message: Hey nerd, it’s me. Haven’t heard from you in a few days, but I’ve had my phone turned off. Doing that whole existential reflection bit. Guess you may have heard that the lab was broken into, everything was taken, and Boss is pissed with a capital P. Anyway, give me a call later. We’ll get a drink or something. I have a few things I wanna give you and talk to you about. Love ya
.

Sarah’s face went ghost white, and her hands began to shake.
Nick
. Oh Lord, Nick was at home. If Taris’ brother managed to find her, he could easily find Nick. He could be on his way there right now. She thumbed back through the screen and looked at the time stamp on Nick’s missed call. Five minutes ago. She breathed a short sigh of relief but still shook with fear.

“Sarah,” Judah whispered. “What’s wrong?”

“Nick,” Taris replied. Sarah stared at him for a moment, wondering how in the hell he could have known, but then she nodded.

“There’s something else, too,” Zillah chimed in. “There is something you are not telling us. What is it?”

Sarah cleared her throat and looked at Taris before she looked back to Zillah. He knew what was wrong.

“We need to go get her research partner,” he said.

“Okay,” Zillah said. “Why?”

“Because of that guy. If he found me, he can find Nick,” Sarah blurted out, her voice a frenzied panic.

“Wait, wait,” Achan held up a hand. “What guy are we talking about?”

Taris ran a hand through his hair and narrowed his eyes at Rhiannon. She shook her head and turned to say something to Achan and Judah when Taris spoke up.

“When I went to go get Sarah, we had a bit of a run-in with Bane.”

A collective curse rang out in the room as chairs were thrust backward and bodies began to pace the floor. Voices layered on top of one another, and curses in various different languages flew through the air. The only one of them who stood perfectly still was Judah. His handsome face was marred by an underlying something that would have sent even the devil crying for the safety of his bed. With the exception of Zillah, everyone turned to him, watching the murder seethe behind his eyes.

“What are we doing, maestro? Your call.” Achan looked at Judah, who turned his head to stare at Zillah. She was still pacing the room, hurling French invectives into the cosmos.

“Suit up,” he said. “We leave in fifteen minutes.”

He stormed out of the room, Achan and Rhiannon following closely on his heels.

Taris turned to Sarah. “Be ready to leave in fifteen minutes. I am going up to the house to tell Kalin what’s up.” He turned to Zillah. “Can she stay with you until I get back?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Zillah replied as she gently laid a hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “We will save your friend.” She paused to smile. “Maybe we’ll get to have a bit of fun, too.”

“I know that Bane is Taris’ brother, but what is going on? I feel like I’m missing something,” Sarah asked.

“I will tell you while I dress. There is a great deal of history between all of us.”

“What do you mean?”

Zillah smiled again as she punched a number into a keypad just outside of a six-paneled door. “Guess how old I am? Go on, guess.”

Sarah looked at her smooth skin, her lavender eyes, and her lean, muscled body. On her right shoulder, peeking out from underneath her short-sleeved baby-doll tee, she could see several thick scars.

“I give up.”

She laughed, patting Sarah on the shoulder before ushering her into an almost bare bedroom. Save for the black walls and the red coverlet on the bed, there was no color. Sarah clicked the door shut as she watched Zillah strip off her shirt and her jeans. Her body was lean and perfect, just like Rhiannon’s, only Zillah was a little bit narrower in the hips and the chest. She wasn’t flat, but she wasn’t extremely curvy, either. Sarah felt a little odd that this woman who had threatened her life not a few moments before was now stripped down to nothing but her underwear in front of her.

Zillah pulled a pair of leather pants from out of another box underneath her bed. She turned to shimmy them on, and when she did, Sarah drew in a shocked breath. On her back was a network of scars, scars that looked like latticework. The extensions to three of those scars were what she had seen earlier on her arm. They covered from the base of her neck to the small of her back and disappeared underneath the waist of her low-rise leathers.

She didn’t turn around when she heard Sarah catch her breath. She reached her hands around to her back and unlatched her bra before leaning down to pick up some sort of shirt out of the metal box. She slid the halter around her neck and pulled two folds around her back, latching them with buckles. It was only after she was completely strapped into it that Sarah realized it was a vest. A halter top, bulletproof vest, complete with several loops along the front to conceal the throwing stars Zillah was tucking into them. Two holsters rested right at her hips, into which she placed two extremely large guns, guns that could have quite possibly weighed more than she did. She smoothed out her ponytail, making sure it was nice and tight before she tugged on a pair of menacing boots and grabbed a leather trench from the edge of her bed.