Eternal Prey (35 page)

She pulled her head back to grin at him. “Nope. I love you so much I want to write it in giant letters across the sky.”

His gaze heated. “Then marry me, Lia. Right now. Right here.”

She opened her mouth to point out how impossible that was, but something else entirely came out. “Yes.”

L
ia thought he’d kiss her then. He didn’t. Instead, he stared at her grimly. Not what she’d expected. No good news went with that expression. To cover the uncomfortable silence, she rushed into speech. “Can Fin perform marriages? Do you want all the guys here?” Maybe the tightness around his mouth was simply an oh-crap-what-did-I-just-say moment. “We don’t have to do this right now.”

He smiled at her then, and she relaxed a little.

“No one needs to be here, just the two of us. But I’d like Tor to witness the ceremony.”

Witness the ceremony? Sort of formal wording to describe two people exchanging a brief vow to love each other forever.

He led her to a nearby picnic table. They sat. “And yes, it has to be right now.” Some of that grimness crept back into his face. “I don’t want to waste a moment of my life with you.”

He bent down to trace her lips with the tip of his tongue. Then he deepened the kiss. She was vampire now, and her senses flared to life. Along with the taste of heat and desire, she felt his sadness, vague and unfocused, a leftover from a time he couldn’t remember. She silently promised to bury those memories with years and years of love and happiness.

She shivered. They weren’t all phantom memories. Rap’s spirit would stand with his brothers tonight. Was any of that sadness hers? She didn’t think so. Thoughts of Katherine sparked nothing—no anger, no resentment. There wasn’t room in her heart for that anymore. All because of Utah.

He broke the kiss to study her. “You’re thinking.” His smile shattered her gloomy thoughts. “Forget sad. We own the world tonight. Seven is gone, and we have each other. Forever.” He said the last word with an intensity that wiped the smile from his face. “There is one thing we have to talk about.” He glanced away.

“What’s the matter?” She cupped his jaw, forcing him to meet her gaze.

“It’s our mating ceremony. It’s a little different from a human wedding.”

If the stiffness in his shoulders meant anything, it was a
lot
different. “So it’s not just me promising to love, honor, and maybe obey if the situation warrants it?”

He looked back at her, and what she saw in his eyes scared her.

“No. It’s more involved than that. There’s a . . . ritual any woman who agrees to marry one of the Eleven has to go through.” He held up his hand to stop her questions. “Yes, this comes from the time I can’t remember. It must be so embedded in our psyches that even Fin can’t make us forget.”

“I don’t need a ritual. I don’t even need any words. But if that’s what you want, we’ll do it.” Lia’s anger was aimed directly at Fin. How dare he steal his men’s memories. She could see how much this small bit of Utah’s past meant to him. She ached for what he’d lost.

Utah raked his fingers through his hair. “Look, marrying any of us comes with a shitload of ugly baggage. Any woman who loves us should understand what she’s signing up for, and then decide if she’s willing to make a lifetime commitment. During the ritual, you’ll see some of my past—the good, the bad, and the oh-crap stuff.” He smiled as he touched her lips. “Because you know this, Lia, we
will
be bonded forever. I’ll never let you go.”

Even after he’d removed his finger from her lips, she could feel the pressure, the texture of his skin against hers. “So this ritual might fill in some of the blank spaces in your history?”

Utah nodded. “At least that’s what Kelly and Jenna said.”

“Good. Bring it on. I want to know everything about you.”
So that I can share it with you.

His smile turned rueful. “Hold those thoughts. To marry me, you have to walk into the heart of my beast and claim a part of my soul.”

“Symbolically?”

“No. Really.”

“Okay, officially confused. Explain.” She slipped her hand into her pocket to touch the yellow flower she’d somehow saved. It was real,
this
was real, no matter how down-the-rabbit-hole it seemed.

“My love for you creates a physical response that opens me to you.”

“You do know that what you’re describing has a major ick factor.” She tempered the words with a smile.

“What I meant is that my body becomes incorporeal so that you can enter.”

She nodded, trying to understand, to accept, to
trust
. “Like walking into a ghost?”

“Sort of.”

“And once I’m in, what happens?”

“You’ll become a part of my past. You’ll see and feel what I saw and felt as raptor and . . . before. Then you’ll decide whether to accept or reject me.” His expression tightened.

“I’ll
never
reject you.” She was fierce in her denial.

He didn’t comment on her vow. “If you accept me, you’ll take a part of my soul that I freely give.”

“And that does what?”

“We both become more. You’d be immortal if you weren’t already. It bonds us as mates forever.”

“How do you know all this?”

He shrugged. “Ty and Al have shared some things. But mostly it just feels . . . right. Like I’ve done this before. But I can’t remember.” He closed his eyes, but not before she saw his pain. “I can
never
remember.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She stroked his face. “I love you so much I’d dance naked over hot coals. A virtual trip into your past isn’t going to discourage me. All I have to do is get through the walking-into-the-heart-of-your-beast part.” And once she’d returned, she’d be able to at least give him a peek into that before time.

He opened his eyes and gazed at her. His lips tilted up. “Dancing naked. Now that image is burned into the back of my lids forever.”

Utah might be smiling, but she felt his relief. “Why don’t you find Tor? I’ll wait here.”

He hesitated for a moment before disappearing into the darkness. She spent the next few minutes staring down on Portland and marveling how love could make the night come alive in a way that had nothing to do with her vampire senses. And as she absorbed the fact that she really was going to share her life, her love with Utah, the scabs that had formed over Katherine’s memory slid away, leaving only shiny new hopes behind.

She turned as Utah and Tor emerged from the darkness. Tor hugged Lia. “He’s a good man, and a great pack mate. You won’t see anything in his past to contradict that.” He glanced at his brother. “Rap would love her. Go for it, bro.” He clapped Utah on the back and then stood back to watch.

Lia nodded as she swiped at her damp cheeks. Dumb tears. She hadn’t cried when she was a kid, but she was sure making up for it now. “Let’s do it.”

Utah walked a short distance away and then turned. He stared at her, all his love and promises for the future there for her to see. “If you want to escape at any time, turn around and go back the way you came. I’ll understand.”

He became raptor.

Lia started walking. Only her enhanced vision allowed her to see the faint form of the man within the beast. She focused on his shadowy human shape. When she took that last step, she resisted the urge to close her eyes and trusted that she wouldn’t go splat against his body.

She passed through and into his predator past.

Lia didn’t have time to feel fear. As vampire, she had her own predator roots. Silently, she circled around herds of massive plant-eaters while she kept watch for any more dangerous animals. She didn’t allow herself to dwell on her aloneness in this strange landscape of grass, trees, and rocks that seemed to go on forever.

But when she finally spotted Utah and his pack, she couldn’t stop her surge of primal fear. Her instincts understood the danger.

She recognized him even though his raptor had no identifying human form within it. This was a savage killer. He wouldn’t know her. She’d be nothing but prey to him.

Lia crouched and held her breath until the pack spotted a herd animal lagging behind the others. Relieved that she wouldn’t be a raptor meal today, she followed the chase at a safe distance. And when the bloody takedown and kill happened, she forced herself to watch.

The Utah she loved would expect no less. He’d want her to know the worst as well as the best of him. What he still might not believe was that his worst made no difference to her love.

Reluctantly, she finally moved on. She didn’t have a clue where she was going, but she knew she had to keep traveling.

Night fell, and the darkness was a black shroud, unrelieved by any modern lighting. So she wasn’t aware that everything around her was changing.

Suddenly, explosions rocked the night. The ground shook, and the sky turned red as fires raged. In their glow, she saw alien buildings so tall they seemed to pierce the crimson sky. Destruction and death surrounded her.

Her heart pounded, a drumroll of primal panic and unreasoning dread. Her breaths came in panicked gasps. It didn’t matter that a vampire should be beyond those human reactions. She’d been human a lot longer than she’d been vampire, and in this time of terror, she reverted to instinct.

Distant screams filled the night, and she felt death creeping closer. But it wasn’t the sight of bodies strewn everywhere or the unseen menace peering from every shadowed alley that terrified her. It was her almost uncontrollable need to turn and race back the way she’d come.

No.
She wouldn’t cut and run. Lia pulled up an image of Utah in her mind and kept going. There was something she had to see just ahead.

Beyond the horrors of the bodies and blood—she’d seen all that before—was the sheer
strangeness
of this city. It had nothing of 2012, nothing of Earth’s time—past or present—about it.

If only she could see the enemy. Something out there was killing and destroying, but at least on this street, there was only silence. And that all-pervading sense of doom.

Just when she thought she couldn’t go any farther, she
saw
him. Utah stood amid the carnage outside what must have been some kind of house. Hard to tell now because it was mostly gone.

She knew it was Utah even though his face wasn’t the same, human but subtly different. Lia would always recognize him, though. He could never hide from her. Around him lay about eight people. Two men were struggling to their feet. Rap and Tor?

Utah ignored everything as he knelt beside a woman lying on the blood-soaked street. Lia knew she was dead. Horror piled on horror as she realized the woman had been pregnant.

No.
Lia looked away. She didn’t want to see his pain or put a name to the dead woman and her child. But then she forced herself to look back. She owed it to Utah to witness his loss, his grief, and then make it part of their shared memories.

The Utah of this time looked up at the two men who’d stumbled over to him. “They killed my wife, our child.” His voice was harsh with layers and layers of pain and fury.

Caught and buffeted by his agony, she didn’t take time to wonder how she could understand him. He wasn’t speaking any language she recognized.

One of the men turned away to walk among the other bodies, searching. “Parents. Grandparents. Sisters. Dead.” He spoke in a strangely emotionless monotone, as though he were talking about strangers. “All of our family. Gone.” Suddenly, shock released him and sobs brought him to his knees.

“I’ll kill them. I don’t care how long it takes, I’ll kill every fucking one of them.” Utah’s whispered promise faded away as he turned back to his dead wife. He smoothed the dark hair from her face before lowering his head and crying.

Lia scrubbed at her own tears as she slowly backed away. It was time to go. She couldn’t change his past or comfort him here. When she was far enough from the men, she turned to continue her journey to . . . She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that out there somewhere was the Utah she knew. Lia had to reach him.

Then she saw the man standing in the shadow of a burned-out building. He was watching Utah and his brothers. She couldn’t see his face, but the gleam of silver hair caught her attention. Fin? No, it couldn’t be.

She shouldn’t stop. Interacting with anyone could be dangerous. But she had to know. Calling herself a fool, she strode to where the man waited silently for her.

“Fin?” Lia didn’t go too close. She could run like crazy if she had to.

“No. But it’s a good name. Perhaps I’ll claim it.” His smile held secrets. “Someday.” He studied her from those strange silver eyes. “I’ve seen you in a vision.”

She didn’t know how much to tell this Fin, so she opted for questions. “Who are you? Why are you watching them? What happened here?”

He remained silent for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer.

“I’m a visitor, like you.” Then he glanced away from her, turning his attention back to the brothers. “A time cycle ended today. This is always a period of great change. Unfortunately for these people, it was a catastrophic change.” His tone grew thoughtful. “There are always those who believe they know what is best for others, and sometimes they are powerful enough to enforce what they believe. A group of ancient immortals decided that the old must be destroyed so the new might flourish.” He shrugged. “In a few hours, they will have obliterated all signs that a great civilization once existed here.”