Hunter by Night (16 page)

Lee’s broad chest rose and fell. He came close, combing every inch of her with his scrutinizing gaze. And was he… sniffing her?

Oh God. Could he smell the truck guy? She hadn’t touched him. But she’d sat in the truck.

Lee’s stare cut away. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said at last. Then he turned on his heel and left her standing there in the hall.

Emptiness filled Alexia in his wake. She’d braced for a lecture, and no lecture came. He didn’t care. She’d thought him letting her off the leash was what she wanted.

The pain of his indifference nearly stopped her heart.

“When do you think we’ll be able to return to the estate?” Theresa made sure to infuse the question with the right amount of hope. In truth, she’d missed Xander in her life more than she’d realized, and returning to the estate would mean his returning to the fight. Leaving her, leaving Eamon Junior.

Here, the night rang with an eerie quiet in the wake of the storm. Nothing but regular city sounds. No fighting or training. For a little while, she could almost forget about their enemies.

“It’s best to stay put until I get word that things back home are secure.” Xander pulled out his phone as if to indicate he’d received no calls. “I’m sure Lee or Siddoh will call soon.”

The nation’s capital stood eerily empty that evening. Theresa would bet most of the government buildings, secured with fancy electrical security systems, were locked up tight thanks to the power outages. Fallen branches covered cars and blocked streets. A few lamps glowed here and there, but much of the city remained dark. She hadn’t been inside the Beltway in awhile, but even at night after all the commuters were gone she had never seen it so still. So messy.

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

She smiled and nodded up at Xander, who walked next to her. For some reason he seemed terribly worried about her comfort. She didn’t know how to explain that walking next to him made her very warm and light. Having him there comforted her in a strangely familiar way, but at the same time it was all brand-new. He’d stayed and guarded her during the end of her pregnancy and had been there during most of the birth.

Xander, not her mate of a dozen years.

Oh, of course folks had come and gone. Midwives. Other soldiers’ mates. Even Commander Goram and the king and queen had checked to see how she and little Eamon were doing. The queen had been especially concerned for their well-being. But nobody had stayed the day on the sofa just in case Theresa needed anything for those beginning weeks of her son’s life. Talked. Brought her tea at dusk.

Nobody except Xander.

Now, looking over as he pushed Eamon Junior in a stroller and seemed to sniff the rain in the night air, she reminded herself not to hang her hopes on something he could not be for her. He’d chosen to go back to the fight. She did not want another soldier.

Eamon had been a loving, loyal male. The fact remained, though, that if she had been given a choice, she would not have mated. She’d held out as long as she could. She loved her child, and she desperately, fiercely missed her mate with all of her being. Part of her also held on to anger. How many near misses had he survived, only to go and get himself killed when she needed him most?

Now she was stuck. Alone but not really. Feeling things she shouldn’t for a vampire who grieved for a lost mate just as Theresa did. Who she could never truly love. It wasn’t appropriate. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t—

“It’s too bad none of the street vendors are out tonight.”

Theresa was startled enough to laugh. “I can hardly blame them.”

“Nor I.” He turned to smile a playful smile as they passed under one of the few lit street lamps. How on earth did he manage such good humor? Theresa could swear every time she looked in the mirror another fifty years showed around her eyes alone. “But I love soft pretzels. I want one.”

She’d forgotten how much a vampire male could eat. Every time she had turned around during the day, Xander had been sweet-talking the hotel room service staff. Just her and the baby? They required so little.

“Should we head back then?” She managed a smile. A glance down told her the little one had conked out in the stroller. How lovely. Ordinarily she carried the baby in the sling to keep her hands free, but Xander had offered to push the stroller, and who was she to complain? How liberating to walk unfettered for a change. “Eamon’s asleep anyway, and I believe there’s a pear tart on the room service menu that you haven’t ordered yet.”

Xander’s fangs gleamed in the moonlight. “Theresa, just because I’ve ordered it once doesn’t mean I can’t eat it again,” he assured her.

She smiled and shook her head. Instead of answering, she skipped ahead on the sidewalk. She couldn’t reply with words, because the first thing in her head was that when Xander had leaned close, it had appeared very much that he might be leaning in for a kiss. Or maybe she simply
wanted
him to lean in for a kiss. She didn’t think she should, but she craved contact with another warm body. Somebody with whom she could connect.

A clatter behind her stole Theresa’s breath. Something she couldn’t quite place fired a warning in her brain.

When she turned, Xander had shoved the stroller away from himself into the grass off the sidewalk. The dark would have swallowed the form of her sleeping child, were it not for Theresa’s vampire ability to see in the night. The wheel caught something that looked like a tree root.

No!

The stroller tipped. Eamon woke and started to cry.

Xander held his gun pointed at a man dressed in what appeared to be monastic robes. The shadowy outline of the figure was made twice as frightening by the eerie illumination of the diffuse light in his hands and the strange chant that fell from his lips. Another came from the side, off in the trees.

“Don’t move.” Xander spoke slowly, softly. In the dark he caught her gaze for the barest second, and she found herself wishing she could do with Xander what she’d been able to do with her best childhood friend, Andrew, and communicate using only raised eyebrows and blinks.

Surely, Xander had the training to respond, but the desperate pounding of fear in her chest just wasn’t accepting logic. And Eamon, he’d started to fuss and cry louder in his stroller, alone in the dark. She didn’t know whether or not Xander could shoot both of those men at once.

So Theresa used her power. She hummed Brahms, but not the “Lullaby.” The “Requiem.”

The attackers dropped to the ground, and their balls of yellow light burst into the air and disappeared. With a choke and sputter, their breathing stopped.

“Theresa.” Xander had started toward her, but when the attackers fell, he turned to grab Eamon instead.

She didn’t stop humming until the last tiny twitch had left their bodies. When she was sure, she stepped away, shaking. She planted her hands on her knees, desperate to hold on to the contents of her stomach. Only once before had she ever been forced to use her power to kill. She’d sworn she never would again. But nobody had ever threatened her child. And Xander.

“Shit. Holy shit, Theresa.”

She managed to rise to her feet so she could take Eamon from Xander’s arms with fumbling hands. Thank God he snuggled tight and stopped crying.

Xander knelt down to make slices in the bodies. “Lucky thing they’ll bleed out and disintegrate in a short while just like wizards. I hope I can get at least a text through to Lee. The king. They’ll want to know.”

Oh
no.

He stood, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We need to move. You say Eamon Junior gets ill when he has your blood?”

“I haven’t… I don’t… He spits up some, yes.” Everything blurred in front of her. She focused on the places where her baby touched her body. She was pretty sure the rest of her was floating away.

“Fuck. That burst of light could be dangerous. For those with human blood. Possibly also a baby with a weaker immune system. I don’t know all the details. If we’re lucky, he wasn’t exposed. I just couldn’t tell. I’m not entirely sure how those guardians spread the plague. The light… the incantation… some combination thereof.”

“Oh God.” She hugged Eamon tighter.

“I don’t know what to think yet. Let’s just go.”

They went.

***

The uncontrollable loathing… the very lava that flowed in Lee’s veins…
This
shit
was the reason he didn’t have relationships. When Alexia had emerged from the hall that afternoon smelling of sunshine, leather, and some other male, his body and honor had dictated that he drag her down the hall and fuck her through to the following Thursday. Once he’d checked to be certain she was healthy and safe, his duty demanded otherwise.

Now that night had finally fallen, his first priority was to accompany Siddoh to question Elder Esmerian. Lee might have trusted Siddoh to handle this himself, but he couldn’t make the male pass judgment on his own uncle. Lee could pretend for awhile that it gave him something to focus on other than the way Alexia had tied all of his insides in knots.

Wearing only fatigues and T-shirts, they trekked out to the stone interrogation shed on the edge of the property. Apparently feeling the strain of what was to come, Siddoh was already soaking his with sweat.

Lee paused when they reached the door. “Are you sure you don’t want me to be the one to question your uncle?”

Siddoh cocked his head to the side. “You’re not usually nice. Maybe hooking up with Alexia had finally chilled you out some, huh?”

Lee’s fist shot out. It glanced off Siddoh’s chin, but the guy moved fast. “Hey. How about you accept I’m trying to be a good guy and leave it at that before I show you exactly how not chill I am.”

Siddoh exhaled long and loud. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m just… It’s my uncle.”

“I know. Let’s get this done.” Lee went to push on the door, but Siddoh’s hand landed on his shoulder.

“You’ll take good care of her?”

“I’ll do my best.” Fuck if he knew how, given their extreme biological differences, but one disaster at a time. He jerked his head toward Siddoh. “Let me talk first. I’m back. I’m in charge. You’re his family. That’s fine. But I’m in charge.”

Siddoh drew up tight from head to toe. “Sure. Yeah.”

“He admitted to the setup?”

Siddoh looked up to the dark sky, muttering to himself. “More or less. I asked leading questions but he did.”

“All right. Let’s go.” At Siddoh’s nod, Lee pushed on the door.

Elder Esmerian stood when they pushed into the room. There was enough leeway in the chains for the old male to sit. No matter what, though, the manacles were heavy and plenty painful.

“Elder. Good evening.” Lee stopped just shy of where the chains would end if they were fully extended.

Damned good thing, too. Siddoh’s uncle may have done a good job with the old and frail act, but he pulled out all the stops right then. Fangs bared and powers blazing, he lunged forward. And an angry elder was a dangerous elder.

Siddoh drew his knife in response.

“Easy, Elder,” Lee said quietly.

“You call yourselves protectors of our race,” his uncle spat. “You do not know the meaning of the words.”

Lee and Siddoh shared a rare smile, ignoring the nastiness from Siddoh’s uncle for a second. Sion Esmerian had been a member of the upper class, an advisor to the king, and a land developer in the early years, capitalizing on the vampire settlement in Northern Virginia when the race relocated there in the early years. He had been “too busy” to fight.

Too busy to protect the race. “Elder, tread carefully.”

“I’ll show you careful, you—”

“Uncle.” Siddoh cleared his throat.

Lee’s protective shields buzzed over his skin. He jammed an elbow under the elder’s chin. “Okay. Talk to me, old man. What did you hope to accomplish with that stunt? Disabling the fence was a real dick move.”

Sounds of choking and sputtering. The elder’s Adam’s apple bobbed under Lee’s arm. “The king left the estate unguarded. An elder fixed the problem. The Council will finally support a vote to go to a majority rule.”

“That is not how things operate,” Lee growled.

The old male laughed. “It will. You wait. I saved the day in the face of danger.”

“Danger you created.” Next to Lee, Siddoh stepped up, looking ready to take a piece out of his own flesh and blood.

His uncle laughed and spat blood out of his mouth. Must have gouged himself with his fangs. “You’re still young. You have no idea. I was naive like you once. You’ll learn.”

Very few accused Lee of being too young. Or naive. “Learn what? How to be an angry old asshole? Just because your daughter died—”

“Murdered! She was murdered by a human. You have no idea how dangerous they are.”

Lee sneered. “Don’t tell me what I know about humans, motherfucker.” He’d gone out at dusk and cut the throats of the humans who trapped his mother and sister himself.

“You idiots go out fighting wizards, and meanwhile our kind ignores the insidious devil that we live right beside,” the elder barked. “Intermixing of the species is the greatest threat we face.”

Siddoh drew a knife. “Greater than the guys who cut us open and eat our fucking hearts, Uncle? Or the guy who came back from the dead to start a fucking plague?”

“The wizards know who we are. They have offered us opportunities to live peacefully. For symbiosis. And we are immune to human disease, such as the plague.”

Oh, fuck no. “We cannot rest our hopes on symbiosis with the wizards. They are soulless liars,” Lee growled.

Elder Esmerian’s face reddened. “Think of the tabloid headlines in the grocery stores. Think of the science fiction movies. The ways humans delight in scaring themselves with monsters. How is that for lying? What would they do if they discovered again that we were real? Think of what that horrible man did to my child. My unborn grandchild. Interaction with humans must be stopped. Your king has ignored it, as did his father, and it is at our peril.” Those words were fired with such venom that Lee wanted to check himself for chemical burns.

Siddoh narrowed his eyes at his uncle. “Are you listening to yourself?”

Elder Esmerian’s nostrils flared. “I can smell one on you,” he hissed at Lee.

Lee stepped back in time for Siddoh’s palm to strike his uncle’s face. “You risked exposing us all, Uncle. Lotta fucking maybes in your equation. What if you had not put back that barrier in time? What if Lee and his fighters that you look down your nose at hadn’t fought off those guardians who came near the property? What if they had made it inside the bounds of the estate and the queen
hadn’t
been at the hospital that night?”

“I knew she would be. I made certain.”