King of Darkness (17 page)

Thad cracked a smile, coming down a little from his angry hard-boil. “You know, you’re fast with that phone. I never would have pegged you as a gadget guy.”

Lee threw his head back in a rare moment of true laughter. “When you remember days of bathing in a frigid lake and reading by candlelight, you learn to embrace technology.”

Thad smiled. “Okay,” he said, clapping his hands together. “Anything else we need to cover on patrols? Or is it basically just the all-quiet?”

“One other issue. Xander got into a major disagreement with the business end of a wizard blade, couple days ago. Doesn’t seem to be doing too well. I just got back from seeing him.”

“Do we have enough guys for him to be out?”

“That’s not the issue.”

Thad frowned. “So what’s the issue?”

“He refuses to feed.”

“Ah. Shit…” Thad let out a long slow breath.

This was tough. Alexander—Xander as he was known to the team—had recently lost the love of his life. For many, feeding was a personal and private thing, particularly between mated couples. Thad could sympathize, but Xander was a soldier and he couldn’t afford not to feed.

“What about that new doc over in the barracks. Abel. Or Brayden? Doctors do that sort of thing sometimes, right? Or maybe it’s better if we get a female. What about Ivy? Can we get a transfusion, maybe?”

“Dunno. To my understanding, alternate delivery methods only work for small amounts. He’s gonna need a lot. Both Ivy and Brayden are tied up with your human now. I’m sure Abel would do it, but we can’t force Xander to feed, no matter who’s doing the offering.”

“Maybe we need to call Blood Service.” Blood Service existed for vampires without a mate to drink from, but many looked down on it as little more than glorified prostitution. As far as Thad was concerned, it helped to keep their population going, and that was fine with him.

“Still need Xander’s agreement.”

“Well, find a way. For his own sake, we can’t have him down and out. I don’t want to force anything, but I don’t want him fighting till he’s back to a hundred percent. So it’s up to him.”

“Understood.” Lee stood again and ambled slowly toward the office doors. “Anything else you need from me tonight? Not sure why Tyra isn’t down here yet, but I wanna have a quick confab with her and then see about the human before I call it a night.”

“I think I’m good. Let me know how she’s doing. The human, I mean.” Tyra was never one to hide how she was doing. She was terrible at the stoic thing but no one had the stones to tell her.

“Good deal,” Lee replied as he moseyed out.

A lick of pain against Thad’s palm, and the scent of charred wood startled him. When he looked down, he noticed ash from a newly burnt piece of paper and marks where the fingers of his right hand had scorched the wood on the top of the desk. He’d almost forgotten about his newfound power in the wake of his conversation with Lee.

“Shit!” A squeak of rubber in the hall announced that Lee had changed direction. Thad looked up to see the dude’s head poking back in through the door.

“Something wrong, buddy?”

“Turns out I do need something else from you after all.” He held up his hand. His palm and fingertips glowed a little. “I need you to help me get this under control.”

“Huh.” Lee rested his bulk against the door frame and smiled. “Well, all right then. We’ll get together on that later. Try not to touch anything important.” The larger male’s eyes sparkled with humor as he righted himself and walked out again.

***

“Thank you so much, Ivy.”

Alexia handed the raven-haired vampire an empty teacup and winced as she settled against the headboard of the bed. His shoulder ached like crazy. Then again, that wasn’t the half of the unpleasant sensations she was experiencing. Her head ached, her lip was swollen, and she was totally and completely disoriented.

Ivy accepted the cup and settled her hip onto the bed. “You’re sure I can’t get anything else for you?”

“You’ve done plenty. I really appreciate the tea and the clean clothes. I don’t think I’m up for handling anything that resembles real food just yet.” She took a deep breath and smiled at the kind face that had been hovering over her when she woke up. “I appreciate you explaining what happened. Sorry I went ape-shit on you and that doctor guy before.”

Ivy put her hand on Alexia’s forearm, squeezing gently with long, elegant fingers. She had very nice hands. Golden. Smooth. Well-manicured. Alexia’s own nails were bitten to the quick so she was always envious of pretty hands.

“You had a scary and confusing experience. Anybody would have freaked out.”

“I still feel bad.”

“Don’t mention it, really.” Ivy leaned forward, long dark strands of hair cascading gently over her right shoulder. Her golden eyes were wide and innocent. Childlike. “Can I ask you what it was like? I hear the soldiers talk about the wizards all the time, but I’ve never seen one up close.”

That probably was a damn good thing. Alexia was getting the strong sense that she had lucked out, since she was not actually dead. “I don’t remember much. He was definitely intimidating. Tall, probably as tall as Thad or Lee, but I’m not a very good judge of height. His head was shaved, like, totally bald…”

She searched her foggy memory for more. “Oh, and he had this stupid-looking robe on. And being around him felt… I don’t know… gross, I guess. Nauseating. Does that make sense?” In fact, the mere mention had her stomach doing the kind of unpleasant drop that it did on the rare occasions that she rode a roller coaster.

Ivy nodded with an energy that made Alexia look catatonic on even her perkiest of days. “It does. I’ve heard that because they’re so evil they have this, like, disgusting black aura around them. You can feel it a mile away.”

Alexia nodded along, taking a look at her surroundings. The room was gorgeous. Like the pricey hotel room she’d stayed in once on her way to a massive party, only she’d been sharing it with ten people at the time. The memory still made her smile: The guy she’d hooked up with had wound up going home with the other guy who’d shared the king-sized bed with them.

She’d gotten a ride home with a hottie named Darren who drove an Audi TT. He’d said he was in the Marines, which at the time had turned her off because she wasn’t into military guys. A picture of Thad’s bodyguard, all leather-clad and menacing, popped into her head.
Funny
how
things
change
.

Alexia shook off the mental tangent and focused on Ivy. “So we’re safe from the wizards here?”

“Oh, gosh. Definitely.”
Gosh?
“I mean, the estate’s pretty well camouflaged. They’ve never been able to find us. Even if they did, it’s wired with all kinds of crazy high-tech security. I had it installed myself.” She beamed proudly at that but then faded a bit. “Well, I mean I hired someone for the king… well, for Thad’s father. There’s magic security, too.” The pretty vampire smiled again, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes this time.

Wow. Self-esteem issues, anyone?

Still, Alexia was grateful to have someone so friendly for company. She’d already known that vampires existed but the whole shebang that Thad had brought to their door was some kind of crazy nightmare, and she was still reeling from it. She’d gotten the impression, though, that Ivy had led a very sheltered life. That was a bizarre departure from what Alexia was used to. She didn’t quite know how to act around the beautiful female. The awkwardness made her a little tense.

And what had been a dull roar in her head upon waking was now a sensation much akin to tiny miners drilling out the inside of her brain. Alexia rubbed her temples. There was just too much to figure out.

“Actually, Ivy, would it be too much trouble to get some Tylenol or something?” She’d kill for a Percocet or two, but she didn’t dare ask.

“No trouble, of course not. I texted Lee to let him know you’re up, by the way. He’s going to come to give you more blood. That will make you feel a ton better.”

Alexia blinked rapidly and shook her head. “I’m sorry… more blood?”

Ivy froze. “I’m sorry. I think maybe I was supposed to let him explain that all to you.”

Alexia’s brow furrowed. No. She wanted an explanation now. “Please. By all means.”

“It’s kind of a standard triage measure for us, to help speed the healing. They gave you a little of Lee’s blood when you first got here, but they thought you’d need more.” She eyed Alexia with uncertainty.

So, that was weird. She and Isabel had been roommates for two years, but Alexia had never partaken of the stuff. “I think I get it. It was a surprise, that’s all.”

Ivy patted Alexia’s knee through the blanket. “Let me go ahead and grab you that Tylenol.”

A quiet tap and the snick of a lock drew their attention. Lee’s imposing form filled the doorway. Funny, she had expected Lee to have a powerful, booming, heavy-fisted knock, if knocks had personalities.

“Ivy, would you excuse us please?” Lee’s voice was low and calm, but the commanding undertones made Alexia shiver. In both good and bad ways.

Ivy patted Alexia’s leg one last time. “No worries, you’re in good hands. I’ll be back with that Tylenol.” Ivy rose from the bed, turned to smile at Lee, and then sidled out of the room. As Ivy disappeared, Lee closed the door behind her with a very significant-sounding click.

“Tyra, Tyra, Tyra… Morgan… Tyra Morgan… Tyra Morgan… shit!”

Nothing. All but the past few days of Anton Smith’s life lay just out of reach, cocooned in a big fuzzy ball of darkness. Unable to be still, he paced the tiny room that was now his temporary residence. He had spent too much time in bed, too much time wondering. Worrying.

What had he done in his life that had resulted in being beaten and left for dead? The questions weighed heavily like a stone in the center of his chest, and lying down to sleep in a new place without the benefit of a morphine drip was just not something he could manage.

He’d thought that having a soft place to land and get his head straight would make a difference, but so far he was only more anxious. For some reason, thoughts of that olive-skinned social worker were running through his brain on a continuous loop and he couldn’t make them stop. Some gut-deep instinct told him that she was somebody he knew. Somebody special. But no matter how many times he said her name or pictured her face, it didn’t ring any bells or evoke any memories.

“Dammit.” Anton Smith sat on the thin, hard, lumpy mattress that made his former hospital bed seem like luxury accommodations. He hunched his shoulders and tapped the knuckles of his clasped hands against his chin. Tyra… Tyra… if he didn’t know her, then what was the deal? She certainly hadn’t shown any spark of recognition. In fact, she had been adamant that they had never met.

She was a beautiful woman, well put-together with dark curls, warm eyes, and a firm but sensual body. Maybe he was mistaking lust for something more? Or maybe this was one of those signs from God that the hospital chaplain had talked about.

He had a very fierce and yet totally inexplicable urge to protect the shit out of her. As in walk her home and stand beside her bed to keep watch while she dreamed. Could that just be his nature? Perhaps he’d been a cop or something in his “old” life, but the police officers who’d met him at the hospital hadn’t seemed to recognize him, either. Anyway, he seemed to have a strong resistance to authority. Firefighter, maybe? Firefighters were protectors.

“Uuuggh!” He dropped his hands and slumped farther on the bed until his head hung between his knees. Who the hell knew? He kept telling himself to put the matter aside and get some sleep, but he found himself coming back to the whole thing like a junkie with a bad habit. Did he have a little sister somewhere who resembled the pretty social worker and the sense of familiarity was just transference? The hospital psychiatrist had taught him that one.

He was desperately hollow inside. He had no idea who he was, and only a handful of weeks to figure that out before the shelter kicked him out. Who even knew if the life he’d had before was worth going back to?

He jerked his leg and struck a rickety chair nearby. It danced across the floor with a satisfying clatter before falling to the side and resting on the floor. An unexpected
bang, bang, bang
sounded from the left wall. “Hey, man, tryin’ to sleep over here!”

“Sorry,” he muttered. Sighing, Anton switched off the light and stretched out on the small bed. He tried some deep breathing they’d taught him in the hospital. Supposedly strong emotions like stress and anxiety could affect his memories, so they’d taught him meditation. But how did anyone expect him to relax with no clue about where he belonged in the universe? Being told that it would all come back “eventually” wasn’t helping his perspective.

Anton’s head throbbed like a bitch. Migraines had plagued him since he woke up in the hospital. Common with head injuries, they had told him. He supposed he was lucky. The guy in the bed next to him had a head way more messed up than Anton’s. He might have no long-term memory, but at least he didn’t slur his words or have trouble picking stuff up.

As Anton tapped his fingers against his chest, his brain churned hard enough to make smoke. He grudgingly stretched out into the “corpse” pose he’d learned from the hospital OT. He lay with his arms palm up by his sides, and soon his breathing slowed and his body got heavy. He jerked a little when his hands and feet began to tingle. The occupational therapist had explained that it was a normal response to the deep breathing that was carrying extra oxygen to his extremities, but damn, it felt weird.