Radiance (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #3) (17 page)

She did.

And then, I did…And then I said, “
Vous êtes l’amour de ma vie.”

“
You are the love of my life
,
”
she replied.

Chapter Eighteen

Ambra and I buried ourselves in each other like there was no tomorrow.

She brought me to the edge many times and I did the same for her. And then, when we were both panting, we unleashed our passion like it was a battle. Pillows went flying, and we tumbled off the bed onto the floor, dragging the sheets with us. We knocked over a chair, and accidentally busted a lamp. Ambra giggled when the lamp crashed, which may have been the only time I ever heard her do that.

I got rug burn on my knees and then she did. We rolled over our empty luggage and went from the carpet to the tiled floor in the bath.

But I kept on giving her what she wanted. She wanted it passionate, almost rough.

Finally, when she was crying out my name in a plea, I carried her into the shower to finish what we had wrought—this pleasure of two souls who were meant to be together, in harsh times and in joyful ones. I hoped that there would be joyful times ahead.

It was one thing to share pleasure when you thought you might die in the next few hours and quite another to actually contemplate a life together, one in which you declared yourselves to each other before a vampire hunt.

I was so torn between extrapolating the two while I was inside of her that she said to me, “Don’t think, Rand. Just
be
.”

That was all it took to send me over the edge. While her hands gripped the safety bar in the shower, I took what she offered under the hot spray. I lifted her onto me and kissed the pulse of her neck—the spot always undid her—and I said her name when I no longer could keep from saying it.

When a final sharp cry of pleasure escaped her lips, I realized that
she knew me.
It was the first time I truly understood that old phrase. She had a knowledge of me from the core of a man’s desire to the brain waves that meshed with hers and let her know what I was thinking, feeling, seeing, taking…and
giving
. She knew me, through and through. It was devastating to have my raw soul so exposed to her, and yet, healing, too.

Our fierce kisses and touches gradually turned tender and wistful as I completely became hers in a way that I had never been anyone else’s. The taste of her lush, satiny flesh, the hard muscles of her skier’s belly quickening under my hand as I held her against me, the shadows of her blond eyelashes against her high cheekbones of her turned head were all imprinted on me in a way that no one could ever know, but
her
, what I was really made of. I had never known the depths of a person the way we knew each other…to a fault. And…
to a freedom.

As our pulses finally slowed to a normal pace, she pulled away from me and shut off the shower faucet. We stood there dripping and she turned her back to me to twist her long hair and wring it out. I could see every bump on her spine and her shoulder blades were as beautiful as swan’s wings.

I licked the drops of water from the nape of her neck. As she turned slowly, her long, wet blond hair swung and wrapped around my neck as our mouths met again. She twisted around into me, so that we faced each other. Her lips quivered against mine in a way that no one’s ever had. She had words for me, words she could not say, yet wanted to say. Her lips moved against my skin. It sounded like a prayer.

“
What was that, Ambra?” I asked softly, letting her loose. I noted my fingermarks pressed into her thighs, and hers pressed onto mine.
Claimed.
I was utterly claimed. I might have had a scratch or two on my back from our rumble across the floor of the hotel room. Or from her.

“
What do you mean ‘what was that’? That was me giving you a reason to live, no matter what this night brings. You will never forget this moment, this second, this lovemaking. And when you think of this, you will never,
ever
want to die. Life is
everything
. You seize it and you thrive on it and you protect it and you honor it. And you draw in your lover like food and breath and hope.”

I swallowed those rare words of hers and took them deep into me with a stunned quietness. I felt both empowered and gutted in the same moment.

“What are you thinking, Rand? My cerebral lover?”

“
Two things.”

“
The first?”

“
That you are always right about the things that matter the most. From the most personal, tender thing to the ruthless act of taking a vampire life, you are always right.”

She bowed her head modestly and then raised it again. “And the second thing?”

“We are really, really late for the meeting in the private conference room. They are totally going to know about…
us
.”

“
They’re adults. And it’s not a secret that we’re lovers.”

“
I just don’t want to disrespect you by letting on what we’ve been doing for the last two hours.”

“
You Americans seem to have so many hang-ups about sex and what other people think about your sex life. The truth is that people are only interested in their own sex lives.”

“
I guess you’ll have to cure me of my hangups,” I teased.

She laughed. “
Après la mission
.”

“
Right. After the mission.”

We got dressed.

“Are you tired?” she asked, shifting into vampire hunter mode.

“
No. I’m energized by you. If anything happened where we couldn’t go now, I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink. Could you?”

“
Non
.”

When we were fully loaded with our silver weapons, the other vampire hunters met up with us in the swanky private conference room. While they were patiently waiting on us, the group had ordered up room service—a bounty of Hilton-prepared food awaited us. Ribs, chicken, steaks, salads, breads, fruit, even a cheesecake. It was crazy how much they had ordered. Then again, we had Corbin with us. He could devour something like sixteen pounds of meat all by himself. He was working on a roast. Werewolves were like that. And they never ran to fat guts either. They burned it.

There was a whiteboard and they had filled it with battle scenarios that looked like football strategies. I loved these vampire hunters!

We were all ravenous. We fell on the food with the same kind of zeal that vampires might fall on their prey and suck them dry.

Corbin gnawed on the meats he had ordered, even the bones, and grinned at me. “This is living!” he said. “I love Los Angeles! Can we stay after the mission is over? Just for a little while?”

I laughed and filled a plate. “Yes, of course. We’ll go to Disneyland.”

Joan laughed. So did Griff.

“
Everyone,” I said. “Don’t get too full. We’re moving out tonight. They won’t expect it.”

“
Yeah?” Griff said. “Great thinking.”

“
You’re kidding, right?” Joan asked, a plate of chicken wings, blue cheese dressing and celery sticks in her hand.

“
Nope. I’m serious. And another thing,” I said. I didn’t look at Ambra when I cleared my throat and said, “Ambra has brought it to my attention that I could be totally incapacitated as a leader of this mission if something untoward has happened to Kristin and if…”

Ambra nodded for me to continue.

“And if the vampires used that to their advantage at the forefront of the battle, it would go badly for us. Like, if they paraded Kristin’s…body…in front of me or even pretended to, even for just a few moments, I might lose it as the leader and break training and just go for blind revenge, instead of staying with our offense and defense plans.”

The room of vampire hunters took on a heaviness as they exchanged looks. “So, it is with the greatest sense of responsibility for the welfare of all of us,” I continued, “that I hand over control of this mission to Ambra. It will, I believe, result in the greatest life retention of our group, and also, our triumph of Operation Kristin.”

There were a lot of high-fives and some whistling.

I felt myself blush. “Gee, thanks, guys!” I said, in mock sarcasm. And then, I bowed my head to Ambra, who was somehow delicately claiming a half rack of ribs for her plate, followed by a big spoonful of barbeque sauce on the side.

“Ambra,” I said, “I pass the torch to you, for the good of the mission. Operation Kristin will be a success with you leading it.”

“
Thank you, Rand. It takes a great man to put his pride aside and let someone else hold the reins for such an important mission. Now…everyone eat and I will explain how we are going to stun those vampires with a slight change of strategy that they won’t be expecting.”

“
You mean, more than the fact that they probably think we are going to come for a showdown
tomorrow
night?” Joan asked.

“
That’s right.” Ambra licked some barbeque sauce off her finger and picked up a whiteboard marker. She flipped the whiteboard to the clean opposite side and said, “Everything that you have practiced over the months and some of you, over the years, tonight, you are going to reverse those roles with your vampire hunting partner. Women will take the offense and men will take the defense.”

Our petite Nariko looked at Mikhail. “I lead offense and Mikhail has my back?”

“That’s right,” Ambra said. “Any qualms?”

“
No,” Nariko said. “But I want to practice our moves for at least thirty minutes before we hit the road.”

“
It will get everyone warmed up, too, and get our blood moving,” Griff said.

“
Agreed,” Joan said.

“
Anyone feel the slightest bit balky about this strategy?” Ambra asked.

No one said anything.

Then Corbin raised his hand.

“
Yes, Corbin?” I said.

“
I thought the mission was going to be tomorrow night. I have plans for tonight and I can’t really cancel them.”

I face-palmed myself. “Full moon, right?”

“In about two hours.”

I paused. “We can work with that. What do you want to do, just go running along the path that runs on the Los Angeles River or something?”

“No, I want to go on the mission with all of you. That’s what I came for.”

“
Whoa, this could get interesting,” Joan said. “Maybe even more advantageous than we planned.”

I said, “I’ll get you in Griffith Park with us and you can turn there and still participate in the mission.”

“That would be an honor,” Corbin said, “and I will be able to smell better and fight better as the werewolf.”

“
And find Kristin easier?” Ambra asked.

“
Aye, the wee blonde girl whose photo is clipped to the visor of this van.”

“
Thank you, Corbin.”

“
We should go long before moonrise,” Corbin said.

“
All right, we leave after we practice our moves for a half hour…” Ambra said.

“
And then, we’ll go get Kristin from them,” I said.

“
And then, we’ll wipe them from the face of the Earth,” Griff said.

The vampire hunters took the news well that I was handing over leadership of the mission to Ambra, which hurt my feelings a little. I tried not to let my foolish male ego swing me into dangerous territory that would weaken the mission.

I was still the overall leader of our group, but instead of wielding that power with an emotional recklessness, I had handed over my very personal mission into Ambra’s capable hands. She
was
capable, more than I was, of leading a mission with a chilling detachment of emotion. I had no idea how she was able to separate her private life from her professional life.

Reading my emotions, she answered that question aloud. “If you are still asking yourselves why, know this: It is not my daughter out there. I can focus on the tasks at hand. I do have sympathy, but I don’t have history with Kristin. I can focus on strategy and keep my cool.”

Nothing had ever prepared me for this moment better than her blue eyes on mine, measuring me for any sign of regret that I had passed her the torch.

I had none.

She knew it.
Because she knew me.

When everyone knew what they were supposed to do, and what positions to take, and we had successfully staged a slightly noisy mock battle in the Hilton’s private conference room—with all of the chairs and tables pushed back—we erased the whiteboard diagrams, devoured the last of the food or stuffed it in pockets and bags, and hit the road in the big white van, fully armed and ready to kick some vampire ass…and get my daughter back into my loving arms.