Unchained, the Dark Forgotten (2010) (12 page)

Ashe headed for the door. She heard Eden shift, the bedsprings squeak.

“Mom, did the spell work? Even if it blew up?”

Ashe froze and didn’t turn around. “Sure. It worked just fine.”

Better than fine. Her parents’ car had crashed, killing them both.

But how was she going to tell that to her kid?

That night, Ashe went to bed counting on exhaustion to give her a solid eight hours’ sleep. No anxiety dreams. For extra insurance, she had a shot of whiskey to make sure she conked right out, but only one so she wouldn’t wake up later with postalcoholic insomnia.

It was a good plan, but it didn’t work.

This time she was aware of standing in a white room. It looked blank and a bit misty, like the backdrop of a picture no one had bothered to paint in.
This is lame. I can dream better than this.

There wasn’t time to worry about the decor. Prickling danced over her skin again, kicking her survival sense into high gear. Her invisible vampire was back. She realized she was wearing her fighting gear, and whipped out her stake.

“There’s nothing you can do that will hurt me,” said a deep, soft male voice.

Startled, Ashe looked around.
Son of a bitch
. The bastard could see her, but she couldn’t see him. It wasn’t like there was anything to hide behind, and yet she could swear he was within arm’s reach. Ashe shifted the grip on her stake, turning in a slow circle to catch the slightest hint of where he might be.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she growled. “You’re spoiling all the fun.”

“Are you always this tense?”

A crawly sensation went up her spine. She could smell that sweetish venom scent—a bit like sour Gummi bears, sweet and sharp at the same time. If she could smell him, that meant he
had
to be close. She lifted the stake a little higher. “Who are you?”

“Life and death.”

“No self-esteem problems on your account.”

She felt, rather than saw, his smile. It twisted through her body, as if he were somehow inside her.

He chuckled. “You have a quick wit. I like that.”

“Get out of my dream.”

She thrust outward, deciding to use her powers. Hey, if she was dreaming, she could have whatever she wanted. But they didn’t work, not even here. She’d killed her parents. Her magic had died with them. Those two facts were irrevocably linked.

Guilt filled her mouth with a taste like ashes, followed by a chaser of sour fear. Her skin crawled, as if her unseen attacker were watching her from all sides.

Go away, go away, go away
.

Ashe didn’t see or hear any change, but the atmosphere shifted, as if the air had suddenly lost density. Had her prayer worked, or had her watcher simply chosen to back off?

A cry of surprise and pain sounded behind her. She wheeled around to find a corridor that hadn’t been there before. It looked like something out of the Castle, all stone and torchlight. With the certainty of dreams, she knew Reynard was down that dark passage, injured and bleeding, just like he had been last fall.

She raced into the cool shadows, terrified she wouldn’t get there before he died of his wounds. She would bind up his injuries, just like she’d done before. Give him water. Guard him. She was a hunter, so she treasured those chances she had to heal. Maybe it erased a bit of the stain on her soul left from her parents’ deaths.

There he was, curled on his side, the bright blood lost on his red coat. She raced to the still form, gently turning him over.

Oh, Goddess!
Horror shrilled through her. It wasn’t Reynard. It was her husband.

Oh, Goddess!
His face had the same waxy pallor as when he’d died, organs crushed. Furious, hurt, lost, she’d sat by his hospital bed and held his hand as his magnificent body failed. Her husband had conquered every mountain, snowstorm, and cave worth the challenge. They’d done most of it together.

But his work was as dangerous as his play. He’d chosen to stay in Spain because it offered the most exciting, most glamorous occupation he could find. One with enough peril even for him—he had been a matador.

He hadn’t survived his last fight. The bull had trampled him to death.

Anger and grief ripped through her, a repeat of everything she’d felt when his heart had stopped, leaving hers to beat alone.

She had loved him so much.

Ashe woke up in tears. He was gone. He would always be gone.

She hadn’t been able to save him.

The next morning, a very tired Ashe trudged from the parking lot to the mall, stopped at the Beans! Beans!Beans! Coffee Bar, and carried on through the food court to the library. The North Central Branch was attached to a shopping mall, its entrance between the washrooms and the fast-food kiosks. The popularity of any front-rack bestseller could be determined by the number of ketchup stains and ice-cream smudges.

Sadly, slaying library patrons wasn’t allowed. Bad customer service and all.

Ashe had landed a job as circulation clerk mostly because she’d volunteered at North Central in high school. She had no other real qualifications. Fortunately, the head librarian remembered her and liked the fact that she was fluent in three languages. Plus, Ashe was great at keeping even the snarliest mall rats at bay. The pay was average, dismal compared to her contract fee as a kick-ass monster killer.

On the upside, “library worker” would go over well in family court. It sounded responsible, learned, and harmless. Obviously, no judge had ever been to the staff parties.

Ashe yawned, her body objecting to the fact that she’d fallen asleep again at three and been up at six to get Eden off to school. She’d dreamed about Roberto’s death before, but not as often now as she used to. Lately, the nightmares seemed to come up in times of stress. Or whenever another attractive man crossed her path—like Reynard. Guilt, maybe?

If so, the guilt was needless. Roberto would want her to move on. He’d lived in the moment far more than Ashe had—he’d never understood things like photographs and albums before Eden was born. He’d always said the heart was enough of a scrapbook for him, with an infinite number of pages.

Yeah, it was hard to let go of someone who could just look at you, and you knew your image was recorded in their heart forever. That was a tough act to follow.

And yet, Ashe was lonely. It had crept up on her since she moved back to Fairview. Maybe time had finally buried her grief deeply enough for her to feel again. Or maybe it was hanging around Holly and her immortal hunk o’ vampire love. They were nauseatingly pleased with each other. Watching them had revived longings Ashe had thought were over—everything from a steady supply of hot sex to the wish that someone else would pick up milk on the way home.

As for the vampire dreams, she was just damned sick of those. Obviously the fight with the assassin had scared her worse than she thought.

She stopped, swallowing a slug of scalding coffee. The hot liquid burned down her throat and she blinked hard. The mall was gloomy, shutting out most of the spring daylight. At the other end of the food court, the janitor was pushing around a noisy floor polisher. The place smelled of junk food and industrial cleaner.

With a shudder, she resumed her course. She went a few steps before she saw the Battle of the Pranksters (library versus mall bookstore) was alive and well. Sort of.

Ashe shook her head sadly.
Lame, guys, really lame.
There was a forest of life- sized cardboard people—courtesy of various book publicity campaigns—in front of the library. Legolas, some guy in shades, a studly romance hero with no shirt, and a cartoon pirate. The pirate had an Easter basket looped over his cardboard arm. A sea of little chocolate eggs covered the floor. They must have bribed the janitor.

Someone had already stepped on a couple of the eggs. Sticky filling smeared the floor like bird droppings.
Okay, gotta give ’em points for the yuck factor
.

The bookstore nerds still hadn’t topped the green coffee incident on Saint Patrick’s Day, and Ashe’s team wasn’t divulging their nefarious chemical secrets. War was war, and the librarians had a reference section on their side.

Ashe shouldered her way between manly cardboard men, tiptoeing around the eggs and fishing in her coat pocket for her keys. Looked like she was the first one there.

“Good morning.”

Jeez!
Ashe jumped, managing to splatter coffee despite the travel mug’s lid. She spun around, crouching, keys held like a weapon.

It was Reynard, standing so still that in her morning fog she’d mistaken him for one of the cardboard cutouts.
Crap!
Her heart pounded madly, partly from the fright, partly because it was him. Whatever her brain was saying, her neglected libido was very aware of his good looks.

“I’m a bad person to startle,” she said grumpily. At least she was wide-awake now.

“So it seems.” He gave her a slight bow, all grace and manners, but there was that hard edge underneath.

Oddly, he was wearing shades. That and the fact that he’d been standing behind the pirate were why she hadn’t recognized him. “What are you doing here?”

“I require your assistance.” He turned to look at Legolas, then the bare-chested stud. “What are these things?”

“Decoys. All the librarians are hoping the real thing shows up.”

Reynard looked confused, but that slowly gave way to amusement. “Is that why you scatter food on the ground? I had no idea shirtless men were in season.”

Ashe ignored that and undid the lock. Like all the storefronts in the mall, the library door folded away like an accordion, disappearing into a pocket in the wall. The clatter of it echoed over the cavernous food court. Reynard watched with interest, apparently fascinated by the track mechanism.
Boys and mechanical stuff. Guess it goes way back.

“Come on in,” she said, setting her coffee on the front desk and flicking on the overhead lights.

When she turned back to her visitor, she froze, the palms of her hands suddenly tingling like she’d touched a live wire. She grabbed her mug, taking another swig just so she didn’t stand there like an idiot. It was the first time she’d seen him in decent light, and even hidden behind the sunglasses he was drop-dead gorgeous.
Don’t even go there.

She wasn’t in the market for men. After the dream last night, it was obvious her emotions weren’t ready. But she couldn’t help it. There was no threat to distract her, like there had been at the gardens. She could give all that studly goodness her full attention. And that accent . . .

And she was lonely. She’d said that to herself just minutes ago.

Ashe wanted to throw Reynard down on the circulation desk and, well, circulate. Check him out. Crack spines and bend pages. Granted, she’d been alone for a long time, but a guy had to be hot to get her attention before she’d finished her first cup of coffee.

He pulled off the shades and immediately started blinking against the light. Back on went the sunglasses. “I apologize for wearing these ridiculous things, but Mac insisted I borrow them. Fortunate that he did. I’m not used to the light any longer.”

She’d never seen a guardsman in daylight. Now she knew why. They were blind as cave bats. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go back here.” She grabbed his sleeve and dragged him into the dim staff room.

The bulk of muscle under the wool of his jacket was unmistakable. Feeling even more deprived and frustrated, she pushed him into one of the plastic chairs and then took a step back, folding her arms to keep her hands to herself.
What is the matter with me?

She gave Reynard the once-over as he took the glasses off again and rubbed his eyes. He was still wearing his uniform, but at least he’d left the musket and sword behind. Mac must have frisked him at the Castle door for things that would upset the natives.

The demon should have made him change clothes, too. The uniform had been on its last legs generations ago. Reynard was deathly pale, like he hadn’t seen sunlight for, gosh, centuries. The circles under his eyes said he hadn’t done much sleeping, either.

She’d thought his eyes were icy gray. During that moment when they had been in full light, she’d seen they actually had darker streaks, giving them a changeable, stormy cast. And his hair was more brown than black. The Castle’s shadows had robbed him of color.

A memory flickered through her mind, a picture from the battle last fall, when she’d held Reynard’s head in her lap. No one was sure he’d live. She’d nursed him out of sheer perversity, willing him to beat the odds. She’d never seen a man cling to his courage like that.

Ashe gripped her elbows like she might fly apart. “So what’s up?”

He stopped rubbing his eyes and squinted at her. The watering eyes ruined his panache. “I am sorry for disturbing you.”

She grabbed another chair and sat down. “It must be important, or you wouldn’t have come.”

He was silent, head lowered, hands resting on his knees.

“More bunny problems?” she prompted.

She caught a glimpse of his wry smile, the merest twitch of lips. “A thief has escaped from my world into yours. And, though I’m not sure if or how it is related, the phouka was deliberately released.”

Her eyes lingered on his mouth. In a face made up of blade-sharp angles, it hinted at melting sensuality.
Stop it! This is a serious conversation!
She coughed. “Huh. I assumed the phouka was connected to our lone vampire gunman.”

“My
informant
”—Reynard said the word acidly—“is a prince of the dark fey. I would not be surprised if the vampire assassin was involved with the phouka or the thief as well. Dealing with Miru- kai is like seeking a door within a hall of mirrors. There is always the reflection of truth, but you find substance by pure chance.”