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"Lady, stop talking in riddles," he said, now grabbing her arm again as he roughly set down his glass.
"You aren't ready for the truth… ask yourself, didn't you find it strange that you couldn't see me on the monitors? The moment I saw you pushing the young dealer in my direction, with you dressed in security staff black, I figured that the technology had betrayed me."
"What
the fuck is going on, lady?"
She inclined her head toward the mirror behind the bar, motioning toward it with her chin. "I don't show up in reflections, mirrored surfaces, or even in photographs. I don't exist, but I do exist. I don't appear dangerous, but I'm deadly. And I'm so much older than you think. But I'm not evil, although everything you've been taught says that I am… even though some like me definitely are. You and I are the same, rogues, an enigma, cloaked in pain and invisible to most others. We cull the herds, you and I, in our own way; we keep the beasts away from the i
His hand had fallen away from her arm as his jaw went slack. He didn't offer protest as he stared in the mirror and she stood and walked away, too stu
But a black Escalade careened over the curb, its door opened before he could draw his weapon, and beefy hands had him. Duct tape went over his mouth; nylon cuffed his wrists as the vehicle sped to a deserted section of beach. Hardened eyes told him Odette hadn't lied. How could he have been so stupid!
His shoulder collided with the ground, the searing pain racing through his skeleton. A pair of dead, young eyes stared at him, open, glassy… the kid was only twenty-six. Hell, he was only thirty-seven. Struggling just made the men around him laugh. Trying to speak made them draw their weapons.
"Take the tape off and lemme hear what this sonofabitch has to say," Lou growled, leveling a nine millimeter toward Tony's face. "We've known you were a cop for months."
Another henchman ripped off the tape. Tony took a huge inhale, and then began shouting, spittle flying.
"Fuck you!" he yelled out, trying to sit up. "You kill my pregnant wife and think I'm not coming for you? You kill my partner and think there'd be no retribution?" Chest heaving, death eminent, he refused to beg them, wanted them to know that he'd take this grudge with him to hell and back. "I'll haunt you motherfuckers! This ain't over!"
The men around him laughed and shook their heads.
"Sorry, I ain't superstitious," one said.
"Yeah, me neither," Lou said, shrugging his shoulders and poking out his barrel chest. "But sorry about the wife, little bitch wasn't supposed to be at the house when it blew. Our bad."
"I'll kill you!" Tony shouted.
"Yeah, we're so scared," Lou said, and then squeezed the trigger twice.
The back of his head exploded in pain and colors for a second and then everything went dark. There was no light, no sound; he could no longer feel the sand or the wind. The chill of the night air was gone. He'd failed. It was so quick, a blink of time. He was floating and weeping inside his shattered mind. Pressure at his throat made his muscles twitch. Something tightened around him and then became light, making him feel like he was flying away. Time stood still and yet he could feel its passage. Water now pelted his body, his forehead rested against something soft. He opened his eyes slowly to a dark angel, the shower spray blurring his vision.
Butter-cream-soft hands traced his back; ci
"I tried but got there too late to save the boy, that young dealer. They are animals," a familiar voice murmured. "You must eat to regain your strength, and then heal today… tonight we will work together."
Frantic, he looked around at the exquisite marble and gold fixtures, and then his gaze settled on Odette. "Where am I?"
"At my home, far away from them."
"You saved me?" he panted. "The last thing I remember is Lou unloaded two slugs into the back of my head." Tony's hand gingerly touched his skull and then when he felt no wound, panicked.
"I perceived that you wanted to live more than anything else, in order to avenge this travesty of justice."
"I did, but… but how?" He stepped out of the walk-in shower, bumping into the glass and staggering to the far side of the spacious bathroom. "I heard the shots, felt the impact, passed out. How in the fuck don't I have a huge hole in my head!" He looked around, noticing something was missing. "Where's the mirror? Where's the goddamned mirror, Odette!"
"I don't have any in the mansion," she said calmly, turning off the water and covering her nudity with a large, white Turkish towel. "They upset me."
"Why! What's going on?"
She tossed him a towel and watched him grab it swiftly. "I'm sorry, it was the only way to save you. But once you eat, you'll understand all."
"Eat? Eat! Are you insane?" He wound the towel around his waist and struggled to stand without the aid of the double sink. "I'm not hungry, I'm about to lose my mind. My brains just got blown out, but I'm not dead, this ain't a hospital, and I don't know why I'm even alive." Pain doubled him over again.
"You're not. Eat," she whispered, offering him her wrist.
He seemed confused, and then became horrified as her French manicured finger broke the skin and fangs filled his mouth at the first sight of her blood.
Tears stung his eyes but the scent of blood saturated the bathroom, drawing him to her beyond his control. He closed his eyes as he took her arm and brought it to his lips, her fingers threading through his hair, petting him as he greedily suckled, colors staining the inside of his lids, pleasure careening through his system until he could stand it no more. He threw his head back and released a moan. Her embrace opened the floodgate on years of hurt along with a torrent of tears.
Sobs of remorse choked him, a tender mouth swallowed them away. Velvet tresses were in his fist, his fingers wending their way through dripping curls. Hands so graceful, so soft removed pain from his aura with each gentle caress until towels fell away and skin burned against skin. This woman had saved him, had pulled his essence of existence away from the blackness. He had another chance to complete the mission he'd begun. Her story exploded inside his mind and he wept for her as his story entered her and she wept for him, their honesty becoming raw passion that slammed against the walls and melted down to body-slicked heat on the towel-strewn floor.
The storm of emotions and pleasure was so swift that it left them both breathless. He stared down at her, tracing the edge of her beautiful brows and then cradled her cheek.
"Why did you come back for me?" he murmured, still out of breath.
"Because you were a keeper. I found you after a very long search. A nobleman… and it has been centuries since I'd found someone worth saving." A gentle smile eased out of hiding on her face. "Plus, I so badly wanted a Vodka martini."
He paused to catch his breath, his mind laboring under the new knowledge it had just received. "What they did to you was unforgivable."
"I became what I am, much like you did tonight," she murmured, touching his cheek, her smile fading. "Someone cared enough about me to give me another chance and I loved him for that… and for whom he was."