Beyond the Night (24 page)

Rula sat still as a stone, the dagger cold in her hand, as Mirya came to her, cupped her face, and kissed her gently on the cheek. “I am not far away,” Mirya whispered, then she turned and left, with Rula fighting back tears as she closed the door gently behind Mirya.

In that great abyss of emptiness, in the hovel, with all that money, a dagger for protection, and nothing else.

No family, no life, no Rob.

She kept reading fortunes in the succeeding weeks. She liked making people happy. It was a fair trade: a couple of coins for a positive future. She didn't need to do it, either, because of the money that Mirya had given her.

But she had to do it, because she refused to sit in the hovel doing nothing.

She did eat better, now she had the wherewithal to buy food.

And a couple of dresses, some towels, and blankets. Small things that wouldn't call attention to the fact that Mirya no longer lived in the hovel. Rula made it a cozy little place, wholly apart from city chaos, death, and vampires. When she went out in daylight, she saw only the bright sun, the fresh, clear day. If it was foggy and rainy, she cocooned herself in the hovel.

No regrets. She chose not to go near Berkeley Square, much as she was tempted. Never again. Never.

“Read your palm, sir? See your future right in the palm of your hand.” Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. She did the best business near Victoria Station, where there were more passersby. And a lot of curiosity about her.

She missed Mirya. She hated vampires. She yearned for Rob.

She started coming home later and later, sometimes after dark, wandering through the streets and wondering who was a vampire, who might attack, and what would she do?

Maybe she was testing herself. She carried the silver dagger, so maybe she thought she'd convince herself to become a hunter of vampires. Maybe she was just lonely.

She thought it was a combination of all those things. And it had nothing to do with Rob. And everything.

While we won't have eternity, we'll have each other.

She had nothing right now but long lonely nights, like this night, as she returned from yet another tiring day of reading palms and telling fortunes with too few coins in her pocket.

But this night, an unholy shriek pierced the heated night air that seemed to come from the alleyway near the hovel.

It sounded like someone being attacked. In the alley. Oh my God—she was that close; Rula dropped her prop bag and ran toward the inhuman cry.

A horrible sound, over and over, a high, keening animal wail of agony.

As she rounded the corner into the alleyway, she saw the shadow—a beast bending over a child, nipping, ripping, and tearing.

She didn't think, she didn't question, she felt the blind rage of the just grabbing at her vitals, and the red heat of fury that yet another vampire would kill and go free.

She grabbed the dagger and she leapt on the beast of the damned and knocked him off his victim. In a red rage, she thrust wherever she could reach; she stabbed his back, his neck, his shoulders, his head—if she'd had an ax, she would have slaughtered him—until he folded into himself and vanished, leaving her, and a sobbing girl on the ground with blood streaming from her neck and arms.

Rula grabbed her and held her tight, then became aware a crowd was watching, and a mother, nearly hysterical in her push to get to her child.

Rula could do nothing more except gently transfer the child to its mother's arms. Others had gone to find a doctor, others to search for the monster. He had kidnapped the child, the crowd whispered. There were witnesses. He would be caught, they were certain.

She felt like shaking them all, everyone in the crowd, for their complacency and their dumb certainty, because they could never comprehend the depths of the depravity of the vampire or the uselessness of their puny efforts.

Instead she leaned against a nearby fence to steady her shaking body. She stared at the bloodstained dagger in her ice-cold hand, at the blood spattered on her arms and dress.

The reality sank in: She had attacked another vampire. She would have killed him. She could have killed him. She'd saved the child. She wanted the bastard dead. If she could have gotten to his gut, she would have stabbed him to death.

“That child could have been you,” a soft voice said in her ear.

Rob! Appearing out of nowhere, gently taking the dagger from her hands, wiping it on his shirt and tucking it in his waistband.

She looked over to where the crowd now surrounded the mother and the doctor who was binding up the child's wounds.

“Senna and Dominick—they could have eliminated you without thinking twice,” Rob said. “You were useless to them: you were human. You had no place in their world. They could have savaged you just as soon as giving you to Mirya.”

Rula lifted her chin. “But they didn't.”

“No, they didn't. But you wanted to—savage this monster.”

“Maybe.”

“You were thinking, ‘There's no way to catch them. No way to make them pay for what they've done.' ”

“Maybe,” she admitted reluctantly, knowing exactly the point he wanted to make and the price she would pay for acknowledging that truth.

“In this war between vampires and Vraq, someone has to die,” Rob said gently. “Them or us. Their killing field stretches to eternity and beyond, with no one to pass judgment, no one to hold anyone accountable.”

She looked at the woman, who was now clutching the child to her breast. Just for her, she thought, just to save the child, she
could
kill.

“You want justice.”

She hesitated. This was the tipping point. This was where she was going to step over the line and give in to her nature.

“We all want justice.” Rob took her arm and steered her away from the crowd. “And we want normal lives. We want family, we want love, we want—”

“What do
you
want?” Rula whispered.

His expression hardened. “I want to destroy them all, every last bloody one of them. And I want you.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“And those desires don't necessarily have to be satisfied in that order. But this is the reality: we'll be hunting them forever. That's just the way it is.”

She nodded. She didn't have to say outright that this evening she'd made her choice. Or that she understood that her inborn nature had made it for her.

He knew, he understood.

“I can't live at the town house.”

“I know. They're still your family.”

“And you?”

“You tell me.”

“You're the one who set me free,” she whispered. “I want to catch the bastard who attacked this child.”

“That's what the woman I love would say.”

Her breath caught. “You can't know that this soon.”

“I know I've been waiting for you.” He leaned in and touched her lips. “I know I want you.” Another kiss. “I know it's too soon for any of that on the heels of this attack.” A third kiss, as gentle as the brush of a bat wing. “We can't go to the hovel tonight, not with all these witnesses around. It's the one thing we have and need—a safe place.”

Which meant she'd have to go to the town house. She'd have to face the memories and the monsters. She felt the pull of resistance, but she'd just have to let it go.

They couldn't give up the anonymity of the hovel. It was imperative they have an unknown hideaway.

They'd cleaned out the town house, he'd said. Nothing remained of Senna and Dominick, everything was new, including a family.

Her family.

She tamped down her shivers and nodded. “The town house, then.”

Rob took her hand. “Remember—whatever happens, we have each other.” He started walking toward the alleyway entrance. “And we have tomorrow. We're in love. We'll bear children. We'll save lives. We'll save England. Isn't that enough?”

They emerged onto Lombard Street, mingling with the evening passersby. As she clung to his warmth, his strength, his certainty, and their burgeoning love, Rula thought that if they could have a life beyond vampires, if they could save lives, if they could save England—it would be more than enough.

ALSO BY THEA DEVINE

Bad as She Wants to Be

The Darkest Heart

His Little Black Book

Sex, Lies & Secret Lives

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Thea Devine

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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition October 2014

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ISBN 978-1-4516-9354-6