Blood Stained Tranquility (24 page)

Man, it hadn’t been easy getting to where she was then, but not being human anymore made it so worth it.

She willed the door open, and when it obeyed her command without so much as a squeak, she walked out into the hall, fist pumping the air some more. Once out there, though, she had to stop and take a good look around.

Zeniel must have gone around the whole house, fixing it up while she was out cold. The navy blue Victorian wallpaper that covered the walls was beautiful, and it didn’t look a day old. The floor beneath her feet was smooth and shiny. Hell, all the wood was, from the doorframe, to the ceiling, and stair railing she could see down the hall.

The moment she got to the top of the stairs, she was hit with the twitches. Not the minor kind, either. These started at the back of her head and squeezed their way down her entire spine. The first one might’ve been a coincidence. When three of them went through her, leaving her muscles tight and tensed, she knew something was up.

She just didn’t know what.

She almost called out for Zeniel, but realized immediately that she was alone in the house. She couldn’t sense him or anyone around.

So what the hell was she feeling?

Her body was on edge. Ready to pounce on something and do damage. But what, damn it? She flashed her way to the bottom of the stairs, and got hit with a shocking blast of heat everywhere. Not the good kind, either. This was the type of heat that reminded her of ass-beatings and blood spilled. Suddenly she was flooded with fury, her anger igniting inside her spinal column.

All right. She knew she was crazy. Batshit loony at times. More than once, Ismini and Soleria had made it clear that maybe, just maybe, Eve should look into anger management classes. But this was a whole new level. Even for her.

Rage out of nowhere? Definitely not normal.

Okay. Just close your eyes. You can figure this out.

At least, she hoped so. First thing first, though. She had to do something about her butt-naked state. Once she had on jeans, a T-shirt, and boots, she turned and continued down the hall, trying to feel the place out. Something was calling to her, something about the house wasn’t quite right. If she had had more practice with the whole “feeling-things-out” thing, she probably would’ve been able to pinpoint it sooner.

She stopped next to a door that was tucked under the stairs. Closing her eyes, she placed her hand on the wall and tried to clear her thoughts.

There. Whatever she was sensing was coming from there.

The door eased open with just one thought from her. Shit, she almost couldn’t do it. She wasn’t even standing in front of it, but just being close was filling her with the total opposite of rage: fear. She couldn’t really sense any life forms in the house, but whatever was down there, her nervous system didn’t want anything to do with.

Except, all she could see where stairs leading down, and when she brought herself to peek around the doorframe, she saw more of the same—a short flight of stairs leading into what must have been the basement. What she could see of the basement didn’t really set off any alarms. A dark cement floor; and what looked like a few old barrels off to the side.

So why the hell was her emotional spectrum bouncing back and forth between fuck this and fuck
me
? She wanted to barge down there and kick something’s ass; she wanted to turn around and run like hell, straight out of the house, locate Zeniel, and beg him to hold her until everything was okay.

What are you now? A pussy? There’s not even anything down there!

But she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was. Her blood kept running hot and cold.

You can do this, ass. What’s the point of having super powers if you’re just gonna be a pussy?

Gee, her little inner voice sure had a way of galvanizing her. But it worked. Eve couldn’t handle being called a pussy by anyone.

She stepped through the door and stared down at the entrance to the basement. The mother of all stupid ideas came to her when she actually tried to float her way down the stairs, instead of taking them like a normal being. As jumpy as her mind was, her concentration was shot, and she ended up pretty much flying face-first toward the bottom.

She’d pretty much resigned herself to the fact that she was going to fly into that basement at full-speed—in retrospect, she fucking wished that had been the case—but as soon as she reached the bottom, her entire body slammed into an invisible wall of pure, rippling power.

She was thrown backward into the staircase, where she went three feet into the wood, leaving a nice impression of her body behind. The entire house shook on its foundations. She stayed still, looking above her, and waiting for everything to come down around her. When it didn’t, she glanced back at whatever it was she’d just slammed into, seeing the last ripples working their way across the invisible barrier.

A
Gnetica.
Someone had put up a fucking energy shield in the basement.

And that someone had been her mate.

There she went, back into the rage whirlpool. She tried to tell herself that he hadn’t really meant to keep
her
out of the basement. Except that the moment she tried to convince herself of that delusion, she knew it to be the lie that it was. There was no one else around, and it was clear that he had never even meant to bring her to that house. Had she not grabbed onto his shirt the night before and followed him, she would have never known that this was where he was staying.

Goddamn it, she would’ve thought that being an immortal meant her blood pressure could no longer rise dangerously and that headaches were a thing of the past. Surprise, surprise. The anger floating around the inside of her head still had the power to give her a migraine.

She eased up out of the crater she’d made. Closing her eyes, she tried to focus past her emotions and fix the stairs. When she opened her eyes, she was afforded a bit of relief. The stairs were back to normal.

But that shield was still in her way.

Stepping up to it, Eve raised her hand slowly. Fingers spread, she gently pushed the pads of her fingers against the
Gnetica
. It pulsed to life again. Within the small ripples that distorted the surface, she could see microscopic markings. Squinting, she pushed at the
Gnetica
again and looked closer.

There were symbols inside it, and she knew instantly what they were. They were Zeniel’s energy signature. Not that she hadn’t guessed it before, but now she had proof that he was the one who’d put it up.

You’re not suicidal, Eve. All in all, you love to live. It’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but you love it. Killing your mate would only mean your own death.

Groaning, she let her forehead fall against the shield, and squeezed her eyes closed. Death was not something she courted. She’d only jumped into the vortex that killed her human form because she had been chasing after Ismini.

That didn’t mean that the thought of hurting Zeniel wasn’t tempting. It was oh, so tempting. They were mated, and that was the kind of life-long, eternity type of thing that you couldn’t get out of, but Eve couldn’t see herself in any type of relationship that involved secrets.

Zen had them. He was jealously guarding them.

Ugh. It wasn’t just Zeniel, either. Mavrak hated himself, too. Getting those two to come to terms with each other so they could merge was going to be nearly impossible.

Which meant, there was going to be secrets on his end, and more running, and more . . . what?

Her chasing him?

Fuck no.
No.
She wasn’t going to spend her existence running after him, loving him as much as she did, and having him do this kind of shit. No matter how he made her feel—okay, that was bullshit. She might not chase him, but refuse him sex? After what he’d showed her last night?

She might as well go ahead with the whole killing-him-and-killing-herself plan.

Eve opened her eyes and tried to see into the basement, fighting to keep herself from losing it. More barrels, more of that cement floor, a shelving unit on the left side. What looked like a shiny, brand new boiler all the way in the back.

Nice. But for all she knew, it was all an illusion. She’d been told how the energy shields worked. The person that put them up could reflect anything on the other side. Anything they wanted. So, an entire other world could’ve been on the other side and she just wasn’t seeing it.

It was in there. The thing that was making her skin crawl, and was sending that cold feeling racing up and down her spine was in there. She couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything, but unless her senses were all going to hell, whatever she was feeling was in there.

Okay. She could let it go for now. Really, she could. And the fact that there was a desperate urge rising, one that demanded she try to bring the
Gnetica
down, meant nothing. She had this. She could walk away. There was some self-control hidden deep within her.

Somewhere.

Besides, if she even tried to slam her way past the
Gnetica,
all she would do would be to bring down the house around it. It would survive, protecting whatever it was hiding. That’s how the shields worked. The being, or beings, who put it up had to be weakened in order to bring it down. So she wasn’t getting in there. No matter how badly she wanted to.

Fine then.

She was fucking leaving. And this time, she might just not come back.

She was officially sick of all the bullshit.

Chapter 18

Trouble met her line of sight as soon as she stepped out onto the porch. Of the uniformed variety.

This was definitely not what she expected to see upon going outside. A whole lot of trees and woods? Yup. Maybe a bird or two. Maybe even a deer. But sure as hell not what was in front of her.

Three or four yards away was a group of men. Cops. Four of them were standing by one of the broken trees, another three were examining its fallen companion.

One stood by the powdered bits that were left of the boulder.

They all had very appropriate expressions on their faces. Hell, she’d be WTF-ing it, too, if she hadn’t already known how
the destruction had taken place.

She froze, afraid to call attention to herself. One of them looked her way.

Then he turned back to the tree, not even registering her.

Evesse scowled, wondering. On a hunch, she flashed ten feet to the left and held out her hand.

There went those damn ripples again.

Soooo, her mate had put a
Gnetica
up around the house, as well. This one she couldn’t fault him for. Without it, those cops would have seen her, and she wasn’t so sure she’d know how to wipe their minds. No practice could equal a major fuck up when it came to that type of thing.

She had to wonder, though. How close were they to town? They had to be close enough that someone heard the commotions last night and seen the little light display she and Zeniel had given off. That’s the only reason the cops would be there investigating.

Whatever. She wasn’t coming back to this house. Hell, if she had her way, she wouldn’t be seeing the male that had taken ownership over it ever again.

She tried really hard to ignore the little voice that pointed out what a liar she was. Dematerializing, she headed back home. Or, her new home, as it was. She landed softly on the marble tile of the main courtyard, and turned to look up at the compound. She still couldn’t get used to it, no matter how many times she’d laid eyes on it.

It was the most mix-matched, temple-like structure she’d ever seen. Medieval Gothic, Victorian, Egyptian, Indian, hell even Russian features, you name it. There were so many architectural influences that she still couldn’t believe how well it all came together.

It was beautiful.

The huge gold dome rising up toward the sky reminded her of a picture she had once seen of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. If one didn’t count the ridiculous amount of satellite dishes that were stuck to aforementioned dome, that is. There had been seventeen before she’d left with Zeniel after Ismini and Dyletri’s celebration. Now, she counted twenty-three of those fuckers, and the six new ones were freaking
huge
.

What the hell was Cyake up to?