Forever Vampire (11 page)

“I don't understand. You said we were going to do something?”

Eyes lined with the dark ointment, Vail grabbed her hips and kissed her soundly. A claiming kiss. An urgent, quit-asking-stupid-questions kiss. “We're going on the run.”

V
AIL DECIDED TO
protect the girl rather than turn her in to save his own ass. It hadn't been a snap decision, but it felt more right than anything in his life had felt for a long time.

Had anything ever felt right?

Not until you met Lyric
.

He navigated a narrow cobbled street in the Maserati, sensing Lyric tightly clutching the door handle as he avoided clipping the back tire of a nearby biker.

While in Faery, he'd always known he was vampire, and had been born in the mortal realm. His stepmother, Cressida, had been forthright with all the details. She'd taken him in payment for a boon, expecting him to be the half-breed son of a vampiress and another half-breed, Rhys Hawkes. Only when he reached puberty had Cressida realized Vail was merely a bloodborn vampire. Cressida had been vocal about her disappointment.

Ever unwanted. Never loved.

Get over it,
he muttered to his whiny subconscious. He'd survived Faery, and had made a few friends, and
had never backed away from a fight, or the malicious eye of Zett.

If anything, Faery had taught him to survive. It had also taught him no one could ever be trusted, and family was just a word. It meant nothing. He didn't need family. He didn't want it.

Except, he wondered about it now. Rhys continued to tease him into the familial folds, and while Vail had initially resisted, he felt his shoulders relax now. The half-breed wasn't so bad. Hell, maybe he could orchestrate an alliance between Vail and Trystan? Having a werewolf as a brother fascinated him, and he'd like to talk to Trystan about this mortal realm and how to exist within it.

One confidant was all he needed. He was ninety-five percent sure Lyric wouldn't bolt on him and take off with the gown, never again to be seen. But the remaining five percent? He wouldn't let down his guard around her.

He pulled the Maserati into a narrow lot behind a cheesy supermarket. The bumper nudged the steel light pole.

He rubbed the dashboard lovingly. “Sorry, sweetie.”

“I thought I was your sweetie?” Lyric delivered him a quirk of her brow, then got out before he could reply.

“Oh, you are,” he muttered. Then he patted the dashboard again. “Just kidding, sweetie.”

Clasping Lyric's hand, because he needed to feel in control after their disastrous club visit, Vail led
her inside the supermarket. The fluorescent-lit green Formica floor disturbed his love for nature and all things wild. Hell, most of the city did—save for the royal gardens—but he wanted to get a handle on mortal existence before moving out to the country. And, well, there was no FaeryTown out in the countryside.

And right now too much was at stake, like learning his father's whereabouts.

“You willing to go all the way with me on this adventure?” he asked.

Lyric flashed him her bright smile as they wandered the store. “Hell, yes. But why are you willing to do this for me?”

He stopped in the beauty supply aisle. “Maybe I like you.”

“You don't like me. You like having sex with me.”

“True. But I like you even when you're not naked. I swear it.”

“Liar. You don't like what I am. We're enemies, remember?”

“I may have been quick to label. Perhaps I've been a wib all along for assuming the vampire race is subordinate to me.”

“The vampire race? Those faeries worked a real number on you.”

“They have no love for vampires, for sure. Though certainly Cressida would have taken a half-breed over me.”

“So you said you were getting something out
of the deal. You hand over the gown to Hawkes Associates…?”

“Hawkes gives me information I need.”

“Such as?”

“Sweetie, we aren't that close yet.”

Pausing in the middle of an aisle stocked with stuff he'd never need if he lived a millennium, he toyed with Lyric's hair, loving the play of her ribbony curls between his fingers. “If we're going to lie low, you need to change your hair color. You stick out like an Amazon in Faery with your height and ice-blond hair.”

“Are you going to change yours?”

“I don't think there's much you can do with this dark stuff.”

“Probably have to bleach it, and that would be a mess. Would totally screw with your goth-vamp-lord look.”

“I am not—”

She pressed a finger to his lips. “I know, you're not a vampire, but you can still be a goth one, maybe even a little emo.”

“I don't know what you just said.” He should protest her mockery—he did know what the words meant—but he let it slide.

“Do you have glamour? So you can disguise yourself?”

“Nope. But I do have dust in my arsenal, which could come in handy.”

“Really? You can dust someone? How does that work?”

“I just blow some in their face. Vamps inhale the stuff and—bam! They're high and out for the count. You okay with that?”

“Truthfully? Yes, I am. All right, I'm in.”

“Great.” The quicker they got out of this dismal store, the better. “What color?”

They perused the shelves of hair color and Vail was thankful men didn't have to worry about such things. As a vampire, he'd age gracefully. One reason he should be grateful for his heritage.

“What about red?” she said with a tantalizing tease.

Vail imagined Lyric with siren red hair. The image hung in his brain, yet quickly moved through his body as if silk were sliding over his pores, teasing his nerve endings to a blissful memory of their lovemaking. Those shoes had glided down his legs and back up to dig into his hips as he'd slid in and out of her.

He grabbed a box that featured a woman with mousy brown hair and handed it to her.

“That's not red.”

“Exactly. You with red hair would be twice as devastating as blond. I wouldn't be able to concentrate around you. Every man you pass would stumble and crash, face-first onto the tarmac. Do you really want to be responsible for all those bleeding faces?”

“When you put it that way…dull, librarian-brown it is.”

She walked away with box in hand, and Vail commented, “I think librarians are hot.”

“Don't tell me you've a fantasy about tight buns and schoolmarm glasses.”

“Works for me. But don't forget the brains, too. I love a smart woman.”

“My attempt at ditching my mother and the Unseelie lord was a stupid disaster.”

“It was smart, if perhaps underplanned. You don't know how good it will be until we figure out what the hell is going on between your family and Zett.”

“Thanks for this,” Lyric said as they took their place in line behind a queue of shoppers. “I needed an ally.”

“Don't get ahead of yourself, sweetie.
Ally
is pushing it.”

“What about business partner?”

“That implies we would work together for a common goal.” He kissed her behind the ear, where it was warm and soft and tendrils of her hair tickled his nose. He liked it there. But she pressed her fingers along her ear, nudging him away. Hmm, didn't want him to touch her? Her nerves were beginning to emerge. To be expected. “Okay, that works. But in the end, I'll be getting the gown to hand over to Hawkes Associates. What do you get out of it?”

“Freedom?”

He looked aside so she wouldn't see his falling smile. Freedom could never be possible. Rhys had promised Charish Santiago he'd return her daughter. And if Zett now wanted her for reasons beyond Vail's imagining, the Unseelie lord would step in line.

“I'm not going to get freedom, am I?” she asked
from behind the box of hair color she held to her lips. “Don't say anything. I won't ask you to compromise your job. Just promise me one thing.”

“What's that?”

“When we do figure things out, and if we finally find the gown—”

“Or you reveal the gown's hiding spot.”

“Ahem.”

“All right. What do you want?”

“Five seconds. I want you to turn and look the other way and give me a head start.”

Five seconds? He'd be on her ten seconds after that pause. She may be vampire, but he was stronger and faster than she was. Yet part of him wished she'd asked for an hour.

Vail nodded. “Deal.”

 

T
HEY STEPPED OUT
of the supermarket into the balmy evening sky. Before Vail could clasp Lyric's hand, something whisked past his head. “What the—?” He grabbed Lyric around the waist. “We gotta run, sweetie.”

“But the car is right—”

“Right where the sidhe is standing.”

“A faery? Let me go. I can run.”

Vail sensed the noise of the arrow before seeing it, and squatted, Lyric in arm. The arrow skimmed his hair.

She shuffled from his grasp, but he tugged her aside and pushed her into the darkness hugging the supermarket wall as another arrow cut through his pants.

“Damn it, that bastard is accurate!”

“I don't see him!”

He shoved Lyric into a run. “You can't. He's wearing glamour. Just run.”

They zigzagged down the alley. The way to survive elf shot was to avoid it. Though Vail had immunity having lived in Faery, he'd still suffer for days from the poison-tipped arrows. Lyric would not be so lucky.

The next arrow splintered into the brick wall, sending shards of ironwood at Vail's face. He closed his eyes as the razored shards cut his cheeks. The poison stung, but better him than Lyric.

Without pausing, he swung Lyric around the corner and onto the busy street in front of a nightclub doorway, which was surrounded by massive, pink neon lips.

Lyric amazed him. She didn't slow, and ran right for the traffic alongside him. Horns honked and drivers slammed on their brakes. Vail jumped up on a trunk and leaped, gripping Lyric's arm as he did, and the twosome soared to the opposite curb, landing crouched.

Elf shot bulleted the concrete sidewalk before them.

“He's relentless,” Lyric gasped, clutching the plastic grocery bag to her chest. Her bright hair had to be the beacon the elf followed. “You've been cut.”

“It'll heal.”

Vail twisted to spy their stalker, standing on the opposite side of the busy street. The tall, bald sidhe with glowing green eyes patted his back in search of
another arrow. He wore a carapace of emerald armor that resembled a tenacious insect's horned shell. Mortals didn't give him a second glance, thanks to his glamour shield.

One thing Vail did know—without the telltale luminescent markings, this wasn't one of Zett's men.

“He's splinter sidhe. Has to be.” Gripping Lyric's hand, Vail took off down the street.

“What does that mean?”

“He is aligned with neither Seelie nor Unseelie.” He dodged in through a DVD rental store swarming with customers. The blue lighting eerily blanched everyone's faces. Weaving through the bins of DVDs, he tugged Lyric after him.

When they reached the back wall, he shoved open the office door and spied the outer door. They escaped into the night, yet Lyric tugged at him to stop.

“We can't stop,” he said, then saw her slip off her high heels.

“I can keep up better this way,” she said, tossing the shoes aside but keeping the bag of hair dye. “So he's not Zett's man?”

“Something worse. A rogue sidhe who answers to no one but himself. My guess is he's heard the rumor I may have the gown and wants it. That thing will bring in a fortune on the faery market.”

“But if he kills you that won't help,” she suggested as they raced down the alley.

“He's not trying to kill me, just poison me to put me out of commission. He's out of arrows,” Vail called back. “But he'll never run out of energy. His sort feed
off mortal energy. In this realm, he is all-powerful. The best we can do is lose him, or hope for a kill shot.”

“Kill shot? With what? That little stick of a blade you carry?”

“Exactly.”

“Why can't I see him?”

“He's using glamour. Let's go.”

Vail turned a corner, taking a breath when he saw the alley was empty and stretched a long ways. Free rein from here on.

Until he heard the warrior's yipping cry. From the top of a building jumped their pursuer, landing twenty feet in front of Vail and Lyric. The lithe, sinuous sidhe loomed a head taller than Vail's lofty height. His neck grew to his ears, emphasizing his small, round, hairless head, and his shoulders were spiked with the horned armor.

“I just want her,” the sidhe growled. “Dead.”

“The vampiress?” Vail's jaw dropped open. He'd thought the elf was after the gown. Had Zett placed a price on Lyric's head? Why did the faery lord want a vampire?

When the sidhe lifted a hand to indicate that Vail approach him, the iridescent emerald sheen of faery swept across his bald head and face. That indicated he could be a worm wraith, Vail guessed. He knew what the man looked like in his actual form, and it wasn't pretty.

A challenge over who gets the girl? He had only the sidhe blade in his boot. It wasn't designed to poison,
but rather maim. And he had to get real close, which he didn't favor against an opponent wielding poisoned arrows. It would be like using a pin against a battle sword.

Vail tilted his head first one way, cracking his neck, and then to the other side. He reached back, touching Lyric and giving her a push. He sensed she moved against the wall. If she couldn't see the danger, she'd never be able to get out of harm's way.

“Get as far from here as you can,” he muttered, then turned to face his opponent.

It had been months since he'd been in Faery and had practiced the sidhe martial arts. He'd been talented, and many times had gone head-to-head with Zett, each match resulting in a tie.

But the worm wraith, snarling and gleaming dangerously, gave
imposing
a new definition.