Kiss Me When the Sun Goes Down (34 page)

“Then take those appointments by phone or Skype,” he bit out, just as stubborn.

“He’s right,” Carter yawned, coming down the back stairs.  Bishop looked up in vindication, which swiftly turned to a frown at seeing him in his boxers and nothing else. 

“Don’t you have anything else to wear?”

“My tux is at the cleaner’s,” Carter quipped, reaching past me for a mug to heat up his own bagged blood.  “Sorry if it proves too tempting for you, but you’re not my type.”

“Did you have any problems dealing with... you know,” I prompted, unwilling to say what I knew had to be done.

“Oh yeah, that guy’s not gonna bother anyone ever again,” Carter winked. 

I knew he couldn’t out and out kill him, my compulsion kept him from that.  “What did you...? Never mind, I don’t want to know,” I changed my mind, waving it away.  “What did you mean, he’s right about what?”

“About you staying here under lock and key.  No sense in taking any chances.  I can handle tracking down whoever this is, it’s what I do.”

“
We
can handle it.  I’ve got contacts you don’t,” Bishop amended, but I ignored the point before they had a chance to argue about it.

“No deal.  What you two seem to be forgetting is that
you
are the targets, not me.  They’re going after my loved ones, and that includes the both of you.  I should be the one to try and flush out the bad guy here.  Besides, I have duties.  My position as Elder is under attack as much as my personal life.  I have to stick to my schedule or everyone is going to find out what happened here last night.”

“I’m pretty sure that’ll get out anyway.  We were under a full scale attack last night with police involvement and everything,” Bishop pointed out.

“Which you assured me you took care of.”

“Fine,” he relented.  “What’s your plan to address this if Carter and I stay put?  You won’t have the same resources that Carter and I do.  You can try to keep this under wraps all you like, but if this is an attempt by Bakareh, you’ll have to answer it.”

“What, by sending a hit squad to his court?  I don’t operate that way.”

“It’s what’s expected,” Bishop shrugged.  “An eye for an eye.” 

Holy smokes, I could see this escalating into a full scale war if I made the wrong step.  “Nobody has to know about our eyes, we can try to keep this quiet.  Besides, I honestly think it’s Corley who’s behind this.  Bakareh just seems so... petty, you know?  Like I could see him striking out in anger, but not something so premeditated. Corley, he’s the sneaky type, and what I did to him was so much worse.”

Bishop grabbed hold of my shoulders.  “You didn’t do anything to him, Anja.  He did it to himself.  All you did was help expose his actions to the light.”

“Has anyone considered that Carys might be behind this?” Carter asked over the top of his mug.  “She is the one who’s most likely to lash out at you, and she knows you’d kick her ass if she challenged you to a straight up fight.”

I admit, the thought had crossed my mind, but from the look on Bishop’s face, it hadn’t once occurred to him.  “She would never...” he started to say, but I cut him off.

“No?  How can you be so sure?  She can’t be happy about the fact that we’re together again, and we haven’t been too secret about it.”

“No,” he insisted.  “Carys let me go.  She said her goodbyes, she’s moved on.”

“She hasn’t had all that much time to make peace with it.  Maybe she decided to get you back?”

“By killing the one thing I love the most?  Even Carys wouldn’t make that mistake.”

“She didn’t try to kill me, she tried to kill everyone I love.”

“That makes even less sense.  Carys wouldn’t want me to die.”

“Maybe it’s one of those
if I can’t have you, no one can
things?”

“Plus, the guy I caught didn’t have orders to shoot Bishop, just the rest of us,” Carter added.

“But I
was
shot,” Bishop disagreed, and Carter shrugged.

“Maybe it was a stray?  Or maybe the shooter knew you had a vest on.”

Bishop shook his head.  “I don’t know, that’s a lot of maybes.  I still say Bakareh is our best bet.”

“And I think Corley’s the more likely candidate,” I replied.  But inside I started to wonder.  Could it be Carys’ twisted sense of revenge, taking everything from me for stealing her man?  “I’m going to try Jakob again.  I can’t believe he hasn’t called back yet.”

“Why should he care?” Carter asked.  “He wasn’t close to Lee or Gunnar.” 

“I think he’d want to know if someone was coming at me with so much firepower.  Plus, Nell and Lee were close.”  At least it’d seemed that way to me.  Once more, I got his voicemail, and I didn’t bother to leave a message.  But I did make another call, to someone who might be able to give me the lowdown on Carys’ movements.  Only this time I slipped out of the kitchen for some privacy. 

Aubrey’s number went straight to voicemail too, and I bit back a wave of frustration.  Wasn’t anyone picking up today?  I had to be careful with the message I left, not knowing how much Carys watched over his business, and I didn’t have long to think up an excuse for my call either.  “Hey, Aubrey,” I said, injecting a note of false cheer into my voice.  “I wanted to check in with you on how the reintegration of the Order is going at Vetis.  I know you’re probably still handling the day to day stuff, and I imagine Carys is pretty busy with other concerns.  So, um, give me a call when you’ve got a few minutes to yourself so we can chat, okay?”  Lame.  But better than nothing. 

My phone buzzed as I was tucking it away, but instead of Aubrey or Jakob, it was Hanna’s picture that flashed on the screen.  “Hey, Hanna,” I greeted her.  “Are you settling in okay?”  I didn’t know where Mason had taken her, and maybe that was for the best. 

Hanna ignored my question, her voice keyed up with fear and tension, words coming a mile a minute.  “I just got a call from the alarm company that Mom and Dad’s house is on fire!  You need to get there right away and see if there’s anything you can do.  If you get there quick enough, maybe with your blood you can...”

“Whoa, slow down,” I stopped her before she worked herself up to a tone that only dogs could hear.  “It’s okay, they weren’t in there.”

“How can you be sure?  They said the cars were still in the garage, but it’s burning too hot for them to get into the bedrooms to see for sure and...”

“Hanna, relax.  I know they’re not inside, because we moved them.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

I hesitated, not sure how much to tell her.  Keeping the news from her was one thing, but she’d opened the door.  I decided I might as well level with her.  If there was anything Hanna disliked, it was being lied to.  “I decided it would be safer for them to get out of town after what happened to you.”

“But I was in a car accident.”

“I’m not so sure it was all that accidental.  Especially because Gunnar and Lee were killed last night too.”

“Oh, An...” Her breath rushed out all at once.  “I’m so sorry to hear that.  I know how much they meant to you.  Is everyone else okay though?”

I blinked fast, the sympathy in her voice bringing me close to tears.  “We’re alive and accounted for, that’s the best we can hope for right now.  But you need to lay low for a while until we figure out who’s behind it.”

“Is that why Mason decided on this pre-honeymoon?”

“I think Bishop suggested it to him, but before you take it out on Mason, consider that he just wanted to keep you safe.”

“And you’re really sure that Mom and Dad are alright?”  She sounded skeptical, and I did my best to sound reassuring. 

“Yes, Bishop told me they’re safe and sound as of this evening.  There’s no chance they were in that fire.”

“Well, where are they?  They’ve got to be freaking out right now.”

“I don’t know, and trust me, they’re fine.  All this tells me is that I made the right decision in getting them out of there.”  Time to change the subject.  “How are you, are you okay?”

“I’m... it’s hard to get used to.  All these little things I’ve never seen or heard before.  It’s weird to assimilate.” 

“I know.  It’ll come with time,” I promised.  “But things between you and Mason, they’re good?”

“They’re better than good.  Jesus, Anja, why didn’t you tell me it could be like this?  I’ve never felt so close to another person before in my entire life.”  Her voice throbbed with emotion, and I smiled into my end of the phone.  That’s the way it was supposed to be between Sire and progeny, and I was so beyond thrilled that it was everything she’d dreamed of. 

I didn’t bother to point out that my own experiences were less than perfection, I didn’t want to rain on her parade.  “I guess I wanted you to decide in your own time, without my input.  I’m glad you’re happy now.”

“And I’m glad you’re safe.  You’ll keep me up to date on what’s going on though, right?  No more secrets?”

“No more secrets,” I pledged, hoping I could live up to my word.  “I have to go though, I have a lot of work to do.”

There was no reply, and before I could ask if she was still there, her giggling laughter floated out, punctuated by Mason’s deeper chuckle.  “I’ll catch you later, Anja.  I have to...”  And then the line went dead. 

I sat there smiling for long seconds, finding a sense of peace and hope in that lighthearted laughter.  I trusted Bishop when he said it would get easier, and I hoped like heck that we’d find that kind of lightness between us again soon.  But for the moment, I did have work to do, and satisfied that my sister was in good hands, I turned my thoughts to more practical things.

Once I was in my office, it was easy to get swept up in the work of the day.  With some rearranging, I handled most of my appointments remotely, and rescheduled those that needed the more personal touch.  While I didn’t agree to being kept under lock and key, I had to admit, I didn’t want to face anyone yet either.  If even one person mentioned Lee or Gunnar to me, I knew I’d lose it. 

Bishop set up a temporary work space in the library, borrowing my laptop.  Maggie seemed content to take the night off to keep nursing Tucker back to health.  Only Carter chafed at being kept inside. 

“This isn’t getting us any closer to finding out who’s behind it,” he complained when I forbade him to leave the house.

“Maybe not, but we need some time to regroup and figure things out.”

Carter made a noise of frustration and ran up the stairs to his attic space. 
Highway to Hell
came blasting from the rafters moments later.

“Honestly, it’s like having a surly teen in the house,” I sighed, flopping down on one of the chairs opposite Bishop.

“He’s a grown man, not a teenager.  You can’t keep telling him what to do and expect him to like it.”

“So, you tell grown men what to do all the time.”

“I do, but that’s my job.”

“Well,  keeping him safe is my job too.” 

“I’m just saying, it’s not in his nature to stick around the house like this.  Mark my words, you won’t be able to keep him here for much longer.  In fact, I’m surprised he’s stuck around as long as he has.” 

I
could
keep Carter around as long as I wanted to, but I refused to use my compulsion to keep him under wraps like that.  “Do you mean at the house, or as in here in San Francisco?”

Bishop shrugged.  “Both really.  Carter doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who likes to stick around in one place for very long.”

“Yes, but he has a family here, a home.”

“It’s just my opinion,” he murmured, already focused on the computer again as his fingers tapped at the keys. 

I couldn’t think about that for the moment.  My family was already shrinking at an alarming rate, and I had to figure out how to make it stop.

T
he funeral was probably the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.  I dimly recalled going to my grandmother’s funeral when I was a girl, but I don’t remember being sad.  All I remembered of the woman was her love of butterscotch candies and knitting.  I couldn’t even picture her smile anymore.  This was far more devastating.  Not only did I have to watch them put Lee in the ground, I had to do it without breaking down.  The Elder of the West couldn’t be seen as weak.  News spread that Lee had died, and quite a few from the community turned up for the service. 

I heard them all murmuring, wondering why he’d been killed.  It sounded like it was well known that he’d been shot with silver nitrate, and I supposed I had Kane to thank for that.  But I hadn’t told him to keep it a secret, so I didn’t want to throttle him too badly for it.  Nobody seemed to link his death to a plot against me though, at least nobody who spoke within my earshot.  It still hurt that Nell hadn’t called back or even acknowledged that she’d heard about Lee’s death.  But they were traveling the world, maybe they were in a remote spot without cell reception?

There was no gravesite or marker for Gunnar.  I still had his ashes at home in an urn, and I was torn between sending them back to his homeland and keeping him there with me.  Or maybe spreading his ashes in the garden, where he’d found so much happiness. 

We must’ve had every security guard in the county staked out around the cemetery, and still Bishop looked as nervous as a redshirt on a landing party.  He never left my side, not even when I stepped up to toss a handful of flowers atop Lee’s casket as they lowered him into the ground.  I considered tossing in the lighter I’d given him for Christmas, but at the last second I decided to keep it in my pocket.  A reminder of that night, and the bond we shared. 

There was no sign of any trouble though.  I was aware of a large number of shifters sticking to the outskirts to pay their respects.  I didn’t recognize most of them, but Kane gave me a solemn nod, which I returned. 

An enormous man stood next to him, taller than Jakob and broader than a pro wrestler.  His hair hung in thick, dark, locks, spilling over his shoulders and down his back, like a barbarian.  Everything about him was big and beefy, from his bushy black brows to his beard; his thighs stretched the dark workpants, and his pecs bulged, bare under the muscle shirt he wore.  Despite the casual attire, there was an air of confidence around him, an aura of power worn with easy grace.  This guy was the Alpha, I was sure of it.