Quinn's Undying Rose (Scanguards Vampires #6) (18 page)

The words pierced through his heart like tiny spikes.
Get away from me!

The woman he loved more than his own life was afraid of him. Too afraid to recognize that he was still the same man as before. That what was in his heart hadn’t changed. She believed him to be a monster and had recoiled from him.

Despite the fast sprint through half of London, he arrived at his house showing barely any exhaustion. Pushing the front door open, he marched inside, heading for the parlor, his mind focused on one single thing: to eliminate the pain.

As he reached for the crystal decanter that contained the amber liquid that had helped him so many times before, he took it and poured a glass to its rim. But when he lifted it to his lips, the scent of it stung his nostrils. Instinctively he tossed the glass to the floor where it shattered.

Anger churned in him: he couldn’t even get drunk to forget his sorrow! He couldn’t do what any sane man in his position would do, to obliterate any memory of her, to drown it in alcohol.

Frustrated, he growled and took hold of the small side table that held the liquor he’d enjoyed as a human. Without another thought, he flung the table and its contents to the other end of the room. With a loud bang it crashed against the wall, the glasses, bottles and their contents scattering across the rugs, the wood splintering. The stench of alcohol filled the room instantly, only fueling his anger.

His eyes surveyed the scene, honing in on the pieces of wood that had only seconds ago been a beautiful table. Before he knew what he was doing, his feet catapulted him toward the chaos. Crouching down, he reached for a piece of wood. It tapered to a sharp point at one end. The perfect weapon, the perfect way to die.

Yes, it would be better that way. He should have never survived. He should have died on the battlefield instead, and spared both him and Rose this tragedy. She would have remembered him in a more favorable light than she would now. But he couldn’t change that.

He lifted the makeshift stake. But as much as he tried to move it toward his chest, his hand wouldn’t follow his command. Almost as if his survival instinct was stronger. God, how pathetic was that? He couldn’t even kill himself!

Angrily, he jerked his hand toward his chest once more and was stopped in the process. An iron hand clamped around his wrist.

“Careful with that.”

Quinn snapped his head to Wallace.

He lashed a furious glare at his sire. How dare he stop him? “It’s my life! My business, my choice.”

“No! It is not! How can you want to throw this life away? The power that I gave you, how dare you waste it? As if it were worth nothing? Do you have no concept of what you are, what makes you great?” He pointed toward the door. “There are thousands out there who want to be like you, who want to remain young and powerful, who crave immortality. And you, you’re prepared to throw it into the gutter! To toss it out like last week’s whore.”

Wallace twisted the stake from his hand and hurled it to the other end of the room. Wrenching his arm free from Wallace’s grip, Quinn bared his fangs.

He needed no lecture from a man who clearly had no idea what he was going through.

“I can’t live like this!” He avoided looking at his maker.

Wallace put a calming hand on his shoulder. “What happened?”

Quinn took a breath, but when he released it, it came out as a sob. “She doesn’t love me anymore . . . because of what I am.” He lifted his eyes. “I’m a monster to her. A monster she’s afraid of.”

Putting it into words made it even worse. As a human, he’d never felt as much pain as he felt now. Not even when he’d been injured on the battlefield, had his body been in such agony.

“I can’t live like this. Don’t you understand? I did this for Rose. Without her, there’s no point in going on.” Eternity without her would be one endless night of torture.

Wallace pulled him against his chest. “Son, you will get over this. Your heart will be broken many times until you learn to protect it. The humans around you that you love will die. You’ll lose them one by one. But there’ll be others who will take their place.”

Quinn yanked himself free of Wallace’s embrace. “Nobody can take Rose’s place!”

“You love her so much?”

“More than my life.” Without her he felt nothing. Only pain and coldness.

“We’ve all said that when we were young. We all had a woman who we thought was above all others. Special.” His eyes suddenly drifted away as if remembering somebody. “So beautiful that it aches to even think of her. And to see her wither away. To see her grow old. Such pain. Yet over time, it all fades. We continue living. We survive. Pain is only temporary. We are powerful. No heartache shall ever bring us down.”

“Powerful? To do what? To live in the dark? Without love, without sunshine?”

Wallace narrowed his eyes. “You want love? Buy it from a whore. That’s the kind of love you need. It’ll make you forget.”

“You think you can throw whores at me so I’ll forget Rose? How dare you! You don’t understand me at all! You want to help me? Then help me! Help me make her love me again. Or get out of my sight!”

Wallace gave him a dark look. For a long moment, he simply stood there like a statue.

“Very well.”

Then he turned and left.

It was the last time he ever saw his sire. He had clearly taken his words to heart and disappeared. Just when he’d needed guidance the most. He had nobody in his life now. To fill the emptiness in his heart, he’d done exactly what Wallace had advised in his anger: he’d purchased love from whores.

Quinn suddenly shivered as he turned the last corner to enter the block on which the B&B stood. For two hundred years he’d tried to forget Rose by drowning out any feelings in senseless debauchery. And for two hundred years he’d failed. He wanted Rose back, not just in his bed—that was the easy part—he wanted to be back in her heart.

Determined to try anything in his power, he straightened his shoulders and walked up the short path to the entrance door, when he froze, an offending scent penetrating his nostrils: spray paint.

There, on the white front door of the B&B, somebody had spray-painted a message. Quinn’s gut clenched. He’d suspected that Rose hadn’t told him the truth about why Keegan wanted to harm Blake, but to have it confirmed tore at him nevertheless.

Give me back what you’ve stolen.

20

“What the fuck is he talking about? And this time I want the truth!”

Quinn glared at her and pointed to the door, which he’d slammed shut only a second earlier.

Instinctively, Rose took a step back, however, there was no escaping him or his anger. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Keegan knew where she was, where Blake was. Had she led him here despite the precautions she’d taken?

“Oh, God, he’s found us.”

“He was bound to sooner or later. Unfortunately it was a little sooner than I anticipated. But that’s beside the point. What did you steal from him, Rose? What is it? Money?”

She shook her head. “I have plenty of money.”

Nervously, she shifted from one foot to the other. What would she tell him? Could she trust him with the truth? Or would he too want the power that came with the item she’d taken from Keegan?

When he gripped her shoulders with both hands and pressed her against the wall, the little wheels in her head started spinning out of control.

“Now, Rose! Before I toss you and Blake out on your ass to let you fend for yourselves. I don’t need this shit! You waltz back into my life after two hundred years and think you can play me for a fool. I’m not a fool, Rose.” His lips peeled back from his teeth, exposing his extended fangs. “I’m dangerous.”

Her breath hitched, her heartbeat escalating at the same time. She sensed the vein at her neck pulsating violently, noticed how his look slid there for a second before drawing back to glare at her eyes. She had no choice, she knew that now. Only the truth would pacify him.

“Keegan killed another vampire and took a flash drive from him. I stole it from Keegan.” The words tumbled from her lips like marbles from a turned over jar.

“What’s on the flash drive?”

For an instant, she squeezed her eyes shut, praying that Quinn was still the same honorable man he’d been when human.

“It contains a list of names and addresses . . .” She swallowed hard then looked straight at him. “ . . . of all vampires in North America and a large number of those abroad.”

With a surprised gasp, Quinn released her, stepping back as if he’d touched silver and felt the stinging burn of it.

“Rose . . . that’s madness. That can’t be true.”

That was what she’d thought too when she’d found out about the list.

“That’s why I had to steal it. It can’t be allowed in Keegan’s hands. He’ll use it to gain control. He’ll be able to eliminate those who oppose him. He’ll be too powerful.”

“What do you think he intends to do with it?”

“He’ll turn vampires to his side, create an army.”

Quinn clicked his tongue. “That’s not that as easy as you might think. Nobody is that convincing!”

“Keegan is.” A cold shiver ran down her spine as she remembered an incident while with Keegan. “I saw him use mind control on a vampire once.”

Quinn stared at her. “No vampire is foolish enough to employ mind control on another of his species. Whoever is attacked with mind control will instinctively defend himself. It’s inborn; there’s no way to fight that instinct. And it’s always a fight to the death. Nobody’s ever been known to break it off before its inevitable conclusion. There’s no way Keegan can use it to impose his will on another vampire. The other one would fight him, and if Keegan is stronger, he’ll kill his opponent rather than control him.”

“Keegan was able to control him without killing him. He was drained after it, almost had a breakdown, but he can do it. If he has managed since to perfect what he was capable of with difficulty then, he will be able to control vampires and have them do his bidding.”

“Shit!” Quinn cursed and ran a hand through his hair. “What makes you think this is the only copy of it? If he had it in his possession for any length of time, he’s probably already made a backup copy.”

“Impossible. The drive is encrypted. You can’t copy it; you can’t even print it. Somebody wanted to make sure this remained the only copy.”

“Where is it now?” The urgency in Quinn’s voice was undeniable.

“It’s safe.”

“Where?”

She shook her head. “Quinn, please don’t ask. It’s better for you not to know.”

It was safer if he didn’t know, safer for
him
. At least Keegan couldn’t torture it out of him.

“Better? You still don’t trust me!”

“That’s not what this is about.”

“It’s exactly what this is about. You didn’t trust me back then to keep you safe, and you don’t trust me now. Isn’t that the truth, Rose?” He shook his head as if trying to shake off a bad memory.

Then he stared back at her. “You have to destroy it. Nobody can ever be allowed to have this kind of information at their fingertips.”

At his words, she felt relief flood her. He didn’t want the flash drive for himself. He didn’t want the power that came with it. The Quinn she knew was still in there somewhere. Honor still drove him as it had back when he was human.

Without realizing it, she reached out her hand to stroke his cheek. “My—”

He recoiled from her touch.

My love
, she’d wanted to say, but the words got stuck in her throat. His eyes looked at her, hurt sitting deep within them. There was so much she had to repair, so much she had to do penance for. She didn’t want to hurt him any longer. And she didn’t want to lie any longer.

“Samson needs to know about this,” Quinn suddenly said and turned away, pulling out his cell phone. When the call connected he only said a few words. “We need you at the house, now. It’s important.”

Then he turned back to her. “If we’d known what this was all about, we could have gone in full force from the beginning and smoked him out before he had a chance to find us. Now he’s got the upper hand.”

***

Quinn waited in the office for Samson. It took his boss only ten minutes to arrive. Quinn heard Amaury greet him at the door, then the two of them entered the office. Amaury gave him a grave look. It appeared he had overheard the heated conversation he’d had with Rose. Just as well.

Quinn summarized the situation in two sentences, bringing Samson up to speed within seconds.

“That changes everything,” Samson announced. “Where is it now?”

“She won’t tell me.”

“We’ll have to find it and destroy it.”

“I told her that.” But she had simply looked at him as if he didn’t understand. Her touch had confused him even more.

“She’s not going to do it, is she?” Samson asked.

Amaury moved closer. “You can’t blame her. It’s her insurance policy. As long as Keegan believes Rose is the only one who knows where the flash drive is, he won’t kill her. If he assumes that she told one of us, what’s stopping him from getting rid of her and getting the information out of us?”

Reluctantly, Quinn had to admit to himself that his friend had a point, even if it didn’t make the fact that Rose didn’t trust him any more palatable.

“Still, we’re ultimately more equipped to safeguard this information rather than having a civilian do it. We have to know where she keeps it hidden.” Samson paced. “I wish we would have never been dragged into this mess, but there’s no way we can back out now. Besides, she’s family.”

Quinn shot a look at his boss, whose last word had jolted him. How had they accepted Rose so easily?

Samson shrugged. “She’s your wife. That makes her family, no matter what the situation between the two of you might be.” Then he motioned to the door. “And Blake is your flesh and blood. We can’t turn away from that.”

“You have no obligation toward her or Blake. Only I do,” Quinn protested. “I can’t put all of you in danger, because my wife has made a bad call.”

It felt odd to call her that again, but at the same time, he knew he couldn’t back down from acknowledging what she was to him, what she would always be: his wife.