Stormfront (Undertow Book 2) (2 page)

1
Eila

Nauset
Beach, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

One day before Thanksgiving

I had a kill mar
k
.

At least, that's what Christian had called it.

He said mine was darker, deeper . . . more distinct, even than my 4
th
great grandmother, Elizabeth’s. From what I had managed to see, the small brand on my back that deemed me a murderer had also begun to change, growing upwards on my spine like a gnarled vine.

Christian said it was normal, considering what I had done a few weeks before. Considering how many I had slaughtered inside the coal room of the Newport mansion. A kill mark, he said, was the badge of the truly lethal and appeared only on those like me - those who could torch soul thieves and nearly flatten a national
treasure, though I was sure my wrecking-ball capability was a shocker for Christian.

I've got to say, I could do without it.

In fact, I could do without the whole assassin gene in general. It would be awesome if we were given a chance to choose our gene pool. A chance to mull over the options and pick what we wanted and what we would pass on, like the ability to channel the energy of souls and thus, fry soul thieves.

That would have been a big, fat pass for me.

I remember watching Sleeping Beauty as a child with Mae, and the Three Good Fairies chose what the princess got for endowments. They opted for a fabulous singing ability and babe-worthy good looks. Apparently everyone in the kingdom was stupid, because no one gave the poor girl any BRAINS and she went and touched the damn spindle. I mean, for crying out loud, if you get to choose the genetics ya get, belting out show tunes and rosy lips should be low on the list of must-haves.

 
Sometimes I felt like I too was destined to screw up and touch the proverbial spindle . . . unless I could torch the spinning wheel first. The only problem was a certain soul thief, who didn’t seem too keen on having me test my wheel-frying abilities at all, especially after the Newport fiasco five weeks ago.

I needed a do-over from that night. We all did.

I glanced at Ana standing next to me. The snowflakes had begun to coat the top of her jacket’s hood. A few brave flakes descended onto her long eyelashes and she blinked them away as she rolled her lips, willing them to not freeze off.

She huffed out her disgust at our current state, the cold air turning her words into slanted puffs of smoky vapor. “This is the dumbest pastime on the planet. I mean, who thinks up activities like this? Does some moron decide that hypothermia prior to turkey is a great idea and everyone jumps on the bandwagon?” She brutally scrubbed the flakes off her parka, evicting them without remorse.

Truth was, as a Kansas native now calling Cape Cod home, I didn’t see the logic of surfing on Thanksgiving Eve either. Especially prior to the Nor’ Easter that was heading towards us and churning up some monster waves.  That said, however, this brilliant plan to freeze our butts off at Nauset beach was her idea. I decided not to remind her of that bit of info, since she was looking like a fairly pissed Popsicle anyway. I didn’t think that the stiff walking boot encasing her left leg helped either.

She wouldn’t have the darn thing if it
wasn’t for me.

Of course, she might not have her life anymore either, if I hadn’t done what I did. Luckily, she only had to wear it when we went out of the house for any length of time, as she was basically healed.

“Let’s give them ten more minutes, and then we can head back home,” I replied, giving her a small smile. She eyed me with a steely glare and then just shook her head, resigned, her eyes going back to the two soulless surfers in the waves.

I must admit that when I first moved to the Cape, nearly three months ago, I didn’t think Ana Lane and I would ever be more than classmates.
But now? Now I couldn’t imagine life without her. Through all the chaos that rained down on our lives over the past couple of months, she became more than just a short-statured blonde with a sharp tongue.

She became my best girl-pal ever.

She became the one I could divulge secrets to, horde chocolate with, and spill my guts to in the dead of night. And we stayed up late every Friday night, watching movies in her room.

Her room, which was now across from mine, since she had moved into 408 Main Street with me and my legal guardian Mae. She was my mother’s best friend until the night both my parents were killed in a car accident. I was only two when they died, and Mae had only just graduated high school, but she took me in. She loved me as her own and I have never seen her as anything other than a sister-like Mom who
m I have loved for the past sixteen years.

As for Ana, she wasn’t just a live-in BFF either. She was also one heck of an asset, especially in our motley crew. She was like an emotional psychic with a super-charged mind. She could understand what a person FELT, deep insid
e. Pick apart their true desire and either blab about it or modify it. She could take someone who was simply miffed and make her a raging maniac. She could take someone who was shy and make him crumble into oblivion. Or, she could make that one quiet wallflower become a fearless captain.

She was also getting better and better at reading memories. A few weeks ago she was able to link to my mind and view my nightmares regarding Elizabeth’s death. A death that ha
ppened nearly two centuries ago and that I had begun reliving in my dreams.

Unfortunately Ana couldn’t read the future, nor see the train wreck we hit head-on during the Fire and Ice Ball at The Newport Breakers.

Hey – nobody’s perfect.

If there was a plus side to my body going nuclear in the coal room of the Vanderbilt’s summer mansion, it was the simple fact that the bad guys were dead. Fried into dust by the soul-channeling energy I command.

Well, “command” may be a bit too strong of a word. I think I more or less barfed up a solar flare.

Luckily I didn’t remember much of it.

On the downside, I did nearly croak. Plus, I put a hole in the mansion that looked like a comet had struck. And while the mansion and I were finally on the mend, the fallout of what I did with Raef’s help was not soon forgotten.

Since the ball, Raef had been treating me with kid gloves and avoiding all physical contact – as if I resided inside a glass bubble. I was also sure he was haunted by the fact that he basically killed me that night in Newport. He never talked about it, which I didn’t think helped when it came to his new title:
Worry-Wart of the World.

I’ve
gotta say, having the boy who previously could make a kiss scorch right to your toenails, now start acting like one giant mother hen, was SO not sexy.

I missed his touch, his kisses, and the way his face became marked with beautiful black symbols when we were in one another’s arms. I missed him, all of him, but he seemed lost in his own painful world and he wouldn’t let me in.

In the first days after my weeklong hospital stay, it was a miracle if I was even able to escape to the bathroom alone. Mae was hovering, Raef was obsessing, Kian was patrolling, and poor MJ was semi-grounded. But Ana? Ana found it downright hilarious until she became more mobile and instantly joined my ranks in the dreaded “buddy-system.”

See, this was t
he problem with having immortal semi-boyfriends and an ice-cream wielding shape-shifter as bodyguards – they are great at their jobs, but go a bit overboard. Determined to not have Ana and me in danger again, the boys had devised the “Buddy System,” which basically meant we needed a male sidekick wherever we went. The feminist in both Ana and me bristled at the mandatory babysitting and defiantly referred to the boys plan as “BS.”

They weren’t amused.

So it was with no small amount of arm-twisting that we had managed to get Kian and Raef to go surfing, a whole sand dune and 50 yards of rolling ocean away from us. I think the only reason they finally agreed was because no one else was out here, freezing to death prior to a storm, and therefore the threat was minimized. We were also instructed to STAY at the top of the dune’s staircase, where they could easily see us. Of course, such a demand made the devilish urge to go and hide all the more tempting.

Like I said – it was all BS.

I watched as Kian and Raef sat on their new surfboards out in the water. They were talking to one another as they straddled the boards in their wetsuits, though Raef kept looking at me every two seconds. Technically, as immortal soul thieves, they didn’t need the protection from the frosty Atlantic, but flinging them out there in just some swim trunks would have drawn attention if anyone else had been as insane as we were.

Luckily, we were the only psychos on the beach.

The thickening storm clouds had blocked out the sun, and the brilliantly blue sky from earlier was now a brutish gray, speckled with hyperactive snowflakes. Ana said that a Thanksgiving storm like this was a rarity on the Cape. Of course, she also had extolled the virtues of surfing prior to pumpkin pie and, well, that wasn’t exactly accurate either.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” I asked, watching the waves where our bodyguards bobbed up and down.

“Pfft – wadda ya think? What they always obsess about. You. Me. How to lock us up in a tower with ten-foot thick walls and a fully outfitted army.” She stepped back slightly and brushed the snow off a small bench to sit down. I noticed Kian and Raef instantly stopped talking the second she moved, and were now watching her and scanning the surrounding area. They really needed to chill.

“How’s physical therapy?” I asked.

Ana sighed as she sat, “It’s fine. I swear though, they book me more often than everyone else just because of Kian. All the therapists just want to see him leaning against that damn back wall, looking all sorts of sexy. Drives me nuts. And he insists on taking me. Honestly, I don’t even think my therapist knows my last name! She sure as hell knows Kian’s though. My last session is Monday afternoon, thank goodness.”

I gave a small chuckle and she glared at me. Kian O’Reilly and Ana had met the summer before I came to Cape Cod. While both were somewhat tight-lipped about what had happene
d that summer, I knew one thing for certain: Ana and Kian had been desperately in love . . . until her abusive father had a heart attack and Kian refused to save him.

As soul thieves, Kian and Raef could steal the life force of their victims, but they also could share what they had stolen in a filtered form to heal a human. Kian had told Ana that her father was too weak to be saved and would have turned into a soul thief, like him. Ana didn’t believe him, calling him a murderer and banishing him from her life.

A year later, I arrived on the Cape and they collided once again. Kian had returned to sell his yacht, Cerberus, and Raef had come along. Raef soon figured out that I was the 4
th
great daughter of his former friend, Elizabeth, and he decided to protect me – because he failed to protect her in 1851. Kian had zero interest in the protection detail thing until he realized Ana was hanging out with me and she became a target by association. Pretty soon, I had two immortal guards that were technically my genetic enemies.

Fate works in some crackpot ways.

As for Ana and Kian . . . their relationship was a work in progress. I suspected Raef and I had a long way to go as well.

2
Raef

Five weeks ago, I nearly kille
d
the girl I loved.

It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a mistake.

I did it deliberately, and the feeling of her body weakening in my arms haunts me still, as if branded into my hands. The sound of her last, thin breath replays over and over in my mind, a taunting reminder of what I am capable of and what I had done.

She carries the mark of where I had forced a stolen soul into her - a thin, finger-long scar engraved between her breasts.

She tries to hide it, but I know it's there.

She will carry that scar to her grave, a permanent reminder of who I truly am - a killer, designed by the darker hand of fate.

The scar had bled down her beautiful, fair skin that night, turning the bodice of the white ball gown she had worn into a sickening, mottled pink. In my mind I see her, lifeless, tucked under me as I try to shield her from the pieces of falling stone and wood that rain down around us. Debris that was from the massive hole her energy had drilled through the Breakers. Energy that was unleashed when her body switched to overload, and her DNA hit the self-destruct button because of me.

Her power had wound around us like a snake of light and rocketed through the ceiling only to fall back, collapsing onto us. It had killed the clansman instantly . . . and halted
Eila’s heart.

I tried to go with her. Tried to poison myself with her
life-force by drawing it into my body, but I failed. She wasn’t toxic to me – she never was and never could be. I was left alive, desperately trying to restart her heart with MJ and Kian frantically attempting to help. Trying to save this one girl who had so profoundly changed all our lives, and who had sacrificed herself to protect us. To protect me, her historic enemy.

She had whispered into my cheek that she loved me, moments before I caused that scar. I hear her voice speak those words when I stand, alone at night, watching over her home. Praying I will catch anyone who means her harm before they come too close.

Before they have a chance to take her life . . . as I had.

I watch her now, standing with Ana as the snow swirls around them. She seems happy, healthy, and against all odds, alive.

She has told me, repeatedly, that it wasn't my fault. That we had no choice, that night in Newport, surrounded by Mortis who wanted her power.  She said she was dead no matter what, but at least she could give the rest of us a fighting chance at survival.

But I was, and am, her guard. I should have been more careful, more vigilant. I should have known, somehow, but I didn't see a friend’s betrayal coming. None of us did, and it was Eila who paid the price, and I the one who demanded the ultimate payment.

She was, is, my everything. My need to love her is like a physical demand that must be met for my survival, and for that reason, the fear that I may hurt her again is crushing. The terror that I may fail her again, as I failed her grandmother a century and a half ago, weighs more than the world.

She trusts me, loves me, and I
will not
lose her again.

But to protect her, I know I need to be stronger. Faster.
A perfect killer. I needed a Dealer, no matter the cost, no matter the risk. I would do it for her.

I wasn’t sure if I could tell Kian, because he may try to stop me, though he had no problem picking off a few people if it were necessary. And Christian I still didn’t quite trust, though I was certain he had the right connections to introduce me to the darkest corners of our kind.

So for now, I do what I can. I am hyper-vigilant, I try to stay nearby, and I try not to breech the wall I have built between us. A wall that is a necessity, because when I hold her, kiss her, and run my hands down her slender frame, I forget who I am. In her soft lips and breathy gasps I lose myself, and in doing so, she becomes vulnerable. Unprotected, because I am entirely distracted when she presses her beautiful body against mine. That wall, however, was beginning to feel more precariously erected with every passing day. As Eila grew stronger, my will to keep her at arm’s length weakened.

In the hospital we had made a deal: keep our hands off one another until she could use her power like the dangerous weapon it was designed to be and protect herself. I assumed I wouldn’t worry so much about her if I knew she could defend herself and I could draw her into my arms once again. Unfortunately, I overlooked one thing: I would NEVER stop worrying about Eila Walker. Even if she could crush the planet, I would still worry.

As I watched her in the center of the swirling snow, her chocolate hair twisting around her face, I knew I was in trouble.

She wanted to fight. I wanted her safe.

As she grew stronger, she began talking about training more and more. She wanted to attempt to call her power again and see if she could control it. But I had seen her power nearly kill her and take out half of a mansion. I saw it kill her grandmother, Elizabeth.

Kian, traitor that he was, told Eila it was her birthright to learn about her gift and protect herself. I wanted to stab him, even though I knew he was right.

But I couldn’t let her use her gift again, for I feared what her power could do to her. What if it collapsed on her again, and this time I couldn’t restart her heart? What if she practiced when I wasn’t there, and it injured her? Or even worse, what if she failed to protect herself from one of my kind and she was killed? The vision of her dying at the hands of a Mortis ran a bitter knife through my heart.

“What’s going through that thick head of yours?” asked Kian, rapping his knuckles on the edge of my board. A froth-tipped swell raised us a few feet and then dipped us into a watery valley, obscuring Eila from my view for a moment. I craned my neck to see her.

“She’s fine Raef. If you stare at her any longer, your eyeballs are going to burn a hole through the atmosphere.”

I glanced at
Kian, his blond hair swept back from his face, and wondered how he could be so calm. Ana had nearly died two days before the Fire and Ice Ball, attacked by a Mortis who had gotten into Eila’s house and threw her down a flight of stairs. He too knew what it was like to watch the girl he loved nearly fade from this world.

He had saved her life by sharing his pilfered
life-forces with her, nearly ending his own in the process. She didn’t know how far he had pushed himself to save her that day and he didn’t want her to know. I knew he had wanted to also heal her leg, but Eila’s energy release inside the Breakers had temporarily disabled our ability to heal . . . both ourselves and others. Thus, Ana was on the mend the old fashioned way, which bothered Kian more than he let on.

While there was no arguing that Kian could be a complete egotistical ass, he was loyal to our dysfunctional crew and endlessly devoted to keeping
Ana safe. And because Ana went where Eila did, he guarded them both, and for his help, I was truly grateful.

To say we were tight friends however, would be seriously overstating our relationship. We tolerated each other, disagreed on most things, but when it came to Eila and Ana, we were in perfect sync.

I also knew that his mind drifted to Ana like mine did to Eila. How far they got physically last summer was something he did not discuss. Yes, he was a jerk on occasion, but he also protected Ana’s privacy. God help the man who ever dared to touch Ana wrong . . . or Eila.

My Eila.

Not long ago, a drunken footballer named Teddy Bencourt nearly took something from her that she wasn’t willing to part with. I was almost too late, and seeing her fight him off caused the killer in me to burn like an Olympic torch. She had calmed me and I had yet to see the kid again, but if I did . . . not good.

“Do you hear me, man? You’ve got to ease up a bit. You look like
roadkill.”

I turned to him, giving him an unmistakable gesture with a certain finger.

He glanced over at Ana. She was talking to Eila and dusting off the pine bench near the top of the dunes. She moved to sit down and we automatically shifted our gazes to watch her and scan the area for any threat.

He looked back to me. “I’m serious though. When the hell was the last time you slept?”

“The night before the Breakers,” I replied, fully aware that even for my kind, 35 days without sleep was pushing past our supernatural limits. It was also the one and only time I had slept beside Eila. The memory of that night rushed into me and I closed my eyes to clear my head.

Complicating my fatigue was the fact that I wasn’t hunting animals very often. I never liked leaving Eila in anyone’s care but mine, but not stealing animal
life-forces on a regular basis was wearing me down. When I was truly desperate for a hit, injecting myself with corpse blood, which contained traces of a human life-force, would work. Briefly.

But what I really needed was a pure hit of power. I needed the soul of a living person.

“You are some kind of stupid, you know that?” grumbled Kian, shaking his head, which caused his board to subtly bounce in the water. “I know you are obsessed with her safety, but you are going to crash and burn at this rate, and you’ll be of no use to anyone. Get it together before you become a liability.”

I shook my head, “I’m okay. I’ll be fine.”

Kian looked at me and his face was serious, “No you’re not, and soon you won’t be.”

I knew he was right, but more importantly I knew that only as my true self could I ever be
Eila’s savior. Only as a killer of mankind could I fully protect the girl I loved.

Which was why I needed to find a Dealer . . . and soon.