Tempest of Vengeance (35 page)

Later, I made V and me a quick lunch, and as
I was clearing the dishes, the doorbell rang. Devlin went and got
it, which I thought was odd, and figured he must be expecting
someone. When he came back, he handed me a bouquet of what had to
be five dozen roses, fire and ice of course. But the bigger
surprise was what was in the huge sheaf of papers he handed me.

“What’s this?”

“Our Oath contract,” he said with a faint
smile. “Legal protection for me, and for you. Just like a prenup,
save of course, we are already Oathed.”

Shit, I’d never read through all this, not in
a week. It was now or never in terms of trusting him. “Tell me what
it says, so I can feel comfortable signing it.”

Devlin gave me a soft look. “It says if I
die, you and V get everything I have, save what is for my trusted
employees, like Lash and Titus.”

“But you said if you died, I and everything
you own went to the vampire who kills you.”

“Go to Michael, as I said. Take this, and V,
and he will see you get what this refers to, as well as protecting
you. There is a great deal of hidden money, Sar, and other assets.
No smart being who has lived through centuries keeps even half his
wealth under his own name. As it was, I am sure half of Ebediah’s
assets eluded me, even though Titus found a good deal of hidden
caches in his castle. He was too old to have so little.”

“What else does it say?”

“Basically, that I am to deny you nothing you
ask me for, if you hold to the conditions of your Oath. And it says
the same for you, and spells out what we swore to the night before
last. We would have signed it yesterday, but your mating to Lash
had to be added in, in terms of what he and you promised to each
other, and to me.”

“And if I break my Oath to you?”

“That I owe you nothing, and you must leave
Hayden, if I ask you to, leaving Venus here with me.” Devlin’s
voice had turned hard. I debated asking for more details, but I
wasn’t the one who’d most likely break the Oath, so it didn’t
matter that much. Which led me to say, “And if you break it?”

“That you can leave me, or stay here, and I
still must deny you nothing, not money, not Venus, not even my
blood, or my body, if you still wanted me as your lover.” Devlin’s
voice was more than a little sad. “My lawyer was not happy, but I
told him that it had to be that way, that I had told you it would
be.”

“And Lash?”

“In addition to his promise to you, he is
named as something like executor, should something happen to me and
if he survives me. He is also named as the guardian for you and for
V, should he survive you as well. He can act as me, in the event of
my death. I’ve given him the power to do everything I do, complete
control. And if he should be dead, that power passes to you.”

This was pre-nup, marriage contract, will,
and also power of attorney.
Shit
.

I skipped to the last page, 562, and signed
on the bottom. Devlin did as well.

Lash came in for a moment, and when Devlin
explained to him, and answered his questions

almost the exact ones I had asked

he signed it as well. Devlin took the signed copy,
and placed it in the prepaid FedEx Next Day Air pouch, and sealed
it. “Drop it off when you are out?” he asked, handing it to Lash.
Lash nodded.

Devlin kissed me good-bye, and I kissed him
back, stunned, but also grateful that he had done this for me.

* * * *

Five minutes to 2 pm. found Lash and me
waiting outside in Ros’s office, Elle having just gone in. But this
time I’d come prepared, and brought two books. Lash had as well.
Today he was reading the collected works of Frank Miller’s
Batman
. He seemed to be enjoying it. At least, he wasn’t
scowling.

Almost two hours later, Elle appeared, Ros
behind her. She smiled at me, and then her eyes rested on Lash. She
motioned to me to come in, indicating to bring him, too.

Great.
I nudged him, and told him the
therapist wanted to see us.

Lash shot me an alarmed look. “Not again! I
don’t have anything to say,” he hissed. “I didn’t come here for
that.”

“Then come in and just refuse to talk,” I
said, standing.

Lash sighed and got up. We went in and
settled into the couch. It was comforting that this time, I could
snuggle into him without feeling any guilt. He wrapped one arm
around me, stroking my side gently. Ros looked at us for a few
seconds and smiled. “You seem to have resolved your relationship,”
she said pleasantly. “You seem to be happy together.”

“We are mated now,” Lash hissed, and grinned.
“And we are both very happy.”

“Are you?” she said, her voice sliding into a
probing tone. “What about Devlin?”

“What about him?” Lash answered abruptly,
changing at once, his eyes going flat and his clipped words sliding
into a hiss.

“I know him. I know that he would not have
let Sarelle just be with you, excluding him. So my guess is you’re
sharing her.”

“So what?” Lash hissed angrily. “Sar wanted
that.”

“Did she? Or did she do it just to be with
you, because she loves you?”

Lash didn’t look at me, but I took a breath
anyway and spoke, because I was not going to stand for him being
made to feel guilty for anything, not anymore. “I gave Dev an Oath
of my own free will, Ros. Last time, Devlin demanded it. This time,
I told him I had several conditions, and he agreed to all of them.
He spoke them as part of the Oath—”

“It’s true, I heard them,” Lash
interjected.

“—
and I told him if he screwed up
again, that was it, we were finished.”

“Do you really believe he’ll let you go, if
he screws up?” Rosalyn said, looking at me like she was surprised I
could be so naive. “Which, by the way, is a question of ‘when,’ not
‘if’?”

I was beginning to get annoyed. It was one
thing for me to think Devlin was a jerk. It was another to hear
someone else say it, after how much he had been trying lately not
to be one. “Yes, I just signed a paper not three hours ago—”

“No, I know he won’t,” Lash hissed, his eyes
locked on Rosalyn’s. “But if that happens, I’ll ask Sar what she
wants to do. If she wants to leave him, I’ll help her do it.”

“You’re going to kill him for her?” Rosalyn
said quietly. “Because you and I both know that’s the only way
he’ll ever let her go. He’s never relinquished anything he
considered his.”

“I’m not killing him, not ever!” Lash hissed,
baring his fangs wide. He got to his feet, and stared at her. “And
we are done here. I don’t have casual conversations with creatures
that ask me to kill my friends. And know that if you weren’t
helping Elle, I’d torch your office with you in it, just for saying
that in front of me.”

Lash strode to the door, and through it,
slamming it hard behind him. Ros seemed unconcerned, and turned to
me.

“Sarelle, I’m sorry, if my questions upset
you—”

“They don’t upset me,” I said, getting to my
feet. “I just think they are pointless. I need Dev’s protection. I
have a child with him. And part of me just flat loves him, despite
what he is, and was—”

“And will be?” Ros added, looking up at
me.

“That too,” I said, and turned to leave.

“Sarelle—”

“Why did you ask us to come in and talk now?
To upset my mate? What?”

“I want to make sure you are making choices
for the right reasons.”

“What are the right reasons, Ros? Because I
want to, or because it makes the most sense? Because of emotions,
or because of reason? You talk to people, and some say one and some
say the other—”

“Which is yours, for Oathing to Devlin?”

“Both,” I said, looking at her with my hand
on the door. “Because down deep, it’s what I want right now, to
live with Lash and he at Hayden, to be with my daughter, and to be
near Danial, even if he doesn’t know me.”

“Then you did it for the right reasons,” Ros
said, looking at me with a serious expression. “I truly hope it
works out for you.”

“Me, too,” I said quietly, and then I left,
shutting the door behind me.

* * * *

The day of the fight approached. Devlin and
Lash spent a good deal of time sparring in the gym each morning.
Every following afternoon, women came to feed Devlin, to replenish
the blood and energy he lost at Lash’s hands. The intensity of
their training was impressive, especially as the fighting they were
doing was hand to hand combat without any weapons, save fangs.
Devlin had explained that his fight with Ulysses would be with no
weapons, and no armor, giving me angst that Ulysses would find a
way to bring in some hidden weapon, a concern I didn’t voice. This
wasn’t my Oathed vampire’s first Challenge. Like Theo before him,
Dev needed my surety in his triumph. My belief in him, coupled with
his relentless training worked. Each morning when he got up, Devlin
seemed stronger and faster than ever. Yet by the end of the day,
Devlin would be so exhausted he would fall asleep in my arms right
after we kissed goodnight.

Lash took the opportunity while Devlin was
feeding in the evenings to spend time with me. He would often tell
me he wanted to thank me for lunch, and spirit me away for a few
hours of gentle lovemaking and talking in his bedroom, or
Devlin’s.

One afternoon, as Lash was drawing a bath for
us in his room, I was jerked out of my languor, seeing a familiar
speck struggling in the water. I made a lunge, almost shoving Lash
into the filling tub as I dove for the drowning spider. He went to
one knee with a surprised hiss, but he caught himself with his fast
reflexes, steadying himself. “Sar, what the hell are you
doing?”

I didn’t reply, frantically reaching for the
little dot, but missed, the dying creature swirling through my
fingers. I made another slower grab, but missed again, and let out
a little cry of frustration. I bit my lip, and slowly cupped my
hands underneath him, and brought him up out of the water,
breathing a sigh of relief. I very carefully dripped the dot in
some water on the edge of the tub, and watched hopefully for signs
of life. But though the legs of the spider twitched a few times, he
didn’t scuttle away. I decided with sorrow that I’d been too late,
and settled into the water with a dejected sigh.

Lash climbed in with me, but didn’t speak. He
and I watched the spider for a while, but it didn’t move. I blew a
little on the motionless creature, but only succeeded in blowing
him off the edge of the tub into a dark shadowy spot between the
tub and the wall.
At least I won’t have to see the tiny
corpse.

“Is she dead?” Lash said quietly.

True, most spiders were female, though I’d
always thought of them as male. “Yes, he’s dead,” I said, feeling
tears start immediately. “I was too late, and I didn’t notice in
time.”

“Sar, it’s okay, it’s just a spider, there
are a lot more outside—”

I began to bawl in earnest, and Lash pulled
me over close to him in the water so I was cradled against his
chest, not saying anything. He held me for a long time, and rubbed
my back, and eventually, I stopped crying.

“I would never have guessed you had such a
soft spot for spiders,” Lash whispered, kissing my forehead. “But
maybe I should have, seeing how you feel about snakes.”

I smiled a little at that and hugged him, but
I didn’t tell him what the spider had represented to me. What I’d
shared with Danial had been between us, and that long ago spider
that had surely perished when my house burned. I hadn’t saved
either of them, in the end. But when I’d had a choice to help, or
not help, I’d done as much as I could. That had to count for
something.

When Lash and I got out of the bathtub, I
went to his sliding glass door, and out on his deck. It was a
beautiful sunny day, almost sixty, very abnormal weather for this
time of year. But tomorrow, the day of the fight, a snowstorm was
coming in, and the temperatures would plunge back to freezing. Lash
had taken the afternoon off, saying days like this came only once a
decade in winter, and he wanted to enjoy it with me. I sat down
looked out over Hayden, thinking about how beautiful it would all
look in summer. It would be partly mine, too, something I still
found unbelievably exciting.

“Sar, come quick!” Lash said from inside the
house. “I think your spider is alive!”

I bolted to my feet, and ran inside. Lash was
shining a flashlight into the dark corner where the spider had
fallen when I’d blown on him. I looked, and sure enough, the spider
was sitting there. I blew on it a little, and it scuttled quickly
away into a crevice. An overwhelming sense of relief flooded me,
that I hadn’t been too late after all.

“Now I’m going to have to remember to look
for Frank every time we do this,” Lash commented with a rueful
smile. “I don’t want him to die now, after he’s gotten a second
chance at life.”

“Frank?”

“Why not? If we’re going to save his life,
and you’re going to cry over him, we might as well name him. And
you know I like Miller.”

I giggled. “That’s as good a reason as any, I
guess.”

* * * *

The day of the fight dawned, with gusting
snow and bitter cold. At high noon, Lash and I drove Devlin in one
of the Hummers to the site of the battle, a towering graveyard
mausoleum high on a hill that had recently been completed. The
granite wasn’t weathered, the carvings in the stone very easy to
read.

Ulysses was already there, waiting in his
car.

Everyone got out of the vehicles as soon as
we’d parked. Like Devlin, Ulysses was completely clothed in armor,
with a visored helmet. As agreed, he’d brought only one of his men
with him, but though the man was not a demon, he was as big as
Titus.