Chapter Eleven
Chris waited for Michael to leave, then he got dressed and followed. He’d do anything for Michael. He’d told the soulless about the way the modern hunters operated, how to avoid getting their attention. Which cities they frequented, who led. Even about the Chroniclers, what he’d found out before he left New York. About the son of a bitch Samuel and that bitch Thalya who’d made a fool of him. He told the soulless everything. And more. He was sorry he’d missed Samuel when he’d taken a shot at him before he’d left the East Coast. But he had helped Scott kill one of his own people. No not his own, he had no more people, none who were human.
Chris knew he wasn’t quite human anymore, not much of his humanity left, not when he was taking Michael’s blood. Not when he craved it more than he needed air. Some part of him realized he was an addict, unable to help himself. He’d sold his soul, but it wasn’t enough. He had hate in his heart, hate for them all, except for Michael. He loved the soulless and he’d begun to understand why Michael couldn’t love him back. Chris was his redemption but he couldn’t see it. That damned Chronicler stood in the way.
Took a while, but Chris had a plan now, everything was all set up. Scott needed his help for something he didn’t want Michael to know about. Scott thrived on despair and deception. He got off on Chris’ situation. Chris knew it but no longer gave a shit. Scott agreed with him though, the woman had to die. Chris wanted to be the one to kill her, freeing Michael from her spell, because the Chroniclers were fucking witches. Then Michael would be free of her tricks and would finally accept his love.
He followed Michael slowly in his car, knowing that the metal of the car helped to hide his presence from the soulless. But Chris also knew how to mask himself, he had once been a hunter, trained by the master hunter Samuel himself. Just a year ago, Chris had even led the Los Angeles group. Before the position had been taken from him and given to that bastard Devlin. They’d pay for that shit. He’d make them all fucking pay.
Michael walked like a normal person the last few blocks to the restaurant, so he could feed a bit on the depravity of others along the way. He could see the currents as the sidewalk released some of the heat from the day. But it hadn’t really dissipated. If anything, it was an even more humid night. For some reason, heat seemed to bring out more of an unease amongst humans, and he savored it off those closest to him. Deliberately brushing up against the crowd as he moved among them, absorbing their emotions. He would need it when he faced Evangeline.
She was different from other humans, but then again he suspected the Chroniclers were perhaps more than merely human. For one thing, she could withstand his stare. Anyone else, he would have been able to control. Each time they’d been together, he found himself unable to read her, that alone was rare and made him curious. Curious enough to change his mind about killing her as Abel had wanted and instead, consider the possibility she may hold the key to his own redemption.
Something caught his eye, movement in the alley. He could see very well in the shadowy depths; a man was dragging a woman behind a trashcan. From the way her legs were kicking at the ground, she didn’t seem to want to go willingly. Her fear infused the air and he inhaled it, tasted it as he did the man’s determination and glee. Michael drank in both like a starving man. The man had one hand over the woman’s mouth so she couldn’t scream and the other around her torso. Her arms were waving wildly around trying to grab at him, to stop him. Her eyes found Michael’s as he stood on the sidewalk watching. As soon as she saw him, her brown eyes opened wider, pleading for his help.
He could have told her he was no savior, far from it. Still, he took that first step out of the light and into the welcoming darkness of the alleyway.
“Hey man, go away. This ain’t none of your fuckin’ business,” her assailant ground out.
“Perhaps.” Then Michael’s lips curled up at the edges in an imitation of a smile.
The man’s eyes widened. He shifted the knife he held at the woman’s chest and pointed it in his direction.
Michael merely raised one eyebrow at the fool. Then he captured the man’s gaze, drawing him into the depths of his barren core. Drinking in the man’s terror and rage at being thwarted. Oh yes, Michael planned on taking in even more. “Release her.” It was a command, one the human could not refuse.
The man’s hand came away from the woman’s waist, he released his hold on her. She immediately fell to the ground. Michael didn’t bother to glance at her. He merely said one word: “Run.”
The woman scrambled to her feet, the man, however, seemed to be frozen in shock and fright. Michael could hear the woman’s footsteps recede as she ran from the alley in the direction of the sidewalk toward the light.
By the time his prey realized he should run too, it was too late. Much too late.
One moment Michael had been several feet away from the man, in the next he was near enough to grab the assailant by the throat. His fingers curled around the human’s neck and he shoved him up against the wall. Holding him in place, he sank his teeth into the pulsing vein in the soon to be dead man’s neck, taking in all of the man’s emotions with the life sustaining elixir. When he’d had his fill, he dropped him to the trash strewn ground, like the garbage he was.
Michael gleaned from the asshole, this would not have been his first rape but it would be his last. Without a backwards glance, he turned around and continued on his way to meet his date for the evening. He hoped tonight, he could at last have Ms. Evangeline, and if he were very lucky, she would be the one to make him feel the emotion he hungered for most.
Well sated, he entered the restaurant. The maître d’ showed him to the table he’d reserved. A curtained booth secluded from the other patrons. The curtains were partially drawn. He ordered a Cabernet, a bottle of Ridge Monte Bello 2012. He couldn’t enjoy the taste the way a human would but after he had his fill on emotions, it had become a drink of choice…one he could feel a little in this state.
The sommelier had just left the table after pouring when Michael raised his gaze to the front of the restaurant. While the curtain might prevent prying eyes from observing him, he on the other hand could see quite well. He watched Evangeline speak to the hostess who showed her over to the table.
She did look very beautiful, with her hair that held three or four different shades of browns and reds hanging over her shoulders. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to see it in the midday sun anytime soon. She was dressed for pleasure, in her gray sleeveless silk blouse with a neckline dipping just above her breasts. Her caramel colored arms were slender and toned. He knew she could fight, but tonight she didn’t carry a sword strapped at her back. But she wore dark pants that flared on the bottom, so perhaps she wore a knife sheathed at her ankles. He found himself, thanks to his stolen emotions, able to smile at the thought of her always armed and ready for action. She had nothing to fear from him.
Michael stood up at her approach. “Thank you for joining me.” He stepped forward and kissed her cheek before she sat down, then he sat across from her and took his glass. “I took the liberty of ordering a bottle for us to get started.”
Evangeline examined the bottle first. “Very nice, a good year.” Then she picked up her glass and clicked it against his.
“Let’s hope this one will be even better. To possibilities,” he said.
“To possibilities,” she agreed and took a sip. “Mmm, very nice.”
“Are you sure?” Devlin asked Tony.
“See for yourself.”
Devlin sat in Tony’s car, and Tony pulled out his phone and showed him the video he’d taken a little while ago of a soulless draining a man in the alley. The same bastard who sat in the restaurant with Evangeline, which is why Tony called him in. “Delete the video, Tony.” He watched as the man did. “Is it on your iCloud?”
“No, you know I don’t leave traces.”
“Good. I can’t believe he fucking let the woman go.”
“It’s clear he saved her. That man would have killed her or worse if he hadn’t stepped in.”
“Fuck.”
“So what do we do, boss?”
“We catch the bastard and ask him a few questions. Then when we’re done we send him back to hell where he should have been sent in the first place.”
“You sure? He didn’t hurt the woman.”
“No. We’ll see. Just because he let the woman go doesn’t mean he hasn’t outright killed before for the hell of it. And I’m still not sure why he didn’t kill them both. From the looks of things, the woman had enough terror running through her veins I’m sure to satisfy him for a week.”
“Works for me. But how are we going to handle this?”
Devlin wanted to march right into the damn restaurant and take the fucker’s head, but he knew he couldn’t do it. Not in front of Evangeline. So that means they’d have to wait. “We wait and follow him once he leaves.”
His heart hurt like a sonofabitch at finding Eva with the bastard. On another date! How could she leave his bed or her bed just a couple of nights ago and be out with this fucker now? He’d been her first. Was that the first of many now? They’d been avoiding each other. He’d been fooling himself thinking they just needed to screw once to get each other out of their systems. Such a damn fool. He might as well say he would cut out his heart.
When she’d tossed him out of her house after the shower, he should have felt relief. Instead, all he felt was pissed and a little sad he couldn’t hold her in his arms for the rest of the night. That she didn’t want him to hold onto her. That shit hurt. But it was nothing compared to seeing her here. With him.
At first, Devlin breathed a sigh of relief when the valet brought around Eva’s car. The date was over. But that breath got stuck in his gut when he realized the dude got into the passenger seat of her car. She was giving him a ride. Devlin tagged them all the way to her fucking house. He hung back, watching as she pulled into her drive but waited for the bastard to get out and then they walked inside together.
“Ah, hell no.” He paused long enough for the front door to close, then he was out of his car like a bullet released from the chamber of a gun. Tony right behind him. He didn’t bother with the bell. He banged on the goddamn door.
Michael wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her flush against his body. He was about as tall and slightly more muscled than Devlin.
For Eva, the feeling was different. Her panties would have been drenched by now with Devlin. No, she had to stop thinking about him. She didn’t have a lot of experience with men. Devlin had been the first she’d been intimate with but she had to give Michael a chance. This was her destiny. Wasn’t it?
When he lowered his head and placed his lips over hers, she pressed closer to him, tightening her arms around his neck waiting for the explosion between them. Instead, she heard banging, her temples throbbed. This is all wrong.
Eva pulled back and that’s when she realized the thumping didn’t come from inside her head but someone was actually banging on her front door. Stepping out of Michael’s embrace, she headed to the entrance to see who would be knocking on her door at such a late hour of the night. She already suspected who it would be.
When she looked through the viewing window and saw the familiar dirty blond hair. Her heart swelled. She wasn’t surprised he’d shown up. Glancing over her shoulder, she spied Michael standing there. His posture was relaxed, but she sensed an alertness about him. No question he was a beautiful male, but she was no longer so sure he was the right one for her.
She opened the door, but not all the way and stood at the entrance so Devlin, and was that Tony standing behind him? Couldn’t come in. Fat lot of good it did. Devlin pushed his way past her and into her house. He had his sword out before she could open her mouth to protest. She swung around in time to see Michael had drawn his own short blade. Where the hell had that come from? Maybe he carried it strapped to his ankle like she sometimes did. She needed to stop this from escalating but too late, Tony came in gun drawn and shot Michael in the heart. It took her a second to realize he used a silencer. The bigger man’s frame crumpled and he went down to his knees, his head bent. The tips of his dark hair brushed against her wooden floor.
“No!” she screamed.
Tony rushed forward and kicked the blade out of Michael’s hand and Devlin placed his sword at Michael’s throat.
It all happened from one breath to the next but finally she found the rest of her voice. “What the hell is wrong with you? He hasn’t done anything! Leave him alone.”
Tony closed the front door as she turned to face Devlin.
Devlin never took his gaze off Michael.
Michael raised his head, a flash seemed to cross his dark eyes bringing a brightness to it if only for a moment.
She blinked and it was gone.
The two men continued to stare at each other. Michael’s expression might as well have been one of a man simply staring at a tree, he gave nothing away.
Evangeline walked over to Devlin and touched his arm, attempting to get him to lower the sword. She couldn’t budge him. “Devlin?”
“He’s a bloodsucking soulless, Evangeline.”
“I know.”
That got his attention. His head snapped up and their eyes locked. “What the fuck? So you believed me and still you went out with him again.”
“I know. I’ve always known.”
“Then why the hell are you going out with him?”
“He—I-I thought. I thought I might be his redemption.” She watched as confusion then anger travel across his features.
“Fuck no,” the words came out more snarl than vowels from Devlin.
She nodded her head.
“No. No. Fuck to the hell NO! He’s a killer, Eva. He kills his prey.”
She shook her head now. “No, Michael’s no killer.” She was very aware of his file. After their first meeting, once she suspected what he was, she checked their database of the soulless in the area. She knew all about Michael. He did not kill to feel.
“Tell her,” Devlin said, speaking to Michael.
Michael sat back on his hunches, his hand over the hole in his chest. The dark blood had stopped running. A bullet wouldn’t kill his kind, slow them down, hurt like the devil, but not kill. The bullet pushed out of the hole in his chest and into his hand. He dropped it on the floor. “We are all killers. And yes, I’ve killed.”
“Just recently,” Devlin murmured. “On the way to meet you tonight.”
Eva gasped and took a step back, staring at Michael. “No. What? Why?”
His gaze moved over to her. “The ones I’ve killed have always deserved it.”
“You sonofabitch. Who are you to decide who lives and who dies?” Devlin shouted.
“I have as much right to decide as you do, perhaps even more if the rumors are to be believed. I do after all, fallen or not, outrank you on the evolutionary chain.” Michael’s lips curled in contempt but nothing could light up those deep dark eyes. “But like you, I kill to survive. Unlike you, I don’t kill an innocent. The man I killed tonight was no innocent.”