Chapter Four
Walking through Ţărână was like seeing a miniature ship inside a glass bottle and wondering how the hell it got in there. Because the same thought struck Charlize about this town.
How the hell did Happy Valley end up inside a cave?
Dark brown, uneven rock surrounded the town top to bottom and on all sides, yet the place was utterly enchanting. The main source of light came from huge, ceiling-mounted, spotlight-type contraptions, but these didn’t douse the town in a wash of ugly fluorescence, rather a warm, sunny glow. All the buildings seemed to have been built with charm in mind: Aunt Ælsi’s Coffee Shop looked like it was made from gingerbread with its scalloped trim, the TradeMark clothing store’s window display was full of cheerful mannequins, the façade of Garwald’s Pub’s was rough-hewn wood directly out of a spaghetti western, and Marissa’s Restaurant was fronted with a window of chic etched glass.
Inside, booths lined two of the walls while an array of tables occupied the center of the room. All were covered in white tablecloths and set with silver-rimmed china and crystal. The restaurant could probably seat between thirty-five and forty diners, more if the tables were pushed closer together. Charlize guessed it was spaced this way on purpose, to provide privacy and opportunities for romance.
Along Main Street, there seemed to be a scarcity of people…although maybe that was because all the men had magically disappeared. The women, on the other hand, appeared to be fascinated with Charlize, casting her those small-town type of looks that said they knew all the dirt about her already—which was plenty—and were eager to see what she might bone up next.
The three of them—Kimberly, Breen, and Charlize—arrived at a majestic, four-story hospital building. Just beyond, Charlize spotted a residential neighborhood, but she only caught a glimpse of it before they entered the medical building. They pushed through a set of swinging double doors, where a dark-haired woman in scrubs and a pink smock waited for them. She introduced herself as Shaston and directed their group into a room of typical medical sterility—white, clean, no frills.
Breen was released from his shackles and immediately asked to lie on an exam bed, where he was restrained again. Thick leather cuffs were secured around both his wrists and ankles, then attached to the bedrails, and, okay, even though Breen had recently turned into that guy in a bar who got into a brawl if someone dared to accidentally bump into his stool, it didn’t seem right to confine the poor man. In the gym, Breen had just been trying to get some poontang, and it wasn’t like he’d forced himself on her. She’d been totally willing. All this locking-up seemed kind of like an inhuman and mean thing to do to a man who wasn’t even supposed to be punished.
Through it all, Breen never took his eyes off her, watching her in a way she’d never been looked at before, his chin slightly down, his gaze pinned on her through a reckless fall of black hair, like a wild cat peering through a jungle at night, sizing up a meal. The illusion was enhanced by the color of his eyes. Pure tequila gold. The hairs on her nape lifted, like she was being stalked. Like she was prey. Although she had the sense that if Breen planned to eat her, it’d be in the good way. Her sexually-frustrated vagina wasn’t averse to the idea.
Toni arrived, Kimberly left, and Charlize gestured at Breen. “Is this really necessary?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Toni answered. “Breen is going to do everything he can to try and complete the bond with you.”
“Bond?” Charlize mentally stumbled over that one. What, like, bondage and BDSM stuff?
Toni worked at inserting an IV in Breen’s wrist. “In Vârcolac biology, the combination of you being bitten by Breen followed by sexual intercourse with him would equal a marriage being formed between you two. A permanent one.”
Charlize scrunched up one side of her mouth as she tried to urge her brain to comprehend what Toni had just said. It took a couple of beats for her to realize it was just more Chinese. And this was exactly why she’d hated biology in high school. It never made sense.
Toni smiled at her. “Don’t worry, you’ll eventually understand all of this, and until then we’ll keep you and Breen apart.” Toni plunged some medication into Breen’s IV line.
Within a minute, his eyelids flagged to half-mast.
Toni set out an array of hypos on a metal tray, gave the nurse in the pink smock some quiet instructions, then escorted Charlize toward the door.
Breen showed them his teeth, and Toni paused.
“I’m taking Charlize directly to the mansion,” she told him in a firm, reassuring way. “She’ll stay there. No men will be allowed near her at any time.”
Charlize rolled her eyes as she exited. Aggressive men were okay. Overly possessive ones were a drag who cramped her style. Anyone interested in doing that could consider himself excused from her life.
At the door to Charlize’s mansion bedroom, Toni gave her another encouraging smile. “Just make sure to read the community manual, Charlize. A lot will become clear to you then.”
Jesus. More pushiness about the frigging manual. Did the thing describe how to turn a turd into gold or something?
“I will.” Charlize closed the door, sagged back against it, and released a long breath.
Freakiest three hours of her life.
* * *
Hadley Wickstrum’s Welcome-Back-To-Ţărână reception completely lacked fanfare.
Disappointment tugged at her in a niggling way when she saw only one person waiting for her in the garage. Maybe she felt a tug of worry too. Was the community upset with her for leaving so abruptly—and huffily—four years ago? Of course, she hadn’t expected chilled champagne, tray-passed canapés, and a barbershop quartet, but she sort of figured she’d be greeted by more than the one man she didn’t want to see.
Her ex-boyfriend, Thomal Costache.
Still gorgeous. Still styling his hair into a blond flattop. Still totally do-able. He hadn’t changed much since she last saw him, except his body had filled out—and he’d been no milquetoast before—and he gave off a calmer energy. During the five months she dated him, he’d always seemed so angry…something she handily ignored, seeing as he was such a perfect specimen of arm candy.
But arm candy seemed to be a drug of choice for her, leading her to repeatedly make bad decisions. So far in her life, the glitzy type had brought her nothing but trouble and disappointment. Look at her ex-husband, Phil. He was a flashy New York attorney with a flamboyant lifestyle and magazine-cover looks—no joke, Phil had earned his way through law school as a model—and how had that ended?
In divorce.
So she was done with those types. Next guy she dated would be a regular Joe, a down-to-earth guy with dirt under his fingernails who dealt with screwdrivers and hammers rather than keyboards and iPads.
“Hey, Hadley,” Thomal greeted her warmly. “Welcome home.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. Home. She hadn’t felt like she truly belonged anywhere ever since leaving Ţărână. “Thank you, Thomal.”
“Sorry no one else is here to say hi.” He hefted her two suitcases out of the trunk of the Lincoln Town car that’d picked her up at the airport. “The community is in a bit of an uproar right now. There’s been a UB, and an emergency court session was called.”
“Oh.” Well, at least it wasn’t because she was unpopular. “What’s a UB?”
“An Unauthorized Bite.”
“Sounds dramatic,” she said, just to say something. She had no idea what it was.
“Yeah. I can’t remember anything like this ever happening before.” Thomal set down her two suitcases, closed the trunk, then stood with his hands on his waist. His perfectly proportioned physique managed to turn simple blue jeans and a white T-shirt into haute couture. “Plus, I wanted some time alone with you first off, to work out any awkwardness between us, if there is any.”
“Okay.” She clutched her shoulder bag to her waist and waited.
He didn’t say anything.
“Do you feel awkward?”
“No.”
He wouldn’t, though, would he? She was nearly one-hundred-percent certain she wouldn’t have been allowed back in the community if Thomal had objected even a teensy bit. “Well, I don’t either.” The shoulder strap on her purse flopped down. She hiked it back up. “Seeing you now, I realize I’m completely over you.”
He cracked a smile.
“No offense,” she added quickly.
“None taken. But…” His smile slowly closed off. “I also wanted to say I’m sorry about the way things went down between us, Had. I never meant for you to get hurt, although I don’t regret how everything ended up working out. I would’ve made you a lousy mate. Fate saved us from making a big mistake.”
Now she did bristle. Thomal was thanking Fate for sticking him with a half-demon degenerate for a wife rather than a mistake like Hadley? Gosh, could the man be any more flattering?
“And I’m really glad you’re back in Ţărână. In fact, I wish you hadn’t felt like you needed to leave when we broke up.”
She looked away from him. Ţărână’s garage was packed with vehicles ranging from a school bus—painted plain gray—to compact meh unnoticeables, to a few sporty numbers, to two Harley Davidson motorcycles. She sniffed. “We needed space from each other, Thomal. You had a difficult marriage to figure out.” And she’d been in a righteous snit over being dumped for a woman who supposedly raped Thomal. The supposedly part might be unfair, but as she understood it, a Vârcolac couldn’t perform sexually until he willingly bit a host. So how sex could’ve been forced under those limitations was something she’d never fully grasped.
Not that she even distantly cared anymore. If Thomal preferred a half-demon degenerate to Hadley, let him have her. Scrubbing her knuckles across her nose, she smiled tightly. “And I had my own marriage to go off and ruin.” Had she been on an angry rebound from Thomal when she’d hooked up with Phil? Probably.
“I’m sorry,” Thomal said softly. “I heard about your divorce.”
She lifted a single shoulder.
“Hadley!”
She spun around at the shout.
A woman had just entered the garage, a toddler girl propped on her hip, and—My God! It was Hadley’s dearest friend in the community! “Marissa!” she called back, and hurried over.
Even though Hadley hadn’t kept in touch with anyone in Ţărână, she’d missed Marissa. The two of them had been brought into the community the same harrowing night four and a half years ago, when the warriors saved them from a demon race known as Om Rău. That night they were both kidnapped and forced to witness a rape…and experiences like that tended to connect people for life.
“It’s so good to see you.” Hadley hugged the half of her friend that wasn’t holding a baby, then ducked down to peer at the toddler. “And who’s this?” The little girl was happily chewing on a teething ring, plenty of slobber on her chin.
“This is my daughter, Maylie.”
“Lord, she’s adorable.” She was, too, with chubby cheeks and her mother’s tarnished blond hair tied with ribbons into a couple of pigtails. Hadley glanced up. “So you ended up with Dev Nichita?”
Chuckling, Marissa indicated her daughter with a head nod. “Can’t you tell by the eyes?”
The baby’s eyes were a clear, vivid hue of silver, exactly like Dev’s. Hadley smiled. “The rest of her is pure you, though.”
Marissa widened her own smile. “You should see our three-year-old son, Randon. He’s Dev’s replica.”
“You have a son too?” It was difficult for Hadley to arrange another smile on her face when her throat was narrowing around a soggy lump of envy. Motherhood was beginning to seem like a distant dream for her. Of course returning to the community was supposed to fix that. “Do you have children?” she asked Thomal.
Pride warmed his entire face. “A two-year-old son. Lucca.”
Hadley swallowed. “H-how wonderful.”
Marissa adjusted the baby on her hip. “A lot has changed since you’ve been gone, Hadley. We definitely need to catch up, and I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. My friend, Charlize, was in court a little while ago, and I wanted to be there for her.”
Hadley nodded. “Thomal explained.”
“What was the verdict?” Thomal asked Marissa.
“Not guilty.”
“No shit?” Thomal snorted. “Hell, I thought Breen was sunk.”
Breen. Hadley didn’t remember anyone by that name.
“Kimberly really went scorched earth in court today.” Marissa tugged Maylie’s flowered shirt down her pudgy belly. “I tell you, that Dragon is a serious dragon lady when she’s going against Roth. I get the impression there’s an old animosity between those two, but whenever I ask Toni about it, she gives me nothing but vague answers.”
Thomal suddenly found the clasps on Hadley’s suitcase fascinating.
Marissa narrowed her eyes a bit but didn’t press it. “Anyway, Breen is being taken to the hospital now. He’s going to be drugged up to help him through his half-bond.”
Half-bond? Here was something else Hadley didn’t remember—if she’d ever known about it. But judging by the way Thomal grimaced, it was something very unpleasant.
“Can I help at the hospital?” Hadley offered. “I became a Red Cross volunteer when I was living topside, so I have some medical training now.” She’d once been an event planner, but Phil insisted it was more appropriate for a high-class attorney’s wife to do charitable volunteer activities.
Marissa brightened. “How great. Shaston is way overworked with her nursing duties. She’d love your help. Are you sure you want to start now, though? You must be exhausted.”
She was pretty tired. She’d taken an evening flight from New York to San Diego, so currently it was about three in the morning according to her internal clock, making it midnight local time up top—and so noon down here, due to the time switch. But being alone her first night back would feel funny. “I’d rather just stay up for twenty-four hours straight this first night. I’ll adjust right away to the time change if I do.”
“All right. Let’s head over then.” Marissa dug a key out of her bag and gave it to Thomal. “Do you mind taking Hadley’s suitcases to her Cliffs apartment? She’s going to be in 4B.”
“No prob.” Thomal trucked off with the suitcases down a corridor painted battleship gray.
Hadley, Marissa, and Maylie followed down the same long corridor at a slower pace. Overhead, a network of pipes crisscrossed each other into a complicated maze, and it smelled like the fuel used to run the generator.
“What’s this about an apartment?” Hadley assumed she’d live in the mansion again, like last time.
Marissa beamed. “I can’t wait to show you the new building. I had to fight like hell to get you in right away, though. My friend Charlize’s inexperience with Vârcolac culture just caused a lot of problems, so the community wasn’t sure about letting you into the main town until after you prove you remember everything about how to avoid being bitten by the wrong man.”
Hadley hah’d. “No worries on that score. Don’t forget you’re dealing with a needle phobic here.” A while ago, she’d gone through systematic desensitization therapy to conquer her fear, but she still wasn’t in any hurry to deal with a pair of sharp fangs, especially if they were attached to the wrong man.
Her string of bad luck in the wrong men department was about to change.