Chapter Forty-Three
The boys were deep into a discussion on the merits of a good spiked coffee drink, which was done more to tease Jake than anything else, when Killian tossed his empty beer bottle into the trash only to have it roll off the top of the mound onto the garage floor. He turned and grinned at Jake. “You won the poker run, you’re stuck with the trash, pretty boy.”
Jake smirked. “I was partnered with Cain. He always wins.”
But Randall Mace, another clan member snorted. “You wanna be the one to tell Cain to take out the trash?”
No one said anything, but there was a lot of laughter. Finally, David Sharpe chuckled, shaking his head. “I’ll help you out, Crow.”
He and Jake stood and grabbed hands-full of black trash bags, then took the bags around to each of the guys lounged on various vehicles in the garage, making sure every last scrap of shit got tossed into the bags before they went out.
When the two were outside in the cool night air behind the safe house, Dave said, “I think Kill’s jealous.”
Jake made a derisive sound. “I know Kill’s jealous. He saw Angel today on the surveillance cam. He says she gave him a hard time when he didn’t open the gate right away. You know how he likes a woman with fire.”
Both men laughed softly. “Who doesn’t? But yeah, it’s the dark fae in him,” said Dave as they tossed their bags into the proper dumpsters. Then David dusted off his hands and faced Jake again. “Speaking of dark fae… you gave her your pendant, didn’t you?”
Jake touched his chest, as if the movement was automatic. When he felt the absence of the bear claw, he felt warm inside instead of cold. It was with the person it was meant to protect.
“According to Cain, the Apex after Angel is someone she already knows. Dmitri Voronin. The same vampire who killed Clemens, remember him?”
“Michael Clemens, the would-be fiancé?”
“The very same. He somehow survived. At least, that’s Gabe’s theory, and if Cain believes it too, then there’s good reason. But Dmitri isn’t the only one after Angel. There’s a Taal after her too,” Jake told him.
“You’re shitting me.”
“I wish I was. But I’m not surprised with what the Taal are going through right now. Angel is special and rare.”
“A safe bet if you’re searching for a soul mate.”
Jake nodded. It was bizarre to him that he dichotomously felt like the luckiest man in the world and yet one of the most guarded and wary. He supposed that was what it was like when you had a treasure. On the one hand, you had the treasure. But on the other, everyone wanted to take it from you.
“What else do you know?” Dave asked.
“That’s all Cain would tell me. Giving her the pendant was the only thing I could think of to keep her safe, aside from tying her to my bed. Since I don’t particularly want Angela Clemens hating me, I gave her the pendant.” He slammed the lid of the trash bin down maybe just a little too hard and said, “But I admit that for once, I can’t fucking wait for the sun to come up, Sharpe. Because it means she’ll be back on this side of things. With me.”
David nodded. “I feel you.” Then he asked, “Speaking of the Taal… I heard the Kindred search has become brutal in some areas. And yet Ransom seems to be unaffected.”
Jake thought about Max…. Maxwell Ransom, usually called “Ransom” by his MC brothers and sometimes just Max, was the Monsters clan negotiator. When Cain needed permission for a certain aspect of a job, or the clan required extra aid from any one of the many more powerful supernaturals across the globe, Ransom was the one Cain sent in to broker the deal. Humans referred to people like him as closers.
Max Ransom was a Taal of the Malek Taal, a race of ancient and powerful unseelie fae.
James Killian was dark fae as well, but the two men were from distinctly separate worlds. Ransom and Kill were sewn from different cloth, their powers equally deviant and proportionately disreputable, for lack of a better word, but they were not at all similar at their cores.
As a Taal, Ransom was gifted with tremendous influential powers. He could convince almost anyone to do anything. As David Spade had put it in Tommy Boy, he could “sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves.” Which was why just like Killian, Ransom thoroughly enjoyed it when he unexpectedly failed at this with a woman. Nothing got him turned on like getting turned down.
Really, there wasn’t a guy in the clan who didn’t appreciate a good challenge when it came to winning a woman’s attentions. They weren’t little boys, they were men. There was no better compliment to a strong man than a strong woman.
“I think Ransom’s holding his own because of Cain, to be honest,” continued David thoughtfully.
Jake couldn’t disagree with that. So far, Ransom didn’t seem to be under the maddening effects of the Kindred search that other Taal men were falling under. Not that he wasn’t getting laid on a regular basis. He just wasn’t obsessed with any deeper need to find his soul mate just yet. He maintained control, as ever. And Jake wouldn’t be surprised at all to find that Cain had a hand in that control.
Cain was… well, he was Cain. And his influence over the members of his clan was probably greater than any of them realized.
“What the – Angel?”
Jake froze, his head snapping up to find that David was looking at something over Jake’s shoulder. Jake spun around. Angel was less than twenty feet away, her slim form looking shell-shocked, her clothes stained with the bloody evidence of something brutal. She was hugging herself tightly, and her normally vibrant eyes were red with unshed tears. Her face was pale, her teeth clenched.
“Oh hell, Angel,” he muttered, taking a step forward.
But David’s hand on his arm stopped him up short. “Angel, what happened?” Dave asked, his voice mystified even as his grip on Jake’s arm was firm.
Jake hadn’t heard Angel approach. He hadn’t smelled her either, and with all the blood on her, he certainly should have. Come to think of it, normally he could feel her coming when she was drawing near. But this time, there had been no warning.
“J-Jake,” she whispered, her voice quaking. Jake’s guts tightened, and his chest throbbed with anguish at seeing her like this. She unfolded her arms to wipe furiously at the tears on her cheeks as if they’d betrayed her – so very like Angel – and he saw the silver bear claw glint in the moonlight.
At once, he forgot his doubts and rushed to her, pulling her small form into his arms. She collapsed against him, her entire form sobbing as she shoved her hands under his jacket and held him back. She was trembling furiously, and now that he focused, he could sense her magic in frayed tatters all around her, discordant and wrong.
“It… was… Dmitri!” she cried breathlessly. “It was him! Gods, he was at my apartment waiting for me!” She pushed away from him and shook her head. To his left, Jake saw David approach now, clearly convinced it was safe after all. “He killed two Vega clan members,” she cried, her sob losing a little volume as the emotion drained her. “I managed to save the third, but….” She sobbed again, choking on the sound as if she absolutely hated it. Which he knew she did. She hated losing control like this.
The blood splattered on her clothing was indeed from three different people. He could differentiate each of their unique scents now. And he realized the reason he had neither heard nor felt nor smelled her approach was because of her magic.
He’d never seen magic like hers look like this before. It was as if someone had strung her up and struck her repeatedly with a whip meant to destroy her magic alone. The normally beautiful gold glow was bruised and in strips, and it both cushioned and clawed at everything around her.
“I thought… I thought he was gone. I went to pack to come back to meet you. I left Gabriel behind in the room….” She shook her head again, furiously, and fell to her knees with the colossal weight of what she was relaying.
“Fuck, Angel,” said Dave hissed as he and Jake both took a knee beside her and Jake pulled her tightly to him again.
“But when I came back out,” her muffled voice continued, “Gabe had… Gabe had… he’d taken Knight’s place! He was hanging from the wall! He came back!”
Jake looked up at David, feeling absolutely helpless. And exceedingly confused. “Dmitri… came back? He did that?” If so, why was Angel here in his arms? Had she defeated the Apex herself?
“No! Malek did!” she cried.
Jake blinked furiously. He and Dave frowned, exchanging shocked looks.
“Malek Taal did that?” Jake asked.
“Wait, Malek did what?” Dave asked disbelievingly, his confusion getting the better of him.
Angel pulled out of Jake’s embrace and raised her arms. In each hand, she held a gun. One pointed at Jake’s chest, the other at David’s. Both barrels were fitted with silencers. “Did this,” she said calmly, and pulled the triggers.
The guns went off with the muffled noise of something so much more meaningful than it sounded. And Jake and Dave hit the ground, unconscious on impact.