Authors: Emma Weylin
*
Bryna started to tremble, and she hoped like hell he only thought she was cold. What kind of hell had she sent him to where he was being forced to protect his murderer? She shook her head and moved away from him again. No. That wasn’t Vincent. He was Wraith. Even if he’d been Vincent in life—her face crumpled. No. This man standing in front of her couldn’t be Vincent. She just wasn’t going to believe it, because if she did, if she let herself think Wraith was her Vincent, then he hated her.
Not that he didn’t have every right to, but—No, she couldn’t let her thinking go there. Not if she needed to live to prevent some kind of catastrophe. He was taking up all her space and crowding her against the tree. She wrapped her arms around herself tighter and turned her head. Processing this was absolutely out of the question. “Okay. I think the vampires will be coming soon. We need to get out of here.”
“I’m Vincent,” he said hoarsely.
She shook her head and ducked under his arm. “No. You’re Wraith. I killed Vincent. He’s gone and he can’t come back. We need to leave.” She started back toward the car. They needed to get somewhere else. It was going to be a long and cold walk through the rain, but she was sure she’d seen signs for a motel a few miles back. Hopefully the vampires wouldn’t be able to get a scent with all this rain.
“Damn it, Bryna, you can’t ignore this,” Vincent said as he caught up to her.
She would not look at him. “It’s raining. You should put your hood up.”
“Bryna,” he started. “We can’t ignore this.”
“Oh yes, we can,” she snapped at him. “You do your job, and I’ll do my best not to die. Next week you can go back to fucking your protectees, and I’ll go back to doing what I do.”
*
Vincent felt like he’d been slapped in the face. Only, he wished she really would have done it. It would have hurt less. He ground his teeth as he followed her for a minute. “So you’re going to waste my effort to keep you alive by getting yourself killed next week?”
She stopped walking, and he nearly plowed into her. He growled. She stood there with her back to him for so long he was sure she wasn’t going to respond before she slowly turned around and looked up at him. Her face was scarily expressionless. “I won’t waste your efforts if that’s what you really want.”
He was feeling sick again. As much as he wanted to demand she deal with this and they come to some kind of favorable conclusion right now, one that didn’t keep her trapped in this destructive guilt cycle, doing it here wasn’t the brightest of ideas. He clenched his jaw and gritted out through his teeth. “We’ll talk about this later. We need to get out of here.”
“No,” she said. “We won’t.” Then she walked off again.
Vincent followed close behind her. Yeah, it had been a hugely fucked-up mistake to kiss her. It wasn’t like they were going to be able to pick up right where they left off when this was over. In the end he was still dead, and she wasn’t. He’d have to go back to his afterlife job of preventing the end of the world, and she’d—his chest constricted—she’d go off and get herself killed to pay for a crime two hundred years old, by his timeline.
He needed to find out how her life ended. At this point, any fear Felix had of it sabotaging the mission was over. His job was to save Bryna’s life, and he knew the old bastard well enough to know this one would extend beyond the mission’s end. There was no way whatever apocalypse threatening existence would end if she died next week.
They got to the car. Bryna strapped on the backpack and draped a huge black poncho over herself. She stopped in front of him, but stared at his chest instead of looking at his face. “I’ll need the food.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, looking at the top of her wet head. “I’ll make sure it gets to where it needs to go.”
She nodded once and started off in the direction of the nearest motel. He couldn’t help the bit of smile that curved his mouth. She hadn’t been able to navigate her way out of a phone booth, and now she was able to find places without having been there or getting directions. He watched her for a couple of seconds before he ducked into the car to scrawl a quick message on his crumpled assignment sheet. With any luck Felix would give him the answers he needed and a few reinforcements to back him up.
To his relief she was becoming as important as any job he’d ever had, but it was short-lived. As sure as he was dead, he knew without doubt the woman he was supposed to save was already gone.
Bryna clenched her jaw. Her teeth would shatter if she could get them together any tighter, but she was not going to talk to him, nor look at him. She had to live.
Screw that.
Good, innocent, deserving people had their lives saved to prevent the end of the world. Not murderers. The questions bubbling in her head didn’t matter. They couldn’t. What Hell did she send him to where he was forced to save the life of the woman who murdered him?
“Bryna.”
“No.” Her jaw ached, but she clenched it again, anyway. This pain was better than the one threatening to swallow her alive. She marched through the dreary, soaked street. The rain refused to let up. There was no hope to see the sun again today, maybe never again.
“Bryna.”
She whipped around. “The motel is right there. I’m cold and I’m wet, and I don’t want to deal with you right now.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me what happened.”
“You know what happened.” Before he could demand she recount every horrible nanosecond of the moment he died, she slapped her hands over her ears and pretended she couldn’t hear him. He was old, appearing maybe thirty with a god-awful scar slashing across his beautiful face. She didn’t know, and wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to know what could be horrible enough to age a dead man. Hell. She’d sent the man she loved to Hell, and then he had the freaking nerve to demand she live.
Not. Going. To. Happen.
If there was any kind of justice in the universe, she’d die today and trade places with him. She’d been so terrified that night, she’d pulsed. After the vampires were gone, when the ash settled, she’d realized she’d killed Vincent as well, though she’d never killed a living person when she pulsed previously. Her Uncle Ron was a prime example. When he yelled and screamed at her when she’d been a teenager, the fear inside of her bubbled out. Uncle Ron would end up sailing across the room. But not once had she killed him.
Pain seared through her chest. She dropped to her knees right there at the asphalt entrance to a dingy motel with a bright orange vacancy sign flashing in the window. She gasped for air, and her heart threatened to hammer out of her chest. Vincent’s strong arms looped around her. No. They were the arms of the Wraith. A being so powerful and terrifying every vampire fled from him and rarely uttered his name in fear that somehow the two syllables would cause Wraith to appear and slaughter the whole nest.
He lifted her off the ground as if she’d weighed nothing.
“Let me go,” she croaked out.
“You’re going to get sick if you stay out here.” His tone was gruff, but his hold on her gentle.
He’d been so angry at his grave, and now she knew why. His sudden one-eighty was going to make her mental. He was forgiving her for the one thing she didn’t want to be forgiven for. Her life went to shit because she’d been unable to control herself, and she didn’t want to be absolved of any of the guilt.
“I can walk.” She jerked out of his hold and rubbed a fist over her chest. Her heart hurt so much it was going to explode. She scrambled ahead of him, determined to get to the motel without him having to touch her again. When she reached the small door with a window and a welcome sign, she threw it open and rushed up to the desk. She hit the bell, and dug through her pack to find the pouch with the cash she’d taken from the ATM the night before.
“Can I help you?” a woman’s voice said before an older woman appeared. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and black reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose.
“I need a room for the night.” She put a fifty on the counter. “That should cover it.”
The woman narrowed her eyes, and then she cocked her head to look at the mist of rain outside before returning her gaze to Bryna. “Why are you so wet?”
“My car broke down, and I had to walk from the interstate.” At least it wasn’t a lie. She hated when she had to tell good people wrong things.
The woman’s hard expression softened. She turned, got a key off a line of hooks, and pulled down extra towels and slipped them into a plastic bag, tying a knot at the top. “Room eight is empty. I need to be paid again tomorrow at noon if you’re going to stay another night.” She slid a guest book in front of Bryna. “I need you to sign here.”
Bryna used the name Shawn had given her character’s name in the book. “Thank you.” She accepted the key and the extra towels. “I’ll be checking out before noon.”
“Of course.”
Bryna pulled her poncho tighter around herself as she went back outside. At least Wraith hadn’t come in. He’d have terrified the woman, and they’d never have gotten the room. She didn’t spare a glance at him. “Eight,” was all she said as she walked directly to the room at the end of the row.
“Bryna.”
“No.” She jabbed the key into the lock and turned it. She moved just enough to let Wraith in before she shed the dripping poncho and dropped it on the floor. She dropped her pack between the wall and a queen-size bed, and then rushed off to the bathroom with the towels clutched to her chest. There had to be a way to get through this.
Wraith stepped in front of her before she was able to make it to the safety of the bathroom. She stared at his chest. “Please move.”
“Not until you listen to what I have to say.” His voice was gruff.
“What does it matter?” He thought she was a whore. He blamed her for his death. He hated her. There was no point in talking about it any longer.
“Because I need to know why you did it.” He was quiet for a moment. “Why did you kill me?”
How didn’t he know she’d pulsed and killed him? He was messing with her head again. “Vincent, please. I don’t want to talk about this.”
He tilted her chin up, giving her no choice but to look into his sienna eyes. “Yeah, but it’s literally killing you.”
Yes. His death was killing her, in a slow, painful way, and now he demanded she find a way to live when she was no longer sure it was a possible outcome. Even if she wanted to do it. “I never meant for you to die.”
His head lowered, his mouth hovering right over hers. “I’m figuring that out. But I don’t understand how you think you killed me.”
She shook her head, but her gaze never left his. “Please, Wraith—”
“Vincent. My name is Vincent.” He brushed the back of his knuckles down the side of her face.
She put her hands on his chest. “Okay. Vincent. It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. If we kiss and make up, you’re still dead and I am not.”
“But for how long?” he demanded in a whisper, his breath caressing her cheek. “You’ll go off and get yourself killed the second I leave.”
“I’ll try to live,” she said, realizing she meant it. “I’ll try to change my life into something you’d be proud of.”
His eyes closed, and he rested his forehead on hers. “How often do you do things like you did with Darby for the elderly in your building?”
She trembled and stepped in closer to him, just because she needed to feel his heat. “Wraith—Vincent, I don’t know what you want from me.”
He pulled back just enough so when his eyes opened, it was like his gaze was looking right into her soul. “You’re not as evil as you think—as I thought. Don’t save yourself for me. Save you for you. If my death was an accident, like you say, then there is no need for you to continue trying to end yourself.”
When she would have pulled away from him, he locked his arm around her.
His face was right next to hers. “Talk to me. Let me help you.”
Her lower jaw trembled, and she turned her head. Their mouths were so close, breathing could make them touch. “I just want all the pain to go away.”
Then his mouth closed over hers.
The heat of his lips seared into her, and she stretched up, looping her arms around his neck, drawing him in closer. This was the only right thing she could remember, and it felt so right in the here and now. He could be gentle when she was hurt, and his presence could fight away her fears. If only there was a way they could go back, and she could stop herself from pulsing that night. But she couldn’t. Oh how she wanted to learn this man that he’d become, but there was no time. All she had was this moment, with his mouth on hers. Then he’d be gone, and she’d have to figure out how to live without him.
His hands slid down her sides to mold over her hips when a knock came to the door.
Bryna jerked back.
Wraith narrowed his eyes at the door as if he could see who was on the other side. “They can wait.”
Bryna backed up a step. “I need a shower.” She didn’t give him time to say anything else before she fled. The forgiveness she’d wanted was coming, and she wasn’t sure she could handle it.
* * * *
Vincent stared after her for a long moment before he opened the door after the fourth knock. A wide grin spread over his face when he saw the three men standing there. He’d use one less hot poker when he tortured Felix. The Argent brothers were older than he by about a hundred years, and he didn’t know the circumstances of their deaths. He’d learned to rely on them over the last two hundred years. He didn’t know if he’d need them to save Bryna’s life, but knowing Felix was putting them at his disposal helped as much as it made him queasy.
“Wraith!” Gregori, the oldest of the three brothers, boomed out. He was shorter than Vincent by an inch, but his shoulders were a tad wider. Gregori’s hair was shoulder length, but always pulled back in a low ponytail. Like his brothers, he had the Argent silver-grey eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“New job,” Vincent said. “Did Felix give you the files I asked for?”
“The ones on the Bryna babe?” Gregori asked.
Vincent’s face twitched. “Did you just call her a babe?”