I was shaken. More than shaken, when she came out the door with the bells that chimed with every movement. She stepped under the striped awning onto the broken sidewalk, stood perfectly still for a moment, closing her eyes. And then she shivered visibly, and she turned and she ran.
Jameson was so startled by it that he didn't react at first. Just stood there dumbfounded and watched her go, watched the blanket shawl fly from her shoulders unnoticed as she disappeared, ducking around the corner of a building.
He shook himself and went after her, all thoughts of remaining hidden fleeing his mind. He paused where the blanket had fallen, picked it up and pressed its woolen softness to his hands. Damn. Something was wrong. Whatever she'd learned in that store had hit her hard.
For just a moment he wondered why a more obvious explanation for her flight didn't occur to him.
Shouldn't he be assuming she'd run away, not from what she'd heard in the shop, but from him?
Shouldn't he be thinking that she'd fled as she'd promised she would, intent on finding his child and taking her far from the reach of a monster like him?
Probably. If he truly believed the things he'd been telling himself about Angelica from the start, he would, no doubt, have been thinking those thoughts. If he'd truly accepted his own rash judgment of the woman-that she saw them all as some lesser species, as animals, saw herself as somehow better than the rest of them, the things he'd been chanting like a mantra in his mind-then he'd have been furious with her right now.
But he wasn't furious. He was worried. And there was, for some reason he could not explain, no question in his mind that she had not run from him. Why?
Because she'd risked her life to save the lives of his dearest friends. To save his life. Because he'd seen the way she'd hugged Tamara and the affection in her eyes when she bantered with Rhiannon. Because he'd seen her slowly become aware of her newfound strength, and watched her explore it and test it.
Running beside him like a mischievous wood nymph. Leaping to see how high she could go. Reveling in the beauty of the night. Marveling at her psychic powers. Taking on four armed men like a lioness protecting her cub, and frightening one of them nearly to death as she questioned him about her child.
Angelica was none of the things he'd believed her to be. Least of all, selfish. And she would not deny him his child. Not when she knew how much that baby meant to him. And she did know. Because she couldn't help but know. They were connected, the two of them. She felt what he did. And he felt...
He closed his eyes, sought for her with his mind. Anguish! Tears! Sobs that were painful in their intensity.
And fear, a sickening, gut-churning fear. Those were what he felt right now, and the sensations came clearly, from her. From Angelica.
Jameson walked to the edge of the building, and looked down the wide lane that ran along its side, twisting up a hill and then vanishing into the forest. She'd gone this way. And he would find her.
She might still detest him. Hell, part of him couldn't even blame her for that. He'd condemned her for a fool from the night he'd taken her from her cell. He'd made her his prisoner, threatened her, and then given in to the physical urges he knew she could not control-because, dammit, he couldn't control them either.
Yes, she probably had more reason than ever to think of him as a monster, and to hate him. But he realized slowly that he'd lied when he'd said he hated her.
He'd never hated her. Not even on that long-ago night when she'd nearly taken his life.
Jameson turned and walked along the road she'd taken, searching for her with his mind. And it wasn't long before he found her
Just inside the edge of the forest, she lay facedown on the moss-covered ground, her entire body shaking with the force of her sobs. He stood there for a moment, wondering at the pain he felt seeing her like this. Not her pain, though he felt that too. But his own. Why did it tie his stomach in knots to see her crying? Why did his throat close up tight? Why did his eyes burn?
"Angel," he whispered.
She drew a shuddering breath, and pushed herself up on her hands, lifting her head, looking at him. Her face was wet with tears, her eyes swollen and stricken. Some force compelled him to move forward, and he dropped to his knees in front of her, his hands sliding beneath her arms and closing around her as he pulled her tight to his chest. "Angel," he whispered again, though speaking was agony. "Don't cry.
Please, it kills me to see you cry." His fingers tangled in her hair, as if of their own will,, and he cupped the back of her head. Her damp face pressed to his neck, where his skin absorbed her tears. Her arms encircled his waist.
"It's't-true," she sobbed. "Someone has taken her, Jameson. They don't know who has our baby. They don't know where she is. What if-"
"Shh." He stroked her hair, her shoulders, her back, willing the spasms to stop wreaking havoc on her slender body. "She's away from them, Angel. She's away from DPI. They can't hurt her now."
"But what kind of person would take her? What if it's some horrible, demented-"
"No." He clasped her shoulders and set her away from him. just a little. Just enough so he could look into her eyes as he spoke to her, enough so she could see the conviction in his eyes. "You'd feel it if she were in pain or distress. You know you would. And you don't. You don't." She blinked at the tears that pooled in her amethyst eyes, and stared so deeply into his that he felt she could see everything he'd ever been, or ever would be. "No," she said softly. "No, I don't."
"Then she's safe. We have to believe that, Angel. She's safe for now. And away from those bastards who held her. We'll find her before they do. I swear to Christ, Angel, we'll find our daughter." He saw her lips tremble, and impulsively he pressed his lips to them, his only thoughts at that moment of stilling their tremors. Of soothing and calming this woman. He tasted her tears. When he lifted his head away, she searched his face.
"I'm so afraid for her, Jameson."
"I know. I am, too." He forced himself to let his arms fall away from her. Because he knew that in a few more moments, he wouldn't be able to.
"No," she said. Jameson looked at her, let her see his confusion. "I need..." she began, but her voice trailed into silence.
"What, Angel?"
"You. Your strength. Please, just hold me. Don't let me go, not now. I've never felt so alone. I've never needed this way before, and I can't..."
He'd sworn he'd refuse her the next time she came to him this way. He'd sworn...ah, but he'd been a fool. He could never refuse her. If she came to him a million times, he'd accept her a million times. He...
No. It wasn't that.
He pulled her into his arms again, holding her close, and she clung to him as if she'd shatter should he let her go. She turned her face up to his, and he kissed her. No questions, no worrying over the repercussions. The guilt she'd feel when it was over. The revulsion that would swamp her when she realized that she'd given herself, once again, to a man she despised. It would come. He didn't doubt that.
But he didn't care. She needed him. She'd said so. And Jameson needed her, right now, too. She was the only person in the world who truly understood his anguish over their missing daughter. The only one who could. It was the one thing they shared, this agony. And it seemed only fitting they share the comforting as well.
He kissed her, and her lips parted when he nudged them with his tongue. He tasted her mouth, knew its sweetness was his addiction. He'd never get enough of this...never get enough of her. Her hands became feverish, tugging his shirt open, tearing its buttons and scattering them on the forest floor. And then her mouth drew away from his, and she kissed his neck, and his chest, and his belly as he knelt there in the pine needles. Each touch of her mouth on his skin made him tremble, and he reached down to grip her tattered dress by the hem, and pulled it over her head.
Her naked breasts tantalized him, rubbing against his chest as she kissed his lips once more, their nipples hardening and pressing into him. His hands on her shoulders, he pushed her backward, until she lay down, and then he fell on her, feeding on her breasts like a man possessed. He suckled her hard, fiercely, bit at those distended nipples while her hands clasped his head to her.
This was madness. Sheer madness. But he couldn't fight it. Didn't want to fight it.
He rose, and pulled her to her feet. And then giving a gentle shove, he pressed her back against the stringy trunk of a pine. She stood braced there, panting, eyes half-closed, lips wet from his kisses, nipples erect and pulsing. And he released the button and the zipper on his jeans, and pushed them down until he could step out of them. Then he knelt, and kissed the sable curls between her legs. His tongue slipped between her lips, tasting the salty moistness there, and she gasped. He pressed his hands to her thighs, parting them, and then he pushed his face into her, licking up inside her, growing more frenzied with each taste of her, and driving deeper with his tongue. To devour her wasn't enough, though he tried. He used his teeth and his mouth, heard her cries and felt her hands tugging at his hair.
And then he rose once more, sliding his mouth up over her belly, tasting her breasts on the way, and then taking her mouth again, holding her to the tree with his body while his hands worked to make her as crazy for him as he was for her.
"Take me, Vampire," she whispered and she laid her head back against the pine, tilting her chin up and offering her luscious throat. Offering him everything. All of her. "Make it good. Make me forget..." Gripping the back of her thighs and lifting, parting, he plunged himself inside her. She cried out in pleasure, and he thrust deeper, withdrawing and sinking himself to the root again and again. He felt her body responding, felt the tightening around him. Her hands at the back of his head again, guiding his mouth to her throat. "Do it," she moaned. And he did. He opened his mouth over her soft flesh, and then he bit down, piercing her skin, and then her jugular. He thrust his hips forward, burying himself inside her even as he was drinking from her. And when she came, every part of her vibrated. Her legs locked around his waist and jerked tight, pulling him deeper. Her head tipped back farther pressing his fangs more deeply into her throat. Her back arched as she pressed herself open to take him all the way. Her arms clenched around him, and she screamed. His seed shot into her, and he held her there to receive it.
All of it. And then he held her still longer, until the madness receded, and his body relaxed, and they sank to the ground as one.
And he didn't want it to be over. He wasn't ready for her guilt and revulsion. Her hatred of him and his kind. As he held her, he caught her chin, tipped her head up, and he lowered his, and he kissed her. Their passion was spent, and they were, for the moment at least, sated. Even drowsy. But he kissed her all the same. And it was a tender kiss, long and slow and gentle.
When he lifted his head, she opened her eyes, searching his face, her expression one of confusion.
"You're not my prisoner, Angelica. You never really were," he told her. "Whenever you feel you want to strike out on your own, you're free to go."
"I don't want to leave you," she whispered, and for just an instant, there was something in her eyes that took his breath away "Not ev..." She bit her lip, averted her gaze. "Not until we find Amber Lily." He only nodded. And then he released her, though to his surprise she seemed in no hurry for him to do so. He got to his feet and gathered up their clothes. And before he put his on, he went to her with the poor misused dress that had seen better days. And he slipped it over her head, and gently helped her put her arms through the sleeves, relishing every instant he could spend touching her.
She sat there on the ground, staring up at him, watching as he put his own clothes on. And she said,
"I've been so wrong... about...so many things."
He didn't want to misunderstand her. He didn't dare jump to conclusions, because it would destroy him.
"About what, Angelica?"
She closed her eyes. The breeze came very gently, lifting her hair, making it dance. And then her head came up, and her eyes opened wide. "Listen," she said.
Frowning, Jameson listened. But he didn't hear a thing, apart from the usual myriad forest sounds.
"What is it, Angel?"
"Don't you hear them?" She tilted her head. "Bells, Vampire, Church bells." He felt a little shiver race up his spine, because there were no bells. My God, had his poor dark Angel been pushed too far? Had she slipped over the edge, to the black bottomless pit of insanity?
"Angel," he whispered, taking her hand. But she was already getting to her feet, turning toward her imaginary sound, looking as if she were mesmerized or worse. And she started walking.
"Angel, wait. Where are you going?"
"To church," she whispered, and then she turned to face him. her eyes perfectly sane. "It's been too long, Jameson. I accused God of turning His back on me, but I was wrong. I was the one who turned my back on Him. Don't you see? Hilary...she made it all so clear to me. When she was dying there in the woods...she told me God was still with me, guiding my steps. She told me that. He would help her keep her promise, to watch over Amber Lily until she was safe in our arms again. And now...now those bells." He saw the relief in her eyes, wished to Christ these imaginary bells of hers were real.
"It has to mean something, Jameson. It has to. I'm not damned by God. I might have come close to damning myself by believing it, but not anymore. It's going to be all right."
"Yes," he told her. "It is. I promise."
She touched his face. "Come with me."
And he nodded, because he didn't have the heart to tell her she was imagining things. She took his hand, and started walking through the pines, higher and higher up a thickly forested slope. And then the wind picked up, just briefly, and for the slightest instant, Jameson thought he heard...bells.
I followed the sound of those bells, because I felt as if I had to. I had to go into the house of God, and fall to my knees, and tell Him that I was sorry. That I understood now. All that had happened to me had happened for a reason, and who was I to pretend to know why? I didn't know. I only knew God still had a plan for me. I wasn't estranged from Him at all. I'd only thought I was.
When we reached the top of the hill, I heard the vampire mutter under his breath. The bells had stopped now, but I no longer needed them. The tiny chapel sat alone amid the deep green pines. We'd come to it through the forest, but I saw the narrow, winding road that led to it from the town below. Its spire was nothing spectacular. Plain glass, rather than brilliantly stained panes filled its windows. A small red door stood at the front.
I sighed in relief, feeling as if I'd come home. And I climbed the steps. Jameson came along beside me, clinging to my hand, searching my face often. The door was unlocked as I'd known it would be.
The place was filled with yellow candlelight that danced and flickered on the hard wooden pews, and on the altar. A single worshiper sat there. A woman, who sat in the front pew, rocking the baby carriage she'd parked before her. And I recognized her. "Look," I whispered to Jameson. "It's her." He nodded.
"Yeah, the woman who had the car accident."
"The one whose child you risked your life to save," I said, and I squeezed his hand.
I moved on past. Jameson sat down in the front pew, and let me go forward on my own. And I did. I crossed myself and knelt before the wooden crucifix that stood alone on the altar, and in silence there, I prayed.
Jameson watched Angelica kneeling there. She seemed so serene, all of the sudden. And he knew this meant a lot to her, to make her peace with God. He sat beside the woman whose name he didn't recall, and she looked up at him. Her eyes widened and then she smiled.
"You!" she whispered to him.
"Yes. Quite a coincidence, isn't it? How is the little one?"
"Alicia is fine," the woman whispered, but she was shaking her head.
Jameson frowned, sensing her turmoil. "Is something wrong?"
"No. No, not wrong. Just...so many odd happenings. Seeing you again is the least of them, I suppose." She closed her eyes. "Two miracles, in such a short space of time. First you and that...that beautiful girl, saving my baby from the car. And then..."
He tilted his head. She rocked the baby carriage that sat in front of her gently. "And then?"
"And then...I don't know, exactly. But I think I was visited by an angel." Lord, but why must religion make so many people so very crazy? he wondered.
"She was beautiful, too. A dark-skinned angel, with the kindest brown eyes I'd ever seen. All dressed in white, and sort of...sort of glowing."
Jameson saw Angelica stiffen. But she didn't turn around. Just knelt there, rigid, listening.
"And...what did this angel want?" he asked.
"It was incredible." The woman shook her blond head. "She said I owed a debt. That my baby had been saved for me, and that now I must save someone else's. She had a little girl in her arms. A newborn. And she just handed her to me, and said that I should keep her safe, until her mother came for her."
A soft, wounded cry was wrung from Angelica. She stood up, turned slowly. And her eyes were so wide, and so hopeful that he thought he would probably wring this woman's neck if she were making up stories.
"The angel said," the woman went on, her words coming slowly now as she met and held Angelica's eyes, "she said I'd know her when I saw her." And then she smiled. "It's you, isn't it?" But Angelica couldn't seem to speak. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Big fat tears filled her eyes and spilled over.
"Yes," Jameson said. "If you've found a missing baby, she's ours. Please..."
"Something told me to come here. Just come to church, and wait. And sure enough..." She shook her head again, getting up, bending over the carriage, and pulling the blankets away.
Jameson looked. Angelica didn't. She stood rooted where she was, almost as if she were afraid to look.
Afraid to see that her baby daughter wasn't there.
The fat-cheeked, carrot-topped baby, Alicia, lay sound asleep in the carriage. And tucked close beside her, a tinier infant, with raven's-wing curls, and wide ebony eyes that stared right up at him.
And his heart seemed to swell until he thought it would burst. He bent over that carriage, reaching his big hands down to gather up the fragile bundle. He gathered her close, very close, and he closed his eyes and held her to him.
"Amber Lily," he breathed, because he couldn't seem to speak any louder than that. His face was wet.
And he opened his eyes again, and lifted his head, and saw Angelica standing there, blinking and dazed, her beautiful violet eyes fixed on the child. She drew a gulp of air, and blinked, and fell to the floor. Her legs seemed to melt into puddles beneath her.
Jameson moved closer to her, and knelt down. And then he very gently eased his daughter into her mother's arms. Angelica's entire body shook, and she was smiling and crying and trembling all at once.
She bent to kiss the baby's forehead, and a tiny hand clutched a handful of Angel's hair, and tugged.
Angelica looked up at him from watery eyes. And he knew, right then, that he loved her. He loved her.
And he loved the child they'd created together. And he always would. No matter what. And part of him, a very large part of him, wanted to bundle the two of them up in his arms, and run away to a secluded cabin somewhere, and just live there in ecstasy forever.
But there was another part of him that knew that was impossible. And not only because Angelica could never feel for him what he felt for her. But because there would be no peace, no happiness for her, or for her child, until DPI was annihilated.
No one else would do it, he thought, and as he looked at the woman he loved cradling his daughter in her arms, he knew why. No one else had as much reason.
He reached forward, stroked his hand slowly over Angelica's tearstained cheek. "Wait here, Angel," he told her. "I'll go back into town and get the car, and then we'll make our way out of here."
"Yes." She didn't look at him as she spoke. Her eyes were only on her daughter, and so filled with love he thought he would die from the sheer beauty of it.
He bent to kiss his child, and then turned and hurried out of the chapel. He took only enough time to be sure no one was around, and that no one noticed him cutting through the woods that lay along the back of the town, angling down so he emerged on the hillside just beyond the vacant cabin where he'd left the car.
He hurried now. Got into the car, and backed down the long driveway, cutting around into the narrow road, shifting into drive. He didn't speed through town. That would be asking for notice.
Although, now that he was back, he didn't see the official-looking cars and vans lining the streets as he had before. And there were no men in dark suits or trench coats knocking on doors or questioning passersby, either.
What the hell was going on? They couldn't have given up, could they? Not so soon...
A tiny shiver of apprehension raced up his spine as he turned the car easily onto the well-worn dirt road that would take him back to the chapel on the hillside.
And that was when heard Angelica screaming.
It wasn't with his ears that he heard her cries. It was in his mind. And it wasn't the telepathy coming into play. She wasn't speaking to him directly or deliberately. But she was horribly afraid...or in pain. Or both.
And then her cries stopped and Jameson heard nothing at all. He pushed the accelerator to the floor, his wheels churning up clouds of dust as he sped over the narrow road. He took hairpin curves far too fast, nearly fishtailing out of control and jerking hard on the steering wheel to right himself again. But he never slowed down, and he never lost the horrible, gut-wrenching feeling that he shouldn't have left them. Angel and Amber. He shouldn't have left them even for a minute.
The sky glowed up ahead. Black smoke billowed up into the clouds like the breath of the devil. He careened around a corner and skidded to a stop in front of the church, but it wasn't a church any longer.
It was a nightmare. The tiny building was nearly burned to the ground already. Nothing identifiable remained. It was just a misshapen mass of fire and smoke, a heap of flaming rubble.
He wrenched his door open and got out, running forward, shielding his face with a bent arm when he felt his flesh start to blister.
"Come back," a voice cried, barely audible over the roar of the flames. "You're too close." His mind was numb, his body chilled to the core, despite the heat. He turned and saw the blond woman, cradling her child in her arms and sobbing, stretching one hand out toward him. And he went to her, shaking his head, demanding answers.
"Angelica! My daughter, where are they!"
But the woman only sobbed and shook her head.
He stopped when he stood right in front of her. "What the hell happened here, woman! Tell me, dammit!"
"I don't know," she said, her words broken and weak. "I'd just left, when the place...it was like a bomb went off inside! God, it was terrible. Terrible!"
No. No, his mind whispered. "Angelica and the baby were still inside?" Turning, he started toward the burning ruin once more, but her hand gripped his arm, stopping him.
"They never had a chance, God bless them. I'm so sorry."
"No!" He stared at the fire, the pile of debris, and he knew that if they had been inside when the explosion had happened, they were dead now. Both of them. Dead. Burning-hot tears blinded him. He clenched his fists. "No," he yelled again, and then he tipped back his head and howled in anguish and grief and helpless fury. And his preternatural voice rose into the night like a cry to the heavens, and its power reverberated through the skies and the forest, causing the towering pines to tremble.
They heard an odd cry that night in the town of Petersville. One so loud and anguished that it rolled like thunder, and echoed endlessly as it faded away. It was a blood-chilling kind of a sound. The kind of thing that could break a heart and give a man goose bumps all at the same time. Some said it was the cry of a wounded beast of some kind, though none speculated too loudly on what sort of beast could make a sound like that one. But most were of the opinion that they'd heard the voice of the devil himself.
