VALIANCE STILLED HIMSELF at the back of the building and drew the darkness around him. It was an old talent he hadn't used in a while and the power, the glamour, was hard to hold.
He locked his eyes on Esme. She'd taken a position at the front of the building and was leaning against the wall, her head against the brickwork as she prayed. He watched her cross herself and close her eyes. Her rose lips muttered a prayer For the first time in a century, Valiance prayed, too. It wasn't to God or anything. It was just to the wind and the dirt. He didn't know any blessings or anything. He kept it simple. Keep Esme safe. If you gave her this power, then keep her safe so she can learn how to use it.
The wind carried Esme's floral scent to him, and for a moment, he thought maybe the wind had heard him. Maybe the wind was at their back. Maybe the earth was a fan of grandmothers as well.
Esme let out a long breath and fluttered her eyes open to look back at him. Despite his cloak of darkness, Esme waved and gave him a thumbs-up. With a soft smile, she slipped around the front of the building.
She was going to be something amazing, and every ounce of him wanted to be there when it happened.
Valiance squared his shoulders and turned the hilt of his sword over in his hand before finding a grip. He walked softly up to the back door and surveyed it. Carefully, he reached out and touched the door handle. No electrical charge. Not iron. No precautions.
Did Mondrian want to get caught? Was a part of him asking Valiance to kill him to get it over with? There was only one way this was going to play out. One.
He closed his eyes and listened, with a capital "L," for Esme to knock on the front door.
The sharp rap on the door echoed through the building. Valiance counted to ten before he turned the knob and pulled open the door.
The explosion lifted him up and off the ground. The flames burned his jacket, and his fair eyebrows were forfeit.
The chain-link fence at the back of the property cradled him like a wiry catcher's mitt, and he rolled forward onto the ground. He landed on his knees, and his lungs smoldered as he tried to catch his breath.
Mondrian wasn't going to give Valiance those brief seconds to recoup. He charged toward Valiance, his sword slashing out before him. Valiance had moments to flatten himself against the ground to avoid the edge of the blade.
Valiance grabbed Mondrian's leg and jerked him to the ground. Mondrian crashed, and his sword was knocked out of his hand.
Valiance shook the ringing from his ears before he went on the offensive. He jumped to his feet and darted to where his own sword rested in the long grass. The sword vibrated in his hand as if agreeing to his purpose.
It took Valiance one thought, one flash of a second to let his power consume him, let his energy enhance everything about him, heal his burns, and adjust his eyes to the dim lighting in the yard.
The thought that this energy was Esme's fueled him further; that he was doing this for her made him stronger Mondrian still searched for his sword. "Didn't peg you to come alone. Thought you'd have that pussy Prima of yours."
Valiance waited. His brother might have taken the wrong path, but he still deserved an honorable death. "You're stalling. You always get mean when you stall."
"I'm not stalling. I've got 'til dawn to convince you to come home."
"My home is here."
"Our place in Atlanta is amazing. The old family seat, Valiance. It really would be Thomas Valmont coming home."
Atlanta. The memories were so far gone that Valiance's mind fogged trying to recall them. For a moment, he saw himself happy. He saw himself with his family, with his grandmere on the porch, her soft sweet smile as she hummed into her needlepoint.
Valiance shook the memory from his head. His grandmere was dead. The house had been burned in one bout of violence or another. There was no home for him there anymore because there was no family there anymore. He wasn't Thomas Valmont anymore.
Just as Valiance was about to say that, Mondrian slammed into him. Valiance doubled over the man's shoulder and rammed the hilt of his sword into Mondrian's spine. The man cried out and crumpled beneath him.
Valiance kept hold of his sword as the fight became a twisted mesh of swinging arms and wrestling legs. Once they regained their footing, Valiance always had the upper hand; his sword did not fail him. Mondrian's grunts punctuated the heavy staccato of metal on metal.
Valiance spun Mondrian's sword off into the darkness, only adding fire to his fury. As Mondrian set up for another attack, Valiance watched as his friend, his brother, disappeared and was replaced by a monster. Valiance would mourn later, only after he'd put him out of his misery.
Valiance cried out into the darkness as he ran at the man. There was another exchange of blows. This demon was fast, but Valiance was smart. He tasted blood, smelled blood, but his energy, her power, was a fire that ran through him.
The sound of a car door distracted Valiance for a moment, and in that one moment, Mondrian pinned him to the ground. His lips were pulled away from his sharpened teeth, and his eyes burned with a dark fire. A kind of dark Valiance hadn't seen since, well, since the demon he and Violet had taken out six months ago.
Until Violet, he had never known true darkness.
Until Esme, he'd never known true light.
"I will never go back."
Mondrian's Master spoke. "What have you got that's worth dying for?"
For the first time, he was honest with his brother, and the wind and the stars that shone down on him. "Hope." Hope in her. Hope in his city. Hope that someday he could be that man.
"Pfft," the Master said. "Hope is a city in Arkansas."
"Hope is a thing with feathers."
Mondrian's blade flashed above them. The sword made a sickening thud as it sank into the back of Mondrian's neck.
The man reared up and spun on his invisible attacker.
Esme screamed and ran.
Valiance jumped to his feet. He grabbed the handle of the sword and pulled it out of Mondrian's neck. The force pushed Mondrian off balance, but he still stumbled in Esme's general direction, his claws lashing out into the night, his head dangling by his windpipe.
Using gravity and the sheer need for this to be over, Valiance swung the blade over his head to deliver the last strong blow to Mondrian's neck.
Blood sprayed the small yard as Mondrian's body fell lifeless to the ground. His head rolled but found a resting place in a soft patch of weeds.
Valiance's chest heaved as his heart raced. His arm dangled at his side as he looked at the still body. For the second time that night, he found himself praying. Keep him. Take his energy back into the earth and remember him, remember what he was.
That's when Esme started screaming.
Valiance dropped his sword and rushed to her. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Esme burrowed her face into his chest and shook. He wrapped his arms around her and felt every ounce of his fight response seep away, replaced by a warm pulse, her pulse. It was only when he realized he'd synced to her heartbeat that he let her go. Her fingers were wound tightly in his cotton shirt, so he couldn't go far.
"Please, Esme. Are you okay?"
Her wide brown eyes were not filled with tears, but her body still shook. "I just killed someone."
"Technically, you just injured him really bad."
A strand of her dark hair fell across her forehead and caught in her lashes. "But he's dead. I did that."
Valiance reached up and pushed the errant strand of hair behind her ear. He'd been wanting to do that all night.
Esme frowned slightly. "And I did it to protect you."
He nodded. "You did. Thank you."
Esme smiled, then her entire body shook.
"Where is your abuelita?"
"In the car with the bowie knife. She told me I needed to rescue you."
"It seems you have."
Esme closed her eyes and took in a long breath as she rested her head on his chest. Valiance's eyes closed as he reveled in the heat of her, the pulse of her, so close and so unafraid of him. This was a quiet he could get used to.
Slowly, the shaking stopped. "It's grass."
"I was just rolling around in it."
"No, the deeper smell. I thought it was just a cologne or something, but that's the real you. The underneath you. A vampire that smells like fresh-cut grass."
Valiance couldn't stop smiling; his cheeks were beginning to ache with it. "I guess I don't notice it."
"What do I smell like? My deeper smell."
He knew part of this was the trauma talking. He took the opportunity to run his arm around her shoulders and begin to nudge her slowly toward the front of the house.
"Wildflowers. Sun-warmed wildflowers."
They cleared the backyard, and Esme's fingers finally unfurled from his shirt.
"I guess for a fairy, smelling like flowers isn't very original." Esme pulled away from him and seemed steady enough to walk on her own.
"I can with all honesty say that I've never heard someone quote Emily Dickinson before delivering a deathblow."
Esme stopped and put her face in her hands.
Valiance's stomach tied up in knots. "I'm sorry," he said quickly.
Esme started to softly chuckle. "No," she said as she dropped her hands from her face and shrugged. "I guess that's what I do in times of action. Something else I learned about myself today."
"So what's the grand total?"
They stopped by Esme's car. Valiance gave a small wave to her grandmother, who sat in the front seat with the knife clearly displayed.
Esme counted the newly learned facts on her fingers. "I'm invisible to bad guys. I'm a fairy. I'm not a coward. And I quote poetry when I fight. What have you learned today?"
Valiance took in a deep breath. There was a dead body in the backyard that the Cleaners would need to dispose of, and he was pretty sure he should call their contact in the police force because an explosion would catch someone's attention, even in this neighborhood. But none of that seemed to matter. "This was probably the worst best date ever. Or the best worst date ever."
A blush spread across Esme's cheeks, and her floral scent filled the air around him and seemed to seep into him. "It was a first date. I've been told all first dates are hell."
Valiance found his hands shaking as he asked the question, so he jammed them in his pockets.
"Is it too early to ask for a second?"
Esme looked down at her hands. He saw the blood crusted in her fingernails, the crimson spray across her shirt. The moonlight caught the white bandage at her wrist, and again, he felt his palms begin to itch with nerves.
But when she looked up, and those wide brown eyes caught his, the hope that he had spoken about earlier seemed to flutter through him.
"Sure beats folding towels on a Saturday night."
