Tempest of Vengeance Read online

  I imagined Lash holding her as hard to his body as he’d always held me, stroking her with his hands gently, crying out her name as he came inside her. “I’ll do it!” I shouted. “I’ll tell him tonight! I’ll do it!”

  “Good. Teleport us there now,” Devlin commanded.

  I did, grabbing hold of him as the walls of Hayden melted away to be replaced by the parking lot at Davy’s.

  I’d initially wondered how Devlin knew where Lash was. But it was obvious that Gary most likely had called Dev. Lash’s Hummer was crashed through the front door and partway inside the building, and inside, every single chair and table was broken, most of the whiskey bottles were smashed glass behind the bar. There were bullet holes in the clock, in the mirror behind the bar, and Lash had spelled out his name in them on the interior wall. There were unconscious bodies scattered here and there, amidst the debris. At least, I hoped they were unconscious.

  “Don’t worry, they’re werebears, brown and black mostly,” Devlin said with a sigh, looking around. “Lash wouldn’t fight a human, because even in the mood he’s in, he doesn’t want to go back to jail. He just broke their necks. But I’ll be needing to replace everything.”

  It looked like a hurricane had hit in here, one that I was betting was sitting in the back room drinking. The jukebox was playing Thoroughgood’s “I Drink Alone.”

  “I wonder why he’s listening to that?” Devlin said, surveying the damage. “It’s appropo, but he usually prefers ‘Bad to the Bone’.”

  I hazarded a guess, remembering our shared sexy dance to the latter song, but said nothing.

  We walked into the back room, to see Lash was at the back table, smoking a cigarette, and drinking what looked like a mug of scotch. He ignored us, looking at the far wall. I saw at least two empty whiskey bottles lying broken by his feet. As we watched, he downed the entire mug of whiskey, and poured himself the rest of the bottle. Then he tossed the empty bottle upwards, and fired his silenced 9mm, shattering it while it was still in the air. Pieces rained down. Glad it’s not the explosive gun. Otherwise, I’d probably have glass in my hair even at this distance.

  Devlin started for Lash, and I reluctantly followed. The song on the jukebox ended, and then began again. How many times did he put it on to play?

  “Lash, come home,” Devlin said quietly. “We both need you, and Sar’s sorry—”

  “Fuck off, both of you,” Lash hissed, not looking up, and taking another drag on his cigarette. “Leave me alone.”

  Devlin looked at me and made a motion with his head for me to say something. I gritted my teeth and spoke. “Lash, I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck you, you bitch!” Lash snarled. “All the times I could’ve fucked one of my own kind, and I said no for you!” Lash hissed in rage, bearing his fangs, and glaring at me. He got to his feet, and faced both of us.

  How could he even stand after drinking most of three bottles of scotch?

  “Watching you simpering after that fucking cat, after how bad he made you feel about yourself, after his fucking morals almost killed you last year, after he left you when you needed him most! All those months we could’ve been together, and you going on and on about how you didn’t want to lose him—”

  There was enough hate in Lash’s voice to drown in.

  “—going on and on about how you loved him!”

  “Stop it, Lash,” I sighed, “Theo and I are done. We—”

  Lash’s tone turned low and venomous. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he guessed I’d gotten you pregnant, and he did something to you, Sar, something that made you lose our baby.”

  Devlin gasped, and I cringed. Thank God I told Devlin about my fertility before we’d come here.

  “He didn’t do anything,” I said quickly. “Theo wouldn’t have hurt me, not to get to you. At least, he wouldn’t have back then.”

  “You were pregnant, from when you were together in the Everglades?” Devlin asked me. “From being with him? That’s how you knew you were healed?”

  “Yes. We didn’t know I’d healed, so we didn’t use—”

  “I suspected it was possible,” Lash hissed.

  I looked at him in shock. So did Devlin. There was only the sound of the song playing for several seconds.

  “How could you not tell me?” I whispered. “We could’ve—”

  “I wasn’t going to wear anything with you,” Lash hissed arrogantly. “I wanted to enjoy myself, Sar. And it wasn’t going to feel as good with you, wearing a condom.”

  I just looked at him, and did a slow burn. And I wasn’t the only one. “You took a chance on getting her pregnant knowingly?” Devlin hissed, his eyes bleeding to red. “Just so you could get off and have it feel good? You asshole!”

  Lash had the decency to look slightly mortified. “I never meant to hurt her, for her to be hurt by what I did,” he hissed insistently. “I just wanted to be with her, to make love with her skin to skin like we always had before. I hadn’t been with anyone since her, so I knew I was safe. I knew she was safe to be with, because I knew her, knew the woman she is, that she doesn’t sleep around. And if she got pregnant, if she was having my baby, I knew that fucking cat would leave her, like he’s left her every other time she needed him! It wasn’t just sex to me, I had feelings for her. And I could see she had feelings for me.”

  “You tried to use a child to get me for yourself?” I screeched at him. “How could you, Lash? How could you be so fucking devious?”

  “I wanted you,” Lash said with a shrug. “I wanted to be with you, for us to be lovers, and if you went back to Theo and he forgave you, you were never going to be with me again. But I knew he’d never forgive you having my child.” Lash looked at me, and all of a sudden he was killing mad angry again. His next words were shouted, though they were hard to understand because they were half hiss, half words. He was as close to changing as I’d ever seen him with him still having legs, scales erupting from his hands and his face, and disappearing again as he yelled at me. “I’m not stupid, Sarelle! I knew I didn’t matter to you, not like Theo did! But if I was the father of your child, I would have to matter to you, at least more than I did! I didn’t know for sure if I could even get you pregnant, if I was fertile again, or even if you could conceive if I was! I only knew you smelled a little different, that the vampire scent had faded from your body, especially after you asked me what you smelled like.”

  My eyes teared up as I listened to him.

  “I told myself as I watched you sleep that night after we’d gotten back, and we’d made love again that I hadn’t done anything wrong, that you cared about me, that you were a good mother, that if I’d gotten you pregnant you wouldn’t hate the baby, even if it was mine—”

  Lash’s voice was vibrating with emotion and I could do nothing but listen, as the words poured out of him.

  “—that you wouldn’t kill it, even if it was weresnake, like me.”

  Devlin decked him hard, and Lash went down under the force of the blow. But then he was climbing to his feet, shaking his head. He had blood trickling from his mouth.

  “It’s been a while since you and I danced, Dev,” Lash hissed, wiping the blood off his mouth as it healed. “But we’ll go round once, just for old times’ sake.”

  Lash went for Devlin, and then they were struggling, Devlin trying to keep Lash from biting him, and Lash trying hard to withstand the blows Devlin was landing on him. I was surprised to see Devlin holding his own. Lash was slightly drunk though. That had to be working in Dev’s favor. But Devlin was a lover, not a fighter. And Lash was the best there was. So there was only one way this fight could end.

  Lash sank his fangs into Devlin suddenly, and Devlin screeched. Lash kept biting him, and Devlin slid from his grip to the floor, jerking slightly. Then he collapsed and lay still.

  Lash reached over and grabbed his whiskey. He downed the whole of the mug of scotch, and I was very, very still. If I was quiet, maybe he’d fall over. His brain had to be pickled from a
ll that scotch in such a short time.

  Devlin lay at Lash’s feet and didn’t move. In a sudden motion, Lash threw his empty mug against the far wall where it shattered into pieces with a crash. Then he whipped around, and began walking fast towards me.

  How the hell can he still be upright?

  “If you were pregnant, I wasn’t going to abandon you, Sar! I meant what I said, that I would have brought you to Hayden to live! And I never wanted you to have a miscarriage! I felt so awful that night you called me, that you were hurt, and it was my fault.”

  Now his guilt made sense. It was his fault. But it was my fault, too. I was a big girl, and I could have insisted on a condom, just for Theo’s sake. I felt a shiver then, as all the ramifications set in.

  “It wasn’t your fault, what happened,” I said softly, aware that I was here alone with Lash, and Devlin might be unconscious for hours. “Even if you knew I could maybe get pregnant, you had nothing to do with the miscarriage, Lash. Don’t blame yourself for what happened.”

  “Can you forgive me, for doing what I did?” Lash hissed. The alcohol was finally having some effect on him. He was still moving quickly, but his eyes were glazed, and glazing over even more as he walked to me. “For not wearing anything? For not wanting to? For wanting to be more to you than just a good fuck?”

  “Yes,” I said, holding out my arms to him. “I forgive you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lash said softly as he came into my arms, tears in his glazed eyes. “I wanted you for myself! It was wrong for every reason and I knew it, and I did it anyway! Please forgive me! Please!”

  “Shh,” I gasped, holding him as he squeezed the life out of me. “It wasn’t...your fault...what happened...” Lash eased up a little, letting me take a deep breath to continue. “I might have said no anyway, even if you’d said something, about what you suspected. I still find it hard to believe. And if you had used condoms with me, I’d probably be having Theo’s child by now, because he wouldn’t have used anything with me later on, thinking me safe, and he’d probably still be with Jenny now anyway, it would’ve been awful—”

  Lash wasn’t listening, still trapped in his guilt. “I’m sorry!” he yelled stridently. “Please forgive me, Sar, please!”

  I hugged him tightly. “I forgive you.”

  “I don’t,” Devlin rasped, as he grabbed Lash, pulling him the floor. Lash let go of me, and then he was trying to bite Devlin again, his fangs dripping venom.

  “Don’t bother,” Devlin said, hitting him again and again with all his force. “I took some anti-venom before Sar teleported us. I knew you’d try to bite me sooner or later, you fuck! Your bite is painful, but that’s the most it’ll do to me.”

  “Fuck you!” Lash hissed. “Let me up, or I’ll cut you, Dev! I’ve been nice till now, but don’t push it!”

  “Sar was fucking mine, you asshole, and you knew it! You tried to sire your child on my Oathed One! Forget Theo and Danial, you fucked me over!”

  “She wasn’t Oathed to you then, shit for brains!”

  Devlin growled “That doesn’t matter!” and punched him some more. Lash was a mass of blood before long, but his torn and bruised flesh healed almost as soon as Devlin drew back his hand to hit Lash again.

  How is this helping anything? “Stop it, Dev!” I yelled. “It doesn’t matter anyway!”

  Lash drew his knife in a smooth sinuous motion, and stuck it into Devlin’s chest, right through his heart.

  Devlin went still, and looked down at Lash in utter rage. “Bast—” he grunted, and then he fell backward off Lash to collapse on the floor

  “I deserved a beating at your hands, for what I did to you,” Lash hissed down at Dev. “But that’s enough, and I’m not taking any more.”

  Lash drew out the knife, got to his feet, and came toward me again. I backed away, and he stopped, looking at me with confusion. Then he saw my eyes on the knife in his hand, and he resheathed it, after cleaning it on Devlin’s prone form.

  “You’ll take me back, Sar?” he hissed hopefully. “Be my lover and my friend? I love being with you.”

  But you don’t love me.

  Lash saw my face, and his expression went cold in an instant. “You know, there’s a pool table right here beside us,” he hissed, his eyes flat and cold. “And I feel like walking down my fucking memory lane tonight.”

  He swaggered toward me, his eyes locked on me. But a second later, he went down sprawling again on the floor. Devlin had been hurt badly, but he’d managed to heal the knife wound while Lash was talking to me, and he’d grabbed him around his legs.

  Now that Lash was down, Dev was trying to crawl up him to punch him some more. But Devlin wasn’t quick anymore, he’d lost too much blood. He clung to Lash, and while he succeeded in keeping him from getting to me, he couldn’t do much more than that. And while Lash was intoxicated, he was also fully healed.

  Lash kicked Devlin off him, and got to his feet. In a swift motion, he reached down and picked Devlin up by the throat, lifting him so Devlin was at his eye level. Lash held him there with one hand, and looked at him. Devlin hissed at him, baring his fangs, but he wasn’t strong enough to get away from Lash, hurt as he was.

  “This time I’m leaving the knife in,” Lash hissed meaningfully, and he drew it out of its sheath, flipping it up and grabbing it out of the air to get ready to stab Devlin with it. “You won’t die, but you’ll stay out of action until I pull it out, Friend. Because I’ve got another tool of mine I want to sheathe in your Oathed One, and that business is going to take the rest of the night.”

  I had to stop this. Things had gotten way out of hand. And I had only one thing to use as distraction: myself.

  I stripped my shirt over my head, and prayed that the song would keep playing. This was going to be hard enough to do with a beat to work with. There was no way I could do it without any music. Thank God, I still felt slightly tipsy, or I wouldn’t be able to do this at all.

  “I think I want an apology, Dev,” Lash hissed meaningfully, his knife still in his hand. “Why don’t you tell me how sorry you are that you’ve been such a prick all fall—”

  I stripped off my jeans, and strolled up to Lash, shaking my body to the beat.

  “—keeping me away when she visited, telling me I couldn’t touch her—”

  He wasn’t paying any attention, he was focused on Devlin. But Devlin looked over, and his eyes went wide.

  “—keeping us apart, you fucking vampire—”

  Irritated that Devlin wasn’t paying attention, Lash glanced in the direction Devlin was looking. His eyes went wide, too.

  The song suddenly stopped.

  Fuck!

  But in a second, it started again. Relieved, I gyrated my hips, thinking this was not a sexy song, but maybe that was relative. Did men care about songs anyway, when they went to see strippers? Probably not, was my guess. I’d see shortly. I kept my hips going, and slid down my bra straps, then I unhooked my bra, and let it fall. Lash and Devlin were motionless, watching me, their mouths open.

  I ran my hands over my breasts, and squeezed, letting my head fall back, as I rolled my head to finally look up at Lash through my fall of blonde hair. “Do you want to fight him, or have me?” I said, rolling my hips, running my hands over my mostly naked body, licking my lips suggestively and smiling a come-hither look at Lash. “I’ll be over here, if you decide on me. But maybe you’d rather beat on him than make love to me on a pool table?”

  Lash looked at Dev, then back at me. Then he slugged Dev hard, knocking him to the floor. He ran to me, wrapping his arms around me. Lash kissed me, reaching his long tongue so far down my throat I gagged a little. As he had that night in the Everglades, he tasted of hard alcohol, but this time he also tasted of cigarette smoke.

  Ugh. I tried to pull back from him.

  “It’s okay,” he said huskily, drawing back from me suddenly. “Any poison left in my mouth from biting Dev is long gone, Sar, I shifted enough to lose my fangs, af
ter biting him, so it’s okay.”

  Shit! I hadn’t even thought about that.

  Lash was kissing me hard, backing me towards the table, holding me tightly so I couldn’t get away. “That night, you wanted me to take you like I did Cin,” he hissed raggedly, as he kissed down my neck. “But I didn’t treat you as I had treated her. I was never gentle like that with her, Sar. I never went down on her. But it’s past time I gave you what I used to give her.”

  Lash swiped his arm over the table as he had that night months ago, knocking all the pool cues and balls in a crash to the floor. Lash flipped me around, and bent me over the table, holding me there by the back of my neck. I heard the metallic hiss as he unsheathed his knife, and with two deft cuts, what was left of my underwear fell to the floor. A second later, I heard him unzipping his pants, and felt him rubbing himself on me. In spite of everything, or maybe because of it, I was eager to feel him enter me, and I let out a little cry as I felt him push inside me.

  “God, I love how you always want me,” he hissed, his tone pure lust.

  Lash rammed himself into me, bringing a cry from his lips, and a gasp from mine. He held me down spread-eagled over the table with force and pounded himself into me, putting himself in to the hilt every time.

  “You wanted this from the moment you first saw me, for me to put it to you like this,” Lash hissed in my ear. “You knew what I was, how many people I’d killed, and the more you heard, the more you were turned on! Admit it, Sar!”

  “No!” I gasped. “I didn’t!”

  “You knew who I was, what I was, that night you met me! Theo’s probably been filling your head with horror stories about me for years!”

  “I didn’t know anything, just your name, from Dev,” I gasped. “I only knew you were snake, that you were cold, and I wanted you to be warm!”

  Lash seemed to lose his rhythm momentarily, then he resumed with a hiss. “You wanted me to fuck you! That was all it ever was to you, all I ever was to you, just someone to fuck, to take your mind off your problems!”