Page 65 of Pleasantly Undead in Dark River

I was curled against Walker’s chest on the back deck. I was smearing vomit and blood on his work uniform, but the predator in me wanted to see our enemy die. The human couldn’t watch, so I struck a balance by hiding my face in Walker’s shirt and just listening.

Brody and Tex were on their way back. They’d been frantic when they’d felt my distress, calling all my other guys. They’d found Everly puking behind a bush and me sobbing in a pool of chunky bodily fluids.

X had slit his throat in an instant. Unlike Walker or even Nico, he didn’t ask questions, didn’t want to know what had happened. He just cut his head half off and then dragged his corpse to where it now sat, fully dead, in my backyard.

I’d told Nico what he’d said, about his collection, and Nico was on the phone to Titus, trying to work out where his captives might be right now. They needed help too.

When Lucius was done, there was nothing left of the vampire formerly known as Ashar. There was a pile of tiny pieces. X pulled out his dick and pissed on it, then Judge doused it in gasoline and set it on fire.

I learned two things today. You couldn’t trust a smile even if it said it was your friend. And vampires burned like tinder. The pile went up in a huge whooshing flame. It had taken three hours to do, and Lucius was covered in blood splatter from head to toe. But it was done, and my vampire sighed contentedly. Our enemy was dead and I could relax. How the hell could I relax though? The Collector wasn’t the only crazy ass bitch who thought I belonged to them. Titus couldn’t give me Convocation Representation status soon enough.

There was a squeal of tires from the front of the house, and then the steady thud of quick feet through the house. I was wrapped in Brody’s strong arms, Tex pressed into me from behind, as soon as their feet hit the deck.

“Red. I demand you stop this shit before I die prematurely of old age,” Brody huffed. I laugh-sobbed as their warmth centered me like nothing else. Their aliveness. But the idea of Brody dying at all, old age or not, had me crying a little more.

Tex growled low, pulling me closer like he could meld us together. He didn’t say anything, but our bond pulsed with his fear for me.

I extracted myself from them then, mostly because I was covering them in gore. “Sorry. I made you guys gross,” I hiccuped. Nico stood, scooping me up in his arms and walking me into the house. “Let me wash this off you. We will wash all this badness down the drain, Raine, and then we’ll live like the universe owes us happiness. What do you think?”

I nodded against his chest, and brushed my knuckles across the wooden door frame on the way past. Knock on wood to ward off bad luck. It was an old habit of my grandmother’s that I’d picked up but hadn’t done in ages. Might explain a few things.

I noticed Brody and Tex following behind us, but Nico didn’t seem to mind. He put me down in the bathroom and peeled off his clothes. When I realized my hands were shaking, Brody stepped forward and helped me. Tex turned on the shower, the steam quickly filling the room.They worked in perfect synchronization, moving around me like they’d been together for decades. Finally, Nico picked me up and lifted me into the shower. I curled my body around his, just wrapping myself in his strength and power. The shower was quite a big one, old style without boxed glass screens. Instead there was just a single long glass wall separating it from the bath and the sink.

Nico just held me as the water cleansed me of the death that clung to me. Washed away the badness of the whole last month. Brody and Tex just sat on the vanity, watching Nico hold me, not saying anything just being silent sentinels of support, ready to help me in any way I might need it. I was so fucking lucky.

I just clung to his body, my face buried in his neck, my arms and legs wrapped around him. There was nothing sexual about it, no there was more to it then that. It was silent support. A love deeper than anything physical. They were all telling me their feelings without words today.

“Love you,” I murmured against Nico’s skin.

He slid me back to my feet, tilting my face up and kissing me so softly it was barely there. “And I love you.”

Brody had leftthe pups with the Matriarch when he felt the call, Annie coming in as back up, and I was a bit anxious for them to be home. Would Christopher think we’d just abandoned them? Would they be scared being back in a Pack setting after we promised that they had a family with us?

I was glad they weren’t here, because I needed this moment to recompose myself before I could put on a brave face. But tomorrow, I wanted them home. It was weird how quickly they’d become a part of the patchwork of our lives. Even Tex seemed a little lost.

I didn’t know what to feel really. Relieved that the threat was gone? Sad that a vampire, who was probably a perfectly nice person before the madness took him, was now smoldering in my backyard?

Judge had sequestered Everly back in her apartment after she’d saved me. Jesus, I owed her everything.

When I told Brody what happened, he’d smiled. “She’s Kelly’s kid after all. She knew how to kill a man with a crayon and a hair tie from the time she was three.”

I made Brody go around there. She might be a badass, but she would need the Pack right now, as much as I needed mine. Lucius had disappeared almost as soon as he’d finished dismembering the body in the backyard, and I didn’t know when he’d be back. I don't think this was exactly what he’d signed up for, but now he was bound to me whether he liked it or not. Otherwise, it might have been him with his throat cut.

Nico’s phone rang, and he stood as he answered it. I laid on Judge’s lap, even though he practically stank of regret.

I looked up into his tortured, midnight blue eyes.”It’s not your fault. You told me not to leave. I should have known better.”

Judge shook his head. “I should never have left you alone. This will be my cross to bear, Rainey Day. Maybe one day I’ll forgive myself, but not today, so don’t ask it of me, ‘kay?”

I nodded and closed my eyes as he stroked his hands through my hair.

Word must have gotten around town, because a lasagna turned up on the doorstep, better than a dick I guess, and I wondered if people thought it was me. That I brought this shit to their town. They weren’t wrong, in the short time I’d been a vampire, I’d caused an unbelievable amount of drama.

Judge stroked his hand over my face, his thumb stroking away my frown. “Stop that. This isn’t your fault either.”

Nico strolled back into the room, shaking his head. “That was Titus. Enforcers raided Ashar’s house and found sixteen different types of rare supernaturals. Even humans with extraordinary abilities apparently. They were all being kept in cages in an underground compound. You saved their lives. Raine. Because you’re brave.”

I shook my head. “No, Everly did that. All I did was get captured by a deranged vampire.”

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