Page 38 of Kentucky Nights
“I know a great Purgatory song. It will definitely help you fall asleep, but you also might never wake up again. You have a fifty-fifty shot. Do you like the odds before I start doing my voice exercises? I need to warm up.”
“Lorcan, what do you want?” I drowse, interlacing my fingers across my chest to get comfortable.
The bottom edge of the cot dips from him making himself at home. “I’m here to check on you. That’s what friends do, Kentucky. I know you wouldn’t know that because you’re a loner, blah blah blah, and whatever other bullshit you say.”
I take my hat off, exhaling with aggravation as I stare at his cloaked figure. “I’m fine, Lorcan. No need to check in so much. I’ve been fine for all these years, I’ll be fine for more.”
“So you’re agreeing to eternity, then? You’re agreeing that you can’t fight Fate, no matter how much you want to.”
I sit up, swinging my legs over the edge of the cot and placing my elbows on my thighs. “Lorcan, I’m not fighting Fate. I’m just not completely accepting of it, considering Fate hasn’t necessarily dealt the best cards for me.”
“You are so maddening.” He stands, drifting over to the door. His long black cloak drags across the floorboards, disrupting the dust. “You have no idea how many paranormals would kill to be in your shoes, to have a mate, to know they won’t be spending the rest of their days alone. I’m included in that. I am…” He tries to find the words as he stares out of the loft. “I am envious of the gift that has fallen on your doorstep. I don’t understand, and I will never understand why you are resisting. You infuriate me.”
With a sharp turn on his head, Lorcan’s glare bores into me, the once blackened holes now shine a furious orange—the samecolor I imagine Hell’s flames would be. “You have a gift in your home, and yet you are here,” he spits with disgust. “Withering away in a fucking barn that reeks of cow shit, by the way. If anything, I wish Dru could be free of you so she can have a love that is worthy of her.”
Like smoke, I’m in front of him in less than a second, my hand wrapped around his neck, snarling. I draw my gun, pressing it under his chin, and pull the hammer, the click audible in the silence of the loft.
“You better watch how you speak to me, Lorcan. Friend or not, I have no issue trying to kill you even if every attempt fails because every fucking attempt will bring me joy. If you dare, for one fucking minute, think you can come onto my property, speak of wanting my mate, and wishing her away from me. If you weren’t already dead, I would think you have a death wish.”
His bony fingers circle around my wrist one by one. The orbital sockets of his eyes ignite into fire, the orange flickering and swaying the more anger takes hold. “That’s hilarious coming from you—a man who has wished for nothing but death since the moment he was turned. Poor pitiful you, Kentucky. If it is death that you wish for”— like a phantom, his hand disappears into my chest, and the sharp points of his fleshless fingers latch around my heart—“I can give it to you. The peace that you have been longing for, the silence you have been dreaming of, the moment of your life finally coming to an end—it can happen right now.”
I choke for breath as his grip tightens around my heart, the bones threatening to puncture the delicate tissue.
“Isn’t this what you want, Kentucky? To be free of this world, this pain that you are always feeling, the bitterness, the betrayal? You can have everything you have wanted at last. I’m only offering this opportunity one time.”
“That would mean Dru dies,” I croak, doing my best not to move in sudden motions.
“I didn’t think you cared about that.”
I thought I had him by the throat, but Lorcan is much stronger than he has let on. An invisible force pulses from him, pushing me away until my hand is free from his neck. The Void still has his forearm deep within my chest, toying with my life.
“Seems like you’ve been waiting to do this a long time, Lorcan.”
“I haven’t,” he admits, the brow bones pinching together as if he is hurt I have asked that question. “You are my friend. When you were turned, it was me who took your maker’s soul to Purgatory. I freed you from her. I have stayed by your side all these years to see if you would make a change in your path, because Kentucky, your struggles that you have experienced, do not end in death. They follow you to the afterlife. Free her from your fucking misery, Kentucky. Let me take her to Purgatory, and I will give her a fresh start, a new fated mate in a new dimension where you will never be able to find her.”
Growling, I grab onto his arm and tug it, forcing him deeper into my chest until his fingers touch my spine. “Fucking try to take her from me when I haven’t had a chance to have her to myself, and I will drag you to the pits of Hell myself, Lorcan. I will only exist to torture you. Take me to Purgatory, fine, but it won’t mean you will be rid of me. I will be your shadow, the noise you hear in the dark, and you’ll wonder if it is me.” I lean in, smelling the scent of smoke and flame off his cloak. “And it will be. It isn’t up to you to decide what she wants, and it isn’t up to you to decide what I need. Dru and I will work this out together because this is between her and me. If she wants a new life, a new mate, a new beginning, then I will gladly let you rip my heart out that day.”
Drawing my weapon again, I press the barrel between the endless pools of fire. “Let me go, or it will be your spine I add to my lasso, Lorcan.”
He tilts his head, the warmth of the blaze flickering inside the coal caverns, heating my face. “You think I’m scared of you haunting the night? You have no idea what being afraid is until you are a Void, slithering from dimension to dimension, taking souls of the foulest beings known in the universe. And you think a vampire like you could ever put fear into me?”
He pushes his forehead against the weapon, and a clicking sound that I’ve never heard before comes from the back of his throat. “It’s laughable that you think I would fear a creature such as a vampire. Especially one who knows so little about his kind or abilities or lore or fated mates or anything else related to the issue. You have isolated yourself due to fear of who you are. I do not share that emotion because I like who I am. Can you say the same, Kentucky? Can you admit that you are at peace with your life now, or do you still ache to be put out of your misery?” The words are spoken from a villain, not the friend whom I have known for more years than I can remember. “I will give you until your week is up before you or Dru begin to experience agony so unbearable, you will beg for me to stake you.”
Tired of hearing him speak, I pull the trigger. His head jerks back from the force of the bullet penetrating his skull. Lorcan straightens, a mad cackle leaving between his teeth. He snags my wrist, guiding the gun to his nose, and he inhales the smoke drifting from the barrel.
He exhales through his mouth, blowing the gunpowder-filled cloud into my face. “Mmm, it’s been so long since I’ve taken a hit. Smells good.” Lorcan plucks the bullet from between his eyes and lifts it into the air, examining it. “You make your own bullets. That’s impressive.” He flicks the flattened piece of metal across the room and steps closer. “Don’t ever shoot me again, Kentucky, or I’ll stake you and make your afterlife worse than the life you thought you had here. You might be powerful, butthere are always creatures more powerful than you. I am one of them.”
“Don’t test me again, and I won’t.”
“I can’t promise that,” he says. “Testing you seems to be the only way to get the truth. I won’t ever stop doing that.”
I groan, holstering my gun. “You make me madder than?—”
“—No.” He places his fingers against my lips. “Shhh. No. We don’t need another Southern allegory that paints a picture of your anger. I get it. You’re mad. And you know what, you’re not really good at the allegories.”
I pick up my hat that fell onto the floor, dusting the soft material off with my hand before placing it on my head. “Are we good, or do I need to shoot you again to leave me alone?”
“Well, that won’t work. I love the smell of gunsmoke too much. So that’s just foreplay for me, baby.”
