Redeem Me: A Reverse Harem Vampire Romance (The Last Vocari Book 3) Page 2

  I snorted. “What vampire in their right mind would rally behind a vampire standing next to the Black Rose?”

  I was still laughing at the idea when I caught Azrael’s slowly spreading grin. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him smile before. It was…unsettling on a face that was usually so severe. And the sinful gleam in his eyes wasn’t helping the effect. “They will if we can give them the sun.”

  2

  By the look on Azrael’s face, I thought he was going to break into hysterical, maniacal laughter, but we were saved by a startled Ethan gasping in the doorway.

  Ethan’s handsome face went slack with relief when he saw me sitting up in bed. He was holding something up triumphantly in his hand as though it was a holy grail, but it was momentarily forgotten as he rushed into the room, stuffing the vial into Azrael’s hands as he came to me.

  He crawled onto the bed, took my face between his warm hands and wordlessly kissed me. His lips pressed against mine, softly at first, testing my strength. To make sure I wasn’t going to shatter. When I deepened the kiss, an ache spread low in my belly. Ethan was all too eager to increase the pressure of his kiss, and his palms on my cheeks tightened.

  A throat cleared somewhere behind him, and I almost whimpered when he pulled away, wanting to clutch him back to me. Wanting him to keep kissing me like I was the most precious thing in the world. Wanting to do a hell of a lot more than just kiss him now…

  A warmth spread between my thighs and I tried to get my body under control while wishing Azrael would give me some alone time with Frost and Ethan. I could think of a few things I’d like to—

  “Have you done it?” Azrael asked, breathless as he held the vial up to the light, his face paling.

  Ethan gripped my hand tightly before he turned back to face Azrael. He wound his fingers through mine, and I wasn’t sure he would be letting go anytime soon. Not that I minded. I didn’t want him to.

  “I did. But…” he paused. “I’ll need more samples if we’re going to be able to make more. That was all I could distil from what you gave me.”

  I shuddered, knowing that by samples he meant more pieces of Rose. But I was glad he didn’t say it. I mean, I would give them all the blood they needed if it meant putting an end to Raphael and his merry band of murderous followers.

  I’d killed hundreds of vampires, most of whom I prayed deserved it. But if we succeeded in this, there would be hundreds more dead. Exactly the kind I usually hunted. There would be hundreds less leeches out there ruining families and killing for sport. The idea was more than I could’ve dreamed of a few weeks ago. Hell, I may even put myself out of work.

  But I doubted that. As long as there were supernatural creatures in this world, there would need to be someone to keep them in check.

  Azrael’s adams apple bobbed in his throat. “And you’re certain?” he asked dispassionately. “It’s the same as what you and the others needled into your skin?”

  I could tell by the crease in Azrael’s brow, and the flaring of his cheekbones as he clenched his jaws together, that he was working hard to conceal some emotion from us. And by the way his stare was boring into Ethan’s, I knew he was ransacking Ethan’s mind for even the slightest hint of doubt.

  “I’m sure,” was Ethan’s stony reply. “Will you go alone?”

  My eyes widened, finally understanding.

  Azrael was going to meet the sun for the first time in over a thousand years.

  “There isn’t enough there for all of us,” Frost said in a low voice tainted with the sound of disappointment.

  “Has it worn off already?” I asked, curious.

  Ethan nodded. “Yeah, it started wearing off a couple days ago, and by yesterday it was gone from our systems entirely.”

  I bit my lower lip. Shit. I’d been really hoping it would last longer—of that one dose would be all it took, but I guess that wasn’t the case. “I can give you more—”

  “Not yet,” Ethan interrupted with a gentle smile. “When you’re fully healed.”

  Azrael was still contemplating the vial in his hands, holding it as though he was afraid it may vanish entirely if he wasn’t staring directly at it. “I’ll go with you,” I said, surprising myself.

  By the furrowed brows on Frost and Ethan, I could tell they were just as surprised at what I said as I was.

  He was still a total dickhead, and I still didn’t fully trust him. I wouldn’t ever, I didn’t think. But Azrael had come when we needed him. He’d saved me and my guys. And obviously he hadn’t harmed them while I’d been asleep. In fact, other than tired, listless eyes, they looked to be in more than perfect health.

  This was about more than my freedom, or what my blood could do anymore. After seeing what Raphael could do without remorse—killing all those people…

  Well, I’d keep my word and help Azrael concoct a longer-lasting elixir to allow my guys to walk in sunlight, but we had bigger fish to fry now. We all knew it.

  Azrael cocked his head at me, considering my offer. “If you catch fire, I’ll be ready with a hose,” I said lightly with a smirk and a wink, not wanting to make this any more awkward than it already was.

  Az ran his tongue over his teeth and pulled his lower lips between them, biting down. “That would be…appreciated,” he replied tentatively. “But I’m not sure you’re well enough—”

  I swung my legs from the bed and stood. My head teetered with a gripping sensation of vertigo for a moment before it subsided, and I caught myself with a widened stance. “See? Totally fine.”

  “Alright. But I’ll have Amala tend to your wounds first. Camden, would you mind?”

  I sensed Frost bristle at the use of his given name. No one called him that except his mother. His face soured as he rose, pushing off from his knees to stand and cross the room. “Yeah. I’ll get her.”

  “Am I missing something? Who’s Amala?”

  I’d been asking Azrael, but it was Ethan who replied. “A witch,” he said. “A really strong one,” he paused and traced the embroidered golden threads on the comforter, eyes downcast. “She’s probably the only reason you’re still alive.”

  “And she’d have had you fully healed by now if I didn’t need her abilities elsewhere,” Azrael added just as Frost re-entered the room with a woman in tow behind him.

  She looked to me in her late-twenties or perhaps her early thirties. But, like Azrael, she had this ancient air about her. The feel of her presence wasn’t like a shiver slinking down my spine so much as it was more suffocating. Like her energy was clogging the room and pressing down on me like a physical weight.

  The woman—or witch called Amala was curvy, with smooth skin the color of wet sand and almond-shaped eyes that watched me with a predatory stare. She was beautiful, in the way that a jaguar is beautiful before it bares its teeth.

  She didn’t waste any time, wading past Azrael and Ethan to stand directly next to me beside the bed. She was taller than me, but only by a few inches.

  Her eyes were a soft caramel color, like they were maybe once brown, but had been bleached by the passage of time. I wasn’t even sure if she could see.

  She reached out to me and in a knee-jerk reaction I flinched away.

  “Amala won’t harm you. She is under my employ and…an old friend.”

  “Ha!” Amala said, her face twisting into a sneer. “Friends don’t work friends to the bone creating wards. Nor do they bring women to be healed after they’ve broken them,” her tone was saucy and lilting with the hint of an accent I couldn’t place.

  Azrael smirked.

  Amala lifted her hands and I waited, wide-eyed, my gaze darting from Azrael standing sentinel, to Ethan, to Frost who was standing behind Amala with his arms crossed—watching her like a hawk as though he didn’t fully trust her either. And eventually, back to Amala herself.

  The witch flicked her fingers through the air and shut her unnerving eyes. In the span of a blink, there was a wavering shape hovering where her fingers just were.
Golden and shining. Glowing. A circular shape with a line down its heart. Hanging impossibly in empty space.

  A strange smell like burning metal and cold stone permeated the air.

  I gasped as it exploded, scattering its shimmering glow over my head like a veil. A small sound escaped my lips, but as the bits of magical dust seeped into my pores and spread through my blood, I sighed. The sensation was a little itchy…I couldn’t think if that was the right word to describe it. But it was also warm and almost comforting.

  The ache at the top of my skull dulled, and after a moment faded entirely. The uncomfortable bruising on my back that was keeping my muscles tense there faded, too.

  I stretched out my limbs and let out a long breath. There was still some tension. A few kinks. But I felt better than I had in days.

  “Thank you,” I breathed.

  Amala’s brows raised. “Don’t mention in,” she replied and turned away. “That’s the best I can do for now,” she added, turning back to speak to Azrael as she slowly crossed the room to the door, her long deep burgundy dress dragging against the carpet. “She’ll need to eat and drink to finish her recovery.”

  Azrael merely nodded in response but called after her before she could vanish from view. “And the wards?”

  Amala stopped but did not turn. “They’ll hold,” she replied.

  “How long?”

  “For as long as they need to—so long as I still draw breath.”

  Azrael looked as though a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “Thank—”

  “Save it,” Amala interrupted him, tilting her head to glare in his direction. I saw something dark cross her face. “You owe me for this, Azrael.”

  “I know.”

  She left a moment later and my shoulders sagged as the tension in the room left with her. “She’s a real ray of sunshine, isn’t she?”

  Nobody laughed.

  “Shall we?” Azrael intoned with an arm extended as though he expected me to thread mine through it. I walked past his crooked arm and out into the hall, leaving him and the others to trail behind me.

  I had no idea where I was going and when I stepped out of the room into a corridor lined with doors and paintings and what looked to be a hallway on each end and a third going somewhere else from the middle, I stopped. I let Azrael pass me and lead the way as I fell into step between Frost and Ethan.

  Ethan threaded his fingers through mine again, and Frost followed along just behind us.

  We turned down the center hall and toward a long staircase leading down, following it until the floor leveled out again. We came into an open area with a stately dining room to our left and what looked like a sitting room but was now a makeshift laboratory to our right.

  “I’ll go get you something to eat,” Frost grunted while cutting Azrael a warning glare.

  Azrael, looking amused, said nothing. He waited, twisting the vial between his thumbs and forefingers at his front. “Did you manage to get the equipment you needed to administer it?”

  It took me a moment to remember that the serum Ethan invented from my blood had to be tattooed into the skin.

  “The gun is old—I got it at a twenty-four-hour pawn shop yesterday, but it should do the trick.”

  Azrael followed Ethan into the lab and sat in the rolling stool Ethan nudged toward him, placing the vial back into Ethan’s outstretched hand with a grimace.

  “Any preference?” Ethan asked as he pulled on a pair of gloves and poured the contents of the vial into the little pot attached to the gun. The focused look he got in his eyes as he got everything prepared and then sat, straddling a stool was a massive turn on.

  I licked my lips, moving in closer to watch.

  Azrael shrugged and reached up behind his head to remove his shirt in one pull. I held my breath and clamped my jaw shut as his toned torso was exposed. Why did someone who was practically the devil have to look so much like a goddamned angel? My inner lioness purred at the broad expanse of his shoulders. The narrowing of his toned waist as it vanished into the waistband of his loose fitted jeans. The twin dimples in his back as he spun the stool, exposing his back to Ethan. “Doesn’t matter,” he replied, and I wondered if he wanted it on his back so he wouldn’t have to look at the same image every day for another thousand years.

  Ethan’s eyes sparked with mischief and Azrael flinched, shoving the stool away before Ethan could bring his tattooing needle close enough to his flesh. “Don’t,” Azrael warned. “If you ink a cock into my skin, I’ll have yours for breakfast.”

  Ethan paled and unable to help myself, I burst into tear-filled laughter. The image of the great and terrible Azrael with an enormous dick inked into his back too much to handle.

  I wiped a stray tear from my cheek and settled, catching my breath. “Fuck,” I said between breaths. “I didn’t know you swung that way, Az.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know,” he retorted, his voice a low-pitched grumble.

  My face must have registered my shock. It wasn’t the response I’d been expecting.

  He arched a brow at me.

  “You mean you…” I trailed off, unable to ask him outright.

  Azrael grumbled something I didn’t catch and moved back toward Ethan, this time turning to give Ethan access to his chest. Smart man.

  Ethan, carefully this time, with the tips of his ears stained pink, moved in closer to the ancient vampire. I could see the gears and cogs turning behind his steeped tea eyes.

  Azrael shook his head twice before nodding, and I realized Ethan was creating images in his mind for Azrael to decide from. Ugh. How was he so comfortable with Azrael being inside his head? Just the thought that Az might be listening in on my thoughts at any given moment made my insides squirm.

  No one needed to know me on that personal of a level. My thoughts weren’t exactly pure.

  “Az?” Azrael asked and it took me a moment to realized he was responding to my thoughts and wondering at the newly minted nickname. I’d used it earlier too, hadn’t I? I didn’t realize it, but then I suppose he hadn’t either straight away. Azrael was just such a mouthful.

  I rolled my eyes. “Would you please stay the fuck out of my head, Azrael?”

  “I like it,” he said, not wincing even a tiniest bit as Ethan’s tattoo needle bit into his flesh. “Az.”

  I growled.

  “If you want me to stay out of your head, you’ll just have to learn to make me.”

  I groaned again, louder this time. Azrael had already begun training me how to withstand his compulsion, and how to erect walls in my mind to keep him out, but I’d barely managed to evict him for more than a few seconds before it felt like my head was going to explode from the pressure of his attack. “I tried that, remember?”

  He reached up to shove his hair back away from his face and the veins in his bicep thickened with the movement, defining an already defined muscle.

  “You’ll need to try harder.”

  I crossed my arms. There was no way I’d ever beat him at his own game. He was too much older. Stronger. It was useless.

  “It’s not useless,” Azrael said. “Your mother once bested my brother.”

  I dropped my gaze. I still wasn’t sure if I fully believed that. “It’s true,” Az continued. “Believe it or not, you have the capacity to be stronger of mind than I could ever dream to be. I’m surprised you yourself can’t read thoughts yet. If the rumors are to be believed, Andora—your ancestor—she could by the time she was sixteen. Perhaps sooner.”

  “Wait,” I said, uncomprehending. “You’re saying I can read minds, too?”

  “You should be able to. Or, at least, I thought you would.”

  “But my mother couldn’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I had to think about it. She did have this way of always seeming to know what I was going to say before I even said it, but I honestly thought that was just a mother’s intuition. “No,” I finally replied, because I wasn’t sure.
But I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t have told me.

  Thinking about it now, though, I thought I knew.

  It made me disgustingly uncomfortable knowing Azrael could read my thoughts at any time. Without my knowledge. It would have been less awful if it was my mom, sure, but it still would have cleaved a rift between us.

  There are some things—hell, lots of things you don’t want your mother knowing you’re thinking about when you’re in your early teens. If Azrael was right, she didn’t tell me because she didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable around her.

  All we had in the world was each other. We moved around a lot while I was young and didn’t understand why. And when we settled in Silverton and I met the guys and mom told me about our ability…and about the vampires…I stopped making friends. Unable to connect with another human being in the same way after knowing I was so different to them.

  That they wouldn’t ever understand.

  “Thought so,” Azrael said, his eyes with that faraway look they got sometimes when he was remembering something in his own past. Like looking at a photograph with fondness for the memory it contains, but also pain for the loss of its happiness.

  What happened to you? I thought, not for the first time.

  Azrael snapped out of his trance-like state and cleared his throat. “You about done?” he asked Ethan, his tone suddenly bored.

  “Just about,” Ethan said and then lifted the needle a second later. “There.”

  I moved around to get a better look and found a tribal sort of sun inked into the toned flesh of Azrael’s left breast. It was fitting, I suppose, but also lacking in so much creativity.

  Azrael arched a brow at me. “Fine, then you pick next time,” he hissed and tugged his shirt back on, not caring that he was staining it with small droplets of his own blood and leftover ink.

  “With pleasure,” I murmured. “Someone has to save you from unoriginality.”

  Azrael rose from the stool while Ethan put away his used gear. For the tiniest second, I thought I saw his hand tremble at his side, but I blinked, and it was still as a surgeon’s, leaving me to wonder if I’d imagined it.