Six rules undying book 2, p.37
Six (Rules Undying Book 2), page 37
They settled in the farthest booth from the others, a tiny little table tucked away in a corner. Lorcan set down the Irish whiskey between them, but didn’t pour. “Ice?” he asked. Paige shook her head.
“I suppose it’s all come down to this, hasn’t it?” the vampire asked. “I think that the others will work well together and it’s good to see that Irvine’s strays have found a home, but—”
“But,” Paige said, staring at the empty glasses. “There’s always a ‘but,’ isn’t there?”
“Is Morgan speaking to you yet? He doesn’t have much to say to me.”
“What do you expect? Vampires killed his whole family.”
“And a vampire saved his life,” Lorcan countered. “Paige, I know how you feel about him. I share your feelings—”
Paige raised a brow.
“What I mean is that the connections that you made while I was inside you, I now have, as real as if I experienced them myself. I won’t try and come between you. After all, what we had was the product of manipulation—”
“Not to mention you’re married,” she said flatly.
“Indeed.”
They sat together, staring at the glasses, until Lorcan finally extended his hand. Paige slowly reached out and rested her hand in his. A chill ran down her spine as he grasped her fingers.
“We will always be connected, Paige, but I am happy that you found someone. Someone that I hope will end up helping us both in the long run. Now, I know you have questions, questions that you want completely honest answers for, so I suppose we shouldn’t delay any longer.”
“Pour us a drink then.”
He splashed a bit of whiskey in both glasses. Paige puckered as she took her first sip. Lorcan diluted his with something viscous from a flask.
After he took his first drink, Paige asked, “Did you enjoy killing Irvine and Ping?”
“I enjoyed knowing that my family was safe because of their deaths.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Paige, I was a soldier when the Romans ruled most of the earth. I’ve fought in many battles, both ancient and modern, and probably killed more people than you’ve met in your entire life. I’m efficient at killing, because I just want it to be over with. There is no joy at all—only a sort of numb ache that never goes away.”
“I can’t forget her face,” Paige said. “I helped kill—”
“Time helps more than anything else. In time the necessity of what you did will outweigh the horror. The nightmares will fade, but the scars will remain. I do what I do so that my family doesn’t have to live with those scars. I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you too.”
“What happened to my father? I haven’t gotten a call—”
“I gave your father to your great-grandfather. As far as he’s concerned, he never got to you, and I paid enough to some interested parties to keep him chasing aliens for the rest of his miserable little life. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Mister DeMarco to implant the suggestion that you and your father are bitterly estranged. I don’t think he’ll ever come after you again, but he will be watched, closely.”
“He can really just forget everything?”
“People easily forget what doesn’t suit their long-term interests.
I’ll make certain he can’t harm you, and as childish as your great-grandfather can be, he won’t let your father off the leash either.”
“So I guess that just leaves the rest of the angry Lung vampires
—”
“In my world there is always a subplot going on. Ivan showed up, didn’t he? He brokered a deal for someone with the Lung. He never acts on his own, and he never gives up his sources. I have a feeling that we only stumbled onto one crazy trap. There will certainly be more in years to come.”
“And you think I’m just going to stay here with you, after everything you’ve done? Morgan won’t—”
“I won’t what?” Morgan said. He glared at Paige’s hand still resting on the vampire’s and asked, “Am I interrupting?”
“Not at all,” Lorcan said. “In fact, I’m fairly certain that Paige was about to ask the question that will determine once and for all if you’ll join my merry little pack.”
Morgan slid next to Paige and stole her hand back. He kept his bright blue eyes locked on Lorcan. “Tell me one good reason why I should help a vampire,” he growled.
“You mean other than saving both yours and Paige’s life?”
Lorcan asked. “Paige, ask the right question, now, before we run out of whiskey.”
“Do you know who killed Morgan’s family?”
“I know who killed his mother and father, yes,” Lorcan replied.
“It wasn’t you,” Morgan muttered. “Just tell me who it was.”
“I will tell you exactly who killed your parents, Mr. Blaylock, but only if you swear to me on a blood oath that you will seek no retribution against him.”
“Why the hell would I do that, bloodsucker?” Morgan growled.
“Because your little sister is still very much alive, and if you want her to stay that way, you have to agree to my exact terms!”
Morgan stared silently as the vampire took another sip of his drink. Lorcan tipped his all but empty glass toward the blond werewolf. Paige piped up with, “Are you telling the truth, Lorcan?”
“Indeed I am, Miss Paige.”
“Lorcan can’t lie to me right now—just trust me,” she said.
“Morgan—”
The other werewolf flicked out his claws. Lorcan tensed slightly until the werewolf used his index claw to prick his thumb. “How does this blood oath work?” Morgan growled.
“We share a little blood and make a promise. If the intentions are pure and the emotions strong enough, we’ll be bound by it.
Legally, if I fail to keep my side of the bargain, I can be dragged into the noonday sun and burned until I am dead,” Lorcan said. “Paige is quite familiar with the process now.”
Morgan looked over at Paige briefly but stuck his bleeding hand on the table. Lorcan bit his own thumb and then pressed it against Morgan’s wound.
“I promise to seek no retribution against the vampire that killed my parents,” Morgan choked out.
“And I promise to tell you what happened to your sister, as well as keep her safe as much as I can,” Lorcan said.
Both of them shook their heads and looked dizzy for a moment before Morgan jerked away and wrapped his thumb with a napkin.
The vampire licked his thumb and smiled. “So similar,” he muttered.
He continued, “If there is one thing I’ve learned in all my years
—”
Morgan rolled his eyes at the vampire rhetoric, but allowed Lorcan to continue with, “There is no greater force in this universe than a parent’s love, than his desire to protect his children, or the lengths to which a parent will go when that child is threatened.
“I killed my family’s enemies so that my wife and children could have the luxury of revering life. It was my father’s dream, after all, that humans and vampires could live together in harmony. He may be gone, but the dream endures with the Pendragon family . . .”
Lorcan trailed off to pour more whiskey. Both werewolves waited with their arms crossed across their chests.
The vampire continued, “My son was very much like his mother
—an artist, a hedonist—and raised with the fundamental belief that all life was sacred. But like all boys, he was easily swayed by the attentions of a woman. He had questionable friends for quite some time, but it was his childish desires to impress a girl that landed him in Savannah twenty-five years ago. Mina begged me to follow him, but I was too late. Your father had attacked my son’s object of affection, and in the rage and confusion of youth, my son attacked back. He had never been tested in battles nor learned how to control his anger as I was forced to. He only saw your father as the monster who clawed out Minerva’s eyes.”
“My father was no monster,” Morgan barked. He quickly lowered his voice as he saw a few wayward stares from the dining room.
“And what about my mother? What did she do to deserve—”
“My son was in a rage, a berserker blood-induced frenzy,”
Lorcan said sadly. “He found your mother and your sister cowering in the bathroom. Your mother did everything she could to fight him so your sister could escape, but, I’m sorry—”
“You’re sorry?” Morgan growled. “You think that you can just say that you are sorry?”
“By the time I got there, my son was holding your sister in his arms. The act of attacking someone so young, so helpless, had finally awoken him from his fury. He begged me then and there to kill him, my own son—”
“Lorcan, what did you do?” Paige asked softly.
“I did what any father would do. I cleaned up after my child. I put your mother in the bathtub, boy, and I staged the crime scene. I knocked my son out, put him in the trunk, and drove away as fast as I could while holding your little sister in my lap.”
“They found her body in a dumpster,” Morgan choked out.
“They found a body, yes. It’s sad to say that they are relatively easy to come by in my world, and nineties forensics were shite compared to today.”
“What did you do to her?”
“I gave her a tiny portion of myself, far smaller than I gave to you, Paige. The odds were that she would die within hours. Any normal child would have died before dawn. I gave her to one of my servants who had been trying to adopt for years, with the instructions that if she lived, she was all his.”
“And she lived?” Morgan asked skeptically.
“Indeed. I made certain that she grew up as far away from my kind as possible. I released my servant, and the little orphan from Georgia grew up completely normal in the suburbs. I thought it was best to have no further influence or contact with her and that she would live out her days in peace.”
“But—” both Paige and Morgan prompted him.
“But like my father said, fate is your most faithful dog; it always comes back to find you,” Lorcan sighed. “You see, my son drank your father’s blood, Morgan, and unlike me, he did not have the same resistances. He grew weak, despondent, and had no desire to live—”
“Good,” Morgan said flatly.
“I thought that I could cure him, so I made a deal with one of my family’s enemies. I made Lady Jaeger compel her vampire son, your great-grandfather, Paige, to wipe my son’s memories as well as swear her daughter, Minerva, to an oath of silence about the whole incident. It cost me dearly, but I thought it was worth it. Your great-grandfather was told some lie about a night of acid and bad blood, and he thinks to this day that he was simply erasing a bender.”
“Everything was fine . . . for a few years. I thought I had saved my son, but while you can wipe away the memories, the guilt he felt ran deep, as did the poisonous blood. My son began to fall to what my kind calls the slow death. His fangs fell out, and he began to die by degrees, torn apart by what I made him forget. I gave up all hope.”
“What does this have to do with Gwen?” Morgan growled.
“Well, you can imagine my surprise when a year ago, my son decides to show up at a party, something he hadn’t done in ages, and he has the last person in the entire world I would ever expect to help him hanging on his arm—”
“What?” Morgan asked.
“My son found a guardian angel to save him, probably the only person in the world who could ever make him forgive himself—”
“Gwen?” Morgan asked.
“Actually, she goes by Georgia now.”
- 36 -
“So, what happens now?” Paige asked as she surveyed the closing crowd at Mayweather’s Pub. The normal humans had all left for the night, leaving Tina alone to shut down the kitchen. Wesley followed her around like an eager puppy, while Kayleigh and Bernard compared laptops and giggled about zombies.
“I’m telling you, zombies are ridiculous,” the redheaded werewolf chick sighed. She flagged the vampire at the bar. “Lorcan, tell him how zombies will never work!”
“Yes, zombies are rather silly,” Lorcan said. “Who would ever believe in them?”
Paige watched Kyle roll his eyes and growl at his phone as his dating app began buzzing. It was only when Sammy wandered over and set down his phone that the male redheaded werewolf began to smile. Billy and Toy lounged in another booth, still pounding shots and comparing nicknames. Paige could just hear “Shorty Spice and Morganator sitting in a tree—” drifting from the table.
Only Nadia and Morgan seemed distant and aloof. Lorcan wandered over to the purple-haired werewolf and gave her a surprisingly paternal hug. Paige took it as her cue to inch closer to Morgan.
“She almost ended up captured by the same vampires who killed her mom—” Paige noted. She cringed as she watched Morgan tense up.
“Yeah, it would be terrible to be stuck with the vampires who killed your parents,” he said bitterly before taking a drink of beer. His faced softened a little, and he too slid a little closer to Paige. “The
story he told us about my sister, about his son, do you think it actually happened the way he said?” Morgan asked.
“I don’t know. If you asked me a couple of months ago, I’d have told you that vampires were as ridiculous as zombies and werewolves . . . puh-leez.”
“Yeah, werewolves, sheesh,” Morgan said with his first real smile of the night. He offered her a sip of his beer.
She took a deep, long drink before sighing, “So, I don’t exactly have a job or a car or even a place to live right now—”
“Sounds awfully familiar.”
“Yeah. I have a pretty good idea that Lorcan is going to get us wrapped up in all sorts of trouble from now on, and we still have to figure out how to introduce you to your sister—who has no idea that you exist—without completely shattering her worldview either . . .”
“Yup,” Morgan said with an exaggerated nod.
“So, do you want to just steal Billy’s RV and go get some tacos until we figure out something better?” Paige asked as she slapped down the empty bottle.
Morgan’s smile grew wider. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Acknowledgements
Once again, the author would like to thank the lovely Cheri, for having to deal with spectacular misuse of commas. Also, she would like to thank Reginald for another brilliant cover. This time around there is a cluster of brave beta readers to thank – Kate, Katie, Kris, DJ, and Deb; oh, and one crazy Russian who kept translating even if she’s not a spy.
The author must thank the entire staff of her local Westborough, MA coffee shop, for without copious amounts of tea, this novel would never have been possible. Lastly, of course, the author has to give a shout out to Kindle Press and to the legion of fantastic Four fans who made this happen. Mada ikite iru . . . who knows what the future will hold?
To find out more, please visit www.rachelecarr.com or follow
@TotalRECarr on Twitter.
Document Outline
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
Acknowledgements
R.E. Carr, Six (Rules Undying Book 2)
