Neal (Golden Streak Series) (10 page)

“She said she was making a phone call
for us to come out with her after we paid.” Ally tossed cash on the table. Bronwyn
tried to figure out what to do when Ryland touched her mind.

“You all right?”
She told him
everything that had just happened, including what had happened with the man in
the shop again.
“I’m coming for you. Stay there and I’ll get you.”

“No. I don’t…Rayne said that whatever is
in me knows everything. She is calling her friend to have it removed. I think I
want to get this taken care of before I go near you or the baby
right now. I
know it sounds stupid because they know so much already, but I need to get this
thing, if there is one, removed now.”

“I don’t like this.”
She told him
she didn’t either. “
But I understand. Keep me informed, okay love? I’m
afraid for you.”

“I’ll be fine. I know it. Rayne is…she’s
so much more than we thought, Ryland. And she’s been to a lab as well.”

~~~

Peter wasn’t happy with her, and she
didn’t blame him. But he was her only hope of getting this fixed. Rayne stepped
in the large warehouse and whistled once. Bronwyn wasn’t a whiny idiot anymore,
which helped her a great deal.

“You do know that I can read your mind,
right?” Rayne smiled and nodded at Bronwyn. “And I’ll have you know that I’ve never
been a whiny idiot once in my entire life. And as much as I’d like to hurt you
right now, I’m pretty sure you can hold your own with me and I’m too stressed
to tangle with you.”

Rayne looked at Ally, who nodded. “You
have been, sort of. But I completely understand. You’re under a great deal of
stress and all, and you’ve just had a lovely baby. Not to mention you’ve been a
little on the quiet side. Not that it’s a bad thing but sort of freaky.”

Rayne laughed. Ally was very sharp and a
great deal of fun, but Bronwyn was amazing and hard. For their differences she
loved them both dearly. The returned whistle had her moving along the shadows
of the empty building.

“I should probably mention that Peter is
a vampire. A very old and very strong one. He won’t hurt you, but he will ask
you for a payment. I’ll take care of it.” Rayne felt his quiet laughter as she
spoke. “He’s also a pain in the ass more than most humans I know.”

“I resent that, Miss Morrow.” He sniffed
the air around them. “Or should I say Mrs. Tiger. Hummm, your blood will be
tastier than ever. If I was ever invited to drink from you.”

“Behave or I won’t give you what I’ve
brought you.” He moved out of the darkness and revealed himself to them. “Peter,
these are my friends and sisters-in-law, Bronwyn Golden and Ally Golden.
Bronwyn is the one that needs your help.”

“Hum, enhanced, aren’t you, my dear?” He
walked around them but moved closest to Bronwyn. “You’re really marked by the
man who created you. I smell four…no six markers on you. I will need more than
our usual payment, Mrs Tiger.”

She nodded, and when Bronwyn started to
protest, she told her to be quiet.
“He’s my friend, and we have an
arrangement. It’s not what you think. I swear. You said you’d trust me, and I
need you to. This is as important for him as it is for you.”

“Come along with me then. I will need
you to be naked. I’m not going to harm you in any way, but some of the markers
are in very dark places, and as I will need to move quickly to get them all,
you’ll need to stand perfectly still when I work.” Rayne looked at Bronwyn when
she didn’t move. “You didn’t tell her, did you, my dear?”

She hadn’t wanted to scare her. But she
had to tell her now. “There were several in me as well. Peter had done this
sort of thing before, and he knew what would happen once the first one is
removed. He has to take them all quickly or you’ll both die.”

“Die? Die how? You can’t mean that
they’ll start to poison me as soon as the first one is removed, do you?” Rayne
shook her head. “Well, what can be worse than that?”

“You’ll explode. They’re set to detonate
when the first one is touched. Peter will remove them from you with his teeth,
biting open your flesh and removing them so fast there won’t be time for them
to go off before he gets them all out of you.” Bronwyn staggered slightly. “When
he’s finished, I’ll heal you because he will need to feed immediately to cure
the poison of your blood from his.”

“She dies and I will hunt you down and
kill you slowly.”
She didn’t acknowledge Ryland when he touched her mind.
“You so much as get
her injured and I won’t stop until you’re suffering like you’ve never suffered
before.”

“You think this is helping me? Do you
have any idea what this is going to cost me to help her heal? What you have
planned for me will be nothing compared to what I have to do.”
She took a deep
breath before continuing.
“You stay the fuck out of my mind for the next
hour, or so help me, I will hurt you in ways you’ve never dreamed of. And trust
me, I can do things to you that your poor daughter will even cringe from the
sight of you.”

He was still there in the back of her
mind, as was Neal. She told him that she had to do this and to contact her mom
and have her at her apartment as soon as she could. She watched as Bronwyn took
off her clothes and stood still while Peter arranged her. As soon as Bronwyn
nodded that she was ready, Peter lunged at her. It was over in seconds and her
work started immediately. She was glad now that she’d eaten a hardy lunch.

The first explosion went off just as she
was touching Bronwyn over the first wound. The others, seven in total, had gone
off all at once. Peter was very good at this, as neither he nor Bronwyn were
harmed by them. As soon as the first wound was healed, Rayne moved her to the
floor and finished the healing her body.

It wasn’t like with the flowers that she
repaired, but human flesh as well as tiger and all the other animals that she
had buried deep within her. They all needed her to seal the wounds, but also to
heal the places where the small markers had been placed in muscle. Rayne gave the
wounds all she was and a little extra so that Bronwyn would be as strong as
before. As she closed the last wound, this one deep in her throat, Rayne
contacted Neal again.

“I’ll be there soon tell her.”
She closed her
eyes only to open them as Peter stood before her. “I have brought you the seeds
of life. Do you know how to plant them?”

He nodded. “You have been saving these
for me, have you not, my friend? You had a plan to come to me?”

She nodded and drifted away. “My home,
if you please. And no detours this time. I’m in no shape to enjoy them.”

Chapter 10

“Can’t or won’t tell me?” Ryland paced
again and wanted to strangle the woman who sat so still near her daughter. “I
have a right to know what she did that cost her so much. You have to tell me
what I’m going to owe her.”

“I have explained to you several times
already, and frankly, I’m getting sick to death of repeating myself. I cannot
tell you what I don’t know. She has done this for others before, and all I know
is that she must have darkness and rest.” She pointed to the door. “You’re not
giving her the rest she needs by standing over me like a ruler and shouting at
me.”

Ryland moved out of the room and closed
the door quietly behind him. He wanted to slam it, but was actually afraid that
her she-wolf would do just what she’d threatened him with earlier and castrate
him. He moved down to the little kitchen and sat in the chair next to Neal.
He’d been tossed out of the bedroom earlier.

“She still won’t tell you, huh?” Neal
said. Ryland shook his head. “She’s like her mom a great deal, I think. Rayne,
I mean. Very loyal, stubborn, too, but very protective of her cub. I’m betting our
children will be just like her. At least I can only hope so.”

“She told me that she was going to
castrate me before. I believe her,” Ryland said. Neal nodded. “I felt her.
Rayne, I felt that she was in a great deal of pain as she healed Bronwyn. Every
wound that was inflicted on my mate, she felt on her own body as she healed her.
She healed her and took away any pain that she might have felt.”

“I know.” Neal leaned back in the chair
as he spoke. “I think that was something to do with the cats, too, but I
couldn’t tell. I think whatever that vampire did to Bronwyn affected all her
animals, not just her cat. I’m pretty sure Rayne had to heal them all.”

“You would be correct in that
assumption.” Both he and Neal stood when the man that had brought Rayne there
was suddenly standing in the room with them. “No need to worry, my dear cats, I
have fed well before coming here. I am Peter Oliver. Well, there is much more
to my name, but Peter will do for now. And as you have probably guessed, I’m
her friend and a vampire. Though not in that order necessarily.”

“You bit my wife.” Ryland wasn’t sure
whether to kill the man or thank him. He put out his hand in friendship,
knowing that even though she was weak, she was alive. “I owe you so much.”

“Nonsense. You owe me nothing. I have
been paid and paid well by the one who lies beyond.” Peter asked if he could
sit, and a chair suddenly appeared when he said that he could. Ryland had had
to go to the office to get his and was a little disconcerted when the vamp
handed him a bottle of wine. He was looking it over when the man laughed at
him.

“It’s just what it says it is. My dear
miss would have my head on a silver platter if I were to hurt one of hers. Serve
it while I get to know you.” Two glasses appeared in front of them, and Ryland
picked up the wine opener and tried to calm his nerves. This was too strange.

“You’ve known Rayne long?” Neal took his
glass and sniffed it. “This is really nice. Very beautiful.” Peter nodded.

“I thank you. And it is from my own
stock. And in answer to your question, yes I have known the miss for some time.
She is a wonderment is she not? And so talented. But alas I understand she
hides herself under her flowers now. Safer, I suppose, but a loss to us other
paranormals that she has helped.” He looked to the room again, and Ryland
watched as Neal growled. “I shall not harm her. Not because I cannot but
because I will never be able to live if I even try. Her story is one of magic
and a giving heart.”

“She helped you then.” Peter nodded,
then looked at them both. Neal sat down his glass and leaned forward. “How? Were
you a part of what has happened to her, to Bronwyn?”

“No. I was never caught by those
monsters, but I did know a little of them. I had the…unwarranted, I realize that
now…but I had a thought that if humans wished to kill each other off by messing
with their own kind, then who was I to interfere? But then I met the miss one
night when I was…how shall I say…indisposed. She saved my life at the near cost
of her own.”

Ryland could see that the man’s memories
were harsh. He looked as if whatever had happened that had given him a look
into Rayne had changed him completely. When Peter started talking, his flippant
way of speaking disappeared, and what Ryland thought was the real man emerged.

“I’d been stabbed and in a very vital
part of my body, nearest to my heart without actually hitting it. Silver is
deadly to my kind, and it was running through me like it was blood I’d just
feasted upon. The man that I had chosen that night had―for lack of a
better term—murdered me. Or so he had thought. But he hadn’t known of the child
that hid in the shadows, nor of the power that even as young as she was ran
deep under her skin.”

“Rayne.” He nodded at Neal as he
continued.

“Yes, Rayne. But I knew not her name,
only felt her power, but she knew who I was and what I could do had I not been
dying. As the man who had stabbed me with the silver sword stood over me to remove
my head from my shoulder, she moved as silent as the night behind him and touched
him. A simple touch of her tiny finger to his bared skin sent the man to his
knees, then over until his heart stopped beating and his breaths faded away.” Peter
produced a plate of cheese and crackers as he continued his story. “She picked
up the sword nearly twice her height and broke it. She snapped it over her
small knee as if it were nothing more than a toy blade. Then she leaned down to
me and offered me, a vampire bleeding to death, she offered her life’s blood so
that I might live. It was the first sip that told me what she was, and a drink
was all it took to heal me, bring me to the point where I no longer was dying
to where I am today. I am a changed man.”

“I didn’t change you. Every time I hear
you tell that story, it gets more and more elaborate and a hell of a lot more
farfetched. Either tell it correctly or stop telling it altogether.” Ryland
stood to offer Rayne his chair, but Neal picked her up and settled her on his
lap. The vampire approved, it seemed.

“You are perfectly matched, I think.” Peter
looked at Karin. “Hello, my lady. How are you this fine evening?” Karin moved into
the room, and Ryland stood again, giving his chair to the older woman. She
looked tired, but he still kept his more manly parts out of her reach as much
as he possibly could. He knew she could be mean when it came to watching over
her cub.

“Better now thanks. You helped her
again.” Peter waved her off. “You did and you know it. She should have been
down for a few days, not a few hours like she was. I thank you once again.”

“Thank you, but she is needed.” He
looked at Neal, then at Ryland. “A man lurks about your family looking for your
queen, the she-tiger that Rayne saved tonight. He is not at all happy that
someone has taken her markers away from him. He has contacted the one you stole
from today. The badge of destruction will be his downfall.”

Rayne snorted, took the large glass from
Peter, and drank it down before she spoke. “Stop talking in riddles or I won’t
give you the rest of your gift.”

The vampire sat up higher in his seat
and cocked his head at her. “You have not given me enough already? I have
planted what you’ve given me and expect great things from that. What would you
give me that is more than that?”

She laid the Baggie in front of him. He
looked at it for a long while before he looked at her. He didn’t touch it, but
even Ryland could see the need to on his face. Peter put his hands on his lap
and held them tightly together.

“Why?” When she didn’t answer him, he
looked at her and nodded to the Baggie. “Why do you give me a gift I can never
give you in return?”

“Your birthday, it was yesterday. I had
meant to give it to you then, but I got…sidetracked.” Neal laughed, then
flushed when Peter asked him what that meant. “Never mind. I give this to you
freely and without ties. I give you this gift—”

Peter wrapped his hand over her mouth,
barely touching it, and held it there as he stared in her eyes. “Do not finish
that unless you mean it. I will not have you do this out of a sense of some obligation
that we both know you do not owe me.” She took his hand away.

“I give you this gift freely from my
heart and with my understanding that it can never be taken back from and never
will it be returned. Once given, it is yours forever.” She picked up the bag
and dumped it into her hand, then put it out to Peter. “You have to take my
hand, Peter, or all my hard work has been for nothing.”

He nodded and reached out with a
trembling hand. When he looked as if he might ask her again if she was sure,
she took his hand into hers and repeated the vow.

The table shook, and the glasses on the
table slid off to the floor, breaking and spilling wine everywhere. When Karin’s
chair started to move, Ryland reached for her, not having a clue what was
happening, but knowing somehow that it was huge. As suddenly as it started, it
stopped. Ryland looked at both Peter and Rayne when they both stood up and
hugged. Neal didn’t move but watched as the two of them parted.

“What the fuck was that?” Peter looked
at him and smiled. “If this is some sort of mating ritual, I’m going to kill
you. She’s my brother’s mate.”

“I’m well aware of the relationship
between them.” Peter stood up and bowed before Rayne, then took Neal into his
arms for a hard hug. He turned to him, and Ryland took a step back. “You must
hug me, sire. If you do not, it will not work. And I will do most anything for
this to work.”

Ryland let him hug him and felt the
power from the vampire surge into him. He pulled away before he could figure
out what it was and watched as Peter hugged Karin. She was crying when he
released her, and then Peter turned to them all.

“I’m a free man. Free of the night, that
is. The soil that she gave me is the dirt that my maker gave her. Without it, I
would be a walker of the night forever. The gift that she’s given me is the
ability to walk during the daylight hours.” Ryland looked at Rayne, then at
Peter. “It is by far the best gift she could have given me.”

“Dirt makes you a day walker?” Rayne
shook her head and took his hand in hers, still covered in the dirt. His arm
vibrated with the power there, so strong that he felt dizzy from it. He looked
at her.

“Feel it, Ryland? It’s from a vampire as
old as this world is and then some. He is the first, the very first vampire to
come here. He made Peter in another world where others like him roam the realm
and rule, a place where they both come from. When I contacted him, he…he asked
me for one thing and one thing only, and that was to make him accept this gift
in the name of love.” She put her hand behind her when he stared at her. “I
never meant for you to be involved in this. I only knew that because of what I
am, I’m the only being that could have given him this. And Peter would be the
only man, vampire or not, that I would gladly do all this over again for. He’s
my dearest friend.”

Ryland nodded. He wasn’t sure how he
felt and wasn’t really sure what to say to her, but he knew that having a
vampire so close all the time was dangerous. Vampires loved shifter blood, and
he had a family to protect. Ryland didn’t want to hurt her. Rayne had come to
mean a great deal to him and his family. But he would hurt her by confessing
that he didn’t want the man around them. Ever. So Ryland left, was out the door
before he could say anything that would hurt Rayne more. Leaving and hurting
her would be better than saying how he really felt.

~~~

“I’ll go get him,” Neal said. Rayne
shook her head and smiled. “He hurt you. There was no cause for that. Let me go
get him so he can at least apologize for it.”

“It’s not important. Really. I don’t
care.” She turned to look at Peter, who she was sure knew she was lying. “Viktor
wants you to visit him. He said it has been too long and he misses his child.”

“I shall. Will you be all right with
your male, my dear? He is quite upset with us.” She shrugged. “I can make this
right with him if you wish it. I can stay away from you and yours if it would—”

“It wouldn’t, and he’ll get over it or
not. I don’t care. I’m just glad that I could do this for you after all this
time.” He nodded and turned to Neal.

“You have someone special in your heart.
I do hope you will keep her safe. The man, Freddy Holden, who comes for the
queen will not care if he gets her or your mate. When he sees this one, he will
want her as badly as he does your queen and will stop at nothing to get them. I
fear my dear friend will not go down easy this time, either of them.”

“You have my word on it that I will do
everything within my power to keep them both safe.” Peter nodded, then turned to
her mom.

“You, I love, my dearest heart. Why do
you not just shake off this town and come with me? I travel to the high
mountains and to see magic at his purest form in a vampire.” He wiggled his
brows at her and she laughed. Rayne loved her mom’s laughter.

“You know I can’t. I need to have me
some grandchildren someday soon, and being with you would cramp my style as a
doddering old woman.” He kissed her cheek before turning to her.