Allegiance(4)

The pilot welcomed them to the United States and advised them on Customs requirements, prompting Cage to dig in the interior pocket of his leather jacket for his brilliantly faked passport. It identified him as Cage Reynolds, age thirty-two, resident of London, citizen of the UK. The face in the passport photo was the same one he’d had since 1942, after Paris. After the pit.

Everything had changed since then, and yet nothing had changed. His hair was longer, sweeping his shoulders when it wasn’t pulled back, but it was the same light caramel brown. He had fangs rather than canines and lived on the ultimate low-carb diet, but he’d never eaten his veggies like a good boy even as a human. His eyes lightened to a silvery green when he was hungry, or angry, or aroused, or stressed out—which seemed about 90 percent of the time. The rest of the time, they were the same mossy color they’d always been. The face that looked back at him from the passport had a cocky, self-sure expression that didn’t show the arsewipe who lived inside the shell.

A chickenshit arsewipe as well, or he’d have told Melissa Calvert before he left that he didn’t return her feelings, not in the way she wanted. Or he should’ve fucked her as planned, scratched that itch, and at least not left both horny and guilty.

Cage dallied toward the back of the Customs line, and then dawdled in gift shops on his way to baggage claim. Aidan had said whoever picked Cage up would probably be a bit late. Cage hoped it would be Aidan himself, so he could get the rundown on the situation in Penton. Last time he was there the town had lain in ruins, more than half of its citizens dead or gone, and he was leaving to inform Matthias Ludlam, who’d started the whole mess, of his pending execution.

Tomorrow, the date Matthias was due to meet whatever was the opposite of a heavenly reward, would be a lovely day to celebrate.

Of course, if he were picked up by Aidan’s massive second-in-command, Mirren Kincaid, Cage also would get a report, only it would be much less pleasant and filled with many more expletives.

No such luck. It was Melissa Calvert’s face he zeroed in on as soon as he rounded the last corner into the baggage-claim area. His breath caught at the rush of memories and feelings, some good, some bad. Most a perplexing cocktail of both.

Stop overthinking, Reynolds. He hadn’t practiced psychiatry in more than seven decades, but overanalyzing was a hard habit to break.

Melissa gave him a shy wave, and he felt an annoying blossom of warmth open in his chest. He ignored the spinning carousel of luggage, elbowed his way among a dozen tourists chattering in German, and pulled her into a hug. The pressure of her arms around his waist, her sweet cinnamon smell, and the warm stroke of her fingers on his back grounded him more than the wheel of the plane thumping onto the runway had done. Now, he was home.

He just hoped he could talk Aidan and the rest of the good people of Penton into letting him stay after he hurt this woman who was so intrinsically one of them.

Cage might have spent most of his human and vampire years in London, but Penton was where he fit. Where he felt whole again—something he’d thought was out of his reach.

Melissa’s curly, strawberry-blonde hair brushed across Cage’s cheek like floral-scented whispers as he stepped back and held her at arm’s length. She’d grown thinner, her rounded face taking on the paler, more honed look of a vampire, but her hazel eyes sparkled. New vampires often had a hard transition, and hers had been traumatic. She’d publicly had her throat slashed and then been spirited away and secretly turned vampire just before the point of death. Matthias Ludlam couldn’t die too soon. Cage’s only regret was that Ludlam’s executioners would probably be humane.

“You look lovely, Mel. I . . .” He frowned at her suddenly pained expression, her mouth thinned, brows scrunched together. “What’s wrong?”

She spoke through lips compressed so tightly they’d turned white. “I’m trying not to grin at you. Aidan says if I can’t stop showing my fangs, he’s going to lock me in the old clinic subbasement again and tie me down with silver-laced rope.”

Cage laughed before he could stop himself. He’d forgotten the singsong lilt of her Southern accent and her penchant for saying exactly what she thought. “See. Watch my technique.” He grinned at her. “Push your lower lip up on the sides.”

She tried a lopsided grin that made her look like a grimacing Halloween monster before she gave up and collapsed against his chest in laughter. When the giggles faded, she wrapped her arms around him again, tighter this time. “I missed you, Cage.”

“Me too, love.” And he had. He’d forgotten how easy they were together, and in this time of turmoil, comfort was a rare commodity. When was the last time he’d laughed?