He lifted her off the ground as if she’d weighed nothing.
“Let me go,” she croaked out.
“You’re going to get sick if you stay out here.” His tone was gruff, but his hold on her gentle.
He’d been so angry at his grave, and now she knew why. His sudden one-eighty was going to make her mental. He was forgiving her for the one thing she didn’t want to be forgiven for. Her life went to shit because she’d been unable to control herself, and she didn’t want to be absolved of any of the guilt.
“I can walk.” She jerked out of his hold and rubbed a fist over her chest. Her heart hurt so much it was going to explode. She scrambled ahead of him, determined to get to the motel without him having to touch her again. When she reached the small door with a window and a welcome sign, she threw it open and rushed up to the desk. She hit the bell, and dug through her pack to find the pouch with the cash she’d taken from the ATM the night before.
“Can I help you?” a woman’s voice said before an older woman appeared. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and black reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose.
“I need a room for the night.” She put a fifty on the counter. “That should cover it.”
The woman narrowed her eyes, and then she cocked her head to look at the mist of rain outside before returning her gaze to Bryna. “Why are you so wet?”
“My car broke down, and I had to walk from the interstate.” At least it wasn’t a lie. She hated when she had to tell good people wrong things.
The woman’s hard expression softened. She turned, got a key off a line of hooks, and pulled down extra towels and slipped them into a plastic bag, tying a knot at the top. “Room eight is empty. I need to be paid again tomorrow at noon if you’re going to stay another night.” She slid a guest book in front of Bryna. “I need you to sign here.”
Bryna used the name Shawn had given her character’s name in the book. “Thank you.” She accepted the key and the extra towels. “I’ll be checking out before noon.”
“Of course.”
Bryna pulled her poncho tighter around herself as she went back outside. At least Wraith hadn’t come in. He’d have terrified the woman, and they’d never have gotten the room. She didn’t spare a glance at him. “Eight,” was all she said as she walked directly to the room at the end of the row.
“Bryna.”
“No.” She jabbed the key into the lock and turned it. She moved just enough to let Wraith in before she shed the dripping poncho and dropped it on the floor. She dropped her pack between the wall and a queen-size bed, and then rushed off to the bathroom with the towels clutched to her chest. There had to be a way to get through this.
Wraith stepped in front of her before she was able to make it to the safety of the bathroom. She stared at his chest. “Please move.”
“Not until you listen to what I have to say.” His voice was gruff.
“What does it matter?” He thought she was a whore. He blamed her for his death. He hated her. There was no point in talking about it any longer.
“Because I need to know why you did it.” He was quiet for a moment. “Why did you kill me?”
How didn’t he know she’d pulsed and killed him? He was messing with her head again. “Vincent, please. I don’t want to talk about this.”
He tilted her chin up, giving her no choice but to look into his sienna eyes. “Yeah, but it’s literally killing you.”
Yes. His death was killing her, in a slow, painful way, and now he demanded she find a way to live when she was no longer sure it was a possible outcome. Even if she wanted to do it. “I never meant for you to die.”
His head lowered, his mouth hovering right over hers. “I’m figuring that out. But I don’t understand how you think you killed me.”
She shook her head, but her gaze never left his. “Please, Wraith—”
“Vincent. My name is Vincent.” He brushed the back of his knuckles down the side of her face.
She put her hands on his chest. “Okay. Vincent. It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. If we kiss and make up, you’re still dead and I am not.”
“But for how long?” he demanded in a whisper, his breath caressing her cheek. “You’ll go off and get yourself killed the second I leave.”
“I’ll try to live,” she said, realizing she meant it. “I’ll try to change my life into something you’d be proud of.”
His eyes closed, and he rested his forehead on hers. “How often do you do things like you did with Darby for the elderly in your building?”
She trembled and stepped in closer to him, just because she needed to feel his heat. “Wraith—Vincent, I don’t know what you want from me.”
He pulled back just enough so when his eyes opened, it was like his gaze was looking right into her soul. “You’re not as evil as you think—as I thought. Don’t save yourself for me. Save you for you. If my death was an accident, like you say, then there is no need for you to continue trying to end yourself.”
When she would have pulled away from him, he locked his arm around her.
His face was right next to hers. “Talk to me. Let me help you.”
Her lower jaw trembled, and she turned her head. Their mouths were so close, breathing could make them touch. “I just want all the pain to go away.”
Then his mouth closed over hers.
The heat of his lips seared into her, and she stretched up, looping her arms around his neck, drawing him in closer. This was the only right thing she could remember, and it felt so right in the here and now. He could be gentle when she was hurt, and his presence could fight away her fears. If only there was a way they could go back, and she could stop herself from pulsing that night. But she couldn’t. Oh how she wanted to learn this man that he’d become, but there was no time. All she had was this moment, with his mouth on hers. Then he’d be gone, and she’d have to figure out how to live without him.
His hands slid down her sides to mold over her hips when a knock came to the door.
Bryna jerked back.
Wraith narrowed his eyes at the door as if he could see who was on the other side. “They can wait.”
Bryna backed up a step. “I need a shower.” She didn’t give him time to say anything else before she fled. The forgiveness she’d wanted was coming, and she wasn’t sure she could handle it.
* * * *
Vincent stared after her for a long moment before he opened the door after the fourth knock. A wide grin spread over his face when he saw the three men standing there. He’d use one less hot poker when he tortured Felix. The Argent brothers were older than he by about a hundred years, and he didn’t know the circumstances of their deaths. He’d learned to rely on them over the last two hundred years. He didn’t know if he’d need them to save Bryna’s life, but knowing Felix was putting them at his disposal helped as much as it made him queasy.
“Wraith!” Gregori, the oldest of the three brothers, boomed out. He was shorter than Vincent by an inch, but his shoulders were a tad wider. Gregori’s hair was shoulder length, but always pulled back in a low ponytail. Like his brothers, he had the Argent silver-grey eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“New job,” Vincent said. “Did Felix give you the files I asked for?”
“The ones on the Bryna babe?” Gregori asked.
Vincent’s face twitched. “Did you just call her a babe?”
“Yeah,” Gregori said as he and his brothers moved into the room. “She’s one hot little piece of work. Too bad she died when Felix sent me to save her ass last year.”
Vincent knew he was going to be sick. “She died?”
Caleb, the middle brother, nodded. “Yeah, she dropped out on me, too, when I tried two years ago.” He matched Vincent in height, but his frame, while still warriorlike, was slimmer than Vincent’s and Gregori’s. His hair was always above his shoulders, but shaggy around the edges.
This was not good. Vincent swallowed back the bile rising in his throat as he looked at the youngest, Derrick. The man was a good two inches shorter than Gregori, but his body was thick, like a brick wall. His dark hair dusted his shoulders, but the top was tied back with a strap of leather. All three men wore the same garb Vincent had on. Fatigues, combat boots, and a black shirt with enough holsters and sheaths filled with various weapons attached to their bodies that the four of them could be considered an army.
Derrick winced. “Three years ago and I didn’t make it past day two before she, um, didn’t make it.”
Vincent rubbed at the colossal knot forming at the base of his neck. His next question came out in a savage snarl, “Did any of you have sex with her?”
The Argent brothers all moved back from him at once. “Not that stupid,” Gregori said, just as Caleb said, “Are you kidding? I found her at your grave. It would have been a suicidal act of lust.” Derrick put up his hands. “We knew she’d been yours. We might have our dumb moments, but we’re not that stupid.”
He studied all of them for a few minutes before he decided they were telling him the truth. Even if they weren’t, it was better for his limited amount of sanity to believe them. “All right, let me have a look at those files.”