Vincent was beginning to realize he’d gotten the better end of the deal the day he died. His only regret was Bryna’s betrayal. However, seeing that every time he opened his mouth she either ended up in tears or angry, it seemed likely he might have deserved his death. It didn’t take away the god-awful pain the betrayal caused each time he thought about it. He’d loved her. Beyond anything, he’d had that lifelong magical kind of love that never should have been his—or, at least he’d thought he did.
The trunk of her car was filled with all the supplies they would need to survive a supernatural siege in a rickety old shack in the middle of nowhere. She had an arsenal in her backpack along with several changes of clothes and two coolers filled with the food she’d need for a week.
She’d been fighting more than one kind of demon since that night. It fucked with his head in a way nothing else could. Any desire for revenge was quickly fading. The Bryna he knew was as dead as the boy Vincent. In her place was a woman who barely existed. He’d listened to the calls she made before they vacated her apartment. Her life was one giant train wreck and all because she wouldn’t pull it together after he’d died on her.
The thought startled him, and he grumbled with irritation.
“Would you stop rattling the car,” she said with exasperation. Her voice was tired.
“Why don’t you let me drive,” he offered. They’d been on the road for eight hours already, and they still had a ways to go.
She let out a long sigh. “Because you don’t have a license? Because I really don’t want someone pulling us over and have the cops find the grim reaper in the driver’s seat? Because I don’t want you driving my car.” She blew out a breath. “I think we’ll pull off at the next rest stop. I need some more coffee, and we still have another five hours before we hit home sweet home.” Her mouth twisted on the words.
“I’m here to help you,” he said in a soft tone.
“Ha! You’re here to remind me why life sucks,” she snapped at him. Then she pulled off to the side of the road. “I think I need that break now.” She sat there in the driver’s seat, just staring ahead.
“Bryna—” he started.
“I thought we decided it was best if we didn’t try the chatting thing?” She pulled the emergency brake and cut the engine.
“It’s gonna be a long week with no chatter if we have to go without.” He tried to inject some humor into his tone.
She did crack a smile. “So now I’m acceptable? Are we gonna do it with that hood covering your face, or do I get to see why your eyes are all glowy?”
There was a hint of the girl he remembered. “They glow because at first it helped with the intimidation thing, and now it’s just habit. I can stop if you want.” He held his breath as he waited to see how she was going to respond.
She gave him a sidelong glance. “It must really suck the intimidation didn’t work on me.”
He laughed quietly. “It’s interesting, but since you’re a demon hunter, I guess it makes sense why you wouldn’t be scared of the glowing eyes.”
It was her turn to laugh. “I don’t hunt demons. I avoid them at all costs.”
“All right,” he said in the most agreeable tone he could manage. “You have the ability to kill them, but you don’t hunt them.”
Her head bobbed, and then panic hit her face. “Oh, damn it, Wraith, you can’t be near me if things get all freaky, okay? I can control it now, mostly, but if I’m really scared or about to die, I can’t always control the blast. I don’t know what it would do to you. It does whatever it does to the undead easily enough, and I don’t know what to classify you as.”
He nodded once. “Thank you for telling me. I can block the pulse when needed.” He simply had to pulse himself, which would protect him and anyone close to him from another’s pulse of energy.
She blinked a few times, and then she looked at him, her mouth going crooked. “I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.”
He had the irresistible need to touch her and couldn’t stop from reaching up and brushing the back of his knuckles down the side of her face.
She flinched back. “Don’t. If we do have sex, that’s all it’s gonna be, okay? I don’t need to develop any kind of feelings for another dead guy.”
Vincent snatched his hand back. Where his skin touched hers had a warm buzz that was spreading out and making him tingle in a weird, but not unpleasant, way. Shit. He was in so much fucking trouble it wasn’t even funny. He hadn’t been with her twenty-four hours, and she was already getting to him. He went to push his hood back when a sharp pain pricked behind his ears. His body went rigid, and every extra sense he had was pushed out. He started a low string of curses. “We need to—”
“—run,” she finished for him as she pushed open the car door just as a large snarling undead beast landed on the roof of the car.
Vincent grabbed the backpack and hooked an arm around Bryna simultaneously. He jerked back, throwing all his weight against the passenger-side door. The door pushed out under the assault of his supernatural force. He rolled out with his body caged around Bryna. Amazing how she so easily became the sacred protected possession in the face of a howler pack. Bloody goddamn it. Vampire hounds. They were in the gnarled shape of a man and wolf combined. Fur-covered skin stretched too thin over bones. Giant fangs dripped with saliva. Claws like razors curled over their hands, and they were staring right at Bryna. How the hell had they tracked them all the way out here? Didn’t matter. One lunged. Bryna’s scream rang out as the snarl of fangs, claws, and poison launched off the top of the car and landed directly in front of Vincent.
“We want the girl,” it rasped out.
Vincent handed the backpack to Bryna as he rolled to his feet and stood to his full terrifying height. He pushed back his hood as he drew the deadly bastard sword at his side.
“The Wraith,” he snarled out.
His name chorused in a whisper of snarls as the hideous pack of creatures assembled around them.
Bryna turned around in a small circle. She made a small whimpering sound. “Wraith, I can’t kill all of them.”
“It’s okay, sunshine,” he murmured softly. “Just stay behind me.”
“But they’re behind you.”
His arm hooked around her and pinned her to his back. The pack was closing in on them.
“Hop up,” Wraith murmured.
*
Some otherworld instinct took over, and she hopped up onto his back, curling her arms around him and hooking her legs around his waist. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and held on for the crazy ride. His muscles moved under her body as he attacked. She heard the squeals and shrieks of pain as one howler after another fell under Wraith’s blade.
He was knocked backward.
“Let go!” he bellowed.
And she did just as they hit the ground. She skidded across mud and rock before she rolled into a tree. Pain shot through every limb. The howler was hunched over Wraith. He wrestled with the thing. Poison-tipped claws sank into his skin. He roared with the pain of it.
Bryna dragged herself along the ground. As far as her extra senses could tell, this was the last one. Her leg hurt, and she was sure stars were a new part of her vision, but if she aimed for the howler in the middle, she knew at least she wouldn’t get Wraith killed too. When she was close enough, she grabbed her injured leg and pulled it in front of her so that she was able to sit up and reach the howler. Her hands wrapped around the filthy, furry hind leg, and she closed her eyes. She projected every ounce of fear she felt into her hands and then out.
The shock waves rattled through the monster. It let out an anguished screech and then puffed into a cloud of bony dust. She pulled her shirt up over her face to keep from breathing it in as she dragged herself up toward Wraith’s face. “Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead,” she repeated over and over again.
She smiled when he groaned. Then he forced his massive body up into a seated position. He shook his head a few times with a hand covering his face while he massaged at his temples. “You’re hurt,” he said between gritted teeth.
“Yeah. You’re poisoned,” her tone worried as her smile fell. Great. Just what she needed to do. Send Vincent’s friend from the other side back to limbo. For as long as she could remember her fear turned into a pulse of energy she could use as a weapon. Her father had helped her learn how to control it before his death, but after Vincent’s death, she no longer trusted in that ability. It was used only as a last resort in a fight, or more likely when her body decided it wasn’t a good time to die. Thankfully her fear had allowed her to use it destroy the howler, but it might be too late. She didn’t know what howler venom did to someone like Wraith.
“I’ll live,” he rasped out with a chuckle. “I’m dead. The poison is a bitch and hurts like hell, but it can’t kill me.”
She glared in reaction to his humor. “That’s not funny.”
“Probably not,” he agreed and then looked at her without the benefit of his hood to cover his face.
Now she was seeing things. Her head was pounding, and she was pretty sure she’d broken something in her leg. Her mind was putting Vincent’s face on this man’s body. “I need a doctor,” she whispered.
“Give me a second,” he said between clenched teeth and then let out a howl of pain.
She whimpered at the sound. She’d heard it before, but again, she was sure it was a rattled brain playing tricks on her. “Stop. What are you doing?”
“Getting the poison out. I can’t heal you if I’m a mess.”
Bryna whimpered as pain stabbed through her leg, reminding her she’d broken it. She hated being in pain. She always felt like such a baby because she always cried. Her vision blurred and her head pounded. She slumped against the ground. “Vincent. I need you.”
*
Vincent stilled. He closed his eyes and forced his body to process the injuries and poison at a more rapid pace. When he was able to function at full capacity again, he was next to Bryna in a second.
“Shh, sunshine, I’m right here. Come on, let’s get you all fixed up.” The perk of being a defender of the universe was having awesome cosmic powers which included the ability to heal pretty women who’d already suffered enough pain. As gently as he could, he picked her up and carried her over to a mossy spot and leaned her up against a hollowed log.
“I hurt, Vincent,” she whispered. Tears leaked from her eyes. “I’m sorry I killed you.”
His head came up from examining her leg. Oh damn. Bad head wound. He was pretty sure she was talking to his younger self and not the man crouched down in front of her. “It’s all right, baby. Let’s get you fixed up, and then we can talk about it.”
She sniffled and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Okay. When did you get the ability to heal?”
“Don’t you worry about that. Just sit still for me. I’ll make sure you’re okay.” She was going to kill him, he was sure of it. He laughed, a twisted sound. She’d already done that, but this time, he wasn’t sure he was going to survive it. He worked as quickly as he could to mend the fracture in her leg, and worked his way over her body to make sure he didn’t miss anything before he got to the concussion. It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared, but it was enough to leave her shaken and confused.
He scooped her up into his arms, and she promptly curled against him, tucking her head up under his chin. She let out a quiet sigh. “I know you’re Wraith, but just let me pretend for a few minutes, please?”
“Sure,” he whispered as he blinked dampness out of his eyes. Her body relaxed, and he let out a sigh of his own. He went around the battleground as he held her and managed to collect what they needed. Her pack. His sword. And then he headed back to the car. It might not work, but at least it was shelter from the gathering storm while he let the concussion heal as naturally as possible. It was a bad idea to mess with something like her brain if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.
He got her to the car, and thankfully a too-helpful police officer hadn’t found the demolished vehicle. The last thing he needed was to have to deal with the living authorities. It wasn’t that he couldn’t. It was that they were a pain in the ass.
He opened the back door and went to put her inside. She curled her hands in the fabric of his shirt. “Don’t leave me. Please.”
“Not leaving,” he said softly and gave himself a moment to rest his cheek against the top of her head. “I just need to get you and the car out of sight for a little while. I promise. I’m not leaving you to fight this alone.”
She nodded against his chest.
It was an odd feeling to have a difficult time extracting himself from her once he had her safely in the back seat. Not because she wouldn’t let go of him, but because he didn’t want to let go of her. He managed to do it, and then focused on rolling what was left of the car back into the forest brush. They were safer near where a pack of howlers were destroyed, but only for a while. They had enough time for Bryna to rest and recover some before the vampires would show up looking for their minions.
Once he had the car hidden, he crawled into the back seat with Bryna and hauled her up against him. She dutifully curled into his side just as a crack of lightning flashed through the sky. She jumped, and he held her a little tighter.
“Still afraid of storms?”
“No,” she whispered. She ducked her head against him. “Yes, but I’m getting better.”
He settled in and rested the side of his face on the top of her head. This brought the vivid memory of the first time they’d made love.
It was a day much like this one. Dark, dreary, and he’d run out of gas five miles up a ten mile road with only three houses on it, all with families who couldn’t be bothered to give him the time of day. He rolled the car off to the side of the road so they could wait out the storm. Bryna shook in the seat next to him, and jumped with each crack of lightning. He kissed her to distract her. One thing led to another. He’d been a clumsy idiot, but what kid wasn’t at that age? Bryna, though—she’d been amazing. She endured his stupidity, and somehow they muddled through the glorious first experience of sharing another person’s body. She’d had a perfect trust in him not to hurt her or mess her up. He knew she lied when she said it hadn’t hurt, but he was willing to let that one go. His tender ego hadn’t been able to handle the realities of making love for the first time. But he’d taken hold of the responsibility the connection the act made with both hands and held on tight. He’d made Bryna his, and he’d taken it to the grave with him.
His face twitched. Part of him was beginning to feel like he’d abandoned her when she’d needed him the most.
“Wraith?” she whispered.
“Yeah?” he said in a hoarse tone.
“Thanks for not dying on me back there.”
He laughed quietly. “I’m already dead. It’s kind of hard to do it again once you’ve already done it.”
“Oh, yeah.” She turned her face into him. “I forgot. Sorry.”
She jerked when the thunder crashed again, and his body took over. He tilted her face up to his. “Don’t be scared,” he whispered before his mouth closed over hers.
Bryna melted into his body as he tried to consume her. It was like a remembered fantasy in the early minutes before dawn, right when the wisps of a dream were at their best. His rough hands cupped her face, and their mouths moved together like they were made to be melded against one another.
Her arms came up between them and she pushed. Horror mingling with guilt showed on her face. “You’re Vincent’s friend.” She shoved back, making more space between them. “I’m sorry.” Her words wobbled between them.
“No,” he said and pulled his hood back over his head, concealing his face. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Don’t,” she whispered and looked outside at the wash of rain running down the side of the car and filtering in through the missing door. Tears sounded in her voice. “I-I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I don’t get that white-picket-fence happy ending, but it—the kiss—it was…nice.”
“But that’s bad?” Vincent asked, hearing the strain in his own voice. She got no happy ending. Her words, but should she get a horrible fate? It was what he’d thought she deserved for the last two hundred years, but now, looking at her, in the dim light of a day long gone, he began to think she deserved more than what she’d sentenced herself to live.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Yeah, I mean…Oh, hell. Um, just, thank you. We can’t do it again.”
“Why the hell not?”
She turned around in the seat and stared up at him. “Because you’re not Vincent.”
She didn’t just say that. It was okay for her to spread her legs for Darby to keep a few old people in their homes, but he wasn’t allowed to kiss her because…Wraith wasn’t Vincent. Oh damn. He was rapidly finding he didn’t give one damn that she’d betrayed him to his pain-filled death. No, because he was an idiot who couldn’t learn from his mistakes. But then, he’d always been a sucker about anything concerning Bryna. “Sunshine, I need for you to look at me.”
Her eyes narrowed and her delicate hands balled into fists. “Do not call me that.” She had tears running down her face again. “Just stay on your side of the car, and I’ll stay on mine, and you keep your lips and your endearments to yourself.”
“I’m confused,” he said, trying to keep the need out of his voice. “I have to do without now, because you liked it when I kissed you?”
“I’m sorry.” Her face went panicked as her hands reached for the waistband of his pants. “I, um, I didn’t mean to tease you. Is it bad? Maybe I can—”
“Don’t,” he nearly roared at her. In no way was he going to let her give him a blowjob because she felt guilty for leading him on, not when he’d been the one to do the leading. He did not want her offering herself up because he’d been stupid enough to kiss her. He couldn’t stand it anymore. He shoved his hood back and turned on the dome light. It flickered on and shone right on his face because of the odd angle the crushed-in roof had it at.
Her eyes went huge as she gasped and scooted back. He knew what he looked like. Almost everything they’d done to him vanished when his soul left the body now buried in the ground. Felix had said the soul carried some wounds no matter what body they had. The savage scar slashing down his face where the length of rod iron smashed into his skull, killing him, stayed with him, proving he had too much baggage to make it past the pearly gates. It started at his right temple, cut down his forehead, over the bridge of his nose, and gouged into his left cheek, stopping at the angle of his jaw. She studied his face, and she started moving backward, her hand groping for the door handle. Felix asked him if he wanted it removed, but Vincent opted to keep it. He’d wanted the reminder of Bryna.
“You’re a shape-shifter,” she accused. “This isn’t funny. I want to see what you really look like, please.”
“This is what I look like, sunshine,” he said in pained tones.
Her face contorted in agony and then anger. “You son of a bitch. I thought you died. I killed you. You’re supposed to be dead. You let me think I killed you.” She squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Get away from me.” She backed up against the door, popped it open, and fell out onto her back. She landed hard and yelped. She bolted up to her feet. “You’re not him. You’re not Vincent. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not him. You’re too cruel to be Vincent.” She turned and took off in a sprint.
She was much faster than he would have thought a human capable of. He was out of the car and after her a heartbeat later. He crashed into her, and they tumbled along the ground in the slimy mud. She kicked and screamed as they rolled out. They landed with him straddled over top of her and pinning her down, his body shielding her from the rain. “Damn it. I am Vincent.”
“You’re alive,” she gritted out between clenched teeth. “And Vincent was human. You’re not.” She struggled to get away from him.
He worked to keep her pinned without hurting her. He grunted when she bit him. “Bryna, you need to listen to me—”
He never got the words out. He was hit with a pulse of raw fear that sent him sailing ten feet back. The wind was knocked out of him, and she was running again. Damn it. He flashed. One moment he was lying sprawled out in the mud and the next he was in front of her. He caught her up in his arms and caged her against a tree trunk. “We can do this until we both run out of energy.”
She jerked, trying to get away from him. Her face was twisted in pain. “I don’t need to do anything for you. Vincent is dead. Whatever you are, you’re not him.”
He laughed the bitter sound. “Oh yeah, sunshine, I am the man you killed.”
The defiance drained right out of her. She sagged, and her body hung in the hold he had her in against the tree. “Oh my God. What did I do? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” She drew in a ragged breath and sobbed. “I didn’t mean to kill you.”
She was making his brain twitch. He shifted his hold because he was sure he had to be hurting her. “What are you talking about?”
Bryna stared up at him. Her hand came up, and her finger skimmed along the length of his scar. Her body trembled before she turned her head. “I killed you.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah, we established that. Let’s go over what happened that night.”
“No. You help me live for the next week, and then I get to die in whatever way I want, remember?”
He felt a sharp pain in the general vicinity of where his heart should be, but right now he wasn’t sure he’d ever had one. He had the sick feeling Bryna really wanted to die. It was a mindfuck like he’d never experienced before. After all the years of wishing she’d suffered with her death, all he wanted was for her to stop hurting because of him. Rain sheeted down on them both. He was sure he was going to end up in hell, but not before he fixed her. This was why he’d been sent back. No being, no matter what they’d done, should have to suffer the way his Bryna was suffering. “Bryna, I was just being a bastard. You don’t actually get to die. You’re supposed to live.”
A pitiful sob tore from her. “But you’re dead. I killed you. Why should I get to live when you don’t?”
“I…” He stopped, not quite sure what to say. Maybe if he explained what was happening to him she’d stop trying to rip his stone heart out. “I’m in a limbo of sorts. I help keep innocent people safe and kill off bad things like vampires until I’m judged.”
She went perfectly still and refused to look at him. “I-I don’t know what to do with this. So you’re dead, but you’ve come back for the next week to keep me from dying?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Why?”
His jaw started to tick. “I already told you. I’m supposed to protect innocents.”
She jerked out of his hold and wrapped her arms around herself as she tried to get away from him, but kept inching back toward him with each crash of thunder. “And you said you kill bad things, too.”
He was going to find a way to kill Felix. He really was. This was the most fucked-up thing he’d ever seen, and he’d seen it all. How the hell could she think she was one of the bad things? “Yeah, baby, but I was sent to protect you, not kill you.”
*
Bryna started to tremble, and she hoped like hell he only thought she was cold. What kind of hell had she sent him to where he was being forced to protect his murderer? She shook her head and moved away from him again. No. That wasn’t Vincent. He was Wraith. Even if he’d been Vincent in life—her face crumpled. No. This man standing in front of her couldn’t be Vincent. She just wasn’t going to believe it, because if she did, if she let herself think Wraith was her Vincent, then he hated her.
Not that he didn’t have every right to, but—No, she couldn’t let her thinking go there. Not if she needed to live to prevent some kind of catastrophe. He was taking up all her space and crowding her against the tree. She wrapped her arms around herself tighter and turned her head. Processing this was absolutely out of the question. “Okay. I think the vampires will be coming soon. We need to get out of here.”
“I’m Vincent,” he said hoarsely.
She shook her head and ducked under his arm. “No. You’re Wraith. I killed Vincent. He’s gone and he can’t come back. We need to leave.” She started back toward the car. They needed to get somewhere else. It was going to be a long and cold walk through the rain, but she was sure she’d seen signs for a motel a few miles back. Hopefully the vampires wouldn’t be able to get a scent with all this rain.
“Damn it, Bryna, you can’t ignore this,” Vincent said as he caught up to her.
She would not look at him. “It’s raining. You should put your hood up.”
“Bryna,” he started. “We can’t ignore this.”
“Oh yes, we can,” she snapped at him. “You do your job, and I’ll do my best not to die. Next week you can go back to fucking your protectees, and I’ll go back to doing what I do.”
*
Vincent felt like he’d been slapped in the face. Only, he wished she really would have done it. It would have hurt less. He ground his teeth as he followed her for a minute. “So you’re going to waste my effort to keep you alive by getting yourself killed next week?”
She stopped walking, and he nearly plowed into her. He growled. She stood there with her back to him for so long he was sure she wasn’t going to respond before she slowly turned around and looked up at him. Her face was scarily expressionless. “I won’t waste your efforts if that’s what you really want.”
He was feeling sick again. As much as he wanted to demand she deal with this and they come to some kind of favorable conclusion right now, one that didn’t keep her trapped in this destructive guilt cycle, doing it here wasn’t the brightest of ideas. He clenched his jaw and gritted out through his teeth. “We’ll talk about this later. We need to get out of here.”
“No,” she said. “We won’t.” Then she walked off again.
Vincent followed close behind her. Yeah, it had been a hugely fucked-up mistake to kiss her. It wasn’t like they were going to be able to pick up right where they left off when this was over. In the end he was still dead, and she wasn’t. He’d have to go back to his afterlife job of preventing the end of the world, and she’d—his chest constricted—she’d go off and get herself killed to pay for a crime two hundred years old, by his timeline.
He needed to find out how her life ended. At this point, any fear Felix had of it sabotaging the mission was over. His job was to save Bryna’s life, and he knew the old bastard well enough to know this one would extend beyond the mission’s end. There was no way whatever apocalypse threatening existence would end if she died next week.
They got to the car. Bryna strapped on the backpack and draped a huge black poncho over herself. She stopped in front of him, but stared at his chest instead of looking at his face. “I’ll need the food.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, looking at the top of her wet head. “I’ll make sure it gets to where it needs to go.”
She nodded once and started off in the direction of the nearest motel. He couldn’t help the bit of smile that curved his mouth. She hadn’t been able to navigate her way out of a phone booth, and now she was able to find places without having been there or getting directions. He watched her for a couple of seconds before he ducked into the car to scrawl a quick message on his crumpled assignment sheet. With any luck Felix would give him the answers he needed and a few reinforcements to back him up.
To his relief she was becoming as important as any job he’d ever had, but it was short-lived. As sure as he was dead, he knew without doubt the woman he was supposed to save was already gone.