‹ Prequel: To Bleed for Him

As She Fades

The Pain Looks Good on You

"What will you do?
What will it prove?
When your indifference
Comes back to you?
What can I say
To make you understand?
All of your misery
Comes from your own hands."
- London After Midnight

Antony's eyes hadn't left the door for an hour. He hadn't moved from his spot at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed and ass resting against the banister, for nearly sixty full minutes. He hadn't relaxed his grip on his phone, hadn't said a word to the vampires who had greeted him in passing, hadn't eased his rigid posture even a bit.

She always came home just after sundown, no more than an hour after darkness had fallen. Even if he hadn't noticed that she wasn't merely returning from class, even if he hadn't looked closely enough to be aware of her true intentions and activities, he'd most certainly noticed that she'd never come home any later than nine o'clock.

It was nearly ten.

She's fine, he told himself, time and time again, but memories of the rain pelting her bloody face as she lay limp in Skylar's arms would rise up to quash any comfort he received from his lies.

Finally, as the hour hand found the ten and the minute hand found the twelve, he moved — but only to clench his fists, already balled tightly between his upper arms and his chest. She's not fine, he admitted. Becca was right.

A sudden knock on the door pulled his taut muscles even tighter, and he ghosted forward with all the speed and grace of a vampire to pull it open without so much as a peek through the windows to either side of the door. The sight of Skylar standing nonchalantly on the doorstep, one hand tucked in the pocket of his jeans and the other only just lowered from the door, drew Antony's eyebrows high on his forehead, and the movement felt odd after having been so still for so long.

"Do you know where she is?" he asked the human instantly, his words spilling out in a jumbled mess of syllables.

Skylar's brow furrowed. "I'm sorry. What?"

Antony felt his cheeks warm. He may have been undead for a while now, but he still didn't have full control of his speed, especially when on edge — and that, embarrassingly enough, included his speaking. His fellow undead could sometimes keep up with the tangle of syllables he spat out, but humans… "Torryn," he said, trying to calm himself. "She hasn't come home yet. Do you know where she is?"

Skylar frowned, his brow furrowing even more deeply. "No. She told me to meet her here at 9:30. I actually thought I was going to be late." Only now did Antony notice the shallow cut on his cheek and the fresh spattering of blood across the front of his gray shirt, but beyond pausing to deduce that Skylar had been at the Arena and Torryn hadn't, Antony didn't pay much mind.

"I'm worried," he admitted, and he didn't care how pathetic he sounded. He didn't care that the undead crowd in the living room could hear him. "Earlier today, Becca told me that Torryn has a trunk full of weaponry and that she's been out killing vampires for a while now. I don't know how she found out if I didn't even notice," — Yes, you do, you arrogant, selfish, ignorant asshole. — "but now that I've thought about it, I'm sure that she's right, and I'm afraid that Torryn's gotten herself into another mess she can't get herself out of."

"She did mention taking out a coven the other night, and she did mention that Raphael was giving her some odd jobs," Skylar said, "but I didn't think she was taking on anything she couldn't handle. I don't know him very well, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't send her into a battle she couldn't win. He likes her."

"She was nearly captured by the Lord last night," Antony pointed out, and his face ached from being so pinched. "I don't know if she's really just working for Raphael anymore."

Skylar's face paled noticeably. "Maybe she's really just in class this time," he said, but even he didn't seem so sure of his words. "She did say she had something big going on tonight."

Antony shook his head, but he didn't comment. With a start, he realized that they were still standing in the doorway, the door wide open to let the faint chill to the air outside creep into the reasonably cool interior, and he stepped aside. "We'll wait in the kitchen," he said, casting a sideways glance at the vampires that were obviously pretending not to watch them from the living room. "Quieter there." Not that the dead silence is loud or anything, he drawled mentally, now pinning the group with a pointed glare as Skylar walked past and he shut the door.

Together, they headed down the hall, and neither of them spoke until they were sitting across from each other at the dining room table. Torryn's psychology book was still spread open to one side, but Antony did his best not to look at it. She's fine, class or no class. She doesn't go down easily.

"So," Skylar started awkwardly, his eyes scanning the room as he obviously searched for a topic of conversation that wasn't on both of their minds, "have you ever considered starting an undead boy band? Forever Seventeen?"

Antony laughed in spite of himself. "I was eighteen, you prick. You're not funny, and I don't know what she saw in you."

Skylar grinned. "But you laughed."

"Because the only other option was to cry." But still, he smiled. The kid was lame, but he was lighthearted enough that Antony could see just why Torryn would love him. The thought hurt — that she could ever love someone else — but part of him was glad for it. If he died, if she left him for the atrocities he'd committed, if she just decided to move on, she would have someone with a much brighter outlook than him, with more of a future, with more life, and that…That was reassuring. Bittersweet.

They were silent for a moment, until Skylar tilted his head in a vague gesture at the open book on the table and asked, "Did she decide to major in psychology, then?"

Antony nodded. "Yeah. She wants to be a psychologist. I thought you would've asked her that yourself by now."

The human shrugged, averting his gaze guiltily. "I've been a bit too wrapped up in my own stupidity to question her college choices. Last I heard, she was going back and forth between psychology and English." He laughed to himself bitterly, his eyes on her textbook. "I told her they were both useless degrees, and she argued with me for days over it."

"They're not useless," Antony said, though he didn't sound or feel particularly passionate about the topic. "Well, maybe English is, but she didn't decide on that one, so she never has to know that I think that." Skylar chuckled but didn't speak.

Antony's smile faded as worry for Torryn set back in, and Skylar mirrored him, his eyes drawn inevitably to the hallway. Antony followed his gaze. Any minute, she would step through that door. Any minute…

The front door creaked open, and Antony lurched to his feet hard enough to knock the table into Skylar. The scent of blood, too familiar for comfort, flooded his nose, a bombardment on his senses, and his stomach dropped. "No…"

"Antony!" Becca shrieked. "Oh, God! Antony!" He sprinted to the hall, Skylar close on his heels, but he stopped dead beside the stairs.

Torryn stood in the doorway, barely able to hold her head upright, her eyelids fluttering as she fought for consciousness — naked and covered head to toe in bite marks and dark, dark blood. A man stood behind her, a hand tightly gripping her shoulder to keep her on her feet as she swayed and trembled, like a puppet on marionette's strings. As he smiled, exceptionally long fangs peeked between his pale lips. "Emmeline sends her greetings," he purred, and he moved with such speed that even Antony couldn't track his movements into the night beyond. He seemed to just disappear, leaving Torryn to fall.

With every bit of speed he could muster, Antony came to her side, and she dropped into his arms instead of to the cold, hard floor below. Gently, as if he could break her with even the slightest movement, he lowered her to her knees, half on his lap. But alertness suddenly returned to her, and as her eyes snapped wide, shining silver in the darkness of the porch, she twisted in his arms and gripped the door frame to help pull her around. "I'll kill you!" she screamed into the night. "I'll kill all of you!" But her voice was weak, raspy, and when she tried to rise, her voice still straining as she crowed her death threats — "You'll all die at my hand! Your precious master, too!" — Antony pulled her body to his chest with so little effort it stung.

"Oh, God. What did they do to you?" he whispered, beginning to rock her on his lap, and her screams died away as she began to tremble feebly. "What have you done to yourself this time?"

"The healer!" Skylar shouted, and the words just barely grazed Antony's consciousness. "We have to get her to the healer!" The boy's face appeared over Torryn's bloody shoulder, his eyes wide and wild and filled with terror, and Antony shook himself inwardly.

He was right.

A set of keys jingled loudly as Becca, a blur of flesh and the whipping tail of a tunic-style shirt, sprinted past him and into the night. Confusion stilled Antony for a regretful moment as he recognized the worry that had been in the woman's face — worry for Torryn, the foolish little girl that didn't understand vampires in Becca's eyes — but he wouldn't let it hold him for longer than a single slow beat of Torryn's heart against his achingly dull breast. Pulling Torryn into his arms, he leaped to his feet and ran to the car after the vampire. She was behind the wheel, the engine already rumbling, and she wouldn't look at him.

He didn't understand, but he was grateful.

"You'll be okay," he cooed to Torryn as she shivered in his arms, and Skylar slammed the car door shut behind them once they were settled into the front seat. "I won't let you die."

Another door slammed, and as Becca sped off quickly enough to kick gravel at the SUV parked behind them, Skylar remarked grimly from the backseat, "It's not just your job, Antony. You're not the only person who loves her."

Antony watched Becca out of the corner of his eye, her usually impassive face twisted in concentration, worry, raw protectiveness, and he wondered just how far Skylar's statement stretched. How many people love you, stupid girl? How many hearts are you going to break when you finally get yourself killed?

-?-

Skylar stared blankly at the bare coffee table that stood between the couch he shared with Raphael and the one that seated Antony and Becca across from him. The scent of dog had nearly overwhelmed him when they'd arrived, but now that an hour had passed, he barely noticed it. In the corner of the room, the small TV exploded with laughter, jarring in the silence, and he let his gaze drift toward the small figures acting out some oh-so-hilarious scene in a sitcom he didn't recognize.

They don't make televisions like that anymore, he thought, clutching to anything that took his mind off of her. Bulky CRTs haven't been a big deal for years.

"So, how did you fare with finding the Progeny a place to go?" Antony asked, and Skylar's eyes flicked to the vampire. His face was entirely empty, the very picture of calm, cool, and collected, but Skylar could tell from the way he clenched and unclenched his fists on his lap that Antony was about as relaxed as he was.

Why isn't she up yet? She should be up by now. Raphael said he'd taken care of her.

"They were easily dealt with," the healer rumbled. "Believe it or not, many werewolves have helped to set up safe havens for the escaped prey of vampires all across the country, and even though Progeny are unusual to come by, they're just as welcome as any human. They should be able to stand on their own two feet by the end of the month, even if it'll be a little bit tricky to reintroduce them into society."

Antony cocked an eyebrow. "How have I never heard about this?"

Raphael smirked, but just barely. "We're saving them from you, dipshit. Why would we let you find out where they are?"

"How did she even find out about Emmeline?" Becca said suddenly, her voice soft and her distant eyes on the table.

"That was my fault," Raphael admitted, his stoic expression cracking just a hair to let his guilt shine through, "but I swear I told her not to go. I gave her the location as a warning, a place to avoid, not somewhere to charge in to. I never expected…" He trailed off, and without any further explanation, he rose and headed up the stairs, leaving a cloud of cool fury in his wake.

Left alone, Skylar looked between Becca and Antony, and if the situation hadn't been so dire, he likely would've cackled at how hard they were trying not to look at each other. "I'm sorry for what I said about her," Becca whispered. "She may have gotten herself into some stupid situations, but she…she didn't deserve that." Suddenly angry, she met Antony's patient stare, glaring fiercely enough that Skylar drew back even though he was nowhere near the intended target. "She almost died, the stupid bint! I'm honestly amazed that she didn't! She's lucky she thought to drop your name, or she wouldn't be here right now!" She dropped her voice, leaning across the cushion that separated her from Antony, and a hint of pleading dulled the sharp edge of her scowl. "Do you understand that, Antony? She deliberately walked into the lair of an incredibly powerful master, knowing full well who she would face. She should be dead. And it's all because she doesn't understand vampires."

A shout from upstairs drew her gaze to the stairwell along with Antony's, and Skylar followed suit. Even the actors of the mysterious sitcom seemed to be straining to hear, as their voices dropped to nothingness and the crowd ceased their cheers. The two vampires glanced at each other, suddenly calm, and Becca said, "I guess Raphael feels the same as I do."

With a sigh, Skylar silently damned his humanity. He couldn't make out a word of what the healer was saying. God damn it.

-?-

Torryn's eyes drifted open, and she groaned inwardly as a dull ache throbbed through her whole body. What the hell happened? But when she found Raphael standing over her, frowning darkly, it all came back to her in a rush of terror and embarrassment. Emmeline…

"I usually make a point never to do this as soon as a patient wakes up, if I do it at all, but…" He paused, seeming to wrangle with something internally, and his eyes narrowed in a dangerous glare. "Torryn, what in God's name were you thinking?"

Torryn rolled her eyes. Oh, no. Here comes Daddy Raphy. "Well, I had to do something, didn't I? You weren't offering any decent leads, the Lord had already been taken care of, and I was getting tired of waiting for some vampire to appear with a whole army of Progeny, since you completely forgot to mention when we started this partnership that Progeny aren't even a little bit common. Honestly, I thought I could handle it." She busied herself, avoiding Raphael's stern gaze by lifting the thin, silky sheet that covered her to find that she was still completely naked. Like the first time Antony had brought me here, when Skylar was on the brink of death. She frowned briefly at the memory but quickly scrambled to regain her bored nonchalance, now scanning her bare body to take stock of her condition. She was still covered in blood, though she no longer felt as if she'd lost so much of it, and beneath the shroud of crimson…I still have the scars, she realized, alarmed. Her skin wasn't broken, but every last bite mark, dozens and dozens of them, remained. What the hell?

"You did something terribly stupid," Raphael went on lowly, "and I'm leaving you with those scars so you just might remember your own limitations next time."

She sat up, unabashed even as the sheet slid away to bare her chest, and glared at him. "I could've taken care of it if there weren't so many vampires."

"There'll always be that many vampires," he retorted without pause.

Fueled by angry adrenaline, she rose, and though she was unsteady on her feet, she made the extra effort to get in his face. "I'm stronger than you think I am!"

He returned the favor, leaning close enough that their noses nearly touched, and shouted, "But you're weaker than you think you are!"

"I'm not weak!" she screamed, though she could feel tears welling in her eyes, warm and unwelcome.

But he went on, unyielding, an oak tree towering over her and never bending away. "You are not equipped to handle a true master and her entire coven! You're barely equipped to handle Antony's freshly dead ass and his pathetic excuse for a following! Even if you are able to overcome the pheromones of the weaker bloodsuckers, even if you are stronger than the average human, you're not physically capable of handling every vampire you come across!" The tears flowed down her cheeks now, rivers of shame, and though his tone softened, he still wouldn't stop. "Face it, Torryn. You aren't able to face anyone you want, and by trying, you're only hurting the people who care about you. You've practically shoved Emmeline's nose in Antony's scent now, and it's inevitable that she'll be coming to tear him down just like Caleb tried to do…except she'll win."

"She won't!" Torryn yelled, glaring through the tears. "If I'm not strong enough to protect him now, if I'm not strong enough to save all those Progeny and all those people that they kill, I'll get strong enough!" A halfhearted shove sent him back barely an inch, and his intent gaze on her face never wavered as she continued on. "No matter how many times you tell me I can't, I will beat her. I'll beat them all. You can't stop me."

She was suddenly enveloped in warmth, the scent of wolf and musk heavy in her nose, and raw heat began to tingle lovingly through her from where their bodies met to stitch her wounds fully shut. His hold was tight but gentle, his thick arms showing their strength and his affection, and her tears began to fall more quickly as she threw her arms around him and tried desperately to telegraph her own devotion through her own firm embrace.

"You'll keep a pair on your right wrist," he whispered, and she lifted an arm to see the faint marks over top of her mended vein, "and you'll use it to remember what you just said to me."

For a moment, she was silent, her sobs slowly subsiding, until she finally whispered, "Thank you, Raphael." He drew back, and the warmth went with him to leave her feeling cold, vulnerable, but when she found that he'd put his stoic mask carefully back in place, she smirked through the tears that still rolled slowly down her cheeks. "Just remember that, while I may be naked and crying, I could still kick your ass with no trouble at all."

He gave one sharp nod. "I never doubted it for a second. But I left a fresh set of clothes for you in the bathroom, if you'd like to shower and clean yourself up a bit."

She smiled faintly. "Thank you." He turned to leave, but before he'd even stepped toward the door, she said quickly, "Hey. Can I ask you something really quick?"

He looked back at her warily. "What do you want to know?"

"When I went to see Emmeline, she said something that I found kind of…odd." He nodded, urging her on, and she continued. "She told me that she sends her minions out to bring in fresh humans, and that they drain them dry, and I was just wondering if that was normal. I mean, I've never come across any vampires in the act of kidnapping someone, and it doesn't seem like our city has a problem with people going missing, so…Is it really possible? Is it common? Why don't people know about it?"

He shrugged. "It's no more or less normal than keeping human slaves. Each coven has their own style, after all. There aren't any rules set in place for vampires. As for how the community isn't even aware of the problem, vampires and every other variety of nightcrawler have their claws deeper into law enforcement and the government than you'll ever be entirely aware of." Her stomach dropped, her eyes grew wide, and he shrugged again, helpless. "We all have to keep ourselves hidden somehow, and completely avoiding the human population just isn't a possibility. Believe me, I don't like it any more than you do, and I'm one of the people this manipulation serves to protect."

She nodded, trying to shake off the shock even as her insides continued to tremble at the very thought of a supernatural force behind the government, behind the police, behind everything. "I…I get it."

His demeanor darkened, but the only visual change to his expression came in the form of a very slight narrowing of his eyes. She could sense the warning rolling off of him in waves. "If I don't want you going toe to toe with local master vampires, I sure as hell don't want you going toe to toe with the ones who have the power to control the higher-ups. Got it?" The threat beneath his words was unmistakable, and she nodded obediently. Honestly, she didn't think she wanted to go toe to toe with those vampires, either. Ever. "Good," he grumbled with a final nod to himself, then he finally turned and left the room.

When she heard his steps safely heading down the stairs, she sank onto the blood-covered sheets of the bed. Her emotions went to war within her, fear of all that she'd just learned clashing with the warm and fuzzy feeling that his hug, his words, and his entire attitude toward her had left tickling its way through her body. She squirmed as her body was rocked by a pleasant shiver — the warm-fuzzy had won the battle, and she grinned stupidly as she reveled in the feeling.

She wasn't sure she'd ever get over how deeply he cared for her…or how deeply she cared for him.

Her smile faded as she realized that she needed to do something, anything, to keep him and the other people she cared about and all the strangers who couldn't protect themselves safe from the vampires who sought to sate their own appetites, to satisfy their own desires, no matter how perverse, no matter who they hurt. But if running into covens was no longer an option — and after the beating she'd taken, she knew that she needed to get stronger before she attempted that again — what could she do?

She felt her eyes grow impossibly wide as the answer dawned on her, painfully obvious: she would hunt the vampires who stole humans from the street.

After all, they would likely act alone, right? She could handle one vampire at a time, no matter how damn powerful they were.

She grinned. Finally, she'd found something she could do without fail.

Finally, I might actually be able to prove myself without embarrassing results.

-?-

"Did you just hug my naked girlfriend?" Antony asked with a wry grin the moment Raphael and the bloody front of his clothes appeared at the bottom of the stairway.

"She's not your girlfriend anymore, remember?" the healer retorted without missing a beat, and Antony's shit-eating grin grew to encompass what felt like his entire face.

It died away, however, as Raphael dropped onto the couch across from him beside Skylar. "You haven't told her anything else, have you? Nothing else that we'll need to look out for? No more stupid situations that she can run into half-cocked?"

Raphael shrugged and reclined languidly on the sofa, throwing one arm over the back of it and the other over the arm. "I told her where to find each of the Big Five vamps, but I'm almost positive that she won't be rushing into one of their covens again. Not after what happened with the Lord. Not after what happened tonight." He paused for a heartbeat, his gaze growing distant, but he quickly snapped back to reality and went on. "Other than that, I only fed her information when I came across it, and I haven't gotten anything as of late beyond a few strays that she probably wouldn't be interested in, anyway." He dropped his gaze to the coffee table that separated them under the guise of studying the cover of one of the books he'd left there, though Antony could make out the guilt that still sizzled beneath the surface of his cool stare. "I won't apologize for utilizing her as a tool for making the city safer — for giving her exactly what she wanted, mind you — but I'll always be sorry that I misjudged her poorly enough to miss how truly headstrong she is. I never should've just handed her those locations, and I should've kept a better eye on her, and I should've told you of our agreement, at the very least, and —"

"It's all right, Raphael," Antony said softly, and his heart truly ached for the man as he raised his remorseful eyes, looking every inch the scolded puppy even as he took up half of the couch with his enormous wolfish bulk. "You never could've known how she'd react. Besides, she's…changed recently. When you first met her, she probably wouldn't have thrown herself into these situations, but now that she feels like it's her duty to protect everyone, to prove that she can protect everyone…" He trailed off with a shrug of his own, and the healer nodded slowly. Whether he truly agreed or not, however, Antony couldn't tell, as his expression had become entirely guarded once more.

"Well, regardless of all of that," Antony went on, more loudly now, less emotionally, "I'm sure we can agree that you shouldn't share any more information with her, right? For her own safety?"

Raphael nodded again. "Definitely."

They fell silent then, and as Antony allowed his gaze to scan the room out of boredom, his eyes landed on Becca, sitting silently on the couch beside him. Her stare was cautious as she said, "I'm sorry to bring this up right now, but I kind of need to know. Can I…stay with you?" She rushed to add, cringing already, "It's all right if you refuse. I'll completely understand. After everything I've said and done, after everything I've refused to do, I—"

"You can stay," he told her with a single, solemn nod, and shock washed through her expression for an instant before her fangs poked out in an overjoyed smile.

"You're sure?"

He smiled softly. "After all of the kindness you've shown her today, how could I not be?"