Page 30 of Nocturne

29

LENA

T he colony house is silent save for the distant crash of waves against the cliffs below. Unlike Abe’s modernist structure on the bluff, this smaller building is tucked into the canyon, partially embedded in the hillside like a secret waiting to be discovered. From the outside, it appears to be little more than a modest bungalow. Inside, it stretches deep into the earth, connected to Abe’s main house by a tunnel that winds beneath the Roosevelt Highway.

“You’ll be safer here,” Abe had insisted when he brought me to this hidden outpost earlier tonight. “Adonis has cloaked the compound. If the Ivanovs try to track you, this is the last place they’ll be able to sense you.”

I hadn’t argued. The practical part of me knows he’s right—my safety is paramount if we’re going to rescue Callahan. But the rest of me chafes at being hidden away while he remains in Dmitri’s clutches, learning God knows what twisted version of the truth about his origins.

Sleep eludes me despite the late hour. I’ve been pacing the small bedroom, occasionally pausing to look out the window at the sliver of ocean visible between the canyon walls. The moon is high and bright, casting everything in silver that seems to glint off the windowpane. It would be beautiful if I weren’t so consumed with worry.

The search for the Ivanovs’ location had yielded frustratingly little today. Abe and the others had called in every favor, chased down every rumor, but Dmitri and his clan had gone to ground after the debacle at the Crimson Clover. Most of Cohen’s men were keeping their heads down too, making it impossible to follow that connection. I’m not sure that Cohen knows that he has vampires working for him, but either way he seems to be keeping under the radar.

Another dead end in a day full of them.

I sink onto the edge of the bed, burying my face in my hands. I’ve never felt this helpless, this useless. I should be out there, hunting, not hidden away like some dainty dame. Yet I know the Ivanovs are hunting me too. My blood makes me a target, the final piece in their twisted puzzle.

I run my hands over my face, about to get up and pace again, when I pause.

The air in the room feels different all of a sudden—heavier, charged with a subtle electricity that makes the hair on my arms stand on end. I lift my head, senses instantly alert.

I scan the room, seeing nothing out of place. But the feeling persists, that instinctive awareness of danger that’s kept my kind alive for centuries.

Then I catch it—the faintest shift in the shadows by the window, a deeper darkness against the night. I’m on my feet in an instant, positioning myself with my back to the door, ready to flee or fight as needed.

“Who’s there?” I demand, my voice steady despite the adrenaline surging through my veins.

The shadow moves, separating from the darkness with fluid grace, and my heart stops.

Callahan.

But not Callahan as I know him. Not the man I’ve come to love. This creature crouching in the window frame is all predator—eyes glowing red in the darkness, fangs fully extended, face a mask of hunger and rage. His clothes are torn and bloody, his skin smeared with dirt as if he’s traveled great distances on foot, through brush and bramble, tracking me like a bloodhound.

“Victor?” I whisper, hope warring with instinct.

He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even seem to recognize his own name. Instead, he launches himself across the room with supernatural speed, slamming into me with enough force to drive the air from my lungs.

We crash into the opposite wall, plaster cracking beneath the impact. His hands close around my throat, pinning me in place as a snarl builds in his chest. The scent of him is wrong—still Callahan underneath, but overlaid with something else.

Madness.

Dmitri’s done something to him.

“Victor, stop.” I struggle against his grip, fighting the instinct to match his violence with my own. “It’s me. It’s Lena.”

His snarl deepens, face inches from mine. There’s no recognition in those crimson eyes, nothing of the man I know. Just hunger and rage and something else—desperation, as if part of him is fighting against whatever control Dmitri has placed upon him.

I have seconds to make a decision. I could fight him—I’m strong enough to at least create distance, to call for help. Abe and the others would come running if they knew there was a struggle. But there’s a chance I wouldn’t get that far. If I run, he’ll run me down, his predator instincts will fire on all cylinders. He’ll kill me…and I have a feeling that’s not what he came here to do.

Or I could try something else.

Something riskier.

I’ve seen Callahan integrate his vampire side before, seen him find balance between the predator and the man. And I know what helped him do it—connection, blood, and, very specifically, me.

His hands tighten on my throat, strength just shy of crushing. I meet his gaze directly, one hand moving slowly, carefully to touch his face.

“Come back to me,” I whisper. “I know you’re in there, Victor. I know you can hear me.”

For a heartbeat, nothing changes. Then his grip falters, just slightly. Just enough.

I seize the opportunity, surging forward to press my lips against his. The kiss is violent, desperate—nothing like the tender moments we’ve shared before. His fangs nick my lower lip, drawing blood that mingles between us.

The taste of my blood sends a shudder through him. His hands release my throat, sliding instead to my waist, gripping hard enough to bruise. The kiss deepens, becomes something primal—a claiming, a recognition.

I reach for the darkness within him with my mind, with my blood, with my body. Trying to find the man beneath the monster, to give him an anchor against whatever compulsion Dmitri has placed upon him.

“I’m here,” I breathe against his mouth. “Stay with me, Victor. Fight it.”

His response is physical rather than verbal—a growl rumbling through his chest as he lifts me, carrying me to the bed with inhuman strength. I go willingly, understanding what needs to happen. The blood exchange we shared before helped integrate his dual natures, helped him find balance. Perhaps it can do so again.

But that might have to wait.

Everything happens so fast.

His body crashes down on mine, pinning me to the mattress with bruising force. His hunger is feral, unrestrained—a beast breaking through the surface. He tears at my clothes, ripping them away in frantic shreds, as if he can’t get to me quick enough.

I pull the remains of his shirt over his head. He grabs my wrists, slamming them above my head with a snarl that vibrates through every nerve. The sound is brutal; I answer it with one of my own, knees coming up to brace against his sides. He’s still Callahan somewhere under this wildness. I need to find that part of him again, draw it out.

“Victor,” I gasp, arching into him as he presses hard between my thighs, bigger than ever.

He thrusts into me in a single brutal stroke, and I cry out from the shock and the pain and the pleasure of it—all consuming, all at once. It’s not sensual or even respectful. It’s demanding and claiming and violent. But it’s him—raw and burning with need—and that makes it what I want more than anything.

“Stay with me,” I whisper, nails running down his back, holding on to the side of him that I know is just beneath the surface.

But soon the world narrows to nothing but sensation. The bed shakes beneath us as we move together, driven by instinct and desperation. Every motion is an explosion, tearing through me until there’s nothing left but fire and breathlessness and the pounding of my pulse in my ears.

He shifts his grip on my wrists, pinning them with one powerful hand while the other closes around my hip, angling me for deeper penetration. His fangs graze my neck—not quite biting but enough to send electricity skittering over my skin.

The threat of those teeth only intensifies the moment. If he takes too much blood while he’s like this…I push the thought away, focusing instead on holding his gaze. His eyes are still crimson with madness, but there’s a flicker there now—a hint of recognition amidst the chaos.

I’m reaching him.

I tighten around him, pulling him deeper inside me as if sheer physicality can bring him back from wherever Dmitri has sent him spiraling.

“Yes,” I urge breathlessly. “Just like that. Keep fucking me like that.”

He snarls in response, driving harder. He might just break another bed.

Time for him to feed.

I move my head to the side, exposing my neck. “Take it, Victor. It’s yours.”

His low growl fills the room, makes the mattress vibrate.

Oh my, he’s hungry.

His breath is hot against my skin, fangs hovering as if he’s barely holding himself back. My pulse is a drum against his lips—a siren’s call that he can’t resist. He bites down, and the pain is bright and blinding, white-hot pleasure following in its wake.

The world drops away. There is only his mouth at my throat, his body inside mine. The pull of blood from my veins is dizzying, every draw matched by the force of his thrusts. I weave my legs around him, urging him on even as I feel myself start to weaken.

A low growl vibrates against my neck. He should stop soon—needs to stop—but I know he won’t until it’s almost too late. It’s madness to let him go this far, but I don’t care. Not when it feels like this, like we’re dissolving into each other beyond thought or caution.

He moves faster now, drinking deeper, and the room spins around me. My heart thunders in time with his movements; sensation blurs into a single ecstatic blur. His grip on my wrists tightens painfully, but I’m beyond feeling anything except him—every part of him consuming every part of me.

“Victor,” I gasp again, or maybe I only think I do.

Everything crescendos at once—the sharp heat in my veins, the shattering release as we both come together violently. It rips through me with the force of a tidal wave, drowning awareness in its wake.

He jerks back from my neck with a ragged snarl, shuddering above me, dripping blood as he spills inside me. For a moment, he’s utterly still; then he collapses forward, burying his face in my shoulder like a man who’s just run for miles. His weight crushes me into the mattress—I’m weak beneath him, barely able to catch my breath—but I don’t mind. The fierceness is gone from his embrace now; his hold on me is possessive but not bruising.

Slowly, achingly slowly, the world comes back into focus. The room seems impossibly quiet after the chaos—just the sound of our breathing and the distant crash of waves beyond the window.

I shift beneath him experimentally and feel a slight easing of pressure around my ribs as he rolls us onto our sides without breaking contact. His eyes meet mine in the half-light; they’re no longer red but dark and wide and full of something I can’t quite read.

Recognition? Regret?

“Lena,” he says hoarsely—my name like an apology on his lips.

He looks down at the blood staining both our skin, where it smears across our bodies like some violent claim of possession. His expression twists with self-loathing that cuts through what’s left of my haze.

“Lena,” he repeats brokenly.

I reach up with trembling fingers to touch his face—still smeared with dirt and hunger but unmistakably his own again—and see something else flicker there: disbelief that I’m still alive under all this ruin.

I manage a smile despite the spinning room and ache between us both. “You came back to me.”

“Oh god. God.” His eyes pinch shut. Anguish contorts his features. “He sent me to capture you. To bring you to him. I tried to fight it, but his voice was in my head, his commands…”

He shudders, rolling away from me to sit on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. “I would have done it. If you hadn’t reached me, I would have delivered you to him like a lamb to slaughter. Or maybe…maybe I would have slaughtered you myself.”

“But you didn’t,” I say firmly, sitting up to wrap my arms around him from behind. “You found your way back.”

He’s silent for a long moment, his body rigid beneath my touch. When he speaks again, his voice is hollow, defeated in a way I’ve never heard before.

“He told me things, Lena. About who I am. What I’ve done.” He draws a shaky breath. “I killed Elizabeth Short.”

The words hang in the air between us, terrible and final. I go still, arms still wrapped around him, my mind racing to process what he’s just confessed.

“Victor—”

“I’m the one who picked her up at the Biltmore,” he continues, the words coming faster now, as if he can’t stop them. “I took her to them. And after they tortured her for days, carved those symbols into her flesh, cut her in half, I…” His voice breaks. “I drained her blood. I don’t remember doing it, but I know it’s true. I can feel it. I can taste it.”

I should be horrified. Should recoil from him in disgust. My friend’s killer, sitting naked and broken in my arms.

But all I feel is a profound sadness—for Betty, yes, but also for Victor. For the man who never asked for this legacy, who never chose to be a monster, who’s been manipulated and used by the creature who claims to be his father.

“It wasn’t you,” I say quietly. “Not the you that’s here now. Not the man I know.”

He laughs, a harsh, broken sound. “But it was. That’s what you don’t understand, Lena. The vampire side of me isn’t some separate entity. It’s me. All of me. The darkest, most primal parts, maybe, but still me.” He turns to face me, his eyes haunted. “I’m Dmitri’s son. His blood flows in my veins. His nature is my nature.”

I take his face in my hands, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Blood isn’t destiny, Victor. It’s just blood. Your choices define you, not your heritage. And you chose to fight him. Chose to warn me, even as you were compelled to capture me.”

“What if I can’t fight him next time?” he asks, fear evident in his voice. “What if he sends me after you again, and I can’t break free? What if I hurt you, or worse?”

I don’t have an answer that will ease his fears, because I share them. Dmitri’s compulsion over his own bloodline is clearly powerful, more so than I anticipated. But I know one thing with absolute certainty.

“Whatever happens next,” I tell him, “we face it together. I’m not leaving you to battle this alone.”

He stares at me, wonder breaking through the despair. “How can you still look at me like that? After what I just told you? After what I just did to you?”

“Because I know the man beneath the monster,” I say simply. “And that man is worth fighting for.”