But now, knowing she was lost to him, had always been lost to him, then Ming was lost to her, and now that Abel was finally found, the melancholy was difficult to behold.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop himself from doing it. That was hers, but more, he knew from experience it made it worse to try and take it away.
“Rest well, tian xin,” he murmured.
“I will.”
He smiled into her eyes, straightened, and moved away.
He was at his bike in the alley when Xun and Wei rode in.
They stopped close to him and he saw they had no wolf.
When their engines died, Xun announced, “We lost him. We need you to track.”
He swung astride his bike as he replied, “Let’s go.”
They started up their bikes again as Abel did the same and they took off, Abel leading.
So he could catch the scent, they went back to the alley where the fight had happened, but he stopped well short of it, Xun and Wei stopping behind him.
Cop cars with flashing lights were blocking the alley, yellow police tape cordoning it off. There was a flash, black SUV parked on the street close to the police vehicles as well as a black Porsche. There were also a meager number of onlookers, meager as it was late and this was a business district. And the fire Abel had lit to be certain the vampires were disposed of had been put out.
They had no other choice but to drive by so he could catch the scent.
Abel turned his head to his brothers, jerked up his chin, got two return gestures, then he gave his bike gas, gliding by the scene, Abel hoping that no one looked their way. The bloodstains on their dark clothes had dried and darkened, imperceptible in the night (unless you were vampire or wolf and could smell it), but he and his two brothers still had stains on their skin.
He looked down the alley as he went by, seeing two dark-haired, well-dressed men who were not cops standing on the sidewalk outside the alley.
One was speaking to a police officer.
The other was on his phone.
But his eyes followed Abel.
Abel smelled them both and knew they were what he’d learned from their scent that night.
Vampires.
Since they were, they would no doubt smell him.
And the blood he and his brothers had all over them.
Fuck.
He buried the urge to put on more gas until they were well away from the scene.
But he’d picked up the scent and followed it, straight to the bay. They made it there without cop cars chasing them or gaining any company. He didn’t know what that meant, but he didn’t trust it and he didn’t let his guard down.
He stopped his bike in the deserted parking lot by the rocky beach, swung off, and moved over the rocks toward the water, feeling Xun and Wei following him.
He stopped at the edge where the gentle waves were lapping the shore, this also being where the scent died.
“Gone swimming?” Wei asked.
“Yep,” Abel answered.
“So we lost him,” Xun stated, frustration in his tone.
“Yep,” Abel repeated, also feeling frustration along with the disquiet gnawing at his throat.
“You have any dreams, premonitions, or freaking anything about the shit that went down tonight?” Wei asked.
This was a pertinent question.
Abel dreamed. He did it every night and had done it for as long as he could remember.
They were vivid dreams, most of them recurring. The last hundred years the majority of them were about Delilah, fucking her, eating her, her blowing him, him feeding as he finger fucked or banged her to orgasm, wild, unrestrained, like he sensed she was, like he sensed was how she lived her life.
He’d also dreamed of her laughing, burying her face in his chest, her dark hair all around, her mirth vibrating through his skin, his flesh, straight into his heart. And he’d dreamed of her behind him on his bike, her tits pressed deep into his back, her hair flying around, whipping his face, her cheek resting on his shoulder blade. And of her sitting back, feet up on the table, ankles crossed, chopsticks in her hand, white carton held up before her, noodles dangling from her mouth as she grinned at him, his brothers, and Jian-Li.
And last, he’d dream of watching her die on a street somewhere he did not know, drained by vampires and then torn apart by wolves.
In his two hundred and five years, he’d never sensed or even smelled another being like him.
But he’d dreamed of them. Dreamed of the danger they represented. Dreamed of them harming his family. Dreamed of them taking Delilah. Dreamed of them ripping her throat out, just like what had nearly happened that night.
Now they were there.
“Nope,” he answered.
“Great,” Xun muttered.
He turned to his brothers, who were once like his sons, who would become his fathers, the never-ending cycle of life that ended in sorrow. A cycle that went on without relief. Would go on without relief, but now would include Delilah.
He would have her.
He would love her.
Then he would lose her.
It takes time, but you come to terms with the fact that you were blessed, having once had it at all.
He hoped like fuck Jian-Li was right.
“I need to get back to Delilah,” he declared.
Xun’s brows went up as did the corners of his lips. “Delilah?”
“Don’t let her near a pair of scissors,” Wei advised, eyes to Abel’s overlong hair, lips also grinning.
“Her namesake was not the one who used the shears,” Abel educated him.
Wei looked to his brother, mumbling, “Whatever.”
Abel took in two men he’d watched grow in their mother’s womb. He’d watched them learn to crawl, to walk, to speak. Men he’d started to train the minute they could coordinate their limbs. Men who showed him the blind devotion they showed their mother, tonight not the first time they’d demonstrated it, though it was the first time their lives were in peril when they did.