Page 32

It was dark, until I fumbled around in my pocket and found a light. It was only a cigarette lighter, which is a useful item to carry when you regularly fight vamps, even if you don’t smoke. I clicked it, and the flame lit up our faces with a dim, golden glow, although the rest of the space remained in darkness.

Louis-Cesare’s face was showing a certain amount of surprise, which was valid.

“What is this?” he asked, glancing about.

“Fey tech. I got trapped in one of these once. You remember; you came in to get me.”

“You mean the laboratory.”

I nodded. “That would be the one. Some dark mages folded over a flap of non-space to make themselves an illegal lab that nobody could find, because it didn’t exist in real space. I thought I’d repurpose the idea for something good.”

“Repurpose it how?” Louis-Cesare asked. He could probably see more in almost complete darkness than I could, but this deserved better lighting. I fumbled around on the wall until I found the switch and flicked it.

“What . . . did you do?” he asked, his eyes widening, and amazement in his voice.

“That.”

I gestured around proudly at what looked like a simple, cement walled room with a concrete floor and no windows. But the bare bones didn’t tell the whole story—not by half. Because this room . . . was filled with wonders.

I’d spent half of my convalescence moving things around, getting it just the way I liked. There was a squashy armchair to sit in, for cleaning guns and bandaging wounds and just resting in between bouts. There was a light overhead, just the bare bulb for now, but I was thinking about getting a decorative fixture to spruce things up. There was, of course, a beer fridge, and it was fully stocked, because what am I? An animal?

But the real story was what was scattered around, covering almost every available surface. When I designed this place, I had thought of it as fairly expansive, because I’d assumed that I’d be filling it via the contents of my own, rather thin, bank account. But afterwards, I’d found another solution.

Or, to be more precise, Ray had found it.

“You gotta see this!” he said, taking my hand and all but pulling me down a set of stairs at court.

“See what? And why are we going to the dungeon?”

“It’s not a dungeon. What is this? The middle ages?”

“No, but this house does belong to the consul,” I reminded him. And she’d always kind of struck me as pretty damned medieval.

“Yeah, that’s the point,” Ray said excitedly, as we all but ran down a narrow set of stairs that I’d never seen before. Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that they were hidden by a painting, a corridor, another painting, and a set of bookshelves, but trust Ray to suss them out, if there was something valuable to be found.

I just didn’t know what yet.

“I mean, I knew they hadda have it somewhere,” he was babbling. “But I couldn’t find it—”

“Find what?”

“—after all, we’re at war. Even if they didn’t have one before, they’d have to have put something together—”

“Ray. One what?”

“—and knowing her Stinginess, I didn’t figure on her letting it too far outta her sight. So, it had to be here—”

“Ray! What had to be here?”

“That,” he said, grinning, and threw open a door—to Ali Baba’s cave. Or it may as well have been.

Damn, I thought, staring around. I’m gonna need a bigger room.

And I did, most definitely. But I hadn’t had a chance to address that yet, the original one having been pretty damned costly. So, I’d made do.

Which was why the now rather small-looking space was crammed with shelves of guns, ammo, grenades, and a grenade launcher—easily enough to fight a small war. And cabinets of magical charms, potion bombs and spelled objects, sufficient to make a war mage drool. And decorative displays of more old school weapons mounted on the walls, with fans of everything from swords and pikes to knives and axes.

“The senate’s armory,” I explained, as Louis-Cesare moved forward, appearing as stunned as I had been when Ray had first showed me. “Or as much of it as I could steal, anyway. The room is also soundproofed, so we can talk freely.”

But Louis-Cesare wasn’t talking. Louis-Cesare was exploring, particularly the rack of swords, rapiers and cutlasses on a nearby wall. They’d just been piled up in dusty chests at the consul’s, because nobody really used them anymore, so I’d helped myself. And, of course, I’d taken the pretty ones.

I guessed I must have chosen well, because Louis-Cesare took down one of the rapiers and slashed the air with it a few times. Then looked up at me, his eyes shining.

“I used to have one like this as a boy. It is an antique.”

“Have that one if you like. I took it for you.” I sat on the chair. “I don’t do a lot of fencing.”

“I could teach you.”

“Maybe someday.”

I watched him slash the air some more, and make a few pretty lunges, with his body extended and his form perfect. He never looked so at home as when he had a blade in his hand. It almost didn’t even seem like a weapon anymore, after he picked it up, but more like an extension of his body.

“This is a work of art,” he said admiring the chasing on the piece that fitted over the grip. I thought it was called a knuckle guard, but wasn’t sure. “Are there any more like this?”

“I wasn’t paying that much attention,” I admitted. “You should go take a look for yourself. Haven’t you ever been down there?”

“No. But perhaps I should.” He made a few rolling motions with his wrist, causing the blade to glimmer and gleam as it slowly wove a pattern in the air.

“You might want to give them some time to restock,” I said. “I already took all the good stuff.”

“And this place?” he stopped admiring the sword long enough to look at me. “You made yourself an armory—that you could carry about with you?”

I shrugged. “Technically, the armory is in a pocket of non-space, so I’m not really carrying anything but the fixed mouth to a portal. But, sure. It sounds cooler your way.”

He just looked at me.

“I got tired of running out of weapons,” I explained.

He shook his head, and put the rapier back. And the next moment, I was enveloped in a warm hug. “I do love you,” he said, a smile in his voice. “And I am sorry, for not telling you about your father.”

“Okay.”

Louis-Cesare pulled back after a moment to regard me more soberly. “It isn’t, though, is it? You’re upset.”

“Yes, I’m upset. About that, and about what just happened with Zheng.”

His forehead knitted. “What just happened?”

Damn it, I knew it!

“You were negotiating for me,” I explained patiently. Or as patiently as I was able to manage right now. “I was sitting right there, not two feet away from you, yet I couldn’t get a word in—”

“I would never do that!”

“—edgewise.”

He frowned.

I pinched the top of my nose, because I was getting a headache. I was also getting a heartache, because this was something like the third time that we’d had this conversation, and I wasn’t getting through. I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to.

And what if I didn’t?

Louis-Cesare was watching me and he seemed to get that this was serious. I supposed that was something. I just didn’t know if it would be enough.

“I understand that we’re both used to being on our own,” I said. “To not having anybody to answer to, to making all our own decisions. But—”

“We’re not on our own anymore.”

I shook my head.

He sighed and sat down on the floor beside me. He rested his head on my knee, which was cheating, but I decided I’d allow it. The tiny room stuffed with weapons was strangely peaceful after the last few days, a quiet, dimly lit oasis where the outside world couldn’t intrude.

We needed to talk, and I fully intended to. But I was willing to postpone it for a few moments. This was nice.

Louis-Cesare’s hair had gotten a bit windblown on the ride over, so I undid the clasp at his neck and ran my fingers through it because I didn’t have a comb. It was the only drawback to having your purse turned into an armory: you no longer had a purse. I had pockets on the outside, but they were usually stuffed with weapons, too. It was a dilemma . . .

“I don’t want you here,” Louis-Cesare said abruptly.

My fingers stilled. “That . . . was not what I expected you to say.”

“But it is the truth.” He looked up at me, and the sapphire eyes were sober. “I want to be the knight in the fairy tales, defending his lady. I want, with all of my being, to know that you are safe, and that whatever happens to me, you will remain so. When I saw you there, in that alley, when I realized that Jonathan had hurt you, and that he’d been able to do so because of me—”

“It wasn’t because of you. You heard Hassani; the fey were everywhere that night. If I hadn’t followed you, they’d have gotten me somewhere else—”

“Perhaps; perhaps not. But then to see you in that temple, and to know that your pain was my fault, that I had failed you once again—”

“You didn’t fail me,” I said, getting exasperated. So much for the warm, cozy feeling of a moment ago. “That had nothing to do with you—”

“But it did! I should have been there! Even after I saw that Jonathan hurt you, that he had targeted you, I gave him the opportunity to do it again—”

“You gave him nothing. I chose to go down there. It was my decision—”

“But if I had been there—”

I got up suddenly, because I couldn’t think straight with auburn silk cascading over my legs. And because I needed to move. Louis-Cesare followed me with his eyes, and there was no question in them. He believed, absolutely, in what he was saying.

“You know it’s true,” he said, echoing my thoughts.

“What I know is that you’re acting like a master vamp who let down one of his family.”

“Is that not what I am?”

“No.” Damn it, I knew it. “I’m your family in that Radu is my uncle and he’s your sire. But I’m with you because I choose to be. I chose you; I marked you because I see you as an equal. I always have. But I wouldn’t have done that if I’d had any idea that you see me as an inferior—”

“I do nothing of the kind!”

“—who needs protection because she can’t handle herself!”

“I want to protect you because I love you!”

“I believe that,” I said, working to rein in my temper. Because he had to get this. I had to be able to explain this, or we were through. I loved him—so much—but I wasn’t going to live like this. I wasn’t going to be the little woman to be cherished and lied to and protected, while her man went out to face the world’s terrors alone—

And didn’t come back.

That wasn’t who I was; wasn’t who I could be, even if I’d wanted to. Dhampirs ran on adrenaline and anger and action, needing combat as much as they needed air. Yes, I got beat up sometimes, even a lot of the time, but I came through it; I always had. And even if, someday, I didn’t, I’d rather die fighting by my husband’s side that sitting at home, wringing my hands, and waiting for news that would kill me anyway.

Not to mention the fact that we were at war. Did he really think I’d be that much safer back home? There was no safety anymore, except for what we provided each other.

I just wished I knew the words to get him to see that.

I walked back over and knelt beside him. I took his hands in mine, stupidly huge things that they were, because this was a last-ditch effort so I might as well go for broke. “I believe that,” I told him again. “But I also believe that you see me as someone who you give information to when you feel like it, who you protect whether she likes it or not, and who you make decisions for. That’s a problem.”

Louis-Cesare didn’t say anything for a long moment, although his eyes searched my face. That was good. I wanted him thinking.

Whether it would do any good, I honestly didn’t know.

“I don’t know how,” he finally said, and then stopped himself and thought some more. I waited. His eyes found the floor and he stared at it for a long time, before finally looking up at me. “I assume that you want complete honesty?”

“Yes.”

“Even if you won’t like it?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Very well, then. The truth is, that I don’t know how to be the partner you want. I have never been a partner—to anyone. I was a burden to my family; Christine was a burden to me.” He paused again, and then continued in a rush. “I try, but I tell you truly, if breaking up with you would keep you safe, if I knew that it would, I would do it. If locking you away would keep you safe, I would do it. If making you hate me was the only way—”

I stopped him with a hand on his cheek, because I already knew all this. His actions lately had made it more than apparent. I just didn’t know why.

“Where is all this coming from?”

“You have to ask?” His hand pushed up the bottom of my jeans enough to show the tell-tale scar on my calf. His finger traced it, the touch gentle, barely there. But I felt it down to my bones because of the expression on his face. “I did this to you—”

“You didn’t know—”

He quieted me with a look. He meant this, all the way from his soul. “I did this. I wasn’t strong enough to wrest back control, and keep you safe. Just as I wasn’t strong enough in that alley, or in that tomb. I know you say it was not my fault, but it was my hand on the sword, and my negligence the other times. I did this.”

He put a hand in his hair, pushing it up, looking slightly deranged. I’d known that this had been playing on his mind; I’d caught glimpses, here and there, and been paying enough attention to interpret half cut off words. But I hadn’t realized it was this bad.

He looked up at me, and the blue eyes were tortured. “But I also know that leaving would not keep you safe, either. I do not know what will, and it tears at me.”

I put a hand on his shoulder, and felt the strain there. It was like touching steel with a thin veneer of flesh on top. Everything I’d needed to know was in that one touch.

But I still didn’t have the words to make it better.

“I’ve been around a long time,” I finally said.

“Yes, as a dhampir assassin nobody knew. You’re playing on a different level now. You know this.”

“Yes, I know this. I know something else, too.”

He looked at me.

I struggled for words, and when they came, they weren’t particularly elegant or refined. But they were heartfelt. I meant every word, just as much as he had.

“I was alone for a long time. I didn’t know about Dorina, I thought my father hated and was ashamed of me, and the people that I did have relationships with were business contacts and those who wanted something from me. That was it. That was how I lived, year after year after long, lonely, pain-filled year. And, yeah, there were better times, once in a while. But there weren’t a hell of a lot of them.

“Some people make it through hard times by telling themselves that things will get better. But after so long, you begin to realize: they never will. That was as good as life got, as good as I thought it would ever get. A desert of pain with a few oases dotted here and there, just enough to keep me going. That was all, and wanting anything else, much less expecting it . . .

“Was a child’s foolish dream. Just wishful thinking.

“But then, I met you.”

I looked at him, and I still saw it, just as I had that first day, although I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself: the little girl’s dream of prince charming, complete with the stupid hair and the gorgeous body and the even more beautiful soul. And I still didn’t have the words. Because what do you say to a dream come true?

But something must have shown on my face, because his hands tightened.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “I wish I did. All I can say for sure is this. If some genie had come to me and offered me a trade: a few years of being with someone I truly care about in exchange for all the centuries that I had left like that? Yeah. I’d have made the trade.

“And I still would.”