Page 14

Danny

D anny once again found himself at his kitchen counter, Roman placing food in front of him. Plain toast this time.

“Eat,” Roman urged. “It will soak up the alcohol. Settle your stomach.”

Danny didn’t feel like he needed anything to soak up the alcohol—turned out surprise murder did wonders in sobering a person up—but it was true his stomach was roiling at thinking of the mutilated body Soren had shown them.

It wasn’t the gore itself—Danny had seen plenty bad enough at the hospital—but the fact that the corpse’s face had been familiar.

His would-be mugger.

When the police came, Roman had urged him not to mention his connection to the body. “No one but us knows what happened the other night. No need to get yourself further involved for no reason,” he’d counseled.

So Danny—along with Soren, Gabe, and Roman—had answered their questions about his role in finding the body honestly but had offered up nothing else about his history with the dead man.

Still, Danny had to ask, as Roman drove his car back to his house, if Roman had anything to do with the man’s death.

Roman, expression bank, seemingly unsurprised and unfazed by the question, had looked him in his eyes and said he hadn’t killed the man.

That he’d never even tried to track him down after that night.

And Danny had believed him. Just like that.

Did that make him stupid? Putting so much trust in a man— a vampire —he’d just met? Probably. And that should almost definitely worry him. But for whatever reason, it didn’t. Just further proof you’re a dummy, dummy .

Gabe had almost insisted on coming home with them, catching on quickly that there was more to the situation than anyone was telling him, but when he’d seemed about to argue with Danny’s refusal, Soren—Roman’s stupidly handsome vampire friend—had stepped in.

“I agree. You should come,” he’d purred, eyes glinting, lips stretched in that maniacal smile he seemed to have permanently etched on his face. “I might get scared just remembering the whole grisly experience and need someone to hold me in the night.”

Gabe had immediately backed down, mumbling about everyone going home and getting some sleep.

Danny had never seen him so easily intimidated by anyone.

He’d seen his brother hold his own with men built like linebackers, yet this svelte blond supermodel of a vampire seemed to scare the living daylights out of him with no effort at all.

Was it petty of Danny to find that hilarious?

In the end, Soren hadn’t come back with him and Roman either. He’d said he’d needed to feed, whispering to Roman something about searching for someone as he made his way out.

Roman set a steaming mug in front of Danny, bringing his mind back to the present.

“I didn’t even know I had tea.” Danny’s voice sounded hollow to his own ears.

“I purchased some for you.” Roman was eyeing him with concern, as if he would break at any moment.

Well, Danny was made of tougher stuff than that. He gave himself a shake and smiled genuinely at Roman.

“Thank you for the groceries. I didn’t get a chance to say it, with my whole ‘drunk ranting about phone numbers’ thing. It was very sweet of you to do that for me.”

Roman just nodded once, watching Danny with the same intensity he always did. “I like doing things for you. It…soothes me. Soothes my demon too. To take care of you.”

Danny felt a lump forming in his throat at Roman’s admission. How long had it been since someone had wanted to take care of him? He suddenly seemed on the verge of tears.

For fuck’s sake, when had he become such a sap?

He decided to blame the stress of the night and change the subject back to more pressing issues. He cleared his throat. “Tell me why you and Soren seemed so freaked out. About the dead man. If it wasn’t either of you who killed him.”

Roman raised an eyebrow at him.

“I believe you,” Danny insisted. “I really do. But I know there’s more going on than what you’ve told me.”

Roman gave a deep sigh. Voice full of resignation, he started explaining. “There is a reason I move around so much, even for a vampire. A reason beyond avoiding drawing attention to my lack of aging. I know I told you vampires tend to stick to themselves, other than rumors of mated pairs.”

Danny nodded in acknowledgment. He remembered every word of what Roman had told him about vampires.

“There was another vampire I used to spend a good deal of my time with, besides Soren. All my time, once.”

Danny’s throat tightened a bit at the thought of where this might be heading. “He was your…partner?”

Roman’s eyes flashed to his in surprise. “You mean romantically? No, nothing like that. He was my friend. My…brother, really. Lucien. Luc.”

Danny couldn’t help the little sigh of relief that escaped him. He already felt like a bumbling baby in contrast to Roman with his vast life experience. There was no way he could mentally compete with some centuries-old vampire romance.

Roman continued on, oblivious to Danny’s battle with jealousy. “Luc was the one who turned me. I was dying, a wounded soldier, and he…saved me, in his way.”

Danny’s gut clenched at the thought of Roman at death’s door. Already he didn’t like to think of a world without Roman in it.

“Luc’s own sire had left him shortly after turning him.

Luc himself had only been a vampire for a decade at that point.

Practically a baby. But he still knew more than me.

He helped me adjust to this new…presence…

inside of me. All he asked in return was that I stay by his side. I think he had been…very lonely.”

The presence inside Roman. His demon. The other side of this man, the one Danny had met so far only in brief snatches. Black eyes, fangs, and an aura of fierce protectiveness—protectiveness over Danny.

Roman’s eyes had gone a little unfocused, for once not drilling into Danny, as Roman became lost in the memories he was describing.

“It was in the 1940s when things changed. We were staying in New York City. By that time, we had known Soren for a few decades, had heard about fated mates. Luc met a woman there. He was certain, so certain, she was his mate.”

Did Roman feel certain Danny was his mate? He hadn’t sounded convinced when he’d explained it to Danny.

“He was happy for a time,” Roman went on.

“She was remarkably unfazed by what we were. She was…adventurous. Tempestuous. Selfish, really. Loved our power and our wealth and what Luc could provide for her. They had a sort of…game…going. Luc would try to convince her to turn. She would deny him. He seemed to think of it as an extended flirtation, certain that after she came into her own a bit more as a human, she would give in.”

Roman picked up Danny’s empty plate, then turned his back to place it in the sink.

He didn’t turn back around. “One day, Luc was out hunting. Victoria and I were out together driving. She liked to drive fast. At least, as fast as cars could go in those days. There was an accident. I, being what I am, was fine, but she was losing blood so quickly. Clearly dying. There was not time to get her help. I knew what I had to do, but when I went to turn her, she…begged me.”

Roman turned and looked at Danny then, eyes no longer unfocused but instead so full of regret that all Danny wanted to do was throw his arms around his vampire and tell him he didn’t have to keep going.

But Danny needed to know what they were up against. He gave Roman an encouraging nod instead.

“She begged me not to turn her,” Roman explained.

“She told me she had never intended to become one of us, to turn into a killer. Never wanted this thing inside of her. So I just held her as she passed. I let her die. When Luc found out…he came close to killing me that night. I would have let him. She was my friend too. I had failed both of them. Denied him his chance at salvation from descent into a feral state. But my demon wouldn’t go down without a fight. ”

Poor Roman. Poor Victoria. Poor Luc. The whole situation sounded so awful it broke Danny’s heart.

“He attacked me once more, a few weeks later. I fought him off again but only barely. And then he left. Disappeared for a few decades. One day, he just…reappeared. Showed up in the city I was living. His eyes were now…always black. Like he had given up and let his demon take over. He killed when he fed, something he had never done before. Left a trail of bodies, chasing me out of my city. I fled. He chased. It has been like that ever since. I never stay anywhere long. I do not make human connections. I fear what he would do to them, what revenge he would try to take.”

“You’ve never…tried to take him out? You said your kind do that, when one of you is lost.” Danny was hesitant in asking the question. It felt wrong to suggest Roman murder a former friend, but was his friend even still there if the demon was running the show?

Roman shook his head. “For one, it is…incredibly hard to kill one of our kind. Complete beheading or death by fire—those are the only true deaths. But more…I could not bring myself to. It is my fault he has become what he has. It was me who took away his chance at stability, at a future.”

Danny found himself shaking his head, getting up from his chair, and reaching for Roman, but Roman took a step back, eyes pained.

“There is more, Danny. More to it. I did not…care…about the humans he was killing. Not really. I hated that it ran the risk of outing me, I hated that he would not leave me in peace, but beyond that…I let a woman dear to someone I loved die, and then I ignored the consequences of my actions. Happy to run away from my troubles. I told you. Even beyond the demon inside me…I am not a good man.”