Page 18

“I’m relieved to see you looking more like yourself, Mr. Hunt,” Billings says as he signals and pulls onto the road.

“Thanks,” Ares says, still sounding confused and a little baffled.

It’s a quiet drive as we cross the Brooklyn Bridge and head back to the Upper East Side.

Because the fewer people who know about everything that has just happened, the better.

For Ares. I will do anything I can to protect him, and even though Billings is a vampire and has been Ares’ driver for years, he doesn’t need to know all of these terrible, dark details.

I need to call Florence. I need to tell her that her brother is back.

But, for some reason, I can’t right now. It all feels too fragile, too fresh. I vow I will call her soon, but it won’t be right this second.

So, I simply take Ares’ hand and rub reassuring circles into the back of it with my thumb. Ares stares out the window. I can feel the turmoil, the confusion raging around inside him like a hurricane. It’s all coming. It’s going to be heavy. It’s going to be hard.

But I’m right here.

Finally, we work our way through the traffic, and Billings stops on the side of our building.

Ares and I climb out, and we enter the lobby of our building.

Our favorite doorman, Laz, gives me a relieved nod when he sees Ares and I walk in together.

I had him on alert for if Ares came home, though I didn’t give him any of the details.

We take the elevator up to our floor, and I unlock our door.

I feel this weird sense of stressed relief when we step inside the penthouse. We’re home. This space feels like home in every sense of the word now. But we have so much ahead of us to work through, I can’t exactly feel relaxed.

I click the button on the remote, which closes the window coverings, leaving the penthouse washed in darkness.

“I need a shower,” Ares states when we walk in.

I give a nod and watch as he goes back to the bedroom.

I’m really damn glad he suggested it, that I didn’t have to ask him to go shower.

But the sight of him with his own blood smeared all over him isn’t something I can handle.

Once upon not so long ago, the sight of blood would throw me into a panic attack.

After seeing my mother and sister after they were murdered, their blood splattered across our apartment, the trauma ran deep.

Being with Ares has cured most of that. But as I see his blood, as I think about what it means, once more, the world threatens to close in on me.

I force a breath in, closing my eyes. I won’t let the world spin out on me, though. I won’t. I don’t have time for that shit.

My insides are starting to feel like tar, and there’s something burning in the pit of my stomach. I cross to the fridge and pull out one of the blood bags Florence brought for me. I bite into the plastic bag, and I suck.

Hell, why does this taste good? It’s mind boggling.

This cold, coppery liquid is one of the best damn things I’ve ever drank.

And miraculously, by the time I reach the bottom of it, I’m satisfied.

I feel it wash through my body, feel the cells in me regenerate.

That sensation of perfect stasis, of being absolutely balanced, courses through me.

I close my eyes and let it course through my entire body.

How is Ares going to feel about this? What happened to me.

The decision Florence made. What it means for my future.

The fact that I now require blood every single day.

It isn’t an option. If, for some reason, I don’t have access to donated blood each and every day, I’m going to have to go out and feed live.

Shit. I haven’t really thought about that part yet.

I could feed on a live person. Grab someone off the street. Sink my fangs into their neck and take a few pulls. The same way Lawrence bought me and fed on me in his basement.

Stars, I suddenly feel like the same kind of monster.

Except the amount of blood I require is minuscule compared to how much a Born requires.

When did the world go and turn so fucking upside down?

I ignore all of that, though, and I finally call Florence. I tell her what happened. I tell her that Ares is himself again. She wants to rush right over, but I beg her to give it a little bit of time. The hard part isn’t over yet.

“I’m glad he has you, Lana,” Florence says, her tone serious and heavy. “You have no idea how good you’ve been for him. In every way. Let me know when he’s ready.”

“I will,” I promise.

I hear the water turn off in the shower. Two minutes later, I wander into the living room as Ares walks down the hall. He’s wearing some black sweatpants and a white t-shirt that clings to his still damp chest.

Good grief, he’s so damn beautiful.

I take his hand and pull him to sit beside me on the couch. He looks clearer, so much more himself. I still see worry, frustration, anger crease little lines at the corners of his eyes. But I see clarity there.

He’s finally himself again.

“I want you to walk me through it, Vengeance,” he says, never once looking away. “All of it. Don’t spare me any of the details.”

“Okay,” I say with a hoarse voice.

And so I do.

I begin with the morning he went and talked to Ophelia.

I point out how Tom didn’t show up to work.

We work our way through his odd behavior.

Ares never even realized he was behaving oddly toward the others, that I was worried about what he might do to them.

But one at a time, I share the details of how that zombie version of him went after any vampires he knew.

I tell him how I began to realize that the Steele family had gone through a similar experience with the uncle. How Sysco and I pieced it together that someone had done this to Ares, that he wasn’t being himself.

Ares listens to it all with his lips set in a thin line. He asks for clarification. He shares when he had no fucking idea what he was doing. Ares doesn’t seem to remember much of anything at all since he went and talked to Ophelia.

“She did this?” Ares asks. “She just… told me what to do, and I fucking did it?” he asks in baffled annoyance.

I nod. “Turns out there are other gifts out there besides being immortal and being incredibly fast and strong. Apparently, Ophelia has known she could do this since she was a teenager. It’s not consistent, but it works often enough.

Guess she hates vampires enough to lose her damn sense of conscious. ”

Ares shakes his head, staring down at his hands like they don’t belong to him. Because, for a while, they didn’t.

“And then there was Luciano,” I say, my throat feeling thick as we work our way through it. “When Gio found out what had happened, he…” I swallow once. “I was at Florence’s, and he…”

Fuck, I don’t want to have to tell him any of this. I want to magically erase all of it, to reset and recorrect.

But there is only one way through this. And it’s with the truth.

“He came after me. Said it had to be a life for a life.”

Ares tenses, his jaw locking. “He touched you?”

I nod once. “He… he sliced me open. From navel to sternum. I didn’t even have time to scream."

Ares jerks back like the words physically strike him. “Lana…”

“It was bad. Really bad,” I say, voice wavering. “I was dying. And Florence made a decision.”

He looks at me sharply. “What decision?”

I hold his gaze for a few seconds. And I see it as he starts piecing it together. He knows what he can see with his eyes, what he can smell.

I am different.

I swallow. “You know what she’s been researching. What she’s been trying to create. Has she ever actually explained the regenerative ability of it all to you?”

His breath catches. His grip on my thigh tightens. Panic sharpens his eyes. “Florence tested it on you?”

“She saved me, Ares. I was bleeding out. She was literally trying to put my intestines back in my body. I… I was gutted. No hospital could have put me back together. There was no surgery that could have saved me,” I say, and I hate the words.

I don’t want to describe this for Ares. It will haunt him forever.

But I can’t have him doubting Florence’s decision.

I can’t let him resent her for saving me.

I need to make him understand the reality.

“Nothing but Florence’s miracle could have saved me. ”

His hand shakes. It takes a lot of turmoil to make a Born vampire’s hands shake. I watch him try to hold it in, but he can’t. His fingers rise, running both hands through his hair as he takes in a shaky breath. “Holy shit, Lana…”

“Listen to me,” I say as I shift. I lift a leg over his, coming to keel with my knees on either side of his hips.

I settle into his lap, forcing his gaze to my eyes.

“I’m okay. I feel okay. Better than okay.

It worked. The regeneration, the blood—my body rebuilt itself in real time.

Ares, I don’t age anymore, I don’t scar.

And I can’t be killed, not easily. I’m stronger.

I’m fast. And sunlight doesn’t even bother me. ”

Ares turns, looking at me like I’m something he doesn’t deserve. “Lana, I… I can’t believe I let this happen to you.”

“No,” I say, grabbing his face in both hands. “You didn’t let anything happen. None of this is on you. I was supposed to be here, Ares. In this world. With you.”

He closes his eyes, leans into my touch. But I feel the guilt simmering under his skin.

“If I hadn’t lost control—if I hadn’t killed Giovanni’s son?—”

“Stop.” I say it firmly, cutting through the spiral. “You didn’t choose that. It wasn’t you. And if you keep trying to take the blame, if you let guilt win, it’ll hurt me. It will eat at us .”

His eyes fly open, and the look on his face—like I just hit him with truth so deep, it carved its way into his bones.