“I know what I
see
. If you didn’t belong here, I’d see that clear enough, and I don’t see it.”
“I killed a man, stole everything he was through his blood,” Nessa said, and she watched as Kelsey went pale.
The other witch stumbled back against a wall. “You . . . You
what
? ”
“You heard me. Now, can you still look at me and tell me that I deserve to be here?”
“What . . . How?”
She looked away, so sick at heart, so full of shame. “A man attacked me—and I killed him. I could live with that. I’ve taken lives before, in defense of myself, in defense of others . . . in the name of justice. But while I’ve taken lives, I’ve never fed from one, until him. I fed from a life, Kelsey. The one thing we witches can never do, and I did it. I’ll crave it now, for the rest of my life. I’ll have to fight it, for the rest of my life.”
“Blood magic.”
Nessa nodded, rubbing one hand against the other. “Yes. I tasted it, and now I understand why so many of our kind fall prey to it. Morgan . . . she learned it from her mother, you know. She was too young to truly understand how wrong it was, and by the time she was old enough, she was addicted to it. Had to have it, and she cared nothing for those she killed while she was feeding it. She was a victim, too, at the bottom of it all, and I never even realized it.”
Blowing out a breath, she said, “She had to die, Kelsey. I know that. She’d never have been able to stop, even if she wanted to. She would have killed again, and again. But she was a victim. Perhaps if we had been there for her—to stop her mother—she might have turned out differently. She might have had a chance.”
Another thought hit her, another shame—Jazzy. That child. Hazy, incomplete memories from
before
she’d remembered who and what she was ran through her head—Brad and Ana arriving—Dominic had asked about Duke, vague references about a friend.
Jazzy, please let it be Jazzy
. . .
Swearing, she covered her face with her hands. “Fuck it all—there’s a girl, too. Morgan had a sister—Jasmine. Jazzy. I suspect she’s with Duke—he’s bringing her here most likely. She needs to be here, needs to be trained. She’s not a danger. Yet. But she will be, if we don’t see to her.”
“One problem at a time, please,” Kelsey muttered as she turned away, her fingers linked behind her neck as she lifted her face to the sky and stared upward. “Shit. The girl, though . . . that’s easy enough. Not like we haven’t handled that kind of problem before.”
“True enough. Just . . . have a care with her. She’s fragile.”
“Perhaps
you
should be the one to deal with her,” Kelsey bit off.
“I think I’ve fucked things up quite enough already,” Nessa murmured. “And until I get a grip on things, taking on the responsibility of a child is
not
what I should be doing. I’m a danger to her now, Kelsey. Until I even know if I can control this . . . ”
“Oh, bite me,” Kelsey snapped, shooting Nessa a narrow look before she resumed her contemplation of the ceiling. “You’d never harm a child.”
Nessa only wished she could be that certain.
Silence stretched out between them, with Nessa watching the woman she loved as sister, daughter and friend, while Kelsey continued to stare upward into nothingness.
“There are no answers written on the ceiling, Kelsey,” Nessa murmured.
“Running away from Dom isn’t an answer, either.” Dropping her hands, Kelsey looked back at Nessa. “This isn’t the right answer, Nessa, and I think you know. You can’t run from him—even if you think you somehow don’t deserve him,
he
deserves better than this.”
“Better than what? A broken witch who is now going to have to fight an addiction every day for the rest of her life? I
crave
pain now, dear. Don’t you get it? I want to make people feel anger, feel fear, feel pain. Fuck me, I’m worse than broken—I’m
ruined
. ”
“Bull fucking shit,” Kelsey snapped.
Nessa’s eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth, but then closed it abruptly and shook her head. “No. No, I’m not doing this with you. Just go away, Kelsey. I’ve made up my mind. I’ve made my choice.”
“And you didn’t bother to consult
him
about it—not terribly kind of you, considering the hell he’s been through.”
“The hell he’s been through,” she said. Then she repeated, louder, her voice shaking, “The hell
he
has been through? Damn it, Kelsey, do you think this is
easy
for me? Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited? And now . . . here he is.”
Her voice broke. “Here he is . . . and I’ve shamed myself—cursed myself. Not with the memory, though. Not with the losing of it. I cursed myself by using my magic
wrong
. I did something that goes against everything I am—everything I’ve ever stood for.”
“So one mistake and you throw your life away? And his? Because damn it, that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” Nessa muttered. She pressed her fingers to her burning eyes, trying desperately not to cry. “He doesn’t
know
me, dear. Doesn’t know me at all. What few memories he has are from the girl I once was, and I’m no longer that girl. He’s no longer the man he once was, either. We’re two very, very different souls, and he deserves more than the woman I let myself become.”
“If you’ve gone and turned into a fucking coward, then maybe you’re right,” Kelsey said. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Nessa. There was disappointment on her face, in her eyes.
Nessa could feel it beating against her shields and absently, she strengthened them. She didn’t need to feel Kelsey’s misery as well as her own. Her own was quite enough.
Something pricked at her senses and in the back of her mind, she looked, studied, examined.
Vampire.
Close—drawing closer. Here at the school, it wasn’t always as easy to sense one from another, not until they were very close. Like trying to isolate the light of a candle when the whole room blazed with a thousand lamps.
Nessa’s heart skipped a beat.
Something inside her lightened. That damned hope . . . trying to crawl free even when she knew what she needed to do.
The familiar buzz of energy pressed closer and she opened her senses more—even as she recognized him, her heart sank to her feet.
“Are you really just going to walk away from this? Without even giving it a chance—without giving him a choice?”
“A choice is exactly what I
want
him to have. A life. A life free from the burdens I’d bring to it.” Nessa closed her hands into fists, her nails digging into her skin. “A choice that doesn’t involve a broken witch who’s going to have to fight the call of blood power.”
“That’s a fucking
crock
. That is not giving him a choice.”
“It’s a hell of a lot better than the choice he was handed, before he was even born,” Nessa snarled. “Dreaming of me—his whole damned life. Did he dream of me even as a child?”
The tears burned her eyes and she no longer had the self-control to hold them back. Staring at Kelsey’s blurred face, she said, “I imagine you think it quite romantic, and maybe it seems that way. Maybe it even is that way for some. But every step he took in life was to lead him
here
—all the misery he suffered was to prepare him for
this
and where the hell was his choice in that?”
“So you think you’re doing this to give him a
choice
? You’re taking his choice away. He came back for
you
, damn it. He’s spent his whole life looking for you, without even understanding why.”
“That’s my point exactly,” Nessa whispered. “He spent his whole life looking for me, and nobody ever bothered to see if this was what he wanted.”
The presence of the vampire drew closer, and Nessa turned away. “Kelsey, your dearest husband is searching for you and I’m not quite up to dealing with him, as well as you. Just leave me be.”
Kelsey shook her head. “You can’t leave it this way, damn it. You can’t.”
The door to Nessa’s cabin opened, and she closed her eyes. “Yes . . . I can. Now take your man and go.”
“ Nessa—”
“It’s not your choice,” Nessa snapped.
“What about mine?”
A shiver raced down Nessa’s spine. Her eyes flew to the doorway, and for the next ten seconds, all she could do was stare.
Oh, it was Malachi, all right.
But he wasn’t alone. And she suspected that the ancient vampire had done nothing more than act as a Trojan horse. As far as vampire presences went, he was a thousand lamps and Dominic was a candle. Dominic wouldn’t have pressed in on her Hunter senses, and she’d been shielding herself so strongly against everything, she couldn’t have felt much else from him.
Swallowing, she turned away. “What do you want?” she asked as Kelsey and Malachi quietly slipped away.
“You.”
“You don’t know that,” she muttered, shaking her head. She didn’t want to look at him, but she couldn’t stop herself. From the corner of her eye, she watched him as he came close.
He looked like hell. Tired, strained, worn thin . . . and there were telltale burns on his face. Nessa knew damn well what those marks had come from—he’d spent too much time in the sunlight, and he hadn’t stopped to feed so he wasn’t healing as well as he should have.
“Please tell me you didn’t drive straight from St. Augustine,” she said quietly.
“What in the hell did you expect? I searched through damn near half the country looking for you. Did you really think I’d let you walk away that easy?” He held something in his hand, and he hurled it on the floor before crossing to stand in front of her.
It was a motorcycle helmet.
She swallowed and tried not to shudder at the thought of him spending several hours in the sunlight. Even the fading evening sun would be too much for him. “You rode thirteen hours, wearing nothing but that sodding helmet? Have you even seen your face and how badly you’re burned?”
“No. I made it in about ten and I don’t really give a fuck about the burns. Why in the hell did you leave?”
“Because I had to.” Her palms itched and she wanted to touch him, heal the burns on his face and then curl around him like a cat. The urge was strong, too strong, and she ended up tucking her hands in her pockets just to keep from reaching for him.
“Yeah, so I heard. You’ve got this really fucked-up idea that you’re doing this for
me
, ” he snarled.
The fury in his voice was so thick, so hot. She could feel his anger blasting at her, beating against her shields and all she wanted to do was touch him, tell him she was sorry, try to figure a way to make this work. But, she just couldn’t see the way.
“I am,” she said, her voice shaking.
“Can you help me out and explain that?” he asked, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Because I’m just not seeing it. I spent my whole
life
looking for you and now that I’ve found you, you walk away, but you’re doing it for
me
?”
Her throat ached and the sobs clawed, demanding release. She nodded and turned away, pressing her brow to the window. Sensing movement, she froze, holding still as he drew close.
“I’m not seeing it, baby. How is this for me?” he bit off.
“You never had a choice.”
“Oh, the hell I didn’t. I didn’t
have
to come looking for you.”
“Yes, you did.” She turned around, crossed her arms over her chest. The pain inside her chest grew, expanded, hot and vicious, ready to tear her heart out, her soul. Ready to destroy her. “You have a Hunter’s instincts . . . you wouldn’t have ignored them. You can’t.”
Her mouth twisted in a bitter smile and she shook her head. “None of us can ignore that call, Dominic. None of us . . . not if we want to come through with any semblance of sanity.”
“It wasn’t the Hunter inside that pulled me.” He braced his arms over her shoulders, hands flat against the wall. Then he dipped his head, nuzzling her nape.
The feel of him sent a shiver through her. He scraped his teeth down her neck and murmured, “It was the man. The man who was looking for the woman he loved.”
“You don’t know me.” Her voice broke, and she turned her head aside, trying not to cry. “You don’t know me . . . how can you love me?”
“I was born loving you.”
He brought his hands to her face, cradling it gently. One thumb stroked over her lip and he watched, as though the sight mesmerized him. “I was born loving you,” he said again. “And once I realized you were
real
, that maybe you were out there waiting for me, just as I waited for you, nothing would have stopped me from finding you.”
Her breath hitched in her throat. That odd dancing sensation was trying to settle inside her heart again, but the darkness didn’t want to let it in. “You love me because you’ve never had any chance to know anything else . . . and I don’t deserve that love.”