"Not now, Alfred," Mathias said.
"Then when?" Alfred paced a few steps, glancing up to keep a watch on the milling vampires who had clustered around me. "Do you see that?" he demanded, gesturing to me and my audience. "Do you see me here, on this field, where I swore I would not be, not even for you?"
"Yes," Mathias said. He watched me, as though waiting for something, but I was entranced by him and could do nothing but stare. The twisted silver scars on his neck and wrists gleamed even in the dim light of the overcast day that had taken over when the rain stopped. The questions on my tongue waited for my brain to reconnect, but the moment passed when Kerry called to me.
"Maire, come on, we need to get out of here." The pride had donned their clothes and carried their fallen brothers among them. Aside from Hector and Xavier, three other panthers were injured or dead. I couldn't tell for certain from where I stood and my heart lurched into a gallop. How many families were torn asunder on this battle field today? How many more panthers would despise me and my family because I associated with vampires and other creatures who brought this kind of pain and destruction into their backyards?
"I've got to go with them," I said.
"You have responsibilities here, Mairin," Alfred said. "You cannot abandon these men."
I looked at the vampires who stood around me, close, but not touching me. The olive-skinned vampire who had saved me stood closest to me, almost like a body guard.
"I'm not abandoning them, but I have to go with my family. Can't you take them home and I'll come later?"
Alfred jerked and I cursed. "Look, I don't know how to do this, okay? I have no idea how not to order you around. You can't keep getting pissed at me just because you take everything so damned seriously."
Mathias laughed out loud and I swung my gaze to him. "She does have a point, Alfred," he said. My favorite smile stretched his beautiful lips and I stepped back, stunned. Mathias wasn't angry. He thought this was hilarious. I shook my head. I really didn't understand men sometimes.
"You are, without doubt, the single most aggravating person I have ever had the misfortune to know," I said.
"As I told you before, Mairin, I do not doubt you." Mathias' smile broadened and I ground my teeth.
"I'm going with the panthers. I'll be at your house when I can get there." I turned my back on the vampires and stomped across the sand to where the last of the panthers waited for me. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Mathias strolling into the swamp behind the line of vampires. I could swear he was laughing.
Chapter 12
The shades at Mathias' house were thrown wide open when I arrived. I pulled into the drive and sat behind the wheel of the Nova for a long time. The panthers, whom I'd left in East Hampton at Xavier's house, had been both elated that the threat was gone and heartsick over their loss. Hector's death had reminded each of them that while they might be strong, they weren't invincible. I'd left when the stares of the panthers had become too much for me to stand any longer. They all wanted to know what had brought the vampires into the fight, but none but Xavier had the authority to ask. Xavier watched me, but didn't ask the question. When I'd paced past him for the twentieth time, he'd finally kicked me out.
"Go on, Maire. You can't do anything more here. Kerry's got me and the others mostly patched up. Gram's gonna cook. You've got unfinished business in Highland Home, I think."
"Xavier, how'd you get to be so wise?" I'd asked when I hugged him.
"I listen to Kerry," he said, laughing. "She's pretty smart. And so's her sister."
And so I'd gone. I'd driven the familiar road from East Hampton to Highland Home and followed the turns that would take me to the house on the beach. Now that I was here, I had no idea what to do. I'd been so angry with Mathias for so long that I didn't know how to tell him I could forgive him if he'd stay with me, and if he'd stop doing things for my own good.
I watched the windows from my car. I could see Alfred standing in the living room, staring out into the driveway. I knew he was waiting for me to make up my mind and come in, but I wondered if he was waiting because he wanted to or because he had to. The idea that Alfred was compelled to do what I wanted him to do in the same way he'd been compelled by Serina sickened me. If I could wave a wand and ditch the moody jerk, I would, but so far it seemed like our connection was getting stronger the longer it was in place, rather than fading with my wishes. I worried what Alfred might do to me if we couldn't find a way to break the bond soon.
I sighed. I decided I might as well get it over with. I knocked on the door and was surprised when Mathias opened it.
"I wondered how long you were going to sit in your car," he said, stepping aside to allow me to pass into the house. "I was ready to send someone out to get you."
I looked at him, sure my thoughts showed in my expression. He was acting as though nothing had happened and I was beginning to wonder if I'd lost my mind.
"They're waiting for you in the living room," he said. "Can I bring you anything?" He watched me closely and I could see he was poised on the edge of saying something, but holding back until he thought I was ready to listen.
"No, thank you," I whispered. I didn't trust my voice to remain strong with him. The scabs that had begun to reform in the days since our confrontation on Xavier's porch tore open again each time I looked at him. I wanted to scream at him, demand to know what he planned to do to destroy me next. But I knew I had to deal with Alfred and the other vampires first. Having a collection of slaves who came at my slightest word was something I didn't want and couldn't have if I was going to have anything resembling a normal life.
"Thank you for coming," Alfred said. "I and the others appreciate your willingness to deal with us."
"Stuff it, Alfred," I said. "You know I didn't do this on purpose so you can shove your self-righteous anger right up..."
"Alfred is a bit testy, Mairin. Surely you understand." Mathias' reasonable tone irritated me as it always did when I was more emotionally invested in something than he was. "Alfred is unaccustomed to being attached to a human." Alfred glared at Mathias who smirked and barely contained his laughter.
I flopped down in the chair closest to the door and leaned my head into my hands. "Tell me what to do, Alfred and I'll do it. I don't want this any more than you do." I looked up and addressed the other vampires. "I do want to thank all of you for coming today. You saved us. I can't repay that, but if I can make your lives easier or more comfortable, I will."
Alfred gestured to the other vampires and they slowly wandered away. Only the olive-skinned vampire remained.
"Gino seems to feel somewhat protective of you, Mairin. He is afraid that in my anger I will harm you," Alfred explained when the other vampire refused to leave.
"I'm safe, Gino," I smiled at the vampire, unsure how to proceed. "Thank you for saving me earlier today."
"You are welcome, little queen," he said. His voice was deep and smooth.
"Um, you don't have to stay," I said. "Alfred won't hurt me."
"As you wish," Gino said, bowing. He left, but I saw out of the corner of my eye that he stood near the living room door.
Chills ran down my spine. It appeared as though I not only had a bevy of slaves, but now I had a body guard as well. "How do I make that stop?"
"I have no idea," Alfred said bitterly. "If I knew, I would certainly share the secret for I have no desire to remain bound to you."
"Believe it or not, Alfred, the thought of you dogging my every step until I die isn't particularly appealing to me either." I snapped. "I didn't ask for this. All I wanted was to keep Serina from turning Mathias into a pyre on which she could throw my own body."
"Would knowing this connection could be an outcome of what you did in England, would you have chosen a different path?" Alfred asked.
"Are you saying you would prefer I had let Mathias die rather than being tied to me?"
Alfred grimaced and glanced at Mathias. "No, I would not prefer my son's death
to this bond," he said.
"Well, that's comforting," I said. "I suppose we could try the simple approach," I said. "Alfred, I order you to not be bound to me." I watched Alfred's face as he grimaced. "Sheesh, don't be so freaking grim," I grumbled.
Alfred's expression didn't change, but a tiny bit of light came into his eyes. "I feel like I should smile, but I do not feel compelled to do so." His gaze flicked to Mathias who stood behind me. "It feels much as Serina's pull did when I'd refused to go to her. It is there, but weaker and easier to ignore."
"Great," I said. "Get the others back in here and I'll do the same for them."
"It isn't that simple, Mairin," Alfred said. "They need far more supervision and control than I do. Serina made them slaves. It will take time for them to become individuals capable of independent thought. I think if you release them from their bond to you, you will be doing them a disservice." Alfred sighed with obvious irritation. "And you will be putting humans at risk. These vampires have no impulse control when it comes to feeding. Serina taught them to take what they wanted when the opportunity arose to feed. Until they can learn to be more civilized, I am sure you will agree that releasing them is not in anyone's best interest."
I ground my teeth. I was getting tired of hearing what was or was not in my best interest. "But I can't have slaves. I'd look kind of dumb walking down the hall at school with twenty vampires trailing after me like puppies."
"What you want and what you are responsible for are two different things," Mathias said.
"Well, you'd know about that, wouldn't you," I snapped. The anger I'd held in check for so long burst to the surface. Mathias had left me, without a thought for what I wanted and needed and had only returned when he'd felt responsible for others in Highland Home and East Hampton. It was time to have it out with him.
"I will leave you to this, Mathias." Alfred said, rising. "I will take the others to the club for the night. I have no desire to witness the fight I see brewing."
"I will stay with the little queen," Gino said from his post at the door.
"Gino, you need to feed," I said, noting the dark bruises under his eyes. "Please go with Alfred. Take care of yourself."
Gino took a stuttering step toward me. "You would send me away?"
"No. I'm not sending you away," I said, my gut twisting with guilt and fear. Would I never be able to simply deal with my own junk or would I always have to be concerned with the emotional baggage of everyone around me? "I'm asking you to please go to the club with Alfred so you can feed."
Gino nodded and followed Alfred, but I could see he was reluctant to leave me. That was going to become an issue really fast. The last thing I wanted was some love-sick bodyguard trailing behind me, especially when right now I just wanted to scream at Mathias.
"Gino is a good protector for you, Mairin. You will need him." Mathias' eyes were dark and blank, the way they were when he had made a decision that he knew would bring us both pain.
I shook my head. I didn't want Gino to protect me. For that matter I didn't really want anyone to protect me, but if I had to have a vampire in my life, I knew which one I wanted. I walked through the house to the kitchen and out onto the deck, not waiting to see if Mathias would follow me. I knew he would. He wanted to tell me he was leaving again and I wanted to punch him. The wind on the deck was cool, a portend of the coming fall and a remnant of the morning storm. The ocean rose and crashed against the beach again and again, always the same and yet different each time. The sound of the crashing waves soothed me and I sighed.
"I wish I could hear your thoughts," Mathias mused. I looked away from the ocean to see him watching me from the kitchen doorway.
"Why?"
"Because then I would know what to say to take the pain from you."
"You left," I said simply. "You took my soul and ran with it to California. I never meant to make you feel responsible for me, to feel chained to me. I thought..." I stopped. I couldn't utter the last words. I'd believed he loved me.
He stepped onto the deck and crossed very slowly to me. His hesitation cut me ever deeper and the scabs fell away once again.
"You thought what?" he asked when he reached me.
I shook my head and stared at my feet. Mathias lifted my chin, forcing me to see him. "You thought what, my heart?" he whispered.
"Don't call me that. You know it's a lie." I sobbed and pulled away from him.
"Mairin..."
"No. Don't you understand, Mathias? I saw you, I heard you. My dreams showed me..."
"I was afraid they had shown you things I would have kept from you. That's why I left. I cannot forgive myself and I cannot ask you to forgive me." Mathias leaned against the deck rail, his back to the ocean. "You saw me break my promise, saw me feed and take the lives of those women. I cannot undo what was done, nor can I expect you to forgive me."
"You think I'm angry with you because I saw you feed?" I asked. "I've seen you feed hundreds of times in my dreams. The difference this time was you did it to survive. Serina would have starved you if you hadn't fed when she made you take those women."
"You do not hate me for being a killer?" he asked softly.
I shook my head. "I don't hate you at all," I said. "I'm hurt and I'm angry, but how could I ever hate you? You're a part of my soul."
"I do not understand you, Mairin."
"I know," I said. "I came here today to scream at you, to make you hurt the way you hurt me, but I can't do it. No matter how much I might believe hurting you would make me feel better, I know it won't. Instead I need you to know that you're free. Whatever chains you think bind you to me, they're gone. You don't have anything to regret."
Mathias sighed. "I have many regrets, Mairin. Chief among them is the danger I have brought into your life. No matter what I've done in this life or will do in the rest of eternity, nothing could be as evil as allowing my selfish nature to put you in the kind of danger you have been in since the moment I decided to follow you and your family home from the beach a year ago."
"I hate to be the one to break this to you, Mathias," I said, "but you didn't drag the metaphysical crap into my life. It's been there my whole life. You don't get to claim the danger I live in everyday as a good reason for ripping out my heart and leaving me behind."
"If not for me, Mairin, Serina would not have been near Highland Home. She came looking for Alfred, who had come seeking me. If not for my selfish love of your presence in my life, she would have had no leverage over me, no way of taking me away from here and you would never have needed to follow me to that hellish place. I was afraid your dreams had shown you that I'd killed while under her control. Afraid that knowledge would further harm you and it has."
Mathias shuddered and rubbed the scars on his wrists. "But that still wasn't the worst of it. Had I not turned on that mongrel last year, his father wouldn't have come for revenge. If I had come to Highland Home, taken what I needed and left, you would still be safe with your family. But I couldn't. I let my selfish nature take over and I let myself love you, no matter the consequences. I had to leave. I had to give you the chance to be safe. I left for your own good."
"For my own good," I spat bitterly. "Was it for my own good that you took away from me the one thing in this world that made me feel whole and real? Was it for my own good that when you left, you ripped something vital and necessary from my soul and left behind a ghost? Was it for my own good, you antiquated chauvinist, when you left without letting me fight for what I know I need in order to live?"
I gasped for breath, unable to contain the boiling rage that had lain dormant under the crushing pain I'd lived with from the moment in the hospital when I'd realized Mathias intended to leave me.
H looked at me now, sadness replacing the blank expression he used to mask his own pain, but I wasn't going to let his pain stop me now. He had to know everything so we could both move on.
"I know you have more regrets than the danger you think you're responsible for. I heard y
ou tell Alfred you regretted having to rush to my rescue. That you regretted being bound to me..."
"Mairin, never..."
I cut him off with a harsh swipe of my hand. "Let me finish," I said. "I meant what I said before. You're free. I'll work out what to do with Gino and the others, but I don't want...you're not bound to me like they are. You don't have to stay."
I stood facing him, only inches separating us physically, but staring into the black abyss that truly separated us now. I'd told him he could go, he was free and I was dying slowly as I waited for him to go. When he reached for me, I flinched but I didn't stop him.
"Mairin," he whispered, brushing his knuckles down my cheek and along my jaw.
"Don't," I begged. "If you're leaving, this will kill me."
"I am going nowhere," he said. "I thought my most evil act of this second life was taking my Kathryn's life, but I see now it was not. Kathryn's death was clean. She didn't suffer. I have left you in this pain and did so because I believed it would be better for you to live a normal, human life without me."
"I think normal was never in the cards for me, Mathias."
"Yes, I'm beginning to see that." He brushed his lips against my forehead and I shuddered. "I have many regrets, Mairin, but you must never again believe that I regret loving you. If it takes the rest of my eternity, I will do everything in my power to find a way to deserve you and your forgiveness."
I looked up at Mathias, seeing the twisted scar encircling his neck and traced a finger over it. "I think these scars are payment enough," I said. "You wouldn't have them if you hadn't been trying to protect me. Can you forgive me?"
"Forgive you?" his voice was incredulous. "You silly, beautiful, overly sensitive and detrimentally selfless girl, there is nothing for me to forgive."
"You arrogant, self-centered, jerk," I whispered, leaning down to kiss each of his wrists. He shuddered again and I looked up, locking his gaze to mine. "This is why you're never allowed to do anything 'for my own good' ever again. Yes, you changed my life when you stayed in Highland Home. Yes, there's been some danger that might not have been there had you left, but let's be honest, the metaphysical crap follows me around. That's not your fault. What is your fault is that instead of being the ghost I was for sixteen years, I'm whole and human and people see me. I can live with that, but I can't live without you."
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