by Selena Blake
He should have let his father kill her.
Dameon felt each of Valencia's sobs like a knife wound to his heart. Her pain was so vibrant, so thick, and so deep it was like a living beast slaying her. He found her slumped against the wall of the shower, the red dress plastered to her skin as multiple showerheads rained down on her.
Her screams filled not just his ears, but his soul. In his life he'd never heard a more mournful sound. Never seen pain quite like this.
He'd hesitated. That hesitation had been enough to destroy her one more time.
He didn't hesitate this time.
He opened the shower door and reached for her. Clothes and all, he pulled her soaking body against his and held her tight. She clung to him and cried. Her body convulsed against his for several minutes before she finally realized she was in his arms. He knew the exact moment that the realization hit her by the way she tensed.
“I'm sorry,” he said against her hair. Steam billowed around them and another bolt of lightning turned the bathroom a bright blue. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end but he wasn't moving. He'd risk electrocution before he'd leave her again. “So sorry, Valencia.”
She sniffed indelicately. The sound was so unlike the woman he knew and showed just how low she was. How stripped and vulnerable she was and it was all his doing.
“I want our bond. I want you. I always have and I always will.”
He said the words of his heart, words he should have said when she'd asked. Words he should have said centuries ago. He should have tracked her down instead of letting her get away.
There was so much more to say, but he heard himself ask “what did you mean before about my Father and I keeping secrets?”
She let out a bitter laugh and pushed him to an arm’s length. The coldness in her eyes shocked him. Solid silver and bleak as an icy wasteland.
“I heard you.”
“When?”
She threw her head back and blinked away a fresh round of tears. “The night before our wedding. You told your father you didn't love me, that it was all a lie, a ruse to make sure I'd marry you. You wanted a biddable wife. I heard the whole thing.”
“So you believed a snippet of conversation you overhead over six months with me?”
He couldn't believe his ears; even though he knew it was the truth. It was as if someone else had taken over her body and was spouting words in a foreign language.
“You're denying what you said? What you meant? The two of you were so convincing Dameon that I still get sick just thinking about—”
Dameon bit back his fury and stepped forward. “Once upon a time you knew me better than anyone else.”
“Don't you once upon a time me, Dameon. This isn't a fairy tale. This is my life.”
“And you ruined it all by eavesdropping!” His voice rivaled the thunder overhead.
“What would you have believed?”
“You didn't hear the whole conversation.” He remembered that moment as clear as if it'd happened half an hour ago. It was the first major row with his father. They'd almost come to blows.
“If you had, you would have known where my true loyalties lay.”
Her head came up. “What do you mean?”
She wrapped her arms around herself in a protective gesture that pierced his anger.
“You didn't show up.” It was his turn to hyperventilate. “You let me stand up there all alone in front of our family, our friends, the whole of vampire society because you overheard a conversation you were never meant to hear. A conversation you didn't hear all of. I told him... I asked him what he wanted to hear. That I was just using you? Making sure you'd be useful and biddable. I told him he wasn't going to like the truth. That I was in love with you. That you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever known inside and out and that we were getting married for real and we were going to rule and put an end to the silly, petty fighting. We were going to lead by example. That was the whole conversation.”
“So you're denying that your father murdered my parents?”
His chin jerked back as if she'd punched him. He clamped his hands over his hips, knowing that he needed to bide his time. If he touched her again too soon she would shove him away and flash to the ends of the earth.
“You know about that?”
“Of course I do. You're so smug, Dameon. With your story of the real conversation. You'd seek me out, marry me? Why? You'd father my children even though you think I betrayed you?” Valencia asked, never looking more regal. Even sopping wet with mascara trailing down her cheeks, her face splotchy from her tears, she was beautiful.
“Love makes us do crazy things.” He wiped the water from his face and wished she'd let him touch her again.
“You're right. It does. I fell for you so easily last time. I fell for your charm and your smile and I let all of that cloud my judgment. You swept back into my life and I got my stupid hopes up all over again. I forgot just what a ruthless snake you could be. But rest assured, I will never make that mistake again.”
Her words echoed through the shower as she disappeared. He shouted her name as she flashed but she was gone. Gone in an instant, leaving him alone in the shower, wet and broken.
Only this time, he would follow. She wasn't getting away with that disappearing act again.
Chapter Eleven
Dameon searched for her for two days straight. He didn't eat. Didn't sleep. He quizzed all Valencia's friends but they couldn't tell him anything. They didn't even know about the fight. Which meant that she'd fled the island without seeking her friends' council.
Latham didn't know or he wasn't talking. Truth be told, the god looked to be in just as poor shape as Dameon.
He landed in his suite on Mystic Isle and looked out at the ocean. The storm had done a good amount of damage. Trees were snapped like twigs, sand eroded and crews were fast at work putting everything back together again.
The sun dipped low in the sky and warmed his face.
Where are you?
He sent the thought into the cosmos. Why couldn't he feel her? Why—a sickening thought occurred to him.
“She wouldn't,” he said to the empty room. She was hurt, not suicidal.
He swallowed hard. His silent reassurances didn't cut it. He should be able to feel her, to know she was all right, alive. He'd always known. No matter where she was in the world, he'd felt her, felt their connection. Just a tinge of awareness in the back of his mind.
She'd always been there, living her life as he'd lived his. Somehow he'd always pictured that she was waiting for him. Waiting to pick up where they'd left off. To put the past aside and move forward together.
Their bond had been a source of constant peace and pain.
On the beach below, two staff members sat chairs in rows facing the water. Another pair set up an arbor. A golf cart arrived pulling a trailer full of what looked like roses. White roses.
The wedding.
Valencia wouldn't miss Izzy's wedding.
He hadn't been invited exactly but he didn't think Shade or Izzy would mind if he crashed their big day so long as he and Valencia settled things between them. He didn't know what time the ceremony was supposed to start, but knowing that several of Izzy's friends were young vampires, he assumed after dark.
A quick call to Maxim answered the question for him and got him an official, if unofficial, invitation to join them. And also his sympathies about Dameon's inability to find Valencia.
Dameon muttered his thanks and hung up. He hit the shower and paused just long enough to wonder what to wear to a beach wedding.
It was eleven forty five when Valencia showed herself. Even from his balcony he recognized her slender figure, short dark hair, and the grace in her movements. She paused at the edge of the terrace and slipped off her high heels. Leaving them in the pile with the others, she stepped onto the sand and headed for the rows of chairs.
He felt it then...their connection. Dull. Her sadness radiated around her but she
hugged her friends. She accepted their support.
Shade strode up the aisle and touched her on the elbow. A primal part of Dameon wanted to intervene, to protect what was his no matter how innocent the touch. But he didn't have that right, not yet. And his saner side, the side that he hadn't lost to his ruthless nature, realized what a silly feeling it was anyway. Shade was utterly devoted to Izzy. And he was a good friend to Valencia.
Whatever she said appeased the demon. He shook hands with Maxim and Grayson and another man, a werewolf by the look of him. Then he stepped toward the flower covered arbor. The stars were high overhead, showering the event with twinkling light.
Dameon summoned his courage and sent himself flashing to the beach below. He hid their bond until he'd taken her hand. Knowing she couldn't flash, couldn't get away from him soothed the raging beast inside. And for the first time in forty eight hours he felt like he could breathe normally.
“Don't run,” he said, hearing the pleading sound in his voice.
She turned startled eyes his way.
“Let me go.” She tugged her hand but he held tight.
“Not a chance, chérie. Never again. I'm not letting you go, now or ever. I should have come after you all those years ago. I should have been strong enough to walk away from everything like you did. If I had, we would have been together. We would have been married all this time. You'd be my wife in every sense of the word and there wouldn't be so much hurt between us.”
“You're interrupting Izzy's wedding,” she said, her voice low, embarrassed.
“No, you are not.” Izzy's sweet accent cut above the crowd.
Dameon glanced over Valencia's head to see the bride, lovely in a casual knee length white dress, hanging on the arm of an older vampire. Izzy held a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a tissue in the other. She sent him a steady, triumphant smile and nodded her head, as if urging him to continue.
It was then that he realized that the focus of the wedding, guests and all, was on him and the woman desperately trying to get away from him.
“I should have done a great many things. It took me far too long, chérie. It's unforgivable, I know. The pain my family has caused you...the pain I've caused you.”
The knowledge of his father's crimes burned him from the inside out but he had to continue, she had to know.
“I won't fail you again. I know that doesn't make up for the centuries we've wasted but—” He choked on the word, feeling each year. It was a long time, too long. Was it too late? Two days ago he would have said no, but her eyes were blue. No emotion.
“I should have ridded the world of my father two centuries ago.”
She gasped.
“I was weak. A coward. I let that bastard come between us, but never again. He can't hurt us anymore, chérie. Forgive me for not coming after you that day. I was hurt, beyond hurt, to be honest. But he told me right before I ended his life. He’d known you were there. He’d known. He’d baited me. He’d kept it silent all those years so that I would hate you. But the ruse was on us both. I stayed away, but I always made sure you were safe, protected.”
As if hearing his words, three men dressed head to toe emerged from the shadows. His guards. Her guards. She’d given them the slip a few times, but they were damn good at their job.
“I always loved you. Deep down. There was nothing to forgive, even though I tried to convince myself otherwise. Our love was always stronger than his hate. He will never cause you pain again, mon amour.”
“What about you?” she whispered. The vulnerability behind her words slayed him.
He crushed her against him. “Never. Forgive me, Valencia. Forgive me for that night, for not putting an end to my father sooner. I know words don't mean a thing but—”
“They mean a lot more than you'd think,” she said against his chest.
He had her in his arms again, finally, but the reunion wasn't exactly what he'd hoped. But then again, those were his most secret desires. He rarely paid attention to them much less voiced them. But in the span of two days she'd reminded him of so many things, things he'd taken for granted and lost.
“What—what does your family say?”
“What does my family have to do with anything?” he asked, cupping her jaw and meeting her gaze.
“It is hard…to live without your family,” she said and he saw the toll it’d taken on her. She had more strength in her pinky than most men had in their entire being. “You killed your father for me. You asked a Fabelle to marry you. Are you prepared for the battle to come?”
“Who cares what your name is. I asked my soulmate to marry me. Rather, I demand it.”
Her eyes flashed with silver specs again and a fresh round of sorrow swept him.
“They'll make your life hell,” she told him.
“They're prepared to live by my rules now.”
Her brows rose. “Your rules?”
“I have very few.” He trailed his thumb over her bottom lip and felt her tremble against him. “Respecting my wife is the most important one. Putting an end to the infighting is second.”
He just prayed it wasn’t too late.
She stared into his eyes for several long seconds. Everyone around them was waiting with baited breath, just as he was.
He slipped the key from his pants pocket and pressed it against her palm. She stared down at the old brass key and then her eyes jerked up to his.
“Your family home is yours again. It should have been yours all along. We should have had our wedding,” he said, the absolute certainty washing through him as he glanced around at the other guests, the bride, the groom, Charles Latham who stood beneath the arbor. “You should be my wife, the mother of my children, the woman who promised to spend forever in my arms.”
He got down on one knee. “But I'm not going to demand, Val-dear. I'm going to ask. Will you marry me? Finally?”
This time he pulled a ring from his pocket, the same ring that had been waiting in his bedroom for him the night of their wedding. The ring that he'd given her years ago with the promise to love her beyond all reason and make her the happiest woman in history. She'd giggled at him and nodded her head, tears in her eyes. Then she'd said yes a hundred times, between kisses, as they'd sealed their bond with a kiss.
But the night of their wedding, while he was at the church, she’d returned it. One more knife wound to his heart. He’d kept it all this time because deep down he’d known.
And now, he waited again for her answer. For her to make him the happiest man to ever live.
“Yes,” she said, the word ending with a shaky laugh that clicked the pieces of his heart back together.
Cheers went through the crowd. Someone slapped him on the back and he looked up to see Shade smiling like a devil.
“Congrats, you two.”
“Give her the ring,” Izzy said, right there with her still-fiancé.
Valencia's eyes were silver. All silver. And filled with so much love that it stole his breath. He lifted the hand he held and slipped the ring on her ring finger. The diamond twinkled back at him and a sense of rightness settled in his chest.
Valencia met him half way, slender arms sliding around his neck as she pressed her lips against his. Amazingly, the pain and the years melted away with a single kiss. More chaste than he'd have liked, but he didn't argue when she pulled back. Her brilliant red lips turned up into a smile.
“Sorry for the disruption,” he told Shade and Izzy.
Izzy grinned up at him, her lips almost the same color as Valencia's. “Do not worry about that.” She wrapped an arm around them both and hugged them tight.
“Welcome to the family,” she told him before Shade moved in to shake his hand.
“You're making the rest of us look bad, LeBeau,” the demon said, a wide grin stretching his lips.
“Yeah, no more public declarations,” Maxim said gruffly. But he clapped Dameon's shoulder. “Well done.”
Dameon accepted handshakes and hugs, an introd
uction to Avery and Hunter. Then he insisted they get on with the wedding.
The wedding started fifteen minutes late but Izzy and Shade declared their love in front of their friends and vowed to worship one another for all eternity. Valencia stayed snug against Dameon’s side the entire time. When Latham told Shade he could kiss his bride, Valencia angled toward Dameon and lifted her lips to his. The happiness just kept on coming.
He felt the cold breeze as they hurtled through space. His feet touched down on a soft carpet. He opened his eyes and saw the Eiffel Tower out the window.
“We're in Paris.”
“Oui.”
“You agreed to marry me.”
She smiled again. “I did.”
She absently ran her fingers through his hair.
“Why?” She could have easily held a grudge till the end of time and been justified.
“Living without you was worse than old resentment.”
“I love you,” he said against her lips.
“Life's too short, even if we had five thousand—”
“Ten thousand.”
“Twenty thousand years, I don't think I'd ever regret spending them with you. I regret not confronting you that night. I should have. I should have gotten in your face and demanded the truth but I ran away like a silly brat. I should have been stronger.”
“We were both wrong in that regard.”
“I'm ashamed it took me so long to come to my senses.”
He slipped his hands down to her waist and pulled her hips against his. “No more ashamed than I am.”
“Good thing I learn from my mistakes.”
“Then why did you resist when I took your hand tonight?” He asked, fingering the tab of her zipper.
“I needed to be sure,” she murmured, her fingers working the buttons of his shirt.
“Sure?” He prompted, sliding the zipper down.
“That you were serious. That you weren't on a lark.”
“You wanted me to come after you.”
She leaned forward and kissed the skin she'd exposed. “Like I said, I had to be sure.”
