by Мишель Роуэн
The color drained from my face. “A freak show?”
“You could say that. A vampire kept in a cage and displayed as something to be laughed at instead of feared. He was beaten mercilessly if he refused to tear apart the animal they would throw into his cage as part of the entertainment.”
A knife twisted in my stomach and I tried to push the mental images away. Barry. Poor Barry. I had no idea. “So you saved him.”
He shook his head. “I was so disgusted by what I’d witnessed that I couldn’t help but go to see him, to try to speak with him. He barely spoke, huddled in the corner wearing dirty rags for clothes. His masters arrived, decided that I was a lone aristocrat in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a wallet thick with money they decided to relieve me of. After I had finished with them, I allowed all of their prisoners to escape, including Barry.”
A chill went down my spine. “After you’dfinished with them ?”
He held my gaze. “Yes.”
I nodded, slowly, imagining low-life scum torturing other human beings for a profit, then thinking they’d found another victim only to find Thierry.
Touch me again and my boyfriend is going to rip your lungs out.
Maybe not such an empty threat after all.
Thierry continued after a moment. “Barry followed me that night. He pledged himself to help me out in whatever I needed, said that he owed me his life. I tried to brush him off, tell him to find his own life, but he’d never known that before. He’d been sold to the fair as a child. Given to a vampire as a snack for a fee when he reached manhood. Used mercilessly after that. He knew no life other than what he’d had.”
“So you helped him.”
“I had no choice.”
“Of course you did. You could have turned your back on him. Just like you could have turned your back on me on the bridge that night when we met. But you didn’t. You’re a good man, Thierry.”
He shook his head and looked away. “I’m not.”
“Veronique told me once about how the two of you met.”
“I know.” His expression shadowed. “I’m not sure how much she told you.”
“During the black plague? She was alone and in hiding. You were—” I stopped talking. Thierry’s life had contained a whole heap of pain. Is that what happened when you lived for so long? The bad times outweighed the good? Or was he just really, really unlucky? “You were stabbed, thrown on a pile of burning corpses.” I shivered, then met his uncertain gaze. I reached out and stroked his cheek, moving till my fingers tangled in his dark hair. “Is that true?”
“It was long ago.”
I frowned and touched his tense arm. “If she hadn’t turned you, you’d be dead. I can thank her for that.”
He laughed and finally pulled away from me. “Yes, thanks so much to Veronique. So selfless she is.
Saving my life in such a noble way.”
“Do I detect a small amount of sarcasm?”
“No, you detect a great deal of sarcasm.”
“She saved your life.”
“That she did. Only because it suited her needs at the time. Why did she save me? Because she was hungry.” His grin twisted into something darker. “Why did she turn me into an immortal vampire?
Because she was lonely.”
“You’ve stayed with her all these years.”
“The years we’ve spent exclusively in each other’s company are fewer than you would believe, Sarah.
Veronique has been a good friend to me, but . . . ”
“But what?”
He met my gaze directly. “But she’s never made me forget myself.”
I blinked. “What does that mean?”
He smiled, but it was cold. “You don’t know what kind of man I truly am, Sarah. Or perhaps you do now.” He looked at my neck again, his expression pained.
The look he was giving me was so frustrating. He looked so dejected and despondent, it was starting to piss me off.
“You just told me what kind of man you are, didn’t you? Don’t you even see it yourself? You’re wonderful . You’re generous. You’re selfless. You care about other people even if you won’t admit it.
You’ll extend yourself to ensure somebody else’s happiness even if it’s complicated. How can you not see that?”
He shook his head. “You don’t know me at all. You’ve known me for less than two months.”
The words cut. “That’s true. But Iwant to know everything about you.”
His gaze hardened. “You know who you can ask? Who, I believe, knows me better than anyone else?”
“Who?”
“Quinn.” He met my eyes, and his were steely gray, cold, but his lips twisted into a humorless smile.
“Your ex-hunter isn’t fooled by any of my outward pretense. He can see me for what I truly am. You’re trying to avoid speaking about this, but it doesn’t make any of it go away.” His chest rose with a deep breath. “I hurt you the other night.”
I frowned and touched my neck. “This? This little scratch?”
His jaw tensed. “I nearly drained you. One taste of your blood was enough to send me over the edge of sanity.”
“Thierry—”
He shook his head, his face tense. “Another minute and it would have been the end. And even then?
Even after your heart ceased to beat I might not have stopped. There is such darkness inside me, such thirst . . . Sarah—I fear it. I’ve tried to hide from it all these years. That is the true reason I wished to meet my own end when we first met, Sarah. Not out of some deep-seated boredom with a long, empty life, but so I wouldn’t hurt anyone. Never again.”
My throat closed up. Tears burned my eyes. Every word he said was filled with anguish. How could I tell him that it would be okay? That I loved him regardless? That whatever he was dealing with I wanted to help him?
But he didn’t let me find my voice to say anything before he continued, every word filled with self-hatred.
“The worst thing of it all, even after all I’d done to you, is that when I saw in your eyes that you were weakened, drained, I didn’t stay to help you. To give you back some of what I had taken. No. I ran.
Like a coward. Like a damned coward.” His jaw clenched closed, his Adam’s apple shifting in his throat,
his chest heaving with labored breathing.
“Thierry—” I moved around to the other side of his desk and wrapped my arms around him, hugging him tightly against me. He pulled back a little and took my face in his hands.
“So, you can speak of fun trips to Mexico, you can ask me to tell you stories of my past, you can talk hopefully of the future, but all I can think about when I am with you, Sarah, is how sweet you tasted.
There is a monster inside me that is much more dangerous than any hunter you’ve ever faced. And it wants more of you. Even now, at this very moment.”
There was a heavy silence for a moment until I finally found my voice.
“Then you’re wrong,” I said.
He blinked. “What?”
“You’re wrong. You don’t know what you want. And that monster inside you? He’s an asshole. You need to tell him to shut the hell up. You can’t let him rule you.”
“The older I get, the less I am able to argue.”
“Then you need to make your argument louder. And shorter. Look Thierry, you can beat yourself up for what happened the other night if you want to. But I’m still here.” I shifted on my somewhat sensible high heels. “See? Right in front of you. And do I look scared of you?”
“A little bit.”
I crossed my arms. “Well, okay. Granted. That speech was a little Bela Lugosi. But I’m still here.”
He studied me for a moment. “Your sense of self-preservation is severely lacking.”
“If you’re trying to tell me that I’m fabulous and wonderful, then I accept the compliment.”
He took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. “You are standing before me, open to me, like a gazel
le facing a lion, and you do so willingly.”
I blinked. “Yeah, even when you say weird shit like that.”
“We are too different, Sarah.”
“Vive la difference.”
He nodded slowly. “And what of Quinn?”
The blood suddenly pounded in my ears. “Quinn?”
“Yesterday you were kissing him. Passionately and of your own free will. He was not forcing you.”
I crossed my arms. “No, he wasn’t.”
“Are you in love with him?”
Silence. My face flushed red. “No. I’m in love with you.”
“Why would you kiss him, then, if you are not in love with him?”
I bit my bottom lip, feeling suddenly as if I was being cross-examined in court. “I kissed him because he wanted to kiss me. Because he makes me feel like I’m important. Like I’m somebody who shouldn’t be ignored.”
His mouth was a thin line. “Then perhaps you should be with him.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to say.”
“No. But perhaps that is whatI am trying to say.” He wouldn’t meet my gaze.
My chest hurt. “You’re saying you want me to be with Quinn?”
“You will need someone to protect you when I am gone.”
I frowned at him. “What are you talking about? Where are you going?”
“This is what I wanted to tell you.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve sold Haven. Just today. I plan to leave Toronto indefinitely.”
“Youwhat ?”
His gaze again touched lightly on my neck. “I’ve fooled myself into believing that I can be a regular man.
That is not possible. When I leave, I want you to be taken care of. Quinn cares for you. I have faith that he will not let you come to any harm.”
I shook my head. “Things are rough right now, but not anything we can’t work out if we want to. It’s going to be okay. You don’t have to go anywhere. You belong right here with me.”
“What I said earlier is the truth, Sarah.” His voice was quiet. “You don’t fit in my life. I don’t fit in yours.
To believe otherwise would be foolish and potentially deadly to both of us. You should be with Quinn.”
I felt myself grow cold at his words. “No, Thierry. Didn’t you hear me? We can work through this. All of this.”
“My decision to leave the city is final.” His jaw tensed and he looked down at the top of his desk covered with papers and envelopes. “I’m sorry, Sarah, but it’s over between us.”
He walked past me to the door and left his office without another word.
Chapter 16
Iwasn’t watching where I was going when I left the club shortly after Thierry dumped my sorry ass. I was in shock. At that very moment, all I wanted to do was crawl into a corner somewhere and die.
Alone. Pathetic and alone.Hello there , I’d say.I’m pathetic and alone and I’m dying in a corner.
Look away .
Even though I knew his decision on the subject had been an ever-present possibility that loomed over my head. Even though everyone I knew had told me it was only a matter of time before this would happen . . . it was still the worst feeling in the world. And he was leaving? Sold the club and leaving just like that?
I’d never felt so alone. My heart ached. My throat felt tight. My eyes burned with tears of frustration.
Every word he’d said hurt like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
“You don’t fit in my life. I don’t fit in yours. It’s over between us.”
And then he was gone. Had to have the last word, didn’t he? I gritted my teeth at the vivid replay in my head. What was I supposed to say after that? He’d been very clear. Crystal-freaking-clear.
If I’d been seeing straight at the time, if I’d been able to focus on anything except his parting words, I’m sure that I’d have seen that he was right. We were totally wrong for each other. It was only a matter of time before this happened. I’d been fooling myself that things would work out with so many strikes against us.
It sounded rational enough.
Besides, it wasn’t the first time I’d ever been dumped in my life. I’d been dumped. I’d been the dumpee.
But this felt different. Worse.
I took in a painfully ragged gasp of cold air and stopped walking, hugging my arms to me, letting the pain sweep over me.
It felt like somebody had just stabbed me in the heart with a two-by-four.
I’d seen a TV show recently where somebody had been impaled by a wooden fence post. A huge,
blunt, full-sized wooden fence post. Right through his chest and out the other side. Rusty nails and all.
He’d lived.
Hehad looked a little pale, though. And the scar would have been a real bitch to cover up. But he’d lived.
Distracted, with my heart currently wooden-fence-post-free, but still broken in a thousand pieces, and feeling majorly sorry for myself in the middle of the street a block away from Haven—I didn’t even hear the bus coming.
I felt a rough shove against my back, which made me stumble to the ground, narrowly missing the bus’s front tire, which zoomed by about two inches from my face.
“What are you, on crack or something?” Janie gestured at me and at the passing bus. A Greyhound, I noted without much interest, as I lay on my back in the gutter. “You need to watch where the hell you’re going.”
My cheeks were wet with “I’ve just gotten my ass dumped” tears. I blinked at her from behind my dark shades, now askew. “Where did you come from? I thought you were in the car waiting.”
She looked at me like I was a complete idiot. “When you ignore the car and wander off down the street
I follow. I’m your damn bodyguard, remember? Though it’s supposed to be hunters I’m protecting you against, not public transit.”
“I didn’t even see you.”
She rolled her eyes. “When you see me, I’m not doing my job properly. I’m like a ninja. Only better dressed. Are you going to get out of that gutter or what?”
I closed my eyes. “I like it here. Just leave me. Leave me to die.”
“Wow, somebody took their drama pill this morning. Come on.” She reached out a hand to me. “Let’s go.”
I opened my eyes and looked at her skeptically for a moment. Then I grabbed her hand and let her help me to my feet. I adjusted my sunglasses.
“Where’s Lenny? Did you two talk things through?”
Her shoulders slumped. “He’s around. I think he’s a little peeved at me.”
“He likes you.”
“Yeah, don’t ask me why.”
I sniffed. “Thank you for saving me from the evil bus. That’s a few times now that you’ve saved me.
Except for last night, of course. But I’m still breathing, so all is well.”
“You’re welcome. And I’ve saved you a lot more than that, you just don’t know it. Some hunters are very interested in seeing you on the wrong side of a wooden stake. I’ve taken care of them.” She looked at me for a moment. “I’m surprised you haven’t even noticed. Distracted much?”
It chilled me to think that she’d been protecting me from getting killed when I hadn’t even been aware of it. “On a scale of one to ten, one being totally okay and ten reflecting that I’m having the worst day of my life and am mega distracted, I’m hovering at about a thousand.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
A grin twigged at her lips. “This got anything to do with your boyfriend? What did you say about him?
He’s really old, and married, and he has a drinking problem? Haven’t personally met him yet, but that still sounds hot, by the way.”
I frowned and shot her a look.
Her grin widened. “Frankly, from what I’ve heard about him, if it’s over between you two, I’d say that’s a good thing. He’s nothing but trouble.”
I turned away from her, trying to i
gnore the big lump in my throat. “I think I’m going to go. Can you drive me back to George’s?”
“Getting ready for the surprise party?”
I swiveled back around to look at her. “How do you know about that?”
“As your bodyguard, Ineed to know these things. If I don’t know everything about everybody I’m involved with personally or professionally, it could probably kill me. Although, since I didn’t retrieve that necklace yesterday, I’m as good as dead, so I hope I get an invite to the party. Consider it a last request.”
I felt a twinge of guilt about keeping the necklace from her. But my gut still told me to wait and see what happened.
“Sure, you can come. You should see the cake. It’s huge.”
“I love a good surprise party. It’s for your friend Amy, right? The one who’s married to the short guy?”
“That’s right. She’s thirty.” I thought about her for a moment. “Totally over the hill. Might make us feel better about our own problems.”
She laughed. “You’re such a bitch. No wonder your boyfriend dumped you.”
I felt my stomach turn. Her words felt like a slap, even though I’m sure she didn’t mean them that way. I started to cry, right there on the street with warmly dressed, peanut-butter-smelling people pressing past me on all sides.
Janie’s face lost its amused expression. “Sarah . . . he dumped you? I’m sorry. I was just guessing.”
I nodded. “It’s over. It just happened.”
“Honestly, after everything you told me about him, this is probably a good thing. It might not feel like it right now, but it’s for the best.”
I started crying harder and without thinking, stumbled forward and hugged her. “It’s not. He’s an idiot. I love him so much and he’s too damn stupid and stubborn to see that. I don’t know what to do.”
She awkwardly patted me on my back. “Seriously? You love him? The old married guy with the drinking problem?”
I nodded against her shoulder.
“Okay,” she said. “Enough. Get a hold of yourself before I have to slap you.” She stepped back, leaving me with nothing to cling to. I blinked wetly. She dug into her purse and pulled out a Kleenex and handed it to me. “Here. Suck it up. Geez.”
