by Jenna Black
Drake shook his head. “Why would you suspect that? You don’t know him.”
“No,” Gabriel said patiently, “but you’re forgetting something important—like why it is you want me by your side when you hunt.”
Drake’s brain still felt a little foggy, and it took him a moment to understand what Gabriel was saying. When he did, his eyes widened.
“Even before Eli changed,” Gabriel said, was always a difference between him and my mother. Because he was her maker, she made the same choices in victims as he. But if she could have gotten her hands on innocents, or if Eli would have let her get away with making her victims suffer, she would have done it. She always stank of corruption to me, and Eli never did. Nor do you. Nor does Armand.”
“How can that be?”
Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t have a good answer for that. My best guess is that what I pick up on has to do with intentions and conscience—or lack thereof--- more than actions.”
Drake looked at Charles’s body. “What about I~
“There was a whiff of it, but it wasn’t strong. might have been salvageable, but I couldn’t chance it. He’d already proven himself to be weak, and I’d never have been able to trust him.”
Drake gave him a knowing look. “Plus, you feel sure you have the upper hand against one six-hundred-year-old even in your weakened condition, but you couldn’t be sure about two?’
Gabriel laughed but didn’t deny it. “Let’s take care of the bodies and get home, shall we?”
***
FAITH SAT ALONE on the couch in the den, waiting.
Eric and Harry, no longer needing to act as Drake’s entourage, had packed up and gone to their own homes. Armand was locked in the basement below, beginning the fast that would either kill him or cure him. Lily was in bed, exhausted from the ordeal. Faith had used a light pulse of glamour to help lull her sister to sleep, hoping she wouldn’t have nightmares. And Jez was in the master bedroom, anxiously awaiting Gabriel’s return in a black silk nightie she’d shown to Faith in a moment of camaraderie.
Faith’s stomach knotted and unknotted, and she had to keep her hands clasped in her lap or she’d start unconsciously fidgeting with her hair and end up pulling most of it out. The danger was over, but she didn’t feel any better. She was still haunted by the look on Drake’s face when Armand had manipulated her into saying she didn’t trust him with Lily. That look might well haunt her till the end of her days.
It was after midnight when the front door finally opened. Faith’s heart leapt into her throat, and a feeling akin to panic crept over her as she imagined facing Drake after everything that had happened. Perhaps he wouldn’t even want to talk to her.
But when she stepped into the foyer, she saw only Gabriel. Her heart clenched in her chest as every terrible possibility flooded her mind. Gabriel had Drake for his disobedience. Or banished him from Baltimore, forcing him out of town without a good-bye. Or Drake was so angry with her that he refused to come back to the house and get his stuff until Faith was gone.
Gabriel’s eyes were cold and flat as he gestured her back into the den. “Let’s have a chat, shall we?”
She put a hand to her throat, feeling the frantic throb of her heart. “Please tell me he’s all right!’
His expression didn’t change. “Physically, he’s fine.” He strode toward the den, herding her in as hastened to avoid physical contact with him. “Sit,” he ordered, pointing at a chair.
But she was through taking orders and remained stubbornly on her feet. After all she’d been through, she refused to be a doormat ever again. “I’ll stand,” she said.
Gabriel smiled pleasantly while his eyes promised terrible things. “Either you put your ass in that chair, or I’ll do it for you.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, and was surprised to find that it was true. She knew of his fierce reputation, knew he could swat her like a fly if he wanted to. But after facing Henri, after facing the threat from La Vieille, she couldn’t muster the appropriate terror.
Gabriel’s smile didn’t falter as suddenly an unseen force flung her backward until she hit the chair with a thump. If the chair hadn’t been nicely padded, the impact would have hurt.
“Maybe you should be,” Gabriel said, looming over her. “You’ve done quite the hatchet job on my second-in-command, and I’m somewhat put out with you at the moment.”
The starch left her spine, and she sagged in the chair. “He told you what happened.”
“Yes. I caught up with him shortly after he threw himself out a second-story window to resist feeding on a bleeding mortal when he was half starved.”
She winced.
“Did you really tell him you wouldn’t trust him around your sister?”
She winced again, fixing her gaze on the floor. “It was stupid’ she admitted. “I knew in my heart he would never hurt her, but Armand managed to scare me enough to make me ignore what my heart told me?’ She forced herself to look up and meet Gabriel’s hostile gaze. “If I could take that moment back, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’m more ashamed of myself than I can possibly say?’
Gabriel rolled his eyes but finally stopped looming over her, backing off to slouch into a seat across from her. “My father will take excellent care of you and of your sister. He and I aren’t on the best of terms, but I know he’ll be happy to take you both in, and I know you’ll find a place for yourself among the Guardians.”
Faith’s throat tightened at the thought. “Are you saying we’re not welcome here?”
“You’re not welcome here unless you can fix things with Drake. I’ve got enough tension in my Guardians already without adding more. Especially if Armand pulls through.”
“Do you think there’s a chance I can fix things?” she asked. “I’ve wracked my brain trying to think of+ what to say, and everything seems so lame.”
“I’m not what you’d call an expert at romance.” Gabriel said with a twist of his lips that wasn’t a smile. “You’ll have to figure that one out on your own. If you’re willing to give it a try, I suspect he’s currently moping around his house.” Gabriel reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of “That’s his address.”
She bit her lip as she took the paper from his stretched hand.
22
IN THE DAYS he’d been staying at Gabriel’s, Drake had forgotten how much he disliked his own crappy house. Those memories came to life as he wandered restlessly through the rooms, at loose ends. His first order of business had been a long, hot shower, but after that, he couldn’t quite figure out what to do with himself. He didn’t want to sit around and think, but he wasn’t sure he had the energy for much else.
Finally, he decided that physical labor was the best way to keep his thoughts at bay, so he started working on the ugly downstairs bathroom again. He spackled and sanded the spots where he’d pulled the paint off when removing the wallpaper, then rooted around the attic until he found the dregs of a can of off-white paint he’d bought to cover the numerous scuffs and stains in the upstairs hallway.
The rhythm of dipping the roller in the paint and then rolling it onto the wall helped lull him numbness, but he knew it was a temporary reprieve.
Faith and Lily would be on a train to Philadelphia as soon as the sun set tomorrow night. He was glad he’d been able to save them from whatever Brigitte and Henri had planned, but how he wished he could have done it before he’d let Faith see fragility of his self-control. He’d decided to spare her—and himself—the awkwardness that would arise from saying goodbye. So he would wait until she was gone before he returned to the house to gather his belongings. And he’d settle for being happy that Faith was finally free of Armand—no matter what redeeming qualities the Seigneur may or may not have.
He had just started on the second coat when doorbell rang. He was seriously tempted not to answer—he wasn’t exactly feeling sociable at the moment. However, not answering would feel much like sulking, which he wouldn’t al
low himself to do. At least, that’s what he tried to tell himself even though he had the uneasy impression that might be exactly what he was already doing.
When he discovered Faith standing on his doorstep, he stood dumbstruck in the doorway, unable to come up with a single thing to say. Hope tried to claw its way through the cloud of gloom that surrounded his heart, but he did his best to suppress it. No doubt Faith hadn’t been willing to leave town without expressing her gratitude for his role in rescuing her and Lily. She was just here to say goodbye, and he wasn’t sure he could bear it.
“May I come in?” she asked tentatively.
He’d already let her in, way too deep, letting her penetrate the barrier of indifference he’d built around himself. She’d cracked the shields he’d used to protect himself from others’ opinions of him, and he wondered what it would take to repair them. And he needed to, because even though Gabriel was allowing him to stay, Jez was no doubt still mad at him, and neither Eric nor Harry would ever look at him the same way they had before this debacle.
Fighting the cowardly urge to hide from this conversation, he swung the door open and allowed her to step inside. Her nose wrinkled at the stink of paint, and he realized he looked like some kind of street bum in his old, ragged T-shirt and paint-stained carpenter pants.
Faith smiled at him faintly. “This is a new look for you.”
He grimaced and hoped he didn’t have paint splattered all over his hair and face, too. He hadn’t exactly been paying a lot of attention to how much paint actually made it onto the walls. “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
Faith wandered into his bachelor-pad living room, and he followed close behind.
“I’ve only been here a month’ he hastened to explain as she looked around. “None of this stuff is mine, and I’ll get rid of it all eventually?’ Damn, he sounded like a complete idiot, babbling at her like this. This was the reason he really, really hadn’t wanted to play out the goodbye scene.
After a skeptical examination, Faith deigned to sit on the mustard-yellow couch with its sagging cushions. Not sure what he was supposed to do, he sat on the edge of the recliner beside her seat. She looked as uncomfortable as he felt, her eyes averted while teeth worried at her lower lip. He found himself riveted to the sight, thinking about how that lip had tasted when he’d sucked on it. Thinking of the feeling of her mouth trailing kisses over his skin.
Don’t go there, he ordered himself, forcing himself to remember much more recent events.
Faith clasped her hands together in her lap huffed out a deep breath. “I know there’s nothing I can say to make up for how I acted, but—”
“Please don’t,” Drake said, holding up his hands. Faith fell silent, her eyes full of hurt. Drake softened his tone. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me,” he said. She opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted. “I was about as close to losing control as it’s possible to be while still retaining any shred of humanity. I wouldn’t have trusted myself with Lily at that moment, either.”
“I would have,” Faith said.
A muscle in his jaw ticked as he met her eyes. “But you didn’t.”
“Armand manipulated me into saying I didn’t. But it was my judgment he made me mistrust, not you.”
Drake smiled gently, no matter how badly his heart ached. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I really do. But I have to cope with the consequences of my own actions, including losing my self-control. You have nothing to apologize for. You were protecting your sister from potential danger, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it, but you’re so angry with me you can’t even look me in the eye?”
Drake growled softly and met her eyes again. “I’m not angry with you?’
She surprised him by laughing. “Care to take a lie detector test?”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t let himself actually smile. “All right, so I’m a little angry. But I know it’s not fair of me, and if I could use my conscious mind to turn my feelings on and off, I’d shut this one off so fast your head would spin?’
“I think it’s perfectly fair’ Faith said, “but let’s not argue about that.”
Feeling the goodbye coming, Drake drew back into himself and sat up straighter. “When are you leaving for Philly?”
“I’m not?’
Drake blinked, not sure he heard right. “What did you say?”
“I’m not leaving.”
Much as Drake hated the idea of her leaving, he wasn’t sure he could bear the thought of her staying. He might try to purge that painful memory from his brain, but he doubted he’d have much success. He’d hung on to the memory of Eamon’s death for more than a century, and though the pain was less now than it had been, he knew it would never go away. If he’d been forced to face it day after day, he’d have gone mad by now.
“I want to stay,” Faith said. “Not because I have any special fondness for Baltimore, and not because I’ve bonded with Gabriel or the Guardians, but because of you.” Her voice hitched a little at that. “I don’t know if you can ever forgive me, but I hope you’re willing to give it a try.”
There was a shimmer of tears in her eyes, and suddenly Drake felt like a bastard. He moved from recliner to the sofa, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him. He planted a kiss on top of her head, though what he really wanted to was raise her face to his and devour her mouth.
“Have you ever considered that it’s not you I’m having trouble forgiving, that it’s myself?” he asked. “Armand might have manipulated that encounter, he couldn’t have done it without my help. I should have fed. As Gabriel tactfully pointed out to me, there’s enough crime in some parts of this city that I probably could have found someone in the middle some heinous act if I’d just stopped wallowing in self-doubt.”
She snuggled closer to him on the couch, laying her palm against his chest as her head tucked into the bend of his neck. “Self-doubt is something we’re both guilty of,” she said. Her hand stroked his chest, and the touch sent a bolt of desire straight to his groin. Desire he tried like hell to swallow when she sighed and pushed away from him.
But she didn’t go far, instead cupping his face in her hands and looking at him intently. “You’re one of the good guys, Drake. You proved it when you jumped out a second-story window to keep from hurting a woman who meant absolutely nothing to you. And I knew it even before you proved it. I knew it that first night when I blurted out the truth of what Armand had asked me to do. I didn’t realize I knew it, didn’t recognize what it was, but right here,” she pressed a hand to her chest, “I knew.”
He swallowed a sudden, painful lump in his throat. And knew that no matter what, he couldn’t let her just walk away. That might be the easy way out, might save him some future heartache. But as he’d decided tonight when he’d dismissed Padraig’s temptation once and for all, the easy way wasn’t always the best way.
Drake opened his arms, and Faith accepted the invitation. “I told Gabriel I was halfway in love with you already,” he said, holding her tightly against his body. “I think I might have underestimated that a bit.”
“Good,” Faith said with a sniffle, “because I’m at least three-quarters of the way in love with you myself.”
He inhaled the scent of her, then wrinkled his nose as the paint fumes marred her subtle perfume. ‘Td like to take you upstairs, show you the rest of the house.”
“Would the rest of the house include your bedroom?”
“Yeah, I was thinking that might be the first stop. I’m determined to get you at least four-fifths of way in love with me by the time the sun rises.”
She laughed through the remains of her tears, pushing away from him to regard him through her damp eyelashes. “You think I’m going to admit to being hopelessly in love with you just because give me an orgasm or two?”
He gave her his best wolfis
h grin. “There’s one way to find out.”
