Chapter Thirty-two

Claire banged out of the screen door, leaving the three of us. Or the four, if you counted Stinky, and I didn’t see any reason why you shouldn’t, since he was kicking up the biggest fuss. Which was a problem, because I was going to have a tough time of it if I had to get between the two men again. But Caedmon surprised me.

“I need to talk to Claire,” he told me quickly. “In the meantime, think on this. You’ve been an outsider all your life, part of two worlds, but accepted by neither—”

“She’s accepted,” Louis-Cesare snapped. “She’s on the Senate!”

Caedmon shot him a look. “And we both know how long that will last once things calm down, don’t we?”

“Her family is here!”

“And may be there as well.” Emerald eyes found mine. “I could help you look for them.”

“Caedmon—”

“Think on it,” he told me, kissed my hand, and left. Leaving me with a hissing, furious baby and Louis-Cesare, who didn’t look any happier.

I felt the same, although for different reasons.

Just do it, I told myself. Right now, before you chicken out. You have the perfect excuse. Caedmon just handed it to you. . . .

But, instead, I stood there, feeling miserable and not saying anything.

Neither did Louis-Cesare, for a long moment.

I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I was trying to come up with another solution. Something, anything, that would let me hold on to him, because he was wrong. I didn’t care about being on the Senate, a community that had shunned me for years. That was Mircea’s idea. I’d gone along with it to help him out, not because I wanted prestige I wasn’t going to get anyway.

I only wanted one thing.

But, as always, it was something I couldn’t have.

And the longer I put this off, the more I tried to find a solution that didn’t exist, the more I put him in danger. Dorina was a knife in the dark, a gun in the hand, a brilliant, multifaceted weapon of destruction. I’d lived with her for centuries; I knew what she was. I knew what she could do. Even worse, I knew him.

What happened if she decided to banish me? What happened when he realized that I wasn’t coming back? That my consciousness had been scattered, and all that was left was a shell—one still walking around, because someone else was in there?

Dorina wouldn’t have to provoke an attack. He would do that for her. And then he would die.

It wasn’t even a question. When Louis-Cesare felt something, it was all over his face. When he did something, it was wholehearted, full speed ahead, no stopping to think about his own safety, because why would he?

He thought himself invincible.

It was why he was pulling me against him now, letting me close, not caring that I had a struggling baby fey in my arms who was considerably less than tame. It was why he was letting me there, right there, at his neck, one of a vampire’s most vulnerable spots. Just as he had in the shower, taking no precautions despite knowing what I was, what I could do.

What she could do.

And what she would do, sooner or later, if I didn’t woman the hell up.

“I think we need a break,” I said hoarsely, and immediately knew he didn’t get it. The body didn’t tense, the hand on my back continued stroking, the lips kissed my hair.

“It’s been quite a week,” he agreed—to a point I hadn’t been making. “The Senate has called another meeting for tomorrow, which is unavoidable. But after that, we should be able to get away for a few—”

“No.” I pulled back, but forced myself to look at him, because I owed him that much. “No, I mean we need a break. You and me.”

“What?” For some reason, he still looked confused.

Damn it! Why couldn’t he understand and let this be over? I wanted to rip the Band-Aid off, not stretch it into agony.

“My life’s a mess right now,” I said flatly. “I need some time to figure things out. Some time to myself,” I added, because he still didn’t get it.

And then, suddenly, he did.

“What?” He said it again, although I knew he understood. His eyes—God. Just make it stop!

“You heard me. I need some space.”

“Some space. What does that mean?”

“You know what it means!”

“Non.” It was rough. “I do not. If you wish to be with this fey, then say so—”

“This isn’t about him!”

“Then what is it about? Just a few days ago, you almost—” He broke off for a moment, and his jaw clenched. But then he came out with it, because Louis-Cesare isn’t like Mircea or any other vamp I’ve ever known. He just lays it all out there. “You almost marked me. And now you do not wish to see me anymore, comme ça? What am I supposed to think?”

“I didn’t mark you. I wasn’t—I just got carried away—”

I stopped, because that was a lie, and not even a very good one. But he’d flustered me. This whole thing was throwing me in ways I hadn’t expected. I didn’t know how to break up with someone; I’d never had to before. The few long-term lovers I’d had in the past—if you could call a few weeks long-term—had hightailed it for the horizon as soon as Dorina reared her head the first time. They’d left me, not vice versa, and I’d always assumed I got the short end of the stick.

I’d been wrong.

Leaving was much harder.

Especially with someone who mirrored every emotion, every thought, on his face. Like now, when he’d just paled, enough that it was visible even in the darkness of the hall. And his eyes . . .

I didn’t want to look at them anymore. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want any of this, but a small hurt now was better than what lay ahead.

But, God, I wanted to tell him the truth! That was the worst part of it. He’d never know how much I did want him, how much I’d always—Fuck, what was the point? Just finish this!

But he beat me to it.

“Ah. Of course. I should have realized.”

“Realized . . . ?”

But I didn’t get an answer. To anything. His throat was working, but he didn’t say anything else.

And then the door slammed open behind us and Soini came through, grinning hugely and holding two full beer steins. “Dory! I just heard!” He bent and kissed me lightly on each cheek. Like that was a perfectly normal thing for a member of the standoffish fey to do. “It’s so wonderful! And not just because there will be someone to take the pressure off me. I mean, it’s not so bad; people just have all these expectations. But you already know what you’re doing, so you won’t have to worry about that, and now we have a new sister! It’s been so long since we found anyone among your people—”

Soini kept talking, and tugging, trying to shepherd us back to the festivities. Probably because I was the guest of honor. It didn’t work. I couldn’t hear him anymore, just the rise and fall of his voice, with no words making sense. And I couldn’t move, even though the hall seemed to be doing that on its own, telescoping in on me. Because Louis-Cesare’s face . . .

It had changed from anger to something else, something familiar, because we had a similar history in at least one way. The prince and the pauper had a lifetime of being abandoned by everyone we cared about. For Louis-Cesare, it had started with his mother, who had given up the tiny boy who loved her in order to keep her reputation intact, and her betrayal had been followed by a host of others, from his treacherous half-brother’s to that of my uncle Radu, the one who had made him a vampire. And who had then abandoned him to find his own way in a hostile world.

Radu had had a good reason, one that had been explained to me a couple times now, but that I still didn’t completely get. But it didn’t matter, because it hadn’t softened the blow. And for someone who had lost her own mother early, who had spent years thinking that her father had abandoned and rejected her, who’d had to leave every lover or friend she’d ever had—yeah, I knew that look, that pain. I saw it on his face, in his eyes, and I suddenly couldn’t do it to him. Not again.

Fine. So let him stick around until Dorina guts him, a little voice said. See how you feel then.

I shoved the mental voice away. It wasn’t the right time. Not now. Not like this, with other people around to overhear and when there was no way to give him a proper explanation.

And you think he’ll accept it if you do? You already tried that in the shower. He won’t leave unless you make him go!

But, as it turned out, I didn’t have to do anything. Louis-Cesare suddenly took my hand, bowed over it, and left. Turning around and striding so quickly down the hall and out of the house that he was gone almost before I realized what was happening.

“He isn’t staying for the party?” Soini asked, blinking after him.

I just stood there, not sure I could say anything.

“But we’re having roast pork.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said roughly, shoved Stinky at him, and ran up the stairs.

I made it back to my room feeling like I’d been stabbed, straight through something vital, and now it was just a case of bleeding out.

His face.

God, his face.

I shut my door behind me and then just stood there, in the dark, empty room. Only it wasn’t. There was the wall Claire had once thrown him through, misunderstanding some sounds, thinking he was hurting me when he never would. There was the bathroom where he’d first told me he loved me, shocking me to all but speechlessness. There was the bed. . . .

I felt sick. Like, actually, physically ill. There were no chairs, Olga having taken hers down again, so I settled for leaning against the wall. And realized that I was still holding his rose. Somehow, I hadn’t dropped it with all the others.

It was a little worse for wear: a couple of the outer petals were missing, and one of the leaves was hanging by a thin bit of stem, the rest having been ripped from the stalk. I stared at it, feeling as empty as the room. Fuck.

I bent over, hands on my knees, and just breathed for a minute.

It’s okay, the stupid voice said. You’ll feel better in time. You always knew this wasn’t going to work—

I beat my fists into my temples until the voice stopped. Until I was dizzy and probably completely demented looking, but I didn’t care. There was no one to see. There never would be. . . .

My head felt dizzy, my gut was roiling, and my legs were weak. I slowly slid down the wall, until I ended up clutching my knees and the rose, and then just sat there in darkness. I didn’t cry. I wasn’t going to fucking cry. This was my fault, all of it. So I didn’t get that release. I didn’t get anything, because I knew better, knew these things never worked out, and that was with normal guys. What the hell had I been thinking? Me and Louis-Cesare—what a laugh.

But, for a little while, it hadn’t been funny. For a little while, it had been . . . like nothing I’d ever known. I’d lived five hundred years, more or less. The less being the swaths of time I didn’t remember, when Dorina had been in charge. But even if you crossed those out, I’d been around a long time. I’d seen amazing things, some frightening, some wonderful, some terrible.

I’d never seen anything like him.

For a moment, I let myself remember: sunlight turning brown hair to red; electric blue eyes, the most vivid I’d ever seen; a rare laugh breaking through the facade of sangfroid he determinedly kept up even though he was really bad at it; him accepting an eighteenth-century-looking satin ensemble from Radu even though it was lavender, and probably intending to wear it sometime because it would make his father happy and he didn’t care what people thought of him. Most people . . .

I thought about him looking so pleased with himself as he smugly said “three,” after exceeding the number of bears I’d wanted despite the odds, and I felt my legs tense, because I wanted to run after him so badly I was vibrating. I’d never had anyone like him, and for a moment, I let myself grieve. I didn’t deserve him, but I’d had him anyway, something that had frequently made me thrilled and terrified and grateful and suspicious and amazed—just jaw-droppingly amazed—all at the same time. And I’d thrown him away, without even a decent explanation because there was no explanation he’d understand.

I didn’t even know if I understood.

So I sat there, dry-eyed and staring at nothing, until somebody rapped on the wood behind me.

“Dory?”

I stood up and cracked the door.

Claire’s worried face looked in. “Is something—” She broke off. And before I could say anything, if there’d been anything to say, she was pulling me into her arms.

“I sent him away.” I sounded blank.

Claire hugged me harder, and didn’t say anything.

“I loved him, and I sent him away.” It was my voice, but there was a note I’d never heard in it. Not grief, not anger. More like wonder.

Like even my brain thought I was crazy.

“This is about Dorina,” Claire said, after a moment.

It wasn’t a question, but I pulled back and nodded.

She didn’t say anything. But I knew her expressions. I knew she wanted to.

I laughed suddenly; it sounded harsh. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

She didn’t look pleased. She looked stricken. “No. Oh, no. Dory, I’m so sorry!”

“For what?”

She wrapped her arms around herself, like she still needed someone to hold on to. “He was . . . he was nice, when you were ill. I expected him to be angry.” She laughed a little, not happily. “I have terrible timing. I realized I must have interrupted something the other day, when you were in the bath—”

“How?”

She shook her head. “He came to the door in a towel, with soap in his hair. He was blushing.”

“He does that a lot.” Redhead complexion. And his kind doesn’t exactly tan.

“I didn’t think they could do that,” she said. “Vampires, I mean.”

“Louis-Cesare isn’t a normal vampire.”

I wanted her to go. It felt like somebody had yanked my heart out of my chest and crumpled it into a little ball. I wanted nothing more than to curl around the pain and—

But Claire almost looked like she was in pain, too.

“You told me not to lump them all together,” she said. “I didn’t listen.”

“It’s all right—”

“It’s not all right.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Especially now.

“It matters!” She stared at me. “He was so worried, Dory, when they brought you back from those fights. I told him I thought you were okay, but that someone really should check you out, just to be sure, but he said he didn’t know anyone else here—”

“That’s great, Claire—”

“No, listen. I asked him why he didn’t contact one of his people, you know, mentally.”

I nodded.

“And have them find a healer. But he said that takes concentration, and he couldn’t manage it right then. So I dug out the emergency number, for the all-night service, and gave it to him. But he couldn’t dial it. His hands were shaking too much—”

I’d started digging through the dresser, looking for something to wear to Horatiu’s, but now I rounded on her. “Why are you doing this?”

She bit her lip. “I don’t know. I just—I realized then that I’d made a mistake. He did—he does—love you, and you love him—”

“None of which matters!”

She caught my arm. “Love always matters! And I—When I saw him that way, this big, strong master vampire, suddenly so terrified, so helpless . . . I knew I’d been wrong. Wrong about him, maybe wrong about all of them. I don’t know.”

“They’re like every group. Some good, some bad.” I looked from her to the hand she had on my arm. “Why are you doing this?” I repeated.

“Because he’s a big, strong master vampire. He can handle this. He can handle her.”

“But I can’t!” I grabbed my duffle and threw some stuff inside, barely even looking at it. “If I hurt him—”

“Dory.” Claire’s voice was suddenly small. “If what I saw that night was any indication, you couldn’t hurt him more than . . . than this.” She gestured around—at what, I didn’t know. Probably my empty fucking room.

“Then I’ll hurt him. At least he’ll be alive to feel it!”

I left.