“She’s in love with you,” he said bluntly.
Abby laughed at the absurd notion. “No, she’s not.”
Brian turned to look at her as the elevator lurched into motion. “Yes, she is. If you’re not as serious about the relationship”—she gawked at him—“you should end it.”
“There is no relationship between me and Jasmine!” she cried, hating the blush creeping through her cheeks. “She’s only a friend, and she became my roommate this year.”
Relief filled him at her response. There was no reason for her to lie about it, and judging by the color of her skin and the stunned look on her face, she’d never realized her friend harbored deeper feelings for her.
“She does feel more for you,” he told her. “It was obvious.”
“No, Jasmine…” Her brow furrowed and her voice trailed off as the elevator doors slid open. “She had a boyfriend all last year.”
“You can’t help who you love,” he said as he clasped her elbow and led her from the elevator. Her scent drifted to him when she stepped closer. She wore no perfume, but her natural scent reminded him of orange blossoms and cinnamon.
“I think you’re wrong,” she muttered, but didn’t look completely convinced.
“I rarely am.” He held the door open for her to step into the cooling October night. “Where did your sister disappear from?”
“From the city,” she answered as he placed her suitcase in the bed of the truck. “We’ve been going to college together for the last three years. This was supposed to be our final year, or Vicky’s at least. I plan to get my masters.”
“In what?”
“Social work.”
Of course she did. He barely managed to keep himself from smacking his forehead. He felt like he was dealing with the vampire version of Mother Teresa. “And what do you plan to do with that?” he asked.
“I’d like to try and work for an adoption agency or the foster care system in order to help find homes for children.” He had a feeling she’d be trying to bring all those children home with her. “But first I plan to join the Peace Corp.”
Brian blinked at her. She was a vampire; about the only thing she had to do was feed and keep their existence a secret, but this girl was talking about children and joining the Peace Corp. Stay away. She’s far too good for the likes of you. If you think the guilt is bad after sex with other women, try what you’ll feel like if you cause her soul to diminish in some way.
“I see,” he said, but he didn’t. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done anything altruistic.
He pulled open the passenger door of the truck and waited until she was settled inside before closing the door and hurrying over to climb into the driver’s side. “You said it was supposed to be your final year together, what happened to change that?” he asked when he was settled.
He started the truck and drove onto the narrow streets of Boston. As a child, he’d run these streets, but over the years, the city had grown so much that the roads were often difficult to navigate if they were crowded with parked cars and other drivers.
“Vicky quit shortly before the semester started. We were supposed to room together, as we have for the last three years, but she decided she’d had enough of college. She was staying in an apartment with some friends from school who graduated last year.”
Her eyes were haunted, shadows lined them when she turned toward him. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she said she was going to experience life. She’d started dating a guy recently, a vampire. She began staying with him a couple of weeks ago. With school and Vicky going out partying every night, I only saw him once, briefly. He was waiting on the corner for her to leave the place where we’d met for lunch. We didn’t eat, of course, but we never turned down some day drinking.”
She smiled at the memories. “I hadn’t had the chance to really meet him or go to their place. We didn’t see each other as much as we used to, but we still talked every day, and we did lunch four days a week. This isn’t like her.”
“Have you talked to the friends she was staying with before this guy?”
“Yes, they haven’t seen or spoken with her in a week.”
He pressed on the gas to avoid a yellow light as he drove past Fenway Park and toward the Mass Pike. With all the street lights, parked cars, and pedestrians, it would be a lot easier to concentrate on what she was saying on the highway rather than the busy city streets.
“What did your parents say about her quitting?” he asked as he merged onto the Pike.
The enticing way she nibbled her bottom lip made him briefly forget what they were talking about. “They don’t know,” she admitted. “I was trying to convince Vicky to tell them, but she kept putting it off. I had promised her I wouldn’t say anything, but only if she did soon. Then, she vanished.”
The tears in her eyes caused him to swerve the truck into the breakdown lane and park it. He turned toward her, draping his arm over the back of the seat as she wiped away her tears. “I’ll find her,” he vowed. He would have promised her almost anything to erase the melancholy look on her pretty face.
“What if we can’t? What if something has happened to her and it’s my fault for not doing something sooner to intervene?”
“Your sister makes her own choices; that’s not your fault.”
Abby bowed her head and nodded, but she knew he was wrong about this. If something happened to Vicky, it would be her fault. They were so much alike, but she was the more practical one, the levelheaded one who kept her crazier sister on track. She’d failed Vicky now.
“I was so mad at her for quitting and leaving me behind,” she muttered. “For putting me in this position with our parents, but she’s my sister, you know?”
“I do.” His siblings and parents may have been dead for years now, but he recalled what it had been like to try and keep their secrets. Recalled the love he’d had for them.
When she lifted her head to look at him again, she brushed back the hair clinging to her flushed cheeks. “I’m the responsible one. I always looked out for her, and I failed. Now, I have no idea where she is, what she’s doing, or if I can save her if we find her.”
Unable to resist the tears in her eyes anymore, Brian wrapped his hand around her neck and pulled her close against him. A sigh of contentment escaped him when her head fell against his chest. He should push her away, shift into drive again, and find someplace where he could put some distance between them. Instead, he found his fingers sliding over her silken hair as he held her closer.
He waited for the inevitable guilt to slither through him as he tenderly stroked her. Vivian was dead, but she was still such an intricate part of him. She had given him their beautiful daughters; she had loved him and depended on him. She’d had such faith in him, and he’d failed to protect the three of them. He’d watched as they’d died.
Over his many years of wielding death to murderous rogue vampires, and unfortunately two human hunters who had been trying to kill him, he could barely see any difference between himself and the vampires who had changed him and stolen his family. He didn’t intentionally hunt and kill humans, but sometimes he wondered if he could become a monster without crossing that line, or worse, if he already had become one.
He was completely undeserving of any kindness or love in his life, not like he wanted anything like that again, but he’d avoided any kind of contact like this with another for nearly two centuries. Sex was one thing, but to hold and comfort someone seemed more intimate. However, the much-expected guilt never came.
Reluctantly, he pulled away from Abby. He would only taint her if he stayed close to her. It was inevitable, as he tainted or destroyed everything he touched.
Chapter Three
“Do you think she took off because she didn’t want to tell your parents about quitting school?” he asked.
Abby missed the heat of his body against hers; her skin felt icy from the loss of contact. “No. She was dreading telling them, they were go
ing to be mad at her for not telling them sooner, but they would get over it and she knew that. No matter what, she still wouldn’t have taken off without telling me.”
“Do you have something of Vicky’s?” he asked.
He watched as she wiped at her eyes. Her sister, Isabelle, was striking in her beauty. Abby was far more delicate and innocent, more pretty than refined and elegant, but he could barely keep his eyes off her. She fascinated him in some odd way that had him fighting the urge to brush the hair away from her face so he could see her more clearly.
“Like what?” she asked as she twisted her hands in her lap.
“A picture, jewelry, clothing, anything.” He could use Abby herself, but he was better off not touching her again if he could help it.
Abby dug into her purse in search of her wallet. She tugged it out and flipped through the pictures of her family and friends before coming to one of Vicky and her from the beginning of the summer. The picture was taken near their home in Maine. They were sitting on the rocks on the beach with the ocean crashing around them. Her sister-in-law, Paige, had taken the picture and planned to turn it into a painting, but she had given Abby and Vicky each a copy of the photo.
Their heads were bent close to each other, their hands draped over their knees in identical positions. It appeared as if they were the only two people on Earth, and Abby recalled not even realizing Paige was there as she’d sat with Vicky, talking and listening to the ocean waves.
“Here.” She handed him the photo. She was about to point out which one was Vicky and which was her, when his thumb landed on Vicky. “That’s her.”
“I know,” he murmured as he closed his eyes.
Her eyebrows shot up as she stared at him. Her own parents got them confused sometimes, but he had unflinchingly chosen Vicky in the photo. It had either been luck, or his gift of finding people that allowed him to pick Vicky out in the picture. That made sense, she decided. She sat back to watch the headlights playing over his masculine beauty as the cars drove by.
She longed to touch his cheek, but she dug her fingers into the cloth seat and forced herself to show some restraint. She had no idea what he was doing, but his shoulders hunched up and he shuddered. His eyes flew open, and then he handed the picture back to her and shifted the truck into drive.
“Do you know where she is?” she asked anxiously.
“I know where she was recently. She may be there now, or she may have moved on, but we’ll find out when we get there.”
“How do you know? What did you do?”
He smiled at her, but it looked strained and there was a hollowness in his ice-colored eyes that hadn’t been there before. “I have my secrets, young Byrne.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“No.”
Abby opened her mouth to question him further, but she clamped it shut again. He was helping her, who was she to demand answers when he wasn’t willing to give them? “Did your ability tell you who Vicky was in this picture?” she inquired.
“No,” he said, as he clicked on his blinker and exited the Pike.
He drove through the Easy Pass lane and back onto the crowded and convoluted streets of Boston. She’d lived here almost full-time for three years now and still managed to get lost every once in a while, but he drove with unflinching certainty as he navigated the roads.
“Then how did you know it was her?” she asked.
“You’re very easy to tell apart.”
Abby did a double take; she somehow kept herself from sputtering at his words. “No one has ever said that to me before, not even my parents.”
He shrugged, but didn’t look at her again as he drove into a part of the city she’d never been to before. It was less crowded here; homes lined the streets instead of skyscrapers and businesses. As they parked outside a white house that had been converted into an apartment building, Abby craned her head to take in the three story building next to her.
“Do you think she’s here?” she asked eagerly.
“No,” Brian said as he studied the home. A residual aura enshrouded the place. One that had been strong enough to draw him here, but it wasn’t strong enough to indicate Vicky was still here now. Opening his door, he walked around the truck toward the passenger side. Before he could reach Abby’s door, she opened it herself and began to step out onto the curb. He rushed to her side and grabbed hold of her elbow to help her out.
She gave him a startled look, one that had nothing on the surprise that jolted through him at the gesture. He wasn’t a gentleman anymore; he didn’t have any chivalry left in him. That part of him had died when his human life ended. However, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from helping her.
You’d better start, a voice whispered in his head and he released her elbow.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“You’re welcome. Stay close to me.”
He led her to the back of the building and a set of stairs winding all the way to the third floor. Drawn onward, he climbed to the top with her close on his heels. The light on the top of the building did little to illuminate the night. His enhanced vision picked out more than enough details to know the place could use a good painting, and these stairs wouldn’t last another five years as they creaked and groaned beneath their weight.
Opening the little gate on the back porch, he stepped inside and held the door open for Abby. The space was small, but a picnic table cluttered with ashtrays and beer bottles was set to the side. He didn’t expect anyone to answer, but he still knocked on the door. Each rap of his knuckles caused flecks of paint to fall on his hand from the aging doorframe above.
He bent to peer through the glass into the gloomy apartment beyond. “What are you doing?” Abby hissed when his hand fell to the knob and he turned it.
The door swung open to reveal a surprisingly filthy kitchen. The kitchen was the least used room in any vampire’s home. There was rarely ever a need to clean it, but this one had dirt and blood streaked over the linoleum and white cabinets. Half the cabinets were open; some of the others had no doors on them.
“Vicky would never stay in a place like this,” Abby said from behind him.
He didn’t look at her. “She was here.”
Wrapping her hands around her middle, she hugged herself. “My sister is far from Mrs. Clean, but she wouldn’t live in filth.”
“A lot of this mess is new,” he murmured, as his gaze lingered on the dry blood that couldn’t be more than a day or two old, judging by the strength of the coppery scent. Inhaling deeply again, his fangs pricked and lengthened when he realized this was human blood.
“Do you think there was a fight? Do you think someone dragged her from here?”
“No,” he replied. “This is human blood.”
Beside him, Abby shuddered and hugged herself. Turning away, his eyes scanned the porch as he searched for something he could use to further guide him. Bending down, he peered beneath the picnic table. Spotting a jacket, he pulled it forward and grasped it in his hand. He allowed his mind to open to the residual pathways on the clothing from the person who owned it.
Finding a new soul to lock onto through the jacket, he tossed it aside and took hold of Abby’s elbow. “Come.”
“Did you see her?”
“No, but I did see the other vamp who is staying here.”
Abby’s mind spun as she glanced back at the trashed apartment before stepping out of the gate. Brian kept hold of her arm as he led her down the stairs and back to the truck. Opening her door, he helped her climb inside before walking around to the driver’s side. Abby tried to keep the uneasiness gnawing her stomach at bay as he started the truck and pulled away from the curb.
Vicky would never take off without telling her. No matter how rebellious her sister had become, she never would have left without contacting her first. Abby had been trying to hang onto the small thread of hope that Vicky’s phone was broken, or she had become so busy she had forgotten about the three lunch dates she
’d missed since Abby last saw her.
Vicky had never forgotten their lunch dates before, but it wasn’t entirely impossible. She loved Vicky, but responsibility and recalling times and dates had never been her strong suit. Abby was the one who had always handled remembering birthdays and getting presents for people. Vicky was attached to her phone, but she also went through a new one every three months. She was forever dropping them and destroying them. She’d even dropped one on the tracks of the T-line seconds before the train pulled into the station, but she’d still always found a way to contact Abby when something like that happened.
Now that hope was fading fast. Up to this point, she’d refused to give into her fear and admit to herself that something was terribly wrong. Now she could feel that fear threatening to take her over.
She was so focused on her misery, she didn’t realize what her surroundings were at first. Her eyes widened as they drove through seedier and seedier sections of the city. Places she’d never been before and had never intended to go.
A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as the row houses gave way to dilapidated and crumbling buildings. Plywood boarded some of the windows, graffiti streaked many walls, and more than a few looked as if they would collapse any second now. The main occupants of these forgotten structures were rats, stray animals, and lost souls.
“The people who can’t tell you two apart don’t know what to look for,” Brian said randomly as he made a right-hand turn onto a dark roadway.
Abby pulled her attention away from the buildings and back to him, as he’d hoped when he’d spoken. He could sense her anguish and had been trying to think of a way to distract her from her morose thoughts.
“And what is that?” she asked around the lump in her throat.
“Life. It radiates from everyone differently, especially you.”
What an odd statement for anyone to make, she thought. “But it was only a photo.”
“Don’t you know the camera steals a piece of your soul?” The wink he gave her tugged at her heart.
The Vampire Awakenings Bundle: Books 1-5 Page 116