“It’s too late, habibti,” Alessandro said. Even in his blindness he knew what she was doing and why. “He’s already aware of the nature of our relationship, trust me on this.”
“It makes me feel better, okay?”
He smiled, eyes unfocused. “Yes, habibti.”
Davide returned with an electric space heater that he plugged into the wall behind the settee. Thirty seconds later she could already feel the warmth radiating toward her. She scooted closer to it.
“You kept your charge alive and well, I see,” Davide said to Alessandro.
“It was close a couple of times.”
Kendra wondered what Davide was thinking about this, about them. He had told Alessandro over the phone earlier that there would be a few formalities before he could perform the ceremony, but that they wouldn’t take very long. Regardless, they were stuck there until sundown doing she had no idea what, especially with Father Davide in between and Alessandro blind.
This was the first time in their relationship they’d actually interacted as a couple with anyone else. Awkward was definitely the word of the day.
“Any sign of your son?” Davide asked.
“He’s been the cause of a number of outbreaks around the world, but all the werewolves can find are his Slaves.”
“He is known for having them do all the work. He could do that for centuries.”
“He wants Lothar, and werewolves don’t live long enough for that. He’ll show himself when he’s frustrated enough with his game playing.”
“Could take decades.”
“It won’t.”
Not with Danielle expecting, Kendra finished in her head. Theron must have known by now, and probably planned to strike within the next few months. Alessandro didn’t say anything, understanding the need to keep the pregnancy under wraps.
He reached for Kendra and she put her hand in his, gripping tightly to his fingers. She knew he wouldn’t touch her throat, not on purpose anyway, but what if he did it on accident groping for her? She was already embarrassed quite enough.
“Kendra is tied in with Lothar’s mate,” Alessandro said.
“I’m the missing link.”
“He’ll come for us,” Alessandro said. “The wolves know and plan to strike when he does.”
“And you?”
“I’d planned on doing it myself. But no, it’s too risky. Let them do their job and I’ll do mine.”
She looked to Father Davide, who smiled at her with a warmth she hadn’t expected. It made her drop her guard. A little. She drank some of her tea.
“Which leads us all to why you are here.”
“A dress,” she remembered out loud.
Both men looked at her, or in her direction as it were.
“I forgot to pick out a dress. I don’t even have any dresses with me.” Dumb of her, and even dumber that she’d thought to have a ridiculously Gothic nightgown overnighted to her in Seattle, but not a wedding dress.
Alessandro smiled. “You have had bigger things to worry about, habibti. It doesn’t matter.”
It was too late to do anything about it, even though she’d rather not be married in jeans. No dresses to be found in a monastery either. “Too late now.”
He released her hand, tugged on her sleeve until she gave in and scooted closer. The warmth from the heater had not affected him, but now she was warm enough that she could touch him without shivering.
“It is a common practice,” Davide said, “that before I perform the rites, I talk to the bride and groom separately. It’s nothing personal against either of you, of course.”
She glanced at Alessandro, saw the brief thinning of his lips.
“All right. I’m ready,” she told Davide, figuring she might as well get the formalities done and over with.
“Then we’ll do that now. I’m sure you are anxious to see Alessandro’s quarters.”
“No,” he said.
She frowned at him. “Why not?”
“They are… uninviting.”
Kendra motioned around the room. “So far, everything I’ve seen has been pretty Spartan.”
Father Davide joined the conversation. “We live a simple life so that we can focus on things that are of more importance to us. You will like to see Alessandro’s books and antiques. He has quite a collection.”
That made her smile. “Simple existence, huh?” she teased.
“Some are more accustomed to the finer things than others,” Davide supplied with his own smile.
Alessandro made one of those faces everyone does when they know they’re being gained up on by people who care about them.
“I’d like to see his collection, especially since it embarrasses him. So ask away. Where do you want to do it?”
“Stay here, where it’s warm,” Alessandro said, standing.
She stood with him, afraid he might break something if she didn’t help him find the door. He fumbled a bit, and caught her shoulders.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll be right outside, just in case he’s too much for you.” He smiled in Davide’s direction.
He was joking, of course. She knew he wouldn’t leave her alone with anyone in the first place unless he trusted them.
“I can almost make out shapes now anyway.” He walked away, bumping into a coffee table. Kendra winced at that, more in empathy with the table than of him. Her nose hurt just thinking about it.
“I’ll get the door before you break it,” Davide said.
She sat safely out of the way as Alessandro, with Davide’s help, found his way successfully out the door. It closed behind him with an odd sense of finality, and the priest returned to his seat.
“I ask this of every bride, so don’t be alarmed by it,” he told her.
As soon as people said things like that to her, she felt alarmed. Why say it unless there was something to be alarmed about?
“First, I need to confirm that you are entering into this union of your own free will,” he said.
He asked every bride that? Were forced marriages a problem in Switzerland?
“Of course I am.”
“You do understand that marriage is a sacred oath.”
“’Till death do us part and all of that.” She laughed nervously. Her groom wasn’t technically alive.
Davide just smiled, humoring her. He lowered his voice. “I have known Alessandro since I first entered the priesthood,” he paused, seemed to be thinking about it, “over forty years ago.”
Davide looked fifty, but then, that was typical of Shifters, who aged more slowly than humans.
“In those years, I have spent more time with him than anyone else. Save you,” he added. “He and I both came here for similar reasons.”
“A vampire and a werewolf, friends?” she asked, but it was done facetiously. She knew by now to expect the unexpected from her vampire.
“As a man, he is a good one. As a vampire, he is remarkably well-controlled.”
She noted the way he referred to Alessandro the man, with his own distinct personality, and then the vampire in him as if making a case study. Werewolves studied vampires and collected data on them, like biologists did animals in the wild. Kendra wondered how that affected Alessandro’s friendship with Davide, or maybe he was so used to being labeled that it didn’t faze him any.
“I don’t think I have to remind you of what he is,” Davide said.
She didn’t care for his tone of voice, cutting now. “Then why are you reminding me?” she questioned back.
His chin jerked up. Good. Now he knew she was no lamb to the slaughter. Well, okay, maybe in the end she still was, thanks to her mortality. But she knew that part was best not thought on too deeply or for too long.
“It would be a dereliction of duty on my part if I didn’t warn you.” He reached for her hand. It surprised her how warm he was, like Alessandro right after he had fed. She let him touch her briefly, but made sure her face told him that she hadn’t forgotten what he was, o
r that Alessandro was just outside the door.
Geesh, since when had she become so self-protective, anyway?
He let go of her hand. “Have you talked about the long term effects of this relationship?”
“We have agreed that I should remain human.”
“Which also comes with its own price.”
Even as Davide spoke, she felt the pinch of Alessandro’s fangs, the warm pull of her blood out of her veins. Her awareness shifted to her vampire, outside waiting. He knew her need. She knew his. It was always worse when he was thirsty.
“I am aware,” she said, swallowed thickly.
“You need to understand, that if something should go wrong, he might not have the strength to let you die.”
“He wouldn’t kill me.” She knew he wouldn’t want to, but she practically begged him to drain her every time he drank. How much self-control could any one person have, especially doing that every forty-eight hours over the course of a decade? How about two decades? How much time did they really have together? Eventually, she would look like his mother, not his wife.
“Humans can die in many ways,” Davide said. “Accidents, for example. What if he found you dying? Do you think he could resist, especially when he can smell your blood?
“He can smell it, accident or not. And I’d want him to be the one to do it, anyway. If I’m dying then I want to be a part of him when I go. No woman will ever understand him like I can.” How she knew that, she didn’t know. She just did.
Davide nodded. “Very well then,” he said frankly. “Just give me a moment to speak to Alessandro.”
After the door closed she sat there silently in the sparse stone chamber. Her tea cup, still clutched in her hand, was cold. She looked at it absently then stood, setting it aside on a table. Kendra went to a tiny widow and peeked under the curtain. It was a clear winter day, the sky blue and sun reflecting off the snow covered ground like a thousand shards of glass.
Alessandro hadn’t seen a blue sky in thousands of years. He’d never seen the snow in the light of day. Never. She dropped the curtain, backing away from the window.
Davide had asked her if she thought Alessandro would have the strength to let her die when the time came, which it would come. It was inevitable. Either he would do as she wished and let her die high on him, or he would inject her with his venom, making her just like him.
And yet not.
Without the control that he’d learned over centuries, she would be a killer.
Kendra had assumed all this time that the worst case scenario would be her throwing herself at him at the wrong moment. Was she ready to spend the rest of eternity like him? And it wasn’t the like part. She loved him for God’s sake. But what if she killed people? What if she killed a lot of people, and even he couldn’t stop her?
She could sense Alessandro, knew that he felt her anxiety. She looked at the closed door between them. Every time he drank of her they became more connected. She became more like him. His essence, he’d called it. It was like being part vampire. Only she carried in her his blood; produced it in her still mortal body. Kendra felt her way to the couch and sat.
It was happening again. She was losing it. Their last joining was fading with the blood his body couldn’t make.
And soon she would go mental.
She pulled out his ring box, as if holding it in her hands could help ground her. She took a breath, and then opened it. Damn, that thing must have cost a fortune. It was solid platinum, and really ridiculously Gothic. What had she been thinking?
The door opened and they returned, Kendra shoved the ring away and made every attempt to look like she was okay. Alessandro turned to Davide and said something. They had super-hearing. She didn’t.
Davide left. Alessandro missed the table this time around.
“You eyesight’s getting better,” she said.
He sat next to her. “I can see outlines now, but everything’s still blurry.” He reached out, Kendra holding her breath as he found her face, cupping her cheek in a cold hand. “I won’t touch your neck,” he said softly. “Not until tonight.”
“Good idea.”
“You’re upset.”
“It’s that time again. It gets bad.”
“There’s more.” He lowered his hand. “If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.”
“It was my idea.”
“Marriage, yes. But the sex was mine.” He smiled.
“It was both of us, and I don’t think we can make it without either.”
His gaze was noticeably clearer now as he turned it fully on her. “You don’t have to tie yourself to me for the rest of your life for that.”
Her gaze flicked to the icon of Mary hanging on the wall between them, baby Jesus perched resolutely on one knee. “I’m very cautious about that, you know.”
His smile reemerged. “I would rather leave you wanting a confession in the present, than to ruin you for eternity.”
Whoa. What had Father Davide said to him out there?
“How would you ruin me?”
He moved her hair all off her neck. She touched the marks there. For her, they just felt like scars, raised and a little numb.
“Need I explain?” he said.
She shook her head. “I guess not.”
Yes, she still struggled with the complexity of their relationship, but loving him was something she knew she had to do.
“No,” she said. “We’re stuck with each other.”
“There are other options, habibti.”
“What options?” She only saw one.
He pulled her against his chest, a little too tightly but she didn’t care. Kendra tucked her face against his sternum. She felt his fingers tangling in her hair.
“We consider this a temporary arrangement; do whatever we have to, to survive. Afterwards you confess of your lust for me,” she heard the smile in his voice, “seek pardon, and never see me again.”
“Alessandro, no.”
“I’ll go far away. So far you won’t be able to sense me.”
“I said, no. Next option. Didn’t we already decide I wasn’t safe without you?”
He took a breath. “You’re not safe with me.”
She sat up. “Will you at least give me the choice?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Yes. Now it was clear.
“I made my choice.” She felt around her pockets and took out the ring box, holding it in her palms in front of him. “Can you see this?”
“I know what it is.”
“I’m keeping you, okay? Whether you like it or not.”
“I like, habibti. I just need to be sure that it’s your choice.”
“It’s my choice. Now stop being such a pain.”
Chapter Fifteen
“It won’t fit your guns,” Vesper said.
“It’ll fit my guns.” Nick grinned.
“Lothar said we could take any car?”
“Yeah, but he did recommend the Land Rover. Something about a smuggling compartment.”
“Taip. Comes in use when have to hide things from border control.” Vesper grabbed Nick’s sleeve, pulling him away from the ethereal glow of the white Austin Martin. “I hate that car. My legs cramp up after the first hour.”
He looked at her legs. “We wouldn’t want that.”
They moved on toward the next slot in the garage. There was a whole row of cars, each with its own locked door. He opened it to reveal a white Land Rover, a few years old, and in perfect condition. “Why are all your brother’s cars white?”
“Because my uncle would never drive a white car.” Her brow furrowed. “And I think Lothar has a white knight complex.” She shrugged.
“Figures.”
“Danielle likes his complex, and that is enough for me.”
Nick lifted his brows in question.
“I could not imagine living with him if Darling,” she rolled her r extra-long, “was not around. I love my brother,
but if he did not have her to focus on, I might hurt him.” She showed her teeth.
“Hey, I wouldn’t even be here if she wasn’t.” Nick went to the metal box on the wall and swiped a key card to unlock it. He took out the key to the car then closed the door. “Let’s hope it starts. He drives it once a year, probably?”
“Not that even. But he has them maintained.” She opened the back of the Land Rover and loosened the carpet. Feeling around a bit she released a hidden catch and a compartment opened. “I take his favorite BMW out myself before he comes home from extended trips, to be sure is working for him.”
“Mothering complex?”
She eyed Nick. “You do not mind when I use on you.”
Nick shook his head as he loaded his rifle, silencer, and ammo into the compartment. “I’ll have to make a stop for more ammo,” he said, avoiding the topic entirely. “I already made all the arrangements. Seems people jump at the name, Ludvitski.”
“They do. Is why we do not go by alias. Once you make reputation, you want to keep it.”
Nick closed the hatch. “Don’t they get suspicious about you not aging like you should?”
“Not so much. No one stays in one place very long anymore. By time anyone recognizes me on sight, someone else has taken their place. Or I say something about Botox and they leave alone. Not polite to ask a woman her age. They take my money and leave alone.”
Nick turned the ignition and the car started right up. “Your life is bizarre, beautiful.”
“I know. At least that is what I have been told. For me, is normal.” She smiled. Vesper was tall like her brother, lean and graceful too. She had black hair down to her hips and eyes that disclosed a softer, maternal side. She was an alpha female. Her softer self only emerged in its true glory when her defenses crumbled. “You are staring,” she said, then smiled again.
“You’re the prettiest partner a cop could ever have. My last one wasn’t much to look at.”
“You are not cop anymore.”
“I don’t have the badge, but nothing can change what I am. I just have bigger monsters to catch these days.”
“And one to tame.”
As if that could ever happen, not that he was complaining. He pulled out of the garage, glancing at her. “I’ll have to keep working on that.”
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