Valerian was downright crestfallen. "I wanted to give Daisy a child," he whispered, staring off into some realm Kristina couldn't see. "She's so beautiful, so smart and so good. She deserves a normal life."
Kristina felt a wrench far down in her heart. Whatever his faults, and they were many, Valerian adored Daisy. He had sought her out through lifetime after lifetime, only to lose her again and again. Clearly he feared that history would repeat itself. "Daisy loves you," she reminded him gently.
"Yes," he said, his tone dark with misery. "She loves a fiend, a monster, an inhuman ghoul who dares not sire a child for fear of creating something far worse than himself."
Kristina bit her lip. "I was conceived by a vampire and a mortal," she pointed out. "and I didn't turn out so badly, did I?"
Valerian touched her cheek, not as a lover would, but in the way of a devoted uncle or a godfather. His smile was beautiful, and full of sorrow, and Kristina began to fear for him. He had been known, in his long history, to succumb to terrible fits of melancholia, during which he could lie dormant for decades. One of the oldest vampires, Tobias, had gone underground long ago and never resurfaced.
"No," Valerian said. "You are a miracle, Kristina. But your splendid mother and honorable father are far better creatures than I have ever been."
Kristina willed Max not to come downstairs, but she sensed that he was stirring in his sleep, soon to awaken. Although he had seen Valerian at the Halloween party, meeting the legendary vampire up close and personal was something else again. An experience for which any human being would have to be carefully prepared.
She couldn't help thinking of her private theory that some vampires must grow weary of their existence, of watching mortal loved ones live and die. Though they were predators, blood-drinkers were fascinated by human beings and often became enamored of them, appointing themselves as their guardians or wooing them as lovers. Perhaps Valerian, who had been born as a mortal in the fourteenth century, secretly yearned to rest in peace.
"Do you ever wish you'd never become a vampire?" she asked. The kettle was whistling insistently on the stove, but they both ignored the noise.
"Yes,'' Valerian answered. "Each time I've found Daisy in a new incarnation and loved her, only to lose her again." For a moment a haunted expression clouded his fathomless sapphire eyes. "It is always with me, Kristina. The knowledge that she will grow old and die, and that I will live on, alone, and wait for her, search for her yet again—''
Kristina thought with sorrow of all the people she'd cared about throughout the years she'd lived—a very short time in comparison to Valerian—her beloved governess, Miss Phillips, for instance. Gilbert Bradford, her husband's brother, and certain mortal friends she'd made along the way. She'd seen all of them age and finally leave her behind. It would happen with Max, too, if they managed to make a life together, and the dread of that pierced her heart like a shard of ice.
"I would gladly surrender my immortality, if indeed that's what I have," she confessed, taking the kettle off the burner at last, pouring hot water over loose tea leaves she'd spooned into a crockery pot earlier. "To me, it's a curse."
Valerian closed his eyes for a moment, as though she'd struck him. "And yet you would suggest that I sire a child by Daisy," he said, meeting her gaze again.
"I would not presume to advise you one way or the other," Kristina answered, "except to say that I think you should forget your Las Vegas show for a while and concentrate on Daisy and Esteban. You yourself said that human life is fleeting—why spend so much time away from them? You certainly don't need the money or the notoriety."
"You're right," he conceded, though somewhat ungraciously. Valerian preferred to play the mentor and guide, not the pupil. In the next moment he assumed a stern expression. "Remember my warning. Warlocks are not to be trusted."
Upstairs, the shower was running. Max was out of bed; he would be downstairs within a matter of minutes.
Valerian arched an eyebrow. "The mortal?"
"Yes," Kristina said with a hint of defiance.
"Is it for him that you are willing to risk so much?"
Kristina knew Valerian was referring to her contract with Dathan. She nodded. "Do you dare to chastise me for that—you who have pursued one woman, one human being, down so many crooked corridors of history?''
"No," Valerian said softly, almost tenderly. "But I sympathize. It would almost be better, I think, if you took a warlock for a mate. At least then you'd be spared the terrible grief, the vulnerability."
"But that would mean giving up the joy as well," Kristina pointed out.
At last he smiled, and when Valerian did that, he was as much a work of art as Michelangelo's David. "Wise words," he said. He kissed her forehead and vanished.
There lingered a faint draft in the room, from the vampire's passing, when Max came down the rear stairs and into the kitchen, fully dressed, his hair still damp from the shower. In that moment of simplicity and silence, Kristina knew for certain not only that she loved Max Kilcarragh, but that he had been chosen as her beloved long, long ago, in a time before time, and a place neither of them remembered.
He approached, laying a hand to either side of her waist. He smelled pleasantly of soap, shampoo, and toothpaste as he bent to kiss her lightly on the mouth.
"Hungry?" Kristina asked.
Max drew her against him, gently but firmly enough that she could not doubt his attraction to her. He slid a second, featherlight kiss from the bridge of her nose to the tip. "Yeah," he answered, eyes twinkling, "but I'll settle for food."
Kristina laughed softly and turned in the direction of the refrigerator. Max caught her hand and pulled her back. "Sit down," he said. "I'll cook."
She was amazed again; so much about this man surprised her. In her adult life, especially during her marriage to Michael Bradford, Kristina had never been taken care of by a man. She had essentially looked out for herself, with occasional interference from her mother or Valerian.
Kristina allowed Max to seat her at the breakfast bar. The tea had finished brewing by then, and he brought her a cup before opening the refrigerator door and taking out the ingredients for an omelette—onions, peppers, mushrooms, fat-free cheese, and a carton containing an egg substitute.
"Is it possible for you to develop high cholesterol?" he asked, frowning at the collection of healthy foods.
Kristina flushed a little, embarrassed at this small, harmless reminder of just how different she was from Max himself and virtually everyone else on earth. "I don't know," she said. "I guess it's all part of the act."
Max's expression was thoughtful as he explored the cupboards, finally producing a nonstick skillet. "The act being your need to be—how shall I put it—ordinary?"
She nodded. Her cheeks still felt warm, and she was just a touch defensive. "I've wanted that all my life," she said.
He set the skillet on the stove, turned on the appropriate burner, and began mixing and chopping with a deftness that indicated long practice. There was a twinkly smile in his brown eyes when, at last, he looked at Kristina. "You've been overlooking one very important fact," he told her. "You, Kristina Holbrook, could never be ordinary, in any sense of the word. Even if you were mortal, you would still be utterly unique."
Kristina looked away for a moment, wanting to believe he meant what he said, but skeptical. He was trying to be kind, to spare her feelings. "I know what I am, Max," she said a little impatiently.
But it wasn't true, of course. She wasn't a witch, woman, angel, or vampire. What did that leave? Were there creatures on other planets like her? In alternate universes and parallel dimensions?
He poured the omelette concoction into the pan and added pepper and salt from the shakers on the back of the stove. He didn't reply to her statement, which made her uneasy.
"What do you think I am?" she asked, trying to hide the vulnerability she felt. When Michael, her husband, had learned of her powers, he had said she was unnatural, a bestial frea
k. Even after more than a century, the memory had the power to wound her.
"Beautiful," Max replied without hesitation, managing the omelette while at the same time meeting her gaze directly. "Intelligent. Generous. Responsive. Shall I go on?''
Tears gathered along her lower lashes; she blinked them back quickly. Her reaction was contradictory—on the one hand, she was relieved, but Max hadn't really had time to absorb and assimilate the various realities of the situation. It was too soon, even for a man as bright as Max, to comprehend what it meant to be involved with her.
Again he nodded, smiling a little now, dashing at her eyes with the back of one hand. "Yes," she said in a raspy whisper. "Tell me more."
"You have the elegance of a goddess and the mind of a philosopher. Making love to you was like being taken apart, cell by cell, and then put back together, but better than before. Stronger."
Kristina sniffled and then gave a soft laugh. Her hand trembled a little as she reached out for her teacup. "You either have a poetic soul or one hell of a line," she said.
Max found plates, divided the omelette, and slid the halves expertly out of the pan. "And you have a trust problem," he answered without rancor. "I guess that's pretty common these days, with both sexes."
She didn't point out that she didn't really qualify for the analogy; there was no sense in harping on the fact that, for all practical intents and purposes, she was some kind of mutant. "How about you, Max? Do you have a trust problem?"
He set the plates on the breakfast bar, found forks, and joined her, taking the stool next to hers, "No," he said after a few moments of thoughtful silence, during which he surveyed his half of the omelette as though he thought it might offer some sort of input. "I was raised in one of the few functional families in America. Nobody drank, gambled, or hit anybody else. We all went to church every Sunday, yet neither Mom nor Dad could be described as fanatical in any way. I was still in college when I fell in love with Sandy, and she happened to be an emotionally healthy individual, too. The toughest thing that ever happened to me—to all of us, really—was her death."
Kristina took up her fork, more because Max had gone to the trouble to cook for her than because she was hungry. It was a terrible injustice that someone talented and beautiful, with a loving husband and two precious children, could be taken in her youth, while jaded vampires yearned for the solace of death and were denied it.
"I'd like to know more about your life with Michael," Max said in that straightforward way he had that so often caught Kristina off guard. "What happened after the duel?"
Kristina started to rise from the stool, her food forgotten.
She wanted, even needed, to share the remaining letters, and the story they contained, with an objective person. If indeed Max could be described as objective, after the way he'd made love to her.
"I'll get the letters," she said.
Max stopped her, taking her wrist in a gentle grasp. "Not now, love," he said. "After breakfast."
Kristina realized that she was hungry, and returned to the omelette. "You're a good cook," she said with some surprise after she'd taken a few bites.
Max grinned. "I'm a nineties kinda guy," he said. "I also do laundry, clean bathrooms, and scrub floors. Once I even mended a tutu fifteen minutes before Eliette was due to perform in a dance recital. Naturally I wouldn't want the guys on my team to find out about that last part."
She smiled at the image of this large, powerfully built man stitching a little girl's ballet costume. The thought stirred a poignant sweetness in the bottom of her heart. "You're a good man, Max Kilcarragh," she said.
He sighed. "Don't give me too much credit. I didn't say I liked sewing and cleaning. It was just that somebody had to do it."
Because Sandy was gone, she thought sadly. It was almost as if Max's late wife were there in the room with them, and only then did Kristina fully realize that even if she herself were a normal mortal woman, there would still be an obstacle to overcome. Max had loved Sandy with a rare intensity. Perhaps he did not have the emotional resources to care so deeply again.
"Was—was Sandy that sort of wife?" she asked in a cautious tone. It wasn't really any of her business, she knew, but she still wanted to know what Sandy Kilcarragh had been like. She, who had always had servants, traveled the world, and, in recent decades, concentrated almost completely on building a business that was international in scope. "The domestic type, I mean?"
Max didn't take offense to the inquiry, didn't seem to mind it at all. He took his plate and Kristina's, seeing that she was finished eating, to the sink. "We shared the housework in the beginning," he said, "but once Eliette was born, Sandy decided to take a few years off from her teaching career and stay home. She did more than her share after that, but I helped with the kids as much as I could."
Kristina got off the stool, ready to go upstairs for the other letters. Her throat felt tight, painfully so, for she would probably never be a mother. She and Michael had never conceived a child, and besides, like Valerian, she was afraid of producing a monster of some sort.
"I—I don't think I can have children," she said very softly. She had very good reason to believe as she did.
Max, who had been running water over the breakfast dishes, left the sink to cross the room and take her shoulders tenderly in his big hands. "That hurts you, doesn't it?" he asked. And then, without waiting for her answer, which was probably visible in her eyes, he drew her close and held her tightly for a moment.
Kristina was starved for tenderness; she did not trust her judgment or her perceptions, so great was her need. She was intoxicated by Max's caring, it affected her like opium. She allowed herself to cling to him, just for a few seconds, then pulled away and went upstairs.
She found the letters where she had left them, hesitating only briefly before going back down to the kitchen again. Max was in the family room, sipping from a mug of steaming coffee, probably brewed in the microwave, and gazing out the window, watching a ferry head out of Elliott Bay, lights blazing.
With a smile, Max put down his coffee, went over to the fireplace, and built a crackling fire. It was still dark; dawn was at least an hour away, and there was a certain trenchant intimacy in being together when much of the city was still sleeping. A silent resonance echoed between them, too—a lingering sense-memory of their lovemaking, as though their passion had imprinted itself forever, in the very cells of their flesh.
Kristina stood still, watching Max, allowing herself the fantasy that there could be a thousand other mornings like this one. A lifetime of days and nights.
Max rose to his feet, dusting his hands together, and turned to face Kristina. He ignored the packet of letters in her hand. "Did you ever have one of those moments that you wished could last forever?"
"I think I'm having one right now," Kristina replied.
Neither of them moved.
"It scares me," Max confessed.
"What?"
"Caring so damn much. Kristina, I don't know if I can let myself feel what I'm starting to feel. I don't know if I can risk it."
She understood, or thought she did. "You don't have to be afraid of—of warlocks and vampires. I'll find a way to protect you—"
Max shook his head, and she fell silent. "That isn't what I meant."
Kristina swallowed hard. "Oh."
"I think I'd lose my mind if I loved a woman the way I believe I could love you and then lost her. I've been down that road before, and if I hadn't had Bree and Eliette to live for, I'm not sure I would have made it."
Kristina didn't remind Max that she was already a hundred and thirty years old, that she would probably be the one to grieve, not him. That would have been self-pity, even martyrdom, and those were states of mind she tried hard to avoid, though it wasn't always easy.
She might have said that there were no guarantees, that everyone takes chances, that caring is worth the risks involved, but all those things were too easy, too glib. Max's concerns were valid, and
so were her own.
There were so many questions, and so few clear answers.
* * *
CHAPTER 12
« ^ »
My beloved Phillie, the next letter began. Max had settled comfortably on the overstuffed leather sofa to read, with Kristina beside him, her eyes following the lines she herself had penned so long before. For her the experience was almost equivalent to reliving those dreadful times, and yet she knew she had to do it, in order to put that most disturbing part of her past to rest…
I had intended to write sooner, my patient friend, but it is not so easy remembering those dark days, even now, when considerable time has passed.
When last I put pen to paper, Michael had killed his own cousin, Justin Winterheath, in a pointless duel, whilst doing terrible damage to his own person as well. My husband's knee was shattered, never to heal properly, always to cause him inexorable pain. His drinking, already a problem even before we were married—I had seen that in him and yet refused to accept it as truth-became much worse. He now had the excuse of his injuries.
Phillie, you can imagine the gossip that followed the tragedy at Cheltingham, but I wonder if even you, clever as you are, can anticipate what a web of suffering Michael wove that early morning in the fog.
It was said that Michael was a murderer and should be tried and hanged for his crime. Lady Cheltingham, my mother-in-law, was a fragile wisp of a woman in the first place, and after the tragedy she went into swift decline. Her consumption of laudanum increased by increments, it was said, until she wasn't even bothering to get out of bed. Her husband, the once-blustering Lord Cheltingham, had never been an attentive spouse—I believe some of Michael's more pronounced character flaws came from him—but after Justin was buried, the duke gave up his gaming clubs, his hounds and horses, even his mistress. He shut himself away in his library, not to read, a pursuit which might have done much to mend his spirit, but simply to sit, or so the servants whispered, staring morosely out the windows.
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