by Tina Folsom
Paul shrugged his shoulders, seemingly unwilling to give away anything else. The back of Gabriel’s hand hit him straight across the cheek. Blood instantly seeped from Paul’s mouth.
“He wants to destroy Scanguards.”
Gabriel nodded. He had guessed as much. “What’s he paying you?”
Paul’s surprised gaze struck him. “Paying? This isn’t about money.”
“Is he forcing you against your will?”
He shook his head. “He offered me immortality.”
Immortality? Gabriel’s heart skipped a beat. Luther was planning to create a new vampire?
“You don’t know Luther. What makes you think he’ll keep his promise to you once you’ve done for him what he wants?” Gabriel shook his head.
“He’ll keep his word. I know he will.” Gabriel was surprised at Paul’s firm belief. There was no reason, unless …
“Why are you so sure?”
“He did it for the others.”
Gabriel’s breath hitched. This couldn’t be happening. Ever since Luther had turned against them they’d wondered what he would do, but creating new vampires to build his own army? Was that his plan? Had he gone completely crazy?
“The whole story. Talk fast or—” he turned to point to Zane, “—I’ll let him continue.”
Twenty-three
Nina jerked and was awake instantly. It was dark. Only a small nightlight from the open bathroom door illuminated the bedroom. The mattress moved, the person next to her thrashing violently—Amaury. His screams had woken her.
Nina reached for the nightstand to find a switch for the lamp, knocking a book off of it in the process. The small lamp spread a soft glow over the room.
Her gaze turned back to Amaury who continued thrashing, having already tossed the blanket off his body. Sweat beaded his naked body. He mumbled in French, a language she didn’t speak, his head whipping from side to side.
It was evident he was in the middle of a violent nightmare. She hadn’t even known vampires could dream, let alone have nightmares. Nina placed her hand on his shoulder, trying to wake him.
A loud snarl ripped from his throat, making her jolt back instantly. She saw his fangs protrude from his mouth.
“Amaury, wake up!”
He didn’t seem to hear her, but continued to twist. It appeared to get worse by the minute. She had to wake him up no matter what. She was fully aware of her own naked body, and for a moment it made her feel vulnerable.
Nina swung herself over him, straddling him and in the same moment held down his arms. But even in his sleep he was strong.
“Amaury, you need to wake up. Please.”
She pressed her full weight down on him, when a growl filled the room. His eyes flew open, glaring red at her. Her breath caught in her throat as she tried to pull back from him. But in a split second he’d flipped her and pinned her underneath him, flashing his sharp fangs at her, snarling like a beast. She’d never seen anybody more frightening in her life.
“AMAURY,” she screamed, his face only inches from her. “It’s me, Nina. Please, stop!”
As quickly as he’d attacked her, he let go and pulled back, dropping back onto his knees. She pulled her legs up and scrambled backwards to brace herself against the headboard.
Amaury looked stunned and confused, breathing hard. “What happened?”
When she stared at his face again, his eyes had gone back to their brilliant blue, and his fangs had receded. “You had a nightmare.”
He averted his eyes. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I should have never made you stay.” He looked back at her. “Did I hurt you?”
His eyes ran over her body, seemingly looking for any signs of injury.
“No. It’s fine.” Only her heart was still beating violently.
He shook his head. “No, it’s not. I put you in danger. I could have maimed you or worse. I’ll go and sleep on the couch. Lock the door behind me.”
Amaury lifted himself up, but she took hold of his arm, making him stop in mid-movement. His gaze first fell to her hand then rose to her face.
“Stay,” she said.
There was a sad look in his eyes. “Nina, I don’t want to endanger you. If I’d known this would happen, I would have asked you to lock yourself in here in the first place.”
Nina pulled herself closer to him. “It wasn’t your fault. Please, come back to bed. I feel cold without you.”
She ran her other hand up his chest. She felt a strange sense of protectiveness toward him. Protectiveness toward a vampire? “Hold me and tell me about your nightmare. I know a lot about nightmares. You shouldn’t be alone right now.” Her own nightmares had always frightened her, and being alone after she’d woken up in the middle of the night had frightened her even more. Why would it be any different for a vampire?
Amaury’s reluctance to come back to bed was evident, but nevertheless he let himself be pulled back. She molded her body against his warm skin.
“How come you didn’t know?”
“I knew of the nightmares, of course, but not of how violent I’d turn. I always sleep alone.”
Realization hit her. “None of those women ever stayed here with you?”
Amaury shook his head. “I never felt the need to actually sleep with a woman. And when I say “sleep,” I don’t mean sex. I haven’t slept with a woman in my arms since I was human.”
“Oh.” Her whole anger about the many women he’d had sex with dissipated. Suddenly she felt too shy to ask him why he never spent the night with a woman in his bed. Or maybe it wasn’t shyness. Maybe she merely didn’t want to read too much into it. She didn’t want to get her hopes up that something special was growing between them.
She raised her hand to stroke his cheek. “Tell me about the nightmare.”
“I’m not sure this is something you’d want to know about me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s something I did in my past, something evil.”
Given that he was a vampire, she didn’t think there was anything that could really shock her. “We all have demons in our past. Maybe it’s time you talked about yours.”
“You sound like my shrink.”
His revelation surprised her. “You have a shrink?”
“I did, but he couldn’t really help me.”
“Then what have you got to lose by telling me?”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Nothing, I guess. One day, you’d have to find out about it anyway. Why not now?” Amaury pressed a kiss on her forehead. “Promise me something.”
Nina gave him a puzzled look.
“Promise me that whatever you might think of me after this, you won’t run away. I’m still here to protect you—even from myself if need be.”
“I won’t run.”
He nodded and swallowed hard before he looked straight at her.
“I committed a terrible crime. I killed my infant son.”
For a moment there was utter silence in the room. Amaury didn’t breathe.
“Oh, my God.” Her throat was too dry to say anything else. The revelation sank deep into her.
Nina felt him pull away, but she tightened her grip on his arm. She knew instinctively that rejection was the last thing he could handle right now. “How did it happen?”
“It was my first night as a vampire. I had no idea what the change would do to me. The craving for blood, the terrible thirst—I didn’t know how to fight it. Jean-Philippe was only three years old. He trusted me.” Amaury’s voice broke.
Nina hugged him tightly, stroking her hand over his broad back. He was a father—he’d had a wife, a child. She would have never guessed. Suddenly she saw him with different eyes. He’d cared for somebody before. He’d loved somebody once. “You didn’t want to do it. The vampire who turned you is to blame.”
Amaury pulled away from her. “No. I’m to blame. Maybe I didn’t ask to be changed, but I provoked it.”
“Provoked it, how?”
“I thought
I would be helping my family. I couldn’t provide for them, but then a man made me an offer. I took it, thinking I could make things better for them and for me. He made it sound so easy. He would pay me for allowing him to feed off me, but he didn’t keep to the arrangement and turned me instead. I didn’t know about the thirst, how it would control me. When I got home that first night after my change, Jean-Philippe was right there at the door, greeting me. I was ravenous, famished.”
Amaury ran his hands through his hair, a haunted look in his eyes. “I fell into bloodlust. Nina, I sucked him dry. My own son. I’m a monster.”
Nina wanted to give him comfort, but he held her back as if he didn’t feel he deserved compassion.
“When my wife saw what had happened, she cursed me. And then she flung herself off the church tower. She killed herself because she couldn’t bear the loss of our son. She had every right to hate me. I hated myself.” He paused. “She was the one who gave me this so-called gift.”
“Gift?”
“The fact that I can sense other’s emotions. She cursed me. Even though she wasn’t a witch. There was a belief back then that if you wished for something with all your heart and then killed yourself, your wish would turn into a curse. That’s what happened. She cursed me, just like she cursed me never to love again. Now you know.”
“Never to love again?”
Amaury nodded and swallowed hard. “Do you know why I live in the shabbiest part of town? Because I don’t deserve any better. At least among the less fortunate people in this city I feel at home. I sense their pain, their anger. There isn’t much love in the Tenderloin. I don’t get reminded often of what I can’t feel. It makes it easier.”
Nina took his large hand into hers and squeezed it. “Amaury, why are you so hard on yourself?”
“Why? Because every night I remember what I’ve done, and every night I wish I could turn back time and bring him back. Bring them both back. But I can’t. I’ve killed them both.”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “Haven’t you repented long enough? When did all this happen?”
“Over four hundred years ago.”
Nina gasped. “Even human murderers get out after thirty or forty years. You’ve been in this prison for over four hundred years.”
“And it doesn’t get any easier. Nothing has changed. My son is still dead, and I’m still his killer.”
“You were not in control of yourself. In a human court they would have called it mitigating circumstances.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No, but it’s the reason why it happened. You didn’t do it on purpose.”
“How would you know?”
“Because when you’re in control of yourself you don’t hurt people. You didn’t hurt me.”
Regret crept into the blue of his eyes. “I almost did.”
“The point is you didn’t. You are not a monster.”
“Since when are you the one defending vampires?”
“Since I got to know one.” She never thought she’d say such a thing and find herself in the position to defend him. A hell of a lot had changed in her world in the last three days. The pain she saw in his eyes hurt deep in her chest. Why was it that she was so affected by what he felt? Why did it hurt her so much to see him in pain?
“Nina. I’m damaged goods.”
“We all are. You’ve suffered long enough. Don’t you think it’s time you forgave yourself?”
“Forgive myself?” Amaury’s voice sounded shocked. “I can never forgive myself for what I’ve done.”
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “If you can’t do it for yourself, then somebody else has to. You can’t go on like this. I forgive you, Amaury.”
Twenty-four
Amaury stared at Nina, stunned, not understanding for a moment what she had said. She forgave him for what he’d done four centuries ago? No, he couldn’t accept forgiveness. He didn’t deserve it.
He tried to speak, to protest, but no words came past his dry lips. Her hands wrapped around his frame and her naked body pressed into his. She should be appalled by him, disgusted, recoiling from him. Yet she didn’t. Instead, her hands soothed him, stroked tenderly over his body and planted small kisses on his neck and shoulders.
Of their own volition, his hands pulled her closer, hugging her tightly as he eased them both back into the sheets.
“I don’t understand.” Why was his little fighter suddenly going all soft on him? He was the strong and scary vampire, the same who’d attacked her in his sleep, yet she soothed him with her touch and her tender kisses.
“You are too hard on yourself. It was an accident, a terrible accident. It’s time to let go of the guilt.”
Amaury didn’t know whether it was her words that made him feel better, or the way she said them. Or maybe it was just the way she snuggled into him, trusting him not to hurt her. But he felt calmer now, and the sadness that had overtaken him earlier had all but vanished.
He kissed her forehead, then looked into her eyes. “Who are you?” Not only did she block out the emotions bombarding his head, she seemed to understand him on a deeper level, knew what he needed when he needed it. Was it even possible?
Nina shook her head. “I’m nobody. But I recognize pain when I see it.”
And he understood. Having been raised in a foster home couldn’t have been easy. “Tell me about you and Eddie. I read in his file that you guys grew up in a foster home. Must have been hard.”
Nina closed her eyes for a moment before she spoke. “One foster home? Make that three.”
Amaury tucked her closer to his body and pulled the blanket over them. “Tell me what happened. I want to know what turned you into such a tough cookie.”
“You think I’m tough?”
He smiled. “Yes, and I mean that in a good way. I like a strong woman.”
“My parents were on their way back from their anniversary dinner.” There was a faraway look in her eyes, a look which spoke of sadness and longing. “The babysitter let me watch TV while she put Eddie to bed. That’s when the police showed up at the front door.”
She paused and took a few breaths before she continued. “A drunk driver, they said. He ran a red light. I remember my parents like it was yesterday. But Eddie was too small. He would cry sometimes at night because he couldn’t remember what our mother looked like. The first foster family we were placed with was nice to us, but then our foster dad lost his job, and they couldn’t afford to keep us. Eddie was heartbroken, but Social Services just took us away.”
She sighed. “They wanted to split us up at first, because they thought it was easier to place just one of us, but I wouldn’t let go of Eddie. I screamed at everybody who came close to us.”
Amaury brushed his knuckles over her cheek, wanting to comfort her.
“I was twelve when we were sent to another family. I was big for my age and I already had boobs. And that was a problem.”
Amaury’s stomach twisted. He didn’t like where the story was going.
“One day I caught my foster father watching me when I got dressed. He played it down, but I knew that look he had. At first I didn’t say anything because my foster mother was so nice. Eddie really liked it there, and he had friends at school. I didn’t want him to have to move again. But it happened again and again. Until I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
Nina looked at him with big eyes. “I found photos. Not just of me, but also of other girls. The perv was taking photos of us—naked, in the shower or the bath, or when we were getting dressed. He had spy holes all over the house.”
“Oh, my God. What did you do?” Amaury’s hands balled into fists. He knew exactly where he wanted those fists to land.
“I started barricading my door, but my foster mother got suspicious. By the time I was fourteen I wore clothes that would disguise my figure, so he wouldn’t look at me anymore, but he didn’t stop. Then one day I’d forgotten to lock my door and he came in. He touch
ed me, but I kicked him. He was so mad. I knew he would come back that night and hurt me. I picked Eddie up from school and told him we were going camping.”
Amaury planted a soft kiss on her hair. Why couldn’t he have been there to help her when she needed him? “Chérie.” It was all he could whisper to her.
“Social Services found us three days later, but in the meantime I’d already sent some of the photos to my foster mother, anonymously of course. When we got back, I saw she’d been crying. A week later Social Services came and picked us up again. She chose her husband over us. She stayed with him, with that perv. And she threw me and Eddie out. How could she choose him over us? We were good kids. He was a bad man.”
Nina choked back the tears. “They blamed me. Eddie did too. He didn’t understand. He was only eleven. They kept us at the orphanage for a while, and I wish we’d stayed there. But Eddie was a cute kid and popular, so they found us another family. After the last one, I didn’t think it could get any worse.”
Amaury felt anger built up inside him.
“Nina, you don’t have to tell me any more. I know this is painful for you. I understand.”
She shook her head. “No, I have to tell you. I’ve done something very bad. And you should know.”
Amaury kissed her lips softly. “Whatever you’ve done, I’m sure it was warranted.”
“I stabbed a man, and if I’d had the courage I would have cut his dick off.”
He winced, his body instinctively jerking at the image she projected. His jaw dropped open, and all he could do was stare at her.
“Yes, I took a knife and almost castrated my third foster father. He came to my room one night and raped me. I knew nobody would believe me if I reported it—he was an upstanding citizen, well respected in town. I knew he’d do it again. But I was prepared the next time.”
Amaury listened with bated breath.
“When he touched me again with his filthy hands, I reached for the knife underneath my pillow and stabbed him. There was so much blood. Only my cowardice saved me from actually cutting his dick off. Instead, I just twisted the knife in his stomach. He screamed, and my foster mother came running just as I’d thrown him off me. I threatened her too. And then I played back the recording I’d made on my little hand-held tape recorder. I always used it in school to tape my teachers, but I kept it close-by because I knew I would need it as evidence one day. On the recording my foster mother could hear what he’d been trying to do to me.