After she’d finished the toast that Julian left on a plate outside her door—a peace offering, perhaps?—she snooped every inch of the fairytale bedroom. Truly a guest room, she surmised, it held nothing personal of Hester’s, though every object in the room seemed well cared for and perfectly suited to the overall décor. She wondered if Julian’s room was similar and toyed with the idea of snooping in there as well. She thought of just going in and retrieving her phone and keys, but something stopped her.
The trust issue loomed in the back of her mind. If she wanted him to view her as an ally, she had to give him every reason to believe she would never betray him. Regardless of his unusual circumstances, he’d suffered a great loss. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he needed a friend, even if he wasn’t prepared to deal with the mutual responsibilities of having one.
After she’d dressed and packed away her remaining clothes neatly in her bag, she decided to go back downstairs and poke the sleeping dragon, so to speak. To her shock, she found Julian outside on the shady patio sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs. He twirled a blade of sea grass in his fingers and stared at the bay.
He looked edible.
“Hey, I thought we were supposed to be hiding.”
“Back here, we’re invisible from the street,” he replied, his concentration still somewhere in the water.
“But I can see my car from here.”
“But your car—or anyone standing near it—cannot see us. Another of Hester’s impressive security measures.”
Zoe sniffed and lowered herself to the other chair. “She seems like a woman with a lot to hide.”
“She has power, and it’s her obligation to protect that power.” His voice held more than a hint of self-recrimination.
“Don’t beat yourself up over what happened with Lambert. How could you know he was going to toss some devamping potion on you?”
“I’d grown complacent. Bored, perhaps. I assumed he’d remain content as my subordinate since the position left him plenty of privilege and little responsibility. I’ve only myself to blame for this. He was the only other person I would have turned my back on. Now I’m paying the price for that trust.”
“Well, sitting here feeling sorry for yourself is counterproductive. You need to concentrate on your strategy. How are you going to deal with him on Saturday? What’s your plan?”
He swung his head around and gave her a blank look. “I thought I’d start by being a vampire again, and then I’d kill him. I’ve never been one to micromanage.”
“Okay. Sarcasm isn’t going to get you anywhere, either. You need to walk through it and work out a contingency—”
“Contingency for what?” He tossed the sea grass onto the patio stones where the faint breeze swirled it around in a lazy circle.
She gave him a cautious look. “If you’re revamped by then, you’ll be able to go in fighting. I figure he’s pretty confident that he has you over a barrel, so the advantage will be yours. But what if you’re still human on Saturday?”
“I plan to walk into the bay.”
She sighed. “Seriously, if you’re still human, what are you going to do? You need some kind of advantage because he obviously thinks you’re going to come in and bargain with him to get your fangs back.”
“I could bring him white cheddar quiche. I’m certain that would throw him off guard.”
Zoe rose and paced the small patio. “Oh, stop it. Self-pity is not becoming.”
“I’ve rather come to like it.” He continued to sulk, his gaze fixed on the distant shoreline.
“Fine. Wallow then. I’m going for a walk.” She dusted off her jeans and headed down the cobblestone path toward the water.
Julian watched her until her blonde curls disappeared behind one of the rolling dunes. His first thought was good riddance. He’d been enjoying his self-recrimination, turning it into an art form by allowing self-pity to fuel his need for revenge against Lambert. He’d been devising wicked schemes, cruel punishments and merciless forms of payback, but all of his ideas were dependent on him regaining his vampire abilities before confronting his nemesis again.
She’d thrown a wrench into his machinations. In addition to telling him, in essence, to get over himself, she’d reminded him there was no guarantee that even the Draconus could help him. She deserved to be bitten for rubbing salt in his mostly self-inflicted wounds.
His anger and frustration carried him reluctantly out into the watery rays of the early morning sun. His innate fear of the natural light subsided a bit with each determined step, and he wondered if, in time, he would get used to feeling the warmth of it on his skin.
Following her widely spaced footprints down the beach, he found her chucking stones into the water, the rising wind whipping her golden hair around her face.
“So tell me,” he began when he reached her, “what would you suggest I do? You act as if you have the solution to all my problems.”
She stopped, mid-pitch, a smooth stone perched in her fingers. “You sold me on walking into the bay.”
Julian jammed his hands into the front pockets of his discount jeans in order to thwart the desire to wrap them around her neck. “Now you’re cheeky. When I say things like that, I’m guilty of wallowing.”
“Well, do you want to wallow, or do you want to strategize?”
“I want to win. And something tells me you’d love to share your opinion on how I should do that.”
She tossed the stone and shrugged. “I think you shouldn’t go to Lambert’s alone, even as a vampire, but especially if you’re still human. You’ve got one powerful ally, Hester. Well, two if you count this Draconus person.”
“I don’t count him as an ally, or much of a person, to be honest.”
“Petty jealousies aside, you said if anyone can help you, it would be him.”
“And I can’t ask him to beat up Lambert for me, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“No. I’m suggesting taking Hester with you on Saturday. You said she’s powerful, and the Draconus can give her spells that she can’t find on her own. If they can’t revamp you, what about something else? Something you can use against Lambert that he won’t be expecting?”
Julian contemplated the sky. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she can turn him into a toad or hit him with a ball of sunshine or a pot of holy water.”
“Why bring Hester? I could throw you at him, and you could frustrate him to death with your eternal optimism.”
Zoe nailed him with another disparaging look. “Never mind. So sue me if I want to see you get what you want and give Lambert what he deserves.”
That stopped him. Since Brae’s death, he’d never known anyone who wanted to see him get what he wanted. Almost every vampire he knew was either his enemy or his underling, nearly every human was a feast or an inconvenience. He’d been an island for so long, it seemed unnatural to have someone on his side with nothing to gain for themselves. “Why the change of heart about Lambert?”
“What do you mean?” She swept hair from her eyes and followed his gaze toward the horizon.
“Before, you wanted me to leave Lambert to his victories and ‘make a new life’ for myself. You wanted me to slink away like a dog that’s been chastised by its master.”
“That’s not true. I wanted you to get psychological help because I thought you were delusional.”
He laughed. “And you no longer think that?”
“Last night I slept on the second floor of a one-story house where the candles light automatically and the windows open into nothingness…well, actually they don’t open, I tried, but nevertheless. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the one who’s coming unglued, not you.”
“So now you think I should fight Lambert?”
The intensity of her gaze practically burned him. “I’m beginning to think you don’t have a choice.”
Chapter Eleven
Apparently Hester’s amazing figure and flawless compl
exion came at the price of having not an ounce of truly edible food anywhere in her pantry. The cinnamon toast Julian had made for breakfast seemed to be the only nod to self-indulgence to be found anywhere in the witch’s kitchen.
Dejected, Zoe abandoned her search for lunch after finding nothing more promising than containers of wheatgrass, brown rice, and goat’s milk cheese. Aside from some salt-free crackers and ten flavors of herbal tea, there was nothing to eat in the cottage.
“This is a problem,” she said to Julian when he appeared in the kitchen with one of Hester’s magick books balanced in his open palm.
He gave her a distracted look as he set the book down. “What?”
“I’m starving. I can practically smell the boardwalk from here, and if I don’t get some cheese fries and a grinder soon, I’m going to die.”
He stared at her, and for a moment, she thought he might dismiss her complaint. “Cheese fries?”
“Come on! We can get some funnel cake for dessert!”
He looked torn. “We shouldn’t be seen in public if we can help it. Why not call the local store and have something delivered?”
Zoe sighed. “I can almost handle being on the lam, but not if I have to eat wheatgrass.”
Julian sat at the table and contemplated the dusty book. “I suppose during the day we’re safe enough…I’d like to see the old carousel again…”
For a moment, he looked nostalgic and utterly human. Zoe grinned. “I bet it was beautiful back then. Tell me, what were the 1920s like? That era always fascinated me—the flappers, the speakeasies…” She balanced her chin in her palm and watched him remember.
“They were interesting times. Fortunes were made and lost overnight, everything changed so quickly.”
“What about the stock market crash? Did it affect you?”
“Anton Brae, my sire, lost a lot of money, but he managed to rebound quickly enough. I was under his wing then, and I wanted for nothing. I was fortunate.”
“What about your family?”
He turned away then, closing the book as though he’d lost all interest in its contents. “They were gone by then.”
“They were dead?”
“People didn’t live as long then. Medicine treated symptoms, but there was much less emphasis on prevention of disease.”
“Did you have brothers and sisters?” The question seemed to touch a nerve, but his response was even and unemotional.
“My older brother died of influenza and a younger sister succumbed to scarlet fever. My parents…withered over time. I don’t recall their actual deaths as much as I remember them fading away, becoming ghosts of themselves. One day they were gone.”
Zoe nodded. She’d only ever considered the glamour of the Roaring Twenties, rarely the difficulties of everyday life.
“And what about you? How long has your father been gone?”
He did it again, turned the tables on her without mercy. She supposed she owed him as honest an answer as he’d given her. “I was thirteen. He’d been sick for a while, but didn’t tell anyone. He refused to admit his weakness.” Even after all this time, she still had to struggle to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “He didn’t want us to worry, so by the time he ended up in the hospital, it was already too late to treat his cancer. We were in shock. I hated him for it for a long time. But I’m over it now.”
Julian’s dark eyes pierced her soul. “Are you really? You seem determined to get those around you to face their weaknesses and embrace them, me in particular at the moment.”
With her family tragedy so far in the past, she could smile now. “Being human isn’t a weakness.”
“So you say.”
“Come on. What was so great about being a vampire? No walks on the beach—”
“Moonlight strolls can be very romantic.” He fired his response back with a wry grin.
Zoe rolled her eyes. “No sporting events.”
“Basketball, indoors. I’m a Celtics fan.”
“You can’t get a tan.”
“True years ago, but they spray them on now.”
“No garlic.”
“Bad breath.”
“Fear of fire?”
“I have…well, had an electric hearth in my townhouse.”
“What about work? I bet you can’t attend the company picnic.” She smirked.
“I employ vampires. They’re not much for barbeques.”
“Can’t cross running water?”
“That’s a myth, but granted, scheduling trans-Atlantic flights is a bitch.”
She sighed. “There you go. Travel is difficult.”
He shook his head, and his lips curved in an indulgent smile. “I don’t need health insurance.”
“All right. One point for that.”
“Immortality?”
“But your sire is dead, isn’t he?”
Julian nodded. “He was murdered—all right, yes. I can die, but only by the hand of another. And I’ll never age.”
“Ooh. That’s a good one.”
“And I get a fabulous return on my investments.”
“All right, but how do you explain to people that your birth certificate is a hundred and thirty years old?”
“Clever forgeries. My current paperwork says I’m thirty-six.”
“You don’t look a day over ninety.”
“Very droll. And you? Barely twenty-one, I’d guess.”
Zoe’s cheeks heated. Was he flattering her? “I’m twenty-six, but I’ve been told I have a baby face.”
“You ooze innocence.”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
“It is.”
“What about love, family, friends? Doesn’t it hurt to see people you love grow old and die?”
“It hurts when you’re human too, doesn’t it? My family would be gone whether I was a vampire or not, and my friends are vampires and witches it seems.”
“And where are they all? The vampire friends, I mean. Are these the ones you can’t trust because they’re all punching the clock for Lambert now?”
His smile disintegrated. “Touché. If I were human, I’d have friends who snooped in my apartment and kept tabs on my every move, not to mention passed judgment on all my other relationships. Damn, but I miss that.”
Zoe straightened her spine. Her impromptu intervention against the vampire lifestyle had backfired. “That’s not fair. Tanya and Bryan are like siblings to me. I love them, and they love me. That’s priceless, even if it comes with some…blurring of boundaries now and then.”
Julian leaned in close enough for his masculine scent to reach her. “Priceless is knowing the one person I trust will never let me down.”
“And who is that?” Could she bear it if he said Hester?
“Myself.”
“And where were you when Lambert was devamping you?”
He practically impaled her with a look, and when he wrenched his gaze away, she felt drained. She’d truly managed to wound him. “I guess you’re right. That leaves me with no one to trust. Not even myself.”
She held her breath while he stalked the length of Hester’s kitchen. It hadn’t been her aim to eviscerate him, only make him see that humanity wasn’t a disease to be cured. Somehow, after her earlier speech about not beating himself up over his mistakes, she’d managed to clobber him when he wasn’t looking. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
He didn’t look at her. “But it’s true.”
“No it’s not. You can trust me.”
“I’m sure you think that’s true.”
“It is. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Only because I insisted you come here, and I won’t let you leave. The reason I can’t trust you is because you’re vulnerable to my enemies.”
“So you can only trust people who are powerful, like Hester?”
“She can protect herself. You can’t.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not trustworthy. I keep my promises. I keep secrets.”
<
br /> “Like not telling your friend Tanya that you slept with Bryan?”
Zing. Zoe clamped her lips shut. Why couldn’t he let that go? It almost seemed as if he was jealous. “Bryan and I made a promise, which I’m honoring, not to hurt Tanya. Isn’t the greater good served by not telling her something that will break her heart?”
“Maybe the greater good would be served by revealing Bryan’s clay feet. Is he really worthy of her apparent devotion?”
“I think he is.”
“But would she?”
Zoe hopped off the chair and paced around the table. “How did this become about me again? We started out talking about you.”
“And I hate talking about me, so once again, I manipulated the conversation to suit myself.” He looked so smug about it too.
“Well, then maybe we shouldn’t be conversing. Since we can’t seem to find a topic that’s mutually agreeable.”
“That’s fine with me. I don’t need you to psychoanalyze me.”
“Fine. I’ll see you later then.” She headed for the back patio, but Julian stopped her, planting himself between her and the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going back to the beach. At least there, I can talk to myself, and no one can manipulate the conversation.”
“Fine. Enjoy your solitude.”
“I will.” Zoe flung herself outside, seething. She’d let him do it again, let him corner her and force her to deal with issues that were better left buried.
Damn Julian Devlin. No wonder he had no friends, except for Hester the beautiful vegetarian witch. Damn him again for that.
She stalked toward the beach, wondering if she could walk all the way back to Baltimore, where she belonged.
Julian paced back and forth between the chairs on Hester’s patio, alternately scanning the beach and cursing the heavens. Zoe had been gone for six hours.
Clouds had gathered late in the afternoon, obscuring the sun and bringing swift darkness rather than a brilliant sunset. Alone in the dark, on the beach or wandering around town, his gypsy was fair game, and that meant he was exposed as well.
Twice he’d started after her only to halt at the edge of the dunes and wonder if he wasn’t just walking into a trap. Would Lambert expect him to go after her, to protect her at the risk of his own safety?
Uncross My Heart Page 12