“Are we going to be all right?” Gabriel asked, coming to stand behind me and put his arms around my waist.
“Not yet,” I answered honestly, “but we will be.” I leaned back against him and let the warmth of his body sink into me. His hair fell over my shoulder, and I inhaled the scent of his skin, soaking it up like a sponge. “Why are we here?” I murmured, turning my head so I could look up at him. “Why this place?”
His eyes were now the deepest shade of blue I had ever seen them, and concern furrowed his brow. “You seek answers, Rowan. What better place to find them than here?”
He was right. Here only the absolute truth could be spoken. Sebastian may have told Gabriel he’d taken me to the Void, but I was pretty sure the angel had no idea what had happened to me after that. It was going to fall to me to divulge the deal I’d made with the demon.
“Why did you give up the chance to take back your soul, Gabriel? Why pledge yourself to the Dark Realm?” I slipped out of his embrace and faced him. Taking his hands, I was grateful to feel his long fingers wrap around mine. “It wasn’t just about me, was it? Tell me you had other reasons.”
He sighed, and the warmth of his breath grazed my temple, lifting my hair.
“I had almost given up hope of finding you. Losing your memory also meant the bond between us was weakened somehow. I could no longer feel you, could not find my way back to you. The desolation was overwhelming. It almost destroyed me.”
I gasped. It had never occurred to me that my blissful ignorance of Gabriel’s existence would have been absolute torture for him, a torture he had endured for more than three hundred years.
“How did you find me?”
“It was pure chance. My sentinel, Tomas, saw you in the bookstore.”
I was going to have to make sure I gave the elusive Tomas a big kiss when I finally met him. “I’m so sorry that it took so long.”
“Ah, love, it wasn’t your fault. You had no way to prevent what was done to you, any more than you could stop the sun from rising each morning.”
Although it was true, it didn’t make me feel any better. “So you made a decision to not let anything separate us again.”
He nodded slowly. “I had just got you back, and, even though you didn’t recall anything about our past, you seemed so happy to be with me. It was a side of you I had never seen before. I could feel your joy every time I took you in my arms, the rapture when you gave yourself to me—”
“My temper when I slapped you?”
He flushed with embarrassment, but not enough to prevent his dimple from winking at me. “Even that was wonderful to me—and I deserved it, too,” he added hastily.
“But Gabriel . . . your chance at redemption. You’ve given up the possibility of returning to the Light, where you belong.”
“Is that what you think?” I nodded, my throat suddenly too thick to let me speak. “No, no, love. You’ve got it all wrong.” He took me in his arms and brushed the hair from my face with his palm. “Don’t you understand, Rowan, you are my redemption. To have you love me as I am now is all I ever asked for.” His brows pulled together. “You do still love me, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” I told him huskily, “but why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“I couldn’t. I had no idea when your memory would come back or how much you would regain.”
“But you knew it would come back?”
“Once a physical joining had been initiated, it was only a matter of time.”
His sudden unease pricked my attention, and I looked at him. A physical joining? “Are you saying if you hadn’t slept with me, I still wouldn’t know, even now?”
He let go of me and took a step back, struggling with the consequences of his desire. The power to keep me safely ignorant had been in his hands, or in this case his pants, all the time. He just hadn’t been able to smother his lust.
“That night on the porch,” he said, dropping his voice to a low whisper, “I knew a strictly platonic relationship was going to be out of the question. I couldn’t be with you, and not be in you. It would be like asking a starving man to have a seat at the banquet table, but tell him not to eat anything. Impossible.”
He was right, and I couldn’t let him shoulder all the blame. I’d been more than ready to jump his bones that same night. Who knows how long I would have been able to keep my hands off him? It was nice to know I hadn’t been the only one struggling with irresistible desire.
“But if you knew sex would be the catalyst . . .”
“I hoped that by the time your memories returned, especially what it meant to be my Promise, you would have already accepted and understood my decision.”
“You didn’t know Sebastian would pay me a visit, huh?” I wasn’t surprised to find I had conflicting feelings about the angel.
“Absolutely not!” Gabriel exclaimed, running his fingers through his hair. “My concern was with Katja. It never occurred to me that Sebastian would take it upon himself to interfere.”
“Is that how you see it? Telling me the truth was interfering?”
“The truth is something I would never deny you, but I would have preferred someone other than Sebastian give it to you. His constant struggle with the choice he has yet to make can have dangerous consequences. Separating the truth as it actually is from what he wishes it to be is a challenge for him.”
It was the most diplomatic way of calling someone a liar I had heard in a long time. And it gave me an idea who might have sent the charismatic angel to my back porch.
“Poor Sebastian,” I murmured. “He’s a bad angel who really wants to be good.”
“You have always had a unique way of looking at things, Rowan.” Gabriel drew in a breath and let it out slowly. I felt the muscles in my thighs stir at the sight of his chest rising and falling. “But it seems,” he continued slowly, “that others are determined to reveal the knowledge that I alone am responsible for.”
“I don’t see anyone else here,” I said, waving a hand around me.
“Now might be a good time to tell me whatever it is I need to know.”
He folded his arms, and my twitching thighs did their best not to collapse under the strain. It was good to know my earlier non-response had been nothing more than a reaction to the stress of the situation.
“If I had been able to block out my physical desire for you, thereby denying any possibility of your memory being restored, you would never know what being my Promise meant . . . and would have no idea that my soul was already forfeit.”
“Already?” I asked, puzzled. “I thought you only did this a few months ago.”
“In actuality, yes, but here”—he put his hand over his heart—“I made the decision a long time ago.”
“I don’t understand,” I told him, more confused than ever.
“You are correct in thinking I did not renounce my soul for you alone. Although you bring a light into this solitary existence that makes every passing minute more precious than the last, you are not the reason I was created.”
Whatever comment I was about to make died on my lips when movement between the trees of the outer ring caught my eye. The words I had been about to say were immediately forgotten as something slinked sinuously between the forest sentinels. Orange eyes glowed back at me, and I felt a strength of purpose coupled with a power that was far older, far deeper, and more fiercely compelling than anything I could conjure up in my wildest dreams. And I saw, moving in and out of the shadows with a lithesome grace that took my breath away, the leopard that had guided me here.
“They came to me in this place, long before the Wraith ever set foot here, and asked me to be their champion. I promised myself to them, Rowan, agreeing to help ensure their continued existence, to make certain the balance between their kind and mankind did not swing too precariously in one direction. If I were to refuse them . . .” He didn’t say anything else; he didn’t need to.
I had been so wrapped up in my own wants an
d needs, I’d forgotten about the petitioners who had asked to be given the glorious predator that was a vampire. I had no idea what sacrifices they had been forced to make in fighting for their survival. How could I know what it had cost them to turn to the Dark Realm, seeking an answer to their prayers. What it might mean, even now, if they were abandoned. Shame flooded through me at my selfishness.
Placing my hand on Gabriel’s arm, I stared up into his eyes. A ring of gold now circled each pupil, signifying his own hunger.
“I would never ask you to forsake them,” I told him, feeling the swell of emotion rising in me. “Never!” A chorus of snarls greeted my words, a chorus that, to my ear, rang with the sound of approval.
Taking me in his arms, Gabriel leaned down to kiss me, but I could still feel the lingering trace of another kiss recently bestowed on my lips. As much as I wanted Gabriel’s sweet breath in my mouth, it was time for my confession. The kiss might not have been my idea, but I had done nothing to stop it.
CHAPTER 28
“You’re not the only one with truths to share,” I told him as I gently extricated myself from his embrace and put a small distance between us. If I was going to do this, then I needed some space.
“Rowan, love, what is it?”
“Don’t!” I said, holding up a hand as he took a step toward me. “I need you to stay right there.” This was going to be hard enough without the distraction of his touch. “Please, Gabriel, let me tell this my way.”
“Very well.” He shrugged in bewilderment, but remained where he was.
In a halting voice, I gave him a full accounting of Sebastian’s visit to my back porch. What he had told me was my true purpose as a Promise, the restoration of my last elusive memory of that time, and the angel’s slant on why Gabriel was refusing to take back his soul.
“He wasn’t entirely wrong,” Gabriel admitted. “He just didn’t have all the facts.”
“Would it have made any difference?” I asked. “You said yourself he tells the truth as he thinks it should be.”
“Perhaps . . . perhaps not.”
I then went on to tell him about Laycee’s unexpected arrival—“And you’re sure she’s all right?”—and seeing the terrible condition of the starving Oscar, and realizing Katja was to blame, and my brilliant plan to get Laycee inside the house, and then everything pretty much going to hell.
“Did you take Laycee to the hospital to get her wrist set?” I asked when I was finished.
“Aleksei is taking care of that,” Gabriel assured me. “He will stay with her until daylight if we do not return before then.”
“But isn’t he already at the hospital with Anasztaizia?” Although he had mentioned earlier that the Russian vampire was at my house, it hadn’t really registered. I was filled with guilt at not asking about the beautiful Magyar sooner, and confused to hear Aleksei was with my best friend.
Gabriel frowned. “Why would Anasztaizia be at the hospital?”
I told him what Katja had said about the accident in the restaurant kitchen.
“Ah, now I understand. It was a lie, Rowan. Anasztaizia is perfectly well.”
“And you’re sure it’s okay having Aleksei stay with Laycee?”
“I’ll admit she seemed a little hesitant when I first told her who he was,” Gabriel said, his frown deepening as he recalled the moment, “but then she seemed quite taken when she found out he and Anasztaizia are engaged.”
“You told her that?”
“Was that wrong of me?” I shook my head, able to picture the relief on Laycee’s face knowing Anasztaizia was spoken for. “When I left them,” Gabriel continued, “Laycee was trying to persuade Aleksei to get his tips frosted.” His forehead smoothed out as he grinned at me. “I probably don’t want to know what that means, do I?”
“No,” I agreed, smiling with him and thinking the next time I saw the big guy he’d be sporting a new ’do. I didn’t realize Gabriel had broken his word to stay where he was until I felt him take my hand.
“What did Katja do to you once Laycee was safe?”
I hesitated, unsure of how to tell him another vampire had wanted to put me out of the picture, permanently. I didn’t think it was possible to describe the depth of the animosity the Goth Queen had felt for me.
“I need to know, Rowan, but if it makes the retelling any easier, her maker, Ryiel, has also requested a detailed account.”
That did make it easier. I had no personal connection to Ryiel, so I was able to picture Katja in my mind and pretend I was speaking to him and not Gabriel. In a matter of moments, I had described her plan to have Oscar feed from me, knowing that in his condition he would kill me. The retelling was very cathartic.
“You have no idea how close I was to peeing-my-pants happy when you and Ryiel showed up,” I told him.
“We should have got there sooner.”
“Gabriel, don’t!” I couldn’t let him carry the blame for Katja’s attack on me. “If Ryiel couldn’t stop her from coming after me, then who could? You do realize she’s a total whack job, don’t you?” I paused and waited until he looked at me. “I’m just grateful you showed up when you did.”
He turned my hand over and bent down to press his lips against the inside of my wrist. The gesture was wonderfully intimate, but as I looked down at his head, I thought of a different vampire.
“Did Oscar really have to be killed?” I asked, still shuddering over the almost casual way Ryiel had decapitated the vampire from the prairie state.
“It was for the best, love,” Gabriel said, straightening up. “He was too far gone to be brought back. Even draining you would not have been enough, and being denied blood for so long meant he was in constant agony.”
“Would Katja have known that?”
“Any vampire would have known.”
Which made her action all the more heinous.
“So what did Ryiel do with her?” It was disappointing to hear the other Original Vampire had not been in favor of removing the exotic beauty’s head. That was a treat reserved for starving vampires. Instead, he had decided a more hands-on approach was required for his wayward scion, an approach that brooked no interference from the outside world. “What did he do? Send her to some super strict religious order?”
“I think she would almost prefer that. Ryiel,” Gabriel went on to explain, “lives in an abandoned monastery in the foothills of the Himalayas. That’s why my return was longer than expected—”
“Stop it!” I could already see dealing with his guilt was going to be an uphill battle.
“Anyway, he lives in seclusion, cut off from the outside world.”
“What does he do with his time?”
“He adds to his knowledge. He has the best archives of both human and vampire texts in existence. Have you ever heard of the Library of Alexandria?”
My brain took a trip down memory lane to high school. “Didn’t it contain all the knowledge of the known world at the time? And wasn’t there a fire or something that burned all the scrolls?”
“Fire yes, burned scrolls, not so many.”
I stared at him with my mouth open. “Are you saying Ryiel has them?” I could only imagine what historians would give to be able to look at them.
“As I said, he adds to his knowledge.”
“So what does he expect Katja to do there? Sort and catalog?” I know I wouldn’t trust her around something as precious as ancient texts.
“He will expect her to reflect on her actions while she makes herself useful. Ryiel is a great believer in purging the mind with physical activity. I understand there are a great many rooms that need cleaning.”
“What’s to stop her from just leaving?” I couldn’t imagine the psychotic vampire with a broom in her hands. Not with those nails.
“She cannot. Ryiel is her maker. It is impossible for her to leave without his permission, and after what he saw her do to you, I doubt he will ever grant it.”
I still felt worse for Oscar. “Ca
n he be buried, or does his body have to be burned?”
“He was a vampire, Rowan. It must be burned, but we could bury his ashes if you wish. Do you have somewhere particular in mind?”
“I think he would like it if we took him home and buried him beneath a Kansas wheat field. He was very kind to me . . . that first time we met.”
I hadn’t realized I was crying until Gabriel reached out and wiped a tear from my cheek. I could see the muscle in his jaw popping, and I realized he was doing his best to keep the possessive side of his nature under control. Not knowing where I’d been or what had happened to me hadn’t been easy for him. And it was about to get considerably harder when I made my confession.
Keeping his voice low and as calm as possible, he asked, “What happened after Sebastian took you away?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
He shook his head. “All he said was you had lost your temper and kicked him.”
“And you didn’t ask why?” Especially considering where I’d kicked him.
“Why would I? You would have had good reason.” Gabriel’s complete acceptance of my action was strangely gratifying, and I wondered if Sebastian realized what a lucky escape he’d had. Perhaps he did, which would explain his reluctance to share details. “So what did happen, Rowan?”
It took a few hesitant starts before I was able to get my narrative flowing, but once I did, I couldn’t stop, and I told him everything. Including the good reason Sebastian’s testicles got rearranged with my foot. However, he stiffened noticeably when I described the English garden and taking tea with my demon host. Not wanting him to think I was hiding anything, I left nothing out of my description. I even included the tiepin and cufflinks.
“You found him handsome then?” Gabriel asked, his fingers tightening around mine. I noticed he made a point of looking down at the ground.
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