“We just agreed now wasn’t the time to get all serious.” She gave him a gentle push. “Now tell Conlan I’m ready to go.”
He gave her another quick kiss and disappeared, but this time looking a great deal happier. She quickly bundled up her daughter and waited in the hall for Conlan. Seamus was right. She needed to rest, to give herself time and space to get some perspective on the monumental changes her life had gone through in the past few days.
However, there was something she’d already learned. Hope was a precious thing, and she’d had far too little of it for a long time. But with Banan gone and Seamus in her life, she had hope again. And that was a good thing.
The alarm went off, jarring Seamus out of a sound sleep. He slammed the palm of his hand down on the clock to shut off the obnoxious noise. Now if he could just make the rest of the world disappear as easily, he’d be happy.
He pushed himself upright and sat on the edge of the bed for several seconds. Okay, time to get moving. He’d promised to replace Joss at Rafferty’s bedside, a chore he wasn’t looking forward to, but a promise was a promise. Thinking of his vampire host, he thought it was a damn shame that not everybody felt that way.
On the other hand, he’d never seen his sister’s eyes light up at the mention of Rafferty’s name nor could he imagine her sitting at the vampire’s side as he recuperated from a near-death injury. Rafferty had been betrothed to Seamus’s half sister but he’d called the engagement off shortly after he met Joss. Seamus suspected that if Rafferty had married Petra, the two would’ve both been locked into a loveless relationship forever.
He poked at that idea, trying to decide how he felt about it. Without question, he would prefer Petra were alive—period. Despite her shortcomings, she was his sister, and he’d loved her. But was her pride worth the cost of making not two, but three people miserable for the duration of their long lives? Rafferty wanted Joss. Joss wanted Rafferty. That much was clear.
He knew exactly what Petra had wanted: the status from being married to a vampire male from a higher-ranking clan. All things considered, she’d have found Rafferty’s cash to be cold comfort. Seamus had learned the hard way status was a fragile thing indeed. Any friendships and other relationships based on it even more so. Events totally out of his control had taught him that bitter lesson.
Now, here he was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by people he’d known but a short time. Yet, for the first time, he knew where he belonged, what his role in life should be. Hell, he even knew the woman he wanted to share that life with—Megan. How bizarre was that? His honor still demanded retribution for the death of his sister, but at what cost? And who would pay that price besides him?
This was getting him nowhere. Time to go babysit his patient. Do no harm, that’s what he’d promised. He now knew for certain that those were more than idle words, that they defined him as a person. Strip him of friends, family, money and anything else of value, and he still had those words.
Do no harm—the bedrock of his soul.
Joss crossed her arms and stayed right where she was. “And I’m telling you I’m fine.”
Seamus should have known it wouldn’t be easy. “Joss, go home. Don’t make me get Conlan to help me drag your exhausted backside out of here.”
Rafferty opened his eyes, a slight smile playing around his mouth. “I’d buy tickets to watch that. And just so you know, Seamus, even with the two of you ganging up on her, my money would be on Joss.”
His wife leaned over to kiss him. “Thank you for that vote of confidence, big man.”
Seamus threw up his hands. “Fine, she’s the toughest thing around these parts. That doesn’t mean she can go without food and sleep. You put me in charge of the health care for everyone on the estate, and that includes both of you.”
He glared at the couple and waited.
Rafferty supported him. “You heard the doc, Joss.”
She stared at her husband briefly before turning her hard gaze on Seamus. “Can I trust you with him?”
He knew what she was asking. He’d already told her the answer to that before he’d dragged the bleeding vampire into surgery and resented having to say it again. So he didn’t.
“Not a problem. He’s not my type.”
She didn’t find his answer funny, but at least Rafferty did. “I’ll be fine, Joss. Go.”
“Okay, but I’ll be back.”
As she walked out, Seamus followed her. She made it almost across the waiting room before stuttering to a stop where she slumped against the wall. He’d been expecting the collapse, figuring the only thing keeping her upright was sheer stubborn determination. Joss resisted when he tried to support her, but then gave in as tears poured down her face.
Finally, when the deluge had run its course, she stepped back, wiping her cheeks dry with the handkerchief he handed her. “Oh, God, I almost lost him.”
“But you didn’t. He’s a strong man, Joss.”
“But not invincible.”
“None of us are,” Seamus replied. “Will you be all right?”
“No, I’ll be okay.” She stepped out into the bright sunshine.
“I know.” He hovered back in the shadows and watched until she reached her transport and pulled away before locking the door. Time to go face the music.
On the way, he snagged four blood packs and warmed them. Okay, so as a delay tactic, it sucked, he thought ruefully. At the most, it would slow down the confrontation by only a few seconds. Besides, after feasting from Megan’s vein while being held in her arms, taking his nourishment from a plastic bag just didn’t cut it.
Rafferty probably felt the same way, but right now processed blood was all either of them had. He carried the peace offering into the other room.
“So I guessed right. You’re Petra’s half brother.” Even flat on his back, Rafferty had a commanding presence.
Seamus sat down in the chair Joss had been using. “Yes, although the half part never mattered. She was my only living relative.”
He held out two of the blood packs. “Drink these.”
Rafferty tried to hand them back. “I don’t need to feed as often as you do.”
“And you’d prefer your wife’s vein. I get that. But right now, you’re running several quarts low, and she’s already exhausted. Drink that or I’ll pump it in through a dull needle. A big one. If I look hard enough, I might even find a rusty one.”
“Okay, hard-ass. I’ll drink it.”
After they’d both finished, Seamus disposed of the empties and then quickly checked Rafferty’s vitals. “I’m going to look at your leg now. Want me to sit you up so you can get a look at your handsome new scar? Eventually it’ll fade away, but it’s pretty impressive right now, if I do say so.”
“Sure.”
When Seamus cut away the bandage, he stepped back to let Rafferty get a good look at his handiwork.
“Son of a bitch! I knew it was bad, but…”
All the color leeched out of Rafferty’s face. “No wonder Joss kept checking to see if I was really breathing. I came damn close to losing that leg, didn’t I?”
The vampire was the kind of man who’d want the truth. “No, you almost lost your life. If they hadn’t gotten you to me when they did…”
“You probably don’t want my gratitude, but you have it.” Rafferty covered his eyes with his forearm as he pressed the button to lower the head of the bed.
A few seconds later, he asked, “So, you do want to talk about what happened with your sister?”
Now that the moment had arrived to confront his enemy, Seamus found he lacked the words or even the will to do so. Instead, he concentrated on applying a new bandage to the surgical site.
“I never cheated on Petra with Joss, Seamus. There was one night, but—”
“What you did destroyed my sister, Rafferty. I don’t need excuses or details.” He added one last strip of tape, amazed he could keep his touch gentle when what he really wanted to do was to punch somethi
ng.
“No excuses offered. But you need to know the details.” Despite his calm tone, Rafferty’s fangs showed enough to reveal the powerful emotions he was fighting. “I need you to know them.”
“It won’t change anything.”
“Nothing will, but the truth is better than lies and misconceptions. If we’re going to find a way to get along from this point on, Seamus, we need a do-over.”
The import of his words sank in. Seamus looked at Rafferty in shock. “You’re not going to throw me out?”
“Let’s just say, it wouldn’t be my first choice. Now, are you going to listen or not?”
“I’ll listen. That doesn’t mean I’ll believe you.”
Rafferty smiled and shook his head. “God, you remind me of me. Joss thinks I’m the only one this stubborn.”
Seamus didn’t like that one bit, especially considering his low opinion of Rafferty. Although he had to admit, that had changed since his arrival on the man’s estate.
“I said I’d listen. I didn’t say I’d sit here and be insulted. How did you figure out who I was?”
“Something about how you were acting today reminded me that her brother was studying to be a doctor.”
“And you let me operate on you? You had to know I’d be looking for vengeance.”
There was real regret in Rafferty’s voice. “Had I known what happened…what the fallout had cost you, I’d like to think I would have done something about it.”
“Yeah, well, that’s easy to say now when it’s too late.”
“Okay, Doc, do you want the long or the short version?”
“What’s to tell? You broke your word to my sister and it destroyed her. I was just collateral damage.”
“You’re right, of course. I was betrothed to your sister when I first met Joss. But knowing your sister, did you really think our relationship was a love match?”
“No, of course not. I wasn’t blind to my sister’s faults. She’d already broken one betrothal when she realized that you were a step up for her.”
“And I was looking for a female who could handle all the demands our society places on a scion of a highly-ranked vampire clan. It seemed like a fair trade.”
“And then you met Joss.” He so didn’t want to hear this.
“She was the newest arbiter for the Coalition.” Rafferty stared up at the ceiling as he lost himself in the past. “I knew from the first minute she was something special.”
He rolled his head toward Seamus. “Imagine—a vampire of my age and experience falling that hard and that fast. Not that I had any intention of acting on it. I was a vampire, after all, and she was a lowly chancellor.”
He winked at Seamus. “Don’t tell her I said that or both of us will be bleeding.”
Seamus didn’t want to be charmed by Rafferty’s embarrassed admission, but he was. And for some inexplicable reason, Megan Perez’s pretty face drifted through his thoughts, yet another “lowly” chancellor who possessed both incredible strength and beauty. He hated knowing he and the older vampire had that much in common.
“Oh, boy, you’ve got it bad, too.” There was a great deal of sympathy in Rafferty’s voice. “All the more reason for us to get past this.”
“Keep talking.”
“I fed from Joss one time while I was still betrothed to Petra. That’s all that happened, but we’d crossed the line and we both knew it. Joss resigned as an arbiter as soon as the Coalition session ended. I went back home and broke off the betrothal.”
He sounded tired, by now his voice barely above a whisper. As Petra’s brother, he needed to hear more. But as Rafferty’s doctor, he needed to make his patient rest.
“We can finish this discussion later, Rafferty. Get some sleep.”
The vampire shook his head. “Don’t think I can do this again. There’s not much more to say, anyway.”
“All right.”
“Petra didn’t take it well. If I’d left her for another vampire, one she saw as her social superior, she would have understood. Or if she’d found another male who was easier to manipulate than I was, but my social equal, she wouldn’t have hesitated to dump me. Unfortunately, she visited me while the Coalition was in session and met Joss.”
Rafferty rubbed his eyes. “I was so damn careful, but Petra had a real talent for reading people. She knew I was leaving her for a chancellor, and that she couldn’t tolerate.”
That rang true to Seamus. “She would have seen that as insult of the worst sort, especially if her friends found out. She would’ve never lived it down.”
“I planned to wait a while before contacting Joss. To give Petra time to move on, so that no one would make the connection between our breakup and any subsequent relationship I was able to establish with Joss. The nobility of that sacrifice was lost upon your sister.”
For the first time, he sounded bitter. Too bad. All of this was still Rafferty’s fault. Their society might have overlooked him having a chancellor mistress, but he doubted Petra would have, especially when it was clear that Rafferty felt far more for Joss than he had Petra.
“Then all of a sudden, I was charged with murdering a human, one I was known to have had difficulties with in the past. I was duly convicted, the main evidence being my knife was found wedged in the bastard’s chest.”
Rafferty sounded so disgusted, Seamus found himself smiling. “Imagine! What were they thinking?”
“Like I would’ve ever been that stupid. I don’t know how familiar you are with the law when a death sentence is involved, but the Coalition grants the prisoner the right to have one of their chancellors review the case. If the evidence holds up, the chancellor executes the prisoner by any means they choose. If the chancellor finds inconsistencies, they have the authority to set aside the judgment. I chose Joss to hear my case.”
“And big surprise, Joss set aside your conviction. You managed to walk on a murder conviction, and married your lover. Everybody lives happily ever after. Well, except for Petra.”
A fresh wave of bitterness washed over Seamus, leaving him aching. He lurched up out of his chair, kicking it out of his way.
The vampire didn’t flinch in the face of Seamus’s fury. “No, actually Joss wasn’t the one who cleared me. I knew I didn’t have a chance in hell of being exonerated, but at least Joss would make my death painless. Not all chancellors are that considerate. But when Joss reviewed the file, she realized your sister had put a lien against my estate, hiding behind a corporation name. Instead of handling the final dispensation of the case herself, Joss called in Ambrose, her boss.”
Seamus stood up straighter. This part he hadn’t heard. If Ambrose was involved, it changed everything. The honor of the top chancellor for the Coalition was beyond reproach. No one among the three species was held in higher regard.
“What did Ambrose find?”
“He brought Petra in and confronted her. She admitted to having framed me. By law, she was tried, convicted and given the same sentence I was. I know it’s cold comfort, but Ambrose saw to it that it was mercifully quick.”
A heavy silence settled between them. After a bit, Rafferty stirred restlessly. “I can’t tell you how sorry I was that it came to that, Seamus. I may not have loved Petra, but I never wanted her dead. Hell, I even understood why she did what she did.”
There wasn’t anything Seamus could say to that. He’d known all along that there was more to the story than he’d been told. As soon as it became known that his sister had been executed as a murderer, his scholarships had dried up, his residency canceled and his world came crashing down.
“I’m going to sleep now.”
Rafferty tugged his blanket up higher on his chest and closed his eyes. He didn’t immediately fall asleep, but the pretense allowed both males time to deal with the emotions that the painful story had stirred up.
Seamus rubbed his chest, as if that would make the pain in his heart would go away. Damn Petra, anyway! If she’d come to him, told him what was going
on, maybe he could’ve helped her find a way to get past Rafferty’s betrayal.
But she’d thrown the dice and lost, leaving Seamus alone and struggling to find his own way. He hated that she’d been that bitter and unhappy, but hadn’t he meant anything to her at all? Obviously not enough to make any difference. As furious as he was with Rafferty, he was just as mad at Petra. God, the whole thing left him tired straight through to the bone. Catharsis might be good for the soul, but it burned a lot of energy.
Conlan had said Joss preferred that those who came to the estate were running toward their future rather than from their past. Right now, he wasn’t up to running anywhere for any reason, but he could walk. And if Rafferty meant what he said about wanting Seamus to stay, he’d eventually pick up speed toward a future that held something good, like hope or friendship.
Or maybe even love, added a quiet voice in the back of his mind. And with the memory of Megan’s sweet kiss, he dozed off.
Traveling by turbo left Banan filthy, exhausted and more determined that ever to wrest control of the family fortune by any means necessary. By fair means or foul, it didn’t matter. And speaking of foul, he wondered if Rafferty discovered the little surprise he’d left behind. Or maybe it was Joss who’d learn the hard way that the brakes on their favorite transport were about to fail. That would be all right, too. It was the perfect gift to show his appreciation for their piss-poor hospitality.
Which brought him back to the misery of the turbo ride. He could’ve called for an airlift pickup when he left the O’Day’s estate, but maintaining a low profile was more important than comfort. Money also played into his decision.
God, he hated having to conserve funds. As heir, he should have had unrestricted access to the family bank accounts, but showing an improved sense of fiscal responsibility was part of the total image package he was presenting to the older generation. If he’d managed to retrieve his daughter, that alone would’ve been enough to cement his future role of head of the family. But until he got his hands on her, he had to pretend to comply with the family’s expectations.
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