AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I grunted as pain exploded in my chest, an agonizing fire that licked at my flesh. Jack hit the ground hard, gasping for air, but I was too distracted, awestruck by the stake sticking out of my chest and the bloom of crimson staining my white dress shirt.
Centuries without being staked, it only took one interaction with this woman to ruin my record.
“Incredible,” I whispered as I pulled the wood from my chest and the wound began to knit itself back together. Moving it over my heart, I said, “Pity you didn’t aim just an inch to the left, love.” She could have ended this interminable misery once and for all.
I dropped the stake and strode over to where she laid in a heap on the floor, concern replacing wonder as I looked down at her. I’d never forgive myself if I truly harmed Franco’s daughter.
Though she was alive, defeat wafted from her in waves, her pain almost palpable in the space between us and maddeningly loud within her mind. I shook my head, completely captivated by her and the absolute lack of fear in her thoughts. Even as I stood over her now, clearly stronger than her and obviously winning this fight, she wasn’t afraid of dying at my hand.
“Jack,” I whispered.
Tears filled her bright blue eyes as she looked up at me and my stomach dropped out as it hit me.
That familiar, striking shade of blue. Her mother’s eyes, I finally realized, and the memories flooded me in a rush of vivid clarity.
Franco’s wife had died during childbirth, too weak to be saved even by my blood, though I’d given her plenty that fateful day our bond was forged.
I hadn’t stayed long enough to see the baby enter this life, too worried I’d be affected by the blood spilling from Franco’s wife’s body.
But they already had two sons, and I assumed the third child was also a boy.
A boy named Jack.
How wrong I’d been.
And it answered the question of why my blood flowed through her veins. We weren’t related; rather, her mother had lived long enough for my blood to transfer to her unborn child.
I stood and looked down at Jack. “You were the baby I saved.”
Her face crumpled and the tears flowed from her eyes freely now, but she didn’t say anything.
And she didn’t need to. Her thoughts were deafening.
Why? she wanted to know. Why me and not her?
In the seconds of silence that stretched between us I felt every ounce of her pain, every moment of needing a mother but being surrounded by men. I winced as she assaulted my mind with vitriol and grief, and as I turned to leave, to head up to her apartment and wait for her to pull herself together and join me so we could discuss the deal her father and I made twenty-one years ago, I heard the final question so clearly I couldn’t tell whether she’d spoken the words aloud or thought them within her mind.
Why didn’t you save them?
I paused at the door, hanging my head. Them. Not just her mother but her father as well.
This is why she trained. Not to fight, but to punish.
Because she believed I turned my back on her father in his time of need.
As I stepped outside into the night, I whispered, “He wouldn’t allow me to save him.”
The door closed behind me, but did little to muffle the heart-wrenching sobs coming from within the shop. I clenched my jaw and strode upstairs to her apartment, giving her the time she needed to come to grips with the truth of her father’s passing.
He didn’t want to be saved.
And she could no longer blame me for that.
Where did that leave us?
Chapter Thirteen
Vinny
