Page 59 of Vanessa’s Bravery

He shook his head and tightened his jaw. “You can’t love anybody! You kill people! You attack them and feed off them!” A creature like that didn’t have a heart.

He ran a hand through his hair, and realized it was trembling.

“I don’t hurt people. We don’t attack them… we don’t kill them. Please, Cole, just let me explain everything,” she begged.

“Don’t! I don’t know how I could have ever felt anything for you! You deceived me from the moment I met you. What was your plan, huh? Gain my confidence? And then what? Keep me locked up somewhere so you could feed from me whenever you wanted blood? How could I have been so stupid?” He glared at her. “I wish I’d never touched you!”

“Don’t say that, Cole. I would never hurt you.”

He made a step to the side and glanced at the door behind her. “Then let me leave.”

“Please, stay, and let me show you that my family and I aren’t the bad guys.”

“So you’re not gonna let me leave, is that it? Well, I guess that proves my point. You’re just as bad as that rogue.”

He steeled himself for the inevitable. When would she attack him? Would it be as painful as when the rogue had sunk his fangs into his neck? Would he feel a second time how his life was slipping through his hands? Would he feel that same helplessness again? Or would it be worse, because he would die at the hands of the woman he’d loved and trusted?

Vanessa suddenly stepped away from the door and trained her gaze to the floor. “You’re free to leave. I won’t force you to stay with me if you don’t want to.”

Her voice sounded different now, resigned. But was it a trick? He hesitated, but Vanessa didn’t move. He walked to the door and opened it. She didn’t stop him when he left the office and walked to the elevators to get out of the building. He reached his car in the garage without anybody running after him or stopping him. Still, his nape prickled, and he felt like prey.

When he drove out of the garage and merged into traffic, he kept looking into the rearview mirror, but from what he could tell, nobody was following him.

On the drive home, he felt as if he were in a trance. He got lost twice, before he found the right street that led him toward his neighborhood. Every word of his conversation with Vanessa replayed in his mind.

So many things made sense all of a sudden. Yet, so many other things didn’t. He’d seen Vanessa walking outside during daylight. Did that mean that vampires didn’t burn in the sun? He’d also watched her eat regular food—though not a large amount. When she’d saved his life that night, she’d killed the rogue with such precision and nonchalance that he had to assume that this was nothing new to her.

How could he have been so wrong about her? He’d seen her as an innocent, a vulnerable, caring woman, yet she was a bloodsucking monster, a killer without a heart. Just like the rest of her family. Now that he thought back to his interactions with Gabriel, he understood so much more.

The good genes Gabriel had claimed were keeping him looking young were nothing but a lie. He was a vampire, and therefore didn’t age, just like his wife and Vanessa herself. No wonder Gabriel hadn’t been worried about Vanessa going out patrolling at night. More like prowling! After all, she was a predator. They’d dished up so many lies, and he’d eaten them up. Why? Because he didn’t want to see the truth. He wanted to live in the fantasy that he’d finally found a woman he could be happy with—only to be proven wrong. He couldn’t be happy with a vampire. What kind of life would that be?

By the time he reached his condo building, and was back inside his place, his mind was spinning. The tangled sheets of his bed reminded him of making love to Vanessa. He’d made love to a vampire. And he’d loved it, and still craved it, craved her. What did that make him? An idiot? A hypocrite?

Even now, as he sat down on the bed, his head in his hands, he wanted nothing more than feeling Vanessa pressing her body to his, their lips locked in a passionate kiss. At the thought of it, he felt both his cocks rising. Fuck! How could he get hard at the thought of fucking a vampire? It only proved how perverted he was, how desperate to fulfill his sexual need. Was he condemned to long for Vanessa because she was his mate? What if he had no choice because they were meant to be together? Or was he using this argument as an excuse, because deep down in the recesses of his mind he still wanted her, no matter who or what she was? Just like he’d wanted her when he’d thought she was a prostitute. Had his heart really made its choice? Or would the love he felt for Vanessa dim now that he knew the truth about her?

“Goddamn it!” he cursed and looked up toward the ceiling. “What other trials do I have to pass before I can be happy? Isn’t it enough already? What have I done to deserve this?”

There was no answer.

“Dad?” he murmured, tears welling up in his eyes. “If you can hear me, Dad, please help me make the right decision.”

To leave San Francisco now and never come back, or to stay and accept his fate: to let Vanessa turn him into a vampire so they could have a life together.

28

Patrick shackled Mike Harris, the rogue vampire, to the metal chair that was affixed to the floor in the large underground interrogation room. The room was high, and from a two-way mirror just beneath the ceiling, observers could watch and listen to the interrogation without being seen. Ethan was in the room with him, and since they were the ones who’d brought in the suspect, they got the first crack at questioning him.

Samson and Gabriel were watching from the observation room, and Patrick wanted to show his father that he was more suited to this kind of work than running the company.

Patrick still wore his leather gloves, which he’d needed to handle the silver chains. He now took them off and tossed them on the metal table on which several instruments were displayed. They were the standard clamps, blades, and pliers used for light torture, as well as a few other items, though it was rare that any of the tools were used to elicit information from a captive. They served mostly as a veiled threat of what would happen if answers weren’t forthcoming.

“See this, Harris?” Patrick asked, pointing to the torture instruments. “Do I need to use them, or are you gonna answer me truthfully?”

Harris cast a look at the table, then spat in defiance. “Fuck you, asshole!”

“Big mistake.” Patrick exchanged a look with Ethan. They were a well-oiled team, and knew their roles in this game.

Ethan twisted his mouth into a scowl. “Just as well that I haven’t taken my gloves off yet.” He calmly walked over to the table and lifted a pair of pliers. “Hey, bro, how about these?”