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I struggled for words, and when they came, they weren’t particularly elegant or refined. But they were heartfelt. I meant every word, just as much as he had.
“I was alone for a long time. I didn’t know about Dorina, I thought my father hated and was ashamed of me, and the people that I did have relationships with were business contacts and those who wanted something from me. That was it. That was how I lived, year after year after long, lonely, pain-filled year. And, yeah, there were better times, once in a while. But there weren’t a hell of a lot of them.
“Some people make it through hard times by telling themselves that things will get better. But after so long, you begin to realize: they never will. That was as good as life got, as good as I thought it would ever get. A desert of pain with a few oases dotted here and there, just enough to keep me going. That was all, and wanting anything else, much less expecting it . . .
“Was a child’s foolish dream. Just wishful thinking.
“But then, I met you.”
I looked at him, and I still saw it, just as I had that first day, although I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself: the little girl’s dream of prince charming, complete with the stupid hair and the gorgeous body and the even more beautiful soul. And I still didn’t have the words. Because what do you say to a dream come true?
But something must have shown on my face, because his hands tightened.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “I wish I did. All I can say for sure is this. If some genie had come to me and offered me a trade: a few years of being with someone I truly care about in exchange for all the centuries that I had left like that? Yeah. I’d have made the trade.
“And I still would.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dory, Hong Kong
We reentered Zheng’s office sometime later, without encountering Hassani’s vamps. I didn’t know where they were, but was grateful that they were gone. I wasn’t even sure what the hell they were doing here in the first place. Did Hassani think I wasn’t going to track down my sister’s kidnappers? Or that I was going to let them off with a slap on the wrist? And if he did think that, what exactly were two guys going to do about it?
I mean, yeah, they were pretty good in a fight, but still. Two guys. I couldn’t really see them taking on a whole contingent of fey on their own.
But damn, if they weren’t sticking like glue.
“Tossed your buddies out,” Zheng said, answering my unasked question while cradling a phone under his chin. “Lily was getting pissed. They’re waiting outside.”
“Did anybody find Bertha?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Whoever did probably went screaming down the road. Can you give me a minute?”
We nodded and sat back down.
“Yeah,” he told the phone. “All of them, even the creepy mage. Yeah, I know, but he’s sneaky. He might have something up his sleeve . . . No, gimme an hour.” He eyed us. “I think I’m about to make a deal.”
He tossed the phone in a drawer and looked at us.
“What Louis-Cesare said before,” I told him, because I hadn’t objected to the terms, merely to being excluded from having a say in them. “The alliance is contingent on getting Dorina back, and is defensive only until we see how things go. But that does not mean defending you because you attacked someone and they attacked you back. It means unprovoked.”
“I know what defensive means.” Zheng took out another cigarette and lit up. “And I got fire power. I don’t need more boots on the ground.”
“Then what do you need?”
“Information and contacts. I don’t know your territory any more than you do mine. You needed help in Hong Kong, and you came to me, which was the smart move. Well, I need help in North America. I got some contacts there, sure, but not at the higher levels. I saw a senate seat go up for grabs, and I grabbed it. It was only afterward that I realized—shit. I might have just put my head in a noose.”
“So, we’re supposed to keep your head out of the noose,” I clarified.
“That would be nice,” Zheng said sardonically. “And I’ll do the same for you, if I can. But I’d settle for knowing that it’s being prepared.”
“And you think you wouldn’t?”
He shrugged and sat back with his cigarette. “I keep my eyes open, but they’re messing with us newbies at court. Rumors, rumors everywhere, but who knows what to believe? I’ve been walking around with goose flesh up my back for months now, right over the spot where somebody’s probably planning to plant a stake in it. I need information I can believe.”
“And Cheung?” Louis-Cesare asked abruptly.
“What about him?”
