Page 32 of Nightfall


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I mean, I would feel guilty for a while. But I hoped it would pass eventually.

Dr. Reynolds regarded Declan, peering at him through his glasses. “You care about Jill a great deal. I wasn’t sure at first, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Her safety is my first priority,” Declan agreed.

Dr. Reynolds eyed him, his lips thin. “My wife and I were opposites, too. Two different worlds, but we made it work the best we could.”

I wasn’t sure how we’d shifted into this area of conversation without any warning, but I thought it best to end it as quickly as it began. I didn’t need my relationship with Declan put under a microscope and studied like a sample of my blood.

“Whatever we are to each other isn’t exactly important right now,” I said.

“You care about him as well,” the doctor countered.

“Of course I do.”

“Even though he’s a dhampyr.” He managed to make the word sound more like an accusation than an observation.

I looked at the dhampyr in question. He had an eyebrow slightly raised, his gaze on me as if waiting for my reply. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Declan. I owe him my life.”

Not the most romantic of declarations, I’ll admit. But it was still true.

It was more than that, of course. So much more. But that was nobody else’s damn business.

Dr. Reynolds pursed his lips. “I met my wife four years ago after I’d decided to accept my confirmed bachelor status. Falling in love with Clara came as a complete surprise to me. My days were spent with test tubes and chemical formulas. Parachemistry, parascience, it’s always been my one and only obsession. But Clara...” His voice caught on her name. “She made me see that there was more to life than work.”

Lawrence moved toward him and squeezed Dr. Reynolds’ shoulder in support.

“She sounds like she was an amazing woman,” I said. “I’m so very sorry for your loss. Really, I am.”

“So am I.”

“You said a dhampyr killed her.”

His jaw tightened. “Yes.”

It was only a handful of days ago that I’d come face to face with a killer dhampyr. It had been one of Dr. Monica Gray’s breeding experiments, technically only a baby, but it had quickly grown to the size of a man and with the hunger of a monster.

Dr. Gray had taken part in another breeding experiment nearly thirty years prior. She personally became pregnant with a vampire’s baby, and successfully gave birth to a non-monster dhampyr. That dhampyr was Declan.

Only a handful of minutes after Declan learned she was his mother, Dr. Gray had been the baby dhampyr’s final victim that night.

“I haven’t seen too many monster dhampyrs,” I said aloud. “But the ones I have seen have been scary as hell. It must have been horrible for you, nobody could easily recover from such a tragedy. But I’m sure there was nothing you could have done to save her.”

Dr. Reynolds removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “You’re wrong about that.”

I was confused. I looked at Lawrence, whose gray eyes flicked to me.

“It wasn’t a monster dhampyr,” the vampire said, shaking his head.

That surprised me. “It wasn’t?”

“Lawrence...enough,” Dr. Reynolds said.

Lawrence hissed out a breath. “Victor, it’s time you faced this once and for all, as we discussed. I know what happened is still so fresh, but you need to move on. Especially now.”

“I could say the same to you,” Dr. Reynolds retorted.

Pain crossed Lawrence’s expression. “My situation is different from yours. Clara was so different from Stacy.”

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