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I took Declan’s hand and we began to move toward the exit. Lawrence stepped back so he wouldn’t come within smelling distance of me.
I hesitated at the doorway. “How can you be sure it was Declan?” I asked. “From what I understand, there are lots of vampire hunters out there.”
“It was him,” he said flatly without a single shred of doubt.
“Is this why you told Jackson you could help me?” I had to ask. “You heard Declan’s name, knew we were together, and wanted to use me to confront the person who ended your wife’s life?”
Dr. Reynold’s fierce gaze slid to me and his brows drew together. “I still wanted to help you too, Jill.”
“Or maybe you just wanted my blood.”
He seemed to be having a difficult time keeping eye contact with me. His gaze shifted to Declan and hardened again. “You’re not even willing to apologize to me for murdering my wife, dhampyr?” he asked.
Declan tensed and glanced over his shoulder at the man. “You admit that your wife was a vampire. One who found it difficult not to give in to her hunger.”
Dr. Reynolds drew in a shaky breath that sounded more like a sob. “And I feel her loss like a hole in my heart every single day that’s passed.”
Declan faltered, just a little. If I hadn’t been watching for it, I would never have seen it. A microscopic sliver of doubt slid behind his gaze, and his forehead furrowed. “To my knowledge, I’ve never killed a vampire that didn’t deserve death. It’s a war out there, one we need to protect humans from. You must know that working at a place like this. You also must know that bad shit happens every day and mistakes happen. If I was the cause of your wife’s death last month, and she didn’t truly deserve it, then yeah, I’m sorry as hell for that.”
Dr. Reynolds stared at him for so long that I wasn’t sure if he’d ever speak again. A scattering of emotion played on his face—grief, sadness, pain, doubt.
I knew Declan’s life had been filled with violence from practically the very day he was born. His emotion-repressing serum was actually a bonus in that respect. It kept that part of him, the part deep inside that went past the scars, past the damage, relatively pure and untouched. For all the killing he’d done, that he’d undoubtedly have to do in the future, it hadn’t broken him. For all the horror he’d had to face in his life, I knew Declan’s heart wasn’t dark.
He still had a soul. He still had the capacity to care. To love.
I’d seen it with my own eyes. I’d felt it from his touch.
That’s why that glimmer of doubt, of regret, in his otherwise emotionless expression troubled me. Just a couple of days off his original serum last week was enough for him to experience emotion—all kinds of it. Once you experienced something you’d never had to deal with before, was that something you could just put behind you and forget about forever?
Declan was right. This was over, another dead end.
I wouldn’t find my cure here. Not today, anyway.
It wasn’t that I didn’t empathize with Dr. Reynold’s pain—I did. But the relief I’d felt, the hope I’d allowed myself for my own solution, had faded away to almost nothing. I hated being used, no matter what the motivation was.
I turned toward the door, resolved to leave. Come what may.
“Wait,” Dr. Reynolds said. “I had—Ihaveevery intention of helping you to the best of my ability, Jill. The fact that you’re aligned with the dhampyr who murdered my wife is only an unfortunate complication.”
There was that hope again, just a tiny spark of it, mixed with a shot of relief. I turned to face him again. “Okay. So what now?”
“My research has always come first. If I would have had to choose between Clara and my work, I would have had a very hard time with that decision. In the end, I think I would have chosen the research over love. She knew this. She accepted how important it was to me. It’s everything. My research is me.”
Declan crossed his arms. “I hope you can put your feelings about me aside, Dr. Reynolds, even if it’s only long enough to help Jill.”
The doctor nodded, his expression filled with determination now. “Of course. Like I said, my research is everything to me.”
With that, he reached his hand out to Declan.
The man ran hot and cold. One moment he was snarling and furious, full of blame and hate and grief. The next he was willing to shake hands, forgive, and move on.
Declan hesitated only a moment before he grasped Dr. Reynolds’s hand and shook it. “If there’s anything I can do for you to help in your research while I’m here, I’m more than willing to do just that.”
“Thank you, Mr. Reyes. As a matter of fact, there is.”
“What’s that?”
“This.”
