AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I thought about it, then realized I didn’t, I was just wanting to lash out at someone. Richard and I had spent years lashing out at each other. It was like an old habit that all the stress was bringing out. I realized I was scared. I didn’t want to die and leave Jean-Claude and everyone else behind. I didn’t want to lose the life that we’d built together. I didn’t want the last time I saw my family to be the disaster at the restaurant.
I looked up at Richard’s perfectly brown eyes, paler than mine, more milk chocolate to my dark. “You won’t die here, like this,” he said.
“You don’t know that,” I said.
“I have faith that our story doesn’t end here.”
“I wish I was that confident.”
“You usually are, what’s different this time?”
“I haven’t had a vampire really roll me like this with their eyes in so long. I thought it was my necromancy protecting me, but it turns out it was Jean-Claude’s vampire marks, not me.”
“All couples are stronger together than apart, that’s the point of being a couple,” he said.
“Deimos is in my head, Richard, he’s controlling me in daylight.”
“Oh, honey, you thought you were invincible when it came to vampires and now that you’re not you’re shook.”
I thought about that for a minute, lowering my eyes so I wasn’t staring into his. I couldn’t think clearly staring into his face. It left me staring at his throat, strong and permanently tanned. If he ran outside like Micah did, I wondered how dark Richard would tan.
“If you want me darker I can do that, just tell me if you want tan lines or no tan lines,” he said.
It made me smile and look back up at him. It was the face that almost launched me all the way to the altar once. “But I was an idiot, and ruined it,” he said. He dropped one of his hands and slid the other so his fingers were laced through my hair.
“We both had our issues,” I said.
“But I told you to quit working with the police, that I worried about you every time you went out the door.”
“You know better now,” I said.
“Yes, and I won’t ask you to wear my mother’s wedding dress just because it fit you.”
I rolled my eyes at that but smiled. “All that lace and little buttons at the collar.”
“You looked adorable, which I knew you hated, but after what had happened to my mom in Tennessee I wanted her to be happy.”
“More than you wanted me to be happy, at the time.”
“I’m so sorry, Anita.”
“Hell, Richard, I wanted your mom happy after what happened.” They had sent her finger and a lock of Richard’s brother, Daniel’s, hair in a box to us as a warning of what they were willing to do, and in two hours they’d do worse unless we did what they wanted us to do. Then they would let them go, but the henchmen they’d sent with the box and the message had confirmed my worst fears that they had already been raped, both of them. They weren’t going to let them go covered in DNA of crimes we could prove. They’d killed all the other witnesses to their crimes. They had a sorcerer that could raise demons for real; human sacrifice lets you raise more powerful demons.
The look on his face let me know he’d relived all of it with me. “You saved them, Anita. You faced a demon to save my mom. She is so happy that we’re dating again.”
“I’d have probably worn the dress for her, after everything that happened.”
“I know you would have,” he said.
“But I couldn’t quit my job.”
“I know that now.”
“Neither of us was ready to marry back then,” I said.
“I thought it was just me you weren’t ready to marry,” he said.
“Now you know better.”
