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“Resolve?” This was new. I didn’t know what to make of it.
“Yes.” His voice was heavy.
“Resolved to what?” I asked, knowing I shouldn’t.
“Resolved to knowing you will never belong to me. No matter how much I want it. I can’t force you to choose us.”
Fear filled my throat. This felt different than he’d ever been. “What do you mean, Vinkettin?”
“Get out, Dominic. Don’t come back. This was the last time I’ll let you use me for a release.” His eyes told me he wasn’t kidding. There was no room for negotiation. “I won’t call you again.”
I hesitated, biting back words that had built up over years. A profound sadness I knew I’d carry until the end of my days. But maybe this was better. If we could somehow let go of this fantasy, we’d both be better off.
I picked up my clothes and left the way I’d come.Sated for the moment but still aching, I left my heart in that room with him.
FOUR
VINKETTIN
It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. I regretted it the moment he left, but I stood firm in my conviction. Dominic wasn’t ready to explore the possibility of a life outside of his pack and loyalty to them. Who was I to drive him to it? He’d resent me more than he already did. I’d been miserable for a hundred and forty-five years, what did the rest matter.
I couldn’t force anyone to stay, and I wouldn’t beg.
I poured myself another drink.
Galliano.
It wasn’t something I drank with guests, but the taste reminded me of a simpler time. With the rise of absinthe because of failing grape crops, my parents had taken to Galliano as a more refined substitute for what they believed the peasants were drinking. As if peasants could afford absinthe.
My mother would take a glass to her gallery as the city began to settle. She’d watch the moon set, still in her fine evening clothes. We’d stay there until just beforethe light crested the skyline, the scents of a waking city floating in through the open windows. Then she’d have to retire to shelter from the sun.
I remembered asking her if humans could smell themselves.She laughed her lovely musical laugh and told me no. Humans were silly creatures and would never catch up with the sophistication of her kind. Notourkind—herkind. I wasn’t one of them and never would be. Not with a human father.
I asked her why she’d married him if she thought so little of humans.
“Love does funny things, child.”
I never believed her—not until I met Dominic.
Now I ran through the conversation in my head on nights like these. How I’d found myself in a similar situation to my father. To be in love with a being who hated my kind. I hadn’t noticed how she’d been ostracized for her choices. I wondered what my mother would say. Maybe I didn’t want to know.
I walked to the balcony of the penthouse, throwing open the ruined French doors. My boots ground the glass into sand. The Pacific Northwest was nice, but it had nothing on Paris, where I’d been raised, but they’d banned daywalkers from that city.
The humans didn’t know we existed, leaving us as legends, and the vampires had decided our existence was unnatural and banned us from Europe. Since we were born, not turned, and able to exist with less restrictions than our vampire parentage, I always guessed they were jealous of our existence because we could face the sun. Vampires were forbidden from bearing children with humans in the last century, and those daywalkers that remained were banished to the New World, leaving us rejected by vampires and hated by werewolves. So I existed in between.
We’d made a life for ourselves in control of industry, and many of us had human pets or lovers, further diluting our bloodlines while creating more of us every year. My kind didn’t view humans as disposable as vampires did, more like temporary objects in our extended lives. I wasn’t sure how to classify werewolves. They had the potential for longer lives, according to all the information I could find, but I couldn’t find any hard proof. Not only were they notoriously protective of their information, but so many of them died young in their blood war or killed each other trying to gain power. I wasn’t sure they knew the real potential of their kind.
Too many damn wars.
The heat in their blood made them irresistible and intolerable. Volatile. Irresponsible. Stupid. Inconsiderate. The glass in my hand shattered, sending liquid raining down on my lap.
“Motherfucker.”
I had to find a way out of my mood and out of the bad decision I was on the verge of making. Once resolved, I would keep my word to myself. I was most of the way there. I’d kicked Dominic out without returning the fuck. That was a first for me, but now the hard work would begin. I had to change the way I was acting. A lot of my behavior over the last several years was designed to torture him.
I was sure it worked, too. He hated the parade of people I had through my penthouse and the clubs I frequented. He was a possessive bastard even while he rejected me.
Dominic was an unusual creature, even for a wolf. He processed pain differently than I did. He never looked at anyone. Like he was above the physical calls of his species, better than the rest of us.
