In the Company of Vampires

Have such an inflated ego you think you can get away with any amount of crap?”

The other side of his mouth quirked up. I told my Inner Fran to stop noticing his mouth, and remember that it had only taken him six months to replace me. “I was going to suggest my chest, but if you wish to touch me elsewhere, I would not object. Francesca, I did not betray you. I realize you believe I did, but appearances are misleading. Touch me.”

“No.” I jerked my hand back, staring in surprise at my fingers. There were faint red marks on them, but the cuts from the glass vial had healed over. There was no pain, only a little sense of tightness when I wiggled my fingers. “You healed my hand.”

“Of course. You are my Beloved.”

“Stop staying that,” I snapped, glaring at him again.

“Touch me, Francesca.”

“Since when did you start calling me that instead of Fran?” I snarled, holding my hand tight against my chest when he reached for it again.

He brushed a strand of hair back from my temple. I wanted simultaneously to leap on him and strangle him. “It seemed fitting when I saw you standing like an avenging angel at the foot of Naomi’s bed. I realized then that you aren’t the Fran I remember. Now you’re a woman, one who I fervently desire to know better.”

“I was a woman when I met you!”

“No.” His hand dropped to my lips, his thumb brushing across my lower lip. “You were sixteen, just budding, but your petals were not yet unfurled.”

I batted away his hand. “You leave my petals and bud out of this!”

He laughed, the sound of it triggering memories so sweet it brought tears of purest pain to my eyes. “Ah, Francesca, what would I do without you?”

“Evidently fall in with the first blond hussy you can find,” I said, shoving him off the bed. “Go away, Ben. I gave you your freedom. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you in my life. Just go away and—”

He sighed even as I was talking, and before I could stop him, he sat on the edge of the bed again and took my bare hand, placing it between his shirt and chest, right over his heart. Ben had always been the only person other than my mother who I could touch without being swamped by thoughts and emotions. He had some sort of an ability to dampen them, to shield me so that I wasn’t overwhelmed. He shielded me now as my fingers lay against his skin, slowly merging his mind with mine. I didn’t want to see what was in there, didn’t want to feel his emotions for Naomi, but even as I tried to pull back, some horrible masochistic part of me had me looking deep into the darkness that raged within Ben.

My gaze met his. “You haven’t betrayed me.”

“No, I haven’t.”

I stared at him in incomprehension. “But . . . I broke things off. I told you I didn’t want to be with you any more.”

“That’s what you said. But what I heard was a plea for two things: time to finish finding out who you were, and romance.”

“Romance?”

“You said you wanted to fall in love, not be told you were in love. I realize now that what is perfectly natural to me—finding a Beloved and being bound to her—was overwhelming to you, and made you feel as if you had no choice in the matter.”

“I didn’t. You and Imogen and everyone said I had to save your soul—”

He stopped me with a touch of his finger across my lips. “We were wrong. We didn’t take into account the fact that you were so young, or, for that matter, your temperament. You never were one to take being led well.”

“No, I wasn’t. I still don’t like it.”

“When you railed at me, declaring that you would make your own life, that you would not allow fate to rule you, I knew that you needed both more time and for me to court you.”

I gave a grim, mirthless laugh. “That’s a very antiquated notion, Ben. People don’t court anymore. They meet at online dating places, and run background checks, and get married and divorced.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’m concerned with you, not other people.”

“I’m confused. You didn’t betray what we had, but you’re with Naomi? Are you . . . are you in love with her and hiding that fact from me?”

“Do you think I am?”

“Of course I do. You told me in front of her that you didn’t want me. Why would you say that if it wasn’t true? Why were you with Naomi if you really want me?”

He leaned forward, his mouth brushing against mine. “I can’t tell you why.”

“What?” I jerked back. “What sort of an answer is that?”

“The secrets I keep from you are not mine, Francesca. I can’t tell them to you without first receiving permission to do so.”

I put my other hand on his chest, intending to push him away from me, but with both hands touching his skin, I could feel to the tiniest iota the depths of his emotions. I closed my eyes against the despair and anguish a thousand times more horrible than what I had felt at his betrayal. His pain was so deep it seared through his being, from which he had no escape. He was tormented and tortured, his heart empty, his future bleak, and all because the one woman who could save him had abandoned him, left him alone, refused him. . . .

“Not refused,” I said, opening my eyes, tears scalding my face as I bit back a sob. For the first time since I had met him, he had wholly opened his thoughts and emotions to me, and the experience left me reeling. He hadn’t moved on with his life. He was the one who was betrayed, the one who was left to live in perpetual torment while I blithely went off to find myself, believing he’d be just fine on his own.

“Oh, Ben,” I said on another sob, and he was there, surrounding me, warm and wonderful and everything I wanted in the world. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been wholly selfish. But no one seemed to understand how frustrating it was to be told I had to accept you, had to redeem your soul, had to spend the rest of my life bound to you without regard to anything I might want. Not even you understood.”

“No,” he agreed. “I didn’t until that last call. Then I knew that you truly felt trapped by our bond. So I gave you what you wanted—time by yourself, without restrictions. I knew that in your frame of mind, you would not hesitate to rush out and do everything you’d felt unable to do before. And you did—you changed your hair, you left school and moved out on your own. You got a job that was a far cry from your history degree. I expected you to start dating. You didn’t. In fact, it seemed to my friend that you almost had an aversion to other men, refusing even what must be commonplace associations with them. That surprised and pleased me. It led me to believe that the situation wasn’t as hopeless as I first thought.”

I looked up into the eyes that I knew so well, now a warm oak color, the tiny little flecks of black and gold making his eyes shine. Why, Ben, why?

He knew exactly what I was asking. I sensed his withdrawal, the secrets he kept from me. I can’t tell you. I wish I could.

You told me once you couldn’t lie to me, that by being your Beloved, I held some sort of amazing power over you. You said you’d let me kill you, if that’s what I truly wanted.

And so I would, but I have oaths I must honor, Fran. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I assumed that since you weren’t ready to talk to me, that I would have time to take care of this situation before I would begin broaching the subject of courting you. A tiny little frown appeared between his brows, and without thinking, I smoothed it away. Why did you return now?

“I thought Loki had kidnapped my mother, but Absinthe says she’s in love, and just off on a love spree. I don’t know what to think, but I’m going to find out just what’s going on,” I said, feeling as dull as my words sounded. “How can I trust you if you can’t be honest with me, Ben?”

“You know what is in my heart. You’ve felt it,” he pointed out. “Can you not trust me to do what I must?”

I pulled my hands from him, my own heart somewhat pieced back together, but aching and bruised still. “I think it’s possible for a man to want to be with more than one woman at a time.”

“A man, perhaps. But I am not a mortal man. There is only one woman for me, and you are that