Much Ado About Vampires

That would mean I never met Alec again. My heart grew sad at that thought. Oh, dear heavens, was I already past hope? Had I started giving in to all that charm and magnetism and smoldering sexuality that had every woman within a five-mile radius ready to rip off her clothing and throw herself at him?

I looked at the woman next to me with a hard expression.

She blinked at it. “What?”

“You let Alec seduce you!”

To my surprise, she laughed. “I was wondering if you were going to come back to that. I did, yes. Well, not really. It’s a little complicated. We didn’t actually have sex, you know. That is to say, he didn’t . . . we didn’t . . . it was more just some mutual groping. I mean, we were naked, but that was really all we did. And he didn’t even stay the whole night with me.”

I stared at her, trying to sort through all of that.

“I didn’t make it any better, did I?” she asked, still laughing.

“No.” The word dropped like a lead weight.

“Honestly, I think he was just lonely. The fact that he couldn’t have real sex should have warned me that he wasn’t the man for me, but I didn’t see it at that time. It wasn’t until Kristoff and I got together, and I thought he was still in love with . . . well, our rocky start is neither here nor there.”

“You had a rocky start?” I asked, momentarily distracted from the painful thought of her touching a naked Alec.

“Yeah, just about as rocky as they can get. I’ll tell you about it when you have an hour or two sometime. But first, you have to tell me about Alphonse de Marco, which means we need the boys. I think Alec has had enough time to get over himself. Let me run and check on Eleanor to make sure she’s all right—then we’ll go remind Alec how lucky he is to have you.”

She rose and left through one of the arched doorways. My own feelings aside, I wondered if Alec truly wanted me for his Beloved, or whether he had just picked me out of gratitude for saving his life and springing him from the Akasha.

And what would happen to Eleanor? Would guilt over her eventually taint his feelings for me? Was he even now blaming me for putting him in a position where he had to hurt one of us?

“You really know how to screw up your life,” I told myself as I got slowly to my feet, and tottered off to find Pia.

Chapter Ten

Guilt pricked Alec. He didn’t like the sensation. “Dammit, Kris, she didn’t tell me. I thought the marking was due to the amount of blood she’d fed me. I almost drained her dry when she brought me back. I didn’t know.... She didn’t tell me.”

“You’ve been around long enough to know how women are,” his friend answered, standing next to him as they both stared out into the shadowed garden. What Kristoff saw, Alec had no idea—all he could see was the look on Cora’s face when she made the verbal slip, and realized she would have to tell him the truth. “There are times when I give up trying to understand Pia. I just accept that some things are important to her that don’t mean a damn to me, and let it go at that. What matters to me is that she’s happy. I find it interesting, however, that your first concern is for Cora, not Eleanor.”

“Eleanor . . .” Alec rubbed his nose as he thought about what to do with the extra Beloved. “She’s . . . not needed.”

Kristoff gave him a rueful look. “I’m sorry we brought her back. We thought it was the only way that the council would sanction your removal from the Akasha. We should have just let matters lie.”

“And left me there? I’d much rather be facing the problem of one too many Beloveds than that. It wasn’t at all pleasant.”

“No, but I imagine you’re none too happy right now, either, faced with both your original Beloved and her reincarnation. What are you going to do about Eleanor ? ”

“I have no idea,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “I assume since I never even fed from her that she’ll be fine picking up a new life as a lich. Our bond, such as it is, is tenuous, and she shouldn’t be affected by it being severed. It’s Cora who concerns me. She has an aversion to Dark Ones. She saw me kill the reaper.” Alec cast his mind back to that horrible day. Odd, though, that the memory now carried with it no pain. After centuries of it causing him the utmost agony, emotion had been drained from the memory, just as if Cora’s admission had wiped it all clean. “Sorry, she saw me kill your wife.”

Kristoff made a half-shrugging gesture. “Ruth was a reaper. She just didn’t mean to run down and decapitate Eleanor.”

“No.” He knew that now. He hadn’t for centuries, but after the last time he tried to kill Kristoff, they had finally worked out what had really happened, and moved past it. “Did I ever apologize for killing her?”

“No, but I never apologized on her behalf for killing your Beloved.”

“I never apologized for turning you, either,” Alec said moodily, feeling that so long as he was going to lash himself with guilt, he might as well get all of it out at the same time.

“If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have found Pia, and she was worth all those centuries I had to wait for her,” Kristoff allowed. “I could have done without you planning on destroying her, but since you couldn’t see it through, it’s all a moot point.”

Alec couldn’t help but smile at that. “She smote me with that damned reaper light of hers. That was no fun, I can tell you. My chest hair hasn’t been the same since.”

Kristoff laughed and punched him in the arm. “You had it coming. If Eleanor goes off without giving you any grief, what will you do about Corazon?”

He sighed. “She’s my Beloved. What do you think I’m going to do with her? Bind myself to her and spend the rest of our lives convincing her I’m not a murdering bloodsucker. Assuming, that is, no one gets to her first.”

Kristoff slid him a curious look. “Gets to her how?”

“I’d tell you, but I believe we’re about to have company, and it’s probably easier to explain it once rather than twice.”

“Have you gentlemen worked through Alec’s issues ?” Pia asked, appearing in the doorway, her gaze drawn, as ever, to Kristoff. He held out his hand for her, and she moved immediately to his side, snuggling against him with a private smile meant only for him.

Alec watched them, wondering if Cora would ever cleave to him the way Pia did with Kristoff. “I have no issues. I was just . . . surprised.” And hurt, but it wouldn’t do to admit that.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

He turned to find Cora in the door, her eyes wary. Eavesdropping, querida?

No, she said, startled, and he realized she hadn’t picked up his thoughts. I just . . . I figured I must have hurt you when you left like that, and then didn’t want to talk to me. You’ve been put in a bad place, and part of that was due to the fact that I hadn’t told you the truth about me. I wanted to tell you about it. I think I probably would have, but then Eleanor was there, and she was your real Beloved, and I figured you’d want her.

I don’t.

No, I gathered that. But it didn’t seem fair to you to have to choose. I thought I might just make it easier on you by letting Eleanor serve her purpose.

He studied her face for a few seconds, then decided to see what path his life would take. He held out his hand for her, just as Kristoff had done with Pia.

Cora looked at his hand, hesitating. His heart contracted with the pain that accompanied the knowledge that she didn’t want him, truly did not want to be his Beloved. He was a convenient end to a means, that was all.

Her hand was warm in his as she moved next to him, one delicious hip pressing against him. Hope flared deep in the empty space where his soul was meant to be, the hope that, after more than five hundred years, he might not be alone any longer.