“No, I don’t fully know. But you have no idea what it’s been like for me. To see you be the one who can take care of her…to see you at the park with my wife, playing with my son, because I don’t know if I’ll be overcome with the urge to kill them!” Tristan pounded the counter, adding yet another crack to the granite. I felt like he’d hit me, like I’d been punched in the gut with his words.
“Stop it! Both of you!” I finally yelled. “This is nonsense. I’m standing right here. Stop talking about me like I’m not. And stop being so damn stupid!”
They both finally shut up and looked at me as if they just remembered I was even in the room.
“Owen, you’re completely wrong. Yes, I was pissed off. I was pissed off at everyone—at Tristan, at Mom, at myself, at the Amadis, at the whole damn world! But I knew the blame was all on those bastard Daemoni who killed Stefan, who took Tristan, who took my whole life away!” I swiped at the tears and drew in a ragged breath. “But, really, I just want to be over it. Tristan’s back. We’ll be with Dorian soon. Just let me be happy! I’m happy now, okay?”
I stomped into the bedroom and threw myself on the bed. After a few minutes, Tristan sat next to me and pulled me into his arms as I continued to cry.
“You just said you were happy,” he said quietly.
“I am happy, damn it!”
He chuckled. I did, too, through the tears.
“So why are you crying?”
“Because I feel absolutely horrible for both of you. I never meant for Owen to feel like I blamed him. And I had no idea what you saw at the park and how that must have made you feel.” The cold, hard feeling from last night started working its way in again. “I hate them! I hate them for ruining our lives. I hate them for doing this to us.”
“Ma lykita,” he murmured, “they haven’t ruined our lives. Not as long as we don’t let them. We’ve had to live through hell for a while, but we don’t have to let that ruin everything. We have many years ahead of us still. Many more than what they’ve taken.”
We sat in silence for a minute or two. Well, he sat silently. I sniffled and pulled in noisy breaths, trying to stop the tears.
“How do you do it?” I finally asked.
“Do what?”
“Keep living through horrific shit like this and still be able to say that?”
“Ah.” He kissed the top of my head. “Because it’s been proven to me time and again that it can and does get better. After all, I have you. Again.”
I sighed heavily and caressed his cheek, trying not to let the anger well up again as my fingertips slid over the nasty scar. “I love you.”
“See? How can I hold onto anger when I get to hear that from your lips?”
I wiped the tears off my face, inhaled deeply and headed back to the kitchen.
Owen still stood where he had been, his head bent over, looking at me through his lashes. He reminded me of Dorian when he had to tell Mom and me he’d been in another fight—guilty for disappointing us but not for the actual action.
“Sorry, Alex—,” he started, but I held my hand up to stop him.
“I’m sorry, Owen,” I said. He opened his mouth to say something, but I went on, needing to relieve him of his unnecessary guilt. “I’m sorry I ever made you feel that way. I admit I sometimes wondered how you made it back and not Tristan. But I didn’t blame you for any of it. Of course I wished he’d come back and probably more than any of the others. But he’s my husband, Owen. He was—is—my life. He’ll always be my first concern. That’s just how it is. But that doesn’t mean I wished you’d never come back. You’re like a brother to me. Stefan was like a dad. I wished none of you ever left in the first place, but you did and shit happened. It’s done now. Over with. Tristan’s here. You’re here. I get two out of three. Let’s just put it behind us, okay?”
Owen studied my face for a moment, looked at Tristan and then back at me. He finally relaxed and slumped back against the counter.
“Okay. It’s in the past.” He pretended to pick up some imaginary object and throw it over his head, behind him. Then he looked at Tristan. “We’re good?”
“We’re good, bro,” Tristan said. Owen showed Tristan the latest male bonding handshake—the fist bump.
“So…what’s up, little sis from a different miss?” Owen asked me, back to his normal self.
“A real celebration dinner?” I offered. “We have these beautiful steaks and all….”
He smiled. “I’ll accept that.”
I blew out a sigh of relief and got to work. Owen and Tristan stayed in the kitchen with me, Tristan helping me cook and Owen updating us on the consequences of my escapade last night.
“The Daemoni are really going ballistic now that the two of you are back together. I guess that blonde vampire chick went on a rampage. Apparently, your blood, Alexis, is like a super-potent energy drink for vampires. It made her more powerful than usual and we had to do some damage control.”
I didn’t really want to know what he meant and I appreciated that he didn’t explain.
“Do they know we’re here?” Tristan asked.
“No, they still don’t know about this house. But as soon as they can get to one or both of you, they will. And they know once they’ve got one of you, they’ve got the other now. Rina wants us to go to your house in Atlanta. It’s probably safer there than here.”
Tristan stopped slicing onions—he’d always taken that job because they didn’t make him cry like they did to me and he’d naturally resumed it, just like old times—and stared at the counter for a few seconds. Apparently, he was exploring and weighing the options. Then he nodded.
“That’ll work perfectly with the plan,” he said, expertly moving the knife again.
“The plan Rina wants you to work on?” I asked. I’d passed on the message earlier, but I’d been too distracted to ask him what plan.
“Yeah,” he answered distractedly, focused on whatever he had brewing in his mind. “There will be a fire. We’ll have to make sure it’s complete, so when they find no bodies, they still could think they were burnt to ashes. Maybe an explosion.”
I stopped in my tracks, holding the plate of steaks in front of me. “What? You’re going to blow up my house?”
“After the Ang’dora, A.K. Emerson can no longer exist,” he said simply, as if this fact were obvious. He took the steaks from me and headed outside to the grill. I just stared after him.
It should have been obvious, that I could no longer be the author. Not with the changes I would go through. But I really hadn’t thought about everything that far. It bothered me how he said it so easily. Of course, he probably wouldn’t ever understand how much I had needed to be A.K. Emerson, how important that part of me was. He hadn’t been around for any of her existence.
I shook off the troubled feeling. Logic told me we would have to kill her—fake my death. Tristan would know the best solution because that was one of his abilities. And I’d been ready to give her up last night. With the last book complete, I could let go. Apparently, I would have to let go. Besides, I enjoyed the writing—not actually being a famous author.
“With no bodies, we leave the possibility open of a disappearance, just in case anyone recognizes you in the future,” Tristan said when he came back into the kitchen. “However…we will have her reunited with the father of her son and married first.”
I felt my face light up and opened my mouth but Owen shook his head before I could say anything.
“Too dangerous,” he said. “Just moving you two to Atlanta will be bad enough.”
“Just some pictures and a slip to the media right before we have to disappear,” Tristan said. He looked at me and grinned. “We’ll make those assholes eat their words.”
I smiled back, but then sighed. “But she’ll never get to be Mrs. Tristan Knight.”
“Why not?” Tristan asked.
“Because then we can’t use that name later, right?”
He shrugged. “It’s just a name. You know it doesn’t mean anything. I picked it as a kind of tongue-in-cheek thing.”
