My limited memories of the wooden room were too muddled and painful to dwell on.
“I will only ever love Gabriel, if that is what you mean,” I said.
“That is not what I mean,” he replied quickly. “Sorry to break your heart, little hummingbird, but I am just not into you that way.”
Thomas snickered behind me. His amusement somehow bolstered my confidence.
“You think I can help you. . . . Is that why you showed me Olivia?”
Several heartbeats went by. “I unconsciously dreamed of her. There is no reason to lie to you about that. I just want your help to see if . . . there is something left inside of me that is worth anything. Worth living for.”
“What do I get for helping you?”
“Your freedom from me, obviously. I will not harm you or your loved ones ever again. You won’t even know I am alive.”
“Out of curiosity, what if I choose not to help you?”
“Then I will find you and kill you, but only after I Control you to kill Gabriel. Maybe I’ll let you live with yourself for a few years after the fact. We both know Gabriel wouldn’t fight back if it was you. He would love you even as you drove the stake through his heart.”
Blood colored my cheeks to an angry red. “Do you want me to help you get with Olivia?”
“Olivia stays out of this and out of my life. She has nothing to do with anything.”
“Then how am I supposed to help you? There is such a thing as therapy. I don’t exactly have a degree, you know,” I snapped.
He sighed, the sound long and weary. “That is what I am not sure about. I suppose you come to me, and you stay with me for a little while. Then we can proceed from there. I know Gabriel will insist on being with you—”
Gabriel snatched the phone from my hand. “You’re insane, Elias. That is what your problem is, and no one can save you from your insanity. You are not ever going to see Kara again. Come anywhere near her, and I will kill you. Sire or not, I swear to you Elias, I will be the one who ends your life.”
Gabriel twisted the phone shut and threw the device against the wall, making my dogs bark like crazy.
“Well, I suppose that plan is out the window,” Inola said. She didn’t look upset about the outcome.
I swallowed ice. She was right. Even if Gabriel had allowed it, there was no way I would have gone to Elias and stayed with him.
How could I have helped him anyway? I could have tried to convince him to forgive Gabriel and himself, but that seemed futile; the poisonous hatred was carved into his very soul. And had he eventually changed his mind about Olivia, who was I to involve her? She was an innocent stranger.
The plan had been stupid from the beginning. I hated him too much to see any buried good within him.
“None of you would have let me see him anyway. You were all trying to be secretive and accommodating, but the minute he came anywhere near me, you would have killed him,” I said.
Thomas shrugged. “Of course we would have. We were going to try to trick Elias into thinking you would help him, and then we were going to kill him as soon as we saw him. It was up to Gabriel to decide whether he wanted to go through with this or not, and as you just saw, it’s not going to happen. He’s not going to risk your life. If you ask me, the whole charade was transparent. Elias was just trying to figure out your location.”
“But he gave me his blood. . . .”
“So he could torture you again, Red. The guy is messed up and unstable. Even if he truly wanted help from you, the smallest mishap would have made him snap and kill you.”
I sighed and turned away from them. “I’m such an idiot.”
Inola looked longingly at the draped window, the ordeal obviously forgotten. “Gabriel, you need some gardening tools if we are going to be living here.”
Thomas turned to the doorway, his arms crossing over his chest. “And a better equipped kitchen. I need a blowtorch for my baked Alaska. I could brown the meringue in the oven, but how dreadfully boring. . . .”
I smiled before looking at Gabriel, but my smile froze when I saw where Gabriel’s gaze rested. He was staring at my lips, something akin to hunger darkening his eyes.
Anticipation rushed through my body. Gabriel looked at my shaking fingers, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, making my pulse drown out Thomas’s ramblings.
Chapter 6 Renewed Vengeance
I adjusted once again to living in darkness. After a week, it was no longer too difficult, although there were times weakness would flow through me, my body rebelling against being nocturnal again.
The blood transfusion was not necessary. The day after I spoke to Elias, right before almost leaving for the hospital, I felt our blood connection break, a physical snap inside my heart and mind. The relief of being disconnected to him was vast, and Gabriel lost a bit of the anger lingering in his eyes.
I started to find peace with the three people I had grown to love more than anything. I missed my grandmother, but Inola updated me daily on how she was doing, as her caretakers emailed her regularly.
It was beautiful here in the mountains, the air clean and cool. The view was breathtaking, especially when you stood on the outcropping of rock near the house. It threatened to plunge you into endlessness if you stepped too close.
The weight of the world was lifting at last. Every night I gazed up into the starlit trees, leaning against Gabriel’s slow-beating heart, and I could finally breathe. As long as Gabriel was nearby, the darkness did not frighten me. He helped keep my
