Nigellus gave a slow nod. If the barb had hit home, he didn’t show it.
“As it happens, time is something I have in abundance, Ransley.” The demon’s eyes flicked to Edward, who had remained silent throughout the exchange. “Edward and I will return to Atlantic City. You may find me there when you are ready to talk.”
He rose, and Edward followed suit. I experienced a moment’s indecision as the urge to thank Nigellus for saving Rans’ life warred with the urge to spit something cutting at him. In the end, I stayed silent. Edward gave both of us a look of quiet compassion. I turned my face away, not ready to deal with kindness from that quarter. A moment later, a pop of displaced air announced the pair’s departure.
Guthrie had been keeping himself firmly in the background during the conversation. Now, he stirred in his chair. I could imagine how awkward the situation must be for him—he had cause for a celebration decades in the making, but he’d ended up stuck at someone else’s wake instead. Dark eyes looked me over carefully, seeing too much.
“Go on... go to bed, you two,” he said. “You obviously need it, and it’s not like you don’t know where the guest room is.”
For some fucked-up reason, that was the thing that brought the burn of fresh tears to my eyes and throat. Maybe it was the familiarity implicit in the order; the vague hint of paternal caretaking. I stuffed the reaction down deep, and nodded agreement.
“Yeah. Thanks, Guthrie.” I swallowed, trying to wet my throat. “You should... uh... go out and celebrate or something. God knows you’ve earned it.”
He tried on a small smile, but it was strained. “Maybe later tonight. For now, I’ll be in my office if either of you need anything.”
I nodded, too choked up to trust my voice anymore. Instead, I looked up at Rans, but that only made it worse. He held out his hand. I took it, and he led me to the comfortable guest room with its elegant furniture and cheery blue duvet. Then he closed the door behind us, and I allowed him to peel my bloodstained clothing away, until I stood before him clad only in a practical cotton bra and panties.
When he stripped off his shirt with the small tear over his heart where Myrial’s silver dagger had taken him, I shivered. His boots and trousers followed, then he was pulling me down to lie on the bed with him, curled against his side with my head pillowed on his shoulder. I ran shaky fingertips over the dried flakes of blood still clinging around the knife and bullet wounds Nigellus had healed with his power.
Rans captured my hand, stilling it.
The silence stretched. There were words piling up in my throat, but I wasn’t sure how to say them, or even if I should. Still, the pressure built.
“My blood doesn’t work right,” I blurted after a few minutes. Foolishly, I’d thought maybe that would be a safe place to start. The moment the sentence spilled out, I realized I’d been wrong.
Rans frowned down at me. “What?”
I gulped down the thick, choked feeling clawing at me.
“I tried to use my blood to heal Dad’s bullet wound. But he couldn’t keep it down, and when I poured it directly into the wound it still didn’t work.”
His arm tightened around my shoulders. “Zorah... he was a titheling—infused with Dhuinne’s magic. Fae energy interferes with other forms of power. It’s the same thing that happened when I tried to save you on the boat after you were shot.”
“I know,” I said, nodding too quickly. The skin of my temple and cheek rubbed against his chest. “But... your blood still closed my wound, even if you couldn’t heal everything else. Mine... didn’t.”
Though Guthrie’s hadn’t either—
“I’m seven hundred years old, love,” Rans said quietly. “You’re a brand new vampire. My blood packs a fair bit more punch, by virtue of being so far past its sell-by date. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“He wouldn’t let me turn him into a vampire,” I whispered.
It was Rans’ turn to swallow. “Perhaps his decision was a selfish one.” The words emerged hoarse. “But... I’m glad you respected his wishes. Forcing undeath on another person who doesn’t want it—” He broke off. “It leaves a stain on your soul,” he finished eventually.
I was muddled enough that it took me a moment to remember that Rans had been turned without his permission, and left alone afterward with no way of knowing or understanding what he’d become. It took another few moments to realize that while he was, in fact, talking about himself, it was in a different sense than what I’d been thinking.
The last two people Rans had been responsible for turning, he’d done so without permission.
I’d been one of those people. Guthrie had been the other.
“Hey... no. I wanted this,” I told him. “I would have asked for it if I’d been in any condition to do so. And Guthrie may have bitched about it, but in the end you’re the only reason he lived to see Myrial neutralized. He’s free now.”
“For the time being,” Rans said reluctantly.
“For the time being,” I agreed.
Rans swallowed, consciously easing some of the tension out of his shoulders. “Your father...” he began. “Zorah—he radiated old pain. One conversation with the man was enough for me to feel how desperately unhappy he was.”
I tensed, irrational defensiveness creeping in. Before I could speak—not that I had any idea what to say—Rans continued.
“Darryl Bright was a man who’d lost the other half of his soul. It’s... not a feeling I would wish on anyone. And while it doesn’t excuse the extent to which he failed you over the past twenty years, it does, perhaps, explain his unwillingness to face a future as a vampire that could potentially span centuries.”
Air caught in my chest, and a choked noise escaped. Grief loomed, an empty pit sucking away my comforting veil of numbness without warning.
“He said
