Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

O ut in the front acreage of Camp Ghreylke, as a vehicle went by them on the lane, Mahrci’s instinct was to run. But maybe it was just the groundskeeper coming back? The truck had been gone, the plow left behind. It wasn’t necessarily her father. Or, as the humans called them, her fiancé.

Ex-fiancé.

“Who are you afraid of,” Hemmy said into the darkness. “And how can I help you.”

Not a question. A statement of intent.

“Let it go.” She shifted her eyes to him. “Let me . . . go. I’m nothing to you.”

“Who decides that—”

“You don’t even know me.”

The male shook his head slowly. “And you’re out here, humping fifty-pound bags of grain in the snow for animals you don’t know.”

Exhaling a curse, she breathed, “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“I’m not worried.”

“You should be,” she whispered. “You just don’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Mahrci looked away. Looked back. “I’m sorry . . . I can’t talk about it. And that is the truth. It’s also all I can give anybody right now.”

There was a long silence. Then he nodded. “Okay. Fair enough. So are you dematerializing out of here right now? Or are we going back together.”

“You could leave now—”

“No, I don’t run. From anything.” His eyes searched her face. “You can go to my place in Caldwell, you know. Take some time to figure out whatever this is. No one needs to know you’re there, and I’ll leave you alone, too. If that’s what you want.”

“Why are you doing this.”

He reached out and took the grain bag from her. Then just held it up.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes. “I’m going back to the big house to pack.”

She wanted to beg Hemmy to race off to wherever he lived in Caldwell and forget all about her. She wanted to protect him—even though, as she measured the heft of his shoulders, like he needed defense from the likes of her?

“And I’m going back with you.”

As his words were carried away on the wind, it was hard to calm herself, and when she wasn’t readily able to dematerialize, she wondered if she was going to have to walk back. Except then she was flying through the cold air in a scatter of molecules, returning to the vacation house her father never went to. But was now outfitting with security cameras?

What the hell was he up to?

When she re-formed, it was at the front entrance, at the base of the steps—

It wasn’t her father. Or Remis.

Or the groundskeeper.

“Jesus! Sneak up on a man!”

Over at the side porch, the human farmer jumped back from his truck bed and grabbed the front of his chest like he was having a heart attack. Mr. Yates was in his sixties, and wearing the same blue-and-black-check wool jacket, knee-high barn boots, and black cap he always did. With his white beard and white hair that curled around the edges of that little hat, he was like Santa’s thinner brother—except for the fact that he was cranky as a mule.

And crap, in her distraction, she’d almost sprung an out-of-thin-air on him. Thank heavens she’d picked the front and not over there.

“Sorry,” she called out roughly.

Glancing around and not seeing Hemmy anywhere, she headed across the snow in her snowshoes.

“Thanks for bringing all that grain,” she said as she came up to the man and his truck.

She got a grunt in reply as he hauled another bag off the bed and onto the pile he was building under the porch’s cover.

Glancing around for Hemmy, she knew better than to ask Mr. Yates if she could help. Back in the fall, she’d come up for what was supposed to have been a romantic weekend with Remis—and she’d first met the farmer then, promptly offending him by stepping in to grab a bag. His expression had been a combination of you-said- what -about-my-mother and clearly-you-are-from-downstate. She’d have gotten a better reception if she’d stomped on his bare foot.

Still, she’d come to like him.

“Lane’s cleared good,” he said as he threw another sack onto the stack. “That man knows what he’s doing with a plow.”

Wow. She was going to have to tell Callum that he’d won the upstate New York equivalent of a Nobel Peace Prize.

“He’s very handy,” she said as she looked over her shoulder again. “We’re lucky to—”

Up on the roof of the maintenance garage, by the chimney, a figure materialized—and even with the distance, she could tell Hemmy was glowering.

She motioned across the distance that This Wasn’t A Problem.

Fortunately, Mr. Yates wasn’t paying attention to anything overhead—and when Hemmy nodded and squatted into a sit on the roof ridge, it looked like, of all the crap she had to worry about tonight, explaining that vampires did in fact exist to an old-school farmer was not on her list of things to grit her teeth and get through.

“Woulda had this to ya earlier, but been plowin’ for the county myself.”

“Thank you for bringing it all.” Although the four bags were going to wait until spring. And someone else. “I can get you the money now—”

“I’ll bill ya,” Mr. Yates said gruffly. “You stay warm in there. Going to be below zero for the next couple of days. You got my number if you need anything.”

“Thank you again. So much.”

She got another grunt, and then the man was back in his truck, cranking the diesel engine over and driving off. He did offer her a wave through his window, though, even as he didn’t glance at her.

When the red brake lights rounded a corner and disappeared into the trees, she looked up to the garage’s roofline. Hemmy seemed to be focused on the lane from his perch. Was he watching the truck? Or . . . wondering how much she wasn’t telling him?

God, she felt awful.

“Would you like to eat something?” she called up to him. “I could make you . . . a plate full of Triscuits?”

Hemmy glanced at her. Then he got to his feet and strolled down the roof pitch until gravity got ahold of him. As he lurched forward, she shouted and put out her hands—like that was going to do anything—

Just before he fell, he dematerialized.

And then he was standing calmly in front of her. “Aren’t you leaving?”

She pictured her father showing up here—and what the male would do to Hemmy if she were gone and the two clashed. Nothing good could come of all this misplaced chivalry. She had to get Hemmy to leave everything well enough alone.

“Not yet.”

Back at Willow Hills, Callum was staring into Apex’s eyes, and feeling like he was airborne. But not in a soaring way, in a falling-down way. He couldn’t break that stare, though, and as the words that had been spoken to him registered, he tried not to believe them.

Not it. You. You were with me.

If what the vampire said was true, if it was real . . . the idea that Apex had been eaten alive, too, was unsustainable—

Without thinking, he grabbed the male’s shoulder. “Listen to me. It was not your fault. Don’t take this shit on, okay? What happened to me thirty years ago isn’t worth ruining your own life over.”

Apex shook his head. “Doesn’t work like that.”

“It should.”

“Do you say those things to yourself? And believe them?”

Fuck. No, he didn’t. But he couldn’t live with the idea that both of them had been ruined. That just couldn’t . . . be where they ended up.

“I’m not worth the pain,” Callum said as his voice cracked. “Let yourself be free.”

The vampire looked down the hallway. And then focused on the door of the private quarters like he was seeing through it to the other side.

“Looks like we’re both still in prison, doesn’t it. Life sentences, side-by-side cells. No chance of parole—”

Before Callum knew what he was doing, he grabbed the lapels of that leather jacket and dragged their faces together.

“I don’t want you on my conscience.”

“I can’t help you with that.” Those eyes dropped to Callum’s mouth. “Just like you can’t order me to forget about . . . you.”

Desperation was a such strange thing, Callum would think later, when he was feeling more rational. It could pivot from one angle to another in the blink of an eye, pulling sexual need out of a hat that only had choking sorrow in it a split second before: The sensation of heat that ran through his body was an echo from an earlier era, and the need that went along with it was the same. He was like a rusty engine, though, clunky and slow to respond, his lips trembling before they parted.

“Are you sure you want this,” Apex whispered.

“I don’t know.”

And yet he was the one who closed the distance between their mouths, pressing his own to the male who was holding back. The contact was firm, the lips were soft, and his breath got tight fast.

Although the tightness in his lungs could have been caused by a lot of things.

It was all just so confusing. He was instantly hard, his cock straining in a way it hadn’t for decades. But his brain was scrambled, the past and present contorting so that he wasn’t sure where he was in the timeline, whose body was against his, where he was. And then Apex tilted his head, and there was a lick. And another. And—

Callum stepped back sharply. Banged into the wall. Shied like a spooked horse from that contact. Careened around until he knew he either stopped moving or got vertigo so badly he fell over.

As he panted into the silence, Apex put his hands up and looked down at the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Callum choked out. “I’m . . . sorry.”

“I know.” The vampire cleared his throat. “And I’ll . . . leave you alone. No questions asked. I get it.”

Apex backed up a couple of steps. Then he turned away.

Then he . . . jogged away, his heavy footfalls rounding the corner and dimming as he traveled through the waiting area. After a moment, the sanatorium’s front entry opened and closed.

In the aftermath of the departure, Callum’s shoulders slumped, his head dropped, his erection deflated—

The door behind him opened. “You’re still here.”

Was he, he thought as Blade’s voice registered through the roar in his head.

“I’m going back,” he mumbled.

“Are you?” There was a stretch of silence. “Then why aren’t you leaving?”

Well, Callum thought, at least he knew the answer to that: It was because he was worried if he returned to the estate right now, he was liable to hunt down that vampire and apologize.

By getting down on his knees in front of the male.

“Will you please come in and have something to eat,” Blade drawled. The because-you-look-like-shit was left unspoken. “I have leftovers from that meal I made at dawn, you know. It was quite good. Or you can have some eggs with me.”

Callum pivoted around. When all he could do was blink and breathe, the other male shook his head.

“I know, I know, you’re not hungry. You don’t care about anything. You’re leaving right this second.” Blade shrugged. “And yet twelve hours later, you’re still here. So perhaps we start with a little food and then maybe you can dematerialize back out to that truck you left on the edge of my property.”

In the rear of Callum’s mind, a connection was suddenly made. “You’re a symphath , aren’t you.”

Those eyes narrowed. “Changing the subject so fast? Afraid I’m going to mention the fact that Apex just left and this hallway smells like sex?”

Callum recoiled. “How the fuck do you know him—”

“Don’t be jealous. It’s not like that.” The smile was smooth and even. And yet the offense had been taken. “And I know him because his and my paths have crossed professionally, you might say. Caldwell can be a very small town, especially if you’re talking about the—shall we say—otherworldly community.”

There was another period of tense silence.

“I’m not eating your food,” Callum grumbled.

“So that’s the reason you’ve starved yourself for the whole day outside my door? You think I’ll tamper with your entrée because of what I am? My dear boy, I can assure you, if I wanted to fuck with you, I don’t need you to be chewing to ruin your life.”

Callum laughed in a hard rush. “That’s already happened.” Then he pushed past the male and entered the symphath ’s quarters. “You got it right the first time. My appetites are shot—appetite, I mean.”

All he knew was that he couldn’t go back to Camp Ghreylke.

And who knew this fucking place would ever be a better alternative.