31. A Thousand Year Vendetta Begins

Leticia's memory went black and then I was thrust into the next. Body alight in agonizing pain, lungs like stone, unable to breathe, the room awash in red.

Not me. I separated myself from the source of the pain, Leticia writhing on the floor of a bedchamber. Her mother, flickers of red in her cold, dead eyes, stood in the doorway, an old, red-faced man who seemed to be in shock locked in her steely grip. "Finally," she said before hurling the man across the room.

Leticia sprung, tearing into him as she fed.

"Now we're both widows," Aldith said as she walked away.

The memory went black and then flickered like an old movie reel. My head pounded horribly when I dropped into a new memory. This one was recent. Clive and Russell appeared as they did now, the clothing the same. Clive walked in the door and was met by Russell. The entry was empty but for the two of them. Leticia had to be nearby, though, for me to be here.

"And how is our resident werewolf these days, Sire?" The corner of Russell's mouth quirked up.

"Funny," Clive said as he walked to the study.

"What was the topic of discussion tonight?" Russell followed Clive down the hall.

Clive stopped and leaned against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets. His expression softened as he shook his head. "She was quite angry about a children's book."

"A children's book?"

"Yes. Something about a tree being cut down so a selfish boy could have everything he wanted. And then—this part seemed to incense her the most—the tree had to spend the rest of her truncated life with him sitting on her."

"The tree was gendered?"

Clive shrugged, grinning at his friend. "I have no idea. I know for a fact, though, that the boy was an asshole. She was quite clear on that point."

Russell chuckled. "I'm sure she's right."

"I'm sure she is."

"If I might suggest, Sire, perhaps next time you should join the conversation."

Clive's eyes lit with humor. "Now why would I do that?" Lost in thought a moment, his expression turned grim. "Silent and threatening is more my speed. Come, tell me what I missed."

The door of the study closed firmly behind Russell. I looked up and down the hall, trying to find Leticia. A moment later, I saw an eye peeking out from the salon across the hall. The door couldn't have been opened more than an inch or two, but the heartbreak was clear.

I supposed that answered our ‘why now' question. After centuries of hoping and pining for her one true love, he defied logic and became smitten with a book nerd werewolf.

I pulled myself out of Leticia's memories, exhausted. Clive was waiting, still seated in front of me, hand still around my calf. It was disorienting seeing him now, all polish and sophistication, and remembering him then, sweating in the fields. One thing was true in either time, though. He was a good man.

I kissed him and then stepped off the table. "Let's go. I'll explain in the car." I wanted a soft bed as soon as possible.

Holding the grimoire in my lap, I tipped the seat back and let the cool night air wash over me. I pushed away the memory of the pain and focused on the chill I was feeling, the way stray hairs whipped around my face, Clive stripped and working in a field.

"It's unfair," I said sleepily.

"What is?"

"You. You never had an awkward age. Twelve? Adorable, earnest. Twenty? Holy crap. I'll be fantasizing about that for years to come. Undead? Gorgeous. Ergo, ipso facto, unfair." Thankfully—in this case—I had no pictures from my childhood. No middle school class photos meant I couldn't show him what awkward adolescence was supposed to look like.

"How—Leticia knew me in life?"

"Yup. She had a massive crush. Massive. Like I-refuse-to-kill-him-Mother-no-matter-how-much-you-torment-and-berate-me-even-if-you-turn-me-into-a-vampire-I-won't-do-it massive." I couldn't blame her. I was hopelessly in love with him myself.

"And then she said yes." He exited the freeway, twisting through dark surface streets on the way back to Pacific Heights.

"In her defense, she said no for almost a millennium."

"There's that."

I relayed everything I'd seen and then we sat in silence, each lost in our own thoughts.

"I don't remember her," he finally said.

"Why should you? It was hundreds of lifetimes ago. Knowing you and seeing you through her eyes, I also know kindness to a stranger wasn't unusual for you. You didn't mark her or her rescue because erring on the side of compassion is ingrained in you."

He glanced over, brow furrowed. "I'm not the hero, Sam. Tell me you understand that. I've lost count of the number of people I've killed. I lost count centuries ago. Stheno told you in New Orleans. I've lived as long as I have because I always put myself first. Always. Threats are eliminated immediately, so as not to become greater threats later. Cold-hearted bastard, I believe she called me. She wasn't wrong."

Downshifting, he drove through the gate being swung open by one of his vamps. "Do you think I've become a master vampire by being sweet and cuddly?"

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "I know who you are. You may be ruthless and calculating and deadly and all the rest, but you temper it with intelligence and decency. You're not St. Germain or Lafitte, not even Cadmael or Liang."

He pulled into the garage and turned off the engine. "Meaning what?"

"You haven't lost your humanity." Unbuckling, I stepped out of the roadster, grimoire held to my chest.

He walked around the front of the car, took my free hand, and kissed it. "I feel hard-pressed to remind you I lost that a millennium ago."

"Nope. Dead-ish doesn't mean mindless or heartless. In your case, it's stripped away the daily concerns of planting and harvesting, of asshole bosses and paying rent. When all of that noise and drama is shed, what's left is what's true. And what's true is that you are a good man. Feared, yes, but also beloved. Russell and Godfrey willingly step between you and danger, not out of duty, but out of love and respect. Look at all the other masters calling you, volunteering to watch your nocturne while we went to New Orleans. That doesn't happen because you're so scary. It happens because they admire you and know you would offer your help if they were in trouble."

Shaking his head, he leaned in and kissed me soundly. "As you would say, boy, do I have you snowed. Come, let's get you cleaned up and in bed."

When we walked through the door into the hall, Russell was waiting. "She's right, Sire."

"No one asked you." Clive patted Russell's shoulder as he walked by. "Anything to report?"

"Nothing, my liege." Russell followed us down the long hall.

The Sire and liege could only mean one thing: People were listening.

"I'll be down shortly and then we'll begin our strategy. Sam has found where Leticia's been hiding."

"Thank you, Miss Quinn. We are indebted."

It was a bit of theater for the nocturne. Clearly, Clive and Russell were trying to get the vamps to appreciate me. I could have told them it'd never work, but it was sweet that they tried.

After a long, tepid shower—I couldn't handle heat right now—I looked in the mirror and saw a bright white streak in my hair. Starting at my right temple, it was an inch wide and went right down to the tips. Martha had told me I could redirect the payment. It didn't have to be blindness.

Tonight, when I absorbed the pain in the wicche glass and then spied on Leticia, I chose a different payment. I don't remember consciously choosing to lose the pigment in my hair. I have always thought the bride of Frankenstein's streaks were cool, though, so who knows? I blew dry the new hair, put on my pajamas, padded into our room, and found Clive sitting on the side of the bed.

"What are you doing here?" Not that I wasn't happy to see him.

"I live here." He rose and pulled me into his arms. "I gave Russell and Godfrey the brief overview. I was distracted, focusing on your heartbeat," he murmured, kissing my neck. "You scared me earlier." He toppled us to the bed. "I won't have it. The sound of your next heartbeat can't be the most important thing in my life."

"Sucker," I crooned. "You've got it bad." I dropped little kisses all over his face.

His nose grazed my throat, my jaw, before he rubbed his cheek against my own. Twisting a finger in the white hair, he studied it. "I like it."

I shrugged, self-conscious. "I redirected payment so I wouldn't go blind tonight."

"Smart. I thought this," he said, running the hair over his lips, "was because of the wicche glass." He sighed and then kissed me. "Whatever shall I do with you?"

"Better put a ring on it."

Bracing himself on his forearms, he studied me. "I'd do it right now, but the vicar might be put off by our shagging."

"I don't believe we're currently shagging. I'm pretty sure I'd know."

"Darling, I'm just getting started." In no time, he'd divested us of our clothing. "See?" he said, nuzzling my breast. "This might be embarrassing for the poor man." Trailing kisses down my body, he added, "And this."

When he settled between my legs, his tongue and fangs yanking a scream out of me, he said, "Honestly, I'm not even certain that's legal."

Panting and giggling, I pulled him up and rolled us over, shutting him up with my own mouth. I rose, taking him in on a moan. He dragged his hands from my hips to my breasts, rolling and plucking at my nipples as I rode him.

"Think of how red in the face he'd be right now, trying to remember his dearly beloveds."

"Clive."

"Sorry, darling." He rolled us back over, his arms snaking under my legs to keep them spread open for him. Letting the joke go, he showed me exactly what supernatural strength, speed, and skill could do to a person.

Spent, vibrating, muscles like jelly, I clung to him. "I do."

Sliding his fangs from the crook in my neck, he kissed my throat. "As do I."

I woketo Clive's thumb brushing back and forth against my stomach.

Smiling, I curled into him. "I love winter."

His hand skimmed up my body before settling on a breast. Lips at the back of my neck, he said, "Whatever shall we do with all these longer nights?"

"Nothing," I said, scrambling out of bed, "until I brush my teeth." Clive followed for the most erotic teeth brushing of my life.

Much later we were cleaned, dressed, and headed downstairs.

Wait. It couldn't be. I knew that voice!

With a whoop, I raced down the hall and leaped over the balustrade, dropping down through the narrow gap between staircases and gallery walks. In the two seconds it took to drop, I left my stomach on the third floor and cursed my own idiocy, but I had to get to him as quickly as possible. I would have been fine, but Dave snatched me out of the air and held me a foot above the tile.

"What the fuck?" he growled.

I took one look into those shark-black eyes and burst into tears. I wrapped my arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder, unable to form words.

"Damn it, Sam. We've talked about crying." He let go, no doubt hoping I'd drop to the floor, but there was no way I could stop hugging him.

Clive's hand slid up and down my back, soothing. "It's good to see you again."

"Can you do something about this?" His pissed-off grumble brought joy to my soul.

"In a minute. Sam has been quite concerned—more than I realized—that she'd killed you or sent you to a parallel universe from which you'd never return."

"She did." He patted my back. "Good job on that. Now let go."

Shaking my head against his shoulder, I continued to cling like a demented spider monkey.

"Perhaps we should move this discussion to my study."

Dave sighed and then strode down the hall, doing his best to ignore the werewolf attached to him.

Once in the study, Clive pried me off Dave and then held me close, sitting us together on my bench. Taking deep breaths, I wiped off my face and let it sink in. He wasn't dead.

"I'm sorry." I pointed to the scars across his face.

"Eh." He shrugged. "Sorry I tried to kill you."

I waved my hand, erasing his apology. "No big deal."

Shaking his head, Clive patted my leg. "Come," he called.

The study door opened. Russell and Godfrey entered, followed by a vamp whose name I didn't know carrying a tray holding a beer, a cranberry juice, and a goblet of blood.

When the as-yet-still-unnamed vamp left, Russell took the chair beside Dave and Godfrey moved one over from the table on the other side of the office. Before we got started, I downed the juice and grabbed Clive's now empty goblet, taking them to the wet bar counter. I tapped through Clive's tablet to start the music playing.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Clive didn't need a position-of-power seat. Relaxed on the bench, my hand in his, he commanded the room.

"Shit, the headaches started as soon as George took Owen away. She's good. I'll give her that. I didn't realize what she was doing until it was too late." He smoothed a hand over his bald head. "It was constant. This throb behind my eyes. Really negative shit kept cycling through my thoughts. Maggie and I got into it and she kicked me out the night I attacked you. That just added fuel to the fire."

"I'm so sorry! I can talk to her for you. Explain what my aunt is like. I—"

"I talked to her before I came here. If you need a banshee to help take down your aunt, you got one." Dave tipped up his glass and finished his beer.

"Is it wrong that the idea of a banshee screaming in my aunt's ear makes me warm and giddy?"

Dave smirked. "Anyway, the negative shit racing around in here"—he tapped his forehead—"it was all about you and what a huge fucking asshole you are."

"Understandable," Godfrey said, expression serious, though I felt the humor under the words.

I tried to flick him between the eyes with my mind. When he flinched, Clive held up a hand and I high-fived him.

"After Maggie booted me, I knew you were at the root of all my problems. I wanted to kill you. Enough of me remembered that wasn't right, so I went to the bar to avoid you." He scrutinized me. "I thought I burned you."

"You did." Clive's voice dripped ice.

Oh shit.