Part 36 (1/2)
”I... love you.”
”Oh please! Don't say that if you don't mean it.”
”I never say what I don't mean.”
”Then you said that to calm me down. In five minutes you'll have me fending you off.”
”You're probably right there. I love you.”
”Don't believe you. Sorry!”
”My life was fine until you jumped onto the tail end of my private thoughts that night,” I said over my shoulder. ”But I don't... hate you.” I realized, as the thought froze in my brain, there was a thin line between love and hate.
”I guess it's too early to tell me how you feel. I'm not very good at the relations.h.i.+ps thing,” she said.
I stopped pacing, shook my head as looked up at the dilapidated ceiling. I didn't dare say anything further with how I felt. He was still sorting it out. ”That night was the end of my privacy,” I said.
”You can't stand to have anyone know the real you. Too bad, Daedalus. I'm getting to know all of you.”
”Why aren't you running away?”
She smiled wryly. ”We're stranded in this cabin during the worst blizzard ever.”
A tortured whisper broke through my lips. ”You should be running like a bat out of h.e.l.l.” Then louder, I said, ”Why aren't you?”
”I guess the same reason why you can't. We're hopelessly entangled.”
”Hopelessly entangled...That sounds right.” He watched her play with her lip. ”I take risks every night, and now I have this job...”
”What job?”
”I'm Head of Security for the King and Queen of Vampires.” I made an unintelligible sound after watching her frown. ”That was too much information, wasn't it?”
”Your brother and his wife?”
”We're all around you.”
”And you're...”
I sighed wanting to end this bit of the conversation. ”The Head of Security and the Prince of Vampires or Enforcer. Whatever is easiest to say.”
”You risk your life every night.”
”I do, and that makes us too different.”
”Are you talking your way out of this?”
”Knowing me will put you in danger. Look at what happened to my daughter.”
”I had a taste of that in the subway station and Tilly House, remember,” Ilida reminded him. ”And I survived.”
”It will get worse before this is over.”
”I'm not entirely defenseless, Daedalus.”
”You hate using your powers, and you haven't told me why.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
”You want a confessional?” ”Why not? We have no place else to go.”
You haven't told me about the scars.”
Ilida peered around her anxiously. The cabin creaked and whined with every gust of wind. The ceiling groaned as if it carried a huge weight on its shoulders. It'll be a miracle if the roof doesn't collapse.
It would be a double miracle if she could convince him they can be together, but that was a wasted wish. He didn't want any part of her except what was between her legs. He was a playboy through and through, or was he?
”How about it?”
”Five years ago I was an intern and had my first patient, an elderly man having a heart attack. I a.s.sisted the doctor in trying to resuscitate him. We worked on him for half and hour. His wife was outside, frantically pacing around wondering if the argument they had earlier was worth it. I blocked out her thoughts wanting to concentrate on her husband. Ilida took a deep breath then let out. Tears stung her eyes.
”And then what?”
”I thought I had control of my telepathy. I did. Then while I was working on him his spirit, his thoughts, reached out to me begging me to save him. He wanted to tell his wife he loved her. I tried to ignore him. He insisted, then in a flash of blinding white light he died. I felt him slip away. You know there really is a silver cord attached to our spirits.”
She flinched. His finger tenderly wiped a tear away. ”I'm sorry.”
”From then on, I just wanted to be normal. I stopped my lessons with my aunt.”
”You are normal. It's what makes you, you.”
”You have no problems being a vampire? You ever wanted to be anything else?”
He shrugged. ”This is all I've ever known.”
”Vampires are born vampires?”
”Mostly. Some have been changed. We call them acolytes.”
”Was your brother's wife born a vampire?”
”He changed her, then she became his queen a year ago. After that incident you went back to school.”
She nodded thoughtfully. ”My father wigged out about it. He wanted his kids to be doctors like him.”
”Your brother is a doctor?”