Page 91 of Skin Trade

She squeezed his hand tighter, her other, definitely broken, was cradled to her chest to keep it in position. Seth had strapped it up with what was left of his shirt and made it so she couldn’t move it.

The truck pulled to a stop a second later, jarring them. Hardly the most prestigious ride for a vampire in his position now. But it wasn’t that.

Zane jumped out of the truck. He had received her call, heard her, put two and two together and actually come up with four. He’d been waiting outside with Mick. Well, no. That was a lie. He’d been outside arguing with Riggs that he needed to make a rescue.

“Hey, Mr Seth, Sir … Mr, we’re ‘ere.” He beamed at Seth over the back of his truck as he uncoupled the back panel.

“I see that,” Seth said. Seth helped Payton down, handing her over to Zane who waited with a hand to catch her if she needed it. She didn’t, but she took it anyway.

“Thank you,” she said, and she kissed Zane on the cheek. “Thank you for everything.”

A week later, Seth patted Payton’s backside as she lay draped over him basking in the sunshine that flooded the terrace. His body was hot and muscled under her touch, her own heartbeat a little erratic from being with him. She kissed him. Kept kissing him, tasting the sunlight on his lips, feeling him right against her as if she couldn’t get enough.

He’d locked the doors, thrown down blankets for them and stepped out into the sunlight properly, for the first time in more years than he could remember.

“Do you remember anything of me?” Seth asked as they lay together, her body sated and relaxed. “Anything at all?”

They hadn’t talked about those things Alexander had said. Hadn’t talked about a lot of it. Not that Seth hadn’t tried. He’d practically tried to explain himself every time he had Payton to himself, but she wasn’t ready for it. Not yet.

The truth was, her life had been a lie, all of it. The life she remembered was not the one she’d had. No. They’d taken that from her, along with everything else. Her innocence, her mother, the one man in her life who she’d always been able to count on. But now she had him back.

She pushed herself up on her elbow, leant over his bare chest. “I remember some things,” she said. “Small moments of you, but when I try to think too much about it, you’re taken away again, and it all goes fuzzy.”

He brushed her hair back, tucked a strand of it behind her ear.

“Is it strange for you? Knowing me then and knowing me now?” she asked. It had to be in some way. He’d been there her entire life while she was growing up. He’d seen her as a child.

“A little.”

“Can I ask you a question?” she said as she played with the dark strands of his hair. When he didn’t deny her, she said. “Those graves I found, the ones in the inside garden. Are they … is that your wife and children?”

A pause. “Yes. Eliza was my wife,” he said. “Nicholas and Christopher were my sons.”

“And Katherine? She was your daughter?”

A slight shake of his head and she couldn’t be sure, but there was something in his eyes. “She was my mother,” he said. “The first of Creven’s victims.”

She studied his face a long time. Relaxed into him as his fingers drew circles along the small of her back.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to--”

He cut her off. Kissed her. Giving her bottom one last squeeze before pulling her onto him. “Don’t be,” he said. And a second later he was inside her again.

The End

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