Page 60 of Bloody Kingdom

“Ira,” Quincey chokes out, her shoulders shaking. “Don’t apologize, it’s okay.”

“He’s been alive for a very long time Quincey, maybe you can remind him what it’s like to actually live. When you have the gift of immortality, you forget how precious life is.” Ira’s lips pull into a sad smile. “Just trust me on this, I know better than anyone how fast it can all be taken away from you.”

Quincey wipes the tears away from her eyes. “I don’t understand why he didn’t change you.” She sniffs. “He could have saved you.”

“No dear, that was never an option for me,” Ira tells her. “There’s a strict law in place now about vampires changing humans. It hasn’t been allowed in almost a hundred years.”

“Surely exceptions can be made. Who enforces this rule?”

Ira’s eyes cut to mine as if he knew I’ve been standing in the dark doorway this whole time. “Breaking a law that you created is usually unwise,” he tells her while looking in my direction. “Isn’t that right?”

Quincey follows where Ira’s eyes stare. She does a double take when she sees me standing there. Her heart picks up the second she spots me, and her body starts to move in my direction of its own accord, but she stops herself before she can leave the chair. It’s almost as if she can’t fight the need to be near me.I know the feeling, love.

Slowly walking into the room, I nod my head solemnly at Ira. “The law is in place for a reason. Too many people were coming back without their humanity.” Just like Cecily. “I couldn’t tolerate such reckless behavior anymore, so I prohibited it. Like any law, it’s still broken by many, but I always find out. Anyone who breaks the law is executed for their crime. I can’t impose a law but break it myself. It doesn’t work like that.”

Regardless of the circumstances orpersonal connectionI may have to them, it cannot happen. There are no exceptions. People in my past have learned this the hard way as they watched me ruthlessly dispose of their mistakes.

I didn’t understand it then, I thought other vampires were being irresponsible and rebellious by breaking my law when they changed a human. Even when they claimed they did it because they loved the human and couldn’t imagine living their immortal lives without them, I still didn’t care. All I saw was insubordination and dealt with it accordingly. Now that I have Quincey, I find myself reluctantly understanding their motives.

“I wouldn’t choose to be a vampire either,” Ira adds as a way to comfort her. “I’m at peace with dying, Quin. Don’t shed another tear for me, my old heart can’t take it.”

“I just wish there was more I could do for you.” Her voice is thick with emotion.

“There is.” Ira grabs her hand tightly with his. “Stop believing you’re cursed. You had a bad string of luck is all, dear. Your touch doesn’t take lives, it’s time you stop listening to the ramblings of your mama. So many people would be lucky to have you be their nurse. You need to go back to doing what you were meant to do when this is all over.”

I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, making her turn her attention to me. “I’ve been around for a long time,mon soleil. You can trust me when I say there is no such thing as curses.” She turns her head into my touch when I caress the side of her face.

Ira watches the whole exchange, a thrilled look on his face. His grand plan worked after all. I’m sure he’s feeling pretty pleased with himself. “I’m feeling tired. You two go on and spend some time together.”

Quincey stands from the chair and points at the red button at the top of the remote that sits on his tray table. “Press that if you need anything, Ira.”

“You tell me that every time you leave the room, Quin.” He chuckles. “I think I know the drill.”

She checks the levels of his IV bags and numbers on his monitors once more before allowing me to lead her out of the room by her hand.

Her hand in mine soothes the unease that’s wracked my body for two days since she left. How am I supposed to get anything done with her in my life? I need to figure it out fast because I’m not planning on letting her go.

He leads us to his bedroom instead of taking me back to mine.

Just like the bedroom at the apartment, the room is dark. From the dark gray almost black wall color, to the dark wood furniture, to the black antique chandelier that casts just enough light for you to not run into things. Antique paintings hang on the walls. The scenes they depict are anything but bright and happy. The art is full of disturbing, haunting images that would cause nightmares if I slept in the same room as them every night.

Unlike the room in the city, it’s pristine. The furniture is all the right way up and nothing is broken into bits. It’s eerily neat in here, not a single thing out of place. In the middle of the room is a large bed with dark maroon bedding. My lips pull slightly at the sight of it. “I’m a little disappointed,” I muse playfully. “No coffin?”

“No, I’m afraid I sleep in a bed like everyone else,” Silas smirks at his giant bed.

His hand releases mine as I move about the room. There aren’t many knickknacks in here like his office. No personal touches that would give you hints as to what kind of man sleeps in here. There are no half-read books on the nightstand, no articles of clothing thrown over the accent chair in the corner, no signs the space is lived in. “You really sleep in here?” I double-check, looking at him over my shoulder.

“Yes,” he insists while giving me a weird look. “Why is that so hard to believe?”

I wrinkle my nose at him. “You’re such a neat freak, no one would ever know that you spend any time in this room. My bedroom in Boston would have driven you crazy with all the random stuff thrown about. My closet was so small, I had to keep clothes in bins under my bed, which of course meant things were always sticking out from under it.”

“I’m not a neat freak,” he argues. “It’s not as if you’re a slob yourself. Your room here is very orderly.”

Cocking my head at the morbid painting of a man staked to a stone table, I tell him distractedly, “I don’t want Della reprimanding me about making a mess. Besides, I had to sell the majority of my things to pay off Gallo. I don’t have enough belongings to have clutter lying about.” Grimacing one last time at the painting, I turn and smile at him. “It’s okay. I’m looking at it as a way of wiping the slate clean, starting over. I can do anything now, nothing in my past is holding me back.”

“You’d let go of your past that easily?” His dark brows furrow, the corners of his mouth tipping down.

“I won’t ever forget my past, it made me who I am today, but I won’t hold on to it so tight it keeps me from moving forward. If I’m going to be happy in the now and excited for the future, I can’t let my past consume me like that.”It doesn’t do me any good to be upset about my past or resentful of my upbringing. I can’t go back and change anything. I can’t make my parents be the wholesome parents I always wanted them to be. “I won’t ever be able to forgive my dad for selling me like a piece of meat and I won’t be able to forgive my mom for taking my childhood away from me, but I’m ready to let go of the anger.”

---