Page 23 of Dawn Caravan
The other vampire’s amnis retreated so abruptly Ben nearly wondered if he’d been imagining it. Maybe that was the point.
“So.” The Scottish vampire wandered over. “Is my woman here?”
“Yes. And she already brought Tenzin up.”
Gavin offered him a shrug. “Tenzin’s been around. This time you’re the one who disappeared.”
“Seems like it was my turn.”
“And you’ll get no argument from me. Be angry if you like, just don’t expect me to be sorry you’re alive.”
“That’s pretty much the reaction I’m getting around here.”
Gavin slapped him on his shoulder. “It must be such a burden to be shackled with so many people who give a flaming arse you’re alive. Where’s Chloe?”
“The kitchen.”
“Excellent.” Gavin left him on the lawn and strode toward the house without a backward glance.
Ben watched Gavin leave. He spotted Sadia running through the backyard, Dema trailing behind her. He could hear Giovanni and Beatrice speaking quietly in the library and Zain making small talk with Chloe.
It was familiar. It was home.
It was suffocating.
Ben took off into the air, grateful for the soft cocoon of coastal fog that blanketed the San Gabriel Valley that night. He moved soundlessly through the clouds, moving by instinct and scent toward the heavy wisteria arbors at the Huntington Gardens.
Descending into the rose garden, he spotted the gates of the Japanese garden and walked toward them.
In the middle of the night, the park was serene. The only sounds were an owl hooting in the distance, a mockingbird call, and the quick flap of bats hunting through the gardens from their roosts in the palm trees.
Ben walked through the gate of the Japanese garden and sat under the wisteria arbor to survey the silent sanctuary. He’d spent summers here as a child. When he closed his eyes, he could see the sago palms and maple trees bathed in golden sunlight, the pools with darting koi, their tails cutting through the reflected sky.
You will never see that again.
You will never see your shadow during the day or feel the sun on your skin.
You will never watch a sunrise or a sunset.
It was a process, this litany. Like deliberately cutting off a limb that was already dead. Every now and then he forgot. Then he remembered and that limb twitched again, a phantom pain spiking through his heart.
“I remember what I said that night. But I’m not that man anymore. I’m not a man at all. I don’t know what I am.”
“You are still you.”
Was he? Some nights he felt like himself, and some nights he was so filled with overwhelming anger he felt like he was choking on it. A year after he’d fled to Mongolia with Zhang, he flew out over the mountains and screamed as long and as loud as he could.
He felt better for a night. When he woke up the next night, the swelling rage nearly overtook him again.
“All things have roots and branches. Every being has their end and their beginning.”
Zhang’s words came back to Ben as he sat in the silence of the garden.
Roots and branches.
“We don’t have an end. We’re immortal.”
“All things have ends, and one immortal may have many lives. That does not mean there are no endings and no beginnings, but when one branch is cut off, another grows. You will have to find peace with your end before you can grow into your beginning.”
