Page 148 of The Good Vampire's Guide to Blood & Boyfriends
Throwing a tantrum at a party for attention.
Crying out for help.
Hurting people because he’d been hurt, just like every other human on this fucking planet.
Travis had succeeded in outing vampires and throwing a temper tantrum, but he didn’t have to succeed in this. In his swan song.
Brennan needed to say something. He needed to say somethingfast.
His brain moved too fast and too slow at once, wading through information and angles and late nights of reading and what came out was—
“I’m sorry,” Brennan said. “About Shea.”
“Don’t say her name,” Travis roared. The wind lashed against Brennan’s face like whips, but he refused to stop.
“It must be lonely without her,” Brennan said. “Thousands of years old in a changing world.”
“You understandnothing,” Travis said.
“I understand you more than I want to.”
The words hung in the air. The winds raged on. Brennan took a step closer. He didn’t know why, but if he could reach Travis, he thought he might be able to get through to him.
“Okay, yeah, maybe I don’t know what it’s like to be thousands of years old and watch everyone you know age and die while you stay the same. Maybe I won’t really understand until I’ve lived it.”
“Brennan,” Cole warned.
The wind whipped faster, but Cole’s grip didn’t waver.
“But this, right now? I understand perfectly,” Brennan said, taking one step closer. “You’re lonely, and you’re tired, and you’re lashing out at everything because it hurts too much not to.”
The wind slowed.
“You were good once.” He took another step forward. “You could be again.” And another.
Travis opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Everything swirling in the air dropped to the ground, collapsing onto the sticky red floor.
He was thinking. He was teetering on the edge of believing, and Brennan was begging him to choose correctly.
The grand doors slammed open. Brennan didn’t tear his eyes from Travis’s.
“Travis,” Brennan pleaded.
Travis’s eyes caught on something over Brennan’s shoulder. Something like resignation flickered over him.
“Make sure someone takes care of Rosie,” Travis said.
And Brennan was so busy trying to decipher that, he didn’t see the commotion behind him. He only saw the blur of motion, a flash of dark hair and a red velvet dress. He processed Dom, processed Micah tossing her the stake from her belt, processed Cole’s shout—
“Dom, wait!”
Before the stake plunged into Travis’s chest.
In the split second before Travis died, the only emotion on his face was relief.
Travis collapsed. There was no blood. No scream. The quartet stopped playing, and the room fell silent.
The quiet left behind by the wind was deafening.
