Page 17 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood
She nodded. “Yeah. Dr. Woods helped me a great deal as a teen. I didn’t want to go to him back then, but my parents insisted, and he wasn’t so bad, once I gave him a chance.”
She ate some broccoli. Swallowed. “When I realized I was having some identity stuff going on after surgery, I figured it couldn’t hurt to talk to him. I mean, I probably could’ve journaled my thoughts and had similar results, but I guess then you wouldn’t have been alerted that I need younow, instead of whenever it was you were planning to come.”
She was giving him a lot. He searched for something he could share, in return. “I’d engendered a relationship with the head vampire here, but there was a change in leadership a few years ago.”
He frowned, because Etta could be a real problem. “The second most powerful vampire in the area isn’t my biggest fan, so I was trying to figure out a way in, after the change in power. Thanks to your psychiatrist, my boss got me permission to come for a few days, and I’ve wrangled that into a few weeks, with a conversation at that time about a longer stay. If I can’t get permission, the closest I’ll be to you would be either Florida or Louisiana.”
“We need to figure out in a few weeks if there’s enough between us for me to move, is that what you’re saying?”
It was good she might be open to it, but he hoped it wasn’t necessary. Her life was here. Her parents. Ruby.
“Not necessarily. I believe I’ll be able to negotiate with the current boss, but it isn’t a sure thing.”
“Head vampire? Permission? Is it more like Sookie Stackhouse, or Anita Blake?”
He couldn’t help his smile. “There isn’t much difference between the two. In reality, most Master Vampires are more sane than the fictionalized versions. So, more like Eric and Jean Claude, less like Russell Edgington and Nikolaos, though our world also has plenty of those types, some of them quite powerful.”
He grinned. “I try my best to steer clear of them, and so far, I’ve mostly succeeded. The boss of this area is exceedingly level-headed and fair. HisSecundo,who doesn’t especially like me, is one of the scariest vampires in existence. Her mate terrifies me for completely different reasons, but the two seem to be following the Master’s rules and edicts, helping him bolster his territory, so it should be fine.”
“The scariest vampire you know isn’t your biggest fan?”
He shrugged. “She wasn’t so powerful when we met, and I had the upper hand. She wasn’t treated well by her Master, and I didn’t…” He sighed. “Secrets I can’t tell, darling Aurélie.”
Their gazes met in a tempest of sensuality, sparks flying between them, and Axel’s dick went hard. His Aurélie lowered her gaze a few seconds, and then looked up to tell him, “I love hearing my name fall from your lips, but maybe that’s something you only say in private? My friends call me Aury.”
“I don’t want to be your friend, Aurélie.”
She nodded. “We were always destined to be more, though how you knew that when I was five, I don’t understand.”
“It was the love you showed for your mother, and your bravery. Also, your mind. Terrified as you were, and then inhorrible pain after you were thrown across the dammed room and into the wall, you were still thinking logically. You dragged yourself up, supported your weight by your arms, and screamed at…” She still thought the assailant was male, and he wasn’t prepared to jar those memories loose just yet. “Screamed to leave your mother alone. You were terrified and debilitated, but you stood and faced the monster.” He shook his head and said it again. “Screamed at the evil creature to leave your mother alone.”
Her expression inexplicably softened, and understanding lit her face.
Her voice came quiet, steady. “I saw you as my savior. Not a monster. The opposite of a monster. You were brutal. You ripped his head off his body, but I wasn’t afraid of you. I saw you for what you were, and I appreciated you.”
He stared at her. Blinked.
The ground shifted beneath his feet, everything tilting. His entire analytical understanding of that night shattered like a mirror hit by a bullet.
She’d seenhim. Not the monster. Not the killer.
In her eyes, he’d been the savior. The good guy defeating the bad guy, and he’d responded to that — the first person toeversee him as good.
His voice barely scraped out. “That’s…” He swallowed. Tried again. “That’s probably part of it, but…”
He rubbed the back of his neck. Shook his head. Sat back and just looked at her.
Like she’d just rewritten the math of his existence.
But thatcouldn’tbe all of it. He worked through it out loud, “I felt a connection with you before… while I was running towards the house. I could hear what was happening from outside. When I entered, you’d climbed the creature, using your fists to beat…” He’d been in Aurélie’s head, seen it through her eyes while he’dflown faster than human eyes could see. Seen her bravery, her terror, her fierce love for her mother.
“My assignment was to kill the Celrau vampires in the area. They weren’t authorized to be there, didn’t have permission to exist in the city, much less hunt.”
And when he’d arrived, she’d seen him as her savior. She was fucking right, and it was time to move off shaky ground onto solid.
“You have to know I can scent the gun on you.”
She shrugged. “I mostly always have one with me, either on me or in a special purse. I have a small crossbody that puts it where it usually is on the bellyband I most often wear.”
