Page 28 of The Vampire Always Rises
“He sounds like the man in the photos. I will show them to you, but I suspect your sociopath is not the man I want. There are no pictures of Victor, unfortunately.”
“Pooh. So, what do you want me to do?”
He glanced over at her, surprised by her question. “What do you mean?”
She gestured at nothing in particular. “What do you want me to do to help you find Victor?”
“This is not your problem. I told you—I cannot use someone who has saved my life. I will return you to Genoa, where you will take a room at a hotel. Then I will fetch your things from your cousin’s house, and you can continue with your vacation.”
“I doubt if my cousin would be happy to have you show up to grab my stuff. If you drive me back there, that’ll be fine.”
“I won’t leave you there. It’s possible your cousin is Victor.”
“It’s also possible he’s not.”
“It’s not safe there,” he insisted, wondering why she didn’t understand this important point.
“Fine,” she said, heaving a dramatic sigh. “I won’t stay there, but only because Cousin Carlo and I weren’t really connecting like I’d hoped we would. I’ll get my things and you can take me to a hotel, OK?”
He said nothing, but thought a great many things about her not doing as he instructed.
“You know,” she said in a conversational tone that he just knew was going to pave the way to the most outrageous statement. “You’re not actually the king of the world. You may think you are, and I bet people treat you like you are because you’re big and bad and scary and have pointy teeth—wait, you do have fangs, don’t you?—but the truth is that I’ve spent my life fighting authority, and I have the scars to prove it. So I don’t buy this bullcookies about you telling me what I can and can’t do any more than I accept being kidnapped.”
“Youwerekidnapped.”
The look she gave him was filled with pity. “Do you really think I would be here now if I didn’t want to? The first thing on my bucket list was to take a self-defense class.”
He was silent for a bit. He’d never met a woman like her, and didn’t like the unbalanced feeling that she generated in him. On the other hand, he bet he’d never be bored with her, as he was with so many other people.
That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me.
Now you are eavesdropping. Stop it. I dislike it.
I don’t know, it’s kind of fun. Just think about it—when you’re off at the grocery store picking up a few things for dinner, I can tell you about something I left off the grocery list.
You are not my Beloved. There will be no grocery list!
Fine.
He waited for the count of eight, knowing there was more to come.
We’ll do a grocery delivery service.
“What scars?”
“Huh?”
“What scars do you have? You said you have scars to prove your point. Mental scars, emotional scars, or physical ones?” He pulled off the highway and into the suburb of Genoa where he’d tracked down Victor’s villa.
“All of the above.” She twisted around in the seat so that her back was to him, reaching behind her as best she could with the seat belt limiting her movements, and pulled down an edge of the back of her dress. “Elder Davenport, who ruled the sect, used to deal out the public punishments. Boys got whipped on their bare behinds, while girls were whipped on the upper back and shoulders. Papa used to protect me from most of the punishments, but there were a couple of times when he was called out to do work with a sister sect, and Elder Davenport made sure I got what he thought I deserved. Most of the whippings didn’t leave permanent scars, but one time mine got infected, and left scars. You can still see a couple of stripes on my shoulders.”
Rage filled him, red and thick and unbearable. “Where were your parents? Why did they allow you to be tortured so?”
“I told you that Papa was away—the Elders would never touch me when he was around—and my mother thought she was leaving me well protected by my father. Which was the case most of the time. Why are you so angry-sounding about this? It was my punishment, and if I’ve chosen to forgive the Elders for their stupidity and cruelty, then I don’t know why you should sound like you are gargling with lava.”
“I am angry because you mention this heinous act just as if it was nothing.” He fought to control the rage, afraid of frightening her with the intensity of it.
She placed her hand on his knee. “That’s really sweet of you to be so mad on my account, but, Merrick, there’s no need. I’ve fought my whole life against the people of my father’s cult, and I’ve finally made my peace with that past. What happened, happened. I refuse to live my life surrounded by anger and negative emotions when there is so much joy to be had in the world.”
