Chapter 20 Maeve #2
I nudged my breakfast plate away. My stomach had tightened into a tiny, hard ball.
“I’m sorry,” Leia said as she watched. “I’m sorry if I’ve made this difficult for you.”
“No, it’s not that.” The urge to run was strong. I could just leave, right? I wasn’t a prisoner anymore. I could go and forget all of this.
My chest hollowed, and I sucked in a breath to try to fill it. Of course I couldn’t just leave. Francois. His name echoed around my head. I already felt so connected to him. How could I be without him?
And he was depending on me. He needed me. I’d never been needed like that by someone before.
No one had ever needed me to give up my life for them, anyway. And the pull to do exactly that was like nothing I’d ever felt before. The intensity to give up everything for one man scared me.
“It’s a fight-or-flight response,” Leia whispered. “But that’s okay. You have a lot to think about.”
I nodded, unable to find any words. My head was too full of all the thoughts to get any of them out. I wouldn’t have made sense if I’d tried.
“You want me to take you back downstairs? Or we can go out and wander around New Orleans a bit.” But she grimaced as she spoke. “Although Nic probably wouldn’t like that with the way things are at the moment.”
“It’s okay.” I half stood. “I can find my way back downstairs.” I needed to think. Or find Francois. Or…leave. But I pushed that last thought out of my head.
“I’ll stay here a little while longer.” She tipped her bagel in my direction. Whether she was staying because she really was feeding her baby or because she had enough discretion to offer Francois and me some privacy, it didn’t matter. I was simply grateful.
My steps were heavy as I returned to the basement. My head swam with my thoughts, and I wandered into the living room and sat down. I didn’t want Francois to die or succumb to the madness everyone kept talking about.
But saving him was a huge responsibility. Was it one I could bear? I swallowed against bile as it crept up my throat from a roiling stomach. How could I not bear the responsibility? I needed to save him. If I could, I had to.
Surely?
How the hell could I not?
As if conjured by my thoughts, Francois walked into the room, a book open in his hands as his eyes scanned the pages. He sat at the other end of the sofa, and for a moment, I didn’t move, trying not to alert him to my presence as I studied him.
Would I give him up? Could I?
“Je sais que tu es là, mon ange.”
I know you’re there, my angel. His voice always melted me. More so when he spoke to me in French.
He looked up and set the book to the side, not even bothering to mark his page as he closed it. “What’s wrong?” His brow furrowed as concern etched itself in every line of his face and the tightness of his jaw.
“I… I met with Leia.” I didn’t know what else to say, but he nodded like something had made sense.
“Je vois. I see.”
But did he? Did he really?
“I could die.” My words came out a whisper. Maybe humans faced our own mortality every day. But not quite like this.
“You could stay with me.” His words were an equal whisper but full of the kind of torment I’d hoped to never hear. Especially not from him.
It was as though he was losing everything he’d ever lived for. Everything he’d searched for.
“I’m old now, Maeve.” He closed his eyes briefly.
“Old before I found you. Yet I did find you, and that has made me lucky. But I’d never force you, never take what you can’t give freely.
I’ve learned many lessons in my life, and that’s the most important one.
I can’t make something so just by wishing for it.
” He tightened one of his hands into a fist before smoothing his forefinger over where his knuckles bulged white and tight against his already pale skin.
“I can survive on the blood Nic and Leia provide. They infuse it with something Kayla makes.”
“I’m not sure it’s my place to stay.” I started to stand. If Francois would be okay without me, on whatever blood they provided for him, maybe he didn’t even need me anymore.
But the thought of leaving him tore at my heart. Panic at the idea of not being with him prevented me from walking away. I couldn’t leave him. I just didn’t know if I could be what he wanted.
“No.” His hand on my arm stopped my movement. “You don’t need to go anywhere, mon ange. We can try to be together as we are now. There will be challenges—the instinct to bite you and claim you as my own will be strong, but I can do it. I’d do anything for you. Please stay with me.”
I breathed out as I settled back down. There was a third solution. It wasn’t as cut and dried as staying or going. Saving him or leaving him. We could stay exactly as we were.
Some of the tightness in my chest eased and I shifted my position to settle against him, immediately blanketed in familiarity as he wrapped an arm around me and held me close.
He pressed a soft kiss against my hair.
Everything would work out now. I couldn’t be this comfortable with a man for it all to fall apart. The circumstances under which we’d met could have been better—I stifled the sudden urge to laugh. Yeah, they could have been way better, but at least we had met.
Maybe karma or fate or whatever existed after all. And maybe it was on our side.