11. A Bedtime Story #2
Nicolette bit her lip. “How many women have you been with?”
“Too many.” I left it at that. It wasn’t something I was exactly proud of, especially given my time as a man of the cloth. But that man was a mere phantom to me. My hope was to reclaim him.
“Yeah, I figured.”
“Save Giovanna, none as lovely as you,” I added.
“You don’t have to lie to me.”
“I’m not. You are lovely, Nicolette. And I’m sorry I brought you into my ugly world. But this world was coming for you. Your mother’s discovery ensured it. Whether you believe it or not, I do want to protect you.”
“And use me.”
She never softened her blows. I admired her for it.
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“Well, finish your story and see if you can move me.” She smirked.
I had the urge to kiss the smirk off her beautiful face. But I refrained, fearing she might be my undoing. And I hers.
“So, I was ordained as a priest. My worldly connections were enough that I was immediately given a vacant parish. A parish that included the Rossis.”
“They went to church? Were they already vampires?”
“Yes on both counts,” I laughed.
“Did you know they were vampires?”
“I suspected. But I had made a vow to help all of God’s creatures. And whether you believe it or not, my parents are good people. They always help the poor wherever they live, and they are great patrons of the arts.”
“Yes, they’re saints,” she deadpanned. “It’s kind of weird that the people who turned you into a vampire are called your parents or whatever. Why is that?”
“For many of my kind, we think of it as a rebirth, and those who bestow it consider it an honor.”
“But you don’t think that way?” she asked.
“No. Nor have I ever turned anyone.” I would never force this life on another soul.
She rubbed her neck. “That’s good news.”
“Don’t worry. I would never turn you or drink your blood. I hate that I’ve lived off human blood for so many years.”
“Also good news.” She hesitated. “But now that we’re talking about it . . . how did you, uh, feed? Did you have to kill people?”
“Most of the time, no.”
She swallowed hard. “Okay, you need to be more specific.”
I sighed, hating that she was about to learn how vile her husband truly was. But she deserved the truth. “Before blood banks, it was easy to entice women to allow me to feed on them.”
Her brow furrowed. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t have to. I saw the disgust in her eyes.
“In rare cases, though,” I continued quietly, “if I came across, let’s say, a murderer or a rapist . . . I would enact my own kind of justice.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
“Nicolette,” I sighed. “This isn’t who I want to be. You’ve no idea what your mother’s treatment has meant to me. To no longer need blood to survive is a gift. It makes me feel . . . like less of a monster.”
“Why didn’t you just drink animal blood?”
I let out a sharp laugh. “That notion belongs in films and books. Human blood—until your mother’s discovery—was the only thing that sustained us. The only thing we craved.”
“Hmm. That’s interesting.”
Her response caught me off guard. I’d expected her to run off screaming by now. “What do you mean, darling?”
“Well,” she said, slipping straight into scientist mode, “from a biological perspective, the fact that you require human blood suggests there’s something in your physiology that’s still human specific.
Some receptor or metabolic pathway that only responds to human proteins.
And given what the plasma therapy has done for your kind, it’s more evidence that this might be a genetic mutation. Something I could actually work with.”
She sat up and ran her fingers through her hair, an electric excitement buzzing through her.
“I need to analyze your blood—both while the plasma treatment is active and . . . well . . . when it’s out of your system.
It’s important that I know how your blood behaves with the stabilizing plasma proteins and without them.
How safe are you without the treatment?” she asked, hesitating.
I sat up as well, astonished she was even considering my request. “Don’t you want me to finish my story?
Tell you about the fire in the church and how I was an inch from death before the Rossis rescued me?
They believed a goodness like mine deserved to live.
But I didn’t want this life, and for days I lay in anguish, refusing to feed on human blood—”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s sad,” she cut in. “And I definitely want to hear more. But tell me, Julian—can I trust you not to hurt me if you delay your next plasma treatment for a day, maybe two, just to be safe? I need a clean sample from you.”
I could hardly believe she was agreeing to this. Was there truly hope I might regain my humanity? “I will be irritable, but I promise you will be safe. I’ve spent years perfecting self-control.”
She studied me for a moment, biting her supple lip—making herself more desirable and more adorable than I think she realized.
“If that’s the case,” she breathed, “I need something from you in return.”
“Name it,” I said without thinking.
Her eyes brightened, and she sat up straighter. “If I—by some miracle—am able to cure you, I want you to promise you’ll help me and my father disappear. Start a new life. A life outside your world.”
Bloody hell. I should have seen that coming, but she blindsided me. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I don’t care. You’re obviously good at becoming someone new—you do it all the time. Please give me the same chance. Give me the chance to love, to have a family of my own. To live outside this world I never asked to be part of.”
I dragged a hand through my hair, feeling as though I were caught between heaven and hell once again.
I stood on the precipice of being granted my greatest desire in centuries .
. . and to reach it, I would essentially be agreeing to sacrifice the beauty in my bed. How much of a bastard was I, truly?
“Nicolette, you realize if you were to accomplish this, you would be a target. You already are. This would make you even more of one. My family will protect you. And I would be human. I would give you children, if that is what you wanted.”
I lingered on her abdomen, and a desire to see it grow with my child swelled within me. The thought of being able to make love to her without fearing either of us would go mad with desire was almost too good to be true.
She drew her knees to her chest and rested her head atop them, her red hair cascading over her legs like a curtain. “That’s not how it works. You don’t love me, Julian. And I certainly don’t love you.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I could practically taste my freedom. But how could I grant Nicolette hers, knowing the danger she would face no matter how well I hid her?
“Why is this such a difficult choice for you?” she asked.
“I know you think very little of me,” I said quietly, “but I’ve been protecting you for far longer than you realize.”
“How long?”
“Ever since Cyrus met your mother at a conference in Brussels, where she presented her breakthrough treatment for porphyria. Cyrus had been studying the similarities between that disease and our condition for years, and he understood immediately what her treatment might mean for our kind. And once I took it myself, we knew it was only a matter of time before others in our world saw it as both a gift . . . and a threat.”
“My mother went to that conference two years ago,” she said in awe. “It was right after we’d received FDA approval to manufacture and distribute.”
“And my family has been protecting yours ever since.”
She blinked, trying to digest this information. “Why not just stay in the shadows? Why force me to marry you?”
“I already told you why. Making you a Rossi was the best way to keep you safe. And when your mother died, we feared the worst.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, panic rising. “Do you think it wasn’t an accident?”
I tilted my head, studying her. It seemed she might have doubts about that very thing. But I put her mind at ease. “We found nothing to suggest it was anything but an accident.”
“Oh. Good.” She pressed a hand to her heart and let out a relieved breath.
“But we couldn’t be too careful. It’s why I befriended you.”
“And then forced me to marry you.” She shot me a glare.
“And that as well. But I won’t apologize for it. Only perhaps for the way I went about it.” I reached for her hand, needing her to hear me. “Nicolette, please think about what you’re asking of me.”
She squeezed my hand. “I have and—”
“What about your work?” I asked, grasping at straws. “Your mother’s legacy—the one you wish to continue.”
She pressed her lips together, thinking it over in that gorgeous head of hers. “Well . . . my mother’s legacy was helping people. I can do that anywhere. Please, Julian. Please. If you get your wish, let me have mine.”
“You despise me that much?”
“Maybe not at this moment, but . . . yes.”
Hell, that stung more than I expected. Especially because she’d said it so plainly, without any heat.
Just a simple statement. I leaned back against the headboard, feeling as if she’d punched me in the gut.
“If you hate me that much, I’ll find a way to make you disappear and start a new life without me. That is—if you can cure me.”
“Eeee,” she squealed, then kissed my cheek. “Thank you.” She shimmied back under the covers. “We have a lot of work to do.”
I just sat there. I ought to have been ecstatic.
Instead, an empty ache settled in my chest, as though I’d taken a misstep I couldn’t quite name.
I’d simply assumed we would remain together for the rest of her life—that, in time, we would reach some sort of truce, perhaps even find a modest measure of happiness.
I hadn’t realized how much I liked the idea until this moment. How much I truly liked her .
It had been many centuries since a woman had rejected me. I had forgotten how sharply it pricked. Nicolette was already making me feel more human than I had felt in a very long while.
Here was to hoping she could finish the job, even if it meant I’d have to let her go. I would have to keep reminding myself that she—like nearly everything else in my interminable existence—was temporary.