30. Someone Close
Chapter thirty
Someone Close
Nicolette
“ O h my Frodo Baggins, he kissed me,” Daphne squealed into the phone.
What!
Oh, no. No, no, no. This was not happening.
My best friend was not kissing a vampire. There was only room in our friendship for one complicated interspecies relationship at a time. Well, Julian wasn’t exactly another species—more like a mutated human. Still, Daphne was absolutely not getting involved with a vampire.
Especially Cyrus.
Cyrus, who didn’t seem to have time for lowly humans.
Cyrus, whom I didn’t even trust.
Cyrus, who made Julian question me.
Yeah, I was voting no on this. Actually . . . what even was this?
I set my phone down on the table, put Daphne on speaker, and rubbed my tired eyes—the same eyes that had been staring at my mother’s laptop screen since very early this morning.
There had been almost no sleep for me last night.
Not after Delia’s revelations. Not after Julian had slept on the floor beneath the couch, holding my hand just because he wanted to be close to me.
Honestly, I probably should have just slept in the bed with him.
I didn’t want to be alone.
And I missed him.
Okay. I said it.
Freaking vampire.
“Wow, it must have been some date.” I tried to feign excitement.
I was just glad she was alive. I’d texted her last night to make sure she was, and all I’d gotten back was a vague Promise to call in the morning. Dinner turned into a movie night.
Which was not comforting. At all.
It was another reason I hadn’t slept well. I’d spent half the night imagining Cyrus ripping Daphne’s throat out.
Honestly, that made more sense to me than him kissing her.
“It was the best,” she sighed. “He took me to the Common. We talked forever and sipped wine. He knows so much about literature. It’s almost like he lived the stories.”
Oh, he had. Or at least lived during those time periods.
“He talked? Like full sentences? Over and over? I didn’t know he could do that.”
Daphne giggled. “Yes, silly. His voice. I could just drown in it.”
This. Was. Not. Good.
Don’t get me wrong—I got the appeal. Cyrus, though broody and possibly evil, was sexy. Not Julian sexy, but definitely sexiest man alive–scale sexy.
“I know you don’t like him,” Daphne added, “but honestly, I think he’s just misunderstood.”
“Really? How?” I was more than curious.
“It’s just the way he talks about the world and how he wishes people would learn from history and their mistakes. And, oh, you should hear him quote Leopardi’s poems in Italian. Oh,” she sighed. “Talk about swoon.”
That was taking it too far.
Italian poetry?
I rubbed my face with both hands. What was Cyrus’s endgame here? Was he trying to get to me through my best friend? Was this part of some diabolical plan? Not that Daphne wasn’t worth the attention—she absolutely was—but this felt fishy. Like a lake full of poisoned, rotting fish kind of fishy.
Granted, Julian swore Cyrus would have never killed my mother—or wooed her, for that matter.
But Julian had told me that Cyrus saw my mother at a conference in Europe.
What if they had started a little something something there?
The thought made me want to vomit, but I couldn’t afford to be naive here.
“Sounds so romantic,” I played along.
“It was,” she sang. “And then he took me back to his place.”
“What! You can’t go to his house. You barely know him,” I blurted, unable to help myself.
Thankfully, Daphne just laughed. “I’m a big girl, Mom , and I can go to a man’s house.”
“Of course you can. I just meant . . . you don’t want to move too fast.”
“Like you and Julian,” she sang. “I remember all your hot and heavy stories.”
Dang it. Those lies kept coming back to bite me. “Well . . . you know.”
“Oh, I know.”
“So . . . you did more than kiss?” Please say no.
If she slept with him, she’d be obsessed forever.
Maybe she already was. Had she slept with a vampire before me?
Not that it was a race to have sex with a vampire.
That was definitely not a bet Daphne and I would ever make.
Our bets were more like I bet I can read the entire Dune series before you can . Yeah, we were cool like that.
“No,” she tittered.
That tittering spoke volumes. Like, I tried to rip his clothes off volumes.
“But . . . this is so embarrassing . . . I totally unbuttoned his shirt.”
I knew it.
“I don’t know what got into me.”
“Oh, I do. Believe me, I do.”
“Of course you do. Those Rossi brothers—rawr,” she roared.
Daphne had never made a sound like that in her life.
“Um . . . so what did Cyrus do?”
“He was so sweet about it. He just kissed my cheek and said, Maybe next time. ”
What the crap.
Next time?
“You’re going out again?”
“He said he’d call me. By the way, he has the best theater room ever, but you probably know that—being his sister-in-law and all.”
Actually, I didn’t know that. I thought Cyrus lived and slept in a crypt. It matched his personality. But I probably should have known that, so I just played along. “Yeah . . . what did you watch?”
“He has the best film noir collection, so of course we watched my favorite, The Maltese Falcon .”
“Fun. So, do you think he’ll call?”
“I hope so. Seriously, it was the best date ever.”
This was not good news.
“I’m happy for you.” What else could I say? Other than Run for your life, he’s a vampire. And he hates me. And there’s a possibility he’s sadistic. And maybe slept with my mother.
Eww. Please no.
“We should do a double date soon,” Daphne suggested.
“Totally,” I lied. How could I crush her hopes and dreams? I would have to do that later.
“I gotta run to the library. I’ll call you tonight,” she chirped.
“Bye.” I stared at the phone after she hung up, stunned. I wasn’t sure I could take any more plot twists in my life.
“Darling, are you all right?”
No doubt he’d heard the entire conversation while he preened in the bathroom.
My head snapped up to see him walking toward me in only a pair of jeans he hadn’t managed to button.
Holy mother. I was on fire.
This was also something I did not have time for. It took everything in me not to launch myself out of the chair and run my hands down his sinewy chest and beat Daphne in the race to, uh . . . well . . . become obsessed with a vampire.
“I know you’re doing this on purpose.” I pointed at all his nonaccidental half-nakedness. “And it’s not going to work,” I stammered. “I’m still upset with you.”
Not even I believed that.
Julian sauntered over, smug as could be, and planted a kiss on my bare shoulder where my nightshirt had slipped.
“Stay mad at me for as long as you like. The making up will only get better.”
A ridiculous squeak escaped me just thinking about all the ways we could make up. Seriously, though—we did not have time for this. Especially because I had questions. The kind that gnawed at my soul.
“If I survive, we will talk about making up.”
“You will survive,” he growled before kissing me gently—just once—on the lips.
My heart stuttered. I savored the moment. Him. But time was of the essence. “Julian, we need to talk.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It is.”
He pulled up a chair next to me and took my hand.
I did my best to avert my eyes from his chiseled chest. “You really are something,” I said, ridiculously breathy. “But moving on.”
Julian chuckled, low and maddening.
“You probably heard the conversation I just had, and first, let me say: What in the freaking heck. Secondly, I don’t like it. I thought Cyrus didn’t like humans, so what’s his game?”
“Game?”
“Really, you don’t think it’s odd that he made out with Daphne and took her back to his place? I didn’t even know he had a place.”
“Of course he does. We aren’t animals, Nicolette.”
“That’s not what I mean. You don’t think it’s weird?”
Julian shrugged. “Daphne is beautiful and intelligent.”
“She is,” I agreed. “But . . .” I hesitated, my stomach tightening.
“You once told me that you were protecting my family long before I realized—before my mother died, even. And that you must have missed something. But if what Delia says about my mom and the vampire is true, that’s a huge thing to miss.
Like, colossal. So I have to know: Who was protecting my mom that night?
And while we’re at it—you had no idea she was working on a vampire cure?
Or meeting with another vampire at all?”
The questions spilled out faster than I could stop them. My throat tightened. “And didn’t you say that if I ever discovered a cure and it got out, my life would be in even more danger? Do you think that’s what happened to my mom? Or did her vampire lover kill her?”
“You thought of all that while I was in the shower?”
“Well, you do take long showers,” I teased weakly. “But you’re not answering my questions.”
“That’s because I’m afraid you’ll read more into it than you should.”
A cold ripple slid down my spine. “What do you mean?”
He cleared his throat and took a moment—too long a moment.
“Nicolette, you must understand that we didn’t have your family under twenty-four-hour surveillance to begin with.
We watched closely and researched the company and each of you.
Not only was it to protect your family but to make a statement to other families in my world—now your world—that this was our territory. ”
“Do you have a rival family? Like in all the vampire books and shows?”
“No. That’s trite and uncivilized.” His jaw tightened.
“We are more of a live-and-let-live society. ‘Society’ is a loose term. It’s imperative that we don’t congregate in large groups for obvious reasons.
There are probably several unknown families and even solitary vampires out there.
But . . . there are rules. If you sire a vampire, you are duty bound to teach them the rules, and you remain forever responsible for the vampire you sired. ”
“What are the rules?”
“There are really only two. Don’t kill innocents, and keep our world a secret. Which in turn keeps our numbers low, for good reason.”
“The vampire that changed Delia obviously didn’t follow rules. He never helped her.” I commented.
“Which makes her story even more disconcerting.”
Well, that didn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy. “Do you think she was lying about her origin story? About any of it?” I hated that I had to doubt her.
“That remains to be seen.” Julian squeezed my hand, holding on for dear life. “What I fear more is that what I’m about to tell you will make you doubt me. Doubt Cyrus.”
I braced myself.
“Nicolette,” he said tenderly. “I will own to being a bastard. In your company and in your mother’s work, I only saw the profits to be gained by selling the plasma to those of my kind seeking to live a normal life once again.
And of course I saw the potential for a cure.
I didn’t wish any harm upon you or your family, but your safety wasn’t my primary concern.
So, we were not as careful as we should have been.
The night of your mother’s death, it was Cyrus’s turn to guard—”
My eyebrows shot up as high as my pulse.
“Please don’t jump to conclusions,” Julian begged.
“Oh, I’ve pole-vaulted over them,” I spat.
“Nicolette, you must understand—Cyrus felt awful after he learned about your mother’s car accident.”
“Which was no accident,” I snapped.
“We know that now. And as you know, we checked the coroner’s report to make sure we hadn’t missed anything.”
“But you did,” I couldn’t help but say.
“Yes,” Julian said patiently. “And I understand your misgivings but—”
“No, Julian. You have to admit the further we go along, the more everything points to Cyrus. Cyrus, who met my mother at a conference. Cyrus, who is a doctor. Cyrus, who is also interested in a cure. Cyrus, who just happened to be derelict in his duty to guard her.”
“Why would he kill your mother?” he said sharply. “What could he hope to gain by her death? By yours?”
I ripped my hand out of Julian’s and ran it through my tangled mop of hair, my panic levels rising rapidly.
“I don’t know, but I do know that someone keeps flying under your radar, and they clearly don’t want my mother’s secrets to get out.
And Cyrus doing this one-eighty with Daphne doesn’t feel kosher.
And where was he the night my mother died? ”
A faint crease appeared between his brows, subtle but telling. He didn’t want to answer. Not this.
That scared me more than anything he’d said so far.
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “I didn’t think to ask. I’m not a childminder. All I remember was that he said he needed to be somewhere else and he didn’t see the point in following her around.”
“How convenient,” I said dryly.
“Nicolette, I have known him for six hundred years. He doesn’t kill innocents. Period. He’s rarely killed at all.”
“But you said yourself that my mother—and even me—are considered a threat to some of your kind.”
Julian’s expression cooled a degree, the faintest shadow passing over his features. “Not to Cyrus. He wishes to be human as much as I do.”
I turned back to my mother’s laptop, the cursor blinking as if it were judging me. “I see we won’t agree on this. But just remember he’s the one who brought me the flowers in the first place. And he came to the lab that night we were there. And he’s upset that you gave me your blood.”
Julian brushed my hair off my shoulder, his touch feather light, almost hesitant. “Nicolette, my love, please. My brother, he’s . . .” His voice thinned, as if the words refused to cooperate. “He just can’t. And didn’t you say you didn’t recognize the man’s voice in the car?”
“No, I didn’t,” I admitted. But it was so fast, I’m not sure I would have. “Julian, I hope for your sake and mine that it’s not Cyrus. But . . . I’m sorry, it has to be someone close to you. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Julian’s breath left him in a slow, controlled stream—the kind a person releases when the truth is heavier than they want to admit.
I had a feeling this was only the beginning and the truths ahead would be heavier than anything I was ready for.