28. Rose
Rose
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
I have to blink a few times. “You’re serious?”
“You found him?” Valtu asks.
She nods. “Yep.”
My brows go up impatiently. “And? Where is he? Where is everyone else?”
“They’re in Wolf…they’re in your parents’ room with Van Helsing. He’s just giving Leif a look over, judging how mentally sound he is. He’ll be here soon and can tell us more.” She looks at Valtu. “Can I use your bathroom to take a shower? I feel like hot garbage.”
“Sure,” he says and she heads in there.
Solon follows, giving us a look like he’ll get the details from her, and they close the door.
“Feel better now?” Valtu asks me.
“I think so,” I say. “And hey, you were worried too.”
“You’re right, I definitely was. Your dad’s ass is so easily kicked.”
I give him a steady look though I have to bite back a smile. “Is this how it’s going to be?”
“A vampire not getting along with his in-laws?” he says, coming over to me and putting his hands at my waist. “How utterly human.”
“In-laws,” I muse, laughing up at him. “I didn’t know we had gotten married.”
“You don’t remember our wedding?” He kisses me softly on the forehead. “I’m insulted.”
“But our vows were ‘until death do us part.’”
“And death didn’t do us part,” he says, his dark eyes shining. “Death merely paused our marriage, that’s all. We’re still married. Maybe you’re not Lucy now, but it’s your soul that gets married, not your name. And you belong to me.”
I can’t help but grin and he pulls me into a warm hug and I wrap my arms around him. “So you’re still my husband?”
“And you’re still my wife,” he whispers, planting his lips on the top of my head. “And I’ve never been so in fucking awe of you, my dove. You did what you set out to do. You got justice for Dahlia. For your parents. For Leif.”
At the mention of his name my heart twists a little. “But did I? What if he’s not okay?”
“He’s probably not okay,” he says. “But he’s with your parents now and it’s a start. Bellamy is gone. This is day one. It’s going to be a long road ahead. But I’ll be with you every step of the way. So will your parents. None of you will do it alone.”
“When did you get to be so nice?” I muse, pulling back to gaze up at him.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be an asshole when it counts,” he says with a crooked grin while a lock of his black wavy hair falls across his forehead. I reach up to push it back and he leans down and captures my mouth in his, kisses me, soft, long and sweet.
“Ahem,” Solon says, clearing his throat as he steps out of the bathroom.
“Cockblocker,” Valtu mutters under his breath as we break apart.
“So, what did Lenore say?” I ask Solon. “What happened out there?”
“Basically that they went to the same place you had been before. Lenore was able to cloak them all so that they didn’t know they were coming and basically they just sat and waited until they saw Leif return to the building.”
“Really?”
Lenore appears behind him in the doorway, a towel wrapped around her, having taken the world’s quickest shower, which is totally doable when you’re a vampire.
“Let me tell it, you’re getting it all wrong,” she says, but she’s smiling.
“We didn’t sit and wait. We actively scoped out the joint.
Then Leif appeared. I wouldn’t have known who he was, but he looked exactly like Dylan with a beard.
Obviously, your parents knew who he was.
We watched as he went inside and then I was able to get closer and look.
It was just him and a witch, a girl he called Celina. So the rest was pretty easy.”
“You just glossed over the battle scene,” Valtu remarks.
“Well, it really wasn’t much of one,” she says, running her fingers through her wet hair and tussling it. “I went in there and was able to disarm Celina just enough to steal her blade and stab her with it.”
“You figured out that was the only way to kill them,” I say. “So did I.”
She gives me an appreciative smile. “I figured it was worth a try. But then I had to deal with your brother.” She makes a sour face.
“I didn’t want your parents to do it because that didn’t seem right and the moment they saw him, they went more into protective mode than anything else.
Anyway, your brother is one tough cookie, like Wolf 2. 0.”
Valtu snorts at that and I give him a dirty look.
Lenore goes on. “Eventually I was able to get the upper hand, just enough that Van Helsing injected him with something. I didn’t know that neural-paralyzers worked on vampires, but I’m started to think Abe has a whole arsenal of special drugs at his fingertips.”
“Who needs magic when you have science,” Valtu comments. Then he curls up his lip in disgust. “Fucking hell, I sound just like him.”
“Anyway,” Lenore continues, “it was enough that Leif couldn’t move and we were able to sit him down and explain everything to him. It took a lot of convincing to get him to come with us back here but he’s here now.”
“So is he still paralyzed?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. He’s fine, just a little slower than he would be normally, which is good because he’s still a vampire.
He may have not turned yet but we don’t know what the witches did to him and his body, the type of training or powers he might have.
It’s going to take some time for him to come to terms with all of this, I still don’t think he believes any of us, and he doesn’t seem to have any sort of instinct with your parents, but Abe said he was hoping hypnosis might help. That’s what he’s doing now.”
“I want to see him,” I say. “Now.”
Lenore and Solon exchange a look. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Lenore says.
“Oh come on, he’s her brother,” Valtu says.
“And according to Solon, she’s the one who just killed Bellamy, the only one he knew as a father. That won’t go down so well.”
“Then I won’t tell him that, not yet anyway,” I say.
Lenore nods. “Fine. Come on.”
I go for the door and Valtu reaches out and grabs my elbow. “Do you want me to come with you or do you think it’s better you go alone?”
I give him a grateful smile. “Actually, I think it’s best I go alone. I don’t want to overwhelm him.”
He gives me a quick kiss and nods. “Good luck. I love you.”
This is the first time in a very long time that he’s told me he’s loved me in public. My cheeks go warm, a giddiness in my chest. “I love you, too.”
Then I leave the room with Lenore and as the door is closing I hear Solon say to Valtu, “Well, who knew Dracula was such a softie?”
Lenore is looking at me like she wants to say the same thing to me, but I just nod at her towel. “You can just tell me their room number, you don’t have to come with me.”
She glances down at her towel and waves dismissively. “Please, this is the land of Turkish baths. Everyone’s in a towel. Besides, I just wanted to ask you how it went. How did Dahlia’s power feel?”
“Great,” I say, then stop myself. “No. It felt amazing.”
I fill her in on every little thing that happened, replaying the battle in my mind, wrapping it all up just as we come to a room on the floor above us.
“Here we go,” she says. “I’ll leave you to it.”
She turns and goes, and I knock on the door, my heart thundering in my chest now, suddenly nervous.
Abe answers it, his blue eyes shining through the doorframe. “Ah, I was wondering if you’d come by,” he says softly, not opening the door enough to let me in.
He can hear us, so I’d rather talk to you like this, if I’m not being intrusive , Abe says inside my head.
Not at all. How is he? Lenore explained what went down , I tell him.
Well, I tried hypnosis on him , he says.
And that helped a little in that he knows now that your parents are his real parents and he knows that they don’t mean him any harm.
But I didn’t want to go into the deeper, traumatic sections.
He doesn’t remember the kidnapping or the experiments.
It’s too much for now for him to process.
But he knows Bellamy is dead? I ask.
He presses his lips together and nods. He’s been handling it well, considering. But your brother is the type to shove everything deep down and either deal with it later or not deal with it all.
Gee, sounds familiar , I say, thinking of Valtu.
There are some similarities , he says. But I think Leif is a tougher nut to crack. Anyway, come in and say hello. He won’t attack you. Just don’t mention what happened at the bazaar.
I nod and step through the door as he opens it.
The room is dimly lit, a large suite like ours, and my mother and father are sitting on the couch, talking to Leif who is sitting in an armchair. Though he seems very subdued and is slow to turn his head to look at me, I still approach as if I’m coming up to a wild animal.
I give my parents a quick nod and smile and they look at Leif.
“Leif,” my mom says, “this is your sister Rose.”
I raise my hand a little in hello and take the seat across from him. “Hi Leif.”
Holy crap is this a fucking trip.
I know I’d already laid eyes on him, but to see him again, and up close like this, feels surreal.
It’s Dylan alright, but it’s also a man who is years past that.
The haunted look in his eyes can’t be compared to his brother, who has never known hardship a day in his life.
Leif is just a tightly wound ball of complications, unyielding and impenetrable and in the back of my head I wonder if it’s possible to ever save him.
“You’re the girl I saw the other day,” he says slowly, his words thick. “The one that Atlas attacked. I thought you’d be dead.”
I shake my head. “No, it takes a lot to kill me and even when I do die, I always come back,” I finish that with a smile.
He frowns. “You always come back?”
“So far, anyway. It’s a long story. Actually, it’s many long—or short—stories, depending on how you look at it. But I just want to say that I am so glad that you’re here.”
From the hard look on his face I can tell he doesn’t feel the same way.