Chapter 14 #2
But he's right. Underneath all the justifications, I didn't trust her enough to give her the choice.
"I've taken her off field duty," I say. "Until she's fully healed."
Marcellus raises an eyebrow. "She'll be furious."
"I know."
"She'll see it as you controlling her again. Making decisions for her without asking."
"I know." I finally pick up the whiskey, though I don't drink it. Just hold it, feeling the weight of the glass in my hand. "But I can't send her back out there. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The thought of her in danger again…"
"That's not strategy. That's fear."
"Yes." There's no point denying it. "It's fear. I'm afraid for her. I'm afraid of what I'll become if something happens to her."
The words hang in the air between us. I've never admitted to fear. Not to Marcellus, not to anyone. Fear is weakness, and weakness gets you killed.
But tonight I watched her fight for her life, and I felt something I haven't felt since Catherine.
That helpless, drowning terror of watching someone you care about slip away while you're powerless to stop it.
I turned Catherine to save her. She was dying of consumption, and I couldn't let her go, so I made her immortal.
Then I watched the turning go wrong, watched her mind fracture into something feral and violent.
And I had to end her myself. My choice to save her became my hand on the blade that killed her.
I swore I'd never feel that way again. Built my entire existence around making sure I never would.
And then Celeste appeared in that alley, and all my careful defenses meant nothing.
"What do I do?" The question comes out before I can stop it. "How do I fix this?"
"I don't know if you can." Marcellus echoes her words, and they hit just as hard coming from him. "But if there's any chance, it starts with honesty. Real honesty. Not strategic truth-telling. Not calculated vulnerability. The kind of honesty that costs you something."
"And if that's not enough?"
"Then at least you'll have given her what you should have given her from the start. The choice you took away."
He stands, finishes his whiskey, and moves toward the door. Then he pauses.
"She's strong," he says. "Stronger than you give her credit for. But strength isn't the same as invulnerability. What you did tonight hurt her. Not the ambush. The lie. Remember that when you talk to her."
"And the field duty restriction?"
"Tell her the truth about that, too. That you're scared. That you can't think straight when she's in danger. Let her decide what to do with that information." He shakes his head. "You might be surprised. Or she might tell you to go to hell. Either way, at least you'll have been honest."
Then he's gone, and I'm alone.
I should rest. The hours before dawn are slipping away, and I've depleted more strength tonight than I have in years. My body aches in ways I'd forgotten were possible, muscles strained from moving at speeds I haven't attempted in decades, hands bruised from the violence I unleashed in that alley.
But instead of going to my chambers, I pull up the security feed from the medical wing.
Celeste is still awake. She's sitting up in the bed now, staring at nothing. Her injuries are healing, I can see the bruises fading, the cuts closing, but there's something in her expression that has nothing to do with physical pain.
I did that. That hollowness in her eyes. That stillness that speaks of trust broken and faith shattered.
I watch her for longer than I should. Watch her reach up to touch her shoulder where Dalton reset the joint. Watch her flex her fingers, testing her healing. Watch her finally lie back against the pillows and close her eyes, though I can tell from the tension in her body that she's not sleeping.
What would I even say to her?
I'm sorry seems laughably inadequate. I was trying to protect the network is true but irrelevant, she doesn't care about my strategic reasoning, and she shouldn't. I was afraid of what I feel for you, so I tried to prove I could still make the cold calculation is honest but damning.
Maybe that's what I need to tell her. The damning truth.
I close the security feed and stare at the fire in the fireplace instead.
The plan had been sound. Use Konstantin's interest in Celeste against him. Draw out his operatives. Capture them. Extract intelligence. A calculated risk with positioned backup and acceptable parameters.
Except the parameters weren't acceptable. Not to me. Not when it was her.
I think about what Marcellus said. About trust. About honesty.
I've built my entire existence on control. It's how I survived Luciano. How I built my network. How I became someone that other vampires fear and respect. Control is safety. Control is power.
But control is also a cage.
Celeste said that. In the training room, when I was trying to push her away. She said controlling everything doesn't keep people alive. It just keeps them alone.
She was right. I've been alone for so long that I stopped noticing. Stopped feeling the weight of it. Built walls so high that no one could reach me, and told myself it was strength.
Then she appeared in that alley. Dying, defiant, insulting me with her last breaths. And something cracked.
I wanted to save her. Not for strategic reasons. Not because she was useful. I wanted to save her because she looked at me like I was a person, not a monster or a myth. Because she didn't beg. Because even facing death, she was still herself.
And I've been running from wanting her ever since.
I go to the bathroom and finally wash my hands.
Watch the dried blood turn the water pink as it swirls down the drain.
Their blood, the vampires I killed. I try to remember their faces and can't. They were just obstacles between me and Celeste.
Just things that needed to be destroyed so I could reach her.
That's what frightens me most. Not the violence itself, but the complete absence of thought behind it. I didn't decide to kill them. I simply did, the way a predator kills prey, without hesitation or consideration or mercy.
Is that who I am beneath all the careful control? Just a monster wearing the mask of civilization?
Or is that who I become when someone threatens the people I care about?
I dry my hands and return to my chair. The fire has burned low, embers glowing orange in the darkness.
Tomorrow night, I'll face her. I'll tell her the truth, all of it. About the plan. About why I made the choice I made. About the fact that I killed six vampires instead of capturing them because seeing her hurt made me lose every shred of the control I've spent my whole existence building.
I'll tell her about the field duty restriction, and I'll be honest about why.
Not because she's incapable, she proved tonight just how capable she is.
But because I'm not capable. Not of watching her walk into danger.
Not of maintaining the cold detachment that command requires when she's the one at risk.
I'll tell her that I don't know how to do this. That I don't have a strategy for earning back trust I never deserved in the first place. That the great master tactician is completely lost when it comes to something as simple as being honest with someone he cares about.
Maybe it won't be enough. Maybe she'll never look at me the way she did before.
But at least I'll have given her the truth. And maybe that's where it has to start.
The first gray light of dawn creeps around the edges of the blackout curtains. I feel the pull toward dormancy.
I don't fight it. I let consciousness slip away.
My last thought before sleep takes me is her face. Not the betrayal. Not the anger.
The moment in my study when she leaned into my touch and looked at me like I might be worth believing in.
I don't know if I can earn that look again.
But I have to try.