Chapter 33
Yes
Grace awoke to discover the sun shining over the blanket on her bed.
Correction. This wasn’t her bed.
She lifted her head. And it’s not my room.
She spotted the familiar figure slouched in the chair at the foot of the bed. His stockinged feet were propped on the edge of the mattress, and he appeared to be sound asleep. Grace blinked against the bright sunlight. Were there more bloody scratches on his arms and face?
Rhyne shifted slightly, when his eyes suddenly opened and he raised his head to stare directly at her.
“Grace?”
Before she could respond, he got up and came over to her, gathering her into his arms for one of the warmest hugs she could ever remember. He held her for the longest time, finally releasing her as he perched himself on the bed next to her and took her hands in his. “How do you feel?”
“Tired. A bit achy, but otherwise I feel okay.” She reached behind her head and hesitantly touched the sore spot back there, only to discover it was a sizeable lump underneath a gauze pad.
He grabbed her wrist as she winced from the pain.
“Leave it alone. Dr. Blocker said you had a minor concussion. That’s why he kept you overnight for observation.
But he said if you felt better in the morning, he’d let you go home.
” Rhyne grinned crookedly. “He said you were damn lucky. I agree with him.”
Grace smiled back. “Speaking of. Holy shit. What happened to you?”
Now that she could see him close-up, there were definitely more of those scratches on his face, not to mention what looked like fresh ones on his arms and neck.
He sighed and sat back, but he didn’t release her hands. “It’s a long story.”
“Humor me.”
That got a snort from him. “What’s the last thing you remember?” His eyes narrowed. “If there are parts you don’t want to talk about just yet, that’s okay.”
Sighing, she dropped her gaze to where their hands rested on the thin blanket. What was the last thing she remembered?
“I remember those strange men. I guess they’re Welsh’s friends. They put zip ties around my…” Her eyes went to the visible bruises on her skin. “They put me in the back of their car, and…and…”
Rhyne drew her back into his embrace, pressing a kiss to her hair. “Let me take it from there. Nash and I followed them out of town. Nash called the cops and told them that Welsh had kidnapped you, and gave them the description of the SUV you were in.”
A small shudder went through her, but she’d never felt safer than she did at that moment.
“Tell me more.”
“Grace, when Welsh attacked you at the hospital and killed Norris, he broke the most sacred of cardinal rules of my kind.”
“That being?”
“He got the cops involved.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“It risked our secret getting out. It risked the world learning the truth about vampires, and about our living among humans. Our very existence was at stake.”
“So what happened?”
“After the police identified Welsh as the man who’d killed Norris, they had the house placed under surveillance, hoping to catch him.
When me and Nash left to go find you, they followed us.
I guess they were thinking we’d lead them to him.
We caught up with Cargill and Welsh in Cargill’s SUV, but by that time we’d crossed the county line.
So the police car tailing us gave way for the sheriff’s department.
Cargill must have realized something strange was going on and tried to ditch us, but the sheriff’s cars slammed into him, and the SUV ended up in a ditch on the side of the road. ”
A hazy memory of being tossed around inside the vehicle came to her. After that, she remembered nothing more. “What happened next?”
“Nash and I got you out of the SUV, and when the ambulance arrived, I gave you to them to bring you here.”
She felt herself stiffen slightly. “What about Welsh? Did the sheriff’s men capture him?”
“No.”
Her stomach tightened with fear until she heard his next words.
“Welsh is dead. He’ll never bother you again.”
She pulled away from him so she could look him directly in the eye. “Did you…kill him?”
Rhyne smiled. “I tried to. Welsh and Cargill and his men fled the scene right after the car was overturned but before the sheriff’s men could get to them, Nash tracked them down, and after I delivered you to the EMS and made sure you’d be safe, I followed him.
We found Welsh and the others quite a distance from the highway.
They’d taken temporary refuge in a hunting shack. ”
“So, if you didn’t kill him, who did?”
“Nash did.”
“Nash?”
“Grace, Cargill had no idea what Welsh had done. He didn’t have a clue. He especially didn’t realize that his men were taking sips of you. By the time I reached that shack, his men had developed their color sight, but Cargill didn’t believe them.”
“I want to hear about how Welsh died,” she insisted, her voice cracking.
Reaching over to the small table beside the bed, Rhyne snatched up the mug of water and held it up to her. Taking its straw between her lips, she drank thirstily, then cleared her throat.
“More?” he softly asked.
“No to the water. Yes to the story,” she answered with a smile.
He set the mug down. “Apparently Cargill had no idea that Welsh had placed a target on his back, which was why the sheriff’s deputies rammed his SUV. I went inside the shack to confront them, and told Cargill what Welsh had done. Then I challenged Welsh.”
“What do you mean, you challenged him?”
“With my kind, once a vamp breaks the cardinal rule for survival, another from his nest can challenge him. In other words, it’s an automatic death sentence to that vamp, but only one from his nest can pull the trigger, so to speak.”
“But you said Nash killed him,” she pointed out.
Rhyne pressed his lips together. “I challenged him because of what he’d done to you.
Because of what he’d put you through. But I hadn’t fed in some time, and I was growing weak.
Welsh almost killed me instead, but Nash stepped in and finished the deed.
” He shook his head. “He’ll never bother you again. He’s permanently out of our lives.”
“But isn’t the sheriff’s department still looking for him? For Welsh?”
“Yes, but they’ll never find him or his remains. Cargill and his men made sure of that.” Rhyne took a deep breath. “Unfortunately, since Cargill’s nest was placed in the crosshairs, he and his men are now having to take on new identities and find a new place to live. And find new employment.”
“Wow. Imagine having to be on the run for the rest of your life.” It was difficult to envision what the others were forced to go through. Rhyne’s next words surprised her.
“Oh, I don’t have to imagine. I’ve had to do the same thing myself. Trust me, it’s not something I want to go through again, even though I’ll have to—” He abruptly stopped.
Releasing her hand, he stood and walked over to the window where he peered out. Grace refused to let it end there. “You had to do the same thing yourself? Why? Is it because you killed someone?”
He slowly shook his head. “No. It’s because of what I am. Remember me telling you I was born in the early nineteen hundreds?”
“Yes.”
“When you’ve lived as long as I have, at some point you have to abandon, walk away from whatever life you’ve established in one place and do what Cargill’s doing. You have to assume a new identity and start all over again.”
“Why?”
This time he snickered. “When you don’t appear to age after so many years, it draws attention to you. That attention could end up being your downfall.”
Now she understood. “Have you always looked the way you look right now?”
“When you’re changed, your appearance remains exactly the same as it was at that point in time.”
“You can’t change your appearance, but you change everything else when you have to take on a new identity. Got it.” She gave him a puzzled look. “Does that mean Rhyne isn’t your real name?”
“No. My given name was…is Stefan.”
“Stefan. I like that.” Grace leaned back against the pillows as a cold, stark truth raised its ugly head. “So, at some point, you and Nash are going to have to leave town. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“No. Not in the immediate future. It would look too suspicious to the cops, and that’s the one thing we have to avoid right now.
” He turned around to face her. “There’s a lot more I want to tell you.
That I need to tell you. But I want you to know something.
I’ve fallen in love with you. It’s not something I was planning on doing, but it’s complicating the hell out of my life. ”
She knew she was on the verge of tearing up, but she pressed on anyway. “Funny, but I was just about to tell you the same thing.”
His eyes widened. Apparently he hadn’t expected that answer from her.
“So what are we going to do about it?” she whispered. “What happens now?”
Rhyne turned away from her again, and she tried to prepare herself for the worst.
“There’s no way to say this other than to be blunt,” he began. “There’s no future for the both of us…together.”
“How do you know that? How can you be so sure of that?” Grace demanded.
Snorting, he bowed his head. “Other than the obvious?”
Feeling she was about to lose this argument, she said the unspoken part out loud.
“I’m willing to take the chance, Rhyne. I want to stay with you for as long as I can.
I don’t give a damn if people start staring at us when I’m in my eighties or nineties, and you’re still looking the way you do now.
I love you. You said you love me. If that’s not reason enough to try and make a go of it, what is? ”
He finally faced her. “You’ll never have a stable life again. We’ll never be able to set down roots. We’ll have to move from one location to another after a few years have passed.”
“Can vampires make babies?” she shot at him. From the stunned expression he gave her, she knew she’d hit some sort of target.
“I-I don’t know,” he confessed. “I’ve never… I don’t know.”
“Would you be averse to having any if you could? Or adopting if you can’t? I’d really like to have a family.”
“I’ve never had to think about it.”
“Guess there’s no time like the present to start. What else were you going to say that you thought would bolster your argument?”
That got some real laughter from him. “I guess that’s your final answer, eh? You want this as much as I do?”
Smiling through the tears that had been hovering for a while, Grace replied. “Yes. I want this as much as you do, and I’m not afraid of what the future holds for us. Not as long as you promise to love me for the rest of my life.”
“I’ll do one better, Grace. I’ll love you for the rest of mine.”
Striding over to her, he took her face in his hands and bent to kiss her. It was a soft kiss. A promising kiss. A kiss that spoke so much to her heart.
Someone cleared their throat. Startled, Grace and Rhyne looked over to see Nash standing in the doorway.
“Sorry to interrupt, but this is important. Besides, you two can continue on with what you’re doing once we get home.”
“We? Home?” Grace repeated. She gave Rhyne a raised eyebrow.
He didn’t flinch. “That’s another thing. We live in nests, usually consisting of three or more. It’s for protection and survival.”
“Let me guess. With Welsh gone…” She inhaled sharply. “I’m now the third member? You allow humans to become part of a nest?”
“There’s always a first time for everything,” Rhyne wisecracked.
Nash walked into the room and set what she identified as a change of clothes at the foot of the bed. “Say, Grace, I brought you something to wear when you leave here. I had to toss some of that food you had stashed in the trunk. It was starting to stink. I hope that’s okay.”
“What about the back seat where the deer carcass was?” Rhyne inquired.
“Carcass? What carcass?” Grace interjected.
“I’ve cleaned it as best I could,” Nash informed him. “Oh! And I’ve moved all my things from the back bedroom to your old room, and put your stuff in there.”
“What about Welsh’s stuff?”
“I put it out on the sidewalk.” Nash smiled at Grace. “You’re looking better than the last time I saw you.”
“I heard you helped rescue me,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Anytime. Well, I’ll be downstairs waiting for you when the doc gives his okay.”
“Hold on. Wait for me by the elevator, and we can grab something to snack on.”
Nash answered with a nod and closed the door behind him.
Grace waited until he’d left the room. “Why do I get the feeling there’s a whole lot more you want to tell me?”
“There is,” Rhyne admitted with a grin. “I just don’t want to overwhelm you with everything all at once.”
“But for now, I’m going to be sleeping over at your place, there’s going to be a ton of adjustments to get accustomed to, and there was a dead deer in the back of your car. Did I forget anything?” she halfway teased.
“Yeah. You forgot to tell me you love me,” Rhyne murmured and lowered his mouth back onto hers.
* * *
It was almost ten minutes later before Rhyne emerged from the hospital room and caught up with Nash. Since they were the only ones inside the car as it took them to the first floor, Nash brought up the subject he knew Rhyne needed to know.
“Yes, the cops are still spying on the house. I’m guessing they still believe Welsh is going to show up again or try and contact us sooner or later.”
“Think they’ll eventually give up?” Rhyne wondered aloud.
“Probably. Listen, I found a small processing center over in Arsdale, between here and home, who’s willing to sell me pints of blood from the animals they slaughter. It should tide us over.”
Rhyne nodded but didn’t reply.
“Rhyne?”
The man turned his attention to him.
“Have you talked to her yet about maybe changing her? Bringing her over to our side?”
Rhyne pursed his lips. “No. It’s too soon. Let’s see how things go from here. Later on, I’ll ask her whether or not she’s willing to take the plunge.”
“Or she may bring up the subject on her own. You never know.” Nash smiled. “I bet she does.”
“I hope so, too.” Rhyne grew serious. “Thanks for backing me up. And for all your help. This is going to be quite a learning curve for all of us, isn’t it?”
“Ain’t that the truth. In a way, you could say bringing Grace into the nest is a… Well, we’ve been blessed.”
Rhyne snickered. “No, not blessed. We’ve been graced.”
The elevator doors opened, and they exited into the sunshine-filled lobby to head for the snack bar as they waited for the doctor to release the third member of their nest so they could finally go home.