Chapter Thirteen
Bacon.
The morning smelled like bacon.
Reyna followed her nose and grumbling belly downstairs and into the kitchen. Genevieve wore an apron printed with little kittens on it as she expertly handled the enormous kitchen.
“Morning,” Genevieve said.
“Morning,” Reyna said, bleary eyed.
“Breakfast is almost complete. Do you take tea or coffee?”
Reyna’s stomach grumbled again. “Coffee.”
Genevieve left the stove to pour her a mug. “Cream and sugar?”
“Please.”
She mixed it to perfection and then handed it over. Reyna sidled up next to the oven, where all the heat emanated from. She drank the scalding coffee despite the temperature and let it warm her up from the inside out.
“I appreciate all that you’re doing, but why are you doing it?”
Genevieve’s eyes twinkled. “I enjoy it. Taking care of house and home was my calling long before I was turned and it has remained my calling long after my kids withered and died in their normal human lives.”
Reyna’s heart broke for her. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live as a vampire for what would seem to be an immortal life and watch the ones you love die.
“How did you meet Washington?”
Genevieve laughed. “I grew up on a farm in this village. In my time, there were few vampires. They were still in the darkness. To many, including myself, they were myth and legends. Things to scare the children, you understand. I only discovered they were not myths the night that I was made. The vampire left me alone to starve or murder my own village from hunger. Washington found me. He taught me his ways. He kept me from destroying the family I loved so dearly. He’s a good man. ”
“Did he know Harrington then?”
“William? Of course. He was always in and out of Washington’s life. They were the closest of friends.”
Reyna’s stomach turned at the fondness with which Genevieve spoke of Harrington. “Was he always as he is now?”
“How so, dear?”
“A calculating and a murderous bastard set out to take over the world and leave humans subjugated to vampires forever?” she asked, unable to keep her vociferous hatred of the man from her speech.
“Hmm, he was always a passionate man. His mind was beyond reproach, but he did have a unique way of looking at the world,” Genevieve mused.
“He saw things like no other. As if the world was one of his precious chessboards. I know he has killed. All of us vampires have unfortunately. But he never went out of his way to do it. It wasn’t his nature any more than Washington’s.
He didn’t like to get his hands dirty, figuratively speaking. ”
Reyna thought over what Genevieve had said as she went about preparing plates of breakfast for everyone in the house that didn’t sustain on blood.
She couldn’t see past her hatred of Harrington and what he had done to her, what he was doing to all the people she loved, and the direction took Visage.
She would never forgive what he had attempted to do to Beckham. In that instant, he sealed his fate.
But maybe she needed to look at Harrington from another angle. If she ever wanted to destroy him, then she had to understand him. Know him like Washington and Genevieve had known him, how Beckham had known him, not just how she hated him.
“Genevieve,” Reyna said, turning back to face her, “do you think you could tell me more stories about Harrington? From before Visage?”
Genevieve cocked her head to the side but nodded. “Of course. If you wish.”
“Thank you.”
…
Later, Reyna found Beckham standing stoically on the front porch.
She wrapped herself up to the gills and followed him out onto the icy stone path.
He looked pensive. This was one of those moments where she wished that she could read his mind.
He’d had a life she could hardly fathom.
She’d never known the real monster deep within.
But she still loved him. Hopelessly loved him.
Even with the monster chomping at the bit to be released again.
If she cared even a fraction less, then she wouldn’t have fought so damn hard to keep him. She would be blissfully stupid in a warehouse outside of the city, dealing with everyday complications that meant the world to her then and hardly anything to her now.
But she hadn’t loved Beckham any less. Not a modicum.
Even when he stood in the freezing cold as snow blanketed the earth and acted like the broody man he was.
“Are you going to tell me what you’re thinking or should I guess?”
Beckham didn’t respond.
“Oh, I should get creative, then. Friday afternoon after work, heading to the bar with your friends and drinking yourself stupid. No, summer days lying out in the sun and getting a tan.” She chuckled at the idea of Beckham with a tan.
Yeah, right. “Daydreaming about taking me to an exotic beach and never seeing the snow again. Or anything but the bedroom.”
That got his attention.
“I prefer the night.”
“And here I thought you preferred the bedroom.”
“Reyna…”
“Could you clue me in on the staring? Why the somber aloofness?”
“I have been contemplating ways to stop Harrington.”
“As have I. We already know how to draw him out and how to use his weaknesses against him. But I feel as if I’m missing something. Like Harrington is always one step ahead of us and I haven’t figured out how to get a step ahead of him.”
Beckham stiffened. “We already know how to draw him out?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“You want to use yourself as bait. Again.” He said each word crisper and more biting than the last.
“If it comes to that.”
“Your protection is my greatest concern. Even if you’re his blood type, that does not offer you all the protections you believe it does.”
“I know. You know there are ways to fix that,” she said hesitantly.
His anger was swift and brutal. “No. Absolutely not.”
“If I’m so soft and fragile as a human, then do the unexpected. Something Harrington would never expect.”
“This isn’t up for debate. I will not take your life from you.”
“It’s not taking my life. It’s turning me into a vampire. Just like you.”
Beckham snarled. “We don’t know if you would even survive such a transformation.
Or that you would be the same person you are now when you are on the other side.
Most hunger for nothing but blood until they have their blood type matched.
You have an incredibly rare blood type. Harrington has been looking for years to find a match.
You may never find one. What would you do then?
” His eyes were brutal with rage and vehemence.
“You would eat. You would kill. You would be the very thing that you despise, and there would be nothing I could do to change that.”
Reyna took a step back. His anger mounted at the mere suggestion, at the audacity of her even considering it.
He didn’t want her to change. That others had tried to turn and died.
Washington had told her of a circumstance that had left her terrified of the prospect.
And also incredibly disappointed to shut that door.
Opening it was a last-ditch effort. It was a risk, but Beckham made it seem like a certainty.
“What happens in twenty years, Becks? Forty years? Sixty?” she threw back at him. “What happens when I’m a grandma and you’re still thirty? Sure, I’m fragile, but I’m also dying. I’m dying every single day.”
“That is living, Reyna. That is the way it is supposed to be.”
“You’re not supposed to go on without me,” she whispered harshly.
“Can we make it through the next couple weeks, maybe months before we think about that? You’re twenty-one years old. I’m not sacrificing you.”
“One for a million. Seems fair to me.”
“I won’t entertain this any longer,” Beckham said sharply. “There are other solutions to consider.” He slid his hands into his pockets and paced across the room.
Reyna waited. He would tell her when he was ready.
She shivered and licked her wounds. Bringing it up with Beckham again had been stupid and she’d known what his reaction would be.
But she couldn’t not say something. It would be a plan Harrington never considered, which made it a valuable one to keep in her back pocket.
He finally stilled and smoothed back his dark strands. “If you’re considering sacrificing yourself as a viable option, then I think we need to train,” Beckham said, resigned to the idea.
“Okay,” she said curiously. “Back to the gym I go.”
“No—we should train with this blood match. I can sense you better than ever before. I could sense you in the city. I can feel you right now. What we need to do is use this to our advantage. Our blood match is something that Harrington doesn’t know about. He can’t anticipate it.”
“That’s true,” she said with a spark of hope.
“We should talk to Washington and get his view on it. He’s the expert,” Beckham said. “Once the snow finally stops, we’ll get to the real work.”
…
“What you’re asking me is impossible to infer,” Washington said.
He looked up from the microscope he’d been peering into.
“I’ve only ever seen one other blood match, and it was before modern medicine.
I have no earthly idea what abilities you could have.
The fact that you have any at all other than compatibility on a molecular level astounds me. ”
Beckham’s nostrils flared. Reyna could see him holding in his anger. Washington was being purposefully obtuse.
They already knew that he hadn’t worked with anyone else who was a blood match. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have theories. Washington had theories about everything.
“Hypothesize,” Reyna said quickly.
“I’d need to look at your blood. When my lab was destroyed, I lost everything. I have a backup of the data I was working with, but not the actual samples. That would help me work toward a solution.”
Reyna’s eyes rounded and she gestured for him to continue.