Point of No Return (29 page)

It had been two, not one, but I didn’t say
anything, too engrossed in thoughts of Devlin. He wasn’t were, yet
he’d managed to acquire that skill somehow. More importantly, if
Theo could rein himself in, so could Devlin. He didn’t have to have
marathon sex. One orgasm could be enough, if he wanted it to be.
But would Devlin agree to that?
Something told me he would
not. He liked the act itself, not only the end result...

“Why are you frowning?” Theo murmured.

“Because I have to get up,” I lied quickly.
“Danial will be here soon.”

Less than a half hour later, Danial’s
headlights shone in the darkness as his Expedition drove down the
driveway.

“Call me,” Theo said quickly. “Every day,
just to check in.”

“Sure,” I said, hugging him. “But don’t get
upset if it’s late in the day.”

He gave me a last deep kiss, and then turned
away, heading into the other room.

“I love you,” I whispered, knowing he would
hear me. I hugged Ghost and Darkness good-bye, and then went out to
Danial, my bag over my shoulder, the box and cooler stacked in my
arms.

I put the box and bag in the backseat, then
climbed in beside him. Danial flashed me a ready smile. “All set?”
he said, giving me a soft look.

“Yes,” I replied, buckling myself in. “Hand
your navigator the maps.”

He handed me a piece of paper. “The route’s
simple. It is four hours, maybe five, if we hit traffic or
construction. We’ll be there about midnight, probably.”

Plus there was still checking in to do,
once we got there
. “Sounds good.”

“Was Theo okay?” Danial asked after a few
minutes.

He regretted the comment about how it
would have been better for me if I hadn’t found Theo
. “He’s
fine. He knew you didn’t mean it.”

“I didn’t,” Danial replied. “I was just tired
of his constant complaining.”

“Can I ask you some things?” I ventured.

“What?” Danial said, glancing quickly at
me.

“There are some things we should have talked
about years ago. I know you don’t like to talk about your
past—”

“I don’t like to remember the time before I
met you,” Danial said quickly. “I don’t want to talk about it, Sar.
I have never understood why you would want to hear about it,
either.”

I didn’t reply. I’d heard this so often in
the years I’d known him that I was used to it now. The silence
stretched.

It was more than an hour later when I broke
the silence. “We have issues that need to be resolved. Not talking
about them doesn’t make them go away. Please, instead of putting me
off; just give me the answers I need, Danial.”

“Go ahead,” Danial said after a moment, his
tone neutral.

“Understand, I’m not judging you, or looking
for you to give a certain response,” I said gently. “I just want to
know the truth. Please tell me, even if you think it will hurt
me—”

Danial pulled over to the side of the road
and shut off the engine. Then he turned and faced me, his eyes
gleaming red in the dashboard light. “Why are you saying these
things to me? Why now? You know how much I wanted to finally be
alone with you—”

“There was never a good time,” I said
bluntly, cutting him off, “even when I lived with you. You always
gave me the same answer you did earlier tonight. I was okay to let
it go then, because it wasn’t worth fighting with you over. But
I’ve had enough of secrets. A few of my questions are long overdue
for answers, Danial, and only you possess them.”

Danial sighed. “You are your mother’s
daughter,” he said, shooting me a look. “Will any of what you’ll
ask cause me to swerve when I’m driving?”

“Only one. It has to do with your past.”

“Then ask it now, while we’re stationary,”
Danial said curtly.

“Why did you name your son from your first
marriage David? Devlin’s father, your father, he wanted you to be
called David, but your mother refused. If you hated him so, why
name your son after him?”

Danial sighed, and looked away from me.
“Because we were dirt poor. When you work hard for weeks and
months, and have nothing to show for it, you grasp at straws. I
knew if I named him David my father would be pleased. I hoped that
he would take care of my son and my wife, as he had my mother and
me, if something happened to me. I worried about them the way I
worry about you, Sar. The life expectancy of a guard was short. Old
age was forties and fifties in those times. I expected to die
before I saw David grow into a man.”

I went to take his hand, but he held it out
of reach. “No, Sar,” he said coldly. “Keep asking your questions. I
know you aren’t finished.”

“Why be a guard, if you thought you might be
killed?”

“I cared more about my family than myself.
Devlin must have told you about the drought we faced, when he told
you about our youth.”

I nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at
me. “Was Theoron your mother’s brother?”

“Yes,” Danial said curtly. “He was the only
one who was kind to me, of my mother’s whole family. They all knew
whose bastard I was.”

I didn’t reply.

“Are you done?” Danial said angrily.

“Yes,” I said reluctantly.

He turned to me. “Why would you need to know
that?” he said, his eyes searching mine. “What have you gained by
having me dredge this up for you?”

“I wanted to understand why you didn’t want
to name our child David. I knew you picked Theoron in part for
Theo, but I knew how much you loved your firstborn son. I almost
suggested the name David to you then, but I wasn’t sure how you
would take it. After Devlin told me what he did about your past, I
was shocked. I didn’t understand why you had done what you did, and
I wanted to.”

Danial’s look softened. He put his hand over
mine. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I have many bad memories, Sar.
Don’t think badly of me, for wanting to forget them and just think
of you, Elle, and Theoron.”

“I won’t ask you again about your mortal
days. I give you my word.”

Danial restarted the Expedition. “By your
very tone, you have more to ask. Ask.”

“Did you have to pay off Tony or his boss
Thane when you and Dev killed Angelica?”

“No,” Danial answered curtly. “But I know you
don’t care if I had to pay them off. When you ask your questions,
Sar, explain what you are confused about, so we don’t spend all
night talking around the real question. What do you really want to
know?”

It was harsh, but it would save time
.
“I want to know if the mob is angry with you for what you did back
then. I need to know if they might be after any of us. Devlin is
still doing jobs for them, so maybe it’s all in the past. Theo said
there were bounties on his head, and you said a month ago that
there was one on yours. Is it the mob?”

“No,” Danial said. “Tony and Thane know what
I am; Dev, too. Angelica was no relation to them, and she had no
family. I told them point blank what I did to her and why. They
agreed she had it coming for betraying me the way she did. She
didn’t have pain as you had when we bit you. It was quick for her,
a matter of minutes. Also, the mob doesn’t care what Devlin does,
so long as he gets their jobs done quickly and cleanly. They would
not have raised any fuss over a murdered girl.”

I looked up at him, then away.

“She’s buried out in my forest, in the
graveyard. I gave her no marker, but I go there sometimes to
remember her. I buried her with her choker, if you are going to ask
that next.”

His words held sadness. “I wasn’t,” I said
softly. “But she would have liked that.”

I’d hated Angelica, but she was dead. Danial
had killed her because of me. The least I could do was forgive her,
these years later.

“Monica is next to her,” Danial said quietly.
“She also has no headstone.”

Neither of us spoke for some minutes.

“I had a choker made for her, at her
request,” Danial continued finally. “She gave me her Oath one
night, and I accepted. She was jealous of you. I compounded the
problem by calling her by your name one night when we were
intimate. I thought if she also had one to wear, maybe she wouldn’t
be so envious.”

“She said that. That night I shot her, she
told me that. But I didn’t know you were Oathed.” I tried to add I
was sorry, but couldn’t bring myself to lie.

“We were,” Danial replied. “She wanted to be
in my bed, to be my only lover. I gave her my promise that she
would be. I knew she loved me, though I didn’t love her.”

I face him skeptically. “It’s okay if you
loved her, Danial. I know about what she was going to do for you,
that she wanted to have a child for you. I know she asked Terian to
get some of my blood so she could try to change hers, so she would
be able to—”

Danial swerved, narrowly missing an RV. I
grabbed onto the seat, holding on for dear life, letting out a
scream. He finally got the SUV under control, and pulled it again
to the side of the road.

“How the hell could you just announce that,
damn it!”

“I’m sorry,” I said meekly. “I thought you
knew, that she’d talked about it with you or at least that you had
an inkling of what she was planning—” I trailed off. Danial was
slumped over the steering wheel, shaking as he cried.

“I’m very sorry,” I said quietly. “I thought
you knew.” I reached out to touch him, and then thought better of
it. Instead, I settled back into my seat and let him grieve. Danial
cried only briefly, but stayed there resting his head on his arms
in silence for another half hour.

“I’m glad you told me,” he said brokenly. “I
hated her so much after what she did to you and the children. I
wondered how I’d been so stupid to think she really cared for me.
But she had to love me if she wanted to do that for me, even if her
actions in the name of that love were deplorable.” Danial took the
tissue I offered him, and wiped his eyes. “Are you sure it’s safe
for me to drive now?”

“Actually, I’ll drive. You could use a
break.”

Danial got out and switched places with me
without a word, his motions weary.

We drove for a few moments in silence, him
reclining in his seat, his eyes glancing at me every so often. “Are
you done with your questions?” he finally asked.

“Yes,” I said quickly.

“No, you’re not,” Danial sighed. “Just ask
Sar. We’ve come this far. Finish.”

“If you made a vampire, would you have the
kind of power over it that Dev had over Garrett? For all that you
wanted the power, I’ve never heard you mention using it, not
once.”

“In theory I would, yes. But I’ve only made
one vampire, and I couldn’t control her, so maybe not.”

He was referring to the woman he’d made a
vampire by mistake. “Why did you want the power then?”

“For the wrong reasons,” Danial continued
distantly. “I wanted it chiefly because Devlin had it. I thought I
deserved to have it, too. That was a mistake of epic proportions,
Sar. I sometimes wish I’d stuck to Solutions, Inc.” He grabbed my
hand. “But I need my status now to help me protect you and our
children.” He abruptly let go, taking his hand back. “I sometimes
feel in over my head, like I did at the Gathering with you on New
Year’s Eve. I hate that, feeling like an amateur, playing at
filling my brother’s shoes.”

“You were never less than regal, when you
faced the other Rulers and refused to let them take me,” I said
proudly, reaching for his hand and taking it. “We were outflanked
and outnumbered. Things were about as bad as they could get, but
you never wavered.” I squeezed his hand.

“I couldn’t have done any less, Love,” Danial
said warmly, pleased. “You were mine to protect, just as you are
now.”

“Will you ever have to make a vampire, like a
test of sorts?”

“Yes,” Danial said, looking away, resigned.
“Though it’s a self-imposed one.”

I was jealous at once, irrationally. “Has one
of your donors asked to be turned?”

“No. I don’t turn my donors. In fact, I let
them believe that I still don’t have that power. It’s easiest for
all.”

“Then who?” I asked curiously.

“Mary’s daughter, Jennie,” Danial replied,
nodding. “She’s got stage four cancer. She’s most likely going to
die. Mary asked me if I would try to turn her. In return, Jennie
would agree to take over for Mary when she retires in a year.”

Mary had been Danial’s housekeeper for
decades. She was a pleasant woman in her sixties, very efficient
and kind. “She mentioned retiring once. I’d wondered what was going
to happen when she did. I didn’t know she had a daughter. She never
mentioned one.”

“They are trying chemotherapy and a few other
experimental treatments as a last resort. Jennie doesn’t know what
I am. She’s only met me once or twice. Mary kept my secret all
these years. It’s obvious she would prefer that her daughter not be
what I am, but she doesn’t want her to die.”

“I’m sorry. If there is something I can do to
help, please let me know.”

“I will. Now, is there anything else,
Sar?”

“Did you have to fight someone to gain
control of New York years ago?”

“I thought you knew that,” Danial said, his
mouth curving into a faint smile. “I disposed Garrett about eleven
years ago now. That was the cause of the fight during that first
Hallow’s party of mine you attended. He just finally went too far
in his insolence.”

Danial had killed Garrett soon after we’d
met, when Garrett had challenged him at his annual party instead of
showing respect, as the other vampire guests had. “You alluded to
it, as I remember, but I wasn’t sure what happened.”

“I was much older and stronger. I beat him
easily, so I didn’t kill him when he yielded, as is the usual
custom. He chafed under my rule ever after that. I was remiss in my
duty, in that I should have executed him right after he refused to
bow to me the first time.”