“Where to start…”
“Try the beginning,” he said.
His gentleness made me calmer.
I took a breath, deciding to begin with Ethan. Gabriel knew about him, at least back then, back when we first met—but I needed to fill him in on the recent developments, plus it might be easier if I worked up to the more difficult conversation.
“Okay. So, the night I met Jonah, when Eligio’s clan was attacking us, there was a Vampire. I didn’t recognize him at first, but he seemed to know me somehow. When we left the house, I had a vision of the Purebloods and the clans, and I watched as that same Vampire left them. I didn’t know why. I saw him again at the airport and then he turned up at the market in Mirepoix.”
I felt his body stiffen.
“He had an old woman hand me a ring. It had a coat of arms on it and I noticed that it matched some of the markings on my own ring.”
I felt for my circle under my blouse. “Touching it caused me to fall into memories of the past. I recognized him then. I’d seen him in other visions, but I never knew who he was to me. Finally, in the last memory, I fell back in. I relived an argument we had in a barn and he grabbed me and I hit the ground. I came out of it just as I was about to die.”
I could sense Gabriel’s growing trepidation, but I pushed past it.
“When I came to, he was there, standing over me. I suddenly knew his name. Ethan. I guess he was the fiancé you mentioned. I watched him give me my ring.” I tapped my chest again where it sat cooling my skin.
“Ethan was not a Vampire when you were betrothed,” Gabriel said, his voice low.
“Something must have happened to him after. I don’t think he meant to kill me, it was an accident. My memories of him are happy ones.”
Gabriel’s grip on my hand tightened. “Your parents had arranged for him to marry you,” he said. “Ethan was the son of the local squire, and of a higher standing than your own family.” He paused. “Your father offered you and, from my understanding, sweetened the deal with this gem, to be placed into a band for you and into their family.” He organized his thoughts again. “Ethan was not a bad person. You grew up together, you told me once he was like a brother. Then you met me, and you decided you couldn’t marry him.…” He trailed off.
“Because I fell in love with you.”
He smiled at me, but it was a sad smile.
“He’s following me. He’s here somewhere and he wants retribution, I don’t know why.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me, right before I fell into the ice,” I said.
Gabriel snatched his hand from my own and turned my face toward him. “You fell into ice?”
“It’s all right, Jonah was there. He pulled me out. I’m fine, honestly. There’s more.” I didn’t want to delve into the details of that particular rescue. I didn’t fully understand and I still wasn’t ready to face whatever it was that had happened.
“There’s a girl. You will think I’m crazy, but she just sort of turns up. I don’t know who she is; I never see her face because she’s always shrouded in shadow. I see her, but then … I don’t know, things get hazy, I can’t remember. It’s like she somehow creates black spots in my memory. She was there the night Frederic attacked me. She killed him, I’m sure she did.”
A deep twinge of pain shot through my head, rumbling into a dull ache as I tried to recall.
“It’s okay.” His voice soothed me and I was able to continue.
“Ruadhan saw her, he said he did, in the Hedgerley house. But he said she was a Pureblood. I don’t understand—why would a Pureblood Vampire protect me?”
He didn’t offer any answers.
I turned my body toward him and, biting my bottom lip, I said, “Also, I kissed Jonah.”
There. I’d said it.
I didn’t have much of an explanation. Gabriel’s eyes stretched wide, and he took both my hands back in his own.
“I didn’t really mean to. We went to this nightclub and there was this guy … Jonah just kind of stepped in and helped me out. I was angry with you because I thought you were with Hanora and I don’t know, I just … It’s weird, when I’m with him, I don’t entirely feel like myself.”
“He’s a Vampire. He can influence you in ways you don’t know.”
He gave me an out, but I had to be honest with him.
“I don’t think he’d do that. When we’re together, something comes over me and I find myself acting on impulse. It wasn’t the first time, or the last, I’m sorry,” I rushed, feeling totally ashamed.
Gabriel sat next to me in silence, his hands still covering mine. Finally he squeezed them and said, “Jonah overstepped the mark, not you, Lai. You’re in a very vulnerable position and he shouldn’t have taken advantage. I trusted him with you.”
I met Gabriel’s gaze and just as I was about to interject, I stopped as I watched the veins in his neck jut out and a spark of warning suddenly flared in his eyes. “I’ll kill him.”
He jumped up and I gulped hard, reaching for his arm.
Seeing Gabriel so angry was unfamiliar; he wasn’t like that.
“Gabriel, no—” I stuttered, pulling him back toward me.
He met my eyes and immediately softened; taking his time he sat back down. “I’m sorry. It’s okay, we’ll work it out.” He forced a smile, an unsure, upset smile that made me die a little inside.
He was the last person I wanted to hurt. I loved him.
“I’m sorry. That night he’d helped me at the club after, well, drinking from a stripper.”
“What?”
“I was upset with Jonah and left, and that’s when the guy came after me.…” This confession wasn’t getting any easier. But I might as well get it all out now.
“I blacked out, and when I came to, the guy was dead.”
I tried to connect to Gabriel’s mind, but he’d closed it off. I guessed he wanted to deal with my revelations in private.
“Jonah said I killed him, but I couldn’t have. I’m not like them. I—I…”
Feeling my eyes welling up, ready to spill over, Gabriel pulled me in to him and held me tightly, running his hand in a circular motion over my back.