Declan pulled into a gas station and I grabbed some breakfast for the girls. A coffee for me. I cleaned myself up as much as I could in the washroom. I’d have to buy some new clothes as soon as possible. The little black dress and high heels I still wore were currently my only possessions. I didn’t think I’d wear a little black dress again. Like, ever.
I stared into the mirror for a long time. I looked pale, a bit thin, but strangely vibrant and alive. I knew it was because of my bond with Matthias. He was regaining the rest of his strength with every passing hour. He was immortal. He was powerful. And I got to siphon a little of that energy for myself, even from a distance. I looked a little closer at the mirror to realize with surprise that my eyes, previously as jet black as my hair, were cornflower blue again.
“Gift with purchase,” I murmured as I drew my fingers through my hair to try to get the tangles out of it.
I left the washroom feeling better, stronger, and happier than I had in a very long time. A wash of optimism flowed over me. If I could survive the last couple of weeks, I think I could survive just about anything. There would be plenty of challenges ahead, I knew that. I wasn’t completely normal and I never would be again. But maybe that was okay.
The girls ate their muffins and drank their bottles of orange juice in the backseat and I settled again into the passenger side.
“My eyes are blue,” I announced with a smile.
“I noticed.” Declan shifted into drive and we headed the rest of the way to my sister’s house. I grew more nervous the closer we got. It had been my goal all along to see her again, to know at that moment everything would be all right. The time was finally here and I was so happy to bring her daughters back to her, unharmed, and completely oblivious to whatever danger they’d been close to. There was no evidence of a police presence, no search parties, no crowds or news cameras, so I assumed she still had no idea what had happened.
Ignorance was seriously bliss.
“Here it is, on the right with the Toyota in the driveway,” I said as we pulled onto her treelined street. He parked at the curb and I got out to open the door for the girls.
I leaned into the car. “I’ll just be—”
“You should stay here, Jill.” Declan’s grip was tight on the steering wheel, his gaze straight forward on the road.
A breath caught in my chest. “What?”
He nodded, still not looking directly at me. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and it’s the right thing to do. You’re here, with your sister, just as you wanted. You’re healthy, in no danger of dying. I’ll go back to the compound and make sure all remaining paperwork and files on you are destroyed. You don’t have to be afraid that anyone will be after you—I’ll make sure no one knows you exist. Stay in nice, normal residential areas and you shouldn’t have any problems with rogue vamps. You can have your life back any way you want it to be. A bright future.”
I heard him, but his words weren’t properly registering with me. “But, I thought we were—”
“What did you think?” His jaw was tense, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel, and he finally looked at me. His sunglasses covered any expression in his single gray eye. “What were your plans now? To live on the road, motel to motel, constantly in danger? With a vampire who has difficulties controlling himself around your scent?”
“My blood doesn’t kill you.”
“No, but it’s too tempting, Jill. And the pain I felt from tasting it—fuck, it nearly put me out of commission. I almost didn’t get myself together enough after that to stop Kristoff. I can’t concentrate around you.”
“But—”
“What exactly did you think would happen next?”
My eyes stung. I hadn’t expected this. “I—I hadn’t really given it much thought.”
“Exactly. Which is why I had to. Look, I’m planning on continuing on as I always have. Hunting down rogues. It’s all I know and I’m used to doing it alone. You can tell just by looking at my scars it’s a fucking dangerous business. And there’s no place in it for someone like you.”
I glanced at the girls waiting up on the curb. They hadn’t run to the front door yet; they were waiting for me to accompany them.
“Come on, Aunt Jill,” Meg said. “I want to see my mommy.”
I turned back to Declan. “Listen, I—”
He shook his head. “No, Jill. This is your chance to be normal again. There’s no future for us. Being around you it’s—it’s torture for me. That’s no damn way to live. I can’t deal with it. I don’t want to deal with it. It’s safer for us to be apart.”
I tried to swallow, but it was difficult. “Safer for you or for me?”
“Both.”
All I could do was nod. “You’re right, of course. About everything.”
“Yeah, I am.”
I’d known it from the beginning—me and Declan, we were different. Too different. Our worlds didn’t mesh, when it came right down to it. As soon as we got off the metaphorical roller-coaster ride we’d been on together, it was time to go our separate ways.
“Okay.” I blinked hard, refusing to let myself cry over this. Not now. Maybe later, but not now. “Girls, say good-bye to Declan.”
“Good-bye, Declan,” they said in unison.
“Good luck.” My voice sounded thick as I closed the passenger side door. I turned away and began walking up the driveway. The girls trailed after me. I didn’t want to look back, but I glanced over my shoulder, feeling my heart sink as the black car drove off down the road as if he’d been in a bat-out-of-hell hurry to get away from me.
It was over.
Time for the rest of my life to begin.
I marched up to the door and inhaled deeply through my nose and let it out slowly through my mouth. I hesitated only a moment before I rang the doorbell.
It didn’t take long before it opened and my sister stood there, her light blond hair, currently back in a haphazard ponytail, the exact same shade mine used to be.
She grinned. “Jill! I’m so happy to see you!”
I almost laughed at how completely at ease she seemed. “I’m happy to see you, too, Cathy.”
“Mommy!” The girls ran past me into the house and hugged their mother.
“Did you have a good time last night?” Cathy asked.
“Yeah, it was fun,” Meg said, smiling. “And we found Aunt Jill.”
I felt on the verge of tears of relief at their complete and utter calm reaction to what had happened. Luckily they’d been kept out of the drama. Only I knew exactly what had happened and how much danger they’d been in. Seeing the girls reunited with their mother gave me a feeling of elation and relief, as if everything I’d been through had been completely worth it.
Cathy then grabbed me into a fierce hug so tight it almost hurt. “I was worried about you since you disappeared. Why didn’t you call me?”
I hugged her back. “I’m sorry. I should have.”
She pulled back from me and there were emotions sliding through her gaze—relief, happiness, and a little bit of annoyance with her uncommunicative sister, who didn’t follow rules like a normal person. “What the hell happened to you, anyway? They told me you went out for a coffee break at work and that scary man grabbed you. He had a gun. Where the hell have you been all this time?”
I tried not to think about the scary man with the gun. He’d destroyed my normal life by dragging me into his. And I missed him already so much it felt as if I’d been stabbed through my heart. That pain fought with the pure joy I felt at seeing Cathy again.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “But I’m back and everything’s going to be okay now.”
Her expression turned quizzical. “What on earth did you do to your hair?”
I touched it absently. “It’s different now. Do you like it?”
She leaned back and pursed her lips. “I think I can get used to it.”
My hair was different. Permanently. Kind of like me. I knew I’d c
hanged at a cellular level, just like my hair had. Like my blood had. It hadn’t been all that long since I’d been ripped out of my normal life, kicking and screaming, but everything was different now.
She glanced over her shoulder to see the girls in the family room, turning on the television. “Did they have a good time with you and . . .” She frowned. “I forget his name. The handsome blond man with the gray eyes.”
I wasn’t surprised she didn’t remember past Kristoff’s strong mental influence. “They did.”
She shook her head. “Where were you all this time? The man—the one who grabbed you—”
“He’s gone.” I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, then opened them up and smiled at her. “It’s okay.”
She stroked my long black hair back from my face and tucked it behind my ear. “I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to begin. But nothing really matters as much as the fact that you’re back. Everything can go back to normal now, Jill. Everything. And I’m not letting you out of my sight ever again.” She laughed. “This is better than I ever could have hoped for.”
“It’s exactly what I hoped for, too.” I hugged her again, my chest felt tight. “I love you so much, Cathy.”
“I love you, too.”
“Please take care of yourself and the girls, okay?”
She pulled back from me, a frown creasing her brow. “What?”
I smiled, a truly genuine smile. “I need to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“I’ll be in touch, I promise. Soon. Please don’t worry about me.”
I turned and left the house, walking down the driveway to the sidewalk. Seeing Cathy again, returning the girls safely, it was everything I thought it would be. It made me happy. It made me remember my life before—how normal and regulated everything was. There was a comfortable structure to having a job, having a set of friends, a sister and nieces I visited regularly. I could have that again, I’d just seen it.
But I wasn’t the same person I’d been. I felt it deep inside me. I didn’t belong there—not anymore. And that was okay. It was a part of my life, but not the sum total of it. I could have followed the rules. Could have stayed there. Hell, I was sure Cathy wouldn’t have had a problem with me moving in and starting my life over here in Los Angeles.
But there were other things in store for me now.
“Jill!” Cathy called from her front door. “Where the hell are you going?”
I just waved at her. She probably thought I was crazy. Maybe I was. But I knew this was the right choice for me. I walked down the sidewalk in my short black dress, the high heels pinching my feet.
No matter what happened now, everything was going to be okay.
I believed it.
The car came to a stop at the curb beside me a few minutes later. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed that it wasn’t some jerk who wanted to give me a lift to the nearest motel room after mistaking me for a hooker.
“Are you getting in or what?” Declan asked through the open passenger side window.
I smiled, then grabbed the door handle, opened it up, and got in beside him. “I thought you were leaving.”
“Me, too.”
“But you came back.”
“I did.” His jaw was tight and his attention was on the road again.
“Isn’t it torture to be close to me?”
“It is.”
I bit my bottom lip and watched him carefully. “So why did you come back?”
He finally turned to look at me. “I guess I’m just a complete masochist who’s fallen in love with you.”
My heart swelled. “That was probably not a very smart decision.”
“Tell me about it.” His sunglasses were off, and I saw the raw emotion in his pale gray eye—emotion he’d never had to experience in the past thanks to his serum.
No more serum. No more dhampyr.
Just a vampire who could go out in the daylight. Who had survived my blood. Who’d dragged me into this life, and I was in no hurry to escape from him anymore. This was where I belonged, come what may. With Declan.
I looked out of the window back in the direction of my sister’s house and my normal life. “So where are we headed next?”
“Honestly? I have no damn idea.”
I smiled at him. “That sounds like a pretty good start to me.”
He reached down to take my hand in his as we pulled away from the curb.
Turn the page for a special preview of the
next Living in Eden novel by Michelle Rowen
That Old Black Magic
Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!
“READY TO HEAR YOUR ULTIMATE FATE?”
Eden glanced warily at the shirtless demon sitting at the tiny dinette table in her tiny apartment with the daily newspaper’s horoscope section in front of him. Seemed harmless enough, and yet a chill ran down her spine. Something about Darrak’s statement felt like an omen. A bad one.
Maybe she was just being paranoid. Nothing new there.
She pushed back against the unpleasant vibe. “Sure.”
Darrak absently raked his messy dark hair back from his forehead. “You’re a Gemini, right?”
“Present and accounted for.”
“Be prepared for a blast from the past as an old acquaintance, one whose destiny is irreversibly intertwined with yours, wants to reconnect. Also, buy more crunchy peanut butter as soon as possible.”
She nodded. “Let me take a wild guess here . . . You added the last bit yourself.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true. We’re out. And I love it.”
“I’ll put it on my grocery list.”
“Life is good.” He studied her for a moment longer before his grin began to fade at the edges. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” Eden crossed her arms. “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all. Everything’s wonderful. Fabulous, in fact.”
“Overcompensating in your reply only leads me to believe that something’s seriously wrong.” When he stood the horoscope page fluttered to the carpeted floor at his feet. His brows drew together. “What is it?”
It was surprising how quickly Darrak could switch from amusement over a horoscope and a craving for crunchy peanut butter to deep concern for her well-being.
He wanted to know what was bothering her. That was a very dangerous question these days.
Ever since Eden woke this morning, she’d felt the unrequested tingle of magic moving down her arms and sparking off her fingertips. She didn’t allow herself to tap into her recently acquired powers despite it being a constant itch for her. Magic—at least her magic—came with nasty consequences.
She could control it, she kept telling herself. She could.
Sometimes she even believed it.
“You need to get dressed,” she said instead of answering his question. Her gaze moved over his very bare and very distracting chest. “We have to leave for the office in five minutes.”
Black jersey material immediately flowed over Darrak’s skin. Since he’d come into Eden’s life a month ago, she’d wanted to take him shopping at a mall, but other than a leather coat he occasionally wore—short sleeves in Toronto in chilly mid-November might be a tip-off that he wasn’t exactly human—he magically conjured his own clothing, which seemed to solely consist of black jeans and black T-shirts.
She slid her hands into the pockets of her navy blue pants and turned away from him.
Darrak caught her arm. “It’s your magic, isn’t it?”
The peanut-butter-loving demon could be very insightful. “My magic?”
“I can feel it, you know. Right now. It’s coming off you in waves.”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
She grabbed her purse, which was hanging off the back of one of the dinette chairs, to fish into it for her new BlackBerry. Andy McCoy, her partner at the investigation agency they co-owned, insisted they become more technically savvy now that their caseload had increased, so h
e’d bought them both brand-new phones. Triple-A Investigations had been on the brink of bankruptcy only a month ago, but now they were busy with new cases.
The sudden surge in business was directly related to Darrak coming into Eden’s life. While working as an occasional psychic consultant for the police, she’d been possessed by the cursed demon after the death of his previous host, a serial killer gunned down right in front of her.
Darrak was able to take solid human form during daylight hours, but when the sun set, he became incorporeal and had to possess her body. She’d recently had the chance to end the possession once and for all, but that would have destroyed him completely. Her privacy was a great motivator to find a solution to their problem, but not at such a high price.
After all . . . she’d come to care a great deal for the demon since they’d first met.
Unfortunately, all roads in their search for mutually beneficial separation had led to dead ends. Some deader than others.
She finally tore her gaze away from the screen of her phone to look at him and cringed when she noticed the searching look in his ice blue eyes. “I said nothing’s wrong. Please, Darrak, don’t worry.”
“Your phone is on fire.”
He was right. A spark from her magic had ignited her BlackBerry. She shrieked and threw it before it burned her. It skittered across the breakfast bar and landed with a sizzle in the kitchen sink. “Well, damn.”
Before she had a chance to move, Darrak was right in front of her. He pulled out the chain she wore around her neck so her amulet lay flat against her freshly ironed white shirt.
“It’s even darker than it was yesterday.”
She clamped her hand over the visible state of her soul. The more she used her magic, the more damage it did. A black witch, even an extremely reluctant one like her, started with a pure white soul, but it grew darker and darker every time she accessed her very accessible black magic. Eden’s amulet was still pale gray, but it had darker veins branching through it, making it look like a piece of marble.
She shook her head. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Then what are these?” He pushed her hand away and slid his index finger over the veins.