Blood and Redemption (Cassandra Myles Witch Series) (16 page)

I cleared my throat. “This might be awkward, but could you loosen the strapping on this corset. I need to take a deep breath.”

He smiled in the mirror; Declan’s lopsided grin looked back at me. I had to close my eyes to shut it out. “Sure. I can’t believe they made you wear that.”

“Mab likes to control everything. I feel like a doll she gets to dress up.”

His fingers shook a little when he was undoing the laces. I tried not to think of how good his hot fingers felt on my bare skin.

“We feel better when we are together because we’re family, little sister. Is that why you are so jittery?”

“But I’m not a werewolf.”

“You were mated to one and that leaves a mark on you. I’m grateful for what you did when Killian was feeding on me. It would have been unbearable otherwise.”

“I hate that he did it. You took the feeding
; it was the least I could do.”

He was done with the corset, but he hadn’t moved from behind me. His warm breath was on the back of my neck. His hands stroked my naked shoulders. “You know it’s tradition that when a mated brother dies, if there is an unmated brother
, he takes her for himself.”

“What if your wolf doesn’t want her?”

“Then it won’t happen, but that wouldn’t be a problem with us.”

He kissed the back of my neck. It felt amazing, safe. Tears started to fall again. I turned to him and just hugged him. He returned my embrace. He held me while I cried.

“I miss him every day, Dominick. Being with someone who knew him, loved him, feels so good it makes me feel guilty. How fucked up is that?”

“I know…” I looked up and I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead
, I watched him be ripped from my arms and thrown across the room.

“You really do like dogs
, don’t you, Cassandra?” Killian snarled and his fangs glinted in the low light. Dominic lay in a heap across the room.

“Killian
, what is wrong with you? You could have killed him.”

“Me, I walk in here with a bottle of wine
, hoping we can have a nice talk about what’s going on, and I come in here to find you humping the dog.”

“He was just hugging me. I swear. We got talking about Declan and I cried and he hugged me.”

He looked unsure. Dominick was halfway to changing and that would not be good. “Dominick, don’t do this please. Just go; everything will be fine.”

He growled at
Killian and I thought he was going to attack. Then his eyes turned from amber to brown. He walked over to us and looked right in Killian’s face. “You hurt her and I will do whatever it takes to make sure you get to witness our beautiful sunrises firsthand.” He turned and left the cabin. I was thankful that Dominick had kept his temper. I knew for certain that if it had been Declan, he would have changed.

“Was he really just consoling you?”

“Yes, it’s hard to be here. It reminds me so much of Declan. I moved out of my house so I wouldn’t have to see him there, but here I see his death.”

I didn’t want his pity or his affection, but right now I needed it and it might bring him closer to our side. He held me and stroked my back. “I never thought of that. I’m sorry. I know you probably don’t think me capable of it, but I do care for you.”

“Then help me out of here. Please, Killian, that crazy woman could kill any one of us at any time. We are just toys to play with.”

“Have you ever done something that seemed so necessary at the time, but you look back and would do anything to undo it?”

“We all have regrets, but it’s what we do now that counts.”

“Really?
So all would be forgiven if I helped you escape? I doubt that.”

“It would be a start. It would help.”

“Whether I help or not, Quintus will kill me if I meet him again. This way, I have a small chance.”

“What if I made Quintus promise not to kill you?”

“Quintus might even promise you that, Cassandra, but he would eventually get me. I would be asked to leave and you would never hear from me again. He is a vampire and I took what’s his.”

“I know you aren’t all bad in there
, Killian. You made some bad decisions, but we all have our scars that sometimes drive us to the wrong path. Do you really think Quintus will rescue me?”

“He will want to. No question. Will he be able to? It doesn’t seem likely. Fuck. I rolled the dice and thought I could win. Now I see my future is staying here with that whack job and all the disgusting things she is doing. I thought I could handle it. I thought I was monster enough to not let it bother me.”

I motioned for him to wait a minute. I went into the bathroom and changed into a t-shirt. I assumed it was Declan’s father’s t-shirt. It smelled like pine and earth.

We got into bed and I turned away from him. He put his arm over me. I stiffened but didn’t make him move it.

“I never saw you as a monster, Killian. Despite what you’ve done, I still don’t.”

“I wish you did
, Cass. You should hate me. I did this to hurt Quintus and to gain power and I didn’t care what it did to you.”

“Do you care now?” I prayed to whatever god would listen that he had a change of heart.

“I want to tell you my story. It’s not a tale I like to tell, but maybe it will make you hate me a little less. Maybe it will help you to understand why I did what I did.”

“Okay, please
. I want to understand why you did this.” I knew there was no excuse good enough for what he had done, but maybe it would help me change his mind and get him on our side.

“Shall I start at the beginning? My mother died in childbirth, so growing up it was only me and my dad. I had various caretakers he would hire, but no one I remember being attached to. My father wasn’t home often, but when he was
, I would follow him everywhere. He was a very patient man and I think he enjoyed having me around. He would do paperwork with me on his knee. I more than loved him. I worshipped the ground he walked on. For me there were only two times: when Father was there and when he wasn’t. Whether he was home or away, time was my enemy. Either I was aching for his return or dreading his departure.

    “Then
, when I was around ten, I woke one morning to find him on the kitchen floor. Looking back, I assume it was a heart attack or stroke, but he was already dead when I found him. I was only young, but I felt like my life was over. He was my whole world. I was an orphan, but my father came through for me one last time. He was a very good businessman and the money and properties he left me were a guarantee that I would never see the inside of an orphanage.

“The will named my spinster aunt as my guardian
. I don’t think she wanted me, but it allowed her to live in our home and provided her with a small stipend. She was a seamstress and she was always struggling. This would allow her to live comfortably and guarantee her a place to live.

“She
wasn’t loving towards me, but she wasn’t mean either. I think she did the best she could. She had never had kids and I was like this sad little ghost that haunted her new home. When I became a teenager, though, I turned into a bit of a handful. I know you must find that hard to believe.”

I smiled in spite of myself. I could picture him that way. He didn’t look that much older now.

“I started to run the streets. Sometimes I wouldn’t come home for days. I was in with a rough crowd and felt the need to prove myself to them. I took bigger and bigger risks. I did some very stupid things. One night, I was in a fight over a girl, no less. The other guy was huge and if I had any brains at all, I would have walked away, but I couldn’t back down in front of my mates. I just prayed he didn’t kill me.

“I never laid one punch
, Cass. He had these long gorilla arms and his first swing had me on the ground. That’s when the kicking started. The pain was terrible. I could feel my bones breaking. I felt every one. Then I think he got bored of kicking a lifeless body and he left. All my mates who I was trying to impress left too. I lay there for what seemed like hours, praying to die. The pain was unbearable, until I finally lost consciousness.

“When I
awoke, a man was sitting beside my bed. It was still dark out. I felt fine, like the beating had never taken place. In fact, I felt amazing. The man looked very much like my father. I asked if we were related. He said ‘in a fashion.’ He told me he had given me something to make me feel better and I was lucky he found me because I would have died. He was giving me a second chance and if I took it and straightened up, I would be rewarded.

“I thought at the time I had taken his sage
advice, but looking back, I’m pretty sure he had compelled me. Either way, I turned into a young businessman. I didn’t just maintain my father’s business, but I expanded it. When I was old enough to live on my own, I gave my aunt the home we had shared. I built my own. I was living the life at a time when the world was not very happy. It was during the Great Depression. Then America joined the Second World War and I was drafted.

“I’m ashamed to say I was terrified and I didn’t want to go. I had everything and they wanted me to leave it all and probably die. The days were getting short and I was panicking. I was drunk almost all the time. One night
, just a few days before I was going to be shipped out, my mysterious savior came by.

“He told me not to worry
, that he was going to make sure everything worked out. I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t know he was going to turn me. I didn’t even know what he was at the time. Vampires were still just fiction, but he did it that night. He had it all set up, my funeral, my will, my escape. It was so much to handle in such a short time, but after it was over, I felt free again.

“My sire was kind and patient. He taught me what I needed to know. It felt like I had a father again
, Cass, a father who would take care of me and watch out for me.

  “You would have loved him
, Cass; he had a strict rule of ‘cause no harm.’ We only took the little sips, as he called them. He would chastise me when I would get too excited and take too much. I never killed anyone, but being young, the hunger is very hard to control. He never left my side until he knew I had matured enough to hunt on my own.”

He stopped talking. “Why did you stop?”

“I thought I had bored you to sleep.”

“No, far from it
. Please tell me the rest.”

“It seemed like a golden era. I was strong, young
, and rich. I had my sire with me always. Then we came out to the world. My sire was against it. He said the humans would only see monsters and never the man. He was right at first. There was a lot of violence. We were in Seattle when it happened. Quintus was already master there. He allowed us to stay as long as we kept a low profile. He kept a tight rein on the vampires in his territory; he knew one tiny hint of violence would be an excuse to persecute us. One night, we were coming back from feeding. This girl jumped in our path. She was barely a woman, but very beautiful.

“She begged us to drink from her. I, of course
, jumped at the chance. My sire held me back. He said she was drunk and we didn’t need that kind of trouble. We were about to turn away when she started to scream. She yelled we were trying to kill her. My sire told me to run. I didn’t want to leave him, but he made me. We don’t have to obey our sires, but we want to. It’s like a very strong urge that’s hard to fight. I made it safely back to our home. I waited up all night, even fighting to stay awake even when the sun began to rise. When I woke that night, he was still missing. I waited for hours. I ran out to get a paper when I couldn’t remain patient any longer. It was on the front page. Vampire resists arrest and attacks police officers. The brave men in blue shot him several times, then staked him in the heart. I know it was a lie, but it didn’t matter. He was still gone.

“Quintus took me in. Does this make us step
-siblings? Anyway, I started off doing odds and ends that needed to be done and then eventually he started to lean on me to help police Seattle when he was in Vancouver. I did well, I think. He came to trust me and I learned more and more about how we police our own. Vampires are even secretive to each other. I knew we had an informal, at least to the human world, government and I knew this government policed its citizens when they endangered our race, most importantly, when they killed or harmed a human. Our image is everything. It’s what allows us to live amongst you. So any infraction was met with stiff penalties.

“Sometimes those things were horrible, but they had to be done
. I wasn’t a monster. I was still young; my humanness was still very much a part of who I was. I was asked to mete out more and more punishments. I did it for a long time, because I was so grateful that he had taken me in and given me a purpose, but it wore on my conscience. There came a time when I couldn’t do it anymore and I told Quintus that. At first, he seemed very understanding. He sent me out on those kinds of assignments a lot less and he made me his unofficial third. I was young for that and flattered. Then I started to resent him. I know it is crazy. No one made me do those things, right?

“I just kept reliving some of the things I had done. I was in a very fragile state
, Cass. When he started grooming me to one day take over, I hated him more. Then you came around. Everything went PC. No drinking in the house. No talking to you unless spoken to. Anything involving something unpleasant had to be discussed outside of business hours.