Caught in Darkness (26 page)

“You’re right,” Allison agreed
casually, her gaze focused on her large salad. “Caring is different than
loving. But you can’t
love
without it, so it’s a
start, don’t you think? And who’s to say his feelings don’t match yours?
Unless, of course, they can’t love.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Veronica
said, rolling her eyes and reaching for another fry. “I’m sure they can.”

“Then my argument stands,” Allison
declared before popping a large forkful of her salad into her mouth.

Veronica sighed again and returned
her attention to her lunch. She should have known that Allison wouldn’t
understand. The whole situation was just so insanely complicated that, half the
time, she didn’t even feel like she understood it. But she knew that he would
leave, eventually, and she wouldn’t have a choice other than to stand by and
watch him disappear into the distance. And, once he was gone, she was going to
have to find a way to move on. How stupid was I to go and fall in love with an
immortal?

She was so lost in thought that it
took her a moment to register the sudden throbbing in the back of her head. It
came on fast and was just strong enough to make her lift a hand and press
against the back of her skull in an effort to alleviate the pain. Where did
this headache come from? If it weren’t a different kind of pain—throbbing
instead of prickling—she would assume there was a vampire in the diner.

“Miss,” the host called from
somewhere to the side of their table, “wait a second, please!”

On reflex, Veronica turned her
attention to the side and immediately caught sight of the exchange. The same
early-twenties young man who’d shown them to their table was half-reaching
toward a female patron, looking a bit perplexed.

The woman looked to be about the
same age and height as Veronica and she was dressed in cut-off denim shorts and
a plain white tank top with sandals, but what struck Veronica was her hair. The
woman—who was giving the host a faintly confused look, complete with head-tilt—had
loose, long blonde hair. Only her hair looked practically white in the
artificial lighting of the diner, and Veronica found herself strangely inclined
to believe that that was her natural hair color.

“If you’ll just give me a moment,”
the host was saying, “I’ll show you to a table.”

“Oh,” the woman
said,
turning and smiling at him easily, “okay.” She slid her feet together, standing
straight, and looked as if she intended to wait right where she was.

“Weird,” Allison muttered
,
her attention also focused on the odd scene.

Veronica was going to comment, but
the moment she opened her mouth she noticed that the woman’s eyes were slanted
to the side, as if she were watching them. But why would she even be looking
over here? A moment later a possibility occurred to her and her own eyes
widened. Unless…unless she heard us.

And then she remembered Dennis
mentioning that the sensations for vampires and werewolves were slightly
different—just different enough for them to be able to distinguish. That would
certainly explain my headache. Not that she wanted to admit to learning
anything at all from the man who’d twice tried to kill her. But the possibility
suddenly seemed undeniable.

In the space it took Veronica to
accept that she might, possibly, have just spotted her first werewolf, the host
seemed to figure out where he was going to seat her, because he grabbed a menu
and called her attention again.

“If you’ll follow me right this
way, Miss,” he said politely.

The woman turned her attention back
to the host and nodded, starting after him even as she said, “You can just call
me Whitney.”

Because she was paying attention it
didn’t take Veronica any effort at all to notice that, as the woman walked away,
the headache seemed to ease until it was barely noticeable. She just couldn’t
believe that that was a coincidence.

“Is it just me,” Allison began,
dragging her attention back to her lunch, “or did that woman seem unusually
naïve?”

“She sort of did,” Veronica replied
distractedly. In fact, she really did. But was that normal for werewolves? Or
was she way off base and misattributing an ordinary headache to something
supernatural? One more question to ask Seth, I suppose.

****

“You’ve been staring at that paper
for nearly twenty minutes,”
Jasen
declared, his
blatant boredom drawing out a bit more of his old-European accent.

Seth released a breath, reaching up
to pinch the bridge of his nose as he squeezed his eyes shut.
Jasen
was right, of course. He’d been reading and rereading
the official report of Ronald Wyndham’s murder, trying to pinpoint what it was
that was bothering him. And he kept coming back to one word: irony. Ronald had
been stabbed through the heart with a piece of cheap metal shaped like a stake.
The metal had still been lodged in his chest when the body was found. But there
was more to it than that: that piece of irony had jumped out at him
immediately. An hour earlier, after placing a call to a friend, Seth had
learned something else.

Ronald Wyndham—formerly Ronald
Claypool—had been murdered on the one year anniversary of his father’s death.

“Are you going to tell me what’s so
fascinating about a report you’ve surely memorized by now, or do I need to have
you shipped off for a psyche evaluation?”
Jasen
asked
pointedly, a tinge of irritation coloring his voice now.

“It’s ironic,” Seth finally
replied, letting himself slump back into the cushions of his couch.

Jasen
quirked an eyebrow at him.
“There was nothing ironic about my question.”

“No,” Seth said, barely biting back
his own irritation.
“The murder.”

“Yes,”
Jasen
agreed, sounding bored again. “I know. How ironic that the Slayer was stabbed
through the heart with a makeshift stake.
Very creative.
What’s your point?”

Instead of pointing out that Ronald
Wyndham was a retired Slayer, Seth said, “It’s not just that. The date of the
murder—it was the one year anniversary of his father’s death.”

Jasen
hummed for a moment, mulling over Seth’s words, before admitting, “Well, I
suppose that is interesting. And you think the vamp knew that?”

“It’s too much of a coincidence
otherwise,” Seth said.
Far too much of a coincidence.

“I take it this means something to
you?”
Jasen
asked, eyes narrowed quizzically.

Seth nodded slowly. “I’ve been
hunting a vamp for the better part of a century
who
has a habit of playing with irony when he kills.” It was the truth, and not
nearly a secret. He hadn’t been there the night, back in 1918, when his
now-best friend Corbin had been Turned and forced to watch as his family was
slaughtered. But he’d heard the story a dozen times over since he’d befriended
the younger vampire, and he’d offered his help in tracking down and ending the
vampire responsible. They’d never learned their target’s true name, though Seth
had met several other victims since he’d begun his hunt. And all of the bodies
who turned up along the way had an undeniably ironic death, just like Ronald
Wyndham.

“You think this is connected to
that?”
Jasen
asked, sounding genuinely surprised, as
one dark brow lifted high on his forehead.
Jasen
had
long-since heard Corbin’s story, as well as the stories of several other
vampires. They both knew that he had standing orders to tear the vampire’s
throat out if he ever ran across him.

“I can’t ignore the possibility,” Seth
replied darkly.

Jasen
was
quiet for a long minute before he said, “Then we can’t sit on this. We take
down that idiot Richards as soon as possible and then we tear this city apart
until we find the bigger fish.”

“You’re not considering the
possibility that that bigger fish is already swimming in another lake,” Seth
pointed out. “He’s been half a dozen steps ahead of us since before we knew he
was a problem. I can’t imagine he’d be so sloppy as to stick around.”

“That’s possible,”
Jasen
allowed, “and if that’s the truth then we’ll move on
as soon as we’re sure. But he got away scot-free after killing that ex-Slayer.
What if he decided to stay for a while just for the hell of it?”

Seth sighed again, understanding
Jasen’s
point. “I know. We have to look.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Are you sure?” Veronica asked
softly on Sunday evening. She’d spent the better part of the day going over
what Seth had told her the night before, and she still couldn’t quite wrap her
mind around the idea of her father having been killed by a vampire they’d been
hunting for nearly a hundred years. It seemed outrageous. And the pathetic
little question she’d had to ask that night just seemed ridiculous in
comparison to his news. It certainly wasn’t important to know that werewolves
were frequently unfamiliar with modern human culture when she was learning that
her father had, essentially, been killed by a vampire serial-killer.

Seth’s arm tightened around her
waist and he shifted, rolling in to her and letting his nose rest in her hair. “As
sure as I can be,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

Veronica swallowed and curled her
arm over his bare torso. He would be leaving soon to resume his hunt—which was
more important now than ever—and then she would be alone with all the time in
the world to think over this latest revelation. “Don’t be,” she whispered into
the skin of his shoulder, “I’d rather know the truth, even if it’s hard to
hear.”

His arms tightened around her and
his lips ghosted over the shell of her ear, but he said nothing.

She wanted to be dwelling over the
fact that she might never see a resolution to her father’s murder. She wanted
to be angry that it was taking so long to find Richards. But she couldn’t focus
on any of that. Something in her gut told her that their hunt was going to be
over soon, and though she didn’t know what that something was, she believed it
whole-heartedly. And once the hunt was over Seth would be leaving. She would
have to let him go.

“Don’t cry,” Seth rumbled beside
her ear. He followed the quiet request with a gentle, tender kiss to her
temple. It was only then that she realized her eyes were burning.

Veronica swallowed, trying to push
the tears down. It was harder to bite her tongue every second she spent in his
arms, and now her heart was pleading with her to tell him. Allison could be
right. He could feel the same.
And then what?
They
would both hurt even more knowing how much the other would miss them? That
didn’t exactly sound like a preferable solution.

“I wish I could keep you.” The
choked, whispered words were past her lips before she’d even realized she was
speaking.

Seth immediately tensed around her,
his arms locking, and she could hear the tightness in his jaw when he said, “No
you don’t.”

“Yes,” Veronica insisted softly,
the hand over his back curling into his skin as if she had the strength to hold
him against her forever. “I do.”

“Veronica,” Seth groaned. She
pictured him squeezing his eyes shut as he rested his cheek against her temple.

“I know,” she interrupted, cutting
off whatever it was he was about to say. “I know it’s impossible. And I know in
a lot of ways it’s my fault I feel like this now, but I…I love you.” Well, if
you’re going to chase him away, you might as well get it all out there first.

Seth grunted something beside her
ear and the next thing she knew he had rolled them over, pinning her again
beneath him as his lips crashed onto hers. His tongue plunged into her mouth in
the same instant as he surged into her, filling her completely and making her
gasp against his lips.

Veronica was breathless as he took
her with a passion and intensity that he hadn’t yet shown her. His lips tore
from hers after a long minute, allowing her to breathe as he blazed a trail of
kisses over her jaw and down her still-healing throat. He skimmed right over the
puncture wounds from their previous round of lovemaking, instead letting his
kisses linger over her collarbone as he continued to thrust into her. Her body
was burning beneath his, her hands curled over his flexing spine and her head
thrown back as she lifted her hips to meet his pace.

The sounds of sweaty skin slapping
sweaty skin accompanied by the metal headboard bouncing into the wall and her
own less than quiet moans filled the room as they moved together with a sense
of unspoken urgency. His hand skimmed over her thigh, up her stomach, and
curled around her breast as he recaptured her lips with his, swallowing her
next moan with a muffled growl. And as their tongues danced together again he
surged into her one more time, sending them both flying.

Veronica still hadn’t regained her
breath when he eased out of her and rolled onto his back, tugging her into his
side as he moved. She watched his chest rise and fall and focused on
synchronizing their breathing until she was no longer gasping for breath.

“I can’t stay,” Seth finally
said,
his voice quiet and remorseful. And it was in those
simple words—as well as the aftermath of their intimacy—that Veronica heard the
words he couldn’t say.

She wished she could find comfort
in that knowledge.

****

Late Monday morning Veronica found
herself walking absently through the park, her mind far away from her
surroundings. She’d been sound asleep when Seth had gotten home after his
search and he’d still been talking quietly with
Jasen
when she’d dragged herself out of the bedroom shortly before eight. He hadn’t
particularly liked the idea of letting her walk around the city by herself,
despite the unobstructed sunlight, but she had insisted. She needed some time
to herself, in a neutral place, where she could just breathe. She was hoping—futilely—that
a little fresh air would supply the perfect solution for what was suddenly her
most pressing problem.