Prince of Power (27 page)

Tyra and Anton moved themselves to the comfort of her bed. Not to make love so much as to talk. There were an awful lot of what-ifs to deal with.

An awful lot.

Personally, she was content to mull them quietly while she laid her head on his chest and his heart thumped against her ear.

“I don't think that I can ever be a good father.”

Apparently Anton was not so content.

Tyra sat up next to him. “You already told me you didn't want children.”

His face twisted into a grimace. “I kept feeling this…” He made a fluttering gesture with his fingers. “This awful feeling deep in my gut, you know? And I don't know what it is. So much has happened that I didn't know if it was something that had already been or our future, and I think you want it more than you're saying. My father only cared for me so far as it was necessary to keep me alive and tortured me when it suited him. He turned me into someone horrible, Tyra. I can't be responsible for bringing up another innocent life.”

She wasn't sure whether she wanted to smack him or put her arms around him, but she went for the latter. His body was rigid in her grasp for many seconds before he finally melted and eased against her. His breath whooshed out of his body like it was leaving a balloon. “Anton, the fact that you worry about it proves that you would be a good father.”

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and sat up next to her. “Tyra, you don't know what it was like. And what about the fact that we're both part wizard? We could never hope to have children of our own.”

“No.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “I don't know what it was like. I can imagine, I think. I hope someday you'll be able to tell me.” Her fingers played over the dark, coarse hair on his chest. “We don't need to worry about the rest of it for now. You're right…” Something knifelike stabbed into her chest. “I didn't realize how much it would upset me, knowing I couldn't bring life into the world. But maybe it just means there's another path for you and me, and that's okay, too. The important thing is that we're together, right?”

He stared at a blank space on her bedroom wall, eyes unseeing, for an interminable passage of time. How could she have believed that he was anything but good? He'd been a scared child forced into a life he hadn't wanted. It hadn't been his fault, and she ached to make it better for him if she possibly could.

“I was barely a teenager the first time, you know? They taunted me and pushed me, and my father said that I would be punished as a traitor if I didn't. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know if it meant torture, or if they'd kill me, or—”

She put a finger to his lips. “Baby, when I said maybe someday you should tell me about it, I didn't mean right now. I meant someday when you're ready.”

An impatient hand shoved her finger from his face. “No, I want to do it now. You haven't trusted me, and I know you hated me when you realized I had taken part in that ritual. Maybe a part of you still does.” His face contorted into an angry mask and his lips pressed together. In the dim light of her bedroom it was tough to see, but his skin hinted at a reddish glow. They were going to have to work on him controlling that power of his. Or his anger. Maybe both.

“Anton, I don't hate you.”

“You don't?” His lips pressed together. “You didn't hate me when you realized I'd helped to kill vampires? Don't you still? Even a little? Knowing I cut them open, took their hearts out, and—”

“Stop.” The word echoed around the room before she even knew it was leaving her mouth. “Anton, we don't need to do this. I said I love you. I said I forgave you.”

“But did you really?” Suddenly he was out of bed, naked and pacing and glowing a little, like a weird oversized night light. He'd never be able to hide his anger from her if he didn't get that power under control. “Because if you love me, you have to accept all of me, even that part of me. I did what I had to do to survive, and I don't know that you've truly accepted and forgiven it, and if you haven't…”

He stopped and ran a hand through his hair, sighing deeply. His color, thankfully, faded to normal when he did that. “How can we build a future when we already have so much stacked against us, including that one very basic flaw? How can you say you love me when you are still so angry with me over such a big thing?”

The speedy
thumpa-thumpa
of her heart made it clear that Anton's words resonated, but she grasped desperately at one last-ditch attempt to protest. She even trotted out a little nervous laughter in an attempt to lighten the mood. Heaven please, anything to lighten the mood. “Anton, I get angry at Thad all the time. Sometimes I even hate him. He's my brother, and I still love him. I love you too.”

“He didn't kill anyone important to you, Tyra.” He advanced on her now and she held her ground, though she would admit only to herself that her feet seemed inclined to back up a few paces. She wasn't intimidated, but this side of him was… ugly. Love wasn't always pretty, though, was it?

Her heart hammered harder, and suddenly everything in her brain was like smoke. “You didn't kill anyone I knew personally.”

He laughed sharply. “Oh, come on, Tyra.”

Okay, that was terrible. She sighed. “All right. You're right.” She inhaled deeply and held the breath for a good while before she released it. “I admit it. I'm angry still. I love you…” She shook her head, and suddenly it started to throb, like what she was about to say was too difficult for it to comprehend.

“I do love you. I want us to have a future. But I still hate that you participated in that disgusting ritual. I hate that you killed those vampires. I hate that you have any powers. I hate that now I have your powers because it will be a daily eternal reminder of what you did. And I hate knowing that as long as we are together, I will be a pariah among my own kind because everyone will know who you are and what you've done. And what I am.

“But…” She put her hands on her hips. “I love that you protected me. That you stood up to your father for me. To Siddoh. To Thad. Watched over me. Killed for me. You went after your brother…” Her eyes burned. “Nobody has ever made me feel so valued or worth fighting for. It's a hard thing to reconcile.”

Her heart echoed almost audibly in the intense silence that followed. He stared at her, and though an entire queen-sized bed separated them, she didn't need her powers of empathy to read the hurt that was pouring out of him. Knowing it and hearing it from her were surely two very different things.

He walked out to the living room where their clothes still lay discarded in the foyer. He pulled his on quietly, without a word.

“Anton, you asked me to be honest.”

Nothing.

“Anton.”

He walked around to the sofa and sat in the dark living room. Still no word.

“Anton.” She pulled a chenille throw around herself and sat tentatively on the far end of the sofa. Hours ago—minutes ago—they had finally seemed to bridge the distance between them, and suddenly there were miles between them on this sofa. How on earth had this happened? “Anton, would you talk to me please?”

He sat in silence, tapping his finger on the arm of the sofa, the only sound coming from the appliances in the kitchen and the clock on the wall. Finally, he blew out a long sigh. “Thank you for being honest.”

***

Anton turned to face Tyra. Her beauty took his breath away. Maybe it always would. He moved closer, unable to keep his fingers away from the satiny smoothness of her arms and shoulders. She sagged against him. “I vomited after,” he said. “I'm sorry, I know that's disgusting, but the whole ritual was disgusting. And yes, they laughed at me for that, too. I didn't think it took because I threw up…” He shrugged a little. “I guess that was this heat thing. It's why I never knew I had it until I fought with Thad in that interrogation building. I got so angry, and that's when it came out.”

Even the memory of it twisted his gut. She didn't speak, so he continued. “And I used every means I could to avoid taking part after that. Until I knew a vampire had come in who could heal. And I knew…” He paused for a second. It shamed him thoroughly, what he had done. He'd done it with a purpose. He'd done it to survive and perhaps someday to escape, but still he hated himself for what he had done.

“I knew he was going to die regardless. I'd tried to think of ways of helping them escape for years but couldn't come up with one. The exit portal was always well guarded. I picked him because I thought maybe someday if I tried to escape myself, I would need it. In case I was injured trying to leave.”

Her hand was cool and smooth against his face. “Anton.” She understood. At least a little. The tone of her voice was different somehow, and he knew that she did. Tears slid silently down her face.

“I'm so sorry, Tyra. I truly am.”

“I know,” she whispered. She brought her face close, and their lips brushed gently. “I'm sorry too. That you had to do that. And so that you know, I'm not trying to read you or anything. I'm only trying to be here for you, okay?”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

It was like his body weighed less. He pulled her against himself and squeezed hard. Grateful again that she was such a strong, sturdy female. Right then, he was grateful. Period. “I hope you can forgive me someday.”

She nodded against his chest. “I can. Maybe in a way I already have. It isn't that I blame you. I hate what you did. But I know you didn't have malicious intent. I do hate it, though.” She pulled back from him and searched his face, looking for understanding of her own.

“I know,” he said. A fresh set of tears threatened and he blinked them away. The sleeve of his flannel served as a chamois for his face, and he took a deep breath. “I hate myself plenty for what I did. I hate that I did it. Hell, I don't feel too great that I killed three wizards in the woods when I was trying to get Xander back to the estate, and that was for a far better cause.”

She laughed dryly. “Now wizards I've never minded killing.”

He got a little cold and panicked. “I want to help you, but I'm not sure I want to keep fighting this way against the wizards. I really don't want to kill them. You must think I'm a major pussy, huh?”

She laughed again but then immediately slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, no. I'm sorry, I didn't laugh because that was funny. Nothing could be further from the truth. What you've lived through—to do what you've done to survive, even though you hated to—I'm amazed by that. I've never minded killing my enemies. You hated to kill but you did it to protect one of my fellow vampires. That's very brave.”

He cleared his throat. “Thank you.” He ran a hand through her hair. Her curls were loose and soft, and slipped deliciously through his fingers. He would never tire of the feeling if he lived to be a thousand. “Tyra, I meant it. I need to know you can forgive me. We cannot build a life in this place without a strong foundation. There will be a lot of strong winds trying to blow us down. If you can't promise me now that we're solid, this uncertainty between us will fester and tear us apart. If you need time, then I can leave here and can give you—”

Her hand shot out and grasped his wrist. It might never cease to amaze him, the strength of that grip.

He thought he might explode. In the good way.

She blew out a breath that lasted roughly forever, and through it all, his pulse pounded in his ears while he waited for her to speak. Finally, she crossed her arms over herself like she was giving herself a hug and scooted close to him. Her skin was reassuring and warm and solid. She was a home he'd never truly known he was missing until he'd laid eyes on her.

“Anton, I can't imagine what you had to go through. It was tough, growing up without a mother. Seeing Thad with his…” She got quiet, and for a moment her gaze was far away, in the past somewhere. “But I lived here on this estate, and when I got old enough, I trained to kill wizards as a way of channeling my anger and my loneliness. And I found ways to help humans, because my father had told me that my mom was poor and a little bit mentally ill. That it wasn't that he didn't want to be with her, but that she hadn't wanted him and wouldn't allow him to help her. That she'd left me here because she'd at least known that she couldn't take care of me herself.”

She shook her head and slid a palm along his jaw. He loved when she did that, maybe because it had come to mean something—a loving gesture. A thing she did when she was comforting. When she was claiming him as hers.

“I can't begin to imagine being forced to live the way you did, and as angry as I am at what you did, I'm as angry at what was done to you. If I could, I'd bring back your father to kill him again myself.”

Anton fell against her, drawing the silk of her skin again his too-tough hide. “Careful what you wish for, Tyra. He's a mean enough bastard. He might actually be able to do it.” And though it wasn't logical, Anton fought hard for a fistful of seconds to tamp down the surge of panic that clawed at his throat from the inside, because damn… he'd been sure, but with his father… fuck knew, anything was possible.

And then there was Petros.
Oh
God.

But he pulled her to him, and when the throw around her body came loose, he allowed all of the fear to fall away, if only for a little while. Surely, they could spare a little while longer…

It was bitterly cold. Tyra jammed her gloved hands into her pockets, grumbling inaudibly from behind her pasted smile. She was happy. Truly. But she wasn't as impervious to the cold as the garden-variety full-blooded vampire, and it had been a good five minutes since she'd been able to feel her toes.

Still, what Isabel wanted, Isabel got. And Isabel had wanted an outdoor handfasting. On Valentine's Day. In Virginia. In thirty-degree weather. Brrr.

Her heart went out to Alexia and Selena and her mother, who all stood huddled on the opposite side of the small circle of guests, wrapped in so many layers of down that they were barely recognizable as moving objects, looking more like miniature versions of the Michelin man.

Tyra'd had a long talk with the girl's mother. Having to break the news that the girl was gonna need to start a steady diet of blood in her teen years to avoid dying an early death had been not only painful, but just plain hard to get across.

Thad and Isabel stood at the head of the circle, hands bound by a long, multicolored cord. With her gently swelling belly, Isabel was so radiant in the glow of the moon and the joy of the evening that nothing short of a localized nuclear strike could have wiped the look off her face.

Agnessa, Thad's spiritual adviser, presided. “And may you remain ever faithful, may the bounty of the universe smile upon you, and may these friends and loved ones always be your guides and your strength until the end of your time on this earth.”

Tyra couldn't help but glance around. Rich words, coming from Agnessa. They were probably all thinking it, but everyone else kept a straight face. Even Lee, who stood at the perimeter keeping guard even though they were on the mansion's front lawn.

Two flasks of wines were produced, one white, one red, and poured into a single glass. Agnessa held the goblet as if it contained the secrets to the universe. Hell, for all Tyra knew, it did. She passed it to Thad and then Isabel, who each took a sip. Thad's was much heartier than Isabel's, and the queen's whisper of “There's a dead bug in the glass” sent a laugh through the circle and seemed to chase away whatever odd current of tension had been hanging around.

Agnessa held the wine goblet aloft. “The drinking of the combined wine signifies the joining together of two bodies and the blood from those bodies. Once mixed, the blood of two partners can never be separated again.”

Across the way, Alexia stumbled suddenly. Probably those clunky boots the girl had on.

The goblet was passed again in front of Thad and Isabel with a flourish before being handed off to a helper on the side. “What God and the universe have joined together tonight, let no being rend asunder.” Agnessa bowed her head toward the happy couple, and for only a second, there may have been an actual flicker of sadness on the Oracle's face. “May I officially present to you all Thaddeus Yavn Morgan and his mate, Isabel Anthony Morgan.” She straightened and smiled at Thad. If Tyra had spotted sadness, it was now gone. “You may kiss your mate.”

Thad was way ahead of Agnessa, having already slipped free of the colored rope to take Isabel's face in his hands, and Isabel had stepped forward to do the same. Suddenly the warmth that radiated from their love spread out all around, and even Tyra wasn't cold anymore.

Or maybe that was because Anton had come from behind to wrap his arms around her. She leaned against his firmness and sighed. It took a little getting used to, but leaning on him was easier now, and she found she quite liked it when she allowed herself to.

Chapped lips brushed against her ear. “I would like to do this with you,” he murmured.

She blinked. Why it surprised her, she couldn't say for sure. They had talked many times this past month about forever. He had moved into her home, but she hadn't thought about making it so… permanent. “You would?”

His chin rested on the top of her head. “Wouldn't you?”

She inhaled and the winter air stung her nose. Well-wishers had formed a knot around Thad and Isabel, and Siddoh and Lee had moved in close for extra protection. Over the couple's heads, Siddoh caught Tyra's eye and smiled, bowing his head slightly. She and Anton didn't need his blessing, but it was nice to know that he was giving it, all the same.

Isabel's joy was immense and tangible even from so many feet away, which was amazing, given the story Tyra had heard about Isabel turning and running away when Thad had first found her.

Perhaps if Isabel could be this happy, Tyra could allow herself to be as well. She nodded against Anton's throat. “I think maybe I would someday.”

He pulled her closer, strong arms tightening around hers. “Something to think about, right? Maybe someday there's even a chance we could have more. A family.”

She was afraid to hope.

They'd agreed she would stay closed off to his emotions, but she couldn't help looking. Okay, maybe it was an accidentally on purpose kind of a slip. For a split second, she allowed the channel to open, and Anton's disappointment came through loud and clear. “Hey.” She put a palm to his face. His skin was cold, and she relished the thought of warming him up as soon as it was polite for them to disappear.

His gray eyes were shuttered, and for a second she could see his disappointment. They had agreed to wait awhile until some of the unrest about Anton living among the vampires died down before they held any kind of ceremony.

Finally, he smiled. “You promise that you're mine?”

She wound her hands around his neck and pulled his lips down to meet hers. “Are you kidding? After everything we've gone through?”

He smiled and pressed his forehead against hers. He nodded slightly. “Okay.”

A breeze kicked up around them, and snow began to fall. The warmth from their bodies cocooned them and wrapped them in their own little bubble. And just like that, she knew that everything
would
be okay.