Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
He had to see Bastien. He glanced at Nicole, which should have comforted him, but right now, all he saw was a Martin.
“I need to go.” His voice was utterly shredded.
He didn’t even sound like himself. Fitting, he supposed, because right now, he didn’t feel like himself, either.
Nicole held out her hand to him. “Can we talk about this?”
Dismissing her offer, he went to the door. “Later,” he said, although deep down, he suspected that what he really meant was never.
------------------------------
Riker searched the compound for Bastien, using the time to calm down. By the time he decided to check Bastien’s room, his desire to level Seattle had eased enough that he’d settle for only killing everyone Charles Martin had ever known. Then he’d spend a year breaking the man, piece by piece.
He forced himself to walk slowly up to Bastien’s door. The boy was skittish as it was; if he sensed Riker’s anger, every bit of progress Bastien had made could be reversed.
Bastien’s door opened as he approached, and Morena emerged, her curly brown hair piled on top of her head in a messy knot.
“Good to see you,” she said. “Bastien just had breakfast. Myne should be coming by in a little while to take him to the training room.” She smiled. “He’s going to teach him to shoot a crossbow today.”
If that wasn’t a punch to the gut. Yes, Riker had asked Myne to engage Bastien with physical activity, but Riker should be the one to do it. He should be teaching his son to shoot and fight and hunt. “Thanks, Morena.”
He knocked lightly and entered. Bastien was curled up on the couch with his nose in a book, but when he saw Riker, he froze.
“Hey,” Riker said. “Do you mind if I come in?”
There was a heartbeat of hesitation and then a shy “Okay.”
“I brought you something.” He moved to Bastien, going slowly, slowing even more when the boy tensed.
Riker silently cursed Chuck to an eternity in hell. And Riker planned to send him there.
“You’re angry.” Bastien inched toward the far end of the couch, and Riker’s throat constricted with disappointment and self-loathing.
“I’m sorry, son,” Riker said. “I’m not angry with you. I’m angry about what happened to you. You never should have grown up the way you did.” He paused.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Several agonizing seconds later, Bastien shook his head. Relief practically made Riker lightheaded. He crouched next to the couch and held out Terese’s ring.
“This was your mother’s. Nicole kept it safe for a long time, and I think you should have it.”
Bastien took it as if it were made of the most delicate glass. “What was she like?”
“She was beautiful.” Riker smiled, recalling her fine features. “She was very quiet and shy, even with me.”
“You were the wild vampire who killed her, weren’t you?” Bastien asked, and Riker broke out in an oh, shit sweat. “Chuck said that if Nicole hadn’t raised the alarm that day, you would have killed everyone.”
Wait . . . Nicole? The crystal-clear recollection of that day shattered into a million pieces, each shard of memory sharper than the next. He’d been on the verge of talking Terese out of her suicide attempt when the siren went off, and she’d plunged the blade into her throat.
Nicole had been responsible for the alert?
The world fell away as his rage from earlier roared back, and Bastien, who was apparently as sensitive to negativity as his mother, shrank into the couch cushions.
Get it together, dumbass. Riker cursed silently and forced himself to relax.
“I swear I didn’t kill her, Bastien. Humans killed her.” Now wasn’t the time to tell the boy that she’d killed herself. Hell, there might never be a time or need to tell him that. “They drove her to her death. You can’t believe anything they said to you.”
Very precisely, Bastien placed a bookmark in his book and set it aside. “But Nicole is human.”
“And it was her family who killed your mother and who kept you in a cage for twenty years.” He probably shouldn’t have said that, but at least he’d said it very calmly. Progress.
Bastien frowned. “Then why is she here?”
Well, shit. Riker had stepped in that one, hadn’t he?
He didn’t want to vilify Nicole, and he certainly didn’t want to destroy her relationship with Bastien. No matter what her family had done to him, she’d helped the boy more than anyone else. More important, Bastien was still working on trusting his instincts and trusting people. He trusted and cared about Nicole, and to make him second-guess his own judgment could be damaging.