“Why are you crying?”
Eww. She didn’t want to deal with this. “Don’t, okay? We had sex, and I said the wrong name. It happened, and I’m a shit for doing it.”
“No,” he said softly. “I’m not going to let you do this to yourself. I thought I could. I thought it would be best if you didn’t know, but honestly, I can’t fucking handle it.”
Pickles and peanut butter. “Look, I know you know him. He was the only person on the planet who knew I like pickles and cheese. You know him. I get it. So we’re going to pretend that didn’t happen and—”
Someone started pounding on the door.
“Who the hell—” Bryna started, but Wraith stood up.
His body was strung tight. “You sleep with the landlord to keep the rent low for the elderly residents.”
Ouch. He was brutal. How the heck he knew that, she’d never know, but there wasn’t any point in lying to him. “Yeah.”
“It never happens again.” He got up from the table.
Somehow, yesterday she’d totally missed the menace in the man. Maybe it was because she couldn’t see his face. Or maybe it was because she hadn’t bothered to see just how large he really was, or, she didn’t know, but she was pretty sure whoever was on the other side of that door was going to die.
“Wraith!” She scrambled after him, but his long stride carried him to the door much faster.
He jerked the door open, wrapped his hammer-like fist around her landlord, Darby’s, throat and picked the man up off the floor by a full foot. He put his face right in Darby’s and snarled, “It’s called coerced rape, asshole. Do it again and not only will the authorities know exactly what you are doing, but there is a special place in Hell for people like you.”
Darby’s face went white. His eyes went huge as if he was watching some horror only he could see. Then he screamed like a little girl not once, not twice, but three times before he peed in his pants and yowled as his hands frantically clutched at Wraith’s wrist. “I won’t,” he cried pathetically. “Please. Make it stop!”
Wraith hurled the smaller man across the hall and into the wall. Darby stood up and swayed for a few moments before he turned and ran down the hall.
“Wraith!” Bryna growled at him through gritted teeth. “Why did you do that? I consented. He didn’t do anything.”
“He’s lucky I didn’t kill him,” he snapped out as he rounded on her. “Would you have bothered to give him the time of day if he hadn’t given you the ultimatum?”
Her arms wrapped around her midsection and she looked down at the floor. “Do we have to do this in the hall?”
“Yes. I want an answer!”
“Why does it matter?” It shouldn’t matter what he thought of her, but it did. This so wasn’t good. This was supposed to be the day she fell apart about Vincent, not get herself worked up into a frenzy because her most recent bed buddy was getting wickedly possessive.
“Bryna, listen to me carefully.” He waited for her to meet his gaze. “I don’t care how many other men there have been. I don’t need or want to know. I don’t care why you slept with them, nor do I care if you did it because you felt something for them or because it was just something to do, but I do care if you did it because you felt you had to do it when you would have otherwise said no.”
She couldn’t deal with this. Not in the hall. Not where her neighbors would be able to hear. Not with a man she’d called the wrong name during sex, and he still had the audacity to become possessive afterward.
Then, as if her life hadn’t taken a turn for the absolute worst, her neighbor from across the hall chose that exact moment to open her door.
“Morning, Peggy,” she said as a round of yapping from her nasty little dog named Pookie bit into her already pounding head. “Can I help you with anything?”
She almost missed the old woman taking a swipe at Wraith. She darted and caught the umbrella before she’d be able to hit him. “Peggy, sweetheart, you can’t go around hitting men forty years younger than you and about three times bigger than you.”
“Oh yes, I can. You really need to learn how to pick a man. We need you here with us.” Peggy glared up at Wraith. “Who is this ruffian?”
Before Bryna could say anything else, Wraith confiscated the umbrella and then picked up the madly yapping Pookie. He growled low at the dog. “Give it up. You know better than this.”
The dog’s eyes went so huge Bryna was worried they were going to pop out of its little white head. The dog looked away and made a small whining sound. Wraith placed it on the floor and gave it a look before he handed Peggy back her umbrella. He shoved back his hood and leaned down so he was face-to-face with the older woman. “I’m her boyfriend, and I am going to fix every fucked-up thing in her life. You don’t need to worry about her anymore.”
“Oh, jeez, Wraith, why did you tell her that?”
He turned on her. “Because it’s true.”
Bryna stumbled back two steps and pressed herself up against the wall next to her door. No. It wasn’t. It couldn’t. Pickles and peanut butter. She lost her mind. That explained everything. That was it. It had to be. She smiled at Peggy. “Don’t worry. He can’t hurt me.” He couldn’t hurt anyone. He was a true figment of her imagination. She’d wake up in a little bit, and he’d be gone. Wow. Her nightmares had taken a sinister twist. She moved away from the wall and then planted both of her hands on Wraith’s chest and tried her best to push him back into her apartment. “Damn you, move!”
Only then did he allow her to shove him back inside. She slammed the door and glared up at him. “Not funny. You’re a shape shifter. I want to see the real you.”
All the anger and danger in him vaporized. He moved to the other side of the room and looked at her with the most haunted look she’d ever seen.
“It’s me, sunshine. I’m sorry. I have no idea what the hell I am doing. I just know you need to live.”
Her face crumpled, and she was sure her heart was somewhere in her feet. She swayed and sat down on the floor right in front of the door. “You’re not Vincent.”
“I am, babe. You need to believe that. Like in the cheesy B-rated horror flicks. I came back to save your life.”
Tears. Damn it. She had more tears. It was expected on his birthday. She was sure she was going to be sick. “So I guess you really were the birthday boy.”
He sat down on the floor across from her. His knees pulled up, and his elbows rested on them as he looked at her. “Yeah, about that. I shouldn’t have let it get that far.” He let out an explosive breath. “Fuck that. I wanted you. I also didn’t want me fucking up your life more than I already have. I thought if we—I—could just feel you one more time, I’d be able to do my job, and then let you go once you were safe.”
She wiped her eyes with her palms. “I killed you.”
“Damn it, Bryna,” he roared. “No. Draven killed me. I love you. I’ve always loved you, and you love me. You wouldn’t have been able to kill me. If nothing else, you have to believe that?”
“But I—”
“I know,” he said as he shifted and started coming closer to her.
She pressed herself up against the door, not sure she should be near him. Not that it hadn’t been wonderful to have his arms around her all night, he’d felt so warm and alive. She hadn’t had the nightmares. He’d delivered on his promise.
Then he was right next to her, folding her in his arms again. She couldn’t help but burrow into him.
His voice was shaky. “I know what you’ve done, Bryna, and I don’t care. What matters now is that you know you’re not guilty of anything.”
“How can you forgive me so easily?”
Vincent squeezed his eyes shut and nearly crushed her he was holding her so tightly. “Because I fucked up and got dead. Anything about your life you don’t like is because I wasn’t here for you when you needed me.”
She was pretty sure he was trying to rip her heart right out of her chest. She gasped for air, and then struggled with him for a moment before he let her go. She shot across the room and just stared at him. Dear God. None of this was his fault. Even if she hadn’t killed him, and the jury was still out on that because no matter how stupid something was that she did, he always easily forgave her for it, she knew what a guilty conscious looked like. She saw it every day when she looked in the mirror. “But, Vincent, it’s not your fault either. You can’t help that you were murdered by a vampire.”
“Maybe not,” he said softly. “But I should have been able to stop myself from doing stupidly wonderful things with you that’s only going to wind up hurting us both more later.”
She moved in closer to him and sat down on the floor again. “Wait a second. You’re not staying?”
His expression filled with pain. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m dead. You’re not.”
“What if I were dead too?” She hadn’t meant to ask the question, and now with the look of absolute horror on his face, she wished she could take it back. “Vincent—”