Dying to Date(42)

Instead her feet turned in the direction Tarian had run.

Fool, she thought even as she raced to the road. What she saw when she arrived, however, stopped her cold.

The human child was unharmed. She sat at Tarian’s side with tears streaming down her face. In Tarian’s hands lay a small furry shape.

Melissa sighed as she realized it was only a dead cat. It had probably caught the wrong end of a car and ended up splattered over the dusty road.

“No,” the child moaned, reaching out to stroke her pet. “No, no, no.”

Melissa walked closer as the urgency drained from her body. She was about to call out Tarian’s name when he raised his hand.

Magic played over her skin. It brushed against her with a gentle touch that sent a shiver up her spine. Though her instinct was to fight it off, the power swirled around her without posing any threat.

Tarian dragged his finger through the cat’s fur and before her eyes, the dead animal inhaled.

Both she and the child jumped in amazement.

“Take her straight to the vet,” Tarian ordered in a low voice. “She has a lot of internal damage. Do you understand me?”

The little girl nodded solemnly.

“All right.” He picked up the mewing cat and placed her in the child’s arms. “Run,” he said. “She doesn’t have much time.”

“Thanks,” the human lisped before jetting off along the dark street.

Tarian watched the child go before turning his head in her direction.

At his dark expression Melissa took a step back despite herself. His magic still curled through the air, reaching out to her as if waiting for permission to pounce. Though she was unused to being cast in the role of prey and not predator, Melissa held completely still as she waited for him to get a handle on his magic. She hadn’t been making idle threats the first night they’d been together. If he used his powers against her, she would fight tooth and nail to escape him.

The spell snapped when Tarian dragged a hand down his face. Magic recoiled from her, flooding back to its source.

“Sorry.” His voice was rough. “Power high.”

After her intoxication the night before she could relate to the drawbacks of using one’s abilities. Still, she waited as he got to his feet and started toward her.

“I thought you would have run,” he said when he got close enough.

“And you would have to spend the night tracking me down.”

“Something like that.”

She gazed past his shoulder at the small figure running in the distance. “I wanted to help.”

“She wasn’t hurt.”

“Not physically.”

He nodded. “The animal’s spirit was clinging to life. It didn’t want to leave its mortal.” Tarian shrugged. “It cost me nothing to buy it more time.”

“You couldn’t heal it?”

He shook his head, reaching her at last. “My power is over the dead, not the living. I tied the spirit to the body for a brief window, but without human intervention the animal will die. If the vet is good, the damage will be repaired before my magic wears off. The cat will live, and hopefully, the child will think twice about running across a road.”

“You just saved a life, even if only a small one. This isn’t something to shrug away.”

A wry smile twisted his lips. “You see me as death,” he whispered. “But the act I just committed is one I’ve repeated a thousand times before. My powers can work both ways, Melissa. For good or for evil, just like any other person’s abilities.”

He walked away from her, back toward the car.

She should follow him, but she couldn’t shake the miraculous scene she’d just witnessed. A being who should be dead was alive because of Tarian’s intervention. An intervention he didn’t see as anything out of the ordinary.

We see them only as threats, she realized. But their powers opened the possibility of so much more. Tonight a necromancer had offered joy and comfort, not death and destruction.

After seven hundred years, Tarian still didn’t see his mercy as anything worthy of a second glance.

But she did.

Trailing after him, she studied his shadowed figure. Her life would be so much easier if Tarian would stop showing her unexpected facets of himself that she’d never hoped to find.

And stop filling her mind with thoughts no vampire should harbor about her enemy.

…

This hotel was by far the nicest they’d stayed in. Flicking on the lights, Melissa took in the double beds and white sheets. Everything was clean and crisp, definitely an improvement over the last couple places they’d stayed.

“I’m taking a shower,” Tarian said.

She arched a brow. “Not worried I’ll run?”