Elise started to protest, but then she looked in his eyes again. This was going to happen, whether she left or whether she stayed. And as much as she hated her stepfather, she really didn’t want to see it.
Slowly, she nodded. “All right.”
She turned her back and climbed carefully out the window, concentrating on avoiding the few ragged shards of glass that were left. As she gripped the hot metal of the fire escape’s black iron railing, she heard the hoarse, wordless screaming begin.
The temptation to look back was so strong she nearly turned her head, but then Merrick’s words echoed in her ears. This is nothing you need to see, he’d said and she believed him. She had enough nightmares to contend with, without adding another one. As the screams sounded again, Elise began to climb.
She did not look back.
* * * * *
After it was over, Merrick washed the blood from his hands in the bathroom sink and tried to straighten his stained clothes. His pants were already stiff with his own dried blood, but at least they were dark. His shirt, however, was a total loss—it was spattered with his blood, troll blood, and fresh blood from his recent kill. Merrick ripped it off and left it lying on the floor. He splashed water on his bare chest and toweled himself off. There. That would have to fucking do.
He took a deep breath and looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes had gone back to normal, which was a relief. The combination of rage and the killing frost which had come over him when he saw Elise threatened by that bastard had been a system overload in the extreme. When Merrick had broken in the window and saw him on top of her, he’d felt like the top of his head was about to explode. Well, he felt nicely contained now—now that the killing was done.
Walking out of the bathroom, he stepped over the bloody lump that was all that remained of Elise’s stepfather. Merrick was sorry about the mess in her domicile—he hadn’t meant to get blood everywhere that way. But in order to do some things right, you had to get a little messy. Revenge was definitely one of those things.
Looking down at the remains, he waited for the sense of regret to hit him, the feeling of guilt he always had to repress after the killing frost left him. But this time there was nothing. Nothing but relief that Elise would never have to worry about this male bothering her again.
This is what it’s for, he realized suddenly. This part of me I can’t turn off, can’t get away from. The part of me that’s neither Blood Kindred nor Beast Kindred and yet a little of both. The hybrid part. He felt strangely content at the thought—it was like the killing frost was a weapon he’d had all his life and had finally found the right use for.
“You deserved it,” he told the lump on the floor. “And I’d fucking do it again if I had to.” Then he climbed through the bedroom window and started up the narrow, black metal stairs.
It occurred to him, while he climbed the short distance to the roof, that Elise might not feel the same way he did about the killing of her stepfather. She might still be upset or in shock. Probably she’d be completely traumatized by the whole thing—both the stepfather’s attack and his subsequent death.
She might never want to be with me again, he thought, his apprehension growing as he stepped out onto the roof and headed for the ship. She might never get over this last attack. It goes without saying we won’t be making love anytime soon, or probably ever, for that matter.
Not that he cared, he thought, stepping onto the ship’s on-ramp. He’d stay with her forever, even if the two of them were as celibate as a couple of Morian anti-pleasure nuns. Even if she never even wanted to hold his hand—
“Merrick!” Elise threw herself at him, breaking his morbid train of thought.
He caught her reflexively and held her tight, loving the feeling of having her in his arms again.
But a simple hug wasn’t enough for Elise. “I love you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms and legs around him and pressing her face to his neck. “Love you so much.”
“Love you too, baby.” Merrick squeezed her gently, breathing in the warm scent of her hair and skin. “Are you okay?”
He felt her nodding against his neck. “Yes,” she whispered. “Now that you’re here, I’m better than okay.” She pulled back and looked at him. “But how did you get away? I thought…thought that horrible man with the silver eyes was going to…to kill you.”
Merrick shook his head. “It’s a long, long story. And you oughta know by now how hard I am to kill. Speaking of that…” He looked her in the eye, deciding to get it over and dispel any doubt she might have. “Your stepfather’s dead.”