The Last True Vampire(77)

Above all of that, though, she missed him. He was with her whether he realized it or not. She felt his presence as though he were standing right beside her, and there were moments when she would turn around convinced he’d be at her back. How was it possible to yearn so deeply for someone she’d spent so little time with?

Claire collapsed on the bed, too tired even to take her shoes off. Outside, the sound of a police siren grew louder and louder, rushing past the apartment building with a flash of red and blue lights before fading off into the distance. She missed Mikhail’s house, far away from the lights and sounds of the city. She longed for the quiet and the soft peacefulness. She longed for him.

I’ll try to be the mom you deserve, baby. Her thoughts drifted as sleep descended. And maybe, if we’re lucky, you’ll get the dad you deserve, too.





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20

Ian Gregor lounged against the hard back of the cheap office chair in Tristan McAlister’s tidy office. He missed the days of keeps and castles, dark and foreboding mead halls illuminated by torchlight. He missed the gods-damned mystery of it all. Waiting around for the director in a brightly lit office with silk greenery decorating the bookcase was a far cry from the Sortiari’s former glory.

Whatever happened to a little pomp and fucking circumstance?

After another ten minutes of mind-melting boredom, Tristan decided to grace the room with his presence, strolling through the door as though the world waited to do his bidding. The Sortiari had always been a group of smug, egotistical bastards. At least one thing hadn’t changed over the centuries since their inception. And since you couldn’t get higher up in the ranks than the position Tristan now held, there was nothing left but to sit and listen to what the bastard had to say.

“I’m afraid the situation has changed, Gregor.”

“The hell it has.” They were still fighting the same battles they always had. Were still acting on the whispered orders of mysterious seers who steered the council’s directives. And Tristan was still a suspicious son of a bitch who was so out of touch his office sported decorating accents that had died out in the eighties. He needed to get rid of the Rubik’s Cube and step into the twenty-first century.

And now Gregor was supposed to sit here and listen to this secretive, sanctimonious son of a bitch tell him that things had changed? That a centuries’-long need for vengeance should simply be cast aside. Disregarded and tucked away into their sordid history? Gregor squared his shoulders. His bloodline could be traced back to the earliest Scottish royalty. A bloodline that had been all but squashed by the treachery of a power-hungry laird and his filthy coven. For Gregor, nothing had changed.

“Tell me, Tristan. What have your seers seen now, after so many centuries of certainty that what we’re doing isn’t in Fate’s best interest any longer?”

Tristan let out a long sigh and raked a hand through his tawny hair that was beginning to show signs of gray at the temples. Nothing was infallible, not even the director of the guardians of Fate, it seemed. Gregor tried to stem the smug sense of satisfaction that tugged at his lips. In shutting himself away from the world, becoming a veritable hermit, Tristan had accomplished nothing but to sign his own death warrant.

“If you go after him, you’ll set things in motion that can’t be undone,” Tristan said. “Is that what you want, Gregor? Is your sense of vengeance so strong that you would malign Fate in the process of seeing it through?”

He didn’t even have to consider his response. “Yes.”

“You have no quarrel with Mikhail Aristov,” Tristan replied. “You merely seek to destroy what he represents.”

Exactly! Wasn’t that the point? “Two hundred and fifty years ago, you set me loose upon them with instructions to kill every last one. What has changed that suddenly Mikhail Aristov gets to cheat death not once, but twice in the same millennium?”

“I don’t expect you to understand, Gregor. You can’t see past your own blind hatred.”

As though the directive to eradicate an entire species was a decision borne of compassion. “Explain it to me.” His tone cooled to freezing. “Indulge me.”

“It’s Fate’s decree,” Tristan simply said. “That’s all you need to know.”

Gregor shot forward and brought his fist down on the desktop, sending a pot of silk violets to the floor. The air in Tristan’s office became static with the residual charge of magic. Magic Tristan was too damned weak or too damned cowardly to wield. “What about your promise to me?” he railed. “I’ve served you faithfully!”#p#分页标题#e#