or maybe it wasn’t. Either way, it worked. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying, there is more than one way to skin a cat?”
“Is there?”
“You wouldn’t have to kill me, you know,” he said. “I’m sure the Elders would be more than happy to supply you with someone else, someone who’s so damned consumed with the noble sacrifice they would be more than happy to lie down and let you take their head off in front of Noir and his horde of bloodsuckers.”
“So find another?”
The smile never wavered from his dusky lips. “Can’t you?”
Having to call Elder Chang and tell him I failed was…unpalatable, to say the least. “I’m not sure if I want to do that. Elder Chang would not be pleased to have to find another, not when he thought he found the perfect candidate.” I looked around the wide, spacious room, with a multitude of expensive paintings hanging on the paneled walls. A large mahogany bookcase stood adjacent to the French door, its shelves bursting with old hardcovers, some of the letters so worn, it was impossible to read the spine. “Are the Elders aware you come from such a background?”
“They know what they need to know.”
“I take that as a no.”
His only reply was a nonchalant shrug. Worse than no answer at all.
I watched him carefully, watched him watching me with that same, slightly derisive air that made me feel like a plaything, just something that would, willingly or no, bend to his will. “May I ask you a question?”
“If you must.”
I did take that seat. I sensed no immediate danger and if he did attack me and I couldn’t defend myself, this close to an exit, then I deserved to die like the idiot I was.
He remained on his feet.
“If you didn’t want me to find you, would I have?”
He was silent for a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
I looked down at my hands in my lap. “I see. This is quite unconventional.”
There was no answer to be had in that expressionless mask. “I’ve told you the truth.”
“Except the part about you dying.”
He shrugged. “Well, I will die. Won’t everyone? But I have no intention of dying like a martyr. If I do kill Noir, that son of a bitch and I will do it on equal terms.”
A human fighting a vampire? On equal terms?
“You’re not human, are you?”
He raised an elegantly shaped brow. Gods above, but he really was attractive. “Why would you think that? Contrary to belief, there are humans who are able to fight vampires without anything else but training.”
“Maybe there are, but it seems as though they don’t live long enough to boast about it,” I pointed out and then sighed. “I’m getting tired of all this cloak and dagger acting. Clearly, you are not the person I thought you were. You say you have told me the truth regarding your situation. The Elders know nothing of your true self. Tell me why I should continue sitting here, waiting for you to say something relevant, when it seems like everything about you is nothing but a lie.”
He stepped forward then, close enough to touch, if only I reached out an arm.
Too close.
Much too close for comfort.
“What I tell you, what leaves my mouth is nothing but the truth. Four years ago, my fiance was abducted. She was pregnant with our child. A week later, I receive a note saying she had been turned into a vampire and all contact with me would stop as of immediately.”
So cut and dry. And yet… “You make it sound so simple. Was it really that simple?”
“Is anything ever…simple?”
I hated it when people directed questions back at me like that. “Is that all? All you’re going to tell me?”
“In all honesty, Hwang, I think that’s all you need to know about the past. What concerns me is the future.”
He sat back down and I let out a breath. Sitting down, he was far enough to be out of reach. I liked having that kind of distance between us.
Strange. Before I knew the truth, I had been tempted to touch him, just to see how he would react.
And now, you couldn’t pay enough to get me to stand near him, much less tap him on the shoulder. “Future? Who says there’s going to be a future?”
If Jason couldn’t help me get close to Noir, then I saw little point in continuing my relationship with him. It seemed pointless, at best. At worst…no, best not to think about