laced and eyes down. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Being blunt was always a specialty of mine. “Shannon’s dead.”
“I know that,” he said quietly. “She died two years ago.”
I hated feeling so guilty. “Is that how you need to see this? Is this how you’re going to cope? Don’t you blame me?”
He lifted his head, watched me with those endlessly black eyes that seemed deeper, darker than any night I had ever encountered. “Do I blame you? Don’t be stupid. You did what you were hired to do. You protected me.”
Voice harsh and unrelenting, he couldn’t have sounded any less thankful. Not that I was looking for it, but the words did not exactly match the face. “I did do that.”
“You saw a threat and you eliminated it,” he said and then snorted. “Although, I hadn’t expected things to plan out the way they did. I thought it would take longer to find Shannon, to find the bastard who took her away. I had no idea you two had met.”
I didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. “Look, I had no idea she was your fiance. Maybe I suspected but that was all.”
“When did you first meet her?”
If I tried hard, I could still remember the way the night smelled, like trash and urine, still hear the sound of newspapers blowing in the wind. “The night I met you. She was the vampire who warned me away from you.”
“I see.”
When was the last time I’d felt so damn uncomfortable? And why did it bother me so much? “So, what happens now?”
He smiled. “You do what you were told to do.”
I looked around the room. It seemed benign enough, but I knew Vincent didn’t trust us. Noir seemed mild enough, but the look in Ryder’s eyes when he mentioned the other side of Noir very few people knew of...I was not willing to take any chances. “Would you like to go for a walk?”
He made no move to get up from the bed. “No. Not now. I’m sorry, Ran.”
“I understand.”
“No,” he said after a moment of silence seemed to stretch on for almost too long. “No, I don’t think you do. I think you ought to leave now.”
A command not entirely unexpected. “What about you?”
Sighing, he pulled the coat into his arms and I could not stop staring at the dark splotches marring the light gray woolen fabric. “I need some time, Ran. This...this entire affair has been...startling, to say the least. Too much has happened and now I have to think on what needs to happen. I’m sure you’re aware everything has changed now.”
He laid back on the bed, one arm over his eyes and I took that as a signal to leave.
Finding my way back to the first floor was no trouble, although the lack of any sort of presence was mildly disturbing.
Were there any humans in this building? Coldness seemed to emanate from the marble floors and seeped through my clothes, making me shiver intermittently.
Amaryllis stood by the front doors, hands held decorously at her waist and her eyes widened as she saw me step out into the foyer. “Ailward, did you require something you could not find in your room?”
I didn’t have to fake my reticence, as I truly had my doubts as to what sort of status we held here in Noir’s stronghold. Were we guests or prisoners? I supposed I would know in the next moment or so. “Not exactly. I’d like to leave for a while. Maybe get some fresh air. Is there some kind of car I can borrow?”
Her pretty light brows creased upward. “A car? You will be needing transportation, Ailward?”
“Yes.”
She nodded once and curtsied. “One moment, Ailward, whilst I see if I can procure a vehicle for your use.”
She smelled like rose water and lemon verbena as she walked past me, a sprightly step to her walk that made it look as though she was dancing to music only she could hear. Cute and sweet, but again, she was, for the lack of a better word, dead.
Why did I keep on forgetting?
It didn’t take that long for the sound of keys to reach my ears and my shoulders relaxed. It was good to know, at the very least, we had an escape venue. Or I did, at the very least. Perhaps they were focused on Jason, and not so much on the woman standing at his side.
She pressed the keys into my hand, a strange circular plastic