"Don't, it'll just make your eyes puffy," Pia said, moving over to sit next to me. "Alec's a man, and you know how they are - some of them don't cope well with emotional things, and you have to admit, going from no Beloved to two in the space of a day could make the calmest vampire go a little bit nuts. I'm just a bit curious, though. You said you don't like vampires?"
"No, I don't. I saw Alec kill that woman who beheaded me. It was . . . he just bit her and drained her dry. It was horrible. And then my sister married one, and although she seems to be really happy with Avery, it seems so wrong, somehow. He drinks her blood!"
"Just as Kristoff drinks mine, and Alec feeds from you. Do you think that's wrong?"
"No," I admitted, pleating and repleating the material of my jeans on my leg. "It's very enjoyable, actually."
She smiled a slow smile that let me know that I wasn't the only one who found the act of feeding erotic.
"It's just that - I never wanted to be with Alec. I wanted him out of the Akasha, because that was only fair - he saved my butt in there from a wrath demon, and Diamond was having a good time, so when the de Marco guy said pick one, I picked him."
"Of course you did," Pia agreed. "I would have done the same. Not that I understand how you came to know the Ilargi, but we'll get to that, I'm sure."
"But I didn't want a permanent relationship with Alec. He's . . . a vampire!"
"You know, I think you're going to have to move past that point," she said gently.
I sighed and slumped against the back of the couch. "I know. And to be honest, I think I have. I was going to tell him about the past-life thing, I really was. I just was waiting for the right moment, and then . . . then . . ."
"Then we went and screwed it all up by having Eleanor brought back. Nothing like having your hand forced," she said, nodding. "I'm sure that, given a little time to get over the shock of today, he'll be right back in your hair, driving you crazy."
"Now probably wouldn't be the best time to say that I'm not sure I want him in my hair," I muttered, wishing I could rewind my life a few days.
That would mean I never met Alec again. My heart grew sad at that thought. Oh, dear heavens, was I already past hope? Had I started giving in to all that charm and magnetism and smoldering sexuality that had every woman within a five-mile radius ready to rip off her clothing and throw herself at him?
I looked at the woman next to me with a hard expression.
She blinked at it. "What?"
"You let Alec seduce you!"
To my surprise, she laughed. "I was wondering if you were going to come back to that. I did, yes. Well, not really. It's a little complicated. We didn't actually have sex, you know. That is to say, he didn't . . . we didn't . . . it was more just some mutual groping. I mean, we were naked, but that was really all we did. And he didn't even stay the whole night with me."
I stared at her, trying to sort through all of that.
"I didn't make it any better, did I?" she asked, still laughing.
"No." The word dropped like a lead weight.
"Honestly, I think he was just lonely. The fact that he couldn't have real sex should have warned me that he wasn't the man for me, but I didn't see it at that time. It wasn't until Kristoff and I got together, and I thought he was still in love with . . . well, our rocky start is neither here nor there."
"You had a rocky start?" I asked, momentarily distracted from the painful thought of her touching a naked Alec.
"Yeah, just about as rocky as they can get. I'll tell you about it when you have an hour or two sometime. But first, you have to tell me about Alphonse de Marco, which means we need the boys. I think Alec has had enough time to get over himself. Let me run and check on Eleanor to make sure she's all right - then we'll go remind Alec how lucky he is to have you."
She rose and left through one of the arched doorways. My own feelings aside, I wondered if Alec truly wanted me for his Beloved, or whether he had just picked me out of gratitude for saving his life and springing him from the Akasha.
And what would happen to Eleanor? Would guilt over her eventually taint his feelings for me? Was he even now blaming me for putting him in a position where he had to hurt one of us?
"You really know how to screw up your life," I told myself as I got slowly to my feet, and tottered off to find Pia.
Guilt pricked Alec. He didn't like the sensation. "Dammit, Kris, she didn't tell me. I thought the marking was due to the amount of blood she'd fed me. I almost drained her dry when she brought me back. I didn't know.... She didn't tell me."
"You've been around long enough to know how women are," his friend answered, standing next to him as they both stared out into the shadowed garden. What Kristoff saw, Alec had no idea - all he could see was the look on Cora's face when she made the verbal slip, and realized she would have to tell him the truth. "There are times when I give up trying to understand Pia. I just accept that some things are important to her that don't mean a damn to me, and let it go at that. What matters to me is that she's happy. I find it interesting, however, that your first concern is for Cora, not Eleanor."
"Eleanor . . ." Alec rubbed his nose as he thought about what to do with the extra Beloved. "She's . . . not needed."
Kristoff gave him a rueful look. "I'm sorry we brought her back. We thought it was the only way that the council would sanction your removal from the Akasha. We should have just let matters lie."