Loss of life is expected and irrelevant to most supernatural beings.”
“So your goal here is to terrify me and get my help in bringing more evil to humanity, is that it?” Val spun away from him, walking quickly, the street sloping downwards towards Hampstead Village.
“I do not interact with humans often. The last two hundred years especially, I have been away from life.”
What the hell did that mean?
Lucas stopped speaking and she thought that this time he was trying to find the right words rather than being evasive. “I have spent hundreds of years unchallenged and in isolation, both emotionally and physically. But now I am drawn back to this world and it is astonishing to want things again. It is better for humans if the Others returned. All of the Other races need humans and like them in a way that most vampires have forgotten.”
She could feel his sincerity swimming over her. He did want balance for the world but he also wanted things from her specifically. This moment convinced her of that. The insidious voice was back, telling her to pay attention, that he was being honest. Or as close to honest as he was gonna get.
“What level of protection should I be asking for? What would it take to get you to promise not to harm anyone that I come into contact with?”
Lucas looked at her for a long moment and she thought he would tell her. Her eyes implored him and she realized she was touching him again: her hand on his arm. She jerked back her hand, his gaze tracking the movement as she pulled them away from him and fisted them at her sides.
“Nothing. There is nothing you can offer or give that I would accept.” He changed the subject, “What do you require for your task?”
“You don't think it's a little ridiculous that you ask me to trust you and do your bidding, yet you won't give me the one thing I want? Promising to leave these people alone doesn't cost you anything.”
“I take promises very seriously. All of my kind do. Breaking of oaths lead to death and war. I won't make a promise that vague. Not even for you.”
She tried to stay focused, waiting until later to analyze his words. “I need money so that I can move and I guess.... I guess I have to drop out of school. Also, I'll need a way to stay in the country.” Am I really doing this?
The grief of giving up her life hadn't totally hit her yet. It would when she was packing. Or when Monday morning came and she wasn't in class. Then the aloneness of it all would crush her.
He frowned. “This upsets you.”
“Um, yeah! This is my life that's changing. It's getting swapped out for a crappy one with a bloody death at the end of it. Tell me I'm wrong.”
“I will protect you. It is my understanding you have been studying for many years now. At what point would you have stopped?”
“Are you trying to be a jerk?” She said angrily.
“You do not need to do this. I will leave your life and never return. Ignore Nate, Jack and you.”
“Yes, how magnanimous. Then they'll die, right? That's not a real choice.”
He rubbed a hand over his face and looked around at the houses while he decided what to say. His tone was mildly curious, as though he found this only slightly more interesting than a conversation about the weather. If he'd been human, he would have been gesturing, his voice would have been raised. Maybe he would have touched her or moved. But he was a vampire, so he stood still and didn’t fidget. His hands rested in the pockets of his wool slacks. His matching suit jacket was open, his gaze fixed on the distance.
“I was made a vampire against my will a very long time ago. This luxury of choice is a new phenomenon and I fail to see how you can be so upset by it. You are saving your family. What wouldn't people give to have that opportunity?” Lucas seemed genuinely bewildered by her attitude.
“Did you get to save your family?”
His eyes bore into hers, “No. All I did was for them. And it wasn't enough. I would have bargained my soul to the very devil for their survival.”
Valerie flushed. He made her feel like a selfish child.
“Do you honestly believe that doing your grunt work is the best thing for my family?”
Would he