Blood and Kisses - By Karin Shah Page 0,77

a small push.”

Gideon nodded and took her arm. “I think we should get going.”

Deflated by Gideon’s lack of reaction, Thalia followed him up the narrow stairs, the weight of everything that had happened pressing down on her.

This night was far from over.

Chapter 21

The summer solstice. Akos hated the shortness of the night, but it signaled the turning point of the year. Now the hours of sunlight would diminish and the hours of darkness would flourish, a fitting night for Inanna’s prophecy to come true.

Inanna. She’d been the perfect pawn. She’d thought she was the one in control, the immortal vampiress, and she’d certainly been exciting, but his agenda had had nothing to do with love or even sex.

He’d sought her out because of what she was, and when he had arranged for her and Gideon to meet, his two goals had collided.

At first, she’d refused to turn him, said the dark gift was more a curse, a punishment, than a boon. But when he’d lain near death, she’d chosen to turn him rather than live without him.

It was too bad she’d turned the Butcher, as well. If she hadn’t done that... Ah well, it was no use speculating.

Tonight. It had to be tonight. He didn’t want to wait any longer. He was tired of waiting.

He’d spotted Gideon near the Tomb earlier, but his enemy hadn’t had the Champion with him. He’d managed to slip away before the Butcher could detect him. He needed both of them to fulfill the prophecy.

Akos burned with displeasure. Where were they?

“Gideon. About what happened earlier at Mina’s—” Unable to hold her tongue any longer, Thalia broke the heavy silence that hung between them in the car.

He believed something evil lived inside him, waiting for the chance to strike. But she hadn’t spent the past week with a monster, just a man, and, regardless of his feelings about her, a good man at that.

How could she convince him of that?

“There’s nothing left to talk about.” Ice coated his words.

“But—”

“I agreed to help you find the rogue. That’s all.” His words had the ring of iron.

Stabbed, the crushing pain in Thalia’s heart seemed to radiate through her chest. She fought back tears, raised her chin, and turned to look out the window at the passing scenery.

She studied the familiar streets and houses for several minutes. Everything looked so different in the dark, as if a strange transformation occurred when the sun went down. She sorted through her disjointed thoughts. Words leaped to her lips. She bit them back, but reconsidered. She might have promised herself she wouldn’t beg, but she couldn’t let it rest. He had to be forced to confront the truth. This wasn’t for her. It was for him.

“What I wanted to say isn’t about us.” Thalia’s voice was so soft only his vampire-aided senses allowed him to hear her over the road noise.

“Oh.” Chagrin colored the single exclamation. Gideon steadied himself with a short laugh. “What did you want to say?”

“I wonder,” she took a deep breath. “How long has it been since you’ve killed someone?”

“What?” Gideon threw a surprised glance at Thalia. How could she ask him that?

She looked straight ahead out the dark windshield, as if fascinated by the taillights and license plate of the car in front of them, her face reflected in the glass. Her gaze darted in his direction before skimming away. “You say you’re a monster,” she continued. “I’m curious. How many victims has the monster claimed, say in the past one-hundred years?”

Gideon didn’t have to think. “None.” Everett had been the last and the hardest. Since then, he’d left administering the penalty for breaking vampire law to others.

“Hmm. How many in the past millennium?” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Ten.” And he remembered every one.

“Cold blooded murder?

Gideon hesitated, considered a lie, then remembered her talent for detecting an untruth. “No.”

“You were enforcing the Code each time, weren’t you?” With that, she pinned him with her eyes, daring him to answer truthfully.

“Yes.” He could see their faces before him, men and women who had surrendered to the awesome power of the Claiming. They’d each had their own story. They hadn’t been strangers. He’d known them all well. Thankfully, except for Everett, he hadn’t turned any of them.

There was Angelina, an aristocratic French woman who had been run through on the cruel tines of a pitchfork by an angry mob during the French Revolution. She’d been a talented singer and had delighted in using