to their sides, his face was once more relaxed, his expression full of love rather than fear and dread. And his beautiful eyes had lost that haunted look.
Emma cupped his strong jaw. “Always?”
His pressed a kiss to her lips, achingly tender. “Always.”
Cliff continued to hunt with Bastien. He also resumed seeing Emma every night.
Or almost every night. As they both had known, the psychotic break he experienced the day Whetsman shot Linda was not his last. More seized him in the months that followed. Sometimes he recognized how close he was to having one and asked Melanie or Linda to sedate him. Sometimes they struck without warning. Either way, Emma didn’t see him on those nights because he ended up tranqed.
But Cliff was surrounded by friends who loved him at the network. Melanie and Bastien. Linda. Aidan, a Celtic immortal who practically lived there now. Stuart. Miguel. The other vampires, who began having psychotic breaks of their own. And they all kept Cliff from hurting any mortals in his vicinity… or himself, which helped him recover faster so only one or two nights would pass without her seeing him.
Though his love for Emma only seemed to deepen—as hers did for him—he smiled less and less when they were together.
“Take heart, Emma,” Bastien told her on one of his rare visits. “When Cliff isn’t with you, he doesn’t smile at all.”
She took no comfort in the knowledge. She wanted Cliff to be happy. She missed his smiles and treasured all the more each one she was able to coax forth. Every laugh, too. Those were few and far between now. But she knew he still drew solace from her company and the affection she offered him.
Some days that and his desperate desire for a future with her seemed to be all that held him together. The voices in his head grew louder. So loud that when the two of them sank onto her sofa and watched movies together, his muscles never completely relaxed. When he held her, she could feel the tension thrumming through him. And he’d stare at the screen as though some other movie were playing in his head. A muscle would twitch in his jaw while he clenched and unclenched his teeth. His eyes would begin to glow.
The first time he erupted in anger around her, they were watching a sci-fi flick. She couldn’t say whether it was a good one or a bad one. She only half paid attention to it because worry coursed through her. Cliff was tense. More so than usual. Instead of relaxing back against the cushions and tucking her up against his side with an arm around her shoulders, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, twisting his dreadlocks. Every once in a while he shook his head a little as though he were silently arguing with someone and disagreed with whatever he or she said. His eyes began to glow, creases forming at their corners as he squinted them ominously.
Lips tightening, he lowered his hands and let them dangle between his knees. His fingers curled into fists. The muscles in his biceps and forearms flexed and jumped. His eyes brightened.
“Shut up!” he bellowed suddenly, so loud they could probably hear him in the next county.
Emma just about jumped out of her skin.
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up! That isn’t who I am! That is not who I am!”
She stared at him, pulse racing, heart aching for him as it slammed against her rib cage.
Cliff glared at the coffee table a long moment, muscles coiled so tight she thought he might spring to his feet and start punching the walls. Then his fists unclenched. His eyes widened as he sucked in a breath. Swiveling to face her, he gave her a look of such agonizing dismay. And she knew it was because he could hear the frantic beating of her heart.
Emma couldn’t bear it. He was already fighting asshole voices in his head. She wouldn’t let him kick himself for startling her, too.
Sitting up straighter, she gave him a decisive nod. “Damn straight. You tell ’em, honey. Give those voices hell.”
Cliff blinked, a look of surprise sweeping over his face, so comical that despite the gravity of the situation, she couldn’t keep her lips from twitching.
A big, beautiful grin banished the darkness in his features.
Emma so rarely saw that expression on his beloved face anymore that she drank it in like water in a desert.