once believed I contained.” She looked down at her gloved palms and something in her heart cracked. Something she had been trying to shore up against the storm since this all began. She was exhausted, and it was all wearing her down. She could only hold the shutters closed for so long before the wind shattered the glass and tore through her.
“Why do I hesitate to kill him, Alfonzo? Why do I not know if I can look him in the eyes and dash his very being upon the rocks?” Maxine lost the war with her tears. She swiped at her cheeks irritably, hating to show weakness in front of the hunters and the vampire. But it did not truly matter. It was only what was left of her shattered pride. “Because I have seen the stars that he knew and which are long forgotten to the world. I have seen the deserts he has walked. I see the eternity that stretches behind him and the one that waits, and I hear the pain that echoes in his heart. Because I love him! That is why.”
She walked from the room, dragging the chain behind her. She did not care. She went up the stairs and found a bedroom there that would suit her desire for somewhere dark, quiet, and empty. She walked to the window and slumped down onto the ground. Leaning on the wall, she cried.
For the first time since the hunters had knocked on her door with that damnable brooch, she let herself feel her own grief. Her own sadness. Her own tragedy. Rarely did she ever experience her own emotions. She was always so inundated with those of others, she became accustomed to ignoring what she felt.
But now, it was too much.
She did not know how much time had passed when there were quiet footsteps behind her. She had stopped crying at some point, the tears having run their course and gone dry. Now she sat there, empty and hollow.
“Eddie would have come, but I told him it was better for ladies to speak of such matters, and he quickly agreed.” Zadok—as himself—sat on the floor behind her. As unnerving as the illusionist vampire was, he was much less so wearing his own face and using his own voice than masquerading as Bella.
“Please, leave me be, Zadok. I do not think I can withstand more of your goading.” Her voice sounded ragged, strained, and tired. She must have been sobbing. She didn’t quite remember.
A hand settled on her shoulder over her dress. It was gentle and unassuming. It was meant to be comforting. “That is not why I have come.”
“Then why?” She jolted in surprise as another Zadok appeared sitting in front of her, shimmering out of thin air. It was an illusion—a copy of the man at her back. But this one suffered no threat of her touch. He lifted his hand to her cheek. Cold as a vampire’s must be, but feeling no less real than anything else.
He brushed away what must have been still-drying tears and shifted closer to her. “I cannot hold you in truth, my dove. Nor can I bring you to he who would wish to comfort you. But I cannot leave you here suffering alone.”
“Why?” Tears threatened to come anew, and she pulled away from the phantom. She went to turn away, but he tutted and turned her back to face him. “Why do you care?”
“Because it is so rare that others care for creatures such as I. That anyone might dare love us, let alone him. You are a rare thing, meant to be treasured, not dragged through the muck and mire as you are now.” Before she could react, Zadok’s illusion pulled her into a hug. He tucked her head under his and held her tightly to him. He smelled of cologne. “You show such compassion for others. I wish to show some to you. Accept it, stubborn girl. Do not bring yourself suffering merely because you are under the bullheaded opinion that you somehow deserve it.”
She let the tension slack from her shoulders. For once, he was being sincere. She could sense him at her back, the real him, and knew he was not lying. There were no insidious games beneath this show of kindness. Just a gentle sadness.
Caving to the illusion, she let him hold her. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.
“If it were up to me, I would stab those two mortal idiots,