Why does he think he’s going to become some kind of monster?”
Chloe looked up with wide eyes. “You know, you really need to work on the small talk. ‘Hey, how was your night? Is the casino nice? How much did Gavin drop in frightening fashion on games with ridiculously large cards?’”
“I do not have time for small talk.” She walked over to Chloe and dragged a lounge chair next to hers. “I have until the end of this job to make this man see reason. Why does he think he’s going to become some kind of monster now that he is a vampire?”
Chloe set down her book. “You know what he did to my ex-boyfriend, right?”
Tenzin stared blankly at her. “Do you?”
“Yes. He eventually told me. He broke Tom’s fingers and his knee. Some… other stuff. He basically got a list of the injuries Tom gave to me and systematically, over a period of months, inflicted every single one on my ex. Not in anger. It was pure, cold revenge.”
Tenzin said nothing.
“You know it’s in him,” Chloe said quietly. “That cruelty—the capacity for it—it’s there. He plays at being light and funny, but you’ve seen it. You recognize it too.”
Tenzin knew it was there. She’d sat next to him through some of the darkest times. “But it is not in his heart,” she said. “That’s why he eventually told you about Tom. That’s why he could never become like me.”
“You’re very hard on yourself.”
“You don’t know all the things I’ve done.” And you never will. “I’m being honest.”
Chloe let out a long breath. “So… his parents were awful. He’ll never tell you how much, but they were really awful. Those scars on his arms are not from goofing around with friends when he was a kid.” Chloe pulled her knees up to her chest. “When Giovanni adopted him, I think Ben decided that he was going to be perfect. The best nephew. The best friend. The perfect student. Everything under control. Because he was never going to be like them.”
“And becoming a vampire puts some things out of his control.”
“Yes.” Chloe cleared her throat. “You’re so brilliant and wise. Don’t you see how scared he is?”
Scared? Ben was frightened?
“But he’s not supposed to be afraid anymore. That was the point.” Tenzin rose and began to pace. “That was the whole point.”
“I wish I could snap my fingers and make it different, but people don’t work that way.”
Tenzin walked toward Chloe and knelt in front of her. “No one can manipulate him now. His mind is his own. He was sired by one of the most powerful vampires on the planet. That was the point, Chloe. For Ben to not be afraid.”
Chloe brushed back a piece of Tenzin’s hair. “I know that’s what you wanted. But fear is one of the things that keeps us humble. It makes us human.”
“It can also make you dead.”
Seeing Ben afraid had broken something in Tenzin. His fear broke open a rage she had not felt in thousands of years. That rage had burned her from the inside out, hollowing her out until something new was forced to grow.
Chloe smiled, but it was sad. “I can’t force him to see your perspective. And neither can you. He’s going to be angry for a while, and he’s probably going to do a lot of things you don’t understand.”
I love you. I love you so much. And I’m dying, so you need to know that.
Tenzin turned away from Chloe and watched the waves rise and fall in the midnight sea. “I am trying.”
“You mean your New Year’s resolutions?”
Tenzin—in her new spirit of openness—had tried to explain to Chloe that she was becoming something new, but most of it hadn’t translated very well.
“Yes. My resolutions.”
When Ben’s human body had died, a part of Tenzin had died with it. The mercy he’d demanded of her had forced Tenzin to look inward.
Which she hated.
She was a weapon, a blade in her sire’s hand. A creature created to be used by others.
Over millennia, she had sheared away the parts of herself that could be hurt. If she was a weapon, she would be a weapon only for herself. She wouldn’t only be feared, she would be worshipped.
Now Tenzin wanted to be more.
She had humbled herself before her father. She’d crawled across cobblestones on her knees. She’d pledged fidelity to a sire she hated in order to save the life of the one human who had never seen her as a weapon