“No, you aren’t,” Bruiser said. And then he got up and left too, closing the door behind him.
“Not fair,” I shouted. Neither of them responded. “Dang it.”
I dressed and checked on Shiloh in the bathroom. The paralyzed, almost-true-dead vamp still lay in the tub, covered in dried blood, her throat a gaping wound. I needed to fix my life. I needed to find out what was going on. No. I needed to be well so they’d stop treating me like I was sick.
Janeissick,Beast said.
“Shut up. No one asked you.”
Beast snorted.
I left the bathroom to find Bruiser back, standing at the bedroom window, staring out at the snow. I scuffed my feet to let him know I was coming and wrapped my arms around his waist from behind. I could hear his heart beating, slow and measured, and remembered the feeling I had gotten a few times recently. I debated bringing up the vision or talking about feelings. My natural inclination was to avoid feelings, so I started there. Because I’m contrary even to myself. “You’re depressed,” I said. “I hadn’t noticed and when I did notice I didn’t do anything about it.”
“You’ve been busy dying,” he said, heartache and amusement lacing his words. “Besides, my depression is more grief than true melancholy, and either way it isn’t your responsibility. It belongs to me and is mine to deal with.”
“Uh-huh. I didn’t save Leo. Leo’s in a coffin because of me.”
Bruiser didn’t reply. His heart rate didn’t alter. But his scent? Yeah. I smelled his grief.
I gave myself a chance to think it all through, and then, when I had it all in place, I said part of what I had put together. “Being Onorio doesn’t mean you no longerneed vamp blood; it just means you need less. Are you in withdrawal?”
Bruiser turned, sliding through my embrace in surprise.
“What?” I said. “You forgot about drinking? You’re an idiot, you know that, right?”
“I never even thought about it. I’ve been... off... not myself, for months.” His arms went around me and his forehead creased as some other thought occurred to him, but he didn’t share.
“We have a few vamps coming. You should mix a little visiting-vamp blood with your wine tonight.”
He forehead was still furrowed. “How did you think of that? I didn’t, and I’m the blood addict.”
“Did you ever think to ask the B-twins about blood addiction in Onorios and what the symptoms of withdrawal might be?”
A frown drew his face down. “No.”
Men.They never asked for help or info. Not even my honeybunch. I figured testosterone resulted in brain damage. “Molly was addicted to vamp blood, but it was short-term, not for a hundred years, like you. Her withdrawal was probably a lot faster than yours has been, even with your Onorio physiology at work, and she went cold turkey, with nothing to offset the symptoms. I bet Evan can make some music to ease it for you like he did her. But he can’t fix grief. And now we’re back to the ‘Jane didn’t save Leo’ part of this convo. And your grief. Which you try to hide because you don’t want me to feel guilty.”
“I don’t blame you, Jane. I never did. Leo made the decisions he thought best and some of them were hard on me, on a friendship we had for most of my very long life. Onorios don’t need much Mithran blood, but he didn’t feed me for weeks prior to the Sangre Duello. So I have been in the Onorio version offame vexatumfor a long time. Months. I should have fed. I have been thoughtless and foolish.”
All that was interesting, and an insight into my lovey-dovey’s brain. Leo had mesmerized and bled and fed and used Bruiser for decades, yet he still called Leo hisfriend.Fame vexatumwas the dietary style practiced by Mithrans—the vamps who didn’t drain and kill humans in return for physical prowess, but who starved themselves in return for mental and mesmeric abilities. But that wasn’t the important part of his words.
“Why did he stop feeding you?”
Bruiser laughed, the sound almost like pain coming through his chest, and drew me closer. “Grégoire didn’t feed Brandon or Brian either. Leo wanted us all free of blood scent. We Onorios were supposed to stay out of the fighting, were supposed to scent as outclan, in case Leo lost and you died, so that we could, possibly, working together, drain Titus unto true-death.”
A quiver of shock zinged through me. Leo had laid in contingency plans, a massive cheat, so that if he lost and I was dead, his people could still be free. And now we were facing the most powerful Son of Darkness. The last SOD was coming to Asheville, and we had one Onorio, not three.
More important, Shimon had Edmund. And one Onorio would not be enough to drain such an ancient bloodsucker.
“And there’s only one of me here,” Bruiser said, speaking my own thoughts, “which limits the Onorio manner of killing him true-dead.”
“Yeah. And with the snowstorm and the canceled flights there’s no way to get Brandon and Brian Robere—the B-twins—here.” But we had Molly. I didn’t say that. “About that grief—”
“Sometimes you have to let go of things, Jane. Let go of people, because they die. Even let go of time you no longer have.” With a long, elegant finger, he tilted up my chin and smiled down at me. “I gave up Leo and the friendship of a century. It was easier than expected because he had used me, controlled me, and worst of all, forced me to hurt you.” He inhaled deeply, a single, restorative breath. “Remembering that, more than anything, has made my grief easier. But I will not give upyou, not to Leo, not to cancer. I will fight. Will you fight with me?”
I remembered all the people who needed me. Remembered the danger they were all in if I really did give up. “Dang skippy,” I said.
My lovebug laughed, the reverberation bouncing high in the ceilings and through his chest and into my arms. “Let’s see if your clan mob and the kids left us eggs and bacon.”
