He loved the images. He could hear them, his mind forming melodies and counterpoints to match each vision. His chest grew heavy, though he wasn’t saddened by the beauty of what Mariah made. He was inspired. He longed for his violin. If he drew hisbow across the strings right now, it would all be there in the song—Mariah’s magical art, the way it buoyed him…and Claire’s words behind his back, the way they cut him.
“Tai?”
He blinked himself out of his reverie and faced Philippa. He’d caught the scent of a vampire approaching but hadn’t bothered to look away from the art, assumed it was Leslie or Ryker.
“Yes?” he said.
“Sorry, I just…I thought you were…but you’re fine, I guess.”
“I’m not following,” he said, “but yeah, I’m fine.”
“Of course.” Philippa looked from him to Mariah Davis’s exhibit. “Wow. She’s really good.”
He nodded.
“Oh, you were having a moment. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. I shouldn’t have interrupted you.”
“Philippa, what are you talking about?”
“It was the art, right? It made you emotional.”
Ryker liked to tease Tai that he knew “at least a thousand people,” and while this was an exaggeration, knowing a lot of people was part of his job. He had an alpha wolf from Tennessee in his phone contacts, though they’d had only one conversation. He had socialized with nearly every vampire in Virginia and quite a few beyond.
So it took less than three seconds for Tai to thumb mentally through his knowledge of people in general and vampires in particular and answer his own question. “You’re an empath.”
Philippa nodded. “I thought you were, um, sad. Never mind. I’ll leave you to the art.”
“Even if I had been,” he said, “why come over?”
She bit her lip, and her lavender eyes flashed. “Because I trustallmy friends, and opinions on you are…varied.” She shrugged. “I’d like to know you for myself.”
“I appreciate that.”
“And because I never want to leave someone in their sadness, if I can help.”
A smile found him, maybe the first he’d felt in hours. “I appreciate that too.”
“You love music,” she said, nodding to the art again.
“I do.”
“And you play piano, right?”
She couldn’t possibly know that, so Claire must have mentioned it at some point. Which was…odd. He’d never imagined her telling them anything but how untrustworthy he was. “Piano, violin, a little guitar.”
“Okay, I’m officially impressed. Do you have a favorite? I mean, does one speak more to you, or however that works? I’m not a musician, so I’m probably saying it wrong.”
His eyes settled on another repurposed violin, the neck turned into a tree trunk, the body painted to resemble deep spreading roots, and the strings woven up around the pegbox in an impressionistic cluster of leaves and flowers.
“I started with piano as a kid, and it’s still my main voice,” he said, surprised to be telling her, then not surprised at all. Empaths were nearly impossible to stonewall. “It’s the one I choose most often for composing.”
“So you’re also a songwriter.”
He smiled. “Strictly a composer. I don’t do lyrics. What about you? If not music, what’s your preferred art form?”
“I’m not like you and Leslie, all traditionally creative. But I’m a licensed stylist, and I’ve redeemed some disasters and taught many a woman how to nurture her hair. And I love events where everybody comes in to get their best look—chignon, beehive, fishtail braid or braid out—you name it, I can do it.”
“Well, for the record, in my book, what you just described is absolutely art.”
