He nodded. "You should not have found out this way. I don't know how to make it better."
His eyes were still Alex's. That was the worst of it.
"It's just that I've only known you for one day, really. And I don't understand what all this means. My reality is not the same as it used to be, and I really want the old one back." Her voice wavered as she spoke, but she managed not to cry.
Alex was silent a long while, then he said, "I feel better tonight. It's time I returned your basement to you. Mikhail can't feed me forever. So I'll go back home where it's easier for me to…um, find something to eat. I can't…it's harder in a strange town."
Helena squirmed as much as him while he spoke, wondering what gory details he was skipping over when he spoke of eating. "You're leaving?"
A little whistling sound escaped him. A ghost of a snort. "You want me to stay?"
Not really, no. She couldn't say that aloud because she felt sorry for him, so she said nothing.
He bent what was left of his face into a crooked smile, showing way too many teeth. "You need time to absorb this. I need time to heal."
Despite herself, she let him see her shoulders sag in relief.
Mikhail stepped in between them, materializing out of the shadows of the basement. She stifled a squeak of surprise.
Wincing, Alex craned his neck backward to look his brother in the face. Helena glanced between them, perceiving but not understanding a hint of threat in the air. Mikhail said, very soft, "You're not going anywhere, Alexander Ivanovitch."
He turned to her, cold and courtly as usual. "We must beg your hospitality a little longer."
Chapter 6
"Will you excuse us, Helena?" Alex fought to keep his voice steady. Helena wasted no time in taking herself upstairs. As soon as he heard the door close, he said to his brother, "Like hell I'm staying."
Mikhail spun on his heel and began to stuff the few things he'd brought with him into his bag. "It's time I left. But you've tasted her. For you, there's no going back."
Alex stared at him in disbelief. He couldn't be serious. "You're leaving me here. Alone. Like this."
"Little brother, I'm leaving you and I'm forbidding Vamp Air to take you as passenger without my permission."
Vamp Air was what they called the private charter service that a handful of vamp families shared, but in which the Faustin family held a controlling interest. Regular commercial air travel made their kind nervous, what with the every present threat of layovers and delays. Vamp Air planes came with special fittings on the windows and sympathetic, highly paid human crews.
To escape this godforsaken state, Alex would break open his piggy bank and charter his own plane and pray to hell the pilot was trustworthy. But he was so weak he couldn't afford the slightest bit of exposure. And he looked like Freddy Kruger.
"You asshole."
"I know you had no choice, but still, you drank from her. You will taste nothing but dust and ashes until you make her yours. You know this."
Mikhail didn't know half of it. Helena was not going to accept this. Alex wanted to hug himself and rock against the horror of it.
"Misha, I can't stay here. It's breaking her. Can't you see that? She can't even look at me without twitching. All she does is scrub the floors. She's not sleeping, either. Her dreams are a mess."
Mikhail squatted in front of Alex so he could fix him with a hard look. "Why are you hearing her dreams? You've listened to her blood? You've started the bonding?" Mikhail's hands shot out as if he intended to throttle him, but he stopped himself just in time.
"You perfect idiot." He lowered his hands. "You tasted her even before you were burnt. Knowing the story of Roland. Knowing what happened to Gregor. I can't even feel sorry for you now."
Out of pride alone, Alex kept hold of Mikhail's gaze. Yes, he was an idiot. That was obvious or he wouldn't be sitting on a mildew-afflicted sleeping bag in a suburban basement shedding skin while his bride was upstairs having a nervous breakdown.
Mikhail wasn't mated so it was easy for him to stand in judgment. He didn't know what it was like to hold his destined wife in his arms. He didn't know how funny and sweet Helena was, how she'd yielded under his hands from the first moment, how perfectly their bodies fit together. It had been easy enough that ecstatic first night to believe they would be together forever. Easy enough to take her blood as an act of faith.
He'd screwed up. Helena was freaking out for good reason. And that was precisely why he had to get the hell away and give her some space.
Mikhail cocked his head at Alex, his eyes narrowing to pale slits. "You think you'll make yourself pretty again and return to court her as if nothing has happened?" He gave a short bark of laughter. "We are monsters, Alex. You and Gregor pretend we are not, but your little human sees the truth."
"And that truth is too much for her! Goddamn it. This is not all about me." Alex pushed to his feet. Tears for Helena welled in his eyes and spilled like acid over his raw skin. The pain of it brought even more tears to his eyes. "Fuck!"
Blind, Alex spun around in pain and frustration, striking out at the air, each of his wild gestures tearing tissue-thin skin. "Fuck!"
Too weak to pull off a respectable tantrum, he fell to his knees exhausted after a few seconds. When Alex's breathing slowed, Mikhail continued speaking as if nothing had happened. "You can't fool her or seduce her. You must make her love the monster you are. That is your only hope."
Mikhail was never just a brother. He was the prince of New York. Always perfect. Always exerting authority over lesser sorts. Alex wanted to drive a fist through his face. Once, just once, he'd love to see him lose it. See him on his knees.
Mikhail's upper lip twitched, revealing a bit of fang. Alex flinched, realizing Mikhail might have caught the direction of his thoughts. He could, sometimes. But Mikhail resumed his usual impassive expression. "I'll leave you now."
"Don't." Alex crawled in front of him, naked, exhausted, pathetic. Past pride, he raised his hands in the gesture of formal supplication, something he'd never done before, but he'd seen plenty of times. "Knyaz, I beg your mercy."
Mikhail studied him for a long, tightly drawn moment, during which Alex remained frozen, his hands out, his eyes pleading. Take me home, Misha. I need to be in my own place. I need my family. I need my donors. Please don't leave me like this.
With a small shake of the head, an almost imperceptible negation, Mikhail made a sign of blessing. "God be with you, little brother."
In a blink he was gone.
"How am I going to feed myself?" Alex shouted after him. "Just what the hell am I supposed to do?"
A little while later he knew what he had to do and made his way to the top of the stairs, shuffling like an old man. Helena would be wondering about the shouting, no doubt. Her office was just to the left of the basement door, but she wasn't in it. Reluctant to enter her space without permission, he stopped at the top stair and knocked on the open door. Her dog trotted down to bark at him.
The noise made him wince. "Shh."
Helena followed her dog down a few moments later. She was dressed in sweats and held a quart of chocolate ice cream in the crook of her arm. Her eyes were ringed with shadows. They flicked over him obliquely, taking in his relative position and condition before coming to rest on some point just behind him. She was good at not looking at him.
"Do you need something?"
"No. Yes." Suddenly chilled, he pulled the bag more tightly around his shoulders and winced at the pain of it. He stood one stair down, making Helena the same height as him. So not only was he a walking piece of beef jerky wearing an orange sleeping bag, but he'd shrunk too. "Mikhail has gone home. He left me behind."