I looked up at his face, visible in the bluish-white glow of a lamppost. A little ripple of fear skimmed down my back at the expression in his eyes. They were ice blue, and utterly hopeless. Without thinking of the folly of what I was doing, I turned so I faced him fully, gently touching the side of his face. Darkness, deep and all-consuming and endless, raged within him, a gaping hole inside him where his soul should have been. I wanted to fill the emptiness, to change the darkness to hope, and love, and happiness. I knew instinctively that I could lift the curse that bound him so tightly, easing the torment that had him within its twisted grip, but to do so would mean I had to open up that part of my mind that I had all but destroyed ten years ago.
The part of my mind that had killed an innocent woman.
"I'm sorry," I said, my voice a thin ribbon of sound on the cold night air as I lowered my hand. "I can't. I can't ever do that again."
His eyes went dark as I felt the soft brush of him against my mind. I turned away, as if that would keep him from seeing the truth about me. I had not thought for one moment that he hadn't noticed the slackness in the left side of my face, or the weakness in my left hand and leg, but he had not asked about it, and I hadn't offered an explanation.
"What do you hide from me?"
I stilled, clutching my guilt to myself. He turned me so I was facing him. Suspicion filled his face as he narrowed his eyes. "I cannot read what you hide. What secret do you have that fills you with so much horror?"
I took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm my suddenly racing heart. His thumb brushed over the pulse in my neck in a gesture so gentle, I almost melted at his feet. "You're not the only one who has betrayed people," I said finally.
"Who…" he started to say, then stopped abruptly, lifting his head as if scenting the night air. "Do prdele!"
I glanced around to see what had startled him, but saw nothing. We were in a dark square, the houses facing us dimly lit or dark already, even though it was only a little after nine at night. A few cars had zipped by us, but no walkers passed, and nothing nearby seemed to pose a threat.
"What's wrong?"
"Go." He shoved me forward. Beyond the square was a pink stone building that I recognized from the drive in with Melissande as the train station.
Melissande! I hadn't thought of her after wondering whether she would know I had been abducted. Surely she would count on my lust for the breastplate, at least, to keep me from walking out on her as it may have seemed I'd done. Had Melissande tracked us? Was I going to be rescued?
More importantly, why did I feel a distinct sadness at the thought of leaving Adrian?
"Quickly, go to the train station. Buy two tickets for Prague. The train leaves in less than twenty minutes. I will meet you at the platform."
"Wait a minute!" I grabbed at a lamppost as he pushed me down the sidewalk.
"You will do as I command," he snarled, spinning around to glare in the direction we had just come from.
I smacked him on the arm. "First of all, I don't take well to commands without an explanation. If you want me to do something, tell me why. And second of all…" I took a couple of steps back when he whirled toward me, his eyes all but spitting blue flames into the night. The words Id been about to utter, telling him he could stuff his Mr. Macho attitude, died on my lips. "Uh… I don't have any money. You hustled me out of the library so fast, my purse was left with Melissande, remember?" I held up my empty hands.
He swore again in Czech, thrusting his hand in his inner jacket pocket before shoving a wad of bills at me. "Go!"
Before I could protest, he was off, slipping into the shadows as if he'd been made of them.
"Which," I said to myself as I peered down the length of the square trying to follow him, "is just about as apt a simile as I'll ever find. All right, Nell, what are you going to do?"
I looked down at the money in my hand. I could take it and buy myself a ticket to Prague, where I could throw myself on Melissande's mercy. I could hire a taxi to take me back to Drahanska Castle, where I could recover my purse. I could trot myself to the nearest police station and report my abduction (leaving out a few key insights into Adrian's dark nature).
"Or," I said on a sigh as I turned for the pink stone building, "I could buy two tickets to Prague, and spend the rest of the night figuring out why the hell I care the least bit about a bad boy vampire. Assuming he shows up from wherever he's gone off to, that is."
I bought two tickets. The ticket seller told me that the train was running a little late, but that it should arrive within the next half hour. Hunger gnawing at my stomach, my first act after paying for the tickets was to plug some change into a candy machine and consume three honey-chocolate bars in swift succession.
I think the sugar high must have done something to me, because by the time I was done licking the last of the chocolate from my fingertips, I was pacing the length of the sidewalk outside the train station, periodically pausing to consult the large clock in a minuscule waiting room.
"This is ridiculous. He's not coming. He's run off to find himself a quick dinner or something," I muttered, not believing it, but feeling better for saying it. "He's not going to make the train. You should be happy, Nell. You're free again. No more bossy vamp pushing you around. You can tell Melissande what happened, get your stuff, and go home."
Without the breastplate.
Without helping Melissande locate her nephew.
Without Adrian.
"Right, you can just stop thinking that, for one," I lectured myself, peering out into the darkness in hopes of seeing a large, vampire-shaped man running my way. "He might be nummy, and he might smell good, and he might be filled with so much pain it hurts to even think about it, but he's a vampire. A night walker. A bloodsucker. And he betrays people, to boot. He's no good with a capital NO. Who cares if those other vamps he was talking about have found him? Who cares if they beat him up? Who cares if they… aw, hell!"
I ran down the sidewalk, following the path I had taken to get to the station. Try as I might, I couldn't deny that Adrian and I had some sort of connection, and I couldn't just stand around if he needed help. I told myself it was so I could worm out of him the information he knew about Damian—I owed it to Melissande to do what I could to help, since I wasn't going to do what she had brought me here to do—steadfastly ignoring the truth that it was Adrian I really wanted to help.
The square we'd stopped in was still dark. "Well, now what?" I asked myself as I spun around in a circle. I had no idea what threat he had seen, or even if it was a threat. Maybe I had been right—maybe he had gone off to dine on an unwary person walking their dog.
Or maybe the hunters had caught up to their prey?
I stood in a dim pool of light, wracked with frustration and indecision. Adrian had said I could read him as well as he could read my mind, but what would result if I tried to use my mental radar to pick up where he was? I started to turn back toward the train station, remembering all too well the horror of what had happened the first and only time I tried to use a part of my brain that lay dormant in most people. Would trying to make contact with him cause another stroke? What if something worse happened?
How could I try, knowing it might permanently damage me?
How could I ignore the fact that Adrian might need me?
"Fine," I snarled to the darkness, one hand on the cold metal of a lamppost as I closed my eyes. "But if I die from this, I'm coming back as a ghost to haunt him for the rest of his unnatural life."
I focused my thoughts on Adrian, what he looked like, smelled like, how he felt warm and solid when I was pressed against him, and the gentle touch of his mind on mine.