My delight was short-lived. The man who turned back to look at me with an expression of stunned surprise wasn't Alec… it was Kristoff.
Dear god. It wasn't Alec. My mind whirled around helplessly, trying to understand what had happened.
Kristoff's gaze met mine over the distance, and I realized that the pain and regret I felt originated from him. He didn't want me. He never had I was merely a warm body to feed him and satisfy a purely physical need. His heart was still bound in grief to the woman who'd been so cruelly killed, a woman who by all accounts should have been the one to redeem him.
Not me. But life is cruel, and we'd been bound together for the rest of our lives.
For eternity.
My heart cried out as he turned away and disappeared into the inky darkness of the forest.
Chapter 20
"You are free to go."
"What?" I roused myself out of the stupor that had claimed me several hours before, focusing on the square face of the policeman who sat opposite me. "I'm what?"
"Free to go. Unless there's something else you wish to tell us?" A blond eyebrow rose in question.
"No." I blinked a couple of times, looking around at the police station. It hadn't been busy at all when the vampires arrived with Denise, but that quickly changed.
"You mean you don't want me to tell you about Anniki and Denise anymore?"
The policeman, whose name I vaguely remembered was Jan, shook his head, gesturing toward a stack of paper. "Not unless you have something new to add. The woman you helped to catch has confessed to the murder of the Frenchwoman."
The woman I helped to catch. I rubbed my head, trying to process everything that had happened in the last few hours.
"Your friend is here, if you wish to leave." He turned to a computer terminal and began to tap on a keyboard.
I gathered together what wits remained me, and staggered out of the room to a reception area, where Magda was chatting with a familiar man.
"I didn't really think you would turn Denise over to the police," I told him.
Christian turned to face me. "I hadn't intended to at first, but then… well, let's just say that I felt a gesture was needed to thank you."
"For not killing Kristoff?" I shook my head. "I told you I wouldn't kill anyone."
"I realize now that I was mistaken in attributing motives to you that are not necessarily appropriate," he admitted. "It was not, I admit, an easy thing to do to give up a Zenith to the mortal police, but I trust that your name is now sufficiently cleared."
"Yes. I'm officially released and no longer a suspect."
"That is a good thing, yes?" he asked with a smile.
"Definitely," Magda answered for me, stretching. "You ready to go, Pia? There's a sweet policewoman outside who said she'd take us to our hotel."
"Yes, I will be in a minute." I bit my lip and eyed Christian.
Magda murmured something about visiting the bathroom, moving off to the hallway.
"She is a good friend," Christian said, nodding toward her. "She understands that you have something you wish to say to me."
I nodded, worrying the light material of my blouse as I tried to figure out how to ask what I wanted to know.
His hands stopped mine. "Perhaps I can save you a little grief and tell you that both Alec and Kristoff have left Iceland."
"They did?" My shoulders slumped. I knew they were going to leave now that everything with the Brotherhood group was over, but to leave without saying anything to me… that hurt.
Christian's black gaze was oddly compassionate. "It would seem that in addition to being wrong about you, I was incorrect in assuming you were Alec's Beloved. I understand now that it is to Kristoff you are bound."
I turned away and looked out the window. It was early evening. I'd been in the police station for almost twelve hours, and I was just about dropping. "So it would seem."
He was silent for a moment. "It is not my business to interfere, but if there is a message you would like to pass along to either man, I would see that it reached them."
"Thanks, but I don't have anything to say."
"Pia…" I turned around to face him again, too tired to feel much of anything anymore. He took my hand. "I have a Beloved. She is very dear to me. No, that is an understatement—she is everything to me. I would lay down my life for her in a heartbeat. I cannot conceive of it being any other way. I realize that our ways are new to you, but I believe that you would make Kristoff an excellent Beloved."
"Thanks," I said, smiling as I gently pulled my hand back. "I just don't think it was meant to be, that's all."
He said nothing, just bowed, and started to leave when Rowan threw open the doors and rushed in, looking around wildly. "Is he here?"
"Who?" Christian asked.
"The French reaper." Rowan turned to the side. The entire left side of his face and arm were bloodred, covered in blisters. "We were taking all the reapers to the plane when that bastard Frederic tripped me up, and got away while I was trying to get out of the sunlight. I chased him here. He got my gun."
Christian muttered something and bolted out of the door.
A horrible presentiment shook me. I turned on my heel, pausing to tell the woman at the desk, "I left something on Detective Jan's desk," before I hurried back toward the detective's room. By the time I reached it, I was running, skidding to a stop as before me, a drama opened in seeming slow motion.
From a side room, Denise was being escorted, handcuffed and manacled, a policewoman keeping a firm grip on her. To my left, out of a connecting hall, a voice called out, and Frederic appeared, sliding to a stop as he raised a gun.
"No!" I heard myself scream out, but it was too late. Shots reverberated loudly through the station. Denise stared at Frederic for a moment before throwing back her head and laughing, even as her body crumpled to the ground.
"No!" I cried again, clutching the wall for support.
Frederic let the gun drop from his hand as the police swarmed him. His gaze met mine for an instant, and I knew without any doubt that he had sought his own form of justice.
Justice for Anniki.
"What are those steps again?"
I looked out of the window of the hotel to the bright, glittering sea. It was almost, but not quite, the color of Kristoff's eyes.
"Does it matter?"
"Well, I'm kind of curious how you could think you were doing the steps with one guy, but really have done them with another. I know you had sex with both, but didn't you say there was something about a blood exchange?"
"Yes. Kristoff bit his tongue during one of our more passionate moments. I assume that and the fact that he drank my blood satisfied the exchange requirement." I turned away from the window and summoned up a little smile for my friend. "The steps are unimportant. Christian said that he knew the second I threw myself on top of Kristoff that I was a Beloved. Evidently we smell different, or something. That's why Alec was so taken aback—I didn't smell the same, and he knew something must have happened, and guessed it was Kristoff."
Magda watched me as I fussed with a flower arrangement that sat on a round glass table. "This is going to sound harsh, but I really don't see what you're moping about. Yeah, you didn't get the guy you were interested in, but come on, Pia! Kristoff is gorgeous! He's got those blue eyes, and that chin, and I bet you could talk him into some manly stubble—every man looks better with a smidgen of stubble, it makes them look all ruthless and dangerous—and yet you're walking around looking like life has just kicked you in the gut."
I slumped down onto the couch next to her. "Oh, I'd be doing backflips of joy but for one thing—Kristoff is in love with his girlfriend. His dead girlfriend. And as nice as our couple of romps in the sack were, sooner or later that's going to pale. I want a man in my life, Magda, not someone who swings by every month or so to get his jollies off and scoop up that month's batch of blood, and then leaves without a backward glance."