Moonlight's Ambassador (Aileen Travers Book 3)(79)

"Deal."

He sighed and looked up at me. "I have a feeling I'm going to regret this."

"Only if I'm right."

He shook his head.

*

Catherine's room looked like a unicorn had thrown up in it. It was a frilly, pink, purple, and blue mess. Not exactly a room I pictured a companion occupying.

"This was her room?" I asked in a skeptical voice. It looked more like a preteen’s.

The bed was wood carved with four posts that she’d hung gauzy sheets from. The coverlet was white, and there were pink and blue pillows at the head of the bed. It was a princess bed—the kind that featured in many a young girls' fantasies growing up.

She had a makeup table, one covered in various shades of eyeshadow, lipstick and nail polish. There were also stuffed animals all over the place.

Nathan looked around and nodded. "Yeah, this is hers. Anton always complained about feeling out of place every time he visited her here."

"What was their relationship like?" I asked, curious. He had seemed to have a great deal of feeling for her, but that could also have been the shock of her death.

"Fraught with tension." Nathan circled the room in the other direction.

"Really?"

"Yeah, they were a bad match. We all knew it, but nobody interferes with companions."

"The vamp code?" I asked with a sly smile.

He snorted. "Something like that. Anton's never been one to be tied down to one person. She was his companion, but he also had others. She was the jealous sort. It created a lot of tension."

"I thought it was an exclusive relationship," I said.

"It's exclusive one way. The vampire partner doesn't have the same restrictions. Some vampires see humans as little more than pets. You can feel affection for your pet, but they often won't let themselves feel more." He eyed a picture of a young Catherine with her friends in a pink, glittery frame with a hint of distaste.

"Sounds charming," I said, my voice sarcastic.

"Hm. Yeah. When you live as long as we do, it grows wearying to watch people die. After a while, it just doesn't seem worth the effort to get close only to have their light blink out in a flicker of a moment," he said. There was a hint of sadness in his voice, lingering behind his eyes that made me think the observation was a personal one. "Most of our families have long since died. A few of us track our descendants, check in on them from time to time. Even that becomes difficult after a while."

"Sounds like a lonely existence." One I would share in a few decades. It was something I tried not to think about. What would this world be like without my parents in it? My sister? My niece? How would I bear it when every person I'd known had gone into death's embrace? It was enough to keep me up at night, which was why I tried to live in the moment. If I was lucky, I wouldn't share that fate for several decades.

"It is. Why do you think Liam has been so insistent you cut ties?" he asked, spearing me with a hard glance. "The longer you hold on, the harder it will be when they go. We've all experienced it."

"You gave up possibly decades of knowing your family to spare yourself a little pain?" I asked.

"I know we seem cold to you," Nathan said, the humor that was normally in his voice absent. "It's not true. We experience things more deeply, more vividly. The deeper the connection, the greater the possibility of insanity when that connection is cut."

I looked away from his piercing eyes. I was willing to take the chance. You didn't walk away just because you knew it was going to hurt someday. As a human, I knew my days could be cut short at any moment. That's why you had to live to the fullest, because one day there wouldn't be any more sunrises and you'd be left staring into the dark wondering if you did everything you could to enjoy the short time you had. I think these vampires had forgotten that. Maybe I would too, eventually. Maybe they were right, and I was courting insanity by clinging to my human family. Some risks were worth taking.

I stepped close to her makeup table and started riffling through the drawers.

"What are you doing?"

"Person like this, I'm betting she had a diary of some kind." It would fit with the woman who had put her stamp on this room.

I opened the last drawer and felt around it, coming up with nothing. Reaching further into the space, I patted along the back and felt along the top. My fingers brushed against a hard ridge. There was something there—something taped against the wood. I pulled it free and stood up.

A journal, a little bigger than my hand, rested in my hands. It had yellow stars on the front and one of those key latches.

I opened it, flipping to the last couple of entries. If there was anything useful in here, it would be towards the end.



He visited me again last night. I worry sometimes that we're letting our feelings get in the way of what's important. Once we have the kiss, there will be no reason to sneak around. He keeps saying it won't be long now, that he has a plan. I hope so. This charade is becoming tiring.



Two days later, there was another entry.



He's asked me to lie for him. I couldn't deny him, even as my doubts are creeping in. What if my patron finds out? What if the rest of the enforcers are onto us? I don't like how the head enforcer, Liam, questioned me—like he knew I was lying.