Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(34)

“I won’t go.”

“Yes you will,” Carling said. She kept her eyes and voice gentle and yet adamant. “It’s past time, Rhoswen. You have not been happy for quite a while, and I have been selfish and let you stay with me for too long.”

“But I can’t go,” Rhoswen said. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” said Carling, and she was surprised to find that she meant it. “But you have used me as an excuse to avoid living your own life, and I never gave you permission to try to curtail what I do or to control how I choose to do it. And I never promised that you could be with me for everything. I have some things I need to face on my own right now, and so do you.”

“Please, don’t make me leave,” said Rhoswen. “I swear I can change. I’ll look after the damn dog for you. You just said you needed me to hire somebody anyway.”

“No, Rhoswen,” said Carling. “That would not be the right thing for you, and I have been selfish for long enough. I’m sorry.”

“You can’t do this to me,” said Rhoswen. “You can’t just discard me like this, not after everything I’ve done for you.”

“I am not discarding you,” Carling said. She kept her voice even with an effort. Why did this have to be as much of a struggle as everything else had become with Rhoswen? “I am setting you up well and giving you plenty of time to adjust.”

The next half hour was as difficult as she knew it would be, but eventually it had to end because she wouldn’t budge no matter what Rhoswen said or how she pleaded.

Finally Carling’s patience came to an end. Her voice, edged with command, cut through the last of Rhoswen’s protests as she said, “That’s enough.” She sent Rhoswen, along with the dog, off to bed.

The younger Vampyre fled, and Carling sagged in relief as the atmosphere in the kitchen lightened considerably. Then she opened a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and poured herself a glass. She could no longer tolerate blood or bloodwine, and Vampyres remained unaffected by alcohol, but she could at least enjoy the taste. She sipped a glass and listened as the birds outside started to bellow with early-morning exuberance.

Then they fell abruptly silent, and she heard a giant rush of wings. Her spirit leaped at the sound. Moving with deliberation, she set her glass of wine on the table and stood to face the open door.

Moments later, Rune filled the open doorway with his long rangy body and hot sunlike presence. At some point he had shaved and changed into a black T-shirt that molded to his long muscled torso and another pair of faded jeans that were torn out at the knees. His hair was windswept, and he smelled like healthy male and the ocean’s salty air. His lion’s eyes met hers with a shock of connection she felt to her bare toes.

She remarked to no one in particular, “I notice that ten minutes was over quite some time ago.”

From several feet away, she heard his heart kick into a faster rhythm, fueling the fierce energy of his body in hard, powerful strokes. Rune said, “Apparently I needed more than ten minutes.”

She raised an imperious eyebrow. “Have you been sulking about something?”

“No,” he said. “I have been thinking.”

“That took you the rest of the night?”

The sun-bronzed muscles in his biceps bunched as he crossed his arms. He tilted his head as he regarded her. “Thinking,” said Rune in a deliberately even tone of voice, “requires a great deal of thought.”

“Well, that certainly is very Cheshire Cat–like of you. Along with your apparent knack for disappearing at times that are inconvenient for everyone else but yourself.” She tried out a scowl. It seemed to be an appropriate expression for such a morning.

“Are you trying to pick a fight?” he asked. He gave her a sharp smile that showed the edge of his white teeth. “If so, cool.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet,” she said.

He prowled into the kitchen. “Make up your mind. I like a good fight.”

She began to tap a bare foot, and his gaze dropped to track the movement. His face went still as he focused on the moment with a predatory laziness, like a lounging cat that was too comfortable to pounce but was liable to change its mind at any minute. She said, “You left when we were in the middle of a conversation.”

His smile vanished. “I’m well aware of when I left.”

“It was a conversation that interested me,” she informed him.

His mouth drew into that hard unhappy line from earlier. “It was a conversation that interested me as well, I promise you.”

“I am particularly interested in all the things that were left unsaid,” she said. “Why you were so upset, and why you had to leave so abruptly. You were also upset when I woke up. I had forgotten that until after you left. You were full of aggression, like you wanted to fight someone then too. I would like to know why that was, and who put you in that state.”

“I have things I need to say to you,” Rune said. “They won’t be easy to say and they won’t be easy to hear.”

“All right.” She gave him a curt nod and muttered a line from Macbeth. “‘Then ’twere well it were done quickly.’ ”

SEVEN

She turned away from him, toward her seat, and her gaze fell on the cool stove.