Smashed (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #8.5)(12)

“She’s running, Shaz. I spent several decades doing the same thing. It was hard to accept what she and I were to one another. I ran from the truth too.” I paused, seeking the best way to make him understand. “The longer she’s with him, the more obvious it will become to her that she doesn’t belong there. And all we can do in the meantime is wait.”

Chapter Four

Long after Shaz left, I sat in the recliner with my sketchpad on my lap and pencil in hand. I’d forced two cups of coffee into him, ensuring he was all right to drive before turning him loose.

All things considered, Shaz was handling this all pretty well. His acceptance of my role in Alexa’s death was surprising. He’d fought every revelation so far. Something had changed in him during his time away. It was both impressive and disconcerting.

My mind wandered as the sound of the pencil scratching against the page filled the silence. The last year had brought with it much change. A little more than a year ago Alexa and I had come together, igniting the spark that bound us, setting so much in motion.

Waiting for that moment to happen naturally had been hell. For three years I’d made it my business to be in her life, to let her know that I was here and watchful. I could only hope she would feel what I felt. For a while I hadn’t been sure. Putting myself in her path had earned me some distrust on her part. Eventually that wall had come down. Making the decision to find her had been one of the most trying I’d ever made. It had cost me a lot.

I could still see the look on Harley’s face when I had told him I was leaving. We had been in the lavish estate he owned outside of Vegas. A harem of men and woman lounged about, ready and willing to please their vampire master.

Harley had sprang out of a bed full of people, naked and angry. “What the hell do you mean you’re going to Canada? Is this about that f*cking werewolf? The bitch doesn’t even exist, Arys. It’s all in your head.”

“And if she does?” I challenged, ignoring his attempt to intimidate me with his overbearing presence and hard, black eyes.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” He snarled, grabbing a robe viciously from a waiting servant. Tying it loosely about his waist, he rounded on me with an ugly mask of accusation. “All you ever think about is yourself. Has it ever occurred to you that I need you here?”

The irony of his accusation wasn’t lost on me. Having the most selfish vampire I’d ever met call me selfish was growing tiresome. “How can you possibly need me?” I gestured to the fantastic display of human toys lying about the house, waiting for their master to play with them again. “It looks like you have your hands full. I’m sure you won’t miss me at all.”

A nude woman with long hair and perky breasts sidled up to offer herself to the both of us. Harley inclined his head, silently asking if I would partake with him. I shook my head. My bags were packed.

“My flight leaves at midnight,” I said. “I’ve let you hold me back long enough. This is something I have to do, and if you can’t understand that then we don’t have anything left to say to each other.”

Harley’s gaze narrowed, and he shoved the woman away. Advancing on me, he got in my face, testing my restraint. “After everything I’ve done for you for all of these years, you just up and leave me?” Harley looked aghast, as if he hadn’t known this was coming. “How could you?”

I stared at him, wondering how in the hell I’d managed to put up with him for three centuries. Of course, much of that time had been spent apart, as I could only stand to be around him for so long before it drove me to isolation.

Becoming a vampire had never been my choice. I had been targeted. Chosen. What I thought was a lonely blonde in need of some company had turned out to be Sloane, one of Harley’s first vampires. She had lured me in, drained me dry. And he had turned me. Now I was his. Or so he liked to think.

Our relationship had been doomed from the start. A man like Harley needed to be surrounded by those of weaker will, which I was not. For a time we’d had fun together. Enjoying rich parties where the guests were all on the menu had led us to make many enjoyable, bloody memories together. But we had never really bonded. I had never been able to bring myself to respect or even like him. Though I did love him in the twisted way that vampires love their makers.

I stopped trying to understand that complicated emotion soon after becoming a vampire. How I felt about Harley Kayson would never make sense to me.

One thing I knew for certain was that I’d been dreaming about a woman for almost a century now, and he would not be the one to stop me from finding her. She was out there. I could feel her calling me. A call I had to answer.

“You won’t even notice I’m gone. You have Jenner and Sloane. And the others. Not to mention these pathetic whelps. I’ll send a postcard.”

It was antagonistic, but I didn’t give a damn. Letting Harley know about the dreams had been my first mistake. Letting him keep me here this long had been the second.

“Do you think I’m going to just let you walk out on me?” The venom in Harley’s tone held the assurance of the fight to come. “I made you, Sindarys. You are mine.”

The delusional ramblings of the Vegas master grew more disturbed the longer I stayed. I shouldn’t have put it off so long. “Don’t call me that.” My tone brooked no room for argument. “I don’t belong to you. I never have. Let’s not have a replay of the last time you said that.”