Page 183 of Vampire's Choice
“You third marked him.”
“Yes.” Ruth blew out a breath. “I’m going to run the sanctuary, Adan. He’ll do things with Marcellus, for the angels, so he’ll come and go for that, but when those things aren’t needed, he’ll be here. He likes it here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He’s never really had a home. The Circus came closest, but even there they weren’t all that sure of him. He tended to be on the outside. I think that’s changing, but…he sees me as his home.”
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?” He looked up at the stars.
“Yeah. Mum said that about Da. That he was her home.”
“I get it. I wouldn’t have, before Catriona. But I do now.” He glanced at her. “You and Merc?”
“We’re a lot newer than you two. Still…yes, I think so. When I third marked him, it was like my soul recognized his. An, ‘oh, there you are,’ moment. Does that sound stupid and romantic?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t make it less true.”
She nudged him, then half-smiled. “He likes helping with the sanctuary chores. He has to cloak his wings so the infirmary cats don’t see them; otherwise they try to pull out his feathers while he’s feeding or holding them.”
Adan managed an answering smile. Their eyes were raw and red, but the smile worked with that. Pain came with the promise of life going on.
No matter how hard that seemed right now.
Adan stayed for two weeks. Then Ruth gently encouraged him and Catriona to return to his Light Guardian duties. They’d set the date for the memorial service, and he’d come back for it, but beyond that, she knew he’d return as often as he could. Grief would be a long roller coaster for both of them, but continuing on with their lives as they were mapped before them, the directions they desired to go and had willingly chosen, would help. It was time for that journey to continue.
Mal and Elisa would want it that way.
Adan’s news, that Ruth would soon be an aunt, lifted everyone’s spirits. Catriona would be having the first vampire-Fae child since Lyssa, as far as anyone knew. Miracles abounded. Maybe not the one Ruth most wanted, but a reminder that the world kept spinning.
She’d stepped into her father’s shoes, taking over management of the sanctuary, helped by Hanska and the staff members who’d loved Mal and Elisa so deeply. For the most part, she handled the jarring daily reminders that they weren’t there, but some part of her kept reaching…
She believed what she’d told Adan, that they were still here, a strong echo that connected to whatever afterlife or path they were on now, like a vampire mind link. Elsewhere, but still in touch.
Yet she hadn’t felt it the way she wanted to do so. For so many years, they’d been in her head. Within a moment’s reach, physically, emotionally. She wanted a reassurance that they had moved beyond those terrible last moments that came to her in too-frequent nightmares.
Sometimes, waiting for that sign, dealing with it all, turned her into a raving lunatic.
On good days, Merc could leave Ruth on the island with no concerns. She wouldn’t let sadness take her over.
So today here he was, in Shamain, in a meeting with Marcellus’s Legion battalion. In his own mind, he’d started out by “sitting in” on the strategy sessions and briefings, at Marcellus’s urging. However, before long, Merc had started behaving as if he were a new but vetted member of their ranks. And they were acting the same toward him.
Unsettling as fuck, but that didn’t make it less true.
Though Ruth’s more limited range meant she couldn’t hear or feel him in her mind at a certain distance, he’d learned how to drop into her mind from almost anywhere. So when he was sitting on the Citadel wall, listening to Jonah, the Prime Legion Commander, discuss a problem about another part of the universe, he turned part of his mind toward his vampire.
The sanctuary’s business was done for the day, and it was two and a half hours before dawn. She was in her father’s office, leaning against the doorway, her forehead against those knife marks Mal had created. As she traced them with her fingers, her nostrils flared and she tilted her head toward the living area.
The blood is still here. Abruptly she pushed off from the wall and headed up the corridor.
Though uneasy with her mood, Merc sensed she was in no danger, and had to tune back into his present surroundings as the battalion took flight.
Nearly two hours later, the matter was done, but what he saw when he checked back into Ruth’s head had Merc winging toward the island at near top speed. They were going to fix this mind link thing so it was two-way, regardless of range, so she could hear him when he asked her what the hell was going on, and did she know how close it was to dawn?
He landed in the yard, just as she emerged with bloody hands and another pile of wood, puzzle pieces for jagged holes in the kitchen and living room floor.
It was so close to sunrise, she was stumbling.
Her parents’ room had become theirs, because the giant bed held the sanctuary’s nexus, the canopy crisscrossed with strands of gems, the mattress covered with poached furs of spirits that lent their energy to Mal’s protection of the sanctuary cats. Ruth now wore the cat pendant that connected and recharged with those energies while she moved through the sanctuary each night or slept in the bed during the day.