Page 77 of Vampire's Choice

When she had what she needed, she fell back onto her backside next to him. She petted him absently, a thank you, even as she fished out a twenty and tucked it into one of his pockets to find later. Maybe he’d buy himself a night or two in a shelter. Or more booze. She wouldn’t judge. It took a lot to get through any life, let alone one that had taken the unfortunate turns his obviously had. Whether from his own choices or others, everybody was capable of fucking up.

The alley smelled of noxious things, but the homeless man’s shirt was mostly clean. He must have been able to wash his clothes recently.

The wound was mending. She stayed still, helping her body focus on that most important priority. Merc’s blood tingled through her, along with the human donor’s. Would Merc’s alone have been enough? An interesting thought.

One she shouldn’t dwell upon. He’d overridden her protest to give her blood, but with the effect it was proving itself to have on her, it would be too easy to take advantage. Their relationship was way too tenuous, and if he had one of his mean moments, where he accused her of using him for that…that might hurt worse than anything Trinidad and Parva had done to her.

When feathers brushed her ankles, she opened her eyes to find her angel incubus resting on his heels in front of her, his wings angled forward on the outside of her knees and hips, offering her a shield. He wasn’t just using his wings to do that. The noxious fumes in the alley had been replaced by that interesting musk he could put out. There were hints of flowers in it, chocolate, sunshine, soft rains.

“Wow.” She cleared her throat. “You can turn that on or off at will. Without the sexual component.”

“It’s there. You’re just not in a condition to appreciate it.”

“I must be almost dead then.”

He didn’t smile. She didn’t either. A rage was waiting on the other side of this, and a despair and sadness that would swamp her. She couldn’t avoid the truth she’d faced tonight.

She needed to go home.

She thought of the preserve, her tree in the lion’s habitat. Her books. The daily routine. The safety. Her father’s protection.

No, damn it. Stop that shit. Her weak ass was staying at the Circus. She had to learn how to handle this. How could she protect and defend all her father had built, if she couldn’t protect and defend herself?

She couldn’t. That was the beginning and end of it. She pulled herself out of her head. “Are Parva and Trinidad alive?”

“Yes. Not because they deserve it. I put the humans at a hospital ER entrance.”

“Thank you.” She laid her hand on top of his, still clasping her knee. She traced the dips between his knuckles, the veins his grip raised. He watched her touch him, his expression like when he’d looked at her breasts. Simply for pleasure, to enjoy affection. That was why it had seemed new to him. She’d bet on it.

“So you came to find me. Thanks.”

“I was joining you for live music, food. And karaoke.”

“I’d picked out a duet for us. ‘Just Give Me the Reason,’ Pink and Nate Ruess. We’re bent, not broken. Appropriate, right?”

For the first time, she noticed the alley had graffiti art sprayed across the brick wall. Sunlight is married to darkness. The tagger had signed it H2O.

“I get so tired. Does that happen to you, Merc? Do you ever get so very tired that you just want to lie down and not get up?” Let life turn her into a road that others traveled, while she just laid there and felt their passage. Endured their passage.

Merc grip tightened on her. He could use crushing strength on someone like Trinidad, but he wasn’t using it on her. “When I was a boy, in Russia. There was a songbird I would see in the trees, during the warmer months. He had a red spot on his head that helped me recognize him. He offended me. How weak and fragile he was, yet he survived, thrived. Sang.

“But then I saw his beauty. It helped me, the way he lived, no matter that his life was so short. His presence added to what was inside my soul. Changed it. Very little, then. But when Marcellus found me, the memory…it changed me more. Because I could change then.”

She gazed at their linked fingers, afraid if she lifted her eyes, he would stop talking to her. Giving her what was deep inside of him. Only when the silence drew out did she speak. “My father told me those we think are weak and fragile, but who affect us, always deserve a second look.”

She expected Mal had been trying to reassure her about being weak in the vampire world. But when he said it, he’d been looking at Elisa, and Ruth had understood the message. Nothing that could get inside you and stay like that could really be weak or fragile.

It shares the same existence with us. Which binds us together.

She wanted to tell Merc that, and maybe she would, later. If they shared a mind link, she could say it in his head.

At times, though, Merc had an uncanny understanding of what she was thinking, where her head was at. He also seemed to be able to find her, the way a vampire could find a first marked servant. She thought of the day she’d met with Yvette and Lyssa. When she’d “heard” him, it had been in her head, and Adan couldn’t hear it.

“Merc…can you talk in my mind?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “Sometimes. When I focus the right way. The ability comes and goes.”

The shock of the confirmation was a welcome distraction from the other things she was dealing with. “How about my thoughts? Can you hear them?”