"I thought you killed blood thirsty vampires?"
"Nowadays, yes."
She raised her eyebrows. Did those words mean that Weylin's spell had faded to a point where Michael no longer thought he was living in the past?
"Back then,” he continued, his words confirming her thoughts, “I had more of a ‘live and let live’ attitude. At least until Christine was killed."
So Christine had been the first step on his road to becoming a key member in the foundation of the Circle. Patrick had obviously been the last. “How did Dunleavy know you were involved with her?" He grimaced. “Christine's success made her very welcome at many society gatherings. I was her regular escort. Neither of us were exactly hard to track down."
"How did she die?"
"Dunleavy shot her. She bled to death in my arms."
"I'm sorry.” She brushed a kiss across his wet shoulders. “But at least being shot was a quicker death than what Dunleavy could have offered."
"That's the problem. He did do worse. He raised her from the dead and turned her against me." And he'd been forced to kill her all over again. “Dunleavy deserved the death you gave him."
"Yes, he did. But here we are, and once again, others are paying for something I did."
"If there's one thing I've learned in my time with you, it's that the mentality and actions of psychos is not that of normal human beings. What's happening here is not your fault, just as what happened to Christine was not your fault."
"If I'd killed him—"
"You don't have clairvoyance. You can't see the future. Hindsight is wonderful, but at the time, you thought you were doing the right thing."
He smiled and turned around, drawing her into his arms and kissing her soundly. “Thank you,” he said, pulling away from the kiss and gazing down at her.
She raised an eyebrow. “For what?"
"For listening. For understanding. I have carried the guilt of Christine's death for a long time."
"Just as you carried the guilt of Patrick's death?"
The warmth in his face died a little. She saw the struggle in his eyes, felt, via the link, his instinctive need to shut her out battle with the desire to finally acknowledge, and therefore release, some of the pain of his past.
He pulled her close again, wrapping his arms tightly around her, as if drawing strength from her closeness. Which was ridiculous. If any man was an island, it was this vampire.
"I should have been in San Francisco to meet Patrick, but tracking down Dunleavy took time, and I was in Hartwood longer than I expected."
"So he landed in San Francisco and met Jasper."
"No, Jasper's twin. From what I could gather, the two became lovers." She raised her eyebrows. “I thought a vampire couldn't survive on another vampire's blood?"
"They can't, but that doesn't stop them from having sex." Well, no, she thought, feeling dumb for even asking such a question. “How long were they lovers?"
"Not long. There were only a few days between Patrick's arrival in the golden city and mine. He'd only been dead a few hours when I found him."
"So how did you know it was Jasper's brother who killed him?"
"Because Jasper and his brother were little more than fledglings, and neither were exactly careful about the clues they left behind with their victims."
Yet Jasper had been canny enough to survive the fledgling stage, and clever enough, after Patrick's death, to taunt Michael with the death of more friends down through the years. “So why did your brother take up with someone like that?"
Michael shrugged. “He was a knight at heart. He liked trying to save people." Yet even the gentlest of knights could not save someone with hearts as black as Jasper's and his brother's. “Even if you'd arrived on time, you don't know that Patrick wouldn't have met the same death. One thing I learned from my years on the streets was the fact that fate cannot often be sidestepped."
"I know that. Accepting it is a different matter."
"Patrick made his own choices. You can't be held accountable for that."