"You were gifted," she said, with no small amount of awe.
He looked over his shoulder. Most of the color had come back into her face, which was more than he would have hoped for, but he did not agree with her assessment.
"Cursed was the way I saw it." He went back to staring out at the lines of tiny cars far, far below. "As I grew up, I got bigger and tougher, so getting harassed was less of an issue, but the episodes didn't stop, and I was getting more and more frustrated by feeling like a freak. Finally, I decided I had to talk to someone, so I went to this psychic downtown. I felt like a total f**king fool, but I was desperate. She helped me, told me what to do, and even though I didn't believe in it, I went home and did what she said...and everything changed."
"You stopped getting the seizures?"
"Yeah."
"So why are they back now?"
"I don't know." And he didn't know why they'd started, either.
"Vin?" When he glanced back at her, she patted the bed. "Come and sit down. Please."
After he searched her face and saw nothing but warmth and empathy, he went over and lowered his ass on the mattress beside her. As he braced his fists on the duvet and leaned into his shoulders, her hand landed lightly on his back and she rubbed him in a slow circle.
He drew incredible reserves of strength from her touch.
"After the seizures stopped, everything was different. And in a totally unrelated weirdness, my parents died accidentally soon thereafter - which really was not a total surprise, because as violent as they were with each other, it was only a matter of time. As soon as they were gone, I dropped out of school and went to work for my dad's boss as a plumbing assistant. I'd turned eighteen by then, so I was legal to work in the trade and I made it my business to learn everything. Which was how I ended up on the contracting side of things. I never took a vacation. I never looked back, and ever since then, life has been..."
Funny, up until a couple of days ago he'd have said great. "Life has been really good-looking from the outside, since then."
But he was starting to think that all he'd done was slap a shiny, pretty coat of paint on a rotting barn. He'd never been happy, had taken no joy out of the money he'd made...had deceived honest people and raped countless acres of land, and for what? All he'd done was feed the tapeworm in his gut that had driven him. None of it had nurtured him.
Marie-Terese took his hand. "So...who is that woman? What is she?"
"She's...I don't know how to answer either of those questions. Maybe those two guys who came with Jim can." He glanced at the doorway and then looked at Marie-Terese. "I don't want you to think I'm a freak. But I won't blame you if you do."
As he dropped his head, for the first time in a long, long while, he desperately wished he was someone else.
Words were better than nothing when it came to explaining things, but that didn't mean they went nearly far enough in some situations.
This was one of them, Marie-Terese thought.
In her life, things like what Vin was talking about happened in the movies or in books...or they were whispered about when you were thirteen and on a sleepover with your friends...or they were lies that were advertised in the back of cheap magazines. They were not part of the real world, and her mind was fighting the adjustment.
The trouble was, she'd seen what she had seen: a woman with black holes for eyes and an aura that seemed to taint the very air that surrounded her; Vin collapsing and speaking words he didn't seem to hear; and now...a proud man, hanging his head in shame for something that was neither his fault nor his wish.
Marie-Terese kept stroking his shoulders, wishing there was more she could do to ease him. "I don't..." She let the sentence drift.
His reserved gray eyes flicked over to her. "Have any idea what to make of me, right?"
Well, yes...but she wasn't about to put that thought into words for fear it would come out wrong.
"It's okay," he said, reaching out and giving her hand a squeeze before rising from the bed. "Believe me, I don't blame you in the slightest."
"What can I do to help?" she asked as he walked around.
He looked at her from over by the window. "Get out of town. And maybe we shouldn't see each other. It may well be safer for you and that is the single most important thing to me right now. I'm not going to let her get you. No matter what I have to do. She is not going to get at you."
Staring up into his face, she felt a stirring down deep as she realized he was her real-life fairy tale: Standing before her, he was willing to do battle for her, on whatever killing field the war took place...He was prepared to accept wounds and make sacrifices for her...He was the dragon slayer she had looked for when she was younger and had lost faith in ever finding as she'd aged.
And just as important, when it would have been easier for him to believe the lies that woman had said, when he could have listened to Devina spinning that total fallacy about her having been with Jim, he had chosen to think more of her, instead of less. He had had faith in her, and had trusted in her, in spite of her past and his.
Tears stung her eyes.
"Look, I should go downstairs and talk to them," he said roughly. "You might want to leave."
But she shook her head and rose to her feet, thinking that two could play at the knight-in-shining-armor game. "I'll stay, if you don't mind. And I don't think you're a freak. I think you're..." She tried to choose the right words. "You're just fine exactly the way you are. More than just fine - you're a wonderful man and a great lover and I just...like you." She shook her head. "I wouldn't change anything about you and I'm not scared of you, either. The only thing I might wish were different...is that I met you years and years ago. But that's it."
There was a long stretch of silence. "Thank you," he said hoarsely.
She went to him, and as she wrapped her arms around him, she murmured, "You don't have to thank me. It's how I feel."
"No, it's a gift," he said into her hair. "You always should thank the person who gives you something irreplaceable, and to me...acceptance is the most priceless thing you could ever offer me."
As she choked up against his chest, he spoke three little words: "I love you."
Marie-Terese's eyes popped, but he pulled back and held up his hand to keep her from stammering. "That's the way I feel. That's where I am. And I don't expect any kind of response. I just wanted you to know." He nodded to the door. "Let's go down and face the music."
When she hesitated, he tugged her gently. "Come on."
After he kissed her, she allowed herself to be led from the room. And considering the way her head was reeling, she was impressed that her sense of balance was good enough that she made it down the stairs and into the living room without falling over.
Even as they joined the others, she felt she should say something back to him, anything, but he honestly didn't seem to be waiting for reciprocation or even an acknowledgment.
Which made her feel honored in some strange way - probably because it meant that his gift to her was unconditional.
The men had obviously found the beer, as they all had bottles in their hands, and Jim introduced the two who'd come with him to her. For some reason, she trusted them all - which was very unusual given the way she usually felt around big, muscle-bound members of the opposite sex.
Before any of them could speak, she said loud and clear, "What the hell is she? And how worried do I need to be?"
The men all stared at her as if she'd grown two heads.
Eddie, if she heard the name correctly, was the first to recover. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his jeans-clad knees. After a moment of concentration, he just shrugged, like he'd tried to find a way to sugarcoat things and decided to give up on the lie.
"A demon. And very concerned barely covers it."
Chapter 35
Vin was totally impressed by his woman. Having just been through a hideous and frightening welcome-to-the-unreal-world, and then having gotten hit with an I-love-you bomb, she was holding her ground, staring at Eddie with steady, intelligent eyes as she absorbed his answer. "A demon," she repeated.
As Eddie and Adrian nodded in unison, Jim just took a seat on the couch, put his cold beer bottle on his swollen face and leaned back into torn-up cushions. The rippling sigh that came out of his mouth seemed to suggest that new bruise he was sporting looked bad, hurt worse.