Page 19 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

“I’ll be fine,” I said, too quickly.

I made a mental note to try a spell to cause the stiff muscles of my neck to relax. But I’ve never been much of a healer, so I doubted it would work all that well. What I really needed was a long, hot shower and a place to sleep that wasn’t my car.

“Okay. So you saw a vision of me dying. And you’re here. But you’re not going to ask me to stop what I’m doing…?” He trailed off, sounding almost puzzled.

“So, that means I’m helping you work this until it’s done,” I confirmed, nodding again and wincing at the pain it caused. “This is still your show. I’m just your backup. Or your bodyguard, I guess.”

He scowled at that, but there was no heat left in it.

“Like hell you are.” His eyes narrowed even further and, seemingly almost unwilling, his gaze trailed to where my hand was still absently trying to massage the tension out of my neck. “And seriously, what did you do to yourself?”

“I’ll leave afterward,” I told him, ignoring his question. “You have my word. Once I know you’re safe, I’ll take off. I won’t interfere with what you’re doing once I know you won’t come to harm.”

Bryan hesitated, and for a split second I could have sworn I saw a flash of pain in his eyes at my offer to leave. But then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

It was probably nothing more than wishful thinking on my part.

“Do you promise? That you’ll leave, I mean?”

I swallowed the hot coal in my throat, the selfish desire to beg him to stay with me, to not walk out of my life and ditch me like just about everyone else in my world had.

“I promise,” I said instead. “I’m here strictly to protect you. Nothing else. And if you want me gone—after I know you’re safe—then I’m gone, easy as that. And I won’t come back. Not until you say I can. Not until you tell me to.”

The relief clearly visible on Bryan’s face was enough to break my heart in two.

“What if I never do?” he asked.

“Then you’ll never see me again, I guess.”

“Fine,” he said, giving me a strange, unreadable look. “You have a deal. You help me work this case and avert whatever you saw that’s got you so worked up. And then we’re done. You’re gone for good and so am I.”

“Right,” I agreed, feeling hollow inside.

“I guess we’d better examine this body, then. The sooner we can figure out what kind of ghost we’re dealing with, the sooner we can get this over with.”

It was impossible to mistake what he meant by ‘this.’

He meant us.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, fighting to keep my face completely neutral, so he couldn’t see how miserable I was. Because I knew that I couldn’t—wouldn’t—break a promise to him. Not now and not ever. Which meant that when this was all said and done, once I had protected Bryan and made sure he was safe, I would need to walk away from him.

CHAPTER SIX || BRYAN

The guy lying on the slab gave me the heebie-jeebies. You’d think that, with my being a vampire and all, I’d be comfortable around death. But I’m not. Before I had been turned, the only dead body I’d ever seen was my great-grandmother when I was twelve years old, and we had gone to her funeral. Her body had been serene and so heavily made up that she’d still looked filled with life, like she might have just fallen asleep.

The body of Lee Chamberlain didn’t look that way. His skin had begun to take on a bluish hue and there were thick purple bruises around his throat. No one would have been able to look at his body and think he’d died a peaceful death.

But there were no telltale marks near his heart, which ruled out it being a revenant. Given the level of spectral activity it was capable of, that probably meant it was either a poltergeist or a wraith.

“He was so young,” I breathed, staring down at him. I hadn’t meant to speak aloud. I caught Tobias looking up at me. I grimaced and shook my head, figuring that I’d already spoken and might as well finish my thought. “I mean, he was, what? In his mid-forties? Maybe?”

“He was forty-six.”

When my eyebrows shot up into my hairline, Tobias gave me an almost sheepish look. “Once I realized what you were up to, I kind of did a deep dive into basically every article I could find on the internet about his death.”

“Oh.”

He shrugged. “I could tell you more, if you want.”

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