Page 75 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

“I’m leaving soon. In a few minutes, probably.”

Tobias was in the room, packing.

She hurried past me and paused at the door. Then she turned and gave me a worried look. “You’ll be safe?”

I blinked at her, startled. It was difficult for mundanes to push through a vampire’s hypnotic powers. Liz must have had a very strong will. Somehow, that part didn’t surprise me at all. And something tightened in my chest at her words, that she still had the presence of mind to be concerned for me, a total stranger to her.

I suddenly felt fiercely glad that I was keeping her out of harm’s way.

Though, belatedly, I realized I might be messing things up for her here at work. I had been so worried about her safety that I hadn’t considered whether this would create problems for her. Granted, it was probably far better that her boss be upset than having the hunters getting violent with her because they were looking for information about me. I wasn’t sure they were capable of hurting an innocent woman, but I was certain that I wasn’t willing to take that chance.

“Yeah,” I told her, trying to mean it. “I’ll do my best to be safe.”

She smiled, some of the glazed blankness leaving her expression. “You remind me of my son, you know. You’re a lot like he is, I think. I get a sense about people sometimes. And my gut tells me that you’re a good kid. And, anyway, I’m a mom—I worry. It comes with the territory.”

I smiled at that. “You don’t need to worry about me. You won’t remember me well, but you’ll always believe I ended up safe and that good things happened to me. No matter what else happens, you’ll know that. You can leave here tonight knowing that everything is going to be okay.”

I didn’t push her hard, but it was enough that it would have short-circuited the will of most mundane folks. But Liz was stronger than that by far. She frowned at my strange words, but after pausing for a long moment, she nodded.

“Yeah, I hope so,” she replied, flashing me a tired smile.

Then, with that, she pushed out the door, leaving me staring after her.

This was it. In a few minutes—however long it took for us to pack up the motel room—I was leaving Poplar Creek. And I had accomplished what I had set out to do. I vanquished the evil ghost. And in the process, I had managed to run afoul of a pair of very dangerous hunters, bring an innocent woman back from the brink of death, and fall for Tobias Hawthorne all over again.

But I knew I wouldn’t hunt again. Not unless I had no other choice. Because what Tobias and I had done for Annie was what mattered to me. I didn’t want to hurt anyone—not even a supernatural bad guy who probably had it coming. But healing people… well, I could put everything I had behind that.

If not for Teresa Dames.

Because I wouldn’t be stepping out of my body again any time soon, would I? Maybe she’d give up on trying to haunt me.

Eventually.

But my blood was still powerful. Even if I wouldn’t be helping Tobias fetch any lost souls and bring them back to their bodies, I could still heal. I could still fix what was broken on a purely physical level. Even that seemed like a better way to spend an eternity than fighting monsters.

But where would I go next?

I had no idea. The smart thing was probably for Tobias and I to go our separate ways. He had the coven and people who cared about him back in Seattle. But I couldn’t go back there yet. I couldn’t see my sister or my parents yet. Or any of the places I had once known before any of this happened. I knew I might be able to face it all someday, but not yet. I just wasn’t ready.

Which meant I should leave alone. I should hold Tobias to his vow, that he would leave my side. That we wouldn’t see each other again for a long time, if ever.

Ethan’s vision suggested that there was still darkness inside me. And I knew that, didn’t I? His words came back to me. “It could happen.”

I could end up hurting someone if I wasn’t careful.

And Teresa haunted me, even still. If anyone could have understood what happened to me, it was a witch. But she still seemed to think that I deserved her vengeance.

And maybe I did.

But I had learned something in all of this, hadn’t I?

Mostly, I was sick of other people telling me what I was and wasn’t capable of. I was sick of other people—and even more so, myself—making me feel afraid of what I might do.

I wasn’t fixed. And I knew that I probably wouldn’t be for a long time. Maybe even never. Maybe this was my new normal. Maybe I would always worry, always be overly cautious, always have nagging doubts in the back of my mind about my own goodness.

But I was letting all of those things take everything from me.

I was letting those fears take Tobias from me. And he was, hands down, the best man I had ever met. And he was a formidable warlock. And he was genuinely kind and good, on top of all that. So, if anyone could pull me back from the ledge, if anyone could help me stop myself from hurting anyone else ever again, it would be him.

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