Page 34 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

He said it like it was even a question, and that pissed me off all over again. If there had been enough left of Giles to conjure, I would have summoned his happy ass back from the dead, just so I could kill him all over again for what he had done to Bryan.

“It’s not even a question,” I told him, my anger evaporating the instant I realized how earnest Bryan was. How much he needed this. “You’re a good person.”

“I’m an okay person,” Bryan corrected, giving me a little shake of his head. His voice went thicker than it should have, and he added, “Or, well, I was. I mostly made it to my classes on time. I had family pizza-and-game night every Sunday with my sister and my folks. I partied a little too much and I even did a bunch of things I can’t even spell with a couple guys I barely even remember. But I had friends and a job and a life. And, I mean, I wasn’t this great person or anything, but I was okay.”

I wanted to argue with him, to make him see that he could still have those things—minus the random hookups, of course—and that he could still be just fine, if he wanted to be. And that he was far better than okay, in my book. I wanted to convince him that the way I saw it, he was just about fucking perfect.

But I would have been saying those things for me. I would have been arguing with him to try to fix him. To set him right, so that he could be okay for me.

And there was nothing, no magic on earth, that was ever going to undo what Giles had done to him. And I wasn’t selfish enough to let him be anything other than what he was, anything other than whatever he needed to be, right here, right now.

In fact, I couldn’t bring myself to even want to be selfish with him, no matter what pain it might cause me somewhere down the road.

So, I didn’t say anything at all.

Instead, I took his hand and he let me, even as he sucked in a breath like the physical contact caused him pain.

He raised his eyes to meet mine and I saw that they were wet with sudden emotion. He gave me a small, crooked smile I had never seen before. “I really wish we could have met before any of this happened. I’m pretty sure I would have jumped in with both feet. I wish I was still that guy, because he would have fallen in love with you so hard.”

“You don’t ever need to be anything other than whatever you are with me, Bryan. And besides, I don’t want that guy. I want the guy standing in front of me, right here, right now. He’s more than enough for me to love.” I paused and fixed him with my gaze dead-on. “I want you, however you are”

At my words, Bryan’s whole face crumpled, and he sucked in a short gasping breath that almost immediately broke around a sob, like something deep inside him had wrenched itself free at my words.

The sound of it tore me in half too.

Desperate to undo the pain I had just caused him, I drew him into my arms and clutched him to me. His body fit perfectly against mine, in a way that wasn’t even sexual—it was just right. Inwardly, I swore to myself that if I could have shielded him from anything that would ever try to harm him, I would have.

Bryan swallowed the sobs back down. He seemed to force them away with an act of sheer will, in fact, because he barely let himself give in at all. But, even after his breathing returned to normal, he still allowed me to hold him for a very long time before he stepped away from me.

“I’m sorry,” he told me, shaking his head, avoiding my gaze. “I shouldn’t have let any of that happen.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“Yeah, I do, actually,” Bryan told me, raising his eyes to meet mine. “Because the thing is, I don’t know how to be that person again, Tobias. I don’t even know who he was anymore. And I don’t know how to make any of this right for myself or anyone else. But I do know that there’s some serious evil out there. And maybe I can make the world better somehow if I protect other people from it. Maybe if I can fight it, I can prove to myself that I still belong here. Maybe that’s how I can make all of this right. I know that sounds crazy, and I know it’s not what you want from me, but it’s what I need.”

I stood there for a long moment, stunned, as I realized that he had just confided one of his deepest truths to me. He was struggling through the darkness, grappling blindly for a way to put himself back together after something unspeakable had been done to him.

This whole thing wasn’t really about becoming a monster hunter just to do it, or even because he was trying to go off and get himself killed in a blaze of heroic glory.

The truth of it was far simpler, far more fragile, and far more precious than any of that. He was doing all of this because he was still trying to find a way to live. He was still fighting for a way forward. And I could read between the lines well enough to understand the consequences if he failed.

That’s what was at stake here.

That’s what these hunters were threatening to take away from him.

We couldn’t just leave. That was completely out of the question.

But still, these hunters might very well be the threat that ended Bryan’s life. They might be the reason I was here in the first place. They might try to hurt Bryan if we stayed.

Which meant we needed to deal with them. I needed to deal with them.

“If that’s what you need, that’s what we’re going to do,” I informed him. “We’re going to hunt some fucking ghosts.”

“Wait—” Bryan’s eyes got big, and his lips parted with surprise. He shook his head. “Tobias, no, that’s not why I told you all of that. I just wanted you to understand where I’m at—why I came here in the first place. I want you to understand that I can’t just go back to my old life and pretend like none of this ever happened. But that doesn’t mean I want to be dumb about this, either. I’m not placing either one of us in danger. I won’t do that.”

“As opposed to hunting a murderous spirit?”

“Which you could probably deal with by yourself, in your sleep. And the ghost doesn’t have guns and amulets that protect it from your magic.”

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