Page 41 of Roman

But then they both watched as the tension left Gladys’s body. She was looking at Danny, and for the first time Roman could see the woman—the mother—she was underneath the confusion.

“Danny, sweetie.” Her voice was soft and bright now. “I’m sorry. I got—I got confused. I didn’t realize you were here. I’ve been getting forgetful again, haven’t I?” She gave a small, rueful laugh.

Roman released a sigh of relief and looked over at Danny, whose expression was hopeful and yet also so terrified.

Roman knew that feeling. Hopewasterrifying.

He turned his black eyes back to Danny’s mother. “Now, I believe you were about to take a shower and get ready for a walk with the two of us. Do you think you’d let someone help you? You’ve been ill. We don’t want you falling.”

Gladys nodded at him sweetly, and Danny quickly called the attendant back as Roman’s demon receded.

A few moments later, as Roman shut the door, leaving the two women to their task, Danny turned to him, grabbing his shoulders and pressing him—none too gently—up against the wall. “What did you do to her? Are you—are you hypnotizing her? Controlling her somehow?”

His sweet, fierce mate.

Roman didn’t fight against Danny’s hold, just lifted one hand to caress the boy’s face. “I am sorry, little king. I did not warn you because I was not sure of the results. I told you we vampires can compel. I have used it before, to cut through a person’s confusion or panic. I thought—I thought it would be worth trying. Perhaps not if she were further along. But at this stage—yes, I thought it worth trying.”

“Worth. Trying,” Danny repeated the words, still looking stunned and a little angry.

Roman had another moment of doubt. Had he truly done wrong? He was so out of touch with this aspect of humanity—families, emotions, love, and loss.

He tried again to explain. “It is not…permanent. From what I know of her disease, that damage to her brain is not reversible. It is not a thing I or my demon can stop. But whatever parts of her memories are still there, that are buried, my demon can help her access them a little better. There is clearly a part of her that still remembers you, even if she cannot access it most of the time.”

Roman waited with bated breath as Danny studied him for a long moment without speaking. Then his mate’s hands gentled their grip on Roman’s shoulders. Danny still looked stunned, but the anger had gone.

“I told myself it was okay if she never recognized me again. But if—if she did, I would savor every moment, knowing this time could be the last time. And now I can. Thank you.” His mate’s breath hitched, and he leaned his head against Roman’s chest, letting his weight fall into him, as they waited for his mother to get ready for the day.

“Thank you,” Danny whispered again.

Roman pressed a kiss to the top of his mate’s head. “Anything for you.”

Once Gladys emerged from her room, freshly showered and clothed for the day, the attendant led them to the back of the facility and onto the grounds, which were large and grassy, with a walking path that wound around the edges.

She left them to take a walk together. It was clear as they walked that, while Gladys could now remember who her son was, she was not aware of whattimethey were in. She seemed to think Danny was still in high school, asking frequent questions about his classes and people Roman assumed were Danny’s friends from that time.

Roman worried for a moment that she would question his own presence there, given that anyone would be hard-pressed to believe him a teenager, but from her offhand comments, she seemed to assume he was a coworker of Danny’s from the movie theater where he worked in his teenage years.

His mate didn’t seem to mind the altered timeline though. Roman was walking a few steps to the side of Danny and his mother, who had their arms linked together, but he watched his mate closely, soaking in the joy in his face at having this woman be his mother again.

And Roman could see the love that had been there, before the dementia had clouded things. Gladys clearly loved her son just as fiercely as he loved her.

As she should. Her son was perfect.

Perfect mate, his demon agreed. It was feeling very smug about its role in bringing Danny such happiness.

Had there been love like that in Roman’s family? He knew there must have been, based on the pain he still felt at losing his family, but he could barely picture any specific memories now. It was all fogged by time and overshadowed by what had become of him. Of them. There were only hints. His mother’s smile. His sister’s laugh.

It was unfair how the happy memories faded, when he could picture the loss of them so perfectly.

Roman had returned just once, after he had been turned. Luc had warned him not to, but he had at the very least wanted to say goodbye to those he loved. He had thought he was dying out on that battlefield, and all he had wanted was one last chance to say goodbye to his mother, to his sisters.

But Roman had been a newly turned vampire, unable to easily control his new instincts. Unable to keep his eyes from going black or his fangs from coming out.

“Demon,” his mother had called him, eyes filled with fear and hatred. “You are not my son. A demon has taken his place.”

They had chased him out. And he had let them. In the end, he had wanted to go. Had not been able to bear to see his family so frightened of him. Of his demon.

He did not think Danny’s mother—at least, as she had been before her illness—would have chased Danny away in the same situation. There was something to be said for modernity, after all. Less superstition and fear, in some ways.

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