Page 290 of Golden Eagle

“Ah,” he said softly back, brows quirking. “That. She’s terribly humble about it, you know.” And he was still worried about her reaction to it, if his face was anything to go by.

“I would be, too,” she assured him.

He studied her a moment, expression softening, and said, voice threaded with emotion, “I’d be grateful for anything you might say to her.”

She nodded, and picked her way to the door of the guest house.

From above, the house was shaped like a cross, with a bedroom off to the right, and the bathroom across from it to the left. The rest was all one long open-plan kitchen/living area. Kitchen in the front, living in the back…with a wide picture window that over looked the pond, frozen at the edges now, early sunlight reflecting off its surface and giving the room a pale glow that, on hushed snowy mornings, almost seemed holy.

Annabel and Mia sat bundled into the wide chairs that bookended the window, a fire snapping in the stone fireplace. Anna wore an oversized hoodie with the hood up, obscuring all but the tip of her nose and chin.

Mia had a blanket tucked over her legs, and held her mug in both hands, steam curling beneath her chin as she stared out at the water.

Both turned to her when she entered. Mia looked haunted.

Anna spoke first. “It’s frickin’ freezing up here. God, I miss Georgia.” She sighed deeply, and made a move to get up. “Time to start setting up?”

“Soon. But, actually…I was hoping I could talk to Mia for a minute.”

“Oh.” Anna pushed her hood back, and gave Trina an unselfconsciously assessing look. Seemingly satisfied, she said, “Alright,” and hopped lightly to her feet. “I better go check on the boys, anyway. Make sure Fulk is doing a good job playing teacher.”

She pulled on a truly massive jacket, stepped into boots, grabbed her coffee, and was gone.

Trina hesitated a moment, feeling the weight of Mia’s gaze. A silent question, expression all but blank.

Trina wondered how she’d ever thought her to be out of her depth with Val.

Stupid prejudice on Trina’s part. Looking at Mia now, touched by silvery light, the lines of brow, and cheek, and jaw carved alabaster, her blue eyes ageless in a terrifying way, Trina could have been looking at a Roman senator’s wife; at a queen. She was a princess, now, Trina supposed. Fitting, though not nearly all-encompassing.

Slowly, Trina eased down into the chair Anna had abandoned. “Hi.”

Mia’s throat moved as she swallowed, a very human, comforting habit to witness, in this moment. “Hi.”

“How are you feeling?”

Something like a smile touched Mia’s mouth. “Good as new. See?” She pushed up one sleeve to reveal an unblemished arm that Trina remembered pulpy and red with blood. Not only had the wounds closed, but there weren’t even any scars. “Val says only the really bad stuff scars,” she said, as if reading Trina’s thoughts, her gaze on her arm as she turned it slowly one way and then the other. She looked at the smooth, unbroken skin in abject horror, her voice flat. “I guess I got lucky, there.”

Trina had seen an expression like hers before, on the face of a witness. A woman who’d had plans to go to a concert with her best friend, but who’d had to cancel last minute. The friend had gone anyway, alone…and her body had been found lying next to a dumpster the next morning, robbed and killed. “I should have been with her,” the witness kept saying, numb, devastated.

Survivor’s guilt.

Instinct and long habit kicked in. Trina sat forward. “Mia.” It was a long moment before the other woman lifted her gaze, the ageless quality replaced by guilt, and fear. “I wanted to thank you.” The words had seemed cheesy when she rehearsed them in her head, but they felt necessary, now. “It was really brave what you did the night we stood up to the Institute. You jumped in front of me, and you didn’t have to.Thank you.” Her pulse gave a few hard throbs as she remembered how close it had been; how it had almost been her fragile human body riddled with bullets.

Mia breathed a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, I’m the one who’s invincible. What kind of asshole would I be if I didn’t take the hit?” Her gaze was hectic, restless over Trina, and the window, and her own, still-bared arm. She swallowed again, and it looked painful. “What was I gonna do? Tell Val I let one of his friends get killed?”

“Mia,” Trina said firmly. “Look at me.” When she did, she said, “You’re a civilian. I’m a cop; if anybody was obliged to take a bullet in that situation, it was me. Hanging back wouldn’t have made you an asshole, or a coward, or anything bad. You’ve never done this kind of thing before, and what we went through was fuckingterrifying. You were really brave when you didn’t have to be.”

“I’m a vampire,” Mia said, faintly: explanation, confession, admission.

“Like I keep telling Lanny: that just means you have different nutritional needs, nothing else.” She wished her smile could be wider, more reassuring.

“I picked Dr. Fowler up with one hand.” Mia’s hand opened, as if gripping a phantom face. “I felt hisjawcrack. I…”

“Do you regret it?”

It wasn’t a delicate question. The kind of question that could push someone to a breaking point; that could shatter the fragile remains of composure. Trina winced inwardly the moment it left her mouth.

But Mia didn’t break. She studied her hand a long moment, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When she lifted her gaze again, it had hardened – no, it hadsettled. No longer searching and frightened. Resolved. “No.” Without hesitation. “I keep thinking that I will – maybe hoping. I didn’t ever expect to – to kill anyone. Not ever. That’s not something peopledo. But.” She sighed. “No. I don’t regret it. Hell, if he was right in front of me, I’d do it again.

---