Page 96 of Hupotasso
“Time is something you can give,” she smiles.
“You and she are so much alike,” I sigh.
“In our love for you, yes,” she says gently.
“If she still loves me. How could she possibly, after all I’ve put her through?”
“You once told me it didn’t matter one way or the other,” Mother whispers. “You were adamant vampires don’t require love — and that you could never love a human. Has that changed?”
Turning, I lean forward and kiss her gently on the cheek. I don’t recall having done such a thing, even as a small boy, and her eyes instantly brim with tears.
Spinning back to the window I square my shoulders and raise my eyes to a speck of dust on the horizon. The car carrying my son and my wife, speeding towards the estate.
“You know it has.”
79
I watch as he squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them again, they’re full of pain.
It’s been a long flight and an even longer conversation, but one with no resolution.
Now, on our way to the castle from the airfield, I’m almost talked out.
I haven’t been ordered by Viper to return. I was ordered not to escape. I’ve been through this over and over in my mind, wondering if technically Jag could let me go and I might still have a chance. But he’s too loyal to his friend and feels too much guilt. His love for Falcon will always trump any feeling he professes for me, which I know is a good thing, because myfeelings towards him are all false; just lies forced from my mouth by a vicious vampire.
And even as I begged Jag to let me go I knew Viper could track me anywhere. So part of my brain wonders if this thought, too, is Viper’s plan. Perhaps he wants Jag to spirit me away, to drive another wedge between the friends. But I can’t tell. I’m too tired from the birth to know right now what are true thoughts and what arehisthoughts.
Still, I hate that Jag found me so soon.
I hate that he’s returning me.
He looks at me now, his eyes sorrowful as he murmurs his response to my last entreaty.
“As much as it pains me to say, Falcon loves you, Angie. You belong to him.”
“I belong to no one,” I hiss. “And Falcon will never love me. He’s never even told his own mother he loves her. He’s incapable of that depth of feeling.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “I know him better than anyone. I’ve been his best friend for hundreds of years. Youarethe love of his long, long life. And I could never come between that.”
“But I love you, Jag,” I whisper, my brain screaming as I tell the lie.
“Angie,” he swallows hard, his voice just a whisper. “Is the baby mine?”
I close my eyes tight and clench my teeth. My brain is screaming ‘no!’ —I want to tell him that I’m sure my son is Falcon’s, that he needs to unhear the words I told him in the castle. I want toscream to him that Viper made me sleep with him, that I don’t love him. That it’s all a ruse. A horrible, terrible game being played by a snake.
But against my will, the lie slips out.
“Yes.”
He rubs his hands over his face and stays silent for a long, long minute before staring miserably at the baby.
“Falcon can never know,” he sighs. “He wants you back. He wants the child. What we did, what wefeel, is wrong.”
Tears begin to slip down my cheeks and, misunderstanding, he lunges across to take us in his arms, crooning into my hair.
“I’m so sorry, my love. This is my fault. All my fault.”
I shake my head, but no words escape my lips — they’re bound tight by the bite.
