Page 118 of Embrace Me Darkly

“He said to tell you that he’s arranged to make the problem go away. It won’t come back to bite you in the ass, Luke. All things considered, that’s better than nothing.”

ChapterTwenty-Six

Sara stared at Luke’s sprawling Malibu house, formidable and yet alluring. Much like the owner himself. She almost hadn’t come. Had, in fact, been driving aimlessly in the night for more than an hour, trying to wrap her head around what she’d learned at the Slaughtered Goat.

The truth was that she didn’t know what she was going to say. All she knew was that she had to see him. Had to see the Luke who was in her head, and erase the image of the Luke who had sliced that creature’s throat. The Luke who had broken Ural Hasik’s neck.

The Luke who had lived up to every horrible thing described in his file. Crimes for which he would never be prosecuted, and for which the dead would never have satisfaction.

A set of wooden steps surrounded by lush greenery led down to a solid steel door beside which she found an intercom panel. She pushed it, then heard a faint click. She tried the knob, found it unlocked, and stepped inside.

“Luke?” she called, tentatively at first, and then with more power. “Luke, are you here?”

There was no answer, so she moved all the way inside, shutting the door behind her.

The house was less ornate than she would have expected for such a ritzy address. Instead, she found it homey, lived in, as if Luke had long ago abandoned pretense for comfort and had been concerned with pleasing only himself. It pleased her, too. The bright colors. The overstuffed pillows. Luke undoubtedly never saw the room in the light of day, but it was bright and cheery nonetheless, with a long glass wall at the back that opened onto a wooden deck and a stunning view of the moonlit Pacific.

She imagined standing there with him and watching the sunset, then felt a pang of regret that they would never in fact see the sun together. A foolish notion, especially considering her purpose in coming here tonight.

Except, of course, that she wasn’t certain what her purpose was, other than to see him. Was she expecting him to deny his actions? Or to promise he would never do it again? She wasn’t naive enough to believe the first, but she couldn’t quell the fear that he would absolutely refuse the second. Fear, because unless he did step away from the blood and death that papered his file, she knew that they would never find a common ground. And a common ground was something she so desperately wanted with him.

“You are a fool,” she whispered. At the end of the day, what did it matter if they solved one set of problems? There was another looming—the trial.

After a few minutes of standing alone in his living room she called his name one more time, then debated leaving. She couldn’t bring herself to do that, though, and instead moved through the house, determined to see him.

She found him on the third floor in a room filled with pink and white, the walls lined with dolls that stared down at them, their faces full of bland disapproval.

Beneath the porcelain-faced audience, Luke stood at the window, looking out at the white-tipped waves. He knew she was there, of course. Even were her image not reflected in the glass, he would have known simply from the scent of her.

“I came in here to think of her,” he said. “To remember the way she would sit on the bed and play with her dolls. To picture her running on the beach in the moonlight, her face lit with a smile. Innocence,” he said. “And that bitch and her human cohort have sullied her.”

“I’m so sorry. But I still believe you’ll get her back.”

She watched as his shoulders sagged. “I know.”

The silence loomed between them, and still he didn’t turn around. He had to know why she’d come, but he didn’t say a word about it. This was her issue, her battle. And she was going to have to strike the first blow.

“I’ve just come from the Slaughtered Goat,” she said.

“Are you here to arrest me, Counselor?”

“No. There won’t be any arrests in that matter. Prosecutorial discretion. No charges being pressed.”

She thought she saw the slightest relieved sag in his shoulders before he lifted his head so that she could see his face in the glass. He was looking straight at her with unmistakable heat, and she felt desire stir inside her, her body responding to nothing more than the intensity of his gaze. She drew in a breath and stood still, determined not to show it—at the same time certain that those damn vampiric senses could hear the increased tempo of her heart and find the scent of her desire.

“Then why are you here, Sara?” he asked, his tone both an invitation and a challenge.

“Because of you. Because of me. Because there can’t be a you and me if you do that.”

“Do what?” he asked. “You’re a prosecutor, Sara. Aren’t you trained to be precise? The word you’re looking for is kill.”

“Yes, dammit, it is. And you can’t just go out and decide who lives and who dies.”

He turned away from the window to face her. “We’ve had this conversation already.”

“No, we haven’t. This isn’t one of your James Bond kills, and you can’t—” She stopped, remembering how the plug had been pulled on the investigation into the murders at the Slaughtered Goat. That must have been Tiberius’s doing. She tilted her head and sighed. “Well, hello, 007.”

“This is who I am, Sara. It’s what I do. I thought you understood that.”

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