TWENTY-SIX After night fell, Ehlena dressed in her uniform even though she wasn’t going into the clinic. This was for two reasons: One, it helped with her father, who didn’t deal well with any changes in schedule. And two, she felt as though it would buy her a little distance when she met with Rehvenge. She hadn’t slept at all during the day. Images from the morgue and memories of the way Rehvenge’s strained voice had sounded were a hell of a tag team, battering at her as she lay in the dark, her emotions spinning and flipping until her chest ached. Was she really going to meet Rehvenge now? At his home? How had this happened? It helped to remind herself that she was just going to deliver meds to him. This was caretaking on a clinical level, nurse to patient. For godsakes, he’d agreed she shouldn’t be dating anyone, and it wasn’t as if he’d asked her for dinner. She was going to drop off the pills and try to persuade him to go see Havers. That was it. After checking on her father and giving him his meds, she dematerialized to the sidewalk in front of the Commodore building in the thick of downtown. Standing in the shadows, looking up at the high-rise’s sleek flank, she was struck by its contrast to the dingy, low-to-the-ground place she rented. Man…to live in all this chrome and glass cost money. A lot of money. And Rehvenge had a penthouse. Plus this had to be just one of the places he owned, because no vampire in his right mind would crash out during daylight hours surrounded by all those windows. The divide between the normal and the rich seemed as wide as the distance between where she stood and where Rehvenge was supposedly waiting for her, and for a brief moment she entertained the fantasy that her family still had money. Maybe then she’d be wearing something other than her cheap winter coat and her uniform. As she stood down below him on the street, it seemed impossible that she’d connected with him as she had, but then, the phone was virtual relating, one step up from being online. Both people were in their own environments, invisible to each other, only their voices mixing. It was false intimacy. Had she really stolen pills for this male? Check your pockets, moron, she thought. With a curse, Ehlena materialized up to the terrace of the penthouse, relieved that the night was relatively still. Otherwise, with how cold it was, any wind this high up— What…the hell? Through innumerable panes of glass, the glow of a hundred candles turned the dark night into a golden fog. Inside, the walls of the penthouse were black, and there were…things hanging from them. Things like cat-o’-nine-tails made of metal, and leather whips, and masks…and there was a large, ancient-looking table that was—No, wait, that was a rack, wasn’t it? With leather straps hanging at the four corners. Oh…hell, no. Rehvenge was into this shit? Right. Change of plan. She’d leave the antibiotics for him, sure, but it was going to be in front of one of those sliding doors, because there was no way she was going in there. No. Frickin’. Way— A tremendous male with a goatee came out of a bathroom, drying off his hands and straightening his leathers as he went over to the rack. With one easy hop, he got up on the thing and then he started shackling his ankle. This was just getting sicker. A three-way? “Ehlena?” Ehlena wheeled around so fast she jammed her hip against the wall that ran around the rooftop. As she saw who it was, she frowned. “Doc Jane?” she said, thinking this night was going from the oh-hell-nos straight into WTF? territory. “What are you—”“I think you’re on the wrong side of the building.” “Wrong side—oh, wait, this isn’t Rehvenge’s place?” “No, it’s Vishous’s and mine. Rehv’s on the east side.” “Oh…” Red cheeks. Very red, and not because of the wind. “I’m so sorry, I got it wrong—” The ghostly doctor laughed. “It’s okay.” Ehlena glanced back at the glass, but then looked quickly away. Of course, that was the Brother Vishous. The one with the diamond eyes and the tattoos on his face. “East side’s what you want.” Which Rehv had told her, hadn’t he. “I’ll just go over there now.” “I’d invite you to cut through, but…” “Yeah. Better for me to take myself there.” Doc Jane smiled with a good dose of badass. “I think that’s best.” Ehlena calmed herself down and dematerialized to the right part of the roof, thinking, Doc Jane a dominatrix? Well, stranger things had happened. As she regained her form, she was almost afraid to look through the glass, considering what she’d just seen. If Rehvenge had more of the same—or worse, stuff like ladies clothes in a male’s size, or farm animals milling around—she didn’t know if she could chill enough to dematerialize her ass out of there. But no. No RuPaul. Nothing that needed a trough or a fence. Just a lovely, modern interior done in the kind of sleek, simple furniture that must have come from Europe. Rehvenge came out from an archway and stopped as he saw her. When he lifted his hand, the sliding glass door in front of her opened because he willed it so, and she caught a wonderful scent coming out of the penthouse. Was that…roast beef? Rehvenge came over to her, moving with a smooth gait in spite of the fact that he relied on his cane. Tonight, he wore a black turtleneck that was clearly cashmere and a stunning black suit, and in his fine clothes, he was something off the cover of a magazine, glamorous, seductive, ever out of reach. Ehlena felt like a fool. Seeing him here in his beautiful home, it wasn’t that she thought she was beneath him. It was just clear they had nothing in common. What kind of delusions had struck her when they’d talked or been at the clinic? “Welcome.” Rehvenge stopped at the door and extended his hand toward her. “I would have waited for you outside, but it’s too cold for me.” Two totally different worlds, she thought. “Ehlena?” “Sorry.” Because it would be rude not to, she put her hand in his and stepped into his penthouse. But in her mind, she had already left him. As their palms met, Rehv was robbed, mugged, burgled, broken and entered: He felt nothing as their hands melded, and desperately wished he could sense Ehlena’s warmth. Still, even though he was numb, just watching their flesh come together was enough to make his chest sparkle like it had been steel-wooled to a bright shine. “Hi,” she said in a husky way as he drew her in. He shut the door and kept hold of her hand until she broke the contact, ostensibly to walk around and look at his place. He sensed, though, that she needed physical space. “The view here is extraordinary.” She stopped and stared out at the sprawling vista of the twinkling city. “Funny, it looks like a model from way up here.” “We are high, that’s for sure.” He watched her with obsessive eyes, absorbing her through his sight. “I love the view,” he murmured. “I can see why.” “And it’s quiet.” Private. Just them and no one else in the world. And alone with her here now, he could almost believe all the dirty things he’d done had been crimes committed by a stranger. She smiled a little. “Of course it’s quiet. They’re using ball gags next door—er…” Rehv laughed. “You get the wrong side of the building?” “Did I ever.” That blush told him she had seen more than just inanimate objects from V’s Bondage-R-Us collection, and suddenly Rehv was dead serious. “Do I need to say something to my neighbor?” Ehlena shook her head at him. “It was totally not his fault, and fortunately he and Jane hadn’t… er, started. Thank God.” “You’re not into that kind of thing, I take it.” Ehlena went back to staring at the view. “Hey, they’re consenting adults, so it’s all good. But me personally? Not on your life.” Talk about bubble burst. If BDSM was too much for her, he guessed that meant she wouldn’t understand the fact that he was fucking for ransom a female he hated. Who happened to be his half sister. Oh, and who was a symphath. Like him. His silence brought her head over her shoulder. “I’m sorry. Have I offended you?” “I’m not into that either.” Oh, not at all. He was a whore with standards—kinky crap was okay only if you were forced into it. Fuck the consensual shit V and his mate were into. Yeah, ’cuz that was just wrong. Christ, he was beneath her. Ehlena wandered around, her soft-soled shoes making no sound on his black marble floors. As he watched her, he realized that under her black wool coat she was in her uniform. Which was logical, he pointed out to himself, if she had to go to work after this. Come on, he told himself. Did he really think she was going to stay the night? “May I take your coat?” he said, knowing she must be warm. “I have to keep this place hotter than most people are comfortable with.” “Actually…I should just head off.” She put a hand in her pocket. “I only came to give you the penicillin.” “I was hoping you’d stay for dinner.” “I’m sorry.” She held out a plastic bag to him. “I can’t.” Flashes of the princess tripped through Rehv’s brain, and he reminded himself of how good it felt to do right by Ehlena—and erase her number from his phone. He had no business courting her. None at all. “I understand.” He took the pills from her. “And thank you for these.” “Take two four times a day. Ten days. Promise me?” He nodded once. “Promise.” “Good. And try to go see Havers, will you?” There was an awkward moment, and then she lifted her hand. “Okay…so, bye.” Ehlena turned away, and he opened the glass panel with his mind, not trusting himself to get too close to her. Oh, please don’t go. Please don’t, he thought. He just wanted to feel…clean for a little while. Just as she walked out, she stopped and his heart pounded. Ehlena glanced back, the wind ruffling the pale wisps around her lovely face. “With food. You need to take them with food.”Right. Medical information. “I’ve got plenty of that here.” “Good.” After he shut the door, Rehv watched her disappear into the shadows and had to make himself turn away. Walking slowly and using his cane, he went down the wall of glass and around the corner into the glow of the dining room. Two candles lit. Two place settings of silver. Two glasses for wine. Two glasses for water. Two napkins folded precisely and laid on top of two plates. He sat down on the chair he’d been going to give to her, the one to his right, the position of honor. He rested his cane against his thigh and put the plastic bag down on the ebony table, smoothing it out so that the antibiotics were resting one next to another in a neat and orderly row. He wondered why they hadn’t come in a little orange bottle with a white label on it, but whatever. She had brought them to him here. That was the main thing. Sitting in the silence, surrounded by candlelight and the scent of the roast beef he’d just taken out of the oven, Rehv stroked the plastic bag with his numb forefinger. Sure as shit he was feeling something, though. In the dead center of his chest, he had an ache behind his heart. He’d done a lot of evil deeds over the course of his life. Big ones and small. He’d set people up just to mess with them, whether they were rogue dealers infringing on his turf, or johns who didn’t treat his whores right, or idiots who screwed around at his club. He’d leveraged the vices of others to his benefit. Sold drugs. Sold sex. Sold death in the form of Xhex’s special skills. He’d fucked for all the wrong reasons. He’d maimed. He’d murdered. And yet, none of that had bothered him at the time. There had been no second thoughts, no regrets, no empathy. Just more schemes, more plans, more angles to be discovered and exploited. Here at this empty table, though, in this empty penthouse, he felt the ache in his chest and knew it for what it was: Regret. It would have been extraordinary to deserve Ehlena. But that was just one more thing he wasn’t ever going to feel.
