Sucker Bet (33 page)

"That had nothing to do with me."

"No."

Ringo moved her across the club, jostling people out of their way. "So you hate vampires?"

"With every bone in my body."

He paused to look down at her beautiful face. There was nothing but hatred there. This woman had married a man she despised, had let Ringo himself touch her, put his hands all over her body. She was willing to use whatever she had to exact whatever revenge she had planned.

"That's such a shame. Because you're about to become a vampire."

If she could punish him, stab and scar and mutilate him with that look, with his guilt, with her hatred and profound disgust and disdain, then he was entitled to punish her in return. Let her be shoved into what she claimed to despise, let her be forced to drink blood and hate herself for enjoying it, let her stare ahead into an endless future with no hope, no love, no fight left.

Then she could look at him and see the mirror image of herself, and she would have no right to judge..

Love was an amazing thing. Gwenna should have been shaking in her shoes as she ran full vampire speed into the group of slayers, yet she was so pumped up on happy hormones from Nate's words that she charged with no hesitation, slamming into them like a bowling ball making contact with the pins.

Two hit the floor. Two went careening backward, tumbling into the hallway. And one unfortunate soul got knocked unconscious when his head made immediate and solid contact with the wall. Gwenna followed the two into the hall, sent them into a glamour, and trussed them together with her belt.

By the time she was finished, Nate was shoving the other two out in the hall, both looking dazed, confused, and altogether unhappy. He went back for the fifth while Gwenna tied the others up.

It was over in less time than it took Gwenna to floss her teeth. Five slayers up, five slayers down. For the first time in nine hundred years, she felt the true power of her immortality, and it was a heady shot of adrenaline.

She did have a sudden thought. "Now what the hell do we do with them?"

Nate was patting them all down. Under their various denim jackets and zip-up sweatshirts, they were all carrying explosives, which he was careful not to touch.

Bloody hell. They really had been serious about their task. Good thing she hadn't known that when she'd run pell-mell into the lot of them.

"Now I call for backup and we haul them to prison, where all mortal criminals get to rot."

"Oh. Right." She hadn't thought that one all the way through to its logical conclusion. It had a fabulous circular sense of justice. Vampires couldn't punish mortals unless they killed them, and she could never advocate that. It was the softie thing again. But this way justice was served and the Vampire Nation got to stay entirely out of it.

"What happened to David Foster, by the way?" Nate asked conversationally as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. "I thought you had been kidnapped but I found you in here playing cowgirl with the guitar player instead."

He made it sound so thoroughly undignified. "I was scanning the room from the height advantage of Drake's back," she said in her haughtiest voice.

"Of course," he said, with a smirk, before he got serious and waved her away. "Now step away from these guys. We need a bomb team to remove these explosives so the whole building doesn't go up with a bang. And you didn't answer my question."

"David Foster got away," she said as she backed up. That was the truth. He
had
got away. "And the poor sap did it for Sasha. He thought she was being tortured and abused by Chechikov, so he did the killing she told him she was supposed to do. But then he figured it was a better idea to just kill Gregor than to keep killing innocent victims. He thought that's what she would want, but she wasn't being abused by Gregor, was she?"

"She might have been. But she walked into her marriage with a motive. She wants to kill vampires, though I'm not exactly sure why. I left her with Kelsey, by the way. I hope she hasn't disappeared, though I doubt we're going to get any more information out of her. And she hasn't committed any crime that we can prove."

"Kelsey doesn't like her, so she might still have her. Though I find the whole thing rather odd." Gwenna wasn't sure why Sasha would want to kill vampires, either. Maybe they would never know. She listened to Nate make the call to the police station and appreciated the picture he presented, the strength of his stance and his convictions, the way he spoke with confidence and professionalism, the fact that he seemed to have accepted his change to vampirism with aplomb. He had the attitude that it was what it was, and sometimes you just had to deal with it.

She was grateful to him for that attitude. She was in love with him. And she was very much looking forward to whatever the future held in store. Living together, him working the night shift, her launching her Internet people-search business. It was a pleasing, pretty picture, and when he hung up the phone, she approached him from behind and slid her hands around his waist, leaning her head on his back.

"You're a good man, Nate Thomas," she told him. But there was something she had to offer, and even though it frightened her, she had to.

Turning around, he gathered her into his arms and kissed her forehead. "Hey, have I mentioned that I love you?"

"Yes, but I expect you to keep mentioning it on a nightly basis." Playing with his T-shirt, smoothing it out over his chest, she took a deep breath. "You know how I told you that Corbin had a vaccine that changed Gregor to mortal? Well… he gave me one dose. I can return you to your mortal life if you want. The choice is yours."

She needed the choice to be his. The thought of going through eternity with the guilt that she had altered his life, made him immortal without his permission, was daunting.

Nate didn't say anything for a second. Then he tipped her chin up so she would be forced to look at him. Her heart was beating wildly and she was scared as hell that this would be it. That they would have this week, and that would be all.

Knowing why Gwenna had made him the offer, Nate searched for the right words to explain to her how he felt, how he wouldn't trade the opportunity to be with her just for the known life that had been taken away. He had never expected, really, to find this kind of love with a woman. Certainly not now, when he was grieving for his sister, and his life had felt so empty, so lonely.

It wasn't an accident that they had met each other, and they needed each other in a way that wasn't sad or pathetic or clinging, but enriching, fulfilling, wonderful.

"Gwenna. I want eternity with you. Do you understand that?" He touched her soft lip with his thumb as her eyes filled with tears. "I look at you and I just know it's right. I had doubts before, but that's because I'm a guy and I'm an idiot. There's no doubt now. What I want is you and me, forever."

"Forever is a long time," she said, though she smiled, a blood tear trailing down each cheek.

"I'm counting on it."

And he kissed her.