Part 20 (1/2)

”Get out, Giovanni, you are done here! I have enough liars in my bed to last me a lifetime.” I couldn't believe my own ears. I had just ordered a five-hundred-year-old vampire out of the room, and called him a liar. He spun around and looked at me. He flashed his fangs at me. I didn't budge. ”Get out now!”

”He must leave as well! You swore to never see him again,” he said, pointing at Pallo.

”As I recall, oh master of the twisted word, you yourself said that I was not to see him after tonight. The night is not over yet, is it? Besides, it would serve you right if I did. You seem to find the arrangement flexible.” He looked as though I'd just kicked him in the gut. I had him and he knew it. He threw Pallo a look of disgust and stormed out of the room.

Pallo crawled on the floor towards me. I glared at him. ”You're a free man now Pallo, go enjoy yourself!” I said bitterly to him.

He stood slowly and put his finger to my neck where Giovanni had bitten me.

”You did this to free me?” he asked. His voice was so low, so quiet.

”Go!” I shouted.

”I can fix this. I can beg for this to be undone. You should not have aligned yourself with him, he is a monster.”

That made me laugh. ”Oh, yeah, you're an expert on those aren't you?”

My words. .h.i.t him hard, and he backed up a bit from me. ”I cannot allow this to be. I will go and speak with him.”

”Why in h.e.l.l would you want to grovel at his feet? Go be a man, be free of him. You're free of me. Are you happy you got what you wanted?”

”No.”

”Are you telling me that you didn't want your freedom?”

”I did, but not at this price.”

”What price is that?”

He looked at me. He was a beaten man, his words fell flat. ”You.”

Pallo turned and walked slowly out of the room. I stared at him hard the entire way out. I feared that this horrible ending was all we would ever have.

Chapter 21.

I gathered up my stuff and repacked my bags. Two bags still lay on the floor.

When I bent down to pick them up, everything slid out of my arms. ”Would you like some help?” I looked up. James stood in the doorway, smiling at me. He had on his usual black tee s.h.i.+rt and jeans. His boots were a little different. They had a thicker black heel to them. He looked a little taller. I smiled at him. He was a sight for sore eyes. ”Yeah,” I said. He came over and picked up all the bags. I tried to take one from him, but he would not let me. I got the door for him and we headed down the hall and upstairs. He stopped on the steps before we got to the door. ”Let me take some of those,” I said, turning back to take a few bags from him. ”That's not the problem,” he said, looking at the door. It hit me then. It must be daytime. I had lost all sense of time in Pallo's little bas.e.m.e.nt. I had just a.s.sumed, because James was up, that it was night. I looked at him. He had known I would be leaving, and he had waited for me. He was a good friend, a true friend, the kind that didn't want s.e.x in return. The kind of friend every girl needed.

”I'll get them from here,” I said, touching his hand lightly. ”Could you call a cab for me?”

He set the bags down on the stairs and reached into his front pocket. He pulled a set of keys out and smiled. ”Here, I thought you might need these. I parked the car out front before the sun came up.”

I took the keys from him, and gave him a hug. He held me tight and gave a slight squeeze.

”Gwen,” he said in my ear. I stepped back from him. ”Stay away from Giovanni, please!”

”Won't he hear you?” I asked in a low voice. I remembered the night that Pallo had overheard me talking to Ken.

”No, he left last night. He is not Pallo's master anymore, so Pallo had the right to revoke his invitation.” James said, as if stuff like this was common knowledge to me.

”Is Pallo good to you?” I asked.

He touched my hand. ”Pallo is not just my master, he is my friend, and that is rare, very rare.”

”Where is he?” I asked. I would have thought he'd try and talk me into staying. I was a little disappointed that he hadn't come to see me off. I knew he was aware I was going. I thought about his freckled shoulders and strong arms. I would miss touching them.

”Gwen, he hasn't lived this long and not learned a thing or two about women.”

”What do you mean?”

”He knows that you need to go. He loves you enough to let you do that. If, or when, you're ready, you'll come back. He knows that,” he said.

I had to laugh. I couldn't picture myself setting foot near this place ever again. I had had enough of the melodramatic life that surrounded Pallo. I wanted to return to the way my life had been before him. Simple.

I gave James another hug and watched him walk back downstairs. When the bottom door had shut, I picked up a couple of my bags and headed out into the sun. It hurt my eyes at first. I had to put my hand up to s.h.i.+eld myself from it. I had gotten used to living in the dark, gotten used to Pallo's world. I stopped and looked in front of me at Caleb's red Explorer. I looked down at my hand holding the keys. James had given me Caleb's truck. Why not, he wasn't using it anymore, and I didn't think he'd mind me borrowing it if he were here. I loaded my bags into the back end and fetched the rest from the stairwell.

After I loaded the truck up, I climbed in and started it. I closed my eyes and thought of Pallo. He had hurt me pretty bad. It was an emotional wound that I didn't think would heal anytime soon, yet I would miss him. I would miss his smile, his dimpled chin, the touch of his cool skin. I would miss his odd sense of humor. I would miss hearing about when he first met me in his village as a boy. I would miss so much.

I put the truck into drive and headed off. Missing him wasn't reason enough to stay. I needed a life, and he couldn't offer me that. My promise to Giovanni had seen to that.

Chapter 22.

I stopped by the hospital to see Ken. When I walked into his room, he was out cold. His eyes were puffy and black. He had an IV running into the back of his right hand. Lying there, he looked so much smaller than he actually was. I sat in the chair next to his bed and reached up to touch his hand. It was so warm. Being around vampires will make you forget how warm something alive feels. I cupped his hand in mine and leaned forward to kiss it. They had the backs of his arms bandaged. Sharon had said that it had taken the doctors seven hours to st.i.tch Ken's body up. I believed it, looking at all of the bandages. He looked more like a burn victim than the victim of a psychotic, dog-breeding vampire.

I wondered how Ken felt about wearing the light yellow hospital gown. He couldn't be comfortable letting the nurses see him naked. He loved his body, but it was his body. I slid my hand up and let it rest on his chest. I could feel it rising softly beneath my hand. I closed my eyes and put my head down on the cold steel bar on the side of the bed. The feel of Ken's breathing was soothing. The tiny pump hooked to the IV made small swoos.h.i.+ng sounds. It was so quiet in there.

I thought of the time Ken took me to look at houses. He wanted us to have a home after we got married. He had his heart set on it, and nothing I said or did would change his mind. He surprised me on my lunch hour by taking me to a real estate agency. We met with a tall woman with short blonde hair. Beth had been her name. I had almost forgotten that. She pulled photos up on her computer of various houses that fit Ken's bill. I sat there with my mouth open. I had pictured us settling down in a small, three bedroom ranch in a suburb near the city. He had grander things in mind. All of the houses she pulled up had at least six bedrooms in them. Some had four full baths, two had in-ground pools. I just sat there, not knowing what to say.

Beth and Ken went back and forth about each listing. Ken's hand wrapped tightly in mine. I could feel his excitement. my stomach hollowed out. If he wanted a house with six bedrooms, then he wanted a large family. He knew that it would be hard for us to have even one child, let alone a house full. I wanted to run from Beth's office. I had felt a wave of nervousness. .h.i.t me and I stood up. I looked at him and took off running out of the agency.

When I broke through the doors, I bent over and took several deep breaths. Ken came bursting out behind me. He wasn't upset with me for leaving, he was worried about me. He asked me why I left, and I cried. I told him that I couldn't offer him the life he wanted, and that by seeing the houses he picked, I knew that for sure. He held me tight in his arms, and laughed. He didn't expect me to give him a big family. He expected to give that to me. ”We will adopt. We will get you as many little ones as you want.” He loved me so much. He just wanted to make me happy.

At that moment, I knew that I loved him too. I loved how kind and gentle he was with me, versus the hard-a.s.s he was in the court room. I had thought we would spend the rest of our natural lives together.

I thought about how strong his body was when he had held me, how powerful and sure of himself he was. My body grew warm remembering how he felt near me. My energy, my power spilled out of my hand and onto Ken's chest. I jerked my hand back and stood up. I was horrified that I might have burned him. His body twitched and I screamed and fell backwards over the chair.

My body smacked the cold hard hospital floor with a thud. The door to his room swung open and a male nurse came running in.

”What the...?” he managed to get out as he stared from Ken's bed to me lying on the floor.

Ken's body twitched harder now. It lifted off of the bed involuntarily. The man screamed for help and pushed past me. I pulled myself to my feet, and backed into the corner. The man shouted at me. He wanted to know what had happened. I just stood there looking at him trying to hold Ken's body down. Two more people ran through the door, a man and a woman. The man looked to be a doctor. He wore a long white coat with a stethoscope hanging out of his right front breast pocket. They ran to Ken and the woman helped to pin him down. The doctor huddled over Ken's body. He tried to figure out what happened. He turned to me and was calm.

”When did this start?” he asked. His voice was higher than most other men's voices. He was thin and tall. His hair was short and a very plain dull brown.