"What can happen?" Jenna asked him. "They're only dreams. Maybe they're the Ancient's memories, I don't know. But I need to know, Brock. He let me live for a reason. He made me choose, and then he put this living piece of himself under my skin. Why? What did he want from me? I can't rest until I have those answers. You can't ask me to run away from what I am becoming."
"I wouldn't," Brock told her gently. He lowered his voice to a rough whisper. "You know I love you more than anything, Jenna. I only want you to be safe."
"I am safe." She smiled at him as though no one else were in the room. "I'm safe with you, and I'm not afraid. Just promise you'll be here to catch me when I wake up."
"Forever." He kissed her, a brief meeting of their mouths that radiated as much heat as a furnace.
Jenna didn't take her eyes off her mate for a moment. "Make the call to Claire, will you please, Gideon?"
At Lucan's nod of agreement, Gideon pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed Reichen's oceanfront Darkhaven in Newport, Rhode Island.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
HE'D HAD EVERY INTENTION of leaving.
After walking out of Mathias Rowan's kitchen, his mind had been made up. Avoid the certain contempt of his former brethren of the Order and simply disappear into the night; that was the extent of his plan. Yet, somehow, Chase instead found himself climbing the stairs to the Darkhaven's second floor.
The living quarters upstairs were quiet, most of the mansion's residents either in their own suites or out for the evening to hunt or play in the city.
The room where Tavia was stood at the far end of the broad hallway. Chase walked over the antique runner that spanned the floor from the top of the wide, curving stairwell, to either end of the living quarter wings of the regal old home. He stood motionless in front of the closed door, uncertain if he should disturb her.
From the other side of the thick panel of carved and polished mahogany, he heard the faint hiss of running water.
She was still in the shower?
She'd been up there for more than an hour.
Was she all right?
"Tavia." Chase rapped lightly on the door. No answer. He knocked again, harder this time. More of the same troubling silence. "Tavia, are you in there?"
He tried the faceted crystal knob and found it unlocked. His breath going shallow in his lungs, he pushed open the door and stepped into the unlit bedroom suite.
"Tavia? Why didn't you answer ..."
His voice trailed off to nothingness as he rounded the corner of the bedroom and found her sitting quietly against the wall in the dark.
Weeping.
"Ah, Christ."
Still dressed in her clothes from the clinic, arms wrapped around her bent knees, she shook with the force of her tears. Head bowed, her hair drooped to conceal her face, the long caramel waves matted and tangled from the battle earlier that night. Although she was no waif, far from helpless or weak, she had never looked so small or vulnerable to Chase.
He crossed the room and crouched before her. She didn't even look up to acknowledge he was there. Her shoulders trembled as soft sobs racked her body. "Hey," he whispered, reaching a tentative hand out to gentle her.
He stroked her hunched back, slow caresses that only seemed to make her cry harder. She didn't speak, just sucked in air and wept it out again.
"Shh," he soothed, uncertain how to comfort her, knowing he was a poor choice for the job. If there was one thing he preferred to avoid more than disappointing those who depended on him, it was dealing with such a raw display of feminine emotion.
But he couldn't walk away from Tavia's sorrow, not even if she deserved the arms of someone better.
"It's okay," he murmured, sweeping aside the limp strands of her hair. He lifted her chin, bringing her red-rimmed eyes up to meet his gaze.
God, she was breathtaking. Even wrecked with distress, her face spattered with dried blood and grime from the clinic, eyes wet with tears and puffy from crying. Chase looked at her and realized he'd never heard her laugh. Had never seen her smile. Since she'd been with him, she'd gone from terrified to outraged, then anguished and confused to lost and alone. Now, utterly destroyed.
Yes, there had been passion between them too, but even that had been fierce and raw-edged. He'd taken something precious from her when he allowed things to go as far as he had. The sex and the blood - her first time knowing either one - and he the selfish bastard who'd greedily enjoyed the pleasure in both.
The guilt of that pressed down on him as he gathered Tavia into his embrace and rocked her as she cried against his chest. "None of my life before was true," she said, her voice thick and choked with tears. "I thought I could deal with it, but it hurts so much. Everyone I knew was lying to me. Using me. All my life, they were betraying me."
Chase caressed her head and back, smoothed his rough palm over the tangled silk of her hair. "You'll be okay," he told her. "You're strong, Tavia. You'll come through this, I have no doubt. And there are people among the Breed who can help you."
Not him, surely. He'd done enough damage where she was concerned. And even though it felt good to hold her, felt somehow comforting to feel her arms wrapped around him as she wept, the embers of his hunger kindled just below the surface of his calm. It was a struggle to tamp it down, to curb the fevered glow of his irises as Tavia lifted her head to meet his gaze. "You want to know the irony in all of this?" She bit off a strangled sigh. "I loved her - the Minion that Dragos assigned to be my family. I loved her like she was my mother. I even loved Dr. Lewis. They were the two people I trusted most in this world, the only people who really knew me. I thought they were protecting me, making me better." Another sob tore loose from her throat, raw with pain. "They would have killed me if Dragos wanted them to. I didn't mean a thing to either one of them. Not to anyone. That hurts even more than the shock of learning what I really am."