Ten minutes later, she rested her elbows on the dining table, propped her forehead in her hands and stared in horror down at the Boston Herald spread out before her.
U.S. SENATOR’S SON DIES
Eathan Jackson, twenty-one-year-old son of Massachusetts senator Paul Jackson (R.), died off the coast of Florida Saturday afternoon in what officials are calling a “freak boating accident.” A senior undergraduate at Harvard, the younger Jackson was taking a long weekend break with his girlfriend and two other friends. The four had gone sailing on an otherwise cloudless day, when a sudden squall capsized their boat.
Jackson’s girlfriend and friends were able to employ an inflatable emergency dinghy until help arrived, while Jackson disappeared from sight. His body was discovered several hours later. . . .
Pain filled Tess’s chest like a gigantic bruise. As tears pricked the back of her eyes, she rubbed her face and thought, Freak squall, my ass.
Eathan had been a spoiled, ungrateful boy who had carried around a sense of entitlement wherever he went, but he hadn’t deserved to be killed for it. She had always hoped there was something finer in him that would emerge as he matured.
Now he wouldn’t have the chance. He was dead, and she knew in her bones that Malphas had killed him.
It had been an entirely unnecessary murder. While the senior Jackson was a politician of some repute and sat on several Senate committees, Eathan hadn’t known any state secrets or carried any kind of deadly, magical Power.
He wasn’t a player, in any sense of the word. He hadn’t even finished college.
Killing him had been an act of pure, deadly spite.
All the tentative hopes and dreams she had begun to nurture about building a new life vanished like so many illusions. Malphas hadn’t forgotten or let go of anything. He simply hadn’t gotten around to finding her. Yet.
But he would, and when he did, he would be so much more spiteful toward her than he had been toward Eathan. Eathan had just been a mark that got away. She had actually worked for Malphas, and she had owed him a certain amount of loyalty.
It wouldn’t matter that she had never promised to stand idly by and watch while he trapped people into making crippling gambling debts just so that he could enslave them. She had taken away something he wanted, and he was never going to let that go.
Wiping her eyes, she noticed the time. She was late for her session with Raoul. She tried to care, but after so many weeks of trying so hard, she felt as if something had broken inside.
Still, if she didn’t show up, he would come looking for her. Forcing herself to move, she pushed upright and cleaned the table, bound her overlong hair back with a rubber band and got to work.
When she entered the gym, Raoul was waiting for her. He said, “You’re late.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
She tried to inject something that sounded like genuine emotion into her voice but knew she had failed from the look on his face.
“What’s wrong? Didn’t you get enough rest?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
His gaze was too keen and made her uncomfortable. “Are you sure? Xavier pointed out we’ve been pushing you too hard, and he’s right. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop pushing you, but you can say if something gets to be too much.”
Her gaze fell to the training mat. It was the wrong time for him to show her kindness. She would not cry. She wouldn’t.
Forcing words to come steadily out of her tight throat, she admitted, “I’m having an off day, but it will help to focus on something.”
“Very well.” He started to stroll in a circle around her, not to engage, she could tell, but simply to move. “Yesterday, you said you wanted to change the conversation. Why?”
Other than following him with her gaze when he was in sight, she didn’t bother to move. After all, he hadn’t told her to be on guard, or said “if you please.”
Thinking of Eathan, she replied, “Because I don’t want to just run away my whole life. Sometimes you need to stand and fight.”
“Agreed.” He came to stand in front of her. “As long as you remember, in most cases you really should fight to run away. Even when you complete the blood offering—and your speed, healing and strength have become enhanced—the reality is, at your best, your abilities will always be at the level of a newly turned Vampyre or a younger Elf. Many Elder Races creatures will still be faster and stronger than you.”
She noticed Raoul said “when” and not “if” she completed the blood offering. He was beginning to believe in her. Seemed like rotten timing, all the way around. She clenched her fists and bit the inside of her lip until it bled.