The air whipped against my face as he took to the sky, drying my tears with its icy caress. I didn’t watch the city disappear underneath us this time—I just buried my face in Warin’s shoulder and wished I’d known him when he was still human.
When he landed on the roof, he sank down to his knees so I could sit on his lap in an imitation of the way I’d been straddling him last night. Only this time, there wasn’t any sexual undertones—just a bone-deep urge to know he needed me as much as I needed him—needed me enough to follow through on his promise that he’d do anything to make this right.
A gentle touch against my cheek made me open my eyes and move my head back from his shoulder.
"I am so sorry I hurt you, Liv.” It was a gentle, intimate whisper.
I drew in a deep breath. “You said you’d given up on everything when we first met. What did you mean?”
“I…” Warin hesitated, and I stared into his darkened eyes.
“You promised my anything to make this right. I want to know something about you no one else does. I want to know this.”
He sighed deeply. “I was planning to meet my Final death, once I’d gotten to the bottom of the disappearances. It was my last obligation.”
“Warin,” I whispered, reaching for him without thought.
“It’s not… It would not have been a tragedy. It would have been my long overdue penance. And a relief. I have been numb for more than eight hundred years. At first, I stayed for Aleric. I knew he would have been torn apart by my absence. Then it was my obligation to my territory. Chicago was on the brink of a power vacuum when I was given reign here. But Aleric has his own territory now, his own responsibilities, and Carina would have been able to manage the city until a worthy Ancient could take over. I thought I was finally done with this life.” He smiled at me, a gentle expression. “But then you showed up.”
“What is this? This connection between us?” I asked, because there was no use pretending anymore. We both knew it was there, even if I couldn’t fathom why.
“I’m not sure.” He reached up and stroked a hand through my hair. “But if I believed in a god, I’d think you an angel of mercy sent to save me from my own darkness.”
I snorted at the ridiculousness of that notion. “Good thing you don’t, then, because I would have been the worst guardian angel ever.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up at my comment. “Maybe I can be your guardian angel instead. If you’ll let me.”
“How about we say we’re just friends?” I offered.
“That would make me very happy.”
We sat in silence for a little while, and I rested my head back against his shoulder and let the night embrace us both.
“Warin?” I finally said.
“Yes?” he asked. From the distant note in his voice, I guessed his thoughts had been wandering.
“You can’t ever give up on life. Even un-life, as it may be in your case. You’re still alive because you still have life left to live. I believe with everything that I am that we do not get to make the choice for when we’re done. There is no easy way out. We’ll just have to live it all over again—all the pain, the suffering, and grow stronger until we can overcome it.”
“You believe in reincarnation?” he asked.
“I do. And I believe in you. Please, Warin. Promise me, no matter what happens… don’t end your life. Not before it’s time.”
He reached up and stroked a hand across my cheek in a gentle caress. “I can promise that I will always be there for you, as your friend, for as long as you need me.”
I frowned. “But I won’t always be here. I’ll grow old, and I’ll die.”
“You don’t have to worry for me, little one. I will finish whatever Fate has planned for me. Meeting you showed me that even after more than a thousand years, I don’t know what will come next.”
I guessed that was as much as I could ask for, though I wished he’d been more definitive on the whole “no suicide ever” thing. “Are you really more than a thousand years old?
“About twelve hundred, give or take.”
“That’s…” I snorted, the vastness of his lifespan stretching too far for me to fully comprehend. To have been alive for more than a millennium… “I thought you were a kid when I saw you in that cage. Not even old enough to buy a drink legally.”
He chuckled, the rumble of it vibrating through his chest to mine. “I think I was around nineteen, maybe twenty, when I died.”
I sighed and patted his shoulder. “The next time you call me ‘little one,’ I’m gonna start calling you grandpa.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”
I smirked into his shoulder. “See it as part of your penance for blood-stalking me.”
We sat in silence a while longer, until a thought began to niggle at me. Something about that number he’d mentioned before—eight hundred years. “Warin… do you know someone called Thea? Or have you ever?”
“No. Why?”
“Nothing. It was just a thought.” I straightened up and looked out across the city lights stretching out far below. “Oh, and Warin? One final thing…”
“Yes?”
“I’m not paying you back for the plane tickets to Denver on Thursday. This whole penance thing is going to take a while.”
22
I flew to Denver alone in the early afternoon on the twenty-third of November, the day of Thanksgiving. Warin had informed me he’d fly by himself the previous night, and as much as I loved flying with him, a nearly three hours spent shivering on Warin’s back wasn’t nearly as attractive as the first-class ticket he’d bought me.
I arrived not too long after sunset, and found a chauffeur waiting for me with a cardboard sign at the airport.
He turned out to be driving a limo.
Warin was certainly going all-out in trying to make up. As I leaned back and sipped a glass of champagne, I couldn’t deny it was pretty nice that he tried this hard. I was already grateful that I didn’t have to dip into my savings for the flight and hotel room, but this—this was above and beyond.
The driver took me to a fancy-as-fuck hotel twenty minutes from the airport, and I blinked as he opened the door for me, my weekend bag in hand.
“Wow, you sure we’re in the right place?”
“I’m sure, Miss Green. Mr. Waldlitch ask me to relay that the bill will be taken fully care of, and to order from room service as you please. He will be here at six thirty to pick you up.”
I didn’t even care that the chauffeur probably thought I was some sort of kept woman. Even the anxiety that had been brewing in my gut all day at the prospect of seeing my family seemed easier to deal with as I checked into the most luxurious hotel suite I’d ever stepped foot in and gave into my very own Pretty Woman fantasy.
* * *