The truth was Gabby hadn’t failed him by being who she was or knowing what she knew, but he sure as fuck had failed her by rubbing her nose in it.
Just like he’d failed Angeline all those years ago.
Save Roland. He hadn’t. Instead he had hated Roland because he’d been there and not saved Angeline. Hated that while his family had been taken from him the vampire-Paladin had been granted a state of existence—no matter how horrible it may have been. Until Karissa, that is. Karissa had saved Roland. Karissa’s love. Karissa’s blood. Her blood had saved Gabriella too, which is why Gabby could tolerate the sun and wasn’t killed last summer when Logan used His light to defeat the enemy. Yet Gabby seemed willing to throw that gift away by drinking the blood of her enemies, a slow-acting poison. The perfect way to self-destruct.
He’d be damned if he let her check out that easily. Life sucked. You moved on. And then you made something of it. He hadn’t saved his child or Angeline. Hadn’t honored Angeline’s last wish by saving her brother. But there was one person he could save.
With a new goal in mind he shifted through the shade in a purposeful direction. It didn’t take him long to reach his destination, and even less to find a crack in the seal around a window and wiggle his shadow-self through. He was definitely going to have to pick on Roland about his downgrade from his last fortress. But first things first.
Reforming in the middle of the room near where Roland was just about to settle down with a remote and a tumbler of scotch, he got a small thrill from seeing the vampire practically jump out of his skin. The moment was short-lived as the vampire collected himself, carefully setting both remote and tumbler down on the nearby end table and straightening to his full height, which was a good head taller than Valin. Bastard.
“Valin,” the Paladin-turned-vampire said casually, as if having former mortal enemies appear in his living room wasn’t an irregular occurrence.
“Roland,” Valin replied similarly.
Roland lifted his brow, his gaze briefly flickering over Valin. “Think you could at least conjure up some clothes when you break and enter into a man’s home?”
Valin smiled. “Now, Roland. That would require a measure of giving a fuck that we both know I don’t have.”
Roland shook his head, grumbling as he turned and popped open one of those ottoman storage units and began to rummage through it. A good twenty seconds of tap-foot later, he pulled from the very bottom an ugly-ass green throw that he promptly offered to Valin with a disdainful twist of his lip.
Stuffy, tight-ass, OCD bastard. And if the thought of Valin’s naked jangles mixing with the air of his apartment set him off, how did he stand himself and his rather eccentric cravings? Blood was not exactly the cleanest of supplements. Especially when it came from the Red Cross discards pile.
Valin took the offered throw, wrapping it around his waist as he took stock of the apartment. Not nearly as nice as Roland’s last digs. No voice-activated systems here. It was smaller too, though it looked like he’d managed to cram in all of the high-end furniture from his previous penthouse apartment. The place was cramped, though in a homey sort of way. It had all the extra touches that his last place hadn’t had. Things like framed photos, bowls filled with smelly potpourri…throws. All things that spoke of a woman’s touch. Speaking of which. “Where’s Karissa?”
“It’s her turn to sit with Logan.”
Valin nodded, well aware of the babysitting detail. He’d taken his own share of turns the first few days after the loss of Logan’s mate until duty had thankfully relieved him. The problem was not that he couldn’t stand the Paladin’s mopey silence, but that he could truly feel for the poor fucker. Even if Valin and Angelina had never been mate bonded, the severing of their pair bond had been like being degutted. The fact that he’d lost his best friend at the same time was almost like having his heart carved out of his chest cavity. Sometimes he still thought it had been. In fact, he would have sworn that was the case until four months ago when a cheeky little vampire had made it stutter back into rhythm.
And now she was trying to leave him too.
He worried the fringe of the throw wrapped around him. “I need the name of your supplier.”
Roland smiled, his fangs flashing. “Why? You thinking of a lifestyle change? Want me to aid you in your transition?”
“You wish,” Valin muttered with a shake of his head. Roland felt about him about the same as Valin did about the vampire. Tolerable during times of need, but otherwise the world would be a better place without his presence. Still, he seriously doubted the vampire would actually turn him. Fangs aside, the excommunicated Paladin was still one of the most honorable bastards Valin had ever met. Which is why he was here; as much as it grated on his nerves, the Paladin cared about Gabby too. “It’s not for me but rather a mutual friend that I happened to run into recently.”
“Gabriella? She’s alive?” Roland took a step forward, his eyes flashing crimson. Almost as quickly, he visibly checked himself, turning his head away. “Sorry. I’m used to the kid popping up all the time, so when she didn’t, I assumed we were wrong and that she was dead. Or worse, that Ganelon had her.”
Valin narrowed his eyes to study Roland’s features. Squared-off jaw, high cheekbones, a heavy brow that shadowed… no fucking way. That was it: his eyes. There was something about how the wide-set orbs had framed the flash of crimson just now that set his gut to churning. It wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be, unless…
That night. Why would Christos use that night out of all the other massacres to torment Gabby?
Valin swore long and hard, his entire body itching to poof and zip away. He so didn’t want to deal with this shit. Not on top of all the other crap.
“What? What is it? Does Ganelon have her?” Roland asked sharply, his eyes flaring red once more.
Valin shook his head, partly to assure Roland and partly because he wanted to deny what the logical part of his brain was telling him. Unfuckingbelievable. He’d just assumed Gabriella was a merker because that was the easiest explanation. And though, with any other Paladin he would have thought it damn odd for them to be mated to a merker, he figured being the “black” knight made it a moot point. Unlike his brothers, Valin had never thought twice about performing some of the…darker…tasks assigned to him—hence the name. Spying, lying, manipulation, killing…as long as the result was the desired one, it was no skin off his back. Hell, even if things didn’t turn up daisies, he had no compunction shrugging it off and moving on. Just part of the job, right?
Oh yeah, he was far from pure as the driven snow. More like the muck kicked up from the plows after the salt, sand, and gutter slime had been mixed in. So when his often absent heart had made its presence known again at his first sight of the succubus/vampire, he’d just thought it fitting that she had been born from darkness. But Gabby had seemed truly offended when he suggested she could be at all related to Ganelon. Maybe part of it could be attributed to denial, not wanting to believe there could be more evil in her blood than what her succubus mother had already given her, especially given she’d been further cursed when Christos had turned her. But…what if she knew for sure she wasn’t? What if she knew exactly who her father was and clung to the fact that he didn’t have an ounce of evil blood in him?