Epilogue 38

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"Is everything all right, Alonso?" Magda knew that it wasn't. She'd heard the little altercation between the vampire and his lover, and even had she not eavesdropped, she would have known what it was about. Everyone at High View knew what it was about. It didn't take a great deal of intuition to figure it out.

"Fine. Everything is fine." He made no effort to sound convincing. He knew she would know it wasn't, and the look on his face told her he was resigned to her poking her nose in where he wished she wouldn't.

"You'll have to send her away, you know that, and the sooner the better. If you love Reese."

"If I love Reese?" He spun around to face her with such speed that one with human vision might have thought it magic. However one would have to be blind not to see the anguish on his face. "Dear God, Magda, you know how much I love Reese. There is no 'if.' Besides, against my wishes, Susan is with the angel tonight." The word angel was tinged with bitterness, the bitterness of jealousy. Then he added with a forced smile. "There, you see, the fledgling has left the nest of her own accord." Then he added, "does that please you?"

"Michael's place is just down the road. Do you think that's far enough to keep you away from the child of your heart's blood?"

He ran a hand through his hair and paced in front of the open French doors that looked out onto the night garden below, which Reese had built for him, to which the man had fled in his anger only minutes before. "Of course it won't be enough. There's no place in Cumbria, not likely any place in Britain, where she'd be far enough away from me that I wouldn't go to her. She's like my own soul. I never would have imagined it could be thus, since my maker didn't take the time to bond with me or aid me in any way, I didn't know." He turned to face Magda, the desperation etched deeply on his beautiful face. "I didn't know."

"Even if you had known, the bloody demon left us with little choice. We all did what we had to, and you and Susan bore the brunt of the horrific choices we had to make. And now, now that we know he'll be taking an active role in protecting and watching over her, I'm not sure if I feel better or worse. It behooves him to take care of her, to cherish her, and I know he can't escape her, and yet still it makes me nervous. There are so many variables."

"That's what I have told Reese ad nauseum; that's why I can't send Susan away, not until she's ready." He nodded out to the garden again, to the place where Reese paced on the slate pavement. "He wants me to bring him over, and I keep telling him that I will as soon as Susan is able to fend for herself and do no harm. I can't make him understand that I am not capable of giving two fledglings what they would need of me. There are times when I'm not sure I can even care for one as I ought. That is pretty evident, I suppose. But I can't make Reese understand, in fact I fear that even his desire for me to bring him over is only because he fears losing me to Susan, and how could I bear it if I brought him over and it was not truly what he wanted? We must think this choice through carefully. It can't be made in a jealous heat, in an act of desperation. He sees it as though I am choosing her over him, and the damned angel's jealousy only makes matters worse."

She dropped the bomb, figuring now was as good a time as any, and Alonso would take it better than Michael would, of that she was certain. "I've decided to take matters out of your hands. I'm sending her to New York City."

"What!" He was at her side in what would have seemed like an instant to anyone with human eyes, but Magda's eyes had been far from human for more centuries than she cared to count. Before he could reach for her, before he could lay distressed hands on her, she stepped aside, and he caught himself with all the dignity, all the grace for which vampires are known, straightened his jacket and took a deep breath she knew he didn't need. "You can't take her from me. She's not ready."

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⏰ Last updated: Feb 12, 2016 ⏰

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