Kate Serine: Along Came a Spider

“Three days,” she informed me. “You’d been through a helluva lot.”

Tell me about it.

“Sorry you’ve had to wait so long,” I told her, pushing up against the pillows so I was sitting.

She shrugged. “I’m just glad it’s not me for a change.”

“How is everything now?” I asked, glancing toward her belly.

Her hand smoothed lovingly over her basketball-sized bump. “Max is doing great now. No problems at all.”

“Max?” I said, grinning.

“Short for Maximus,” she explained. “Turns out that was Nate’s name . . . you know, before. He thought it might be better to change his name when he took on his assignment with the Tales.”

“I like the name Max,” I told her, nodding. “I think it’ll suit your little guy. He’s definitely a little warrior.”

“Thanks to you,” Red said. “Seriously. Thanks, Trish. For everything.”

“I’m sorry about Dracula,” I told her, meaning it. “If there’d been any other way . . .”

She nodded. “I know.”

“He said to tell you he was sorry.”

She sighed. “Nate tried to collect his soul, but it was already gone. Looks like he’s a ghost now.”

I laughed a little at the irony. A ghost. I had no doubt that he’d be well taken care of in the spirit world by the phantom who loved him, who had done everything in her power to rescue him from the darkness that had imprisoned him. I just hoped now that they had each other, they’d leave me the hell alone. “Good to know. And Ian?”

Red grunted. “Talk about poetic justice. That son of a bitch is safely tucked away in the Asylum undergoing rehabilitation for vampirism.”

My brows shot up. “The Agency didn’t want him?”

“More like he didn’t want the Agency,” Red explained. “We gave him the option. He thought he’d be better off throwing in his lot with us.”

I thought about the experiments the Agency had conducted on Dracula and God knew who else in their quest to understand us. “Wise choice.”

Red gave me a wicked grin. “Yeah, well, he might not think so after a few days with his rehabilitation counselor.”

I gave her a wary look. “Yeah?”

She nodded, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “Gideon requested the assignment specifically. You should’ve seen Ian’s face when Gideon walked in. You’d think someone had walked over his grave.”

She probably wasn’t far off. For a split second I almost felt sorry for Ian. Almost.

“So, what do you say we get you the hell out of here?” Red said, pushing to her feet and pressing the Call button for the nurse.

“Maybe I should wait for Nicky,” I said, a little hesitantly. “When is he coming back?”

Red shrugged and turned away, busying herself with pulling some clothes out of my overnight bag, which someone must’ve picked up from Nicky’s place while I was out. “He said he had some stuff to deal with.”

“What kind of stuff?” I breathed, my stomach twisting into knots.

“He didn’t say.” Red’s back was turned—she was hiding something.

I suddenly felt like I needed to hurl. Nicky couldn’t possibly still be leaving town, could he? Not after everything we’d been through together. Not after admitting how much he loved me. Right?

“When did he leave?” I demanded, peeling the leads from my chest and setting off alarm buttons on the various monitors.

Red cast a frown over her shoulder at the sound. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked as I pulled out the IV with a wince. “Let the nurses take those out.”

“No time,” I insisted, throwing back the covers and rummaging through one of the supply drawers until I found a piece of gauze and some surgical tape. “I have to stop him. He told me he was leaving town for good once everything was over with Dracula.”

“Trish, I—”

“I can’t let him go, Red,” I interrupted, my heart racing. “I love him. You have to help me find him.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I don’t need to find him. I already know where he is.”

My eyes went wide. “You do?”

She gave me a wry look. “You say that as if tracking people down wasn’t my thing. But in this case I don’t need to track him down—he’s at his house.”

My heart was thudding painfully against my breast now. “He is?”

“Yep. Had to go meet with a Realtor.”

My stomach plummeted at warp speed. So he was leaving town. If I’d needed any better proof than his putting his house up for sale, I didn’t know what it would be. I swallowed, but my mouth was too dry for it to do any good. “Take me there.”

I barely paused long enough to slam the car door behind me before I raced up the steps to Nicky’s front door. “Nicky!” I called, throwing open the door, stumbling over Sasha, who had rushed to greet me. I quickly righted myself and ran into the kitchen, my heart pounding with increasing fear that I had already missed him. “Nicky!”

Not finding him there, I ran to his study, the sitting room, then upstairs to the bedrooms, calling out for him and getting no response. Finally convinced that he wasn’t there, I slowly made my way down the stairs, not bothering to wipe away the tears on my cheeks.

Just as I made the bottom step, the front door opened, letting in a blast of cold air. My head snapped up and I gasped when I saw Nicky standing there. With a strangled little sob, I rushed to him, throwing my arms around his neck and hugging him tightly.

“Hello, doll,” he murmured against my hair.

As reluctant as I was to leave his embrace, I abruptly released him and put him at arms’ length. “You can’t go,” I told him in a rush. “You just can’t. At least, not without me. Not this time.”

“Trish—”

I grimaced, waving my hands to stop his words. “No, please—don’t interrupt. I need to say this.” I took a deep breath and let the words come tumbling out. “You asked me once to come with you and I spent over a hundred years regretting that I told you no. I’m not making that mistake again.”

“Trish, just listen—”

“You were trying to tell me something in the car that night of the crash,” I interrupted, clutching the lapels of his jacket, “and you

didn’t get the chance. But I know what you were leading up to.”

His brows shot up. “You do?”

I nodded. “And the answer is yes. Yes, I’ll go with you. I don’t care where we go, just as long as we’re together.”

Nicky’s lips curved into a grin. “Yeah?”

I nodded. “I love you, Nicky. And I want to spend the rest of my life loving you.”

“Well, thank God for that!” he said, heaving a relieved sigh.

“’Cause I was a little worried how you’d react when I gave you this.”

He reached inside his pocket and withdrew a tiny blue box with Rumpelstiltskin’s logo on the top. My eyes went wide and a thrill of timid joy shot through me. I swallowed hard, not willing to believe it was what I thought it might be and yet daring to hope just a little. . . .

I lifted my eyes to his. “Is that . . . ?”

His crooked grin grew as he flipped open the lid of the box to reveal a stunning emerald set in an intricately woven white gold band. “I know it’s too soon,” he was saying, suddenly a little shy. “And you don’t have to answer me right away, but—”

I didn’t even let him get out the rest of the words. I took his face in my hands and kissed him over and over until his arms came around me and there was only one kiss. And when Nicky pulled back he was grinning.

“So, even though you had the wrong question, is your answer still yes?” he asked, knowing damned well it was.

But I just laughed, so giddy I couldn’t keep my joy from bubbling up, and nodded.