Кейти Макалистер: Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang

“Still haven’t figured it out?”

We both looked down to the source of the question, Kristoff immediately putting the sword tip to Alec’s neck.

Alec waved it away, pulling himself up until he was propped up on a nearby bench. “You can drop the sword. I’m not going to kill Pia.”

I widened my eyes. “Were you going to try?” I squeaked.

“Yes. It seemed only fitting to take his Beloved as he took mine.” Alec winced as he felt along his head, his fingers coming away smeared with red. “And speaking of killing, why didn’t you end my suffering once and for all?”

“I couldn’t do that without a ceremony and a group of reapers,” I said, watching him carefully. “Not that I would. You really would have killed me?”

“Yes.” He looked up, his gaze meeting mine before a wry smile stole over his mouth. “No. I thought I could, but I guess I’m just too weak.”

“I don’t think it’s weakness,” I said, smiling slowly. “I think you realize that Kristoff did not kill your Beloved.”

Alec leaned back against the bench, his eyes closed. “Does it matter anymore?”

“Yes, it does,” Kristoff said, lowering the sword. “You told Angelica the truth.”

“Yes. As I did Mabel, and Augustine, and who was that dairymaid in Alsace whom you used to visit every Sunday? Marie? I told them, just as I told every woman who ever captured your heart.”

“Only one woman has captured my heart,” Kristoff said, raising the sword again.

I looked at him in surprise, hope bursting into unreasonable but undeniable being deep inside my heart, growing with a desperate prayer. I thought you just said you didn’t love Angelica above all others.

Kristoff shot me a look. I’m a little busy. Now is not the time to discuss relationships.

I think it’s just a perfectly fine time. Who have you given your heart to? I was suddenly giddy, almost light-headed as I waited for him to answer.

“And she took me by surprise,” Alec said with a rueful little laugh. “I wanted to destroy her as I’ve destroyed all the others, hoping each time that it would do the job, drive you beyond bearing.”

Dio! You pick now to have this conversation? Right now? This second? This instant?

Yes! Now! Stop stalling! Tell me!

“But you weren’t driven beyond bearing. You never were. So I changed tactics. I figured if I couldn’t rip your heart out the way you ripped out mine, I’d destroy the other parts of your life.”

“He didn’t rip out your heart. His wife did. He had nothing to do with it,” I pointed out.

Alec cracked open one eye and glared at me. “Pia, you do not interrupt a man when he is explaining his master plan after having been soundly defeated. Don’t you watch any James Bond movies?”

“Sorry,” I said contritely, with a pointed look at Kristoff. “Go on. Both of you.”

Alec opened his mouth to speak, checked himself, then glanced at Kristoff. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?”

“She’s making me admit I love her,” Kristoff said, his voice and face equally pained.

“You said it!” I shrieked, clutching his chest and kissing the pained expression right off his face. “You can’t take it back! You said it out loud in front of a witness! Wait-are you sure? You’re not just saying that because you have mild feelings of affection for me, and don’t want to break my heart? You’re not just being nice?”

“Alec?” Kristoff asked, his hands on my butt.

“Are you daft, woman? You can’t tell he’s arse over heels in love with you?” Alec shook his head, winced at the movement, and slowly pulled himself onto the bench until he could slump down with a grunt. “You must be losing your touch, Kris. None of the others doubted you were anything but a devoted slave to their merest of whims.”

“This is different,” Kristoff said, hoisting me up so my mouth was level with his. “This is my Beloved.”

Say it again, I demanded as I bit his lower lip, welcoming the lovely taste of him as he gave me what I wanted.

I love you, Pia. I don’t know why you ever thought I didn’t. I believed I was making myself quite obvious.

That’s because you’re a man, and it doesn’t occur to you that other people might think you were so much in love with your dead girlfriend that you could never love anyone else.

Never is a long time.

So you really did love her?

Yes.

I thought about that for a moment. That’s OK. I’ve been in love before, too. You’re right. What we have is totally different from that. Say it again.

I love-You’ve loved other men? What other men?

I giggled at his outraged tone, releasing his lip. “You knew I had been with men before you.”

“Been with,” he said, an irritated flare to his nostrils. “‘Been with’ is completely different from ‘in love with.’ I will require the names and addresses of these men you were in love with.”

“So then I decided, What the hell, I’ll let her live. And they’ll live happily ever after, while I continue to suffer untold, endless agonies because I had a Beloved once, and his first wife killed her before I could so much as bed her. This is the thanks I get for my generosity.”

“Shut up, Alec,” Kristoff said, scooping me up in his arms and starting toward the door that led back into the building.

“You’re going to leave me here?” he called after us. I stopped licking Kristoff’s ear and looked back at Alec. “I’m wounded! I let you win! I didn’t kill Pia and watch you die slowly, in agony, while laughing and telling you about each exquisite moment of hell that my life has been since your first Zorya wife killed my love.”

“Set me down,” I told Kristoff. He did so. I took his hand and marched back to where Alec was hunched over on the bench. “I think it’s time we got this over with once and for all. Kristoff, your wife was a Zorya.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know she was going to kill Alec’s Beloved?”

“She said her oxen ran wild and trampled the woman. I did not even know she was Moravian.”

I turned to Alec. “You said your Beloved was melted. Did you see Kristoff’s wife do it?”

His face twisted. “Not the actual cleansing, but I didn’t need to. She was decapitated, and her body was horribly mangled, with parts of her burned away. Only the damned reaper light could do that.”

“That’s what she meant,” Kristoff said slowly, his gaze inward.

“Your wife?” I asked.

“Ruth said she’d tried to clean away the stain of the death, but couldn’t. I thought she was speaking metaphorically, but she was speaking literally instead. . . .”

“She was telling the truth about the trampling, then.” More puzzle pieces were coming together. “But then she probably panicked when she saw a dead vampire, and used the light to try to get rid of the body. Poor woman. She must have been scared to death to try to hide the whole thing. And then when Alec found out and went nuts . . .”

Alec froze for a moment before slumping back against the bench, one hand over his eyes. “An accident. It was an accident after all. All this torment, each second since that moment a unique hell of its own, and her death was due to an accident. I should have killed the oxen.”

“You did. They were my best team,” Kristoff said, then cleared his throat when I nudged him. “Why did you never tell me this?”

Alec sighed and looked up at him. “You were my most hated enemy. You killed the one woman who could save me. Or so I thought. I turned you, pretended I was your friend so I could shadow your every footstep, and make sure that you suffered just as I did. I drove away your women, tried to take your Beloved, and plotted with infinite detail both of your demises. Why do you think I didn’t tell you?”