“Yeah. Right after a pissed-off vampire Tribunal leader gives me a piece of his mind. ”
“You are not going to the council,” Desmond insisted, his voice telling me there was no room for argument. “No way in hell. ”
For the first time Keaty seemed to clue in that he wasn’t getting the entire scope of what was happening. “Why wouldn’t she go to the council?” When Desmond didn’t answer, he turned his attention to me, and I didn’t like how fierce his expression was. “Why wouldn’t you go to the council?”
“Well, see…” I struggled to find the words, and Keaty must have interpreted my hesitation as an unwillingness to confess.
“Tell me what’s going on. ”
Brigit, who had been displaying signs of cracking from the minute we arrived, beat me to the confessional punch. “Secret is human,” she blurted.
There went my big reveal.
“You’re what?”
“Human. ”
“As in…you have human qualities, or—”
“She has a pulse,” Brigit offered.
“She’s always had a pulse,” Desmond corrected. “It’s the whole, no-supernatural-strength, not-needing-blood-to-survive, and able-to-spend-extended-hours-in-sunlight-with-no-negative-side-effects thing that’s new. ”
“You’re what?” Keaty asked again.
“Human. I’ll repeat it as many times as you want, but can I do it while we walk, please? I think if Sig gets to my apartment and I’m not there, he’s going to find a way to long-distance murder me. ”
“Oh, he can’t do that,” Brigit said matter-of-factly. “It’s illegal for a Tribunal leader to kill another Tribunal leader. ”
Frowning at her, I held the door open to usher them out. “Thanks for the lesson from the Vampire Handbook, Bri. ”
She gave me a Boy Scout salute, with a little wink. Sometimes Brigit confounded me. I wasn’t sure if she was as dopey as she seemed, or if it was all an artful ruse to make people underestimate her. If it was the latter, she was a genius and would eventually unseat me within the Tribunal.
“Is there really a Vampire Handbook?” she asked.
And then there were moments where I wondered if she only wore ballet flats because shoelaces proved to be too tricky for her. Brigit Stewart—vampire, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a brown paper bag. She was something else, all right.
Keaty, the last one through the door, stopped when the others had gone ahead down the hall. “Are you really…?” He had trouble making the words come out, but there was a sheen of emotion in his eyes that clawed at my heart. “Is it true?”
I nodded weakly. “It seems to be. ”
With a quickness that w
as alarming for a middle-aged human male, Keaty wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me in for a tight hug. He smelled like tobacco—the flowers, not cigarettes—and faintly of a menthol shaving cream. It felt good to be close enough to him to remember what his particular scent was. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed the sensory aspects of those around me until I was confronted with them. Everyone I knew had a specific smell, and without my heightened senses, I was at a loss to pick up on those scents anymore.
I was so shocked by the outward display of affection from Keaty I almost forgot to return his hug. When I did, it was a stiff pat on the back. Since I’d moved in with him at the age of sixteen, he’d never once shown any kind of physical warmth towards me. I believed Keaty loved me in whatever way a sociopath was capable of, and I knew I was as close to a family as he would ever get, but to have him embrace me openly…
It scared me.
It meant my humanity mattered to him. But more, it meant my being a monster was what had kept him at a distance for all these years. I had long considered Keaty to be the closest thing I would have in my life to a father. Now I knew he’d held me at arm’s length because…because what?
I hadn’t been human.
I’d been a monster to him.
My heart broke, and even the awkward kindness of his gesture could do nothing to repair the damage.
Chapter Forty-Six