And in contrast to the way he’d been, now he had a future and a life he wanted to defend. Protect. Fucking enjoy.
He’d like being happy with the female he’d fallen in love with.
He wanted his life to be his own.
Getting to his feet, he knew where he was going to start—and he was frustrated that, on the night of the murder, he hadn’t fought harder against the accusations. He should have been angrier at her brother. He should have hit back at the male and taken control of the situation.
“Nadya,” came a voice from down below. “Lucan has a question about his drain?”
“Coming.” His female gave him a tense smile. “You know where I’ll be. Take care of yourself out there—”
“Nadya.” He caught her hand. “I don’t regret what happened today. Not at all. And I want to be with you again.”
Her expression eased a little. “Really?”
“I swear. I’m doing this so I can lay the past to rest. So we can be together, if you’ll have me.”
His female took a deep breath as if she were trying to believe him. “Good. Because that’s what I want, too.”
Leaning in, he kissed her. “You take care of your patient.”
“I will.”
Kane watched her disappear down the stairs, and then he double-checked his gun, made sure the safety was off, and stepped out of the garage. Looking up at the sky, he saw that there was no moon tonight. Clouds had rolled in.
Funny, that he still knew where Caldwell was.
Closing his eyes, he sent himself off in a southerly direction, and he intended to go to Cordelhia’s brother’s estate. Instead, he went to where he had once lived for a year and some months, re-forming off to one side of the trail he’d taken his horses on, the one that came at the manor house from the rear.
The landscape had changed some, but the gardens had been largely kept as they’d been. And the mansion… was exactly as he remembered. Beautifully appointed, carefully tended, a place of elegance and standards.
He had expected that, in two hundred years, things would have been altered more; but in many ways, it was all so utterly preserved.
His boots started walking of their own volition, and as he approached from the rear, he thought of that last birthday party he had enjoyed. It had seemed so perfect.
Everything had seemed so perfect.
Off in the distance, a dog barked, and he could hear a rushing of cars. There was a road close by now, one on which the vehicles were permitted to travel at high velocity.
Lights were on behind the old-fashioned bubbled glass, and he hada thought that the draperies were not the same. Did vampires even live in it? Or had the estate found its way out of her brother’s hands and into human ownership?
He stopped and glanced around.
The stables were gone, the whole of that structure removed and replaced with a body of water the color of an aquamarine and a matching little house that appeared to service the huge basin. He remembered his favorite horse and worried about what had happened to the stallion. As the thoroughbred had been of high quality, it was likely that he had been treated very well, but who knew?
There were no cars that he could see—
A figure passed by one of the windows on the first floor.
Even though his ultimate destination was elsewhere, he had to see who was living in his house. Not that it had been his for the right reason, not because he had purchased it with his money or his efforts, but rather because he had entered the mating rituals of the aristocracy.
And ended up with a female who had endured him.
Instead of one who wanted him.
He thought of what Apex had said, that he’d thought he knew what love and attraction were, until he’d met Callum.
Kane knew exactly what the male meant—