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The perturbed look on Logan’s face said she didn’t appreciate the layman’s terms. “I guess that makes sense,” she quipped. She switched the position of her legs, her sparkling eyes fixed on Vouclade. “So, how long has it been since you’ve seen the sun?” She arched an inquisitive brow, lips slightly pursed. “Do you miss it?”
Vouclade didn’t even flinch at the personal question. “Far longer than it’s been since Kerestyan last saw the sun,” he offered plainly, “but not nearly as long as it’s been since our Father last gazed upon it. And no, under no circumstances do I miss it. I revel in my undead state. ” He leaned forward as if he meant to stare through her. “So tell me, Logan, how is it you became homeless?”
Logan fought the urge to smile. She wasn’t sure which was worse: Vouclade’s challenging stare, which she was more than willing to accept; or the way Kerestyan’s eyes kept lingering on her lips.
You could accept those, too. She pushed the traitorous voice aside and focused on Vouclade’s question. “After my mom died, my father became a verbally abusive alcoholic. By the time I turned fifteen; I’d had enough of his mouth and figured I’d be better off on my own. I don’t have a diploma. I don’t have a license or social security card, and,” she couldn’t hold the smile any longer, “I don’t have any legally marketable skills. ”
“Where did you stay at the beginning of your independence?”
“With friends. ”
“Their parents didn’t ask questions?”
She took a moment to laugh. “The kind of friends I had didn’t have parents. I fell in with a bad crowd right after I turned thirteen. Most of them were already over eighteen. ”
He gave her a sharp, disapproving look, which wasn’t difficult due to his hawkish features. “Are they the ones who assisted you in becoming addicted to heroin?”
She arched a brow. Was he trying to bait her? Hopefully he wouldn’t be too disappointed to learn she didn’t give a rat’s ass what he thought of her. “Did they introduce me to drugs? Yes. Did they get me addicted? No. I did that all on my own. ”
He didn’t visibly react, he simply fired again. “So you take complete responsibility for where you’re currently at in your life?”
She nodded. If there was one thing she could say, she’d always taken responsibility for the consequences of her actions, good or bad. Although, the number of the second far outweighed the first. “Yes. ”
“Do you blame your mother for your situation?”
Every muscle in her body tensed at once. Her mother’s death may have precipitated the change in her father, but she’d never thought to blame her for it. “Why would I blame her? She didn’t ask to have her insides eaten by cancer. What happened between me and my father didn’t really have anything to do with her. ”
“Do you blame your father for your situation?”
She relaxed. Her father was a topic she felt absolutely no remorse when discussing. “No. ”
“You don’t believe if he hadn’t been an alcoholic and forced you to leave your home, things might have turned out differently for you?”
“He didn’t force me to leave. I could’ve stayed, but I made my choice. And if you took me back to that moment, even knowing then what I know now, I’d still make the same choice. Living anywhere would have been preferable to staying with him. ”
Vouclade reached up and adjusted his glasses. “What about the situation you’re in at this moment? You’re being held captive by an Ancient vampire, The Lord of New York. How do you feel about that?”
She slid her gaze over Kerestyan and grinned when he shifted in his chair. Apparently, and without proper notice, a much earlier time in her life had just crashed into her present, because now she did see his handsome face and incredible blue eyes.
She wouldn’t deny he was easy to look at when she’d first met him. But now…right now she couldn’t help but wonder if some invisible, gossamer-winged creature had shot her in the ass with a horny dart.
She smiled at the thought. Hell, if vampires were real, she supposed anything was possible.
She squirmed as Kerestyan’s eyes moved over her lips then down across her neck, an appraisal that made her nipples tighten and pucker again.
Damn it! The man needed to stop looking at her like that.
The insistent sound of Vouclade clearing his throat drew Logan’s attention back to his question. “How do I feel?” She smiled at him. “It could be a lot worse. ”
“Are you sure?” Vouclade asked.
She nodded again. One possibility immediately came to mind. “I could be stuck with Odin. ”
A chuckle rumbled in Kerestyan’s muscular chest. “I agree. ”
“Me, too,” Vouclade added. He adjusted one of the many silver buckles on his bondage-style, black leather shirt. “He takes quite a bit of patience. ”
She wouldn’t argue with that. “I bet he does. But to honestly answer your question,” she motioned towards the covered windows, “it was snowing when I looked outside earlier, which means the temperature’s either below or hovering around freezing. It was raining last night, which also means in about six hours all that water is going to ice over. The building I usually stay in leaks and the wind cuts through the walls. Most of the shelters around here know I’m a lifer and usually don’t let me in for anything more than a quick meal. ”
She cast a slow glance over the spotless kitchen before returning to Vouclade. “It’s warm in here, there’s food that’s probably never been in a trashcan, and Kerestyan gave me a bed with clean sheets. You may see me as just another homeless person, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. For now, my life could be a lot worse. ”
Vouclade unfolded his hands and leaned back in his chair. “You have no intention of running?”
Logan laughed out loud this time. Truthfully, she’d considered it. But after looking out her window and realizing she was roughly eighty stories above the street, she couldn’t come up with an escape route that didn’t end with her splattering the sidewalk in an array of blood and brain matter.
Being viewed as a Nouveau piece of artwork by the population of downtown Manhattan wasn’t exactly her first choice of how to spend her final moments.
She eyed Vouclade when he tapped an impatient thumb against the table. “Why? So Kerestyan can hunt me down? No thanks. Besides, I’ve accepted I don’t have a choice right now. Trust me. I spent a good two hours thinking about how to escape this morning. No matter what I came up with, it all led to something unpleasant or right back to him. ”
Vouclade tipped his head back slightly and stared at her. “And if he chooses to kill you when all is said and done?”
Logan rolled her eyes. What the hell kind of question was that? “Then I suppose he does. There’s not much I can do about it. He’s bigger than me, stronger than me, and although he comes off all polite and gentlemanly like a politician, he’s probably just as mean and ruthless when he doesn’t get what he wants. ”
It took everything she had not to laugh when Kerestyan immediately stiffened and his eyes narrowed to thin slits. “I take offense to that. I’m not a child. I don’t throw a temper induced fit when denied whatever I set my sights on. ”
She waved a hand at him. “Take all the offense you want. Don’t forget, I’ve seen vampires in action. I’ve watched them get all pissed and freak out when someone does something they don’t like. They get this look in their eyes, this glazed no-one’s-home kind of stare. And I’ve seen it more than once, on one’s from completely different walks of life. So I’m guessing it’s a shared trait. Am I wrong?”
Kerestyan’s mouth opened, but it was Vouclade’s voice she heard. “No, you’re not wrong. Actually, that’s a very astute observation. Granted, Kerestyan is far older than any of the whelps you’ve come across and it would take much more provocation to elicit that response from him, but he too is susceptible to ‘freaking out’ as you called it. ”
She stretched out her arms and folded them behind her head. “I may not be afraid to die, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and try to get myself killed. ” She stared between the both of them. “I may be a lot of things, but I’m not suicidal. ”
“You aren’t bothered by being forced to stay here?” Vouclade asked, now watching her with a different kind of intensity. “Having your freedom taken away?”
“Am I absolutely tickled to be here?” She shrugged a shoulder. “Not really. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be introduced to vampires. I didn’t necessarily want to know there are people,” she cocked her head, “do you call yourselves people?”
For the first time since the interrogation began, Vouclade’s mouth relaxed into a smile. “You can call us whatever you like. We were all human once. Some were far longer ago than others, but we were all human in the beginning. ”