Chapter 9
The fink I married wasn’t entirely off base. No, we
hadn’t really dealt with what had happened. And yes, I sure didn’t
discuss it with anybody—not even him. Not even my best
friend.
That was because I
knew something my husband and friend didn’t: I was a
coward.
I never looked at the
stairs.
I never looked at the
perfectly repaired spokes in the completely repaired
banister.
I never looked at the
tiles Antonia fell on, bled on, died on.
I never used the
front door at all; the last time I had done so Antonia had caught a
bullet in the brain and her lover, Garrett, had caught wooden
spokes in the chest, stomach, and throat.
Never.
So, with all that
never and all that ever, yeah, okay. I never think about it. On
purpose, of course. Unlike some, I’ll cough up: of course I never
think of it on purpose. Who could never think of that by
accident?
So Captain Buzzkill
had a point.
But that didn’t mean
Thanksgiving didn’t blow rocks because it absolutely
did.
“What’s your
point?”
“That your
responsibilities entail facing trouble instead of wishing it
away.”
With a bound I was
off the bed. “Oh, here we go. Responsibilities of royalty.
Leadership. Right. Never mind the fact that your average vampire is
about ninety-eight years old. They
should be leading me. In vampire years,
I’m still a toddler.”
Okay, huge pet peeve
here. I could tell by Sinclair’s expression that he’d heard this
before and was unmoved. And yep, it’s pretty childish to whine
about circumstances I’ll never, ever be able to
change.
But I hated that I was expected to boss people around who
were (a) old enough to take care of themselves, (b) old enough to
know better, and (c) way, way old enough to not need a
micromanaging vampire queen. I quit all that stuff when I got fired
from my last admin job.
But here we were. And
back again: my responsibilities. My, my, I certainly was fulfilling
all my if-I-become-Miss-Vampire-Queen-I’
ll-work-tirelessly-for-world-peace vows. The Antichrist went nuts.
My father died. My stepmother died and started haunting me. The
devil liked to hang around. Garrett killed himself Antonia caught a
bullet with her brain ... three times! My best friend broke up with
the love of her life, who insisted she pick between him and
me.
Oh my, yes.
Everything was aces.
I was at the door by
now, half hoping Sinclair was right behind me. He wasn’t. He was
still sitting on the bed. “I’m sick of discussing
this.”
“How is that
possible,” he asked coolly, “when we never have?”
Ouch! “If I go out
this door,” I threatened, “I’m ...” Well. Never coming back was untrue, and he knew it. But
eventually coming back didn’t have the
ominous ring I was hoping for. “... gonna stay really pissed at
you!”
He
yawned.
I went.