All Just Glass - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [66]
Now Adia. He had seen the look of disgust on her face. If he lost her, too …
Olivia held him silently until the sobbing ceased; then she stood and quietly poured the now-boiling water for the tea she had promised.
He leaned over the cup, inhaling the steam, unable to meet Olivia’s gaze.
“Better?” she asked.
“Probably never.”
She sighed again. “Why do you do this to yourself?”
“I owe it to my family,” he replied. Had always replied. They were all he had, after all. “After Dominique took me in—”
“Dominique.” Olivia snickered, a sound that contrasted with her normally soft, gentle image. “Even the indomitable Vida matriarch isn’t perfect, you know.”
“I know.” He remembered all too well the terrible days after Fredrick had died. “But I have to try, the way she does.”
Olivia kissed his throat, and he let her, even though he knew that if she took his blood, it would probably kill him. He had lost too much to Sarah, too recently. But of course Olivia knew that and knew she had to control herself.
Heather’s words came back to him. He remembered the way her eyes had flashed as she had tried to unsettle them all by describing her life.
Would you like to know what it’s like when one of them takes you? When you’re in their arms and they bare your throat and drink?
I have seen hundreds of humans pass through, willing to die, willing to give up everything, just to experience that bliss. And not just humans. The Vida line isn’t immune, is it?
If only she had known. If she hadn’t scrambled Jay’s mind so much with whatever she had shown him, Zachary’s secret surely would have been revealed right then, because he knew exactly why the bloodbond had stayed with Kaleo all this time. As it was, Jay had picked up on Zachary’s relationship with Olivia, even if he hadn’t gotten the more sordid details.
I have seen hundreds of humans pass through, willing to die, willing to give up everything, just to experience that bliss.
When his cell phone rang, he pulled it out of his pocket and then just stared at it as Adia’s number flashed on the front. He wanted to put it away. Couldn’t they just leave him alone for a night?
He wasn’t ready to talk to her again, to face her. He didn’t think he ever would be ready.
Still, he hit the “talk” button and said, “Hello.”
“Is now a bad time?” she asked.
Now was a bad time, but that wasn’t really what she was asking. She wanted to know if she could talk frankly.
“Now’s fine,” he said. “Adia, I—”
“You are not going to apologize, or say a single freaking word about it right now,” Adia interrupted. “If you need to talk, we’ll talk when the job is done. In the meantime, I need you to pull it together and be at my back. Can you do that?”
He looked up at Olivia and met her steady gaze for several seconds before saying, “I can do that.”
“Good. Then meet me at Michael’s place, as soon as you can get there. We’re ending this thing tonight.”
Michael’s apartment was in New York City. Had he located Sarah or the twins there? Adia obviously believed she knew where their targets would soon be.
“It’ll take me three or four hours to get there.”
“Then we’ll make it by intermission.”
Could it really be over so soon? And when it was done, what then? Adia knew the truth about him. So did Jay. He wouldn’t be able to stay around, but he didn’t know what else to be, or how else to live.
Adia hung up without saying goodbye.
“Where are you headed?” Olivia asked as Zachary put his phone back into his pocket and stood.
He shook his head. She knew he never told her outright where his hunts took him.
“Judging by the time, the people involved, and the mention of intermission, I’m guessing you’re headed to Broadway,” she said.
“Guess whatever you like,” he said. “I have to go.”
“Zimmy, you know I have no power to interfere with Kendra in Manhattan, right?”
He hesitated in the doorway and then shrugged. “I do now.”
He felt calmer when he sat behind the wheel of his car. Adia had