He tilted his head at her, then stood on his hind legs to put his paws on the top of the tombstone beside her. She looked down at him, gave him a curious half smile, and then slid her hand into the fur at the top of his head, beginning to stroke his cheeks, his ears. Damien’s eyes slipped to half-mast as he purred throatily. Touch was the best comfort he could give her… and he rather enjoyed giving it. There were times he wished his feline form wasn’t so big. At present, he could see the benefits of being lap-sized.

“Don’t feel like being human tonight?” she asked. “Careful. I might decide to like you better this way. Kitten.”

In the blink of an eye, he was a man again, and her fingers slid though hair instead of fur. For once, he didn’t mind having it mussed. This time her smile was genuine. The sight did strange things to him. It made him feel obnoxiously good.

He realized he hadn’t stopped purring. He also knew better at this point than to even try to make it stop.

“Ah,” she said. “I thought that would do it.”

He stood, and with a surprising lack of protest from Ariane, he gathered her, wings and all, into his arms. Her small form was light, insubstantial, and he sank to the ground to arrange her in his lap. For being in such an unfamiliar position, Damien found the arrangement surprisingly comfortable. It felt right, to have her here. Especially when she slid her arms around him and tucked her head into his chest.

Damien said nothing, only stroked her hair and rested his cheek on top of her head. As much as he’d always dreaded even the thought of having to give comfort, with Ariane, it was no effort. And inside himself, he felt something he had thought withered and dead stir to life. This was more than wanting her, more than needing her. Damien felt himself teetering on a precipice he had never even gotten near in his long life, and wondered at it even as he tried to back away from the edge.

“He’s upset you,” Damien said quietly.

“Sam is my sire,” she said, her voice slightly muffled against his shirt.

“Ah,” he replied. “That… actually explains a lot.”

She lifted her head to look at him, and he felt that odd pain in his heart again as he got another look at her face, and the eyes that still shone with unshed tears.

“Were you close to your sire?” she asked.

“Um. No,” Damien said slowly. “I killed him, actually.”

She studied him a moment, and then, to his amazement, her mouth twitched. “Oh.”

“It wasn’t as though he was a great loss to society or anything,” Damien said. “He was the sort of vamp who gets us called gutterbloods. And I… I… oh, hell with it, it’s not like I killed him for the greater good or anything. You’re actually amused by this?”

She continued to surprise him. Every time he thought that Ariane couldn’t possibly continue to want him after some new revelation, she simply accepted it and moved along. As though she was willing to take the bad, of which there was plenty, along with the good. There being any good at all still surprised him, but she brought out things in him he’d forgotten he possessed. Empathy, for one. Honor, for another.

The scraps of these things appeared to be enough for her.

It made him wonder whether those long-forgotten qualities might emerge further the longer he stayed near her. Whether the empty spaces inside himself might shrink—or even vanish—if he filled them with her.

Mad thoughts, but perhaps not as mad as he had considered them when he’d first begun having them… shortly after they’d first met.

“I’m not amused, really,” Ariane said, her eyes never leaving his face. “Sometimes I think you must stab everything that bothers you. Which is funny in theory, at least. And then sometimes I think that’s sad. I told you once I was trying to understand you, remember?”

He arched an eyebrow. “No luck, I suppose. Though I did tell you I’m shallow. There isn’t much to understand.”

She shook her head, searching his face. “I think we both know that isn’t true. Why did you kill your sire?”

He blew out a breath, looking out over the rolling grounds dotted with stones. “I was angry. For a very long time. I had everything before I was turned, you know. Son of an earl. Youngest son, so no title for me, but I was making the most of my time before Father finally bought me a commission in the army and got rid of me for good. I had money, fine things, women…”

“So you were happy,” Ariane said. “Happy as a mortal.”

“No. Not at all, actually. I was miserable, and a royal shit besides.” It was the first time he’d ever admitted that to another living soul, and he waited for Ariane to shut down on him, to recoil from the sort of man he was, had always been. But she simply watched him, her arms around him.

“Why?” It was her only question, and a fair one.

“I… haven’t really examined that in great depth,” he replied, fighting the urge to squirm. “Not much on navel-gazing. If I had to guess, it’s probably got something to do with being left to my own rather depraved devices for my entire life. Mother died when I was very young. I don’t remember her. Father was disinterested; my brothers were older and busy with other things. Didn’t ever keep the same governess long as father liked to, shall we say, sample the help and was easily bored.” He shrugged. “So there you have it. It’s not very interesting.”

He’d never shared any of that, not in an honest way, at least, with anyone but her. He’d never wanted to. And now that it was out, he felt ridiculous, exactly like so many of the moaning, ridiculous lowbloods he’d met lamenting their place in society and blaming it on the fact that Mummy didn’t love them. He knew he’d made his own bed. He’d accepted the consequences of his decisions.

He’d gone so numb that he hadn’t even bothered to regret any of it. What for? It changed nothing. But Ariane, with her innocence and her wonder and her surprising strength, made him wonder, just a bit, if he could have more than what he did. If perhaps he could become… not good, really—that ship had sailed—but better.

Damien chanced a look at her face, wondering if he might finally see disgust, or pity, neither of which he wanted. But there was only interest, and her gentle warmth, which he craved the way he had once craved the light of a sun he would never again see.

“Actually, I think you’re fascinating,” she said.

“Indeed, kitten,” he said, running his thumb down her cheek. “Your inexplicable interest in me is why I keep you around.”

She laughed softly. “Did you feel better? I mean, after you killed your sire?”

He smiled. “No, darling. Why, are you thinking of trying for Sammael’s head? I wouldn’t advise it, fierce though you are.”

“No,” she replied, and her eyes went far off. “Do you know I’m the only vampire he’s ever sired? He saved me, for whatever reason. My entire family was killed in a Norman raid, and he saved me from the men who were trying to rape and kill me.”

Her words hit him like a fist, a sucker punch in the gut followed by a wave of shock and fury stronger than anything he’d felt in a long time. This beautiful, innocent woman in his arms, brutalized that way… his woman… even the idea of it had him shaking with rage.

It was only her voice that brought him back to the present.

“Damien? Are you all right?”

“No,” he said. “I hope he tore them to pieces. Did he at least do that?”

Her lashes lowered. “I believe… they ran. And I was in bad shape. I did kill one of them while he was… he was trying to…”

Damien pulled her to him in a fierce embrace, holding her tightly against him, and pressed his lips to her head. “Good Lord. I would have destroyed them, Ariane. I would have inflicted the sort of pain on them that stains the energy in a place forever. I’m so sorry, darling. I’m so sorry that happened.” His anger quickly refocused on Sammael. “What, did he tell you all that just now? You came all this way, nearly got yourself killed for him, and he decided that’s what he wanted to talk about?”

She hesitated. “No. Not exactly. He had a lot of things he wanted to talk about. Once he told me he’d sired me, I asked where I’d come from, and he gave me the memories back.”

Damien frowned, wondering if he’d heard her wrong. “Gave them back?”

He felt her shake her head against him. “Don’t ask. I don’t know how he did it. Sam said he’d taken them when I was sired… or maybe just locked them up somewhere in my head. I’m not sure. Maybe forgetting was better, for a long time. I had a hard enough time adjusting. Now, though… I’m glad to finally remember. My family’s faces, their voices. They didn’t have much, but they were good people. I was loved. It’s worth remembering.”

“Yes,” Damien agreed. “I suppose some things are.”

“He told me… he thinks of me as his child.” Her laugh was soft, wondering. “He was trying to protect me by leaving the way he did. And all this time I worried that he was only feeling sorry for me. Poor, pathetic Ariane, who was only allowed to live so she could be an example of why Grigori must be chosen very, very carefully.”

He felt a stab of jealousy, though he knew he had no right to it. But he’d gotten rather used to being the only man in her life. Before this, Sammael had just been some faceless concept. Now, he was a flesh- and-blood man vying for her attention. He didn’t like to share. Even with father figures.

Of course, at least she’d be in good hands once he left her… if he left her…

Which he was no longer quite sure how to do.

Flustered by his train of thought, Damien muttered, “Well, I know quite a lot about being a disappointment, Ariane. You aren’t one. The Grigori have their heads up their asses, obviously, and good riddance to them.”

She drew back to smile at him, and he let the simple pleasure of it sink in, soothe him. Funny how she did that, manage to make him feel better when he hadn’t even known he needed to feel better.