The Purest of the Breed (The Community) (30 page)

“But…but, I didn’t mean…” he said brokenly, his voice fraying apart. “Hell, I didn’t want her to
leave
.” A black void opened up inside him and gulped down his organs, lungs, kidneys, heart. Good God, what had he done? “I blew it.” Turning, he planted his elbow on top of the wet bar and pressed a fist to his forehead. “I blew it so bad.” He shook his head, the skin on his brow pinching against his fist. “Marissa was finishing out her year in Ţărână. I would’ve had nine more months to try and win her over. But I didn’t woo her like I should have. No. I was too focused on my own hurt feelings.”

What woman wants to spend the rest of her life with a man who only thinks of himself
.

A baseball lump in his throat mutated into a beach ball. “Jaċken tried to tell me, you know, ‘don’t always look at your own self-involved version of a situation, Nichita,’ and my mom handed me my ass on the issue…Luvera, too. But I wouldn’t listen to anyone. I mean, why should I? I’m
Dev
, right? I’m never wrong. Well, someone finally did try to tell me I was wrong, and I threw a fucking tizzy and drove her away.”

Grigore
always let you run wild and now look what’s become of it
.

Dev tilted his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. For the first time in his life, he was less than thrilled with his father. He couldn’t recall his dad ever telling him he was wrong, or even having Dev make restitution for a mistake.
Why couldn’t you have made me into a better man
? To his shock, tears stung his eyes, and he blinked hard to hold back
that
torrent of embarrassment. “Um…would you mind if I spent some time alone now, Tonĩ?”

Tonĩ gave him a small nod. “Let me know if you need anything.”

When the door shut, Dev reclaimed the Château Cuvier III and headed toward his entertainment center, his knees going snap-crackle-pop as he sagged down into one of the armchairs. He hunched over, hugging the wine bottle to his chest.

You received exactly what you deserved from that woman
.

He let the truth of those words stab through every pore in his body, refusing to fight back the pain gutting him. Because it
was
what he deserved.

The usual defensive rebellion rose up, and he locked his teeth against it. Nothing like slipping back into old territory and immediately blaming his shortcomings on his dad for spoiling him or even on his mother for not caring enough.
Wait, here’s an idea
. Maybe for once he could get his act together and take a hard look at himself.

Otherwise, dying a lonely old man was definitely in his future.

Chapter Thirty

Seemed like an eternity since they’d all done a cocktail thing in the mansion’s fancy-ass garden parlor, rather than only four months ago at that introductory-thingy, but now that Dev was standing in the middle of this room full of memories, eternity didn’t seem like long enough ago. He swore he could still catch traces of Marissa’s scent in here, and the memory of her looking like such a mega-biscuit in that slinky black cocktail dress was clear as day. Not that he knew what the hell day looked like, right? He took a hard swig of champagne.

Fucking champagne. It tasked like bubble-infused detox piss, and would forever be associated with his mother serving up his life to him on a Fuck-U Platter, but he’d choke it down anyway. This bonding reception for Gábor and Chelsea
was
a celebration.

The happy couple was standing next to a four-foot-tall white cake. Gábor was carving out a chunk from the top with what looked like a warrior blade, Chelsea watching him make a hack job out of it, laughing, a saucer glass of champagne in her hand.

Arc and Beth moved forward to congratulate the two, Arc careful to keep his body angled toward Gábor and away from Chelsea. A full seven days had passed since Gábor had bonded with his new wife, so his cells should’ve been solidly settled into The Change by now and the man chilled out. Still, considering how volatile Gábor had been the first seven days, Dev didn’t blame Arc for playing it safe in order to keep all facial parts in their proper place.

Thomal came over to stand next to Dev. He watched the two for a moment, then made a disagreeable noise in the back of his throat. “Chelsea has more than one glass of champagne, and I’m outta here.”

Dev snorted.

Together, they watched Chelsea daintily feed Gábor a piece of cake.

The rest of the crowd ooh’d and aah’d.

Gábor drawled something, and the spectators burst into laughter. Everyone was just jolly as pigs in poop.

Thomal shook his head. “Never in a million years would I have guessed that guy would bond before me.” He slugged back a large mouthful of champagne. “Or you.”

Dev glanced slantways at Thomal. His friend sure as hell sounded grumpy for a guy who still had his woman around. Yeah, as it turned out, Hadley had decided to stay in the community and work on her relationship with Thomal. She still wasn’t sure if the Vârcolac life was for her, but she was crazy enough about Thomal to at least put some effort into finding out.

“Wake up on the wrong side of the hangover this morning?” Dev inquired blithely.

Thomal gulped his champagne. “I’m just sick and damned tired of everyone thinking I’m some nicey-nice, mellow dude because of the way I look.” Another gulp. “I’m not that guy.”

“Who the hell would think that? Certainly nobody who’s been in the gym with you.”

“Hadley.” Thomal’s mouth clenched tight. “I don’t exactly excel at tip-toeing around people on eggshells or however the hell you say that. And the way Hadley is about my fangs…” Thomal trailed off on a curse.

Hadley was going through something called “systematic desensitization” with Karrell, the community therapist, to get over her needle phobia, but it was slow going and Thomal was understandably frustrated.

“She’ll come around, Costache. Don’t sweat it.”

Thomal drew a deep breath, then exhaled it in a hard rush. “I know. I’m being a dick. It’s just that…hell, if I don’t get some shaboink soon, my tonsil tickler is going to fucking fall off.”

“Nice, man,” Dev returned in a dry tone. “It’s a mystery to me what Hadley sees in you, truly.”

“Um, well…” He felt Thomal’s sideways glance. “I guess you’re the last guy I should be bitching to about relationship troubles, anyway. Sorry.”

Dev stared down into his glass, watching golden champagne bubbles rise steadily to the surface of his drink. Everyone was sorry for him these days: his sister, his friends, his warrior buddies. Dev felt pretty damned sorry for himself, too. He couldn’t even muster anger anymore. Just a constant aching acknowledgement of how badly he’d screwed up his life. A thousand times a day he fantasized about chasing down Marissa topside…but for what? To unload all of his regrets on her while she was dealing with a gravely ill mother. That would fall under the category of “only thinking about himself”—as would pleading with her to come back to him, part two of his fantasy—and he was beyond ready to set aside that little character trait. If he’d been any other guy, he could’ve begged her to let him live topside with her while she fulfilled her dreams. But he was a sun-allergic Vârcolac, so that idea was a non-starter.

Which left him with memories of Marissa, three months’ worth of dating bliss he hoarded desperately close to his heart, and her scent, banking around inside his head like a lone pinball, destined never to settle into its proper slot. How he was supposed to survive that, he hadn’t exactly worked out in his—

“Something’s going down,” Thomal said tersely.

Dev looked up and saw what Thomal meant.

A grim-looking Tonĩ had just re-entered the garden parlor, after having been called away from the party by her new assistant, Donree—a Stânga Town girl, of all things. Yeah, both Alex and Tonĩ Parthen were turning Vârcolac culture on its ass.

Tonĩ drew up right in front of Dev, wearing the same expression she’d worn a week ago when she’d shown up on his bedroom doorstep

He stiffened, cold sliding against his spine like an ice cube tossed down the back of his shirt.

“I have some bad news about Marissa.”

He felt a muscle jerk in his cheek. A scorching knot formed in the middle of his chest. Oh, he was mustering anger now. His next question threaded past rage-tightened lips, although he already knew the answer. “Om Rău?”

Chapter Thirty-one

Dark shapes surged around Marissa, voices murmuring, low and incoherent. Strangers, so many strangers, except for one familiar stare, drilling into her with such hatred. Tears blurred Marissa’s vision, her mind silently calling out,
I want to go home
; a little girl’s innate desire just to be safe. But she didn’t even know where home was anymore. She swallowed tautly over that thought, battening down her emotions, so many that they threatened to spin out of control at the slightest moment of inattention.

Her tears retreated down her throat and slid into her chest, landing in that balled mass of feelings where she’d been keeping all of her stress this past week; the despair over caring for her sick mother, that bone-aching emptiness from leaving Dev, and the usual frustration and sorrow that came from her sister treating her with nothing but outright loathing…and during a time when they should’ve set aside their differences. Whatever those differences might be.

Marissa pulled a tissue from the sleeve of her dress and wiped her nose. Her hand looked a bit bony. Evidence that she’d lost weight over the last week, the inevitable result of rarely leaving a hospital bedside. Someone moved behind her, and she automatically stiffened. Anxiety was her constant companion these days. Her nightmares had even returned, those vivid, terrifying images of the night Mürk and Tëer had kidnapped her, what she’d witnessed Videön doing to poor Kendra. And now to top off one of the worst weeks of her life, she was
here
. Another nightmare. The biggest.

She flinched when a hand lightly patted her back, but then forced a smile for Dr. Livingstone, the oncologist who’d treated her mother. She needed to be more—

Shock tore the smile from her mouth.

There, standing in the kitchen doorway of her mother’s house was…was-was-was… She pressed a hand to her chest.

Dev ducked through the doorway and came toward her, dressed in a black suit, charcoal dress shirt, and a black-on-black tie. Lines marred his brow, pain etching his face. Pain for her.
Oh. God
. A single tear made it past her defenses, seeping to the border of her bottom lid and catching in her lashes.

He’d
come
. She’d never thought to see him again, but now, when she needed him most, he was here.

He came to a stop right in front of her, towering over her, as usual. The furrows in his brow lengthened, and his voice was a deep bass-note of sympathy. “I’m so sorry to hear about your mother passing, Marissa.”

Her body jerked. She muffled a cry. He was really here…

Behind him, Tonĩ and Jaċken entered through the kitchen door, too, Arc and Beth, all four of them dressed in dark clothes.

Her next few breaths stuttered out of her. She’d been living in a black hole for so many days now. Mother dead, father dead, a sister who hated her. No family. So alone. But now they were here, Tonĩ and Jaċken, Arc and Beth. And Dev. Not a one was probably supposed to be topside for something like a funeral wake, but they
had
come, to give her their love and support.

Marissa clawed a hand into the front of her dress, tears swelling from the deepest part of her, weird sounds coming out of her mouth, a
buh-buh-buh
of oncoming hysteria. “I-I’m going to lose it, Dev.” Muscles tore open in her chest and purged the balled mass of emotion.

“Oh, shit.” Dev leapt forward and hauled her against him, encircling her in a tight embrace, his strong arms providing, just as from the beginning, the only safe place in the world for her.

The floodgates opened. She pressed her face into the deep muscles of his chest, fisted her hands around the lapels of his blazer, and wept.
Hard
. Her knees wobbled, her ribs squeezed painfully, one sob after another lurching out of her body.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Dev murmured, stroking her hair.

She was probably scaring the bejabbers out of him, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She was a total mess.

“It’s going to be all right, Riss.”

She nodded her head against his chest, finally managing to quiet her sobs, then pulled back in his arms, just far enough to peer up at him. She reached up and lightly touched the rough velvet of his goatee. “I’ve missed you so much, Dev.”

He cupped her face, trying to wipe away her tears with his thumbs, but they just kept coming. “Me, too.” A muscle in his jaw shivered.

She hugged him again, then finally, reluctantly, stepped back to let the rest of her friends pass on their condolences. She embraced each one of them, even Jaċken whose arms were surprisingly gentle.

“Thank you so much for coming.” She wiped at her cheeks with the tissue she was still holding. “Please, everyone…help yourselves to some food and drink.”

As her friends moved off to mingle, she took Dev around to some of the other guests, her arm locked securely through his. Lord, the middle of his shirt had a huge wet spot on it from her tears. She halfheartedly introduced him to Natalie, who eyed Dev with feline speculation, no doubt strategizing how to seduce
yet another
of Marissa’s boyfriends. Marissa had never loved Dev more than when he met the interest of a gorgeous woman—Natalie was definitely that—with nothing but cool politeness.