I wasn’t sure how we’d moved into this area of conversation without any warning. “Whatever Declan and I are to each other isn’t exactly important right now.”
“You care about him.”
“Of course I do.”
“Even though he’s a dhampyr.” He made the word sound more like an accusation than an observation.
I looked at the dhampyr in question. He had his eyebrow slightly raised, his gaze on me, as if waiting for my reply. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Declan.”
Not the most romantic of declarations, sure. But it was still true.
Dr. Reynolds pursed his lips. “I met my wife four years ago after I’d decided to accept my confirmed bachelor status. My days were spent with test tubes and chemical formulas. Parachemistry, para-science, it’s an obsession for me. Always has been. But Clara . . . she made me see that there was more to life.” His voice caught. Lawrence moved toward him and squeezed his shoulder.
I swallowed hard. Seeing other people in pain affected me. “She sounds like she was an amazing woman. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“So am I.”
“You said a dhampyr killed her.”
“Yes.” His jaw tightened.
I shivered. “I—I haven’t seen too many monster dhampyrs, but the ones I have seen have been scary as hell. It must have been horrible for you, but I’m sure there was nothing you could have done to save her.”
He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “You’re wrong.”
I was confused. I looked at Lawrence, whose gray eyes flicked to me.
“It wasn’t a monster dhampyr,” he said.
I was surprised. “It wasn’t?”
“Lawrence . . .” Dr. Reynolds began.
Lawrence hissed out a breath. “It’s time you faced this once and for all, as we discussed. Maybe then you can finally move on.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“You lost Clara two years ago. It’s only been six months for me.”
“It’s different.”
I watched them warily. Declan stood like a statue beside me, his hands clasped behind his back like a soldier at ease.
“No, it’s so similar I’m surprised you can’t see it.” Lawrence wrung his hands and looked at me. “My wife is human—a human married to a vampire. Victor’s wife—she was a vampire.”
My mouth fell open. “A vampire?”
Reynolds put his glasses back on. His face was still. It looked as if he’d managed to put a lid on his grief for the moment. “She was already a vampire when I met her. It was difficult for her sometimes to control her hungers, but she maintained herself with class and dignity. Right up until she was murdered.”
“Murdered by a dhampyr,” I said.
“Yes.” Dr. Reynolds’s expression had rapidly turned from raw emotion to absolute ice. “The very dhampyr who stands with us in this room.”
Shock slammed into me by the cold, blunt statement. My gaze shot to Declan. He watched Dr. Reynolds carefully, no outward reaction showing at this accusation.
“You’re saying that I killed your wife,” he said.
“Yes.” The word was a hiss.
I felt the tension in the room rise to a sickening level. I waited for Declan to deny it, to say it was impossible that he’d killed Dr. Reynolds’s wife.
But he didn’t.
Declan didn’t move from where he stood, his expression didn’t change, but his gaze grew more intense. Dr. Reynolds had gotten his full attention. “I don’t kill innocents. I don’t creep up behind them and slit their throats. I face them. They know who I am and why I’m there. That’s when they usually attack.”
The low-level hate I’d sensed previously from Dr. Reynolds now spilled over. I’d assumed he hated dhampyrs in general. I had no idea it was specifically focused on Declan. “I watched from the shadows when you staked her. Yes, she was defending herself. Of course she was. What other choice did she have?”
“To explain who she was. To deal with me on an intelligent level. If she’d done that, I might have given her the benefit of the doubt. I’m sent out after rogue vampires who cause damage and death, not loving wives of scientists. If I slayed her, it means that she was dangerous.”
“You can justify it any way you want to. It doesn’t change what happened.”
Declan hissed a breath out between his clenched teeth. “Jill, we’re out of here. This isn’t a man who wants to help you. Not today anyway.”
He was right. Dr. Reynolds didn’t seem focused on the Nightshade anymore. While what he’d said was chilling and it turned my stomach, I also believed Declan. If he’d killed Clara, he’d done so because she was a serious threat.
I took his hand and he pulled me toward the door. Lawrence stepped back so he wouldn’t come within smelling distance of me.
“You’re not even willing to apologize to me for murdering my wife?” Dr. Reynolds said softly.
Declan froze and looked over his shoulder. He let go of my hand. “You yourself admit that your wife was a vampire. One who found it difficult not to give in to her hungers.”
“And I feel her loss like a hole in my heart every day.”
Declan faltered, just a little. If I hadn’t been watching for it, I would never have seen it. A microscopic sliver of doubt slid behind his gaze, and his forehead furrowed. “To my knowledge, I’ve never killed a vampire that didn’t deserve it. It’s a war out there, one we need to protect humans from. Bad shit happens every day. But if I was the cause of your wife’s death and she didn’t truly deserve it, then yeah, I’m sorry as hell for that.”
Dr. Reynolds stared at him for so long I wasn’t sure if he’d ever speak again. A scattering of emotion played on his face—grief, sadness, doubt, pain.
I knew Declan’s life was one filled with violence. His emotion-repressing serum was actually a bonus in that respect. It kept that part of him, the part deep inside that went past the scars, past the damage, relatively pure and untouched. For all the killing he’d done, that he’d have to do in the future, it hadn’t broken him. For all the horror he’d had to face in his life, Declan’s heart wasn’t dark.