A Fall of Silver (18 page)

When she glanced up, Kethan was standing in front of an open cupboard, a plate in each hand, studying her.

“What?” She stepped away from the stove, and her cheeks burned with embarrassment as he continued to examine her. He had a real talent for making her feel as self-conscious and awkward as a teenager.

“You just lo
oked famished.”

“
Well, this smells really good.” She looked around, noting two wooden bar stools on the other side of the island. “Can we eat out here?”

He laughed.
“Walking twenty feet into the dining room isn’t going to kill you—” He stopped when she eyed him, a frown creasing her brow. “But we can eat here.”

Grabbing the plates out of his hand, she scooped out a huge helping of fragrant rice before
ladling two lavish spoonfuls of curry onto it.

“There’s the cucumber salad,” he reminded her as she grabbed a fork out of his hand.
“And white wine, if you’re interested.”

The firs
t mouthful, redolent with the complex flavor of curry and sweet-tart green grapes, slid over her tongue, mingling textures and flavors that perfectly blended the savory with the sweet. She breathed through her mouth to create a burst of spicy flavor, savoring the rich perfume of curry before she swallowed. After three more bites, she realized she was still standing and Kethan was still waiting for her to join him. She snagged one of the stools with her foot and sat down as she eased another forkful between her lips. With a sigh, he eased a hip over the other stool and settled to eat next to her.

Barely noticing, she heard the crystalline ting of a wine glass being placed in front of her.
When she glanced up, she noticed he’d also given her a small salad plate full of cucumber and yogurt salad. The curry was almost too good to stop eating, but she forced herself to pause and taste the cucumbers. The burst of cool greenness cleaned her palate instantly. The next bite of curry tasted even more complex. She couldn’t get enough.

“You really were hungry,”
he commented as he lifted his fork. “How does it taste?”

“Oh, God,” she moaned.
“This is fantastic! I mean it. And I watched you—I can make it at home on two burners. God, this is
good
.”

He nodded and
took a bite, although as her hunger diminished, she realized he spent more time watching her than eating. Her foot swung in a jittery movement as she tried to pull her tattered manners around her like a cloak.
Don’t wolf down your food. Be polite and smile.
She was making a fool of herself, but she couldn’t stop eating. Her life had been so Spartan, so intensely disciplined for the last ten years, that the first hint of pleasure overwhelmed her fragile control.

W
hether he intended it or not, this man had discovered a way through her defenses, and it scared the pants off of her.

She
drained her glass of wine and sat back sated, watching him. “So…I’m curious—what made you think I’d stay after all?”

“
Trust.”

She snorted and
shook her head. “You don’t know me that well.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t trust you.” He smiled, and
again she felt an answering tug. “Besides, I only needed a few minutes—enough time to take a shower. After that, if I heard the front door open, I could catch up with you.”

“Yeah, right.”
She laughed, refilling her glass. “I can just imagine you sprinting after me, stark naked.” The suggestive image rose so sharply in her mind that she felt her face flush. Foot jiggling again even faster, she made an elaborate show of emptying the bottle into his glass to divert his attention.

I’m an idiot
, worse than a shrieking, star-struck teenager tearing her blouse off.

“Unnecessary.”
When she dared to look up, he was studying her with an amused expression. “Not to mention, criminal behavior. Public nudity.”

“So
now what do we do?” Heat rose up her neck. She shifted again, both feet knocking the chair. If he really knew her….

“We negotiate.”
He stretched out one long leg and planted it on one of the chair’s rungs, stopping its vibrations.

“Negotiate?
I don’t negotiate.” Although she managed to press her feet together to stop the jiggling, her hand shook when she lifted her glass. Angry at herself, she set it down on the table.
Remember the lessons of the past. Don’t be a fool.
He negotiated with vampires, creatures that tortured and destroyed everything they touched
.

“And why would that be?”
he asked. “Why can’t you negotiate?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t, and I want to understand. Explain it to me.”

“Again?”
She stood up abruptly and carried her empty plates to the sink. Her hands clamped to the stainless steel rim as she stared down at the brushed silver surface and tried to regain a sense of calm.

“Yes.”

Slowly, she rinsed her plates off and slid them into the dishwasher. The activity gave her time to work the edge off the sudden spurt of temper the word “negotiation” had triggered. No matter how hard she tried, she was helpless to stop the immediate, intense reaction triggered by the word.

Trust me
, I’ll help you. You can escape….
Just trust me.
Carol promised to help, only to betray her so they could inflict even more pain. But Quicksilver had been a slow learner and it took several such incidents before she realized she could not trust anything a vampire said, no matter how sincere.

“Negotiation
is just a more civilized way to force someone to accede to your demands.” Her voice throbbed. She cleared her throat. “Someone wins, someone loses. Someone always gives in, or worse, neither one gets what she really wants.” Except the vampires. They always won in the end until the worm had finally turned in desperation and killed them.

“No
w why would you think that?” He sat back, holding the fragile wine glass between his long fingers with a delicate touch as if it were a living thing.

She shrugged
and worked to sound bored although her hands throbbed with remembered agony. “Mom wants chicken for dinner, Dad wants steak. So instead of either one giving in, they have fish which both hate, but at least they have the satisfaction of knowing the other one didn’t win. I’ve seen it a million times.”

“Or they go out to dinner so each one can get what
she or he wants.”

“So
she wants to go to the Italian restaurant. He wants the steak place. They wind up in the drive-through line at Chez Burgers. Negotiating stinks. It’s a lose-lose scenario.”

“Not if you
take the time to discover what each party really needs or wants.”

There it was again. The implication that
anyone could make a deal. If she’d just tried harder, she could have negotiated her freedom. She could have left Carol and Carlos alive and walked away into a world of sunshine, sparkling rainbows, and leprechauns pooping out gold coins. Real life, or death, simply wasn’t that easy.

W
hat if he’s right? A nasty little voice whispered in the back of her mind. What if that nightmare really was my fault? I asked for it and then was too stupid to deal with it.

And what about all the vampires I’ve killed since then?

She shook her head. Vampires were evil, pure and simple. She had to believe she’d done the right thing, that she’d saved lives by her actions. Her only redemption lay in the thought that she protected others from the same terror, and she clung to the thought. She had salvaged something good from her experience and helped others, even if they were unaware of it.

“You can’t negotiate away a fundamental difference
,” she said at last.

“You
can find acceptable compromise.” He sounded so confident. “There are always alternatives.”

“No.
That’s where you’re wrong.” Drying off her trembling hands, she walked back to the island, trying not to show her anger. Why was he so difficult? What couldn’t he understand? There were some situations where there were no alternatives. Only ivory tower academics believed otherwise.

He didn’t try to convince her.

They finished cleaning up the kitchen together without further discussion, the only sounds coming from their feet clacking against the floor and the water swirling down the drain. When the silence grew strained, Kethan began to hum as he worked, appearing relaxed and at ease while she argued silently with herself. Her emotions churned in huge waves, crashing from guilt to anger and back to guilt again in remorseless, roiling tidal waves.

“We should pick up some of your things,” he said at last, starting the dishwasher.

“Why?”

“It’s more comfortable for us to stay here.”

“Comfortable for whom?”

“For both of us.
” He grabbed her hand in a casual grip and walked with her into the living room. “What would convince you to stay here for the next week until my business is concluded?”

She eyed him, noting he had not said
“negotiation” again. Obviously, he’d identified that as a hot button. He was good at reading people; she had to give him that. A grudging curl of respect grew within her. It was a skill she often wished she could develop, but most people remained a mystery to her, unfathomable, complex and most irrational.

“I don’t see the point, so I
don’t think you can convince me,” she said.

“It’s for your safety
and mine.”

“I can take care of myself
.” She looked him up and down. “And frankly, so can you.”

“You’ll be safer here.”

“And what about Father Donatello?”

“What about him?”
He countered with his own question.

“He’s
involved. Why don’t you ask him to stay here, too? Heck, ask the entire neighborhood! If you continue to antagonize Martyn Sutton, he’ll take it out on humans, anyway. Father Donatello, Kathy Sherman, your next door neighbor, you. Have you considered that?”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“How? How can you protect everyone? There’s only one way to guarantee everyone’s safety and you know it, except you’re too stubborn to admit it. You have to kill them or whatever. I mean, they’re already dead, so I guess you can’t kill them. But you can make sure they never hurt anyone else, otherwise, you can’t protect anyone. Kathy and Father Donatello aren’t going to stay here so you can protect them, you know, so I don’t see why I should.”

His eyes hardened, but his voice was still easy
, calm. “Sutton won’t hurt anyone if he feels safe.”

“Right. Like
whoever that head belonged to? The one he threw through the window?”

“There’s no proof he did that.” The harsh undertone in his voice revealed that his monumental calm could be shattered
, however.

She shrugged.
“Okay, you want to make a deal? I promise not to antagonize Martyn anymore. And I’ll keep an eye on Kathy, just so Martyn’s friends aren’t tempted to test the boundaries of your truce. Would that satisfy you?”

“I appreciate your offer
; however, Martyn doesn’t know you. I’m sure he’d feel safer if he knew you were here.”

“Because he doesn’t trust me
. You know Sutton is probably still watching my apartment, waiting for me and I’ll kill him if I see him there.”

“
So you don’t trust him. It’s difficult to trust someone who doesn’t trust you. You have to give trust to gain it.”

“Really?”
Unless you stupidly trusted a vampire.
That was one area in which she was an expert.

“Yes
, and I’m a neutral third party. I’m here to ensure both sides honor the agreement.”

“
But why do I have to give up my freedom?”

“Only for a few days and not entirely. You can do pretty much as you please during the day
, and I’ll try not to get in your way.” A warm smile twinkled in his eyes. “I’ll even cook.”

“I can cook.”
True, her cupboards were full of gourmet items like cans of tuna fish, microwaveable soup, and packs of oriental noodles, but it was fast and sort of nutritious. It didn’t mean she couldn’t cook if she tried. She’d watched him this evening. It didn’t look that hard.

Turn on the heat. Chop up a few things. Throw them into the pan and shove them around with a spoon until they were done.

A child could do it.

“Sure
.” The amused expression on his face implied he suspected she wasn’t as confident about her culinary expertise as she claimed. “But it’s difficult to cook in a strange kitchen.”

“
I wouldn’t know and don’t intend to find out.”

“
Right. You can leave that to me.”