The Lair (47 page)

To avoid that conversation, I say, “He could make it.”

Carter doesn’t ask who I mean. We both know that there’s a good chance Sebastian is still alive.

As pissed as I am, as completely furious, as tired as I am of his endless manipulation and lies, I am strangely torn. When I stabbed him through the heart, I wanted him dead. I wanted it with every cell of my body. With my human heart and my vampire soul. I wanted him dead. Completely destroyed.

And yet . . .

And yet, some part of me misses him already. He had been a vicious teacher. He’d been brutal and hard and had never once let up on me. I had hated him for it. And loved it, too. All my life I’d been coddled. I’d been taken care of. Sebastian was the only person, ever, who had treated me like I was capable of taking care of myself. Of just functioning. And he’d done it even before he’d changed me into a vampire. As much as I wanted him dead, as much as I wanted to hate him, how could I?

Maybe he was dead. Maybe I would never see him again. But maybe he wasn’t and maybe I would.

“If he is alive,” I said aloud, “he’s going to be pissed.” Oddly, I think he’d be most angry that we killed Roberto ourselves, rather than that I’d stabbed him. “He’s not the kind of man to let us walk away. He’ll come after us.”

Carter’s eyes didn’t flicker away from the road. His hand tightened slightly on the steering wheel. “Let him come. We’ll be ready.”