Byzantine Heartbreak (Beloved Bloody Time) by Cooper-Posey Tracy

Author:Cooper-Posey, Tracy [Cooper-Posey, Tracy]
Language: en-us
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Tracy Cooper-Posey
Published: 2012-02-23T05:00:00+00:00

Neither of them screamed aloud this time. Cáel found himself holding back because he simply didn’t know how good Nayara’s hearing was. Vampire hearing was phenomenal and the last thing he wanted was to assault Nayara’s ears with their lovemaking.

He had thought that afterwards, Ryan would return to work, replete and satisfied. But neither of them moved from the bed. Cáel was in no hurry to leave. He could feel the need for more sitting like a coiled, sleeping serpent in his body. It would waken, all too soon.

In the meanwhile, Ryan talked softly into the darkness. Cáel lay quietly listening, until Ryan reached for him and drew his arms around him and Cáel understood Ryan was seeking the comfort of touch. He was talking about his past, never an easy thing. And he was talking about Salathiel, a subject he had never spoken about at all.

So while Ryan sat on the edge of the bed, Cáel pressed up behind him, one arm around his chest, the other around his waist. He rested his chin on Ryan’s shoulder and listened and prompted with questions as Ryan’s words petered out.

“After Salathiel had been made, he was overjoyed to have us back,” Ryan said. “And for a while, it was as if nothing had changed. We moved to northern Italy for a few decades, until Constantinople had settled down and we could adopt new identities. Then we moved back again. Constantinople was home for us and we all wanted to be there, even with the Turks in control. So back we went.”

“Is that when he changed?” Cáel asked.

“That was about ninety years after the fall of the city. Yes, it would have been around then we started to notice it. It was such a gradual change, of course. Salathiel, who had always been so in love with life, started to hate it. He grew bitter as the long empty years of a vampire’s life set in. He became morbid and angry. He blamed us, he blamed his maker. He blamed everyone but himself.” Ryan sighed.

“We consulted with other vampires in the city. They had experience dealing with this decline in others. But nothing we did could shift Salathiel out of his constant anger. Over the centuries it waxed and waned, but neither Nayara nor I, or any of the more senior vampires in the city, or the country, could lift Salathiel’s anger. And it changed him. He sought power, more money, the secret to shifting the world in the hope that he could change it. Change himself. Change his situation.”

“It never occurred to him to simply end things?” Cáel asked.

Ryan shook his head. “He’d always been such a vital man, as a human. Suicide was unthinkable for him, then. As a vampire, it is virtually impossible. The only way to manage it is to have another vampire’s assistance and neither of us would do it. I think, right up until the end, we still hoped he could change.”

Cáel stroked Ryan’s hip. “You’re not such a pessimist as I thought you were.

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