The prisoner continued to strain against his bonds, but in vain. Emboldened, she took a few steps in his direction, leaning heavily on her cane. “You probably don’t remember me. I was Jane.”
The prisoner rattled his chains, ignoring her.
“I was Jane, but I’m not anymore. I’m someone else. Someone you can’t touch. How does it feel to be powerless?” She lifted her cane to point at his leg. “How does it feel to be crippled?”
He made eye contact with her and anger rose in her chest. “Why don’t you ask me how it feels? How it felt to be a little girl trying to fight off a grown man. How it felt to be in the hospital with a broken leg. Why don’t you ask me?”
She slammed her cane on the floor, the sound echoing in the room. “Ask me!”
The man stopped his struggling and glanced at William, who was standing behind her.
“Why don’t you ask me what it felt like to walk in on you with my sister? She was only five!”
Raven lifted her cane and swung it with all her might, striking his injured leg.
The prisoner howled behind his gag.
Raven’s shoulders shook. “What about the other children? What about the girls in California? Why don’t you ask me about them? When you abuse a child, it can’t be undone. The child will never be the same. My sister will never be the same.
“There’s nothing I could do to you that would ever give us justice. Nothing will give us our lives back. Nothing will erase what happened.” She leaned closer. “I could kill you.” She gritted her teeth. “But I’m not a monster.”
The man began to struggle once again, his eyes avoiding hers. William moved as if to intervene, but Raven caught his sleeve. Her green eyes fixed on the eyes of her stepfather. “I’m not going to kill you.”
All at once, the man stilled and he returned her stare.
“This isn’t mercy. I don’t forgive you. I’d hope you rot in hell but I don’t believe there is such a place. I choose to live a life that will let me sleep at night. While you have to live whatever life you have left knowing the girl you threw down the stairs protected you so she wouldn’t become a monster like you. That’s how much I hate you, you sick fucker. That’s how monstrous you are.”
Her body shook with anger. “I hope you live a long, miserable life with the rest of the monsters before you get there. I hope you rot!”
Raven spat in his face before turning her back on him. She limped slowly toward the door, leaning on her cane.
“Send him to California so they can put him on trial. Make sure they know about all the children he abused. Make sure I never see him again.”
William took hold of her hand, halting her. His eyes searched hers.
“He should have to face the children he abused and their families,” she said. “They need their own closure. I’m not going to steal that from them.”
Raven opened the door and walked through it.
Chapter Fourteen
It was after midnight when Raven awoke in William’s bed. The room was dark save for a pale light that shone from the gardens. Through the doors that opened onto the balcony, she could see William, sitting outside. He was holding a book.
Raven pulled the sheet around her naked body and padded out to him, not bothering with her cane.
“What are you reading?”
He looked up at her and smiled. His reaction was so spontaneous, so happy, it took her breath away.
He showed her the book. “The Art of War by Sun Tzu.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Are things that bad in the principality?”
He tugged her hand, pulling her into his lap, and set the book aside. “Don’t worry about it.” His lips found hers in the semidarkness.
“It’s too dark to read.” She rested her head on his shoulder.
“Not for me.”
“Is that what you do while I’m asleep? You read?”
“Not usually.” His fingers sifted through her hair.
“What do you do all night?”
“The night is our day. Usually I’m concerned with affairs of state. The evenings are when we feed, socialize, fornicate.” His voice grew rough.
“That’s an awfully old-fashioned word for what we do.”
“What we do together is more than that, assuredly. If you were to witness how my kind usually engage in intercourse, you’d note the difference.”
Raven’s stomach soured. “No, thank you.”
“You are a puzzle I cannot solve.”
At the change in his tone, Raven lifted her head. William was watching her with eager, searching eyes. He pushed her hair back from her face, as if it were obscuring his vision.
“I was worried you’d react to your stepfather the same way you did the first night. I was mistaken.”
“I don’t have an explanation for that.”
“Perhaps even though you couldn’t remember the incident, part of your mind remembered it. Maybe that made it less shocking.”
“It was still shocking. I felt like I was twelve years old again.” She leaned forward. “But you were there. And I knew you would never let him hurt me.”
He touched the apple of her cheek with his finger. “You didn’t need me. You were brave and fierce on your own. I have seen a great many things during the centuries I’ve been alive. I’ve met a great many people. None have resisted my understanding the way you have.”
“I’m hardly a mystery. I’m just an average girl from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.”
“You let him go.”
Raven’s body stiffened. She turned away, looking out over the extensive gardens that bordered the villa, and at the lights that shone dimly over them.
“I didn’t let him go. We sent him to the police.”
“Human justice is flawed.”
“Is vampyre justice better?” Her eyes sought his, challenging him.
“Vampyres know little enough about justice. They know vengeance and revenge, instead.”
“Then kill him. Bring him to me and kill him now.”
William moved so quickly he was almost a blur. He placed her in his chair and stood before her. “Finally,” he said, turning toward the door.
“And when he’s dead and we’re standing over his corpse, what will we have accomplished?”
He faced her. “He would be dead and his soul would be in hell.”
“I don’t believe in an afterlife. So he’s dead. Then what?”
William peered down at her. “Your life continues, content in the knowledge he paid for his sins and will trouble you no more.”
“My life didn’t end because of him. That idea grants him too much power.”
William’s gaze fell to her injured leg, which was peeking out from under the bedsheet.
“He deserves to pay.”
“Yes, he does. Can a dead man heal my leg? Can a corpse erase my memories or end my nightmares?”
William clenched his jaw so tightly Raven almost heard the bones creak. “I should think you would achieve satisfaction from his suffering. And yes, I think your nightmares would end.”
“Only to be replaced by different ones—nightmares in which I’m forced to look at a man whose death I caused.” Raven stood on unsteady feet, clutching the sheet to her chest. “He stole from me. What he stole I can’t get back, even if I kill him.”
“That’s rubbish,” William exclaimed. “He stole from you. You steal his life from him. Since what you steal is greater, you win.”