Crimson Death by Laurell K. Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

with Damian once, and I didn’t want to do it again, so I said the words. “He said, ‘Perhaps the reason they can walk out with you in the sun is not you sharing power with them’”—and Damian joined his voice to mine, so we finished the speech together—“‘but that they have gained power of their own, to sun-walk.’”
    We looked at each other. “I really wish we didn’t keep sharing the worst of each other’s memories, Anita.”
    â€œYeah, why can’t either of us remember puppies and rainbows when we go all vampire and master?”
    â€œI never owned a puppy,” he said.
    â€œI did.”
    â€œOh right, the dog died when you were thirteen or fourteen, and then the dog rose from the dead and came home to crawl into bed with you.”
    â€œOkay, maybe not puppies, maybe just rainbows,” I said.
    â€œSharing good memories would be better, but you’re the master here, not me, so your wishes dictate the nature of our relationship.”
    â€œAre you saying if I can’t find my happy thoughts, then none of us can?”
    â€œWhen we share memories, apparently so.”
    â€œI’ll talk to my therapist about trying for more cheerful memories.”
    â€œIs it helping? The therapist, I mean.”
    I thought about it, then nodded. “I think it is.”
    â€œWhat made you decide to finally see a full-fledged therapist? I know you were getting some informal counseling from the witch that works with the werewolf pack in Tennessee.”
    He was right. I’d been doing a little therapy while I was learning to control my metaphysical abilities with my magical mentor, Marianne. I was still seeing her from time to time. Nathaniel and Micah had both gone with me, because I wasn’t the only one who needed to ask someone more knowledgeable about “magic,” but real hard-core therapy wasn’t Marianne’s job.
    â€œOh, I don’t know: my mother’s death when I was eight; my father’s remarriage to a woman who had problems with me being half Mexican and ruining her blond, blue-eyed family picture.”
    â€œWhich means you don’t want to tell me, because you give almost no emotion to any of that,” he said, looking at me very directly out of those greenest of green eyes. They really were the purest green eyes I’d ever seen in a human face. Hell, I’d only seen a few domestic cats with eyes that green. He swore they’d been the same color when he’d been alive.
    â€œWhen I go too long without talking directly to you, I forget how impossibly green your eyes are.”
    â€œWhich means you really don’t want to tell me why you started therapy.”
    â€œWhat, I can’t compliment you?”
    â€œFirst, I’m not sure that was a compliment. Second, you almost never compliment me, so yes, it’s a distraction technique for you, though your best distraction is what you started with: trot out your tragic family history and most people would leave you alone about it.”
    I gave him an unfriendly look. “If you know I don’t want to tell you, then why are you still pushing on it?”
    â€œMaybe I’m thinking that if I understood why you went, I might go, too.”
    â€œIs that why you wanted to meet? To talk about going to therapy?” I didn’t try to keep the surprise off my face.
    â€œNo, but it’s not a bad idea.”
    â€œNo, it’s not. I think most people could use a little good therapy.”
    He nodded, but more because he thought he should than because he meant it, as if he was already thinking about something else.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Damian? You asked for this meeting days before I knew I needed to ask you about Ireland.”
    â€œI’m having nightmares.”
    â€œVampires don’t have nightmares,” I said.
    â€œI know.”
    He blinked those impossibly green eyes at me, then tucked a