Page 70 of Don't Bite the Botanist
He was headed back to Seacliff.
“Hey, Mom,” he said eight hours later when he reached the Seacliff cemetery, just a short walk from the Oregon Coast.
He settled down behind her tombstone, stretching his legs out in front of him as he leaned back against it.
“Sorry, I haven’t been to see you in a while. I want to say I have a good excuse, but I really don’t. I honestly could have taken a few days off work at any point.” He picked at the dirt under his nails that he wouldn’t have even been able to see yesterday. “The truth is I didn’t know what to say. All you ever wanted for me was to be happy, and… I think I let you down, Mom. I thought helping people would make me happy. I thought curing the disease that took your life would make me happy. I thought…”
He sighed and sank down farther, letting his head thump back against the cold stone.
“I thought a lot of things that turned out to be wrong. It’s been thirteen years since you died, and I’m still so angry. So mad at the world.” He paused. “I think you would be disappointed in me. In who I’ve become.”
He ran his tongue over the tiny bumps in his gums where his new fangs would emerge from their hiding place. After their wild sex-a-thon, Tressa had shown him how to feed from a blood bag, so he wasn’t exactly hungry at the moment. Still, they seemed to respond to his gentle prodding, the tiny curved daggers sliding free of their sheaths.
After analyzing them for a moment, he willed the fangs to retreat. When they did, he let his mind drift back to memories of his mother. Times when he’d snuck out of his bed, crept through the shadows of the garden, and peered into the shed where he would watch her chant late into the night. He didn’t believe in magic then. He thought she was just practicing her religion. Now he was starting to wonder if it had been more.
If vampires were real, there was no telling what all existed in the world.
“Or maybe you wouldn’t be disappointed. Maybe you would think it was cool. You were always the most accepting and open-minded person I ever met. You’d probably be the first one to buy a ‘my son is a vampire’ bumper sticker.”
He chuckled at the idea, but it didn’t lift his spirits for more than a second.
“I think I made the right choice in becoming a vampire. I just think I probably made it for the wrong reason. I’ve been so obsessed with getting revenge for Jake that I didn’t think it through. Hell, I haven’t thought anything through lately.”
Images of Tressa filled his head. Her smile. Her laugh. Her strength.
And the broken way she’d looked at him when he left.
“I wish you could have met Tressa. I think you would have really liked her. She’s funny. So damned funny. Not to mention more than a little sassy. And her heart is incredible. There’s so much pain and darkness in her eyes, but she’s kept it all out of her heart. I wish I knew how she did it. How she has spent hundreds of years witnessing such horrific things, yet she still manages to see the beauty in life.”
He banged his head harder against the stone but barely felt it.
“I think I fucked up, Mom. I’ve been focused on all the wrong things. And now… Now I don’t know what to do.”
He stared up at the night sky, taking in the nuances to the celestial tapestry that he’d never been able to see before. The Oregon Coast always had a spectacular view of the stars, but now mere words felt completely inadequate to describe the beauty, the sheer magnitude of the universe staring back at him. It made him feel so small and his problems so very unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
Unable to bear the weight of the universe’s judgment, he closed his eyes and let the once faint sounds of nature wash over him. The ocean was almost a mile away, yet the waves seemed to crash against the other side of the road. When the evening winds flowed through the tree branches, the leaves chittered and buzzed like a hoard of locusts. Dozens of unseen nocturnal animals snuffled and scuffled as they emerged from their burrows to hunt or forage. Somewhere along the beach, a bonfire crackled merrily, and he picked up the hiss of a beer being opened as clearly as if the drinker sat next to him. And a gentle blush filled his cheeks when he realized he could hear the euphoric sighs of a couple making love in a cottage just down the road.
The stars made him feel disconnected, but the world at his feet reminded him the opposite was true.
It was a gift, this life that Tressa had given him. The ability to see the hidden wonders of nature. Beauty wasn’t only reserved for his flowers. It was everywhere. In everything.
He’d been so wrong to think vampires were innately evil. To have all this at their fingertips and feel only hatred and rage? He couldn’t fathom it. He understood what Tressa meant about most vampires being different from the rogues. Those ones that couldn’t see the beauty… they were the anomaly.
Maybe it was that comforting realization, or maybe it was knowing he was as close to his mom as he could get, but for the first time, there was not a trace of anger in Ethan’s heart. No rage. No pressing needto fix an unfair world or take revenge on a monster. There was only… peace.
Closing his eyes once more, he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter thirty-seven
Tressa
“He stopped moving,” Baylin announced, and Tressa nearly fell on her face as she lurched out of the chair she’d been half draped over.
For hours, she’d done nothing but stare at the ceiling and hold back the river of tears that would drown her if she cracked that dam even an inch. The anguish of her mate leaving had all but dropped her like a rock, and there wasn’t a single thing she could do to distract herself from the pain. That look on Ethan’s face before he left was firmly locked inside her mind, forcing her to revisit that moment over and over, refusing to allow her a second of peace.
No, peace was not in the cards for her. Not after how badly she’d fucked up, and not when her mate was dragging her heart alongside the freeway as he raced farther and farther away from her.
“You’re sure it’s not a pitstop?” she asked, trying not to get her hopes up again. They’d been tracking the McLaren ever since Ethan drove it out of the compound at a speed that would make even Saiden sweat. It had killed her, letting him leave instead of locking down the gates to keep him inside.
