Page 18 of On the Run with His Vampire Mate

I nodded. “With guns. And killer instincts.”

Quinn’s smile returned. “And we’re vampires. They won’t stand a chance. But it’s still your choice.”

“And if I don’t—if I can’t?”

“Then you’ve still got me. I’m not leaving your side.”

“But I thought you weren’t—”

“I can handle it, if that’s what I need to do. Your safety matters more. I’ll go with you, if that’s what it comes down to. Technically, I already am on the run with you.”

I considered it—what I’d be putting him through. And what I’d be putting myself through, by running again. Not to mention everyone else at the bar. If we both just vanished, I’d be hurting them with my choices. They’d be confused at best, left with questions they had no way of answering. And I’d be repeating all of my past mistakes, wouldn’t I?

The ones that still haunted me. I’d have a whole new set of “what-ifs” to keep me awake at night. Only it would be so much worse, because I’d be forcing Quinn to leave his entire support system.

But if I told them, I’d be letting them see me for the first time. I’d have to let them see that I was a coward who ran, who’d vanished and let everyone think the worst. That I wasn’t a good or honest person, after all. That I’d been lying to every last one of them, this whole time.

They might even hate me for it. They’d be in good company. After all, I halfway hated myself for it, didn’t I?

But that was an equation that didn’t balance. Coward or not, I needed to be brave now.

If not for me, then definitely for Quinn.

He sat with me in silence for a long time, letting me process everything without interruption.

I finally raised my gaze to meet his and nodded. “You’re right. I’ll tell them the truth. I’ll ask them for their help.”

Quinn pulled me in for a kiss. His lips were soft and warm against mine. When he pulled back, he said, “You’re doing the right thing.”

I only prayed that he was right.

CHAPTER SIX || QUINN

“Stay there,” Sadie’s said, her voice coming through tinny on my phone’s speaker. It was a half an hour later. Derek had just gotten done explaining the basics of the situation to her—that there were some very bad people after him. He’d also included several details he hadn’t told me the first time around about how things had unfolded immediately before he’d come to meet me at the bar. But he hadn’t told them much about his identity, that he was on the run from the mafia, or any of the rest of it. I assumed he was planning on tackling all of that in person.

In brisk tones, Sadie added, “There’s been a complication here—just before you called—and I suspect it’s related to what you’ve just told me. We will be on our way once it’s handled, one way or another.”

With that, she hung up the phone.

Derek and I traded a look. “I guess I feel sorry for the complication,” he muttered, shaking his head.

He seemed worn thin. And he would need to recount everything in much more detail all over again before the night was through. He’d kept his secrets for so long that it was hard for me to imagine what that must’ve been like to talk about it now. The one plus side to how everything had gone down for me—when Thierry and his mate, Jeremy, had literally kidnapped me and taken me to Seattle while I was still blood-crazed—was that everyone already knew the truth about who I was and what I’d done.

Derek, on the other hand, had gone from keeping a massive secret to suddenly needing to tell everyone around him all about it, over and over again. How hard that must’ve been wasn’t lost on me.

He needed me right now.

I took his hand in mine. “Hey. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Sure. I’m okay,” he said without missing a beat. But then, a moment later, he sighed, shook his head, and raised his gaze to meet mine. His eyes were filled with worry. “No, not really. Maybe I am?” He snorted. “I genuinely have no idea if I’m okay or not right now. Is that stupid?”

“No, that’s kind of fair,” I assured him. “I’m not sure how I’d be feeling either.”

“You really think they’ll help me?”

“Definitely. They all love you, Derek. And I’m pretty sure anyone who gets in Sadie’s way—not to mention Thierry’s—is going to have a really bad night.”

He smiled at that and I returned it.