She had been out of time long before he’d ever met her.

There were a lot of things about his life he would change. Meeting her was not one of them, however, even with all the pain that had come.

At the end of it all, when he’d been sitting beside her and holding her hand, he could remember thinking that he would have traded places with her in a heartbeat. He had always wanted to be the one to suffer instead of her, and after she was gone? He’d realized his wish had been granted. Her agony was over—either because the bullshit Fade actually existed or because she was just plain dead.

And his was permanent.

So he’d gotten what he’d prayed for.

Rubbing his eyes, he tried to pull out of the suck zone. He failed. He always failed. He didn’t know why he bothered to fight it, other than the fact that each time he went back to that moment in his life, in hers, it hurt every bit as much as when it had happened.

He could picture the exam room like he was standing in it, the table in the center, the stainless steel shelves, the chair he’d been given. After the medical folks had turned the monitors off, he’d asked his queen if it was time, if she was ready to go, if she needed help. She had blinked twice at all of it. Yes. Still, he’d had to ask her again, just to make sure. It was the kind of thing he needed to get right. When he was sure of what she wanted, Dr. Manello had done the duty with the syringes, giving her the drugs that would ease her as death came and claimed her. Trez didn’t understand then, and couldn’t fathom now, what it was like to have all your mental faculties intact, but be locked into your body, unable to move, unable to communicate, unable to do anything but wait as your breathing and your heart rate slowed… and then stopped. The terrifying thing was that Selena’s version of paralysis had not been like that of a quadriplegic, where the person felt nothing. With the Arrest, bastard disease that it was, all her nerves had functioned properly and continually. She felt everything, all the pain, all the suffocation, all the repercussions of the organ failures.

Before things had gotten acute, they had talked about what she wanted. His queen had said when it was time, she wanted help. She wanted the drugs that would bring the end a little faster and easier. He had made sure she had received them.

And then he had held her hand as his brother had held his, and he had repeated, over and over again, “I love you forever.”

Over and over and over again.

He had known the instant her soul had left its broken corporeal host. He still had no clue how he’d known, but he’d felt it in his gut. And quick on her essence’s departure had come unto him a crippling, shattering pain, the likes of which he had never felt before.

Selena had come to visit him once since then. Or at least his brain had coughed up a pretty damn good illusion of her, one that had basically told him everything he would have wanted to hear from her after her death. And he supposed he had gotten a measure of temporary peace from that. But it wasn’t the same as having her back. Nothing was the same.

And she hadn’t come again unto him. Which was how he had lost his faith in the afterlife.

Surely, if she were somewhere in the universe, and she could come see him once, she would do it again. His shellan wouldn’t have deserted him in his suffering. No way.

So there had to be nothing of her left.

Staring at the snow-covered windshield of his BMW and being able to see nothing on the other side made him think of Therese. He had had no real reason to go to the restaurant tonight. He had no reason to try to see that female, ever—especially now that she had drawn such a firm line about getting out of that rooming house. He needed to leave her well enough alone.

Physical similarities amplified by grief did not a relationship make.

And besides, his grief was like the snow on this car. Blinding him to what was all around, rendering him cold and sightless as to the truths he was living in. He was just starting this journey of grief, the death still so fresh, and there were no easy exit ramps off the highway he was on. From what Mary had told him, he just needed to proceed with the belief and understanding that it does get, if not better, per se, then at least more easily tolerated.

Not that he found “more easily tolerated” something to look forward to.

He didn’t find anything to look forward to.

And seeking out that waitress did not count as optimism. It was a compulsion that bordered on being psychotic.

He needed to cut that shit out.

* * *

Back at Sal’s, Therese crossed the main dining room with a pitcher in one hand and a damask napkin in the other. As she approached the male vampire who was sitting by himself in front of the hearth, he looked up, and she nearly tripped on the carpet.

Which was what you might expect when someone saw a unicorn. Out in the wild. About to have dinner at a four-top by himself.

The male was so unusually handsome that her eyes had trouble processing the full sight of his facial features. His coloring. His incredibly big body. He had blond hair that was thick and seemed natural, not colored. His cheekbones were high and hard, balanced by the blunt cut of his chin. And she refused to even look at his lips, her peripheral vision providing her with enough of an idea of what they were like that she felt as if, were she to get a full view of them, it would be akin to staring at a naked ass that was spectacular.

“Hi, my name is Therese.” As her voice squeaked, she cleared her throat. “I’ll be your server tonight.”

She leaned over his table, put the folded napkin on the rim of his water glass, and tipped the pitcher so that a deluge of ice and water went tumbling in. The manager, Enzo, required that all servers do the napkin trick, and at first, she’d thought it was incredibly pretentious. A couple of pours in, however, and she was grateful for the splatter shield.

“Are we waiting for others to join you?” she said as she straightened. “Perhaps a cocktail for you to pass the time—”

Therese froze and stopped talking. Her one customer of the night was staring at her with wide eyes, like someone had slapped his incredible face with a cold fish.

She glanced over her shoulder in case the good-looks police were coming to take back some of his handsome as a violation of the natural order. Or maybe it was a demogorgon from Stranger Things. Nope, no one was behind her. Maybe there was something wrong with her uniform? She looked down at herself to make sure everything was in proper place still, not that any kind of untucked could explain the expression of shock he was showing.

Refocusing on her customer, she held her pitcher closer to her body. “Is there something wrong?”

The male shook himself. Looked away. Looked back. Continued to stare.

Okay, so this guy might be a good tipper, she thought, but he was going to make her earn the extra money just being around the weirdness—

“I’m sorry,” the male said in what was, of course, a gorgeously rich and deep voice. “You just—you remind me of someone I know.”

“Oh?”

There was no reason to get braced for some kind of pickup line. For one, he was too extraordinary to need them. She was quite certain he could sneeze and women and females would come running just on the outside chance that he needed a tissue. For another, going by what he looked like, you could roll every supermodel from Dovima to Gigi Hadid into a single, incandescent vision of femininity, and a guy like him would probably only muster a casual hi-how’re-ya. ad been out of time long before he’d ever met her.

There were a lot of things about his life he would change. Meeting her was not one of them, however, even with all the pain that had come.

At the end of it all, when he’d been sitting beside her and holding her hand, he could remember thinking that he would have traded places with her in a heartbeat. He had always wanted to be the one to suffer instead of her, and after she was gone? He’d realized his wish had been granted. Her agony was over—either because the bullshit Fade actually existed or because she was just plain dead.

And his was permanent.

So he’d gotten what he’d prayed for.

Rubbing his eyes, he tried to pull out of the suck zone. He failed. He always failed. He didn’t know why he bothered to fight it, other than the fact that each time he went back to that moment in his life, in hers, it hurt every bit as much as when it had happened.

He could picture the exam room like he was standing in it, the table in the center, the stainless steel shelves, the chair he’d been given. After the medical folks had turned the monitors off, he’d asked his queen if it was time, if she was ready to go, if she needed help. She had blinked twice at all of it. Yes. Still, he’d had to ask her again, just to make sure. It was the kind of thing he needed to get right. When he was sure of what she wanted, Dr. Manello had done the duty with the syringes, giving her the drugs that would ease her as death came and claimed her. Trez didn’t understand then, and couldn’t fathom now, what it was like to have all your mental faculties intact, but be locked into your body, unable to move, unable to communicate, unable to do anything but wait as your breathing and your heart rate slowed… and then stopped. The terrifying thing was that Selena’s version of paralysis had not been like that of a quadriplegic, where the person felt nothing. With the Arrest, bastard disease that it was, all her nerves had functioned properly and continually. She felt everything, all the pain, all the suffocation, all the repercussions of the organ failures.

Before things had gotten acute, they had talked about what she wanted. His queen had said when it was time, she wanted help. She wanted the drugs that would bring the end a little faster and easier. He had made sure she had received them.

And then he had held her hand as his brother had held his, and he had repeated, over and over again, “I love you forever.”

Over and over and over again.

He had known the instant her soul had left its broken corporeal host. He still had no clue how he’d known, but he’d felt it in his gut. And quick on her essence’s departure had come unto him a crippling, shattering pain, the likes of which he had never felt before.

Selena had come to visit him once since then. Or at least his brain had coughed up a pretty damn good illusion of her, one that had basically told him everything he would have wanted to hear from her after her death. And he supposed he had gotten a measure of temporary peace from that. But it wasn’t the same as having her back. Nothing was the same.

And she hadn’t come again unto him. Which was how he had lost his faith in the afterlife.

Surely, if she were somewhere in the universe, and she could come see him once, she would do it again. His shellan wouldn’t have deserted him in his suffering. No way.

So there had to be nothing of her left.

Staring at the snow-covered windshield of his BMW and being able to see nothing on the other side made him think of Therese. He had had no real reason to go to the restaurant tonight. He had no reason to try to see that female, ever—especially now that she had drawn such a firm line about getting out of that rooming house. He needed to leave her well enough alone.

Physical similarities amplified by grief did not a relationship make.

And besides, his grief was like the snow on this car. Blinding him to what was all around, rendering him cold and sightless as to the truths he was living in. He was just starting this journey of grief, the death still so fresh, and there were no easy exit ramps off the highway he was on. From what Mary had told him, he just needed to proceed with the belief and understanding that it does get, if not better, per se, then at least more easily tolerated.

Not that he found “more easily tolerated” something to look forward to.

He didn’t find anything to look forward to.

And seeking out that waitress did not count as optimism. It was a compulsion that bordered on being psychotic.

He needed to cut that shit out.

* * *

Back at Sal’s, Therese crossed the main dining room with a pitcher in one hand and a damask napkin in the other. As she approached the male vampire who was sitting by himself in front of the hearth, he looked up, and she nearly tripped on the carpet.

Which was what you might expect when someone saw a unicorn. Out in the wild. About to have dinner at a four-top by himself.

The male was so unusually handsome that her eyes had trouble processing the full sight of his facial features. His coloring. His incredibly big body. He had blond hair that was thick and seemed natural, not colored. His cheekbones were high and hard, balanced by the blunt cut of his chin. And she refused to even look at his lips, her peripheral vision providing her with enough of an idea of what they were like that she felt as if, were she to get a full view of them, it would be akin to staring at a naked ass that was spectacular.

“Hi, my name is Therese.” As her voice squeaked, she cleared her throat. “I’ll be your server tonight.”

She leaned over his table, put the folded napkin on the rim of his water glass, and tipped the pitcher so that a deluge of ice and water went tumbling in. The manager, Enzo, required that all servers do the napkin trick, and at first, she’d thought it was incredibly pretentious. A couple of pours in, however, and she was grateful for the splatter shield.

“Are we waiting for others to join you?” she said as she straightened. “Perhaps a cocktail for you to pass the time—”

Therese froze and stopped talking. Her one customer of the night was staring at her with wide eyes, like someone had slapped his incredible face with a cold fish.

She glanced over her shoulder in case the good-looks police were coming to take back some of his handsome as a violation of the natural order. Or maybe it was a demogorgon from Stranger Things. Nope, no one was behind her. Maybe there was something wrong with her uniform? She looked down at herself to make sure everything was in proper place still, not that any kind of untucked could explain the expression of shock he was showing.

Refocusing on her customer, she held her pitcher closer to her body. “Is there something wrong?”

The male shook himself. Looked away. Looked back. Continued to stare.

Okay, so this guy might be a good tipper, she thought, but he was going to make her earn the extra money just being around the weirdness—

“I’m sorry,” the male said in what was, of course, a gorgeously rich and deep voice. “You just—you remind me of someone I know.”

“Oh?”

There was no reason to get braced for some kind of pickup line. For one, he was too extraordinary to need them. She was quite certain he could sneeze and women and females would come running just on the outside chance that he needed a tissue. For another, going by what he looked like, you could roll every supermodel from Dovima to Gigi Hadid into a single, incandescent vision of femininity, and a guy like him would probably only muster a casual hi-how’re-ya.