Read Online Dalton, Tymber - Brimstone Blues [Brimstone Vampires 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) by Tymber Dalton - Free Book Online Page A

more minutes?”
    He nodded. “Take anything you want, sweetheart. I’m sure he would have approved.” He left her alone and she put the books on the bed, looking for more. She wanted to know Rafe, not through Matthias’ thoughts, but to discover him on her own. She’d only spent a few hours with him.
    She tried not to think about what she did to him before he died, because even though she knew he enjoyed it, her guilt and pain still felt too fresh and sharp. But she’d loved him and he shouldn’t just fade into memory. Not that he could, the way she felt.
    Walking to his closet, she spied a denim jacket hanging over the door. She took it and pressed it to her face, inhaling deeply—
    There he was, in full color, standing before her on the boardwalk at Midway Geyser Basin when they first met, kissing near Old Faithful, their dinner, and later that night when she went to him…
    Her tears flowed. She didn’t try to hold them back. She clutched Rafe’s jacket and rocked herself, the guilt returning. This was her fault. If she hadn’t distracted him, if her powers hadn’t taken her over and made her act like a spoiled brat, he wouldn’t have fallen under Caroline’s control and been murdered. It didn’t matter what Matthias said. She was to blame. Negligent homicide, if nothing else. Call it what she would, Rafe would still be alive if it wasn’t for what she did.
    A shirt lay on the closet floor, and she picked it up. It also held his scent. She pictured his playful, sad eyes, heard his voice. She imagined the ring on her right hand grew warmer, and she frantically stroked it with her thumb. Now she knew its secret. It was a comfort, a distraction, a way to take the edge off of the emotional tension.
    She found several more books, a box of old journals, and some jewelry. In his bathroom she rummaged through his medicine cabinet, found the type of deodorant he used, the shampoo, even his shaving cream. Closing her eyes, she imagined their embrace, their boardwalk kiss, and Rafe was there in her mind as he’d been in life.
    I ’m sorry, she thought. I ’m so sorry, Rafe.
    “I t’s okay.”
    Her eyes darted to the bedroom door. She heard Matthias in the kitchen, well over twenty feet away. Plus she had a mental barrier keeping him out of her mind for now.
    The phantom voice?
    It didn’t return.

    * * * *

    When Taz returned to the living room, she noticed Matthias had taken all the pictures from the shelf and stacked them and some photo albums on the table.
    “What about the rest?”
    “Albert will take care of it. Things that don’t need to be kept, he’ll make sure they go to a charity. He’ll ship personal items home to Florida so I can sort them.”
    “There wasn’t anything we could have done for Rafe?”
    “I’m sorry, Taz. He’d been…gone for too long. I barely managed to save you, and I was right there when you were shot.”
    She still held Rafe’s jacket and shirt like security blankets. “I just keep thinking if we’d been able to get to him—”
    “Taz,” Matthias said, his tone firm but not unkind, “quit torturing yourself. We aren’t miracle workers. There are parents with children who need blood transfusions, and they don’t have the right blood type. Forget the movies, forget the books and TV shows. This is real life. We aren’t gods. We may be vampires, but we aren’t superbeings. We hurt, we bleed, we die, just like everyone else.” She noticed how he walked on eggshells around her when discussing the events at Yellowstone.
    “No, not just like everyone else,” she whispered.
    “Mostly like everyone else. We age, we get old. Look at people who aren’t like us. Two people can be the same age and one looks twenty years younger than the other based on genetics and how they lived their life. There’s nothing supernatural about that. Albert and Tim are both younger than I am, and they look older than me, looked older than Rafe.”
    “What’s this door?”
    “Garage.