Page 82 of Don't Bite the Botanist
“I have to,” he said, brushing a bit of sand off her cheek. “I’m sorry, Sunflower, but I won’t let you die for me.”
Renata relaxed her grip just a fraction, and slowly turned her head to look at the love of Tressa’s undead life. “Yes, Ethan? You have something to say?”
He nodded.
“Let them go. You can have me.”
Chapter forty-four
Ethan
“You can have me.”
The words rang in his ears, surprising even himself with how sure he sounded. How confident. He loved Tressa. There was no doubt about it. And he refused to let her die for him. Refused to let herfamilydie for him.
He could finally save someone he cared about.
“Nobody else needs to get hurt,” he told Renata. “There’s been enough pain. It needs to stop.”
She eyed him warily, as if she didn’t expect him to actually cooperate. “That is true,” she said before tossing Tressa to the ground beside the others and holding out her hand. “It is a shame that your intelligence is to be your downfall, but what you have created cannot exist. And your death is the only way to guarantee it will never be duplicated.”
When he didn’t immediately take her hand, she grabbed his arm and jerked him closer to her. He couldn’t help but cringe at the proximity as her scent filled his nostrils. It was cloying, and he felt like he might choke on her rotten, perfumy smell. It had been faintwhen she first sank her fangs into him months ago, but this time it was overwhelming, and he fought the urge to gag. He wanted his last scent to be that of Tressa’s. Wanted his last sight to be her beautiful chestnut brown eyes. Instead, it seemed like he would leave the world being forced to endure flashbacks of Jake’s death.
It bothered him, the fact that he still had no idea why his heart medication could be such a risk to vampires. He’d hoped Baylin could figure it out once he shared the information with him, but they hadn’t had time for that. There hadn’t been time for a lot of things he wanted to do before dying.
He chuckled sadly to himself, wondering if he won the award for shortest stint as a vampire ever. If he had to give up eternity, though, he was glad it was for Tressa. Nobody deserved to live more than his Sunflower.
But Renata was naïve if she thought killing him would actually solve anything for long.
“It won’t end, you know,” he told her, resisting the urge to spit in her face as he stared into the hollow voids that were her eyes. “Someday, another scientist will come up with the same theory I did. You can destroy me. You can destroy my research. You can destroy every computer and every lab that had anything to do with it. But you can’t destroy human curiosity. Eventually, someone will discover the same thing I did.”
“Perhaps,” she said as she dragged the rough piece of driftwood over the scar on his neck, tearing it open just enough to send a small stream of blood dribbling down his chest. “And that is why I will remain ever vigilant. That is the purpose that has been given to me. After five hundred years,shehas offered me a reason to continue this unending existence. So long as humans keep stumbling across things they don’t understand, I will be here. Watching in the shadows. Cleaning up themess.”
She sniffed his neck, then licked up a tiny bit of his blood. “You really do taste delicious, even now that you’ve been turned. I can barely smell anything but vanilla and bubblegum when you and Tressa are around. And that brain of yours? So much potential. I can see why she fell for you. I truly am sorry about this, Ethan.”
When she slid the driftwood down his chest to rest above his heart, he squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for the end.
“Wait!” Tressa screamed, and he cracked one eye open to see her at his side, her hand gripping Renata’s wrist. “Can I just say goodbye? Please?” she begged, the sorrow in her tone causing more damage to his heart than any stake ever could.
Renata glanced back and forth between them before the tension in her face went slack. “Fine,” she conceded, some of the edge in her voice fading. “You may say your farewell.”
“Can you let him go?” his mate pleaded softly, her gaze fixed on Renata. “Just so I can kiss him one last time. It would mean everything to me.”
Renata’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second, and then she sighed. “You do know there is nothing that can be done to save him, right? If you are attempting a… What do the humans call it? A Hail Mary?” She shuddered. “It will do you no good. And I might be less inclined to make his demise quick and painless.”
Tressa shook her head, placing her other hand over the one tightly wrapped around the stake. “I promise. It’s not that. Just one last kiss.”
Remembering his mate’s Gift, Ethan watched as Renata succumbed, and a small, sad smile curled up the corner of her mouth. “How could I deny you such a simple request?”
She released her hold on Ethan and stepped back, gesturing for Tressa to go ahead.
“Oh, and one more thing, Loloma,” Renata said, halting them as they reached for each other. “While I enjoy having the rough edges of my anger soothed as much as the next person, if you try to use your ability on me again, I’ll tear your pretty head from your shoulders. Family or no.”
Tressa gulped, nodded, then turned back to Ethan. She wrapped her arms around his waist and locked her eyes on his. “I know why you’re doing this, Ethan,” she said in a quiet voice even though every vampire on the beach could clearly hear their exchange. “And I think your mom would be proud of you. I think your mom’sfriendswould be proud of you too.”
The pointed look she gave him carried more than just the weight of goodbye, and he searched her face, struggling to understand what message she was trying to convey. He turned the words over in his head, parsing them for any clue.
Friends.
