Regrets
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------

by Jean Graham
 
  
The Raven's blaring music pounded in her ears, and the sherry burned a
firepath down her throat. Natalie brooded alone in a darkened corner
booth, not even certain why she'd come here tonight. Maybe some small
part of her had been hoping that Nick would show up. She knew he had
the night off, and she'd taken it off, pleading a migraine. She'd had
one, too. After last night... 

_"I know how she felt, Nat. All of it. Not just the loneliness, but
the urges to fill the void. The perverse logic of it."_ 

_"Those are needs you don't have anymore. That's all in the past.
Isn't it?"_ 

She couldn't believe she'd actually spoken those words; had iced his
attempted confession with such cold indifference. She remembered the
look on his face before she'd walked away, and wished for the nth time
that she could take the words back, find something _understanding_ to
say instead. 

_And women say that men deny *their* feelings. God, Nat, you are such
an idiot!_ 

No reason to be surprised, then, was there, that he hadn't gone home
last night; hadn't spent the day at his loft at all. Nor did she need
to ask where he _had_ spent it, or with whom. 

_Did you really come here tonight hoping he'd walk in the front door?
For all you know, he's somewhere upstairs right now, still sleeping it
off._ 

_And who can we blame for that, Dr. Natalie Lambert? You spend six
years working toward something -- at least you thought you were -- and
then with one brain-dead, smart-ass crack you drive him away -- and
straight into her waiting arms. Idiot._ 

She pushed the unfinished sherry away, leaned back in the shadowed
booth to look out at the crowded dance floor. Colored strobe lights
flashed to the throbbing beat of the music, momentarily freezing the
dancers in a sequence of bizarre poses. Nat wondered how many were
mortal, how many not. That tall young man with the shaved head and
bangle earrings? The blonde woman blatantly French-kissing her
leather-clad dance partner? Or maybe those two costume-jewelry-laden
females at the bar, whose romantic interests, judging by their
caresses, were clearly focused on each other... 

Nat jumped when a shadow fell suddenly across her table. She looked up
into clear blue eyes that were set in a face from a Da Vinci portrait,
embodying all the Old World's ideals of perfection, of beauty. A face
that would never change, never age, never see a wrinkle or a gray
hair. 

_How the hell do you compete with that?_ Scowling, she drained the
sherry. _Want the easy answer, Dr. Lambert? You don't._ 

Aloud, she said, "Hello, Janette." 

The Raven's owner slipped into the booth opposite her and placed a
stemmed glass of something too red to be wine on the table. "Natalie,"
she responded, giving the name a distinctly French inflection. Waiting
then, as though Natalie should intuit that the next move in this
verbal dance would be hers, Janette lifted the glass and sipped at it,
every movement of hand, lips, eyes, a testament to long-practiced
sensuality. To seduction. 

After so many centuries, Natalie supposed they did it without
conscious thought anymore. A vampiric survival instinct. Seduce the
enemy, the lover, the prey, and then just move on to the next one --
no regrets, no looking back. This beautiful, so-very-sensual creature
seated across from her represented everything that she -- and Nick (or
so she'd hoped) -- had been working so hard and so long to deny. Until
last night, anyway. 

"Why?" 

Nat cursed herself the moment she blurted the question. Stupid thing
to ask, really. And she hardly had any right to come off sounding like
the wronged wife confronting the 'other woman,' now did she? 

Something in Janette's eyes hinted at amusement tinged with pity, and
there was a touch of something else Nat couldn't quite identify. "I
think you know," the vampire said, and put her glass down again. "You
are a doctor, after all. You know well enough that mortals are not
designed for..." She seemed to grope for a word. "...for denial. Nor
are we." Painted nails traced the rim of the wine glass. "For us,
denial can produce... unpleasant... consequences." 

"Oh?" Nat couldn't keep the anger from her voice. "But _you,_ of
course, can deal with that." 

She'd expected anger in return, but Janette's gaze held only sadness.
"For more years than your lifetime, Doctor, Nicolas has denied himself
more than the blood. I should not speak of things he will not even
admit to himself, but..." Her slender fingers closed around the glass
stem. "You should know that whatever else Nicolas may be, he is still
a man, with a man's needs. And no matter how much he may wish to
control, to suppress the vampire, he cannot meet those needs with a
mortal woman." 

Surprised to feel embarrassment coloring her cheeks, Natalie looked
away. "Not without killing her or bringing her across," she said. "I
know." A female vampire, on the other hand, was another matter. She
wanted to loathe Janette for that, and yet somehow found that she
could not. "I know," she repeated, leaning back in the booth. "But if
that's supposed to make me feel better, it's not working." 

Janette smiled tightly. "No. I suppose not." 

Natalie met the pale eyes square-on, and because she had to know,
asked a question she'd never dare ask of Nick. "You're still in love
with him, aren't you? And he with you?" 

Janette's gaze lowered, and her hand froze in mid-circle on the glass
rim. When she looked up again, her eyes glistened in the shifting
light. "We are both of us the fool, Natalie," she said. "You are in
love with what he cannot be; I with what he _will_ not be. And so in
the end, neither of us shall have him. No woman ever will." 

Nat tried to smile. "Yeah, well, you'll forgive me if I have to
dispute the 'cannot be' part. Though I guess the question now is
whether he still _wants_ to be..." 

"Mortal?" Janette queried softly. "Do you really believe you can
change him... turn him back into... one of you?" The contempt she
obviously felt for such a prospect permeated her words. 

"Maybe," Nat answered, a little resentful of the tone. "If he _wants_
to change. But then, I guess I should be asking _him_ that, shouldn't
I?" 

She started to edge across the bench to leave, but Janette's hand
closed suddenly over hers and drew quickly away again. "Natalie..." 

Nat paused, waited. Whatever Janette wanted to say was not coming
easily. She finished her drink, stared sullenly into the empty glass.
"There have been many women, mortal and not, in Nicolas' life. And in
his fashion, he has 'loved' them all. But in all those years, I have
never known a time when any woman so dominated his thoughts, his
desires, his _blood_..." A bitter laugh nearly choked her next words.
"Oh, yes, Nicolas is 'in love.' But not with me. With you." 

Natalie could only stare at her, dumbfounded. "But he never said..." 

"No. And he will not. He will never allow himself to say it, or to
admit it, even to himself. _That_ is Nicolas' curse. And now it is
yours, as well." 

She fell silent, her gaze fixed on some memory far away and long ago.
Natalie stood, squinting into the glare of the dance lights, and
paused as she walked past Janette to place a hand on the other woman's
shoulder. 

"Thank you," she said, and then hurried on her way. 

{++}
She took the stairs up to Nick's loft rather than the elevator, and
from the moment she'd entered the stairwell, the minor strains of
Beethoven's _Pathetique_ had echoed down to greet her. She'd assumed
it was the stereo at first, but when she reached the door and paused
there, her hand poised on the latch, she realized that the impassioned
chords were not coming from a recording, but from Nick's grand piano. 

The music was so hauntingly beautiful that she closed her eyes and
simply listened from there in the stairwell, resting her head against
the door until the last, flawlessly performed passage had ended and
the final note had faded away. Then, quietly, she opened the door. 

Eyes shut, Nick sat with his hands still positioned on the keyboard,
burning candles to either side casting sallow firelight on the planes
of his face. When he looked up, his eyes glowed yellow-gold. 

Startled, she hesitated at the door, debating whether she ought to
turn around, go back right now and just forget about this. _Better
forget about *all* of it, Nat -- the research, the cure, those
romantic pipedreams you've wallowed in for six years..._ 

But not for the last time, reason failed her and she didn't go.
Instead, she waited while he turned away, fled to the window, and
after several long moments, finally looked at her with eyes that were
blue again. 

"I..." Nat took a deep breath, started over again. "I thought we
should talk," she said, proud of the fact that she'd kept her voice
level despite feeling like a fool for starting off so awkwardly -- and
for being here at all. 

She saw the pretense drop like a mask across his face; another long-
practiced survival instinct. "About what?" he asked. 

Biting back a heated response to that (_You can drop the coy act,
Nick!_), she walked slowly toward him. "About us," she answered.
"About whether you really want what you say you do." 

Instantly, the mask dissolved, replaced by the guilt he more often
wore. "You think I don't?" 

"You tell me." 

His gaze darted from her to the kitchen -- to the door of the
refrigerator. But when he started to turn that way, she put out a
hand, exerted the gentlest of touches to his arm. "Just once," she
said, "don't you think we could do this without a bottle in between?" 

Now the look was guilty _and_ hurt. He twisted back toward the window,
the back of one hand to his mouth. "You came to say you've had enough,
is that it?" 

_Don't you dare accuse *me* of giving up, Nicholas Knight!_ 

"No... No, I came because I thought it was time for a little honesty
about where we stand. And because I... I owe you an apology for last
night." When he started to object, she hurried on. "You were trying to
be honest, and all I could do was snap at you for it. I'm sorry." 

He wouldn't look at her. Both of his hands were pressed flat to the
window now, the fingers tightening with a strength that could all too
easily have shattered the glass. She was sure he'd rather have been
anywhere but here, discussing anything else but this. For all that he
was different, Nick was in _so_ many ways like every man she'd ever
known. Give them eight centuries or eighty, never mind a mere mortal
lifetime, and they'd still never learn to pronounce that dreaded
little word with the L at the beginning. 

"You don't owe me anything," he told the window. 

"Maybe not." She addressed his reflection in the glass. "But I'm going
to say this anyway." _Because I have to._ "I know you warned me, right
from the beginning, and I'm six kinds of an idiot for not running the
other way. But I'm only human. I can't help how I feel." 

"Nat, please... Don't..." 

But she wasn't going to be dissuaded. Not this time. Maybe, she
decided, she was just one of those women who insisted on going after
the unattainable. The safest lover was the one you could never have --
wasn't that what all the pop-psych books said? Well, what the hell did
they know, anyway? 

"I'm in love with you, Nick." 

_There, damn it. If he can't say it, at least I can._ 

"I tried not to be." She gave up all effort to stop the tears; she
couldn't hold them back anymore. "I told myself it was pointless,
stupid, never going anywhere, that if I wanted to be 'happy,' I needed
to forget about you, find some normal, mundane mortal to fall in love
with..." 

She didn't know when he'd moved, finally abandoning the sanctuary of
the window. She only knew that suddenly his arms were around her,
cradling her against him, his hands gently stroking her hair while her
tears kept coming. 

"I'm sorry," he murmured, though she wasn't sure which transgression
he was apologizing for. For making her love him? For going to Janette
when he'd lost control? "I never meant to hurt you." 

_But you have. And you will again, won't you, no matter what we do?_ 

"I know I've got to be the world's worst masochist, encouraging this,"
she admitted. "But I love you, and I won't pretend I don't. I won't
live a lie anymore." 

"But we _have_ to, Nat." She wondered for a moment why his voice
sounded strange, until she realized that he was fighting back his own
tears. "We _have_ to lie. It's the only way to keep you safe." 

_Safe from what?_ she thought inanely, and then out of nowhere came
the memory of something she couldn't quite place: Nick's voice, deep
and threatening, saying, "I do not love this woman." And another
voice, hushed and far more sinister, growling, "Then prove it. Bring
her over!" 

"Lacroix..." She felt him tense at the name, but she raised her head
to look at him, remembering something else. "Lacroix swore that he'd
kill any mortal you loved..." 

His hands cupped her face, one thumb caressing a tear from her cheek.
"It isn't just Lacroix. I'm as much a danger to you as he is. More." 

"No," she started to say, but before the denial could escape her lips,
he had covered them with his own, a kiss that spoke of both desire and
desperation, and of a yearning for other things that could never be.
He hadn't kissed her like that since... since Valentine's Day, when
he'd said such beautiful things... and then Lacroix had ruined it all,
forced Nick to deny their love, and they had both made her forget... 

More than anything, she wanted the kiss to go on forever: in that
moment, she knew without any question why other mortal women
throughout all those centuries had willingly died in his arms. But he
broke it off before their passion could build any higher, held her to
him instead in an embrace as full of longing as the kiss had been. 

"I'm sorry," he repeated, the words choked with unshed tears. "I
can't..." He kissed her forehead, her hair, her ear, finally rested
his cheek against her head and with all the accumulated anguish of his
eight-hundred years, whispered, "I _can't_ love you, Nat. I can't...
but God help me, I do." 

The last of it had been so faint that she almost doubted her ears. But
she hadn't imagined those words. Reveling in them, Natalie gave
herself completely over to his embrace, exulting in the closeness as
well as in the knowledge that Janette had been wrong about one thing. 

He _could_ bring himself to say it. 

Now, as to no woman ever having him... 

Natalie lifted her head, let her hands stray upward to Nick's face and
into the tight curls of his hair. She kissed _him_ this time; a kiss
that, without need of words, said, _I trust you. I love you. And oh by
the way, Nick Knight, I *do* remember all those beautiful things you
said._ 

They'd find some way to deal with the threats, the secrecy, the
impossibility of any deeper intimacy. For now, loving and being loved
would be enough. And when they _did_ find the way back across, a woman
-- this particular, mortal woman -- _would_ have him. 

She was counting on it. 

{++}