Free Bete Noire by Christina Moore Page B

that enough times in the past two days to not want any more encores.
    “Will you tell me what happened?” he asked more because he thought she needed to talk about it, not because he wanted to hear about someone, some vampire, having his way with her. Hurting her.
    “No,” she answered.
    “No?”
    She shook her head hard. “No.” She swallowed hard. “What happened is in the past, and no one can change it.”
    What’s done is done, huh? “But wouldn’t it would make you feel better to talk about how he hurt—”
    “Why?” she snapped. “How could talking about how weak I am make anyone feel any better?”
    “You aren’t weak, As—”
    “What do you know!” she screamed and he stepped back, hand unconsciously going for the gun he really didn’t want to use on Ash and especially not on a plane. “That night, the one that bothers you so much… I did not fight. I did not resist as I should have. All it took was for him to bite me, bleed me and I fell to his will with little dispute. I said no, my mouth formed the words but my body just— That is weakness.”
    “Ash,” he said on a sigh. “You are the strongest person I know.”
    “How can you say such a thing?”
    “I’ve seen what you do. I know from experience how difficult it is to kill vampires and jikininki.”
    Ash made a noise that was halfway between a hiss and sigh. “That is nothing. That is a duty.” She started to pace the small compartment of the plane, something she liked to do when she was upset. “To kill those who have wronged me takes no strength.”
    He shook his head. “You’re wrong.”
    She turned and gave him an angry look. “How so?”
    “It takes strength to rise up against those who have done you wrong. Who have suppressed you. To prove to those bullies you won’t be weak anymore.”
    “A wild animal can turn on its captor. That is not strength, but instinct.”
    She wasn’t listening and he sighed. “Listen to me, Ash.” He approached her again carefully. “You...” He put a hand to his forehead, trying to think of how to put what he was thinking into tangible words. He’d never been good at these type of things, always hurting his relationships, but with Ash things were very different. Not only did he have to deal with the normal relationship quips, but the fact that she was a volatile, dangerous creature on top of that. Her long existence had bended her personality to what she was today. A long existence that he couldn’t even begin to understand.
    Before he met Ash, he would have said his mom was the strongest woman he knew. He still considered her to be strong, but Ash was on another level. She had endured a lifetime under Malik’s hand. He knew from very recent past experience with the Master vampire that his rule was a harsh one. The fact that Ash survived that rule was impressive. And after hearing just a tiny glimpse of her past just now—locked in a cell, out of favor with Malik—he knew the hardships were probably worse than he could ever imagine.
    He was staring to understand why Yuki was the way she was, really understand. The human mind, vampiricly enhanced or not, was never meant to live as long this. Age, social pressures, physical trials, personal battles, they all added up over the long years and the toll was heavy.
    Tristan licked his lips, opened his mouth and started talking, still not entirely sure what he was going to say. “You have a strength that no other person I’ve ever known has. You overcome every obstacle placed before you, even if you grit your teeth the whole way. You persevere at the cost of your own mental and physical health. You care more about others than yourself. Despite whatever may have happened to you in the past, you struggle daily to be the person you want to be, even if it’s against the nature of the creature you’ve been made into. You killed your own Master, a man you admitted to once loving that in-turn only betrayed and hurt you.” He shook his head.