CHAPTER 9

 

 

 

 

Her back stiffened and her bones felt like shattering. Love? How could anyone feed on love?

“You’re joking,” she said.

He leaned over her but she held her ground. “I’m afraid not.” There was no remorse in the statement. He bent to lay his lips at her throat. “It’s what I’ve been for centuries. You know I’m not human.”

It was hard to push him away when her body craved his touch. Like a sugar addict craved bags of candy. Her hands trembled as they rose to his chest. She couldn’t quite muster the force to shove him away.

“How long?” she asked.

“Pretty vague question. Care to narrow it down for me?”

“How—” She broke off.

Her mind must have used up most of its thinking power figuring out the answer to her question. She couldn’t get it to form a coherent thought now. How long had he been a vampire? How long had she loved him enough to…feed him? How had she not known?

She finally settled on the one question she really didn’t want to know. The one she needed an immediate answer to before she broke. “How many?”

Too shocked to smile, he asked, “Women? That’s not exactly something a man goes around sharing.”

“Tell me,” she demanded. Goosebumps rose on her skin when his fingers trailed down to land on her hips. Her rear had frozen to the counter and ice skittered in her veins as she waited. Waited to grow a pair and run far away. Waited for his answer.

She knew, logically, there was nothing she could say to make herself feel better. Not when she was counting down the clock and waiting for him to disappear. Undeniably not when she was one of many women duped into giving up a piece of her heart.

“At the moment, there are three. You and two others.

His eyes were black, deep and monstrous. Treacherous to the point it made her heart bleed to look at them. She thought of all the things she wanted to say to him. The insane amount of screaming, crying, pleading for it to be untrue. Then kept it all bottled up inside of her.

“Well, I hope you had a good meal, then.” Her voice was unusually calm. “Glad to know you’ll have enough for a doggy bag. And that you won’t starve when I leave.”

Pike caught her as she moved past him, turning her to look him in the face. His face—too handsome to be anything human—hardened under her gaze. “You need sleep. Go back to bed and forget about this. Better yet, take a shower. Get clean.”

“Forget? Take a shower? Are you kidding me?” She rallied a smile despite the burn in her eyes. “Thanks so much for your concern. I’d always heard a good meal can dull the senses but I would never have imagined I would be this good to eat.”

“It’s not…it’s not like that.” He used his free hand to run through his hair, brows pulling together. “I don’t want you to leave upset.”

She counted to ten in an attempt to rein in her next comment. Then spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m not staying.” Then came the sudden, inexplicable feeling that a bomb was about to explode.

He twisted around to glare at her. “Don’t do this. Don’t ruin a beautiful night because you don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand?” she growled in response. “You purposely led me on. You made me fall in love with you so you could eat. Our friendship meant nothing to you.”

“What do you want me to say? You want me to apologize? I can’t apologize. I won’t. It’s what I am.”

“You not only hurt me, but there are two other women out there. You’re doing the same thing to them and you don’t care.”

He lowered his chin as if ashamed. “A lion doesn’t apologize to a deer for being a predator. I’m the same.”

“Your arrogance is astounding. Even when I knew this would happen, it still hurts.” She slammed a fist into her heart. “Right here. It hurts, and I saw it, and I still ran right into your arms. I’m the stupidest person who has ever lived.”

“You knew?” Pike said, his voice still smooth but fire in his eyes. “You had a vision?”

She couldn’t imagine what would happen if Pike lost his temper. It had always been a concern of hers. Whatever creature he was—and wouldn’t tell her until now—she knew better than to push him over the edge, instinctively realizing that it would be a very, very bad thing. Now she wondered why Pike should be the one getting angry when she’d finally learned the truth.

“Yes, I had a vision. It was one of the clearest I’d ever had, and it was this moment.” She hiccupped, swallowing a fresh wave of misery. Tension coiled in her stomach. “I should have run instead of finding ways to spend time with you. Instead of finding all these little idiosyncrasies to fall in love with.”

She wanted to curl up and die. So sick of blaming herself for a future she’d known would happen.

“Why didn’t you say anyth—” Pike started to say.

“Because it wouldn’t have mattered. Wouldn’t have changed a thing,” she said. Pike remained standing by the counter, his eyes unreadable and face a polite mask, while she stalked away to the opposite side of the room, her gaze glued to the floor.

Was there a graceful way out of this situation?

“You’re wrong. It might have mattered. It might have made me think twice about seducing you.”

Her heart squeezed even tighter. She gazed numbly at her feet, unable to believe he would stab her so deeply with a single sentence. “I almost wish you hadn’t. It would make this much easier. And make my visions a lie. I can live with those kinds of lies. Rather than the ones where you tell me you care about me.”

“That, my dear,” he said with a tap of his knuckles on the countertop, “is not a lie. I do care about you.”

“Like you care about the others.”

He weighed his answer. “I care about them in a different way. Just because I feed on love doesn’t make me a monster. It makes me a survivor.”

“A survivor, sure.” She shivered. “Do you mind if I get dressed now?”

“I’d like to be able to discuss this like adults.”

It took effort to push down the sick feeling roiling around inside of her. “There’s really nothing to discuss. Especially not while I’m naked and bleeding over here.”

“I see no blood.”

“Trust you to take me literally. For once.”

“Lavinia,” he said as though he were addressing a room full of rowdy children, “this doesn’t have to change our friendship.” He slid a little closer as if unsure whether she wanted comfort or to be left alone. Sadly, the former rang truer than the latter.

She swallowed a laugh. “Wow. Just wow. I can’t handle a friendship with you after this.”

Her breath was shaky when she finally released it. At least she’d managed to mire her way through the conversation without an argument. Even when her gift felt like a curse and tears were burning a trail of acid down her throat.

“I’m not going to apologize,” he finally replied. “I can’t apologize for what I am. What I’ve been for the last almost four hundred years. I need to feed to live.” He paused, and then said, “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Too late,” she murmured and drew her shirt over her head.

“I truly…value…our friendship. You don’t seem to get it.”

“Then why don’t you explain it to me?”

The look he shot her was full of scorn. “I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t understand that you lied to me to get me to fall for you?”

“Telling you what you want, what you need, to hear is not a lie.”

“Then you need to pick up a dictionary, buddy, because you seem to have forgotten the definition.”

“I feel things for you.” His voice was chilly. Controlled. “I know that much is true. Having you around, talking to you.”

She was silent for the count of ten. “You should have left me in the friend zone.” Her jacket went on last and Lavinia searched for her purse. Finding it at last on the living room floor, she stalked forward and threw it over her shoulder. Then she turned to Pike. “Maybe you should see what kind of meal everlasting love can provide, instead of duping innocent women into caring for you. Because I can assure you, what I feel? It’s the forever kind.”

With that she walked out, leaving her heart behind.