“Something other than this. I didn’twantto leave that night. It was just instinct. I never would have left permanently.” She bit her lip. “Tell me what’s going on.”
All she wanted was the truth, even if it hurt. Or, at the very least, she could try to pick up the broken pieces of her heart.
“Are you ready to speak about your experiences at Visage?” he asked, sliding his hands into his pockets nonchalantly.
She clammed up. No. No, she definitely wasn’t.
“Are you engaged?” she shot back.
“I said I don’t want to talk about Penny.”
“Oh God,” she said, backing slowly away from him. “Youareengaged. You actually are.”
“Reyna…”
“Don’t.” She held up her hand.
“Reyna,” he said, his voice harsher, trying to fight for control. She didn’t care that it was slipping away from him.
“I don’t want to hear you evading my questions.” She held her head high as she faced him down. She’d had to be strong with him from the start. It was only fitting that she had to be strong while he was breaking her. “I don’t want to be treated with kid gloves. You said once that you would tell me all your secrets.”
“That was nine weeks ago.”
She shook her head. “Harrington told me the truth. Even the truths I didn’t want to hear.”
Beckham didn’t so much as blink at her slap in the face. She saw him straighten, however. She could see the tension build in his shoulders, could see the damage her words had inflicted. She’d meant them. Harrington was at least an honest monster.
“I have told you before and I will tell you again, Reyna: I am a ruthless vampire. I am not a man. I would not have gotten to my current position without doing things that would make your blood run cold.”
“Harrington is a vampire, too.”
“Would you like me to act like him?” he asked as he bridged the gap between them. His body was so near she could reach out and touch him.
“No,” she said through clenched teeth as she balled her hands into fists to keep from doing just that.
Beckham’s finger moved to her chin, tilting her head up to look at him. “You called me a monster,” he said, his voice low. “You were not wrong. That is what I am.”
Understanding hit her at last. He thought those words she spoke in fear and the first dizzying side effects of the bite were her truth, but she’d never meant them. “You’re not.”
“Yes, I am. You were right when you ran. You trusted me to stop, and I didn’t. You trusted me, and I failed.”
Remorse shone bright in his eyes, those obsidian orbs splintering to finally reveal the man she had known. Deep self-loathing radiated from him. She could see painted across his face as if it were a canvas that he felt he was nothing more than the beast within.
“I did not deserve your trust,” he said. “I do not deserve it now.”
“Please,” she whispered. She didn’t know if she was begging for him to stop or to continue. For him to slip just a bit closer. For his lips to graze hers. For this distance to shatter into oblivion.
He used the hand still on her chin to move her head and bare her neck to him. Her breathing hitched as memories assaulted her: Beckham buried deep inside of her. His fangs grazing the artery on her inner thigh. The pleasure mingling with pain as he sank his fangs into her neck. The shudder of adrenaline as she came.
She was so angry with him. So uncertain about their future. And yet she still wanted this. She wanted all of him, if he would open himself up to her.
“There are no bite marks,” he finally said.
“No,” she breathed, swallowing.
“No scars.”
“No.”
