I covered my face.Oh my God.My mother had died a horrific death trying to save me when I woke up crying for her. I’d somehow convinced myself that the smoke had overcome her, because it was the easiest way to think about her death.
Christian took me in his arms, his embrace so familiar that it was as if we’d always known each other. “She didn’t suffer,” he assured me. “The fall would have been quick, to be sure. You were the only living soul in the apartment.”
What I began to internalize in that moment wasn’t my mother’s death, which I’d learned to live with for most of my life. It was the realization that Christian had saved my life. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have perished in that fire. I owed my life to him—my human life.
“Why me? Why did I live?” I drew back and wiped the blood from my face, which was wet again from my tears. “So I could becomethis?”
He rubbed the lines in his forehead.
When our eyes met, I searched for an answer. “What does this mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice somber. “The fates are at play, and we are their pawns.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped the coat around me.
“Is that why you have nightmares?” he asked. “Because of the fire?”
Christian could never understand that he was the reason why Ididn’thave nightmares about that fire. My night terrors had nothing to do with the events of my childhood.
“No,” I said but didn’t elaborate. Beneath his coat, I gripped my heart-shaped necklace and squeezed it in the palm of my hand.
“If you want to sleep, Raven, I’ll watch over you.”
A draft snuck through the gap by the wall, and Christian secured the coat over my right shoulder. “Are you mad it was me?”
I nestled against him, my feelings conflicted. “No. I’m just… confused.”
Christian had always been the antithesis of what I considered an honorable man, and yet little by little, he kept proving me wrong. After this new revelation, my feelings shifted toward him, though I wasn’t sure how. But I trusted him more than I had five minutes ago. Vampire or not, the man had pulled me from certain death without thought to his own life. Finding out Christian had endured severe burns made it clear that the only motivation that could have been behind it was his heart.
But why had fate brought us together again?
“Is that why you hate humans so much?” I asked. “Because you almost died saving one?”
“I’ve learned over the years to grow more detached in my feelings about mortals. I cursed my decision. I wondered if it was all for naught when that little girl would probably grow up in abject poverty and not amount to anything in life. And now… here you are.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
Christian leaned around and met my eyes. “Just have a look at you. A crossbreed. Who could have imagined that one day you’d become an immortal like the world has never seen? Perhaps I don’t feel so regretful about the pain I went through to pluck you from the flames.” He reclined back. “Had I kept walking that evening, I wouldn’t have anyone to torment me with her dark humor and horrendous cooking.”
“You didn’t even try my food.”
“I think I’ve built up an appetite. Perhaps next time.”
The wind rustled a few papers around us, and I watched them scatter across the dirty floor.
“Why don’t I charm someone out of their car and get us home?”
I chuckled. “Where’s your sense of adventure? I’m too tired to move. Let’s just lie here until morning. You said yourself the streets are too dangerous and cabs don’t come out here.”
He clasped his hands together. “Now that we’re getting to know each other, do you want to tell me about your Creator? About how you were made? I think you at least owe me that.”
And I did.
As much as I’d wanted to bury that part of my life and forget it ever happened, I owed Christian the truth. He had given me a second chance in life, and maybe he needed to understand what exactly that meant.
“Promise to let me finish? No jokes?”
“I don’t wish to quarrel.”
