I drew in a deep breath and began. “Well, I already told you about my Vampire maker and how we met. He wanted to make my death believable, all the way down to admitting me to the morgue. He drained me close to death after a blood exchange, but I don’t think he finished the process. I don’t really know how that works.” Just speaking about it sent terror through me, as if recounting the memories would make them real again.
“It’s magic,” Christian said. “Somewhat. It’s a careful exchange of blood. We give you just enough of our magic to keep you regenerative but not quite alive.”
“I woke up in a morgue. My maker was supposed to come get me, but he never came. The man in the room didn’t seem surprised when I rose from the dead.”
Christian inched back enough to look at me. “Was he Breed?”
I scooted away from him, finding it difficult to snuggle up to anyone while telling this story. “A Mage. He took me away. I was too weak to do anything, and I thought he was helping me.”
“What happened?”
“He gave me my first spark. I’m guessing that wouldn’t have normally worked on someone who was turned by a Vamp, but here I am.” After a moment’s pause, I added the most important fact of all. “He was a juicer.”
Christian cursed under his breath.
“I didn’t know anything about the rest of the Breed world. I made the decision to become a Vampire on a whim, so I didn’t realize what was happening to me.”
“Creators are the worst of the lot. Did you get his name?”
I averted my gaze. “He kept me for seven long months, Christian. Do you think I didn’t get his name?”
“Then we have to find him. Bring him to justice.”
I shook my head.
“Raven, you can’t protect him. If he did it once, he’ll do it again.”
“I can’t. I’m afraid of him.” I clenched my fists at the admission. I’d hunted down all types of nefarious men. But my own Creator, I couldn’t bring myself to go after. “He brought me to a place where I felt less than human—like a possession or an animal. I can’t. You don’t understand what it’s like. He’s got some kind of power over me.”
“His light is inside you. I understand a little about that. It’s not much different from how blood ties you to your Vampire maker. There will always be a connection you can’t deny, but that doesn’t mean he owns you.”
I sat Indian style and leaned forward. “My brain tells me that. But there’s a voice inside me that warns me not to open that door again. As much as I want him dead, I’m not ready to revisit that place in my life. If it doesn’t kill me, it’ll take what’s left of my soul. It took meyearsof struggle to become the person you know. Maybe that’s not saying much, but if you saw who I was then…”
My lip quivered, and I turned my head away. I’d successfully switched off my emotions these past few years—that was why I was impervious to fear—but now the floodgates were opening, and it made me furious. “I guess now you think I’m an emotional basket case.”
“Tears don’t make you weak,” he said. “Fear does. Weep all you want over what happened to you; that’s your right. But never give someone your fear. That’s power. That’s control.”
I wiped my nose and grimaced from the pain. “You’re always telling me to leave the past behind, and now you want me to dig it up? That’s not what Viktor would want me to do.”
I turned to look, and Christian’s jaw set.
“I’ll keep watch,” he said, finally standing up. “With all this chattering, someone’s liable to hear us.”
I ignored the old me for just ten seconds and stood up, turning Christian around so we were facing each other. My hands rested on his straight shoulders, and our breath clouded the air between us. “Thank you for saving me,” I whispered.
His warm fingertips touched my cheeks as he held my gaze. The old me would have looked away from his penetrating Vampire eyes, but Christian and I were caught in a thread of time where the past and present overlapped. I wasn’t looking at a Vampire or even my partner. I was looking at the man who’d stolen me from the arms of death.
There was nothing more intimate.
He leaned in and kissed the corner of my mouth, and my breath caught.
“Déjà vu,” I said, puzzled by the emotions ripening in me like a familiar fruit I’d tasted once before.
A forbidden fruit.
Christian’s scruffy beard brushed against my chin, and he held that torturous position for longer than I could bear. There was a softness to his lips, the way they touched mine without kissing, and his smell was intoxicating. Maybe Vampires didn’t have a unique scent to Chitahs, but there were subtle nuances. It was as if I could smell his blood. When my fangs slid down, he cradled my neck possessively, and I leaned into him.
Dark hunger burned in his eyes, but what I was feeling was so powerful that it went beyond lust. I’d come full circle, finally face-to-face with the man I’d kept on a pedestal my entire life. And yet Christian had turned out to be the very Breed I loathed—the part of me I shunned.
