My head thumped against the wall. “I’m mortified everyone saw me like that. I was licking people’s ankles and dry humping them—people I work with. And the cab driver! I’ll never be able to look at the hotel desk clerk after this.”
Christian chuckled darkly. “I charmed the cab driver to ignore your condition. And if it gives you peace of mind, I’ll do a memory wipe on the staff downstairs.”
I rolled away from him and got up. After dressing in sweatpants and a T-shirt, I sat at the foot of the other bed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I stared at his reflection in the television. Christian looked like a shirtless model lying diagonal on the bed, his head propped in his hand. How could I express the immense guilt I felt? “I almost betrayed you. I don’t think you should brush it off. We need to talk about it.”
“Put it out of your mind.”
“I can’t.”
He got up and stood before me. “You will.”
My lip quivered. I rested my elbows on my knees and lowered my head so he couldn’t see. It suddenly dawned on me what had felt so insidious about last night—my shackled wrists, the vulnerability, and a man abusing his dominance. It was everything I’d tried to forget about Fletcher Black, my Creator. Those months I’d spent in captivity, when he tried to break me, had never left my mind. Nausea slithered in my belly like a snake when I remembered last night. That stranger had struck me while I hung helpless in chains, and Ilikedit.
I bolted from the bed and into the bathroom. As I vomited the coffee that Christian had generously made for me, he pulled my hair away from my face and stroked my back as I silently wept into the bowl. I had a brief out-of-body experience where I saw myself in a pathetic heap, and anger flooded my veins. I heard my father’s voice saying, “Get your ass off the floor. You’re not a mop.”
Eager to put this behind me, I shot to my feet and rinsed out my mouth. When I looked up at my reflection, I smashed the bottle of soap against the mirror. Then I threw everything within reach until little bottles and towels littered the floor.
Christian remained by the door, his hands clasped behind him.
“I hate him,” I growled through clenched teeth. “He ruined my fucking life. I can’t get him out of my head. No matter how much I try, there he is, staring at me with those demonic blue eyes. Whenever I see a man with a shaved head and a beard, I look twice. He’s out there somewhere. Sometimes I wish he’d walk right up to me so I could put a dagger in his eye, and other times I never want to see his face again. He should suffer like I’ve suffered.”
Christian’s silence was deafening.
I rested my hands on the sink and sighed. “I thought it would be easy to find out who’s running the cage fights, but I don’t know if I can keep doing this for the next few weeks, let alone months. And before you say anything, I know how you hate someone dumping their feelings all over your lap, but I don’t have anyone to talk to.” I reached beneath the sink and set a bottle of tequila on the counter. “Bet you didn’t know I had this in here, did you? I’m stuck in this hotel room, dealing with all the bullshit I see at the club. It’s not the fighting; it’s everything. Worst of all, I can’t walk away. Viktor’s counting on me, and all I want to do is drink myself into a coma.”
When I tried to leave the room, Christian caught me from behind and locked his arms across my chest in a loose grip.
He rested his chin on my shoulder. “It grieves me to see you suffering.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. “I used to hate my father for being an alcoholic. I kept telling him he had a choice. I knew it had to do with the war, but he never talked about all the bad stuff that happened. He didn’t even talk about my mother’s death. Now I understand. I get it.” I reached up and held his arms. “How do I make it stop?”
The next words he spoke sent a chill up my spine.
“You kill yourself. That’s how immortals survive. You have to kill the human inside you, Raven. If you think that part of you died in Fletcher’s basement, you’re mistaken.”
“Even if I could, it’s too late.” I turned around, my back against the door. “Alcohol was something I’ve always known how to handle. I never got drunk alone. But that changed with this assignment. My father almost drank himself to death, but I can’t get liver disease, Christian. Hell, I could do all the drugs in the city and it wouldn’t make a dent. But none of it erases the memories or dulls the pain. You know what does? Killing. When I’m beating my fists into someone’s face or draining their blood, it goes away. I feel alive and powerful, and that scares the hell out of me. If violence is my true addiction, then will this job make me a better person or a monster?”
He lifted my chin with the crook of his finger. “You’re hardly killing nuns.”
I lowered my eyes to his bare chest.
“You’re not a monster,” he insisted. “I spent over a decade buried alive, but my humanity was long gone by then. All the innocents who died by my hand were what did me in. Had I not killed that last good part of my soul, I would have never survived those years underground. I would have gone mad. Every Mage and Vampire has to embrace their wickedness. You can’t be an immortal saint. No one’s completely pure.”
“What about Gem?”
“She was born Breed. She doesn’t know what it is to be human. Even Relics are hardwired differently. They make choices and sacrifices that humans would never understand. To be a Mage or a Vampire is to be a killer. It’s what we’re designed to do best. It’s why some of us shed our human names and leave our families behind. It’s a death ritual. But the final nail in the coffin is one you have to put in yourself. That will be the day you won’t need to drink or talk about it anymore.”
“The day I won’t have feelings.”
“Not the way you think. Niko has feelings, but I doubt he’ll be weeping at our funerals.” Christian cradled my neck in his strong hands. “When I’m in your presence, I sometimes remember what it’s like to feel human. When we have these conversations, when you look into my eyes like I’m not a killer. But then I see you retching on the floor and drinking all hours, and I’m glad that part of me is dead.” He stroked my cheek with his thumbs and reeled me in with his hypnotic gaze. “Don’t have another thought about last night. You were a victim of magic, and I’ll not dwell on anything you might have done. Nor should you. We’re better than that.”
I lowered my hands until they rested near his V-cut. “You shouldn’t be here. It jeopardizes the mission.”
He wrapped his arms around me. “It’s lonely without you around.”
