No, not almost.
Yes, I could feel it. Somehow, I was sensing Nicolas’s emotions. I scooted closer to him on the couch.
“Eli,” he said, still looking away. “Don’t.”
I took his hand in mine and held it. There was no pulse beneath the skin, but he was warm to the touch. It didn’t make any sense.
“Why not?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“There’s a lot that you don’t understand yet. There’s a lot you don’t know about me. And you need to know it. You need to know all of it. Otherwise this isn’t… this isn’t fair.”
It was a ridiculous thing to say. I was in love with him. Fair didn’t factor in, did it?
But I humored him. “What do I need to know?”
He looked back at me, and his expression was completely neutral. “I kill people.”
I recoiled at his words, pulling my hand free from his. My heart began hammering, and my breath hitched in my chest. Because he didn’t sayI’ve killed people in the past.
He used the present tense.
“Do you have to?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice neutral. The answer to this was important, wasn’t it? After all, if he had no choice but to kill to survive, that was a different beast. It still wasn’t great, but it was different than if he was willfully choosing to be a murderer.
“Ah, you’re afraid of me now.”
I glared at him. “You just told me you kill people! Give me a fucking second to wrap my head around that!”
He blinked rapidly, apparently startled by the heat in my voice, then laughed. “I keep forgetting that you have a temper.”
“Answer my question,” I said through clenched teeth. “Do you have to kill to survive?”
He met my gaze. His face was placid and perfect—a marble statue carved by a master artist—but his eerily blue eyes were practically on fire. And I could, for the first time, see the predator in him.
“No.”
I expected to feel fear at his admission, but instead, something inside me tore—as though my heart had ripped in half.
“If you don’t have to kill to survive, then why? Why do you do it?”
“Because I enjoy it. I’ve always enjoyed it.”
I lurched to my feet, unsteady, and took a step backward. For the second time, the floor felt like it had fallen out beneath me, and I was plummeting into bottomless darkness.
My voice came out in a rough, ghastly whisper. “How many?”
“Too many to count.”
His answer turned my stomach. My eyes slid shut of their own accord. Oddly enough, I still didn’t doubt for an instant that I was safe with him. But that didn’t stop the sudden fury seething within me, bubbling to the surface, warring with myheartbreak. For an instant, I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make him sorry for all the lives he had taken.
I had dedicated my career—years of my life—to saving lives. And I had literally gotten into bed with a murderer. I had let myself fall in love with someone who killed for no other reason than because he enjoyed it.
That should have—that did—repulse me.
Nicolas was a serial killer.
But then, when I opened my eyes, prepared to tell him exactly how I felt about that, I found that I still couldn’t bring myself to hurt him after all.
He looked fragile. And miserable. And… ashamed.
