“Because I don’t want to frighten you.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“You know, when a person lies, their heartbeat becomes erratic.”
“Mine was steady,” he said firmly, meeting my gaze. “Nicolas, do you promise me you’ll live through this?”
I pursed my lips, studying him for a long moment. “I probably ought to milk the wounded hero thing. It would be the smart thing to do.” I paused. “But I suppose I’m not smart. So yes, I’ll live.”
A small, startled laugh escaped his lips, and he shook his head. And then, without warning, his tears spilled over, hot and sudden down his cheeks. He collapsed into a sitting position. A moment later, he choked out, “You were on the ground. You weren’t moving.”
The last time I had been confronted by a distressed human, I hadn’t known what the right thing to do was. Now, I understoodinstinctively. I slid off the bench, dropped beside him, and pulled him close to me, slipping my arms around him.
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He wrapped me tightly. “You were staring,” he whispered against my chest. “You looked dead!”
“I was never in danger,” I said softly. “You were, though. Eli, what were you thinking?”
Eli laughed, and more tears spilled over. “I was going to kill him. When I thought he had killed you, it was all I wanted to do.”
“He would have shot you.”
“I know.”
“I’m okay,” I murmured. “We’re both okay. Everything is going to be fine.”
* * *
I held Eli for a long time. I could have stayed there forever, listening to the sound of his heartbeat as it gradually slowed and his breathing returned to normal, soft and even. Ordinarily, with a man like Eli in my arms, I would have been thinking about how I might go about getting either sex or blood from him. But something had changed within me—and that wasn’t true anymore, was it?
Now, all I wanted was for him to be okay.
When it came to the late Morgan Peterson—the man I had come here to kill—the only thing I could muster about his death was a ridiculous sense of gratitude that he hadn’t managed to hurt Eli. If he’d gotten a bullet into the doctor’s head or heart, not even my blood would’ve saved him. Eli would have just been gone.
And as for Eli’s emotions, I didn’t feel impatient in the least. I should’ve at least felt irritation with him for following me here. Or perhaps a cold sort of admiration that he hada bit of predatory instinct himself—that he’d pulled this off without alerting me. Or maybe even a selfish annoyance that Eli would now undoubtedly force a conversation about what I had intended to do here, and I knew I wouldn’t—and perhaps couldn’t—lie to him. Though the fallout from that conversation was sure to be unpleasant, I was willing to give Eli whatever he needed.
I knew Eli was the cause of the changes I was experiencing. I didn’t understand why yet, but it was undoubtedly true.
When Eli pulled back at last, his dark eyes searched mine, and his expression was far more placid than I might have imagined under the circumstances. The tears had already long since dried on his cheeks.
“You’re really going to be okay?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were dying.” Then he shook his head. “I thought you were dead.”
I didn’t point out that he’d said that already. Instead, I stood up. For good measure, I stepped back as well. Once it occurred to him that he was here—in this quiet place with no witnesses, in a confined space with an inhuman, murderous creature—he would no doubt feel some degree of unease. Or maybe even alarm. Of course, the idea that I might ever harm Eli was unthinkable. But he didn’t understand that yet.
It would be natural for him to be afraid of me.
I swallowed, turning away from him. Grief tore through me as I realized, for the first time, how I probably looked to him.
Like a monster.
Because Iwas. Strange—how that had never bothered me before.
But my hands were covered in centuries of blood, weren’t they? Ordinarily, that might have amused me. But now it filledme with despair. I hadn’t even known I could still feel something like this.
