Our eyes locked. A current charged between us, shattering the fury. An explosion of tingles, drawing the two of us together. The same feeling I had when our eyes first connected. The silent whisper of two stars who were meant to be. Binary stars.
It was so shocking my throat tightened, robbing me of words, before my brain kicked into gear again. The guards he had around the house must know. They must have seen or heard something. He couldn’t keep us a secret. “You’re lying, again.”
“God, Amelia.” His voice was filled with raw emotion. “Why do you have to be so stubborn? I’ve never met anyone so fucking frustrating in all my six centuries of life.”
“I’m frustrating,” I repeated coldly. The audacity of him. “You took me to your house without asking me, you locked me up to keep me safe from your kind, but not once did you offer to help train me, not once did you help me learn the skills I need to keep myself safe. You pretended to care. Then you tell your friends I’m nothing to you but a fucking toy, so don’t you dare stand there and say I’m frustrating, because you’re an asshole, and I’d rather be frustrating than a liar and a soulless prick like you.”
He stared at me as if he couldn’t comprehend what he’d just heard. “I know I made a mistake. I never intended for you to hear?—”
I laughed bitterly. “That doesn’t make it any better.”
“I know, I know. I told you, I can’t risk?—”
“Let me go,” I ground out. “I can’t stand the sight of you.”
His jaw twitched and his voice dropped to something low, something determined, something—dangerous. “I will never, ever let you go. Do you understand, Amelia?”
Once, I would have loved to hear him say that. Once, I would have believed it to be true. My voice lowered to an enraged grate, “You can’t hold onto something that refuses to be held.”
Karson flinched. “Amelia?—”
“What do you want from me?” I rasped, fresh tears blurring my vision.
“Nothing, I don’t want anything. Don’t you see, I just want you.” His voice shook and now he … he looked shattered. “Please, my love, believe me.”
The desperation in his eyes fluttered in my heart, a small sparkle of light against the dark. Was he telling the truth? Confusion whirled through the fear and grief. I drew in a ragged breath and closed my eyes, trying to block it all out.
She is a witch, as if I would fall for something like her. She is someone I will need sooner or later. Plenty of beautiful women still fill my bed.
He was still fucking lying.
My eyes tore open. “You’re sleeping with other women. Get away from me!” I shouted and kicked him again. Not that it did any fucking good. He didn’t flinch, didn’t move, didn’t let me go.
“I’m not, I only told Rodney that to convince him I didn’t care. I haven’t touched another woman since the first day we kissed. I haven’t even looked in their direction. No one matters to me except you.”
Tears rushed down my face, the urge to scream coiling through me. I didn’t know how much more my heart could take. “Stop,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “Just stop.”
He made a sound of pure frustration and then his forehead rested gently on mine. His grip moved from my arms to my hands and he pressed them to the side of his head.
“Look,” he whispered. “Just look.”
Letting me into his mind was one of the most vulnerable things he could do, especially a vampire like him with a twisted and tortured history. The images bolted through my mind like sparks of electricity, one after the other, so fast I could barely keep up. All images of me. Smiling up at him the first time we danced, of my laughter as he threw water over me, me falling down the stairs and him catching me. Of him carrying me through the fire, placing me on the road and kissing my forehead. Of my hooded eyes as I came.
Pockets of time falling together like petals, each moment of happiness blooming into a beautiful bed of roses.
And I could feel it. It was strong and warm. It was like a summer ocean, deep to its core, endless, powerful, unstoppable.
It was love.
Love he had for me.
All the fight left my body, and I sagged against the wall.
“Do you see it, do you see how much I love you,” he rasped, his breath, like his smell, sweet like honey and cinnamon and fresh mountain air, sliding up my nose. “I will always love you. And I would destroy the world if it meant keeping you safe.”
He pulled his head from mine, running a finger across the tears falling down my cheeks. “Please, Amelia, I’m sorry for hurting you. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt you.” He bowed his head in submission. “Forgive me.”
I blinked up at him through my watery vision, emotions storming through my heart like a tsunami. My throat was so choked I couldn’t form a sound. So, I clutched his face in my hands and kissed him. A deep, hungry kiss, a claiming kiss, every cell of me claiming every cell of him. Every cell of him claiming every cell of me.
