"I won't leave," Simon heard himself say.
Charlie's breath hitched. "You won't?"
"No."
The word settled between them like a promise Simon had no right to make. Reuben would come for them both. The Organization didn't tolerate failures, and protecting a vampire instead of eliminating one was the ultimate betrayal of everything they stood for.
But Charlie was trembling in his arms, and Simon couldn't stop thinking about what he'd just done. How he'd used Charlie's trust against him. How he'd forced him to fight his own body just to prove a point that didn't need proving.
He'd thought he was one of the good ones. But he wasn't.
He was exactly as morally corrupted as the Organization that had shaped him.
"I'm sorry," Simon said, and the words felt like glass in his throat. When was the last time he'd apologized to anyone? "I treated you terribly and the only reason you don't want me to leave now is because my blood created a bond between us that you never wanted."
Charlie pulled back slightly, just enough to look at Simon's face. His eyes were red-rimmed, confused. "What?"
"The sire bond." The words tasted bitter. "When I fed you that first time, I didn't know what it would do. Your actual sire abandoned you, never gave you first blood. So when I did..." Simon's jaw tightened. "I accidentally became something to you that I had no right to be."
Charlie shook his head, almost violently. "I don't care about any of that."
"You should care."
"But I don't." Charlie's fingers tightened in Simon's shirt. "My maker left me bleeding in an alley and the other vampires want nothing to do with me." Charlie's too-trusting eyes searched Simon's face. "But you, you lied to your boss for me. You saved me from that roof. I don't care if it's vampire biology or magic or whatever." His voice cracked. "Just please don't abandon me. I'd rather you stake me than leave me."
"Don't say that."
"Why not? It's true." Charlie's laugh was broken. "I can't do this alone. I…" He took a breath to say more.
Simon didn't want him to say more. Simon kissed him.
It wasn't gentle. It was desperate and frustrated and full of everything Simon couldn't put into words.
How Charlie's existence had destroyed everything Simon thought he knew.
How his goodness made Simon question every choice he'd ever made.
How the thought of staking him made Simon want to turn the stake on himself instead.
Charlie made a small, shocked sound against his mouth, then melted into it completely, like he'd been waiting for this his whole life.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Charlie's mind went completely blank.
Simon was kissing him. Simon, who hunted vampires, who'd tried to stake him twice, who'd just spent the last ten minutes proving Charlie was defective, was kissing him like the world was ending.
Maybe it was.
Charlie couldn't think past the heat of Simon's mouth, the way his hands had come up to frame Charlie's face like he was something worth holding onto. There was nothing gentle about the kiss.
Charlie liked that.
He liked it a lot.
But then his fangs descended without his input.
