“You are not just a vampire. You are a woman.Mywoman. I think I claimed you from the moment we locked eyes in that bar. And I think you claimed me right back.”
“It’s just physical?—”
“No, it’s bloody not,” he growled, making her shiver with want and emotions too deep to ponder. “You are strong and the fiercest family Odette could ask for. You found out the man you thought of as a father betrayed you, was arealmonster, and you did not make excuses for him. Despite his power, despite the very real danger to your life, despite the love you once held for him, you defied him to save your sister. And you could have walked away after that. Taken Odette and fled. But you’re still here … fighting to protect the world from him. You can lie and say it’s just for Odette, and to pay your debt to me … but I know the truth. You’re here because you don’t want anyone else to suffer at William’s hands. The way you’ve suffered.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks and this time, Echo didn’t bother to stop them.
“I am in awe of you. Iwantyou. Not because of some fucking mating bond the fates devised … but because I’ve never met a woman like you. You make me want to be a better man.”
Shocked, Echo turned in his arms.
Elijah stared down at her, eyes gold with emotion and sincerity. “I can’t make you stop seeing yourself as a monster, and it scares the hell out of me. Because I’m afraid of what you’ll do for this redemption you think you must seek. And I’m afraid that meeting your mother could go badly … and that it’ll take you away from me. I’m terrified … because I know no matter what I say, it is up to you to realize that you’re not a monster. That you are a good woman who bad things happened to.”
“I believed him.” She voiced the pain buried deep inside her. “I believed in his righteousness and was complicit in his evil because of it.”
Elijah cupped her face tenderly, his thumbs swiping at her free-falling tears. “It is only human to love our parents. And he was a father to you for a long time, Echo. It takes courage beyond imagination to walk away from a bond like that. My brave, brave love. I wish …” He rested his forehead against hers. “I wish you could see you the way I see you. I wish … I wish that bastard hadn’t made you afraid to believe in people again.”
There it was.
He’d cut through to her truth.
“I do believe in you.”
“Perhaps.” He pulled away to smooth her hair back from her face, expression tender. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t terrify you.”
Echo didn’t know what to say.
Her issues were just one more reason this extraordinary, loving male should move on.
As if he read her thoughts again, he pressed a quick, hard, determined kiss to her mouth. “I’m not going anywhere, Echo Payne. I am going to stay by your side, even if it takes you centuries to stop being afraid of what’s between us.”
28
“Margaret Lancaster?”
The human female whirled, reaching for her handbag.
Echo wondered briefly if there was pepper spray in it. Or a weapon of some kind.
But Margaret, her mother, paused when her gaze locked with Echo’s.
They stood in the underground parking garage of the commercial building on Lombard Street. Margaret was an executive assistant in an investment firm there. Conall had made a fake call to Margaret’s work phone pretending to be the fire department informing her of a fire in her apartment building. He’d requested she come immediately.
Really, it was just so they could get her alone in the parking garage.
Niamh, Rose, and Fionn were using their fae gifts to deter anyone from interrupting their interaction.
Echo’s birth mother was an attractive blond in her late forties. Still poised and beautiful, immaculately put together in her suit and high heels.
“What do you want? I’m in a hurry.” Margaret took a step back as if she sensed what Echo was.
Maybe she did.
After all, she knew vampires existed.
Shaking off the nervous riot of butterflies in her belly, Echo stopped before her, cataloguing their likeness. It was uncanny how similar they were.
Margaret’s eyes widened, seeing it for herself. Tears of disbelief filled her eyes. “Ella?”
