“I know it can be hard to process, but not everything is about you,” she shot back.
“Then what is it about, hm?”
Felix pushed the door to theirsuite open and nudged her inside. Instinct compelled him to get her somewhere safe and dark as the sun rose outside. Though the light was blocked by their vampire-safe windows, which cost a fortune, age-old instinct wasn’t so easily swayed.
He frog-marched her into their bedroom and deposited her on the edge of the bed before he went around the room.Agitation made his movements jerky and quick as he secured the heavy drapes over the windows.
Her eyes tracked him as he worked. He could feel her gaze like soft hands raking their nails down his back.
Felix gripped the heavy velvet curtains tightly, unable to release them. He couldn’t turn to look at her. Some small, weak part of him was afraid of what he’d find there.
He wasn’t an insecure man, but doubt could sink its teeth into anyone. It whispered possibilities to him, each one more gutting than the last: that she might be telling the truth when she said she didn’t want to be with him; that she didn’t feel the same visceral connection he did; that she really, truly couldn’t see herself making a life with him.
Staring at the drapery until his eyes burned, he croaked, “Tell me. Tell me why you ran. Therealreason.”
Dahlia didn’t answer right away. Just when he was beginning to think she never would, she murmured, “I’m scared, Felix.”
He whirled around. Something sharp pierced him — not a blade, but a deadly sort of feeling. “Scared ofme?”
Dahlia sat on their bed, framed by the four-poster’s curtains. Her toes barely brushed the floor and her fingers were curled into the blankets on either side of her thighs. She looked small. Breakable.
“No,” she answered, gaze on the floor. “I’m not scared of you, Felix. I should be. A sane person would’ve run screaming from you years ago. I pretended like I tried but I think we both know I didn’t. Not really. I always liked you more than was healthy.”
Dahlia shifted to one side. Patting the spot next to her, she said, “C’mere.”
Eyeing her warily, like this sudden shift in attitude was some con to get him to let her go, Felix crossed the room to sink down on the mattress. Their thighs and shoulders pressed together.
Looking up at him with those big blue eyes, she asked, “If I tell you what I need to be happy, will you help me get it?”
Felix tilted his head toward her. A muscle ticced on his jaw. “As long as it isn’t letting you go, yes. Anything.”
“Yeah, I think we established that.” She bumped his shoulder with her own, a sardonic smile tilting the corners of her mouth. But whatever lightness buoyed her was brief. It was there and gone in a moment as she leaned her weight into his side.
In a hushed voice, she admitted, “I’m scared, Felix. Of all of this. Of me. Of being this— this new thing with instincts and urges I don’t even understand. And I’m afraid that everything I’ve cared about or worked for is being taken from me now that I’m whateverthisis.”
She spread her arms in front of her, gesturing to some unseen expanse. “In a couple days, I’ve lost my identity, my home, and all the things I’d imagined for my future. It’s more than the fact that I drink blood now. It’s the fact that I can’t even imagine what my life will look like a few weeks from now — which is really scary for someone who built their entire adult life around hard goals.”
He wanted to argue. Gods, he wantedargue.
She hadn’t lost anything. She’d gained a new life, a new family, a whole new strata of influence and power.But Felix managed to curb his natural inclination to push. This wasn’t an argument or a challenge he could win. It justwas.
Instead, he rasped, “How do I fix it? Tell me what you need.”
How do I make you happy?
Dahlia sat up a little straighter. Folding her hands in her lap, she took a deep breath before answering, “First on the list is I need to keep the things that make me Dahlia. I can’t just be a pet you keep locked away in your house. I’m not cut out for the cushy pampered housewife stuff. I need to work.”
Lists,Felix thought, indescribably relieved.She’s giving me a list. I can work with that.
“You could work with me,” he offered immediately.
When Dahlia gave him a shocked look, he explained, “C’mon. Did you really think I wanted you to stay in the house all day? That’d be a waste. When I let myself imagine what I really wanted, I always pictured us as partners. You’ve got a wicked business mind, pet. And selfishly, I’d like to have you doing a job that keeps us together.”
“You really thinkIcould be in the syndicate?”
Felix snorted. “You’re more vicious than most of the vampires born into it. So yeah, I think you could.”
There would need to be safeguards in place, and it wouldn’t be like she’d be out running guns or doing hits, but the business side of things was safe enough. Dahlia was sharp and ruthless. He had no doubt that once she got the hang of things, she’d be a tougher boss than him.
