I wanted to argue. To throw it in his face. To scream at him for biting me, for kidnapping me, for dragging me into this mess.
But my throat was parched and I desperately needed blood. My fangs lengthened as I took the glass with a shaking hand. I drank it down.
“There’s more if you need it,” Rocco said, his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall.
There were bloodstains on his collar and down his shirt. My blood.
“Where am I?”
“Angelo Santi’s houseboat.”
My blood ran cold. Angelo Santi. The vampire mafia king. The man who’d blackmailed Rocco into stealing the shard. The man Rose had warned me about—the one who didn’t do anything without a reason.
And now I was on his property. In the middle of the bayou. With no one knowing where I was.
“You brought me toAngelo’s?”
I sat up too fast—the room swam, my vision blurring at the edges before snapping back into focus. I pressed a hand to the side of my neck where the bite mark still throbbed, hot and tender beneath my fingers. “Are you insane? What happens when he decides I’m a loose end, Rocco? What happens when he decides it’s easier to kill me than let me go?”
Rocco stood by the window, his silhouette rigid against the pale light filtering through the curtains. His hands curled into fists at his sides. “He’s not going to kill you.”
“How do you know that?”
He turned to face me fully, and the look in his eyes made my breath catch. Not anger. Not defiance. Something fiercer. Something that burned with an intensity that made the air between us feel too thin.
“Because I won’t let him.”
I stared at him, searching his face for any sign he was lying. Any crack, any tell, any trace of deception. But all I saw was exhaustion—deep, bone-grinding exhaustion, the kind that sleep couldn’t fix. And guilt. Guilt that sat in the hollows of his cheeks and the tension around his mouth like it had taken up permanent residence. And something else I couldn’t quite name. Something that made my chest ache when I looked at it too long.
“Why am I here?” I asked, my voice quieter now. The fury was still there, simmering beneath my ribs, but it had shifted into something colder. More controlled. More dangerous.
“Because you were threatening to go to Costin.”
I remembered—the argument, the desperation in his voice, me running for the door.
“So you bit me?”
He looked down at his hands. They hung at his sides, perfectly still, but I noticed the faint tremor in his fingers. When he looked back up, he didn’t hide from it. Didn’t try to soften it or dress it up in excuses.
“Yes, I did. It was the only way I could keep you quiet.”
At least he was honest. I’d give him that much, even if the honesty made me want to throw something at his head.
“I thought I told you not to betray me again?” I held his gaze, letting the words settle between us. Letting him feel the full measure of what he’d broken.
He sighed—a heavy, hollow sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside his chest. The kind that carried every bad decision that had led to this moment.
“I know.” He swallowed hard. “But I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I wanted to keep you out of this.”
Was that even true? I studied his face, searching for the prince I’d once known—the one who’d been reckless and arrogant but never cruel. That Rocco had disappeared two years ago. The man standing in front of me wore his face, but I didn’t know what lived behind it anymore.
“But you did. And now I’m going to be hunted just like you.”
The lines deepened around his eyes, his shoulders sagged. At least he felt some guilt for dragging me into this mess.
I wanted that to feel like enough. It didn’t.
“You were determined to turn me in to Costin.” He dragged a hand over his face. “This was the only way for me to escape.”
