“What is this?” Tavia pointed to the cabinet, her hands shaking.
“Let me explain.”
Tavia shook her head and shoved past him, leaving the bedroom, and heading to the living room. She had to get dressed and get her things.
“This was a mistake.”
“Wait,” he called, running after her.
“There is no explanation for what I found!”
“There is! I told you I was a collector of art.”
“Yes,” Tavia yelled, “but this is not art!”
“Collecting is my passion, and, well, when I first turned, I became obsessed—”
Tavia shook her head, not wanting to hear anyexplanation. Some of those labels . . . they were ages. “Did you kill all those people?”
“Some of them, yes.”
She couldn’t make sense of the fae who had been so kind, attentive, and normal.
“I need to go,” she said, moving into the washroom, slamming the door, locking it, and throwing on her clothes.
Tavia pulled on her pants, then grabbed one of his shirt’s that was hanging and put it on.
Her boots were in the bedroom, and she would have to pass him.
She opened the washroom door and moved past him. She grabbed the boots, sat on the bed, and began lacing them.
“You can’t go,” he said.
“Am I a prisoner? I thought we were partners.”
“We are, and we still have a job to do.”
“You expect me to pretend to be married to you after what I found? You’re deranged.”
“No, I’m a vampyre,” he said, his voice rising. “I’m a fae that needs blood to survive. And yes, I have acollection, but that’s it.”
Once her second boot was laced, Tavia stood up and stepped right into him until their chests were almost bumping.
“And how long before those fangs find my neck? Why don’t we just get it over with now?” She moved the hair away from her neck and tilted it toward him.
His eyes darkened, the color shifting from green to a muddy red.
“I’m not going to bite you,” he said. “I would have already. Do you know what type of willpower it took when you freed me? I hadn’t been fed in decades. That’s why I fed on a corpse—so I wouldn’t bite you.”
She looked up at him.
“Some of the names on there . . .”
“I know,” he said. “But you’ve given me a chance to start over, to be something better.”
He reached over and stroked her cheek, and she was surprised that she didn’t flinch away from him.
“The other night,” she said, “when you went to hunt—what did you hunt? Why wouldn’t you go to your collection?”
