“Itisthat simple.”
“It was easy for you. Your parents died.”
His eyes flare wide the next second, like he realizes how horrible that sounded. But it’s too late. In one tempestuous surge of grief and rage, I leap at him.
We crash against the wall, sliding to the floor in a tangle of limbs and claws. I snarl in his face, my fangs a bare inch from his nose.
“You’re a fucking fool!” I yell. “Nothing has been easy for me. My parentskilledmy brother and sister. They turned us all, but only I survived the transformation process. They raised me as their Chosen—their one perfect vampire daughter. Survival of the fucking fittest. I hate my life, Raoul, do you understand? I hated myfamily—I still do. I miss them, and I despise them, and I live with that contradiction every day. Ihatemyself, and I hate both of you, because you want to drag me into that trap again, bind me with love and chains and shadows until I can’t extricate myself from the knot we’ve become, no matter how much I might want to. I won’t be trapped like that again—I won’t.”
“I’m so sorry,” whispers Raoul. He lies quietly beneath me, his handsome face somehow strong and soft at the same time. His long fingers curl around my arms, not resisting, simply touching me. His warm green eyes sing so much love into mine that I can’t bear it. I shove his face aside and graze my fangs along his beautiful throat.
A dizzying blaze of bloodlust rushes through my limbs, searing the inside of my skull. My fangs elongate farther, and my mouth waters for the taste of his blood. It will be warm and sweet, like him.
“I can end this,” I breathe against his skin, against the hot thrum of his pulse. “I can kill you, and then you can’t follow me anymore. I won’t have to love you or leave you. I can kill the Angel, too. He’ll let me, won’t you?” Still crouched over Raoul like a cat over its prey, I turn my head briefly aside, looking to where the Angel stands, tense and silent. “You hate yourself, too. That’s why you wear the mask.”
His lips part, and a flicker of pain crosses his face. “I don’t know if I can die.”
“Shall we find out?” I turn back to Raoul, inhaling the savory heat of his flesh. Widening my jaws for the bite.
“Kill me first,” says the Angel calmly.
My head swerves toward him again.
“I mean it,” he continues. “If you are so terrified of loving us that you have to eliminate us entirely, take me first. My end is long overdue. I should have perished under the ground and faded intooblivion centuries ago. You forget, my darling, that I know what it is to be trapped, bound to an existence I did not choose. I thought perhaps I had survived the long darkness forthis—for you. For a chance at pleasure, creative joy, and true happiness. But I have ruined it all by my actions. I frightened you and hurt you instead of protecting and cherishing you.” He comes swiftly forward and kneels beside me and Raoul, his face twisted with agonized passion. “Kill me first. I deserve death far more than I deserve your love…or his, though he gave it to me so willingly.” He looks down at Raoul with pained affection, then returns his fierce golden gaze to me. “Kill me, darling, for failing you.”
The monster in me assents greedily. I’m a split second away from lunging forward, ripping open his throat, and gulping down his rich blood.
Kill me, darling, for failing you.
He did ask for it.
But as my muscles twitch, preparing to pounce, Raoul whistles slowly and says, “Nowthat’show you grovel.”
We both look at him, stunned.
“What?” He hooks an eyebrow, gives us a faint grin. “So dramatic, both of you. Fuck, we’ve all been trapped, torn apart, abused—we’ve all suffered. We get it. We understand each other. Christine, do you think I’m not terrified, too? You think I don’t have trust issues so deep I could drown a mountain in them and have room to spare? Of course I do. But should we let our traumawin? Should we let it steal our future like it has already stolen our past? Hell no. I’ll be damned if I’m going to give another second of my potential happiness to the people who took my childhood from me. You want the ties broken? I’ll do it. I’ll stand up to my sister, reject my birthright, throw myself out of the shifter pack. They might come after me, but fuck ’em. I’vegot a vampire girlfriend, and my boyfriend is a god.”
A startled, hysterical laugh bubbles up inside me, slips out of my fanged mouth. Raoul’s grin widens, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
I’m still broken inside, still wretched and hungry, but something has shifted into place. Me. I’ve shifted into place with the satisfying click of the last piece latching into a puzzle. The murderous pain in my heart eases, and relief floods into its place.
Whether he knows it or not, those words were exactly what I needed to hear.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to give another second of my potential happiness to the people who took my childhood from me.
Fuck yes.
I duck my head, not to Raoul’s neck this time, but to his mouth. With my fangs out, the kiss is messy, dangerous, but he growls in eager response, the most animalistic sound I’ve ever heard from him. When I pull away, his lower lip is bleeding. I lick the tiny cut, then turn to the Angel, drag him closer, and kiss him with Raoul’s blood on my tongue.
He releases a ragged breath, an aching sigh that I feel right down to my bones.
Pulling back, I touch his half mask. “Raoul is giving up his family. What will you yield to me, besides your life?”
When I toy with the edge of the mask, dread pools in his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t control it.”
“Show me,” I whisper. “Showus.”
Slowly, he reaches for the mask, tugs it away from his face, and sets it aside.
