“No, you won’t,” he agreed.
“So, you knew the second you tasted it that it would help keep you from killing?”
“No.”
“Then why did you keep sucking on them?”
Declan shrugged and turned his attention back to the window. He sucked on the lollipop as the day remained calm. He felt Willow’s eyes boring into him and turned back to her.
When he frowned questioningly at her, Willow sighed in exasperation. She didn’t know if he was purposely obtuse or if he didn’t understand his elusiveness was irritating, but either way, it was getting on her nerves.
“Why keep sucking on them?” she asked again.
Declan felt like he’d been slapped upside the head when he realized she was trying to learn more abouthim. He wasn’t entirely sure how to react. He couldn’t recall the last time that happened, or if it had ever happened.
The original Defenders all knew each other and all cared about each other, but they didn’t know each other’s histories, and no one asked. Their past was their past, their quirks were their quirks, and they all accepted it.
Ronan knew more about him than any of the others, but Ronan had known him since he was a baby. He’d been there through the worst times of Declan’s life. But there was still plenty Ronan didn’t know about him.
But now Willow was curious about him, and he understood why. They were bound together for the rest of their lives, and they barely knew each other. Or at least, she barely knew him. She was young, her life was very straightforward, and she’d already revealed a lot about herself, her family, her history, and she knew nothing of his.
For a woman who grew up in a warm, loving family, it must be terrifying to find herself mated to a stranger. For him, she was the greatest gift he’d ever received, and he couldn’t blow it.
“With as much as I hated them, I was still determined to learn the answer, but I found myself tossing them out before I got to the middle. Not long after I started trying them, I realized the taste helped distract me from some of my more murderous impulses,” he said.
“Interesting,” she murmured. He’d also given her a little more information about himself with this revelation. “So, when you stopped aging, your murderous impulses are what increased.”
Declan removed the lollipop from his mouth and twirled the stick in his fingers as a couple jogged down the street. Their golden retriever’s tongue hung out as it ran beside them. It unnerved him how unaware these people were of the monsters lurking in their world.
“Among other things,” he said.
“What other things?”
Declan stuck the lollipop back in his mouth. He didn’t want to shut her out, but he couldn’t stand the revulsion she’d experience when she learned the truth of him. Right now, she believed he was a good man, and he loathed the idea of ruining that.
He’d planned to tell her some of this before they had sex, but he’d allowed his desire for her to overrule his common sense. He hoped she didn’t hate him for it.
“I also crave blood, sex, and pain; I craveeverythinga pureblood male can once they stop aging,” he admitted.
Willow’s mind spun as she tried to absorb his answer. She could never fully understand what a purebred male went through when they fully matured, but she’d heard some of what her brothers endured. And each of them had only had to battle one thing, except for…
“You’re like my brother Aiden,” she said.
“I’m like your brother Aiden. He once asked me if there were any other vampires out there like him. I told him I only knew of one other.”
“But you didn’t tell him it was you.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” Then he realized that was a lie, and he refused to lie to her. “I didn’t want to see the sympathy I knew would come into his eyes.”
Willow focused her attention on the window; he wouldn’t want to see the sympathy in her eyes either. “Maybe you could have helped each other.”
“There is nothing anyone can do to help another with their battle, unless it’s a mate.”
Willow turned her attention back to him. She sucked in a breath when she discovered him looking at her with a mixture of awe and a need so raw she almost tore her clothes off for him. But that could wait. She was finally getting him to open up a little, and she wasn’t going to blow her opportunity for answers.
