“Eight?” She cleared her throat after the word squeaked out of her. “Eight?”
“Yes. And believe me, they didn’t live because I meant to leave them that way.”
“What happened?”
“Do you really want to know?”
No!“Yes.”
“I was at an upscale place in London that vampires frequently visited for some, ah… companionship.”
Willow’s fingers dug into her thighs as jealousy clawed at her heart. He’d been with other women, of course, he had. She wasn’t a fool, she knew that, but she wanted to kick the crap out of those long-dead women.
You're an idiot.That knowledge didn’t help ease her yearning to clap her hands over her ears so she couldn’t hear anymore. But her childhood days of blocking out things she didn’t want to hear were over.
“A vamp owned the place, and only vampires went there, so it was a haven. It was the kind of place where if something went wrong, it was easily covered up, but if you lost control there, you’d most likely lose your life too.”
“Okay,” she murmured, not sure how to respond.
His gaze was distant before he turned toward the window, and Willow suspected he was still trying to figure it out.
“I’m not sure what happened,” he said. “I’d like to say one of them tried to kill me or attacked me orsomething.At least I would have some understanding of what caused the snap. But one second I was in the room; I was having fun—”
“With alleightof them?” she blurted.
His eyes were silver shards of ice when they met hers again. Willow gulped; this wasn’t exactly her favorite story to begin with, and she had a feeling she was going to start hating it a lot more.
“It was a slow night,” he said flatly.
Her jaw almost dropped, but she somehow managed to keep it closed. However, her shock had to be written all over her face. The man he was talking about was so different than the one sitting beside her.
Because they are different. That was the Declan of five hundred years ago; this is the Declan of today.
Willow’s disbelief beat against him. He should stop; he shouldneverhave started this awful tale. But now that he had started it, he couldn’t stop. It was as if he’d opened the floodgates on his past, and there was no holding back the repulsive waters those gates once housed.
“One second, everything was fine, and the next, I was like a rabid animal as I pounced on one of them and started draining her blood. I remember having the idle thought I could let it all go, and then I was on top of her. It happened so fast, but it felt sofuckingright.”
He shouldn’t be telling her this; he couldn’t stop. She was still looking at him as if he was someone who deserved sympathy, and he couldn’t take it. She had to understand he wasn’t a good man; hewasa monster.
“The only reason the first woman survived is because the others tried to flee the room. The wild beat of their hearts and their screams lured me away from each victim so I could hunt my next one.”
Their screams. Their beautiful, petrified screams had resonated with the worst part of him, and he’d thrilled in it. Excitement had coursed through him; bloodlust consumed him as one after another, he tore them away from the door and sank his fangs into their throats.
“Ronan was downstairs when it started. When he heard the screams, he broke into the room and pulled me off them, but the damage was done by then. Some weren’t as bad as the others, but a few were barely alive.
“When it happened, we were still the Defenders, but our members were different than what you would consider the original members. Ronan ordered them to clean up the mess and change their memories while the establishment owner gave his blood to the ones who needed it most. That’s the only reason any of them lived.
“I was a raving madman when Ronan and two other Defenders dragged me out of there. I was desperate to finish what I’d started andpissedthey stopped me.”
He could still recall the sound of his teeth clacking together as he tried to bite Ronan and the others. The smell of the blood dripping down his chin only served to enflame his compulsion to go back and finish what he started.
He didn’t have to fight against his nature anymore; he was free. And if Ronan wouldn’t let him go to finish what he started, he could at least free him by putting him out of his misery. But Ronan didn’t do either of those things.
Thiswas the source of some of the torment she’d seen in his eyes, she realized.
“I was a monster that night,” he said. “And I still am.”
No matter what he believed about himself, she was sure he was wrong.
