Page 80 of Blood Lovers

“Because you remind him of something.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“His family.”

My brow furrows. “What family?”

“His wife, Syrsee. His children.”

“He’s married?”

“No. I killed them. Decades back.”

A sick, sick feeling creeps into my stomach. “You…”

“Killed them. I burned them alive in a church. He was never going to leave them for me. So I had to take them away.”

“And he…”

“No. He knows, but he forgot. And he won’t let himself remember. I’ve told him several dozen times, actually. It’s like he doesn’t hear my words. Like he’s under some kind of spell.” Paul looks at me funny. His eyes narrow down into slits and I get an uncomfortable feeling of scrutiny.

“What? Why are you looking at me that way?”

“Your grandmother put a spell on him, didn’t she?”

I huff out air. “Well, if she did, I wouldn’t know. I didn’t grow up with her, as you can see.” I wave my hand at the dorm room.

“I think she did. I think she was there that night when I made him. I think she got to him before I did.”

“OK.”

“And I think you can undo what she did.”

“Is that why you want me? So I can undo some stupid spell?”

He turns his hand around so the back of his fingers can slowly slide down my cheek. Then he leans in and I realize I’m waiting for it. So when his lips touch mine, I’m not surprised and I don’t pull away.

He whispers, “I want you because you belong to me.”

Then he pulls back and my lips are tingling from his soft kiss and my mind is spinning from his careful words.

“Why would you want him to know that?”

“That I killed them?”

I nod.

“Because it’s coming between us. And his memory of them is coming back. I can’t take those memories away again until he actually has them. So he’s going to have a hard time soon, Syrsee. He’s going to see his wife’s face. He’s going to miss her that same way he did the night of their funerals. He’s going to weep for his children.”

“I don’t understand what you’re doing. You want him to know that you killed them, but you don’t want him to remember them?”

“That’s exactly right. He needs to know all the truth about me. That’s the only way this works.”

All these words are spinning around in my head, trying to fit together in some coherent way. But it’s very contradictory. He hides his lies behind truth, that much I get.

But why?

“You’re going to wake up now, Syrsee. And he’s going to wake up as well. He won’t remember what I told him about you. I promise you that. You can have this time to decide. He’s going to be better, but not well. He will need more blood.”