Page 19 of Love, Rekindled

“Why?”

The ice-blue eyes darkened, but he didn’t explain. Instead, he pressed her for an answer. “Why did you leave the Anasso?”

“I didn’t leave,” she confessed with a shrug. “I was thrown out.”

“Thrown out?” His fangs flashed in outrage. “Are you serious?”

Her lips twitched at his sharp tone. As if he couldn’t believe any vampire would be stupid enough to banish her.

“I killed one of his favorite lapdogs.”

“That was it?” Azrael’s outrage melted to confusion. “Vampires squabble and kill each other on a regular basis. Why did he force you to leave?”

Jayla stared at his sculpted, painfully beautiful face. He wasn’t going to let this go. And worse, she sensed that he was as stubborn as she was. Which wasn’t easy.

“Fine.” She conceded defeat with a scowl. “I refused to use my superpower. Eventually, the king decided that I was no longer worthy of being his personal assassin.”

“Ah.” Azrael pushed away from the door, gazing down at her with a strange expression. Anticipation? Hunger? Need? Perhaps a combination of all three. “Was there a reason you stopped using your gift?”

She shivered. Not just at the reminder of the damage she’d done in the past, but in reaction to his intoxicating musk.

“It’s not a gift. It’s a curse,” she protested.

He reached out to skim his fingers down her cheek. “As a vampire who’s actually been cursed, I can assure you that yours is a gift.”

Instinctively, she leaned toward him, craving his touch like a flower sought the sun. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

“What happened,kiska?”

“You.” The word was torn from her lips.

Moving slowly as if afraid he might break the spell being woven between them, Azrael grabbed her hand and pressed it to the center of his chest.

“Because of this?”

Jayla splayed her hand, replacing the horrifying memory of slamming the dagger into his heart with the feel of his solid muscles beneath her palm.

“Because I believed you,” she admitted, her voice harsh with regret. “I sensed long before I traveled to Moscow that my master was hiding secrets.” She grimaced. “And that his lust for personal power had corrupted his desire to unite the vampires.”

He lowered his head, wrapping her in his icy power. “And yet you hunted me down?”

She nodded, slowly accepting that she owed him the truth. She had, after all, killed him. He deserved an explanation.

“Before the Anasso discovered me, I was with another clan.”

His fingers traced the line of her jaw. “Your voice tells me you weren’t happy with them.”

Jayla begrudgingly allowed the painful memories to return. The dark, brutal nights, the bloody fights, and the utter emptiness of being treated as an object, never a creature worthy of love.

“I was kept as a prisoner by my master,” she told him.

Azrael hissed, his fangs in full view as he pulled back his lips in fury. “You were locked away?”

“Worse,” she muttered. “I was leashed like a dog.”

“Why?”

It was a question she’d asked night after night as the silver manacle was locked around her neck, and she was dragged behind the other clansmen. It became a running joke to bet on the time it would take for the silver to deplete her strength to the point she fell flat on her face.

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