Page 23 of The Doctor and the Devil
“That’s a non-answer,” I shot back.
He pursed his lips, and I found myself staring at his perfectly formed mouth.
“Mina, if you do not wish for me to pursue you, I will keep my affections to myself. But I’m afraid I must ask you for help. I need to find Laszlo, and I want to help end this blood plague. I have failed on both accounts thus far. As you said, the Order is closing in on me and I don’t have people I can trust. I need your keen mind and the skills of your friends.”
His tone was pleading, but his handsome face betrayed none of the emotion contained within him.
I sighed. “Well, if it was the Order who tried to take me, I suppose I’m already in danger.”
Rafael grabbed my hand in one of his supernaturally quick moves. His eyes bored into mine with the intensity that frightened and excited the primal parts of me.
“Mina,” he rumbled, his low voice barely more than a growl. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I would ruin this world without a thought to keep you safe—even if you do not wish to be mine.”
Yes, yes!My body arched toward him, spurred by its magnetic attraction to the man I’d long considered my mate. My traitorous mind halted the move but couldn’t stop me from closing my eyes and tilting my lips up to his for the kiss I knew would come.
The kiss I’d told him I didn’t want.Mina, you wretched liar.
I felt the air between us change as he leaned forward, but the kiss never arrived. In an instant, he was across the room at the doorway again.
“Follow me,” he said, turning away. “I’ll ensure you’re safely returned to Charlotte’s home.”
Every silent step he took down the hall was another crack in my already bleeding heart.
* * *
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t come with you,” Rafael said stiffly. It was well after sunrise, but it was impossible to tell given the depth of his underground abode.
Guilt and frustration gnawed at me as he led me through the labyrinth of hallways and tunnels on our way back to the empty, crumbling tower.
“Rafael,” I started, unsure of what I was planning to say. “I’m sorry for earlier. Truly.”
He did not stop or look back. “Yes. So you’ve said.”
“You must understand,” I tried again, reaching for his arm. “I need time to think about everything you said to me. There were a great many revelations in your words—twenty years of my belief in untruths and half-truths that I will have to come to terms with. I am sorry for what you endured in that time—for your father, for the loss of your home, for the arduous road ahead of you. I am sorry for our miserable separation and two decades of heart-wrenching loneliness. I felt those things too. I do not pretend that my life has been easy in the wake of your abandonment, but I have crafted it into something of my own.”
Finally, he paused. We reached the threshold of the tower, some sixty feet below the hidden entrance to his castle. He turned to face me, his expression dark and forbidding.
I forced myself to continue. “When I thought that you were responsible for the blood plague—the only disease my father truly failed to understand—I thought it was my calling. My punishment for falling short of expectations, my family’s expectations, your father’s expectations, your expectations. I threw myself into this work because I felt like I owed it to everyone. Now that I find out so much of that is wrong, it has left me…unmoored,in a way. I care for you, Rafael. I always have. I always will. But I have been alone so long, you must at least give me leave to find my own way through this.”
He raised his hand to caress my cheek but did not touch me. His fingertips hovered for a moment, and his lips parted on a breath.
“Mina…” he whispered.
I moved to lean into the touch, but he pulled his hand away, jaw flexing tightly. Whatever he’d been about to say died in the space between us. He reached for a wrought-iron candelabra sticking out of the wall and wrenched it back. There was a series of loud groans and clicks and a small stone staircase unfolded out of the wall, winding its way up the tower to a small round door hidden in the ceiling.
Rafael stepped back, letting his hand fall to his side.
“There is a windlass at the top of this tower that will help you descend. My coachman is waiting to assist you, and then he will take you on to Charlotte’s. I will await your decision about Laszlo and my work on the plague, but please make haste. I fear for the safety of France, as well as for you. Trust me when I say the Order is a powerful and unfortunate enemy,” he said, his words clipped.
I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to say countless things. But before my thoughts could take form, Rafael inclined his head in a stifled bow and strode back down the hallway from whence we’d come.
Feeling chastised and raw with emotion, I blew out a shuddering breath and began the long climb up the stairs. The farther away I moved, the worse I felt. I regretted some of my words, but not all of them, and Rafael’s reaction shamed me and made me feel the worst kind of guilt at hurting him. Then, thoughts of anger would surface at my shame—could he really expect me to fall into his arms after twenty years and countless lies between us? Never mind the fact that we’d shared that kiss…mon dieu, that kiss.
I licked my lips at the memory.
He’d tasted so much better than I remembered. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d dreamed of such kisses. And the way he looked at me as if I were the only woman in the world, like Eve stepping in the garden to meet Adam. No, not Adam…Someone more primal. One of the old gods.
Hades.
