Page 80 of To Crave Madly
He gave me a pleading look as if begging me to walk away. To leave him be. But I wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t going to escape me this time.
“I’m not going anywhere. So you might as well tell me.”
Jasper scowled and I held back the chuckle that rose to my lips. He took a deep breath and told me his story.
“All my life, I have been a useful tool for someone or other. I was born the bastard son of a nobleman, which meant I grew up in a noble household without ever truly being part of it. I was constantly reminded of the stain I had caused upon the family name. As if it was my fault I had chosen to be born. My childhood was unpleasant. But at a young age, I was apprenticed to a man named Fitzroy. He was a bastard like me, but with a very specific, very lethal set of skills.”
Jasper paused for a moment as he relived a memory. I was eager to hear more. I barely knew anything of his past, and this was the most open and honest he’d ever been with me. It pained me to hear how much disdain tainted his words as he spoke. Alec had mentioned that Jasper had a dark past, so I was already expecting a tragic tale. But nothing prepared me for how much sorrow I would feel at hearing the life he had led.
“By the time I was a young man, I’d already disposed of more people than I cared to count, and all in the name of politics and greed.” He turned to me then, shame burning deeply in his eyes. “As you know, I was turned in 1630. I had been sent to take out an influential member of a foreign court on a visit to the country, but I had not reckoned on him being a vampire. I had a somewhat fearsome reputation and, upon hearing my name, the vampire decided I was of more use to him as one of his own clan. So, rather than sending my severed head back to court, he turned me.”
I gulped. “Who was it? The vampire who turned you?”
“Cesare de Santis.”
Before the words had left his mouth, I knew that was going to be the name that slipped past his lips. My heart broke for this man. Being an assassin was all he had ever known; no wonder he was so closed off. So unwilling to believe he was worthy of anything other than death.
“I’m sorry, Jasper,” I whispered, my eyes falling to the floor. Tears threatened to fall, and I didn’t want Jasper to see how much sorrow I had for him. His finger tipped the bottom of my chin and his bright blue eyes found mine. The harsh lines of his face softened under the starlight and my breath hitched at his beauty.
“Lori, you don’t need to shed tears for me.” His thumb swiped at the tear I couldn’t hold back.
“I know, but I can’t help it. Everything I feel for you seems so visceral; I can’t control it.”
“I’m no good for you. All I have ever known is death; it’s all I have ever dealt in.” There was such grief in Jasper’s voice, like he was resigned to his fate of being a murderer, but that wasn’t who he was to me.
“Jasper, you have saved me, and you have protected me, even when I didn’t want your protection. You have continuously put yourself in harm’s way forme.” He made to interrupt me, but I hadn’t finished what I needed to say. I placed my fingers on his lips to silence him and his eyes darkened at my touch. “I know you are going to say you were just following orders, but if that were the case, would you really have stuck by me? Or would you have just palmed me off on one of your team?”
His brow furrowed and I knew he couldn’t deny the truth. I trailed my hand along his jaw and cupped his cheek. He looked so lost and sad and I just wanted to throw my arms around him and show him how much he meant to me, but I couldn’t even begin to find the words to start that sentence.
Jasper rested his forehead against mine and closed his eyes. This was it. The moment of truth. I could sense it in the way he couldn’t bring himself to look at me. My heart rate spiked, and my stomach dropped. Was my heart going to survive this?
I took a deep breath. “Alec told me about the True Death. Is this still something you want?”
“I don’t know. Before you, I was so sure that it was what I wanted. But now, now I look at you and I see everything I’ve ever wanted. And it terrifies me. I’m not worthy of someone like you. All I’m worthy of is the True Death.”
Sadness flooded through me at his words and my soul crumbled under the weight of it. “Why? Why do you think that?”
He pulled away from me and in my shock, I didn’t have the strength to hold on to him. “You don’t know what it’s like, to lose the divine ability to die. Or to wake up every day knowing that today might be a day where you might take someone else’s life. Day after day, the weight of everything I’ve done gets heavier. It might be my burden to bear but it’s smothering me, Lori. I can’t breathe. I can’t go on like this. I just want…” Jasper broke off, his anguish at finally telling me the truth making him stumble over his words. He slammed his fist against the balcony as his words failed him. He exuded frustration and anger, but I couldn’t figure out if he were angry at me or the world. Or perhaps a little bit of both.
“Jasper, it’s okay…”
“No, Lori. It’s not okay!” he roared. “It’s painful and agonising. I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, the ghosts of the people that I’ve taken from this world haunt me in the darkness of my dreams. It doesn’t matter whether they deserved it or not; they’re still the phantoms that terrorise me. I’m a monster Lori, and I deserve to die.”
“But Jasper, you’re letting those actions define you and that is not who you are. There is more to you than this.”
He turned from me and ran his hands through his hair, tugging it in vexation. I needed him to know that he wasn’t alone, that people cared. ThatIcared.
“Jasper, look at me,” I demanded. It was time to make him listen, and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He sighed deeply before turning around to look at me. His mouth was set into a grim line and I could see the suffering etched around his eyes. He’d been in pain for so long that it was embedded into the lines of his face, the depths of his eyes and his shoulders were wilting beneath the weight of it. “You matter. You matter to your team. You matter to me.”
“No, I don’t, Lori. No one needs me for anything other than taking out a target. How can I matter to anyone?” The anger had left him leaving only sorrow in its wake. This was heart wrenching. That such a powerful, strong man could be so damaged on the inside.
I took a step closer to him, but he backed away. He was afraid. I’d never seen him afraid and it nearly broke me. I knew, with all my heart, that I needed to make him believe that hewasworthy. That the world would be a far less beautiful place if he wasn’t in it. I needed him to be in the world because I needed him by my side. It didn’t matter if I didn’t understand whatever was between us, because I knew that my life, without him in it, would be meaningless.
It was like I could suddenly see everything with blinding clarity. As I looked up into the face of the man who frustrated me, berated me and irritated the hell out of me most days, I knew I couldn’t bear one moment without him in the world.
I marched straight up to him, grabbing his hand and placing it over my beating heart. “Jasper, my heart is beating because of you. If you hadn’t saved me back in that alley all that time ago, I would be dead or perhaps even worse.” I shuddered even thinking about what that trio could have done with me had they succeeded in kidnapping me. “How many times have you saved your team? I imagine Alec must have needed saving; such an egotistical asshat must haven’t bitten off more than he could chew at least once or twice.”
A ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of Jasper’s mouth at my words. I was reaching him, so I pushed on. Time to bring out the big guns.
