Page 46 of A Vampire Bewitched
She didn’t want to ask this. She really didn’t. But she had to know. “It’s because of what you saw just now, isn’t it?” When his brows lowered, she clarified, “My scars?”
“No. No!” he emphasized. “Emma…this is…this really has nothing to do with you. It’s just the way it has to be.”
“I think it has everything to do with me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just better this way. Please, trust me on this.”
“Does this have something to do with you thinking you would kill me?”
Nik draggedhis hands through his hair.Why not just fucking tell her?Maybe it would scare her enough that she’d be smart and stay the hell away from him.
“Yeah, all right.” He’d give her the abbreviated version. “I loved a girl once, or thought I did, a long time ago. Her name was Eliana.” Leaning against the window wall, as far from her delicious scent as he could get, he crossed his arms over his broad chest. “She was human, like you.” He took a breath to steady himself. “We were together for about a year when I came home late one night to find her already asleep in our bed. The Council had just been in a battle with another Master Vampire. He and his followers had challenged Luukas’ authority. It happens occasionally. We won, but it was a hard, bloody fight. I was still amped up from it when I entered our room. The bloodlust blinded me, and I fell on her like a beast, tearing her nightclothes, not even giving her time to wake up.” Self-loathing filled him, and he began to pace again. “I fed on her while I…well, that’s what we do. Except I lost control. I took too much. I drained her dry while I fucked her.” Pausing directly in front of her, he willed her to look at him as he forced the words out. “I killed her Emma. I fed on her until her heart stopped beating, rutting on her the entire time. I didn’t even notice until her body began to get cold underneath me.”
Her horrified expression burrowed into his brain like maggots, never to be forgotten. Yes. This was for the best. He could live with this gaping hole that was ripping apart his chest as she finally looked at him like the monster he was.
He’d learned to live with Eliana’s death. But if he killed Emma, even accidentally, he wouldneverbe able to live with that. What he felt for her, well, there was no comparison to it. He would rather walk into the sun.
He walked slowly toward the door. Even now wanting to stay with her. But he couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t stand to see the look on her face again.
“Be ready to go at sundown. Tonight, we’re going after our siblings.”
Chapter 25
“What the fuck did you do?”
“Ow! What the hell?” Nik cursed violently as Aiden woke him, gently, with a backhand to the head. Raising his arms automatically to protect himself from more attacks, Nik shook his head and forced himself to wake up. He felt strange. Kind of loopy and unusually lethargic.
Grabbing him by the front of the shirt, a thoroughly angry Brit hauled him up to a sitting position. “What the fuck did you do to Emma?”
Nik shoved him out of the way, rolled off the couch, and ambled to the guest bath to wash up. “Fuck off, Aiden.”
Not to be put off that easily, Aiden was right on his heels. “What the fuck did you do, Nik? She looks positively wretched in there!”
Whipping around, Nik snarled, “What the fuckwereyoudoing in her room?”
“What do you care? You seem to be doing your damnedest to push her away from you.”
Aiden held his ground as Nik got right up in his face. He flashed his fangs and hissed in warning. “Stay out of it, Aid. It’s none of your fucking business.” He turned and stomped to the bathroom, slamming the door in his friends’ face.
Aiden banged on the door. “It is my business, you twat! I happen to like Emma!”
Nik turned the shower on in response.
Aiden yelled about the sound of running water. “You think I don’t know what’s going on with you two? I’ve heard the stories too, you know! Never believed them until now…but you shouldn’t fight it, Nik! If the stories are true, you need her now, or you will perish, slowly and painfully! That means dead, Nikulas! Like,deaddead. No coming back to life this time.”
Naked and dripping with water, Nik wrenched open the door. “Better me, than her,” he gritted through his teeth. “Now, shut the fuck up, and let me get my shower.” He slammed the door in his face again.
“We’ll just see about that, you bloody arse,” Aiden called.
Emma dreaded leavingher refuge where she’d been holed up since Nik’s visit last night, or was it this morning? She frowned. Her newfound sleep schedule was causing her to get her days and nights all confused. She’d had a long, restless night…or day, rather…and the mirror in the bathroom confirmed she looked exactly how she felt.
Like hell.
She supposed she’d asked for this. If she hadn’t kept on pushing and pushing him, he wouldn’t have felt forced to tell her about his past and she could still be naively fantasizing about the hunk of gorgeous vampire in the other room. But no, she had to back him into a corner until he’d had no choice but to come out swinging.
She should be relieved. She hadn’t been acting like herself since tall, buff, and fangy came strutting into her life. It was like that filter in your brain…the one that censors what you say and how you act before you actually do it… had up and disappeared completely. But mostly, she just felt stupid, like one of those girls always chasing after a guy who obviously didn’t want her.
By the time Aiden had come in to wake her, she’d been sitting in the same spot on the couch for hours staring at the blank T.V. screen. Sleep had eluded her. No surprise there. But at least there were no new nightmares to deal with.
