Twenty-Six
“ W hat was that about?” I asked after a few moments of heavy silence.
Vince’s gray eyes lowered to me, pupils dilating. “Are you alright?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
His mouth pressed into a firm line. “At first, I thought you might’ve left and gone back.”
Back. To Mother, to Lucas.
I shook my head as his hands tightened around me. I hadn’t thought about what he might assume, waking up to an empty bed. That maybe I’d changed my mind, realized I was in way over my head. And maybe I was—but I could never run from him . Even if something was off, I couldn’t ever leave without a word.
I wouldn’t marry a haughty man I didn’t love.
“Why is Sinclair here?” I asked.
Vince blinked. “He lives here.”
“Does anyone else live here?” I deserved to know who might be lingering in the halls.
“Only the ones I can trust,” he said. “Two others, besides him.”
Two others. “You trust Sinclair?”
He nodded once.
“Why?”
A beat of silence, his gaze searching my face. “He’s been one of my companions for some time.”
For six years? If I’d waited six years for nothing, for no real good reason, while Sinclair—and others—got to know him, were partying around, drinking blood, while I found what little happinesses I could—sparks of contentment amongst an otherwise bleary slate—
Vince and three other vampires, living it up on the Island while I was wasting away in the city—
I stepped away from him, running my hands over my face.
If he trusted them, he knew them—he spent time with them.
While I still believed he was dead.
Frustration set Vince’s jaw. “Did you expect me to be alone?”
“I don’t know.”
“It takes time, Helena. To settle in, to get your footing. You’ll find everything is well—”
“No.” I had turned from him, giving him my back. Suddenly full of anger and grief, every feeling I’d ignored since last night.
Everything was not well. The only reason I had my dead lover back was because he was no longer human .
“No?” His hands came to rest on my arms, gentle and soothing. “I know this is all so different. I will try my best to—”
“You don’t get it,” I snapped, spinning on my heels so we were once again face-to-face. “I thought you were dead . And my heart still aches, even when I can see you are here, right in front of me. It doesn’t feel real.”
Those gray eyes searched mine, his features the softest they’d been since last night. “I am real. I’m right here.”
Then why doesn’t it feel like it ?
I still felt I’d wake up any moment and be in my room, at home, Lucas pounding on the door.
Adam is back. He’s alive. He’s here with me .
Sucking in a shuddering breath, I fought the frustrated tears gathering in my eyelashes, tired of crying, tired of feeling so out of control.
“I’m mad at you,” I breathed, the words barely louder than a whisper. “I’m angry that I’ve spent so long so… empty . That Lucas threatened you all those years ago, and I did nothing, and then I thought you were dead. But you’re not, even though my heart still thinks it.”
He wrapped my hand in his, his skin cool to the touch. So different from mine. Bringing our clasped hands up to his chest, he pressed my palm to the skin there, feeling the soft, slow thud of his heart. Still beating, even if it gave away his secret in its slow rhythm.
“I will work every day to make sure your heart knows that mine beats for you,” he said.
And though the words melted a bit of my resolve, the anger still flared. “ Ugh .” I pulled away from him, needing some space .
Every time he was near me, he clouded my senses. Made me want to become that young girl again, hopelessly in love, thinking everything will be alright.
“I am betrothed,” I said, hoping the words stung him just enough. “I am to marry, and I’ve just run away from that. I’m ruined. My brother will kill me.” Pacing the hall, the marble icy on my feet, grounding me in the moment.
“He will do no such thing.”
“I have a life!” I threw my hands into the air. “And you just waltz in and interrupt like nothing has happened!”
His hands fisted at his sides, like he wanted to reach for me, to grab me to him, to keep me from running. I realized his hair was not only mussed from sleeping, but from running his hands through it so many times this morning. Did he pace his room, worrying that I’d left?
Good. Maybe then he felt half the nerves I did.
“You don’t get to just show up and act like everything is okay.” I worried my lip, emotions building up as tears, adding to my frustration. “You don’t get to just decide when to pull me back in like this, not without an explanation.”
Like earlier, he just watched me, the tilt to his brow, the line of his lips the only evidence of his concern.
I wanted to scream. “Say something!”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. Tell me everything? Like how? Why ?” My anger bloomed into a wretched thing, the urge to hit something, my limbs restless. I kept my distance, pacing like an animal a few feet from him, worried if I came too close, I’d pummel him, or let him say sweet nothings into my ear until I fell apart .
But the anger just simmered. Anger that I’d been living in anguish for six years, at the whims of my brother, and Adam had just left me there. Alone .
“You don’t get to become something different when I’m stuck, the same I’ve been for the last six years.” My voice cracked on the last word, stinging in my throat.
After a moment, a muscle in his jaw ticked. “I will never forgive myself for what has happened. I feel… responsible for how things happened. How you’ve been left alone. And I want to make it up to you.”
“How?” I felt my shoulders deflate. “What can you do about it?”
His eyes hardened, and he neared me, and I let him. Let him come close enough I could smell the cologne left over on his skin. An expensive, rich smell.
“I can’t change anything,” he said, “but I want you. I’ve wanted you since the day I set eyes on you. You must understand that all of this was for you.”
All of this .
“Believe me, I tried to come home. I tried to figure out a way. And then,” he glanced down at himself, as though to witness his change from human to creature, “even though I didn’t ask for this, it led me back to you.”
I shook my head, hearing the words, wanting to melt into him again, but wanting to stay angry, at the world, at him . And then his fingers danced, feather-light, across my cheeks, wiping away the few tears that did escape.
“I just—I can’t—” My lips trembled. “You don’t know—”
“You are so pretty when you cry.”
His lips brushed against my face, my eyelashes. Fingers twining into the hair at the nape of my neck. Pulling me to him like I knew he would.
“Let me make it up to you. Let me distract you.” Kisses to every inch of skin, my ears, in my hair. And though his skin was much cooler than any living man, his hands were the same strong hands I knew from before. I leaned into him. “Let me make this better.”
When he pulled away, our breaths mingling in the space between us, he looked at me with near-black eyes. The monster within him gazed out at me, grinning, waiting.