CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE || ELI #2
“Not until the day I met you,” Nicolas replied quietly.
“I spent eight centuries feeling… hollow. Empty. I cared for nothing and no one—save for the next kill and the hunt, of course. And I believed myself to be complete. Perfect.” He grimaced.
“And now I am, unfortunately, all too aware of my own shortcomings.”
The floor felt like it had fallen out beneath me.
Now everything made sense. The fact that he had purchased the house next door to me, thinking I might be in danger.
The way he picked me up from work every night.
The way he had suddenly taken to letting me know I belonged to him in a thousand quiet, domestic moments, all because I had told him that’s what I wanted—what I needed.
All of it suddenly made sense. But those memories were at war with a simple truth that didn’t square one bit: serial killers are almost universally psychopaths. They don’t have the capacity to love.
“Say something,” Nicolas said when I fell silent. His expression was as imploring and vulnerable as any human man’s would have been. “Please.”
The depth of emotion in his gaze was what decided me. I set aside my fear and doubt. What was simple and true was what had been simple and true from the very first day I met him. It was a belonging, a rightness that had been there all along, buried underneath everything else I felt.
I tossed the shovel to the ground and moved forward, crossing the space between us. With both hands, I seized Nicolas by the lapels and backed him into the wall of dirt.
He let out a soft, startled cry of alarm. But then his gaze met mine and his expression softened. “Oh,” was all he said.
“Yeah,” I replied, locking my gaze with his. “Oh. I guess it goes without saying, but I love you, too.”
And then I pressed my lips to his and kissed him. I put every bit of my own emotion into it—all of the fear, the desire, the heartbreak, and the love I felt for him as well.
In that moment, I chose him.
And I knew there was no going back.
His lips parted for me, and I searched his mouth with my tongue, hungry for him. Desperate to have his hands on me and to feel him in return.
After several minutes of that, I belatedly remembered that we were burying a body… and yeah. I was not about to get frisky with a dead serial killer five feet away from us. I pulled back. “We need to finish this later.”
“Later,” he agreed, flashing me a wolfish grin.
“You’re not mad?”
“At you? Never.”
Nicolas allowed me to pull him into my arms. He settled his head on my chest. The gesture was so gentle and human that I felt brave enough to ask the thing I needed to know above all else.
“Do you still experience emotions?”
He hesitated, stiffening beneath my touch. “I don’t know.”
I felt my brows draw together. “How can you not know? You either do or you don’t.”
“You know, old souls are immune to a vampire’s compulsive gifts—no one knows why, really. But it’s very inconvenient. If you were anyone else, I would never have to explain myself to you.”
I didn’t fall for it. I instinctively, down to the core of me, knew he’d never mess with my mind, even if he could.
“Nicolas,” I said reproachfully. “Talk to me. Let me in.”
He sighed. “Why does that work on me every single time?”
“You said you loved me.”
“I do.”
“So you do experience emotions?”
“For a very long time, I didn’t.”
“Wait. As in, you didn’t before, but you do now? What changed?”
“You know what changed. I met you.”
I let that sink in. “Do you—do you regret it?”
“No!” Nicolas said vehemently, pulling back. He gazed at me, his eyes wide with shock, as though he could hardly believe I would ever wonder that. “Never. You brought me back to life, Eli.”
“Me, too.”
When his eyebrows drew together in confusion, I explained, “I wasn’t really living. I was existing, day after day. I was drowning. I accepted that my life was what it was. It wasn’t until I met you that I wanted… more.”
“What do you want now?”
“I want you,” I answered. “I’m choosing you, Nicolas. We can figure the rest out as we go along.”
“And I choose you as well,” he said softly, his lips parted with wonder as his gaze searched mine.
He let out a little laugh. “After all, how could I not? Eli, you’ve given me myself again.
The world was very simple and very dark.
And now it’s complex, messy, wonderful, and filled with color and light. ”
“That’s a lot of words to say you’re cooking dinner tonight.”
He grinned. “Oh, am I?”
I nodded solemnly. “After we get done burying the body.” Then I paused, hesitating. I wasn’t sure if it was wise to ask my next question, but I had to know. “Do you still feel the compulsion to kill?”
“No,” he said slowly, as if weighing his words. He cast a glance toward Morgan Peterson’s body. “I thought perhaps I would gain some fulfillment from it—from the hunt. From ending his life. It didn’t satisfy me at all.”
I let out a sharp breath of relief.
“I’m not sure how to do this,” he warned me. “I’m not entirely convinced I’m good for anyone. Or that I even know how to be.” He grimaced. “For the first time in eight centuries, I don’t know what I’m doing. I truly have no idea.”
“No one does. Not really. Welcome to being a person.”
That caused a small smile to dance across his lips. “I suppose I am now,” he said softly, searching my gaze. “I do feel like a man again. It’s rather extraordinary. And confusing.”
“That’s part of being a person, too,” I assured him. Rather than feel unsettled by his doubt, I felt more sure than ever I was making the right decision.
After all, if he was right and I was an old soul, that meant my memories of him were likely real as well. I had loved him for lifetimes. And perhaps I would love him for lifetimes still.