Chapter 20 #2
“I took less than a half pint. And Clare, thank you,” he murmured softly, gazing into her eyes, and then the intimacy hit him like an anvil. The intensity almost stole his breath. This was more than her blood, surely… or was it because it was her blood? Clare’s.
He had never tasted blood like this in all his two hundred years. It was purer, more thirst-quenching than anything he’d ever feasted on before. It tasted like honey, worked like alchemy, healing him, making him feel powerful. Invincible even.
But with all that, came desire. His libido flared. Her parted lips, her eyes soft and dewy, tempted him. Oh, what he would give to place a kiss on that succulent mouth.
And yet… it was not just about her blood, he realized now. It never had been. From the moment he’d set eyes on her, it was about her, Clare Doyle, this human who intrigued and delighted him.
All along he’d told himself it was infatuation. But it was so much more.
What the fuck was he supposed to with that revelation?
Except react with his usual response.
Run.
“Clare—I—I have to go.”
“And risk getting attacked by that… thing? No way.”
“The way I feel right now, it won’t get within a mile of me.” He laughed, but it sounded falsely jovial, a poor attempt to hide how shaken he was by the intimacy they’d shared. “Clare,” he said again, more firmly this time. “I need to leave.”
She nodded, her features tightening, and stood up while he got off the bed, grabbed his shirt and put it on. Bloodied though the material was, as he touched his face, he could tell the deep cuts were almost healed.
Incredible.
Now what? Thank her at the door for the sustenance? Keep up the pretense that there was nothing, never had been anything between them?
How could he disrespect her by leaving without an explanation when she had healed him with the gift of her blood? She deserved so much more from him. He could at least unreservedly apologize for how he had treated her in the past.
He owed her that much.
“Clare, that night—” he said, as he tucked his shirt into his pants, trying not to let his hands shake.
“Which night?”
“You know full well which night—don’t play the I don’t recall card.” His nerves made his voice taut as a rope.
“Oh, that night. Yeah, I think I do recall now. What about it?”
He tightened his belt, reached for his jacket, his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth.
Shucking on his jacket, he finally managed, “I treated you rottenly. And I’m sorry.”
For a long moment she said nothing. Then, quietly, “Why did you leave me like that?”
He grimaced. “Fear that I would take things too far and harm you.” Shit, was he actually blushing?
“You didn’t harm me tonight,” she pointed out.
He huffed a laugh. “Tonight I was in no fit state to harm anyone.”
“And now?”
“Now…” Before he could stop himself, he’d moved swiftly, so they were standing inches apart. She did not step away—on the contrary, she seemed to sway closer. He reached out and stroked her jaw, letting his finger rest on the pulse in her neck. “Now, I could so easily destroy you.”
Her luminous gaze held his, fearless. “What if I resisted?”
“I would try to stop—on my life, for what it’s worth. I would. But… fuck, Clare, you are so unsafe around me.”
“I don’t feel unsafe.”
He groaned, and then she continued softly, “When you left me in bed, waiting…” She stopped, and he felt the emotion raw inside her. “I thought that I was somehow… not good enough, not desirable enough for you to come back.”
He swore gently. “You were—are—too good. And I wanted you too much. You have no idea how hard it was to stay away. Your heart, your soul, everything about you Clare, is way too good for me. You must believe me when I tell you, I am bad to the very core.”
“No.” She shook her head, almost vehemently.
“I refuse to believe that.” Ah, that stubborn jut to her jaw.
How many times had he studied it, fascinated by the will of this beautiful young human.
“I sense there is a chasm of darkness in your past, yes.” Her shining eyes refused to let him drop his gaze.
“But I also think something, or someone, has hurt you very badly.”
Silence enveloped them, begging to be broken. He placed his hand on her shoulder, slid his palm down the warm skin of her bicep.
“What happened to you, Oliver?”
He’d meant to say nothing more, to just apologize, take the blame, then beat a fast exit, but she had lain beside him, fed him, healed him… The intimacy that had forged between them was impossible to deny.
“Oliver, for both of our sakes, tell me,” she begged.
And it was those words that broke him wide open.
His fingers tightened around her bicep, the other hand fisted at his side.
“When I was thirteen years old, I watched my parents and my sister get staked to death. And I did nothing. Can you imagine how that feels, to see your family murdered and not act?” He let out a bark of hollow laugher.
“And dear gods, I can’t even die to forget.
Can’t even kill myself with my own hand.
I just have to keep on living for fucking eternity like this, knowing what I allowed to happen. Can you begin to imagine that?”
She shook her head. “No, I can’t imagine.” Her simple raw empathy cut even harder into his own self-hatred.
“Yeah, well, somehow, I escaped that fate. Just as they took…” he stumbled, “took Effie, and held her down, there was a huge explosion. I remember being carried on my wings upward, and when I landed it was in a pile of ash. Our home, my family all were just charred remains.”
He heard her gasp, and when he dared look at her, her gaze held deep sorrow.
It tore at his heart, but damn it, now he’d started to tell her, he couldn’t stop.
“And then, like a coward, I fled the scene. Flew back to Motham and hid there in the Wastelands, while better monsters than I built up this city to what it is now. For more than a century I forayed into human lands after dark, seduced humans and brought them back to Motham—mostly young women who fell for my charms after dark. I would pose as a human, then gorge myself. For two centuries I caused misery to humans. I sucked their blood and left them, maybe for dead for all I know. I didn’t care, I had no conscience. ”
He stared at his feet, his jaw working. “I—I lived among feral species, in the Wastelands. Never went back to my family home. Couldn’t.
The memories were too painful to bear. I fed among the worst of them, weremonkeys, werecats, grimaalds.
Creatures so dark you wouldn’t even know they existed in your sweet little homes in Tween. ”
Her pupils were huge as she stared up at him.
“Now do you see what a thoroughly heinous individual I am?”
“No, you are not!” She shook her head vehemently. “You were deeply traumatized. You are not that person anymore.”
“Maybe not.” He sighed heavily. “But as long as I have the memories, I will know that I was that person. The horror of those years will never leave me, despite all the therapy I underwent.”
“Who helped you get through this, Oliver?” she asked gently. Gods, her empathy was hard to take. And yet, he couldn’t get enough of it.
“The father of Waldo the warlock. You’ve heard of Waldo, I imagine?”
Her face relaxed into a smile. “Everyone knows Waldo, he’s the best mage in Motham City.”
“Yeah, well, his father Emerson subjected me to fucking decade upon decade of therapy. Sure, I cleaned up my act. But it didn’t stop the pain.
” He beat at the center of his chest with a fisted hand.
“The pain is still there, I just carry on without doing harm. Clare, believe me when I tell you, it would have been better to die in that staking than live through this perpetual misery.”
She was silent for long moments, and all Oliver could hear was the beating of his own heart in his ears. “You need to keep your distance from me.”
“I know what you’re doing, Oliver. You’re trying to persuade me you are evil. But I won’t believe that. You were barely past being a child when this happened to you. You couldn’t have saved your family, even if you’d tried. You would have died too.”
“How I wish that I had.” He sighed heavily. “But you see, Clare, I am still capable of those… behaviors, and if—if I let myself… get close to you… I won’t be—” He stumbled over the words.
‘You’re afraid of intimacy.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Damn her precision. She’d gone straight for the jugular, metaphorically at least.
He stared into her unwavering gaze, his mouth twisting. “To feel intimacy, to care for another sentient being is not something I can risk. What if I am unable to defend them, to save them? Or worse, what if I am the very thing they need saving from?”
She was silent. He hooked a finger and thumb under her jaw and raised her chin to his.
Searching her face, all he saw was love, kindness—and longing.
It inflamed his desire. “For all the therapy I’ve had, with you, that night, it all went to hell in a handbasket.
I was back wanting what I cannot have.” He paused, his gaze taking in her bright eyes, her softly parted lips.
“Even now, you see, as much as I long to kiss your lips, I also want to sink my teeth into your neck and suck your sweet blood. And I don’t know if I could stop when the time ca—”
She moved fast, too fast, stealing the words from his mouth as she wound her fingers into his hair and brought his mouth down to meet her own.