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“Not to me,” he said again, his breath sucking in. Her scent always got to him. Sensual and rich.
“I saw you.”
Because she’d been in his mind, and the images had taken hold of his consciousness and hadn’t let go. “Grim.” Her palms pressed into his back, seeming to burn his skin even through the T-shirt. “What you saw—it was him.”
Her breath feathered over him. Warm. His eyes closed. She lifted the back of the shirt and her lips pressed into his skin.
Simon swallowed. “They called it the blood eagle.”
Her fingers slipped down the skin of his back, and he knew she’d remember the image from the dream. Vision. Whatever the hell it had been.
Torn, broken, ribs spread to look like an eagle’s wings. “An old Viking torture.” One he knew had been used on Grim. Their link had shown him that before.
Her lips rose and he missed the touch of her mouth. “Why?”
Glancing over his shoulder, he met her stare. “Not all monsters are born, Dee, some are made.” Once upon a time, a very long-ass time ago, Grim hadn’t been the sick, twisted bastard of today. He’d just been a man. One who’d been broken. Savaged.
“If the stories are true,” Simon said, watching her carefully, “the first thing he did on rising was to find every man who’d participated in his torture, and he ripped them apart.”
Her gaze held his. “Revenge.” The same thing she sought.
He gave a nod. “There’s a price, you know.” Why hadn’t he realized how heavy the price would be for her? Why had he only thought of himself? Of the way he wanted his life to be?
He’d pulled Dee into this war. Yanked her into the blood.
“I’ve always known there was a price.” A mirthless smile tilted her lips. “Why do you think I put a kill order on myself?”
His stomach knotted. No way. No damn way would that demon Zane ever come at her with death in his eyes.
“I’ve seen death for the last sixteen years,” Dee said. “I’ve always known I was living on borrowed time.”
Not borrowed.
“What I don’t understand is why me?” Pain there, breaking beneath the surface. “Why the hell am I one of the Born? I’m nobody. Nobody. I was a freaking clueless kid when the vamps came after my family. I wasn’t special. I’m not special.”
He reached for her hands. Held her tight. “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.” True. He’d never seen her back down. A fighter, straight to the soul.
Her gaze fell. “When I was a kid, my family used to go to church together every Sunday.”
He waited. Dee’s life, before the nightmares.
Her stare didn’t meet his. “A lot of people think God cursed vampires. Cursed the Borns and they spread the virus?—”
Was that what people were calling it these days? A virus?
“—like a plague. That’s why the holy water works on vampires.”
Yeah, he’d been burned by that once. Holy water and vamps didn’t mix—that one wasn’t a myth.
“So what did I do, Simon, that would have condemned me as a teen?” Her eyes rose. “What did I do that was so bad, I was cursed, too? I lost my whole family—what did I do?”
Nothing. His fingers tightened around hers. “I don’t know why you’re a Born.” He’d chosen this path. For her, fate had chosen. “I know the stories, too. That the first Born committed a betrayal, that all vamps were punished for his crimes.” He shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing, got me?”
Her face was as blank as a doll’s. “But I’ll still wind up like Grim, won’t I?”
“No! You’ll never be like him.”
She flashed a bitter smile. “I think I already am.” A pause. Then, quietly, “And deep down, so do you.”
