He opened his mouth to say no, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her. At one time, Joseph was one of them too. More recently, Killean dipped into becoming a Savage, and sometimes he wondered if Killean had really come back to them. On more than a few nights, Saxon found him pacing the mansion like a caged animal.
On those nights, Saxon would sit and listen if Killean decided to talk, which was rare. Sometimes, he would sit silently while letting his presence show Killean he still had his support. Usually, Simone came to find him, and Killean would retreat with her.
Killean had never been the most relaxed of vamps, but the tension in him since June could make the Dalai Lama lose his mind. Killean’s hallucinations had lessened—so he said—but Saxon wasn’t sure he believed him.
“I could become one of them,” he admitted. “But I fight against it every day and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. My job is to protect you from these monsters, but unfortunately, they’re growing in numbers.”
She was probably part of the reason for that, and what better way for him and his friends to stop them than to kill her?
Chapter Seven
Elyse gulped;she’d jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. The Savages wanted her alive at least for a little while; Saxon might kill her to end it. And could she blame him if it meant slowing the spread of the monsters who kept her here?
She’d accepted that she probably wasn’t making it out of this cabin alive, but it was a cruel twist of fate to give her hope of escaping before ripping it away again.
“I’m sure you’ve killed humans before,” she said.
“Never. I don’t hurt humans or innocents.”
He was so emphatic in his response that she almost believed him. “You’ve never fed from a human before?”
“Yes, I have, but—”
“But it’s excruciating!” she interjected. “You can’t say you’ve never hurt a human and then turn around and admit to feeding on them.”
Before Saxon knew what he was doing, rage propelled him to his feet. “They fed on you?”
Elyse backed herself into the door and lifted the chair between them. It was useless against him, but she couldn’t bring herself to release it. “Stay back!”
Saxon froze; he didn’t want to scare her again, but he’d reacted before thinking. His gaze ran over the slender column of her throat and delicate collarbone; he didn’t see any marks on her, but that didn’t mean anything. They could have fed from her only days ago, and the bites would have vanished by now.
For some reason, the idea of another vampire feeding from her made him want to go back outside to kill them all again. He took steadying breaths to calm himself as he realized he’d never felt possessive of another before, butnooneelse was going to touch her.
“Did they feed on you often?” he asked.
Elyse’s hands trembled as red shone around the edges of his eyes. She’d seen plenty of red-eyed vamps during her time here, but she’d never seen one who still had their original color mixed in with the red. It was strange yet oddly entrancing.
“Once,” she said and was startled when his eyes turned completely red and his nostrils flared.
“That willnothappen again.”
“Oh, really, and what do you plan to eat while you’re here?”
Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird against her ribs when his gaze fell to her neck, and his lips flattened into a thin line. She didn’t have to see the deepening red of his eyes to know he was starving; it radiated off him.
“I will hunt animals.” But what he wouldn’t give for a little taste of her. He tore his eyes away from her throat to meet her wary gaze. “And I’ve fed from humans, but I’ve never hurt them while doing it.”
“That’s not possible. You may not realize it, but ithurts.”
He touched the healing mark on his throat. “It’s painful for everyone if their blood is drawn unwillingly from them, even me. But those I feed on don’t know I’m doing it, and if someone gives their blood willingly, there is a lot of pleasure in it.”
The way he almost purred those last words caused her toes to curl. There was something about the huskiness of his voice that awoke a desire she’d believed dead and buried. Elyse stared at the wall over his shoulder as heat crept into her cheeks.
He was one of thosethings,and she was feeling all warm and fuzzy about him.
But he wasn’t one of those things. He’d proven to be nothing like them so far, and he’dkilledthem. Still, he was a vampire who’d come here for a reason. He might not kill humans, but if he learned the truth about her, he might make an exception.
“Why did only one of them feed on you?” he asked.
