Page 59 of His Eternal Temptation

Rowan retreated to his room with Lane. The gnawing hunger in his gut seemed endless, the itchy fire in his veins becoming a worryingly new normal. His fangs hadn’t dropped involuntarily, but he’d given up hiding any other signs of irritability.

Lane handed him a blood bag. “Drink this while I shower. I know you need it.”

Rowan took the offered bag without objection. He wasn’t as gracious as he probably should be, but instead of scolding him for his sullen mood, Lane smiled encouragingly. Of course he did. He was nothing like Cris, and Lane’s kindness didn’t come as a surprise. Cris’s lurking presence clouded everything.

The blood went down easily, soothing Rowan’s vicious thoughts. Cris faded to an echo. Perhaps he’d go away completely when the curse was gone.

Rowan threw the empty bag away. He’d fed too fast. Quiet closed in, and the crackle of flames crept into the edges of his mind, drowning out the sound of the shower. The smell of smoke filled his nose. Burning flesh. Screams.

Slippery dread slid along his spine.

Lane emerged from the bathroom, and Rowan quickly stepped in after him, hoping water on his skin would convince him nothing was burning. Maybe the sound would drown out the imagined roar of fire.

Not even cold water helped. Rowan swore heat caressed his damp skin.

He abandoned the shower and toweled off. In the bedroom, Lane waited beneath the sheets, shirtless.

Rowan went to him, slipping into bed naked.

Lane laid a hand on Rowan’s back. “You’re cold.”

He pulled his hair from the bun on top of his head and let it fall. “Didn’t feel like a warm shower.”

Lane’s brow furrowed. “Did the cold water help?”

“No.” Rowan met Lane’s gaze, all too aware of his urge to melt against the man’s broad chest. Dreams of Lane as his partner after this was all over felt fragile, as if fire had weakened the foundations Rowan had been building.

His closest friends had seen him afraid and emotional and stayed, but his deepest, most personal fears had always been his alone. He didn’t want them to be. He longed to share the vast tangle inside him, but had spent a hundred years training himself not to.

Lane’s hand moved in slow circles across his back, spreading warmth in its wake. “You often get lost in your head, don’t you?”

Rowan ducked his chin, hiding his face. “I’ve been alive a long time. I have a lot of thoughts.”

Lane chuckled. “Makes sense. Do you ever share them?”

“Some.” He didn’t like to be a burden. No one loved a burden.

The admonishment came in his own voice, not Cris’s, which was so much worse. Rowan pushed it away with sudden viciousness. He should focus on the man in front of him, not the past, and make his dream a reality if he wanted it so fucking bad.

“Cris turned me to be his companion,” he told Lane. “I believed he loved me. He said it was why he chose me. Why I asked him to turn me, but it was all a lie. I was nothing to him but something to toy with. To ignore. To use. And torment. And I killed him for it.”

“Rowan…” Lane’s voice broke.

“I know.” He covered Lane’s free hand with his, and Lane squeezed tight. “I’ve been a vampire for two hundred years, and it doesn’t feel long when only half my time was my own. I don’t talk about those first hundred years, as you’ve gathered. But tonight…seeing Emile burned… That was how I did it. Cris has been on my mind, and this last, visceral reminder brings him too close to the surface. I can’t believe I ever loved him or expected him to love me, but for a century, he was all I had. Even when he’d leave me isolated, withhold affection, and then scold me for ever needing it, he was all I had, and I never wanted anyone after that.”

Lane pulled him into his arms. “You protected yourself. You had to. I won’t pretend I know how you feel, but I can promise I’ll never do anything like that to you.”

“I know you won’t. But until now, I was happier never giving anyone the chance to disappoint me.”

“Never?” Lane sounded heartbroken, and Rowan saw it for the bleak reality it was.

“Not in all the years I’ve been free of him and able to shape my own life. I don’t tell lovers these things. I tell them I’m a needy submissive who wants praise, but I don’t tell them why. I don’t ask for anything I’m afraid will be denied.”

Lane’s arms tightened. “Thank you for telling me.” He sounded so painfully genuine, like Rowan had done him the hugest honor imaginable. It should have been ridiculous, but it wasn’t.

Lane continued, his voice a soothing balm. “You can ask me for anything. Share whatever you want, and I’ll keep it close. Anything I can’t give you, I’ll explain. I’m not here to hide things or play games.”

Rowan already suspected this, but hearing it added weight, firming their foundations, fire unable to touch them. “I know, and I’m dizzy with the possibility you give me.”