Page 79 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

The words hit harder than any blade he’d ever used.

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s true.”

I looked at him, breathing slow, controlled, trying to keep the storm inside contained.

“You think I’m pushing myself to get away from you?” I asked.

“Sometimes.”

“You think the way I fight is about avoiding you?”

“No,” he said. “But the way you refuse help is.”

The quiet between us stretched long enough that the air felt heavy.

Then I said, “I don’t want to be handled.”

He nodded once. “And I don’t want to lose you.”

There it was. The truth neither of us had asked for but both had already sensed.

I stepped past him, pacing once, then turned back, unable to keep still.

“You’re treating me like a fledgling.”

“I’m treating you like someone I care about.”

“That’s the problem.”

His brows dipped. “Why?”

“Because I don’t know what to do with that,” I said. “Care is dangerous. Care pulls you off your axis. Care makes you hesitate.”

“You didn’t hesitate when you dragged that poison out of Raven’s bloodstream,” he said.

“That was different.”

“It isn’t.”

“It is,” I insisted. “She’s my family.”

He stared at me in a way that made my breath stutter. “And I’m what?”

The room went still.

He hadn’t meant it as a threat. Or a trap. It was a quiet question. An honest one. And I hated honest questions because they asked for honest answers.

“You’re…” My throat tightened. “Complicated.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “So are you.”

“This is not the time for whatever this is,” I said.

“You mean honesty?”

“I mean whatever is happening between us that neither of us has the bandwidth to unpack right now.”