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My eyes go round, heart skipping in my chest. “What?”
How can that be?
He gives me a small smile. “I feared the rumors about Alice and Hakan’s child were true. So when your parents left, I had a feeling that the child I saw them raise wasn’t theirs. More than that, I could sense the vampire in you. The guilt was starting to eat me alive, knowing that I was the reason you were in the witches’ care. So I watched over you. I watched you grow up. I looked out for you, and I waited, waited until you were twenty-one, to see if what I guessed was true.” He takes in a deep, shaking breath, fingers pressing against my cheekbone. “I was counting the years as they passed by, and for the first time in my life, I was painfully aware of time.”
Tears spring to my eyes, a crushing feeling in my chest. “You were watching me? You watched me…my whole life? All those years?”
“All those years.”
I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but I can’t. “So I was never really alone?”
“You were never alone, moonshine. I was always there.”
I close my eyes, a tear rolling down my cheek. He reaches out and brushes it away, and my heart is close to bursting. All those years I thought I was alone, that no one understood me, and yet he was there, watching over me, making sure I was safe, waiting until I could be his. Fuck. Explains why I’ve always been so paranoid. If I’d only known.
When I open my eyes, I swear I see a glimmer in his, emotion on his brow, his cool façade almost crumbling. Then he inhales through his nose and I feel the restraint roll back into him.
“You were so hard on me,” I tell him. “You took me from everything I knew and you just…you could have told me right away.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me. Do you want me to apologize for kidnapping you?”
I think about it, then shake my head. “No. Because I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“And I was a little hard on you,” he admits, a sheepish turn of his lips. “But I had to be. Blow hard on a candle’s flame and you’ll snuff it right out. Blow
on it just enough, and the fire will rise, stronger and brighter.” He leans forward and places his lips on mine. “You’re going to burn so bright, Lenore. I can’t wait for you to see it.”
* * *
I must have fallen asleep again, because when I open my eyes, the bed is empty next to me and sunlight seeps in through the edges of the hotel room’s blackout curtains.
“Solon?” I cry out softly, feeling the empty space.
“In here,” he says from the bathroom. “Just shaving.”
I slowly sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed, feeling the weight of the last twenty-four hours on my shoulders. So much has happened physically and emotionally, so much information, that I truly don’t know how my brain is going to sort it all out.
Coffee will help, I tell myself.
I get up, totally naked, and look around. My duffel bag had been here, along with my computer, but Solon did say he brought them back to the house. So other than my dress, which is ripped clean in half, there’s nothing for me to wear.
“Uh, can you toss me a towel?” I ask him, peering around the corner of the open bathroom door.
Solon is standing in front of the mirror in just his navy boxer briefs, remnants of shaving cream on his face, still leaving facial hair on his upper lip, his chin. Such a vampire look. He eyes me and holds out the razor blade. “When’s the last time you had something to drink?”
I stare at the blade, my eyes skipping back up to his. “When’s the last time you had something to drink?”
He grins at me. “If you’re suggesting the vampire equivalent of a sixty-nine…”
“Does that work?” I ask, totally intrigued, and he’s reaching over to the towel rack, handing me a towel. I wrap it around me.
“In theory,” he says, going back to shaving. “But really, you should feed.”
Hunger flares through me, but there’s this part of me that wills it to calm down, that still finds the blood business as something I don’t want to do until I absolutely have to. “I can wait.”
“You can’t,” he says, finishing up and washing his face. “You’ll be much stronger, think much clearer.” He faces me and takes the blade, slicing the skin across his neck, barely even flinching. “There. You don’t even have to bite me if you don’t want to. Though I rather enjoy when you do.”
I don’t even hear him anymore. All I see is the crimson blood running down his neck, smell the gorgeous scent in the air, and then I’m across the bathroom floor in half a second, wrapping my arms around him, my mouth at his skin.
