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“A human?”
“Yes, a human, an interior designer to be exact.”
“I didn’t realize you all worked with humans.”
He chuckled. “It would be quite silly not to when there are so many of them. It is not as if we can drink from them all at once.”
I didn’t like how he said that. It was like he was making fun of me for being ignorant about the way vampires lived. Rising back up, I walked to the door. “All my life, I’ve thought that vampires are evil, cruel, monstrous…cursed. Sworn enemies of witches and humans, even if they didn’t know it. That my job was to protect mortals from them—from you.”
“And yet here you are,” he said when I stopped directly in front of him.
“Here I am,” I whispered, feeling my eyes burn as I fought back the tears all of a sudden. “My coven calls me the daughter of Circe. It’s not true. But they expect so much of me. They have so much faith and hope in me. And here I am, betraying all of it. I’ve been betraying all of it. I don’t want to give up my family and my friends or magic, but I want to be here with you, too. What am I supposed to do, Theseus?”
He reached forward, cupping the side of my face with his hand. “Then choose both.”
“What?”
“Stay a witch, if you desire, but also stay with me when you can,” he whispered back as he pulled me closer to him.
“But you told me to—”
“I told you to return home and think if you wanted to be with me, too. I never asked you to choose me over them.”
“But don’t I have to be a vampire to be with you?”
“One day, you may have to make that choice, but not today or tomorrow. It could be years. And in the end, if you do not wish it, I shall remember these moments always…happily. So long as I can speak to you like this, touch you like this, I am content, Druella.”
Stepping into his embrace, I wrapped my arms around him and rested my head on his hard chest. “Then it has to be a secret,” I murmured.
“It already is.”
I’d have to keep lying. I would keep betraying my family and friends, but that was better than losing them, right? I didn’t want to lose anyone. That included Theseus.
Lifting my head, I glanced up at him. “So, what now?”
“This.” He lifted my chin higher and kissed me so passionately I nearly stumbled in his arms, but he only held me tighter, my body pressed up against his, his tongue dancing with mine, exciting every cell in my body. Reaching up, I grabbed his hair and pulled him closer, if possible, and when I did, he grabbed my thigh with ease, lifting me with ease off the ground. I felt the air breeze by like a second tornado before I was pinned between the couch and him.
Only when I moved to the hem of his jeans did our lips separate, and he stared down at me worriedly.
“Druella—”
“Are you going to be super cliché and tell me, as all the guys do in those vampire romance novels, that you want to be
a gentleman or you worry about hurting me?”
He frowned, and I kissed his lips again, and it was only when he started to kiss me back that I pulled back.
“You wanted me not to see you as a hero but as a vampire. I see you as neither. You are a man. Do not see me as the little girl you’ve watched over all these years. I am a woman, so treat me as one.”
He grabbed my blouse and bra, and with no effort—I barely even felt it—he ripped them off me. “Not any woman, but my woman,” he declared and kissed the mound on top of my breast.
I lay naked with him in his arms. Now, in his bed, all of me was so sore that even the slightest wiggle of my toe sent an ache up my legs. I didn’t want to let him know that I was sure he might have rearranged my organs out of fear that he wouldn’t do it again later.
“You are in pain,” he said, his fingertips drawing on my skin.
I realized now why he’d made the house so warm…it was because being so close to him was cooling. Even his fingertips felt like tiny snowflakes on my back.
“I am fine,” I whispered, opening my eyes to meet his gaze. “I do have questions, though.”
