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My chest squeezes at how defenseless and lost she looks. “No, my sweet angel,” I tell her.
Her breath hitches again at the moniker. “I might stalk you. I might obsess over you to the point of madness,” I tell her honestly. “I might come close to losing control, but I will always protect you. Even if Iever dolose control, I will never hurt you.” I vow to both her and myself.
She nods before she says, “Okay, then let me go.”
She might as well have stuck a knife into my heart and twisted it. That's how bad it hurts to hear her say that, though I’m not surprised that she does. Actually, what surprises me is that it’s taken her this long to get around to saying it.
And I get it. I honestly do. She doesn’t feel for me what I feel for her. She doesn't know me the way I know her. Even so, knowing that she already wants to get away from me so badly is enough to knife right through my long-dead heart.
“That is the one thing I cannot do,” I tell her softly. “Ask me for anything else, Elena. Anything at all and it’s yours. I swear it, but I cannot let you go.”
Elena’s lips press together.
“It’s for your own safety,” I try to justify my actions to her.
She turns accusing eyes up at me. “You mean youwon'tlet me go,” she corrects me.
“I can’t,” I correct her. I’m not exaggerating. I don’t think I’m physically capable of it. Not know that I’ve seen her here in my home—in mybed.
“Because your brother is after me?” she prompts.
I don’t speak. Let her believe that is the only reason if it puts her mind at ease.
Her lips tremble before she says, “He never would have been after me had it not been for you.”
Her accusation cuts to the quick because it's true. If I had never shown interest in her, she'd never have been on Dorian’s radar. ‘
She'd have been better off if I'd never met her, and I know that. I should have never interfered in her life. I should have just let her keep going on the way she was.
But I’m not sorry. I’ll never be sorry.
I’d rather spend my life watching her, unable to touch her, than to have never found her.
“Look,” she says, “I don't know what sort of pissing contest you two have going on between you, but it's bullshit that I'm the one who's affected by it all.I'mthe one who has my freedom taken away from me and who's been spirited away to fucking middle-of-nowhere Transylvania where I’m basically you're captive so you can,” she makes air quotes now “keep me safe.”
Her implication that my intentions of keeping her safe are bullshit send me rushing to my feet so fast that she gasps and scurries to press her back against the headboard.
My face is mere inches from her, so much so that her heady scent teases my nostrils like a fine wine. I breathe in deeply, inhaling her, though I don't close my eyes. Instead, I hold her eyes the entire time as I tell her vehemently, “Never question my sincerity in keeping you safe. I told you I would never hurt you, and I won’t. You’re not a prisoner here. I won’t lock you up, but you cannot leave. If you're waiting for me to say I'm sorry, you're waiting in vain, my sweet angel. Yes, I'm infatuated with you, obsessed with you, and I won't hurt you, but that doesn't mean I'm a good man, Elena.”
I move my lips to her ear and feel the shiver pass through her as I remind her, “I'm not a man at all. I'm a monster, but I'myourmonster.”
Her scent is braiding into my senses and intoxicating me. I hover over her, chest heaving until finally I can take it no more and turn on my heels to leave her.
I have to get out of this room before I give in to every instinct within me that's telling me to mate her to me once and for all and make her mine in every way.
Something tells me that the last thing Elena wants right now is my hands on her.
No, my perfect little angel has made it obvious that she doesn’t love me and can't wait to get as far away from me as she can.
A feeling of helpless frustration rushes over me, and I roar with rage, slamming my fist through the stone wall of the hallway.
Motherfucking Dorian!
Nineteen
Elena
I jumpwhen I hear the loud roar sounding from the distance. Was that Stephan? Somehow, I know it was.
