“I’m not upset about what you did to that vampire,” I tell him, anger sneaking up in my voice. “He fucking attacked me, bit me, drank my blood. Violated me, Solon. He got what was coming to him.”
He looks at me over his shoulder, frowning. “Then—”
“You lied to me!” I yell. “You fucking lied!”
He shakes his head, turning back to face me. “No, Lenore. I didn’t lie…”
“You knew! You knew I was the daughter of Jeremias. I don’t even know what that means, but apparently it’s a big enough deal that some vampire risked his life to find out, at the behest of another vampire! You knew because you drank my blood and you didn’t tell me.”
“That’s not lying,” he says. “That’s just pushing a fact to the side for now.”
“Oh my god!” I exclaim, throwing my arms out. “Is that how you’re justifying this? What the fuck, Solon, you should have told me!”
“I was waiting for
the right time,” he says gruffly, avoiding my gaze. “I needed to figure it out for myself.”
“Well, that fucking vampire you just ripped the heart out of and set on fire figured it out a lot faster than you did!”
He wiggles his jaw, growing silent.
“You’re not even going to apologize?” I go on.
His eyes flick up to mine, his gaze hard. “I’m sorry.”
I shake my head, pressing the heel of my palm against my forehead. “You asked me to trust you and I did. I did. And you just…shit all over it.”
I close my eyes, trying to calm my heart, the adrenaline in the room is palpable. We’re both worked up and on the edge and it’s not helping, but fuck, does it hurt to have him betray me like this.
“I didn’t betray you,” he says quietly.
I put my face in my hands, letting out a growl of frustration. “Please stop reading my thoughts. I deserve some privacy.”
“I can’t help it,” he says. He comes closer, his scent flowing over me. He grabs my hands, gently this time, and takes them off my face. “I can’t help myself around you, Lenore.”
I don’t want to look at him, don’t want to break my resolve.
“I know you’re upset, I know you’re hurt, and I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says, squeezing my hands. I hate at how grounding the gesture is, hate how it causes butterflies to travel up my arms. “I should have told you.”
I swallow hard, my heart aching. “What else aren’t you telling me?” I whisper.
“There are so many things,” he says after a moment, his voice raw. “So many things that I will tell you, that I want to tell you. But for now, we can start with this one. I’ll tell you everything I know. Just…”
He lets go of one hand and puts his fingers under my chin, raising it up so I meet his eyes. His pupils are black, his eyes shadowed, and in their depths I feel something radiating off of him that I’d never felt before. An intensity.
Devotion.
“I told you that you would ruin me,” he says. “Because I would ruin myself for you. You bring me to my knees, Lenore. Right to my god damn knees.”
Oh god.
My heart feels like it’s about to detonate.
“Solon,” I say, breath catching in my throat. “I—”
He grips my chin, pulls my mouth to his, kissing me.
Soft, full of life, lips and tongue moving in sweet synchronicity.