“I am not Teslar.”
He tried to keep the passion out of his voice, but it was difficult. It was stupid to bemoan the fact that Teslar and he were identical in appearance.
We share more in common than just a face. I am him and he is me and we are all together.
“When were you planning on seeing Teslar next?” he asked the girl sharply, pushing aside the taunting, singsong voice in his head.
Alison bit her lower lip doubtfully. Saint pressed with his ascendancy.
“If…if you come with me later tonight, you’ll see Teslar,” she said.
“I’ll follow you then.”
Chapter Four
Christina stomped into her office and threw Saint a vitriolic glance. He sat in the leather chair behind her desk, unmoving.
His eerie stillness had been one of Christina’s first indications that Saint wasn’t normal. Human beings weren’t capable of that sharp degree of focus while remaining immobile for so long. Unless they were a Buddhist monk or something.
“Where’s Alison?”
“She went to her room,” he replied evenly.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, you know that?” She slammed the door shut and swept across the room like a wildfire on the rampage. “It’s you who put this fixed idea in Aidan’s head that we shouldn’t move away from Whitby. Didn’t I tell you to stay away from him?”
“You’re wrong. No intervention was required on my part. Aidan is very upset about the idea of leaving Whitby. It’s his home.”
“Wrong. Whitby Manor is your home,” she corrected, pointing accusingly.
She stepped back when he stood abruptly, quick as a snake at the strike.
“It’s my home because you’re there,” he growled.
Christina was set off-balance by his unexpected revelation accompanied by a focused explosion of feeling. The vivid memory of the gazebo made her recover. “Maybe you should have thought
of that before you brought your girlfriends to what should have been our first date.”
She’d never seen Saint show an emotion as mundane as incredulity until now.
“First date? You saw what I am! Saw it with your own eyes, and yet the only thing you consider is that I was unfaithful to your infantile fantasies?”
She snarled and picked up a heavy marble paperweight from her desk, fully prepared to hurl it at Saint’s stunned expression of disbelief. A frustrated cry left her lips when he was suddenly beside her, restraining her wrists. He wrapped his arms around her and pushed her back into his chest.
“Calm down.”
For a few seconds, she was dazed by his resonant, deep voice and the sensation of his body pressed against her. She twisted furiously in his hold, but her body slowly sagged. When she realized she was following Saint’s order without conscious thought, her fury erupted.
“God, I hate you! How could you have done that to me?”
“I am what I am. If I could change my nature, I would in a second. You gave me no choice but to reveal to you the truth about why your dreams are merely that—the fantasies of a child.”
Fury bloomed in her chest, feeling as if it would explode through the skin at any moment. “I told you the other night. I knew you weren’t like everybody else. I didn’t guess you’re…whatever you are…a vampire?”
“Humans have called me that. The truth is a bit more complicated.”
“Vampire or not, you’re an asshole. Some things remain consistent across the species. Even the paranormal variety.”
She braced her legs and twisted viciously to push herself out of his hold. She might as well have been trying to throw a mountain off her. His strength was effortless, as though she were being restrained by steel instead of flesh.