He couldn’t lose her, but she would hate him if he did this. And right now, he hated himself. He was terrifying her. He heard it in the frantic flutter of her heart and saw it in her body as she shrank away from him.
He recalled the times he’d glimpsed something in her eyes. The times she’d let her fear show before she’d covered it up, the times when he’d questioned what happened to her, but never asked. And now, looking at her, he realized someone like him, a monster, had happened to her.
No, no, no, he said as he reached for her, but his hands froze between them. He didn’t trust himself to touch her.
“Callie,” he breathed.
She couldn’t look at him as she kept her head turned away. If she screamed, one of the others might hear her and come to help. She didn’t doubt they loved Lucien and their loyalty was with him, but they wouldn’t let him kill her.
“Callie, I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered.
Callie kept her hands over her head to protect herself from him, but she dared to turn her head and peer up at him. He remained standing over her, but a look of abject horror had replaced the coldness on his face and in his eyes.
He reached for her, but she slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me!” she spat.
Lucien recoiled and held his hands up as he edged away. Self-hatred swamped him as he stared at the backs of his hands. What did I do?
He barely recognized himself. When he was starved and deprived and trying to save her, he’d had a reason for scaring her, but things were different now. She was his mate. He cared for her and loved her more than he’d ever cared for and loved anyone. The words may not be easy for him to say, but she was his everything, and he’d… he’d….
He’d been an out of control monster. It took everything he had not to batter the walls. If it wouldn’t scare her further, he would destroy every inch of these walls as the demon sought to break free of its cage. It seethed and twisted and demanded to change her as he battled to keep it locked away.
He’d spent centuries fighting his malevolent nature; he would not allow it to win now when he was so close to finding happiness with her.
Callie tried to push herself away from the wall, but she didn’t trust her legs to support her. She was still too caught between the present and the past to have full control of herself.
Tears burned her eyes, and she blinked them away. She refused to let him see her cry. Resting her hand on the wall, she steadied herself as he stepped toward her again.
“Stay away from me!” she ordered.
Lucien watched helplessly as her head bowed. The black curtain of her hair fell forward to shield her features. He ached for the distress she emanated. What have I done?
“Callie, please forgive me. I won’t hurt you.”
“No, you’ll just try to bully me around. Maybe it’s not physical hurt, but it’s still hurt.”
Her voice quivered, and she had to blink faster to suppress the tears burning her eyes.
Lucien had never hated himself more. He had to fix this, but he had no idea how.
“It will never happen again. I’m just… just….”
Callie lifted her head and scowled at him. “An asshole?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
But since meeting her, he’d become a lot less of one. However, he’d been a gigantic asshole to her and treated her horribly.
“You make me a better man,” he said. “But I’m not just a man; I’m also part demon, and I haven’t claimed my mate. Because of that, I’m losing it. That’s no excuse for how I treated you, and I will hate myself forever for what happened here today, but I can’t lose you. Without you, I will become a monster. When you said, you would leave….”
His words trailed off as rage burned through him again. He stepped further away as he struggled to regain control of himself.
Callie saw the unraveling within him as he edged further away from her. She was still irate, but watching him, she realized he wasn’t himself. This was not the Lucien she’d come to love over the past few weeks. This was not the Lucien who owned her heart.
This Lucien’s eyes shifted between black and red like a blinking stoplight. His fisted hands shook as the veins in his arms stood out. Behind his lips was the outline of his fangs. Some of her exasperation ebbed when she saw his strain.
“Is this normal for vampires?” she asked.
“It is for a vampire who hasn’t completely claimed their mate.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“Because you’ve had enough to deal with, and I was trying to give you time to adjust to everything that has happened. I also believed I could control it better, but when it comes to you, I’m far weaker than I ever realized. The idea of losing you….” His eyes blazed red again as he bared his fangs. “I would burn this world down if I lost you.”
He still hadn’t told her he loved her, but that sentence spoke more of his love for her than those three little words.
“I can’t live without you, Callie, but I won’t force the change on you, and I won’t ask you to stay here if you’re unhappy. Your happiness is the most important thing to me, and I lost sight of that today. I will forever be sorry for that.”
The tears burning her throat no longer had anything to do with her past intruding on the present; instead, they had everything to do with the anguish he radiated. She was still mad at him for being an asshole, but her heart ached for him.
“You should have told me you were going through this,” she admonished.
“I should have, but you know now.”
They stared at each other for a long minute before she nodded, but she wasn’t sure what to say.
When she remained silent, he asked the question he’d been holding back for weeks. “Are you going to tell me why you just reacted like you did to me?”
“You… you scared me.”
“I’m sure I did. I scared myself. But, Callie, you’re still shaking.”
Callie couldn’t look at him, so she focused on the bathroom door as she kept her hand against the wall. Her other hand went to her belly as the memories she’d managed to suppress once again bombarded her.
He’d given her the truth and admitted he was losing control. It couldn’t be easy, especially not for someone like him, but he did it.
“I’ve noticed your fear before,” he said. “You cover it well, but I’ve seen it, and it’s not normal. Though you’re the strongest and most courageous person I’ve ever encountered, you don’t always hide that there is something else going on. I believed it was because of me and the way I was in the beginning, but I’ve seen it in other situations, and there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
He couldn’t tear his gaze away from her as she kept her attention riveted on the bathroom. She was keeping something from him.
The demon stirred again.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Callie, tell me what happened,” he said.
She didn’t want to tell him about Carter. He was already on edge; this might push him over, but she couldn’t keep it from him anymore. She’d revealed a lot more than she realized, and he wouldn’t let it go until he had the truth. Trying to keep it from him now would only create a wedge between them.