“Tell me what you remember?” Christian said.
She swallowed, then cleared her throat. “Everything had gone quiet. I’d heard them talking, but now there was nothing. I don’t know why, but I needed to check that my mother was all right. She never had men in the house. Now one was in her bedroom.” She closed her eyes pictured the door. “I stood outside. The door was slightly ajar, and I pushed it.” Her eyes flew open; she didn’t want to see that image, but it flashed in her mind. “She was on the bed, naked. I’d never seen my mother naked before. She lay with her head hanging over the edge of the mattress. At first, I thought she had a scarf around her neck. A red scarf, but I saw it was wounds, teeth marks and there were more at her wrist and between her thighs.” Nausea roiled in her stomach. “I stepped closer. I didn’t know she was dead. I wanted to help her. Then I sensed something behind me. Something bad.”
“Faith? What next?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I remember nothing.”
His silver eyes bored into her skull. “You do remember, Faith. “Tell me what you remember.”
Her mind was splintering. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ryan take a step toward her, but Ash stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“I don’t want to,” she whispered, but the wall was shattering.
Chapter Eighteen
Part of him wanted to tell Christian to stop, to leave her alone. But Ash knew she had to do this. It had become so clear while they had watched her talk to Ryan down in the cell that she was under some sort of compulsion. Now he understood why her disbelief in anything supernatural had seemed so inflexible.
If he ever found the vamp who’d done this to her, he’d rip his fucking head off.
“Go on, Faith,” Christian said. “What happened next?”
A pulse fluttered in her throat and her hands clenched into tight fists on her lap. Her eyes were open now, haunted.
“I turned around. And I saw him. His face was a crimson mask of blood. My mother’s blood. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t move. ‘Just a little sip,’ he said to me. And he bit me. It didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt so good. Afterward, he told me that I would forget and that vampires don’t exist. None of the monsters existed.”
“But they do exist, don’t they, Faith,” Christian murmured. “You know that now?”
She nodded slowly, reached out a hand, and lightly touched his face. “Show me.”
Christian snarled revealing the tip of one fang. She touched it briefly and let her hand drop to her side.
“Vampires exist. You’re a vampire.” She sounded forlorn, but then the world, which she’d been so certain of, was crumbling around her.
Ash released his hold on Ryan. The fight had gone out of him anyway. He rummaged in desk and found the bottle of whisky and glasses Piers always kept in there. He poured a measure, took it Faith, and wrapped her fingers around the glass.
Christian rose to his feet making room for Ash. He sank down beside her.
“Drink it, Faith.”
She raised the glass to her lips almost automatically and took a large gulp of whiskey, then a second. She peered at him over the rim. “At least I know you’re not a vampire.”
Ryan snorted and Ash shot him a sharp glance. He would tell Faith the truth about what he was at some point, but she’d had enough shocks for one day.
He was quite aware he was indulging in a little self-delusion here. Some part of him knew that if she discovered what he was, it would be over between them. And he wasn’t ready for that. Hell “it” hadn’t even started yet.
There could be nothing long term between them anyway, at least not in the way he figured long term. Faith was mortal. She would die. He would not allow himself to get in too deeply with her.
He’d loved and lost once, and he would not go through that again.
He stopped short and stared at the woman in front of him, horror filling his mind. No way was he falling in love with her. Even thinking the word while in the same room with Faith was dangerous.
Maybe he should tell her what he was now, show his real self, and she’d no doubt tell him to piss off and the danger would be over.
But he couldn’t do it. “No, I’m definitely not a vampire.”
“Can all vampires do that?” she asked. “The mind thing?”
Ash shrugged. “Some are better than others, but to a certain extent—yes.”
She was silent for a minute. “Is that how they stay secret? Of course it is. Is that what he’ll do to me? If you let me leave?”
“Probably.”
“Hey, don’t pull your punches, Ash. Tell it like it is.”
“Do you prefer lies?”
“Actually, I’m still trying to decide that one.”
As he watched her, she glanced across to where Christian was punching something into the computer and her hand went to her throat, her finger stroking down the vein. She’d said it felt good. Was she remembering? She better not get a hankering for vampires. If she wanted biting, then Ash would do it.
Christian straightened. “Faith?”