I try to yank myself away from him, but I don’t have the strength left. My head is pounding. “Why the hell not?”
He doesn’t answer my question, but he can’t hide his thoughts from me. He could stop now, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to know everything about me. He thinks he’s been given a miraculous gift and that he would be a fool to not learn everything he can about me.
I try to push him from my head again, but the effort is almost nonexistent now, and my stomach rolls. I’m helpless to do anything but lie there while he delves, unwelcome, into my past.
At first, he analyzes everything. He tries to think of how he might be able to gain my trust, but soon his thoughts trail off, and he simply watches. He sees my lonely life and is starting to recognize a reoccurring theme—men.
All my life, I’ve been sought after. There’s something unnatural about me that puts men under a spell. I mean that literally, as in, magic is involved. I call it a curse. I’m cursed to attract men to unhealthy levels. I can’t explain why, but I know I’m not imagining it.
Henry watches me bounce from foster home to foster home, always having problems with my foster fathers or brothers. He sees school after school and all the boys that never leave me alone. His anger rises each time I am harassed or assaulted. He roars, furious with what he’s seeing. That he’s angry on my behalf doesn’t make me feel any better. “Please, stop!” I scream. “Once was bad enough. Stop making me remember! Please stop this!”
“I am so sorry, Nora,” he coos in my ear. His hand strokes my head over and over. “You’re safe now. You have my word. I will protect you.”
His promises bring me no comfort. Who will protect me from him?
My curse hits Henry hard. Seeing everything I’ve been through, he doesn’t just become drawn to me; he instantly becomes protective of me. And possessive. I’m his now, and he plans to take care of me. He vows to himself that I will never be put through that again. No one else will ever come near me. He’ll make sure of it. He thinks he understands why I hadn’t wanted him to touch me. He wants me to see him differently from all of the past men in my life. He wants me to long for his touch, not abhor it. Fat chance of that.
When I realize just how far back in my memory he’s going, and I recognize what else I’m about to have to relive, I panic. “No!” I scream. “Get out of my head!”
“Nora, what is it?”
“Stop. Please.”
“Stop fighting me, love. You’re too weak right now. You will hurt yourself.”
“Then STOP!”
“Shh,” he whispers, wiping the tears from my face. “What are you hiding from me?”
He pushes harder, and I try to match him. I’m fueled by desperation. I can’t watch them kill my mom again. Seeing the memories like this makes them feel too real. They’re too vivid. I can’t go through that again. I just can’t.
The premonition hits, and my child self jerks up in bed, crying for my mom. She enters the room, and my heart aches at the sight of her. For a moment, I’m powerless to do anything except take in the memory. I can feel her arms around me. Hear her voice. It’s so real. I begin to sob as she holds my younger self. And then they come. I can’t watch this, and yet I can’t help it.
“Stop!” I cry. I can feel her pain and her fear. Worse, I can now feel the monsters’ excitement as they attack my mother. “Please,” I beg. “Why are you making me relive this? I hate you, you sick bastard!”
Unable to take the torture anymore, I tune Henry out and break down into gut-wrenching sobs.
It’s the crying, I think, that finally makes Henry extract himself from my head. With everything he’d put me through, I hadn’t shed a tear, but now I’m sobbing like a baby. My grief and fear are so fresh it’s as if it all happened yesterday.
My nightmare stops, and the pressure in my head goes away, but the aftereffects are a bitch. I blink my way back to reality, feeling as if my brain has been shredded by a set of sharp claws. But that’s nothing to the feeling in my chest. My heart has been ripped to pieces far worse than my brain.
I sit up, ignoring the throbbing in my head, and take a deep breath. My sobs quiet, but I can’t stop silently spilling tears. I close my eyes and sniff as more shudders wrack my body.
“Sire, what’s the matter with her?” Parker whispers, kneeling beside Henry now, and biting his bottom lip as if it pains him to see me crying.
Henry shakes his head, and his eyes fasten on mine. “They were rogues,” he murmurs. “Those who attacked you and your mother. The worst of our kind.” Parker gasps. Henry looks like he feels sick. I hope he does. “They were monsters, yes, but they were the exception, Nora, not the norm. I promise you. We do not condone such actions. I am so sorry that happened to you.”
His apology doesn’t make me feel any better. I’ve been trying to forget what happened all my life. And now, thanks to him, the memories are so much worse. I’ll never forget the feelings those monsters felt. I’ll never forget their faces, or the looks of pleasure on them. I’ll never forget my mother’s pain.
Unable to look at the monster in front of me any longer, I turn my face into the sofa and let more tears fall. Behind me, Henry sighs. “Bring the car around, Parker.” A hand falls on my shoulder. “Come, Nora. Some fresh air will do you good.”
Henry ushers me into the back of a sleek black Mercedes sedan and then slips in beside me. When Parker climbs behind the wheel, I can’t help but think of the similarities between this moment and the night before when Xavier forced me to go out with him. The only difference is that the premonitions of someone close by meaning to do me harm are missing. Oddly enough, I haven’t felt the warning feelings since ditching Xavier. The vampires truly don’t mean me any harm. Right now. That doesn’t mean that I’m safe by any stretch. Vamps are moody, and I’m sure their definition of bringing me harm would be different than mine.
“Where to, Sire?”
“Underworld. That was the last place Nadine was seen, was it not?”
As Parker nods and puts the car into gear, I lean forward, trying my best to keep my temper in check. “Uh, you’re going to take me home first, right?”
Henry gives me a long look that says so much. The bastard has no intention of ever letting me go home.
“Oh, this is bullshit. Take me home, now. You got your answers. I didn’t take your missing vampire, and I’m not a threat to you. I’ve never told anyone about the underworld. Plus, you know about my gift. You keep my secret, I keep yours. Those are the rules of the underworld. You have to let me go.”
“You want to go back?” Henry asks. “To that hole of an apartment next door to that loathsome human?” He sounds like he’s insulted that I’d pick my home over his.
I shrug. “It’s my home. I have responsibilities, a job—maybe. I probably got fired for not showing up to work today, thank you very much. But still, it’s my life. You can’t just take it from me.”
Henry gives me a rueful look. “It wasn’t much of a life, Nora. You lived alone with no family, no friends, no lovers…”
My chest clenches like Henry is punching me with each word he says. As an orphan who grew up in foster care, I’ve never wanted anything more than a real family. Being a scrawny little white girl in Detroit was bad enough—I never fit in and was always picked on—but add having to hide my gifts, and I never had a chance at having any kind of real relationships. I’ve grown resigned to my lonely life, but I’ve never wanted to be alone. Henry’s hitting below the belt, and he knows it. He waits for a response from me, but I can’t give one without sounding emotional, so I turn my head and stare stoically out the window.
“You’ll have all of those things from now on,” Henry says. “I’ll keep you safe. Provide for you. You will be well taken care of, I assure you.”