Could I be with him even with his immortality and my own secrets standing between us?
“Look at me,” he said in a firm-but-gentle tone. I lifted my gaze, and his eyes burned with a familiar intensity that heated me from my core. “I know you are worried about what will become of us, but you need to trust things will work out.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because,” he said. “Because I have never allowed myself to get involved before, but with you I am unable to deny the connection. Things have to work out.” He tucked a loose curling strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re my life now, Sophia. That will remain so. Always.”
“Am I?” I whispered. I grazed his forearm with my fingertips. His skin was warm, smooth, and buzzing with energy. Touching him…it was how I imagined it would be to touch light. Not the heat, but the very essence.
“I’ve stopped protecting my heart from you,” he said. “I’ve stopped fighting the way I feel, stopped fighting the natural draw I feel toward you. Now you need to do the same.”
My throat tightened, and I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting to disappear from the moment.
“Stop fighting it,” he murmured. “You can’t treat everyone in your life the same. You can’t treat us all as though we’ve hurt you.”
I shook my head slowly, opening my eyes. “I don’t.”
He grinned, lifting my hand and grazing his lips over my knuckles. “Don’t you?”
Shit. He was right. “It’s not that easy,” I said, finally. “It’s not even about that.”
“Everything has to make sense with you.” Charles’ voice edged on frustration. “It all has to add up, to be perfect, neat, in your control. You make your decisions based on fears of how others might judge you. How can you live like that?”
I eased my hand away from his grasp and sat up. “Wow,” I said, unable to contain my defensive tone. “Don’t hold back for my sake.”
He sat up and grasped my hand again. “I wouldn’t want you to hold back for mine.”
“I’m not holding back,” I lied.
“Do you think, after three centuries, I can’t read a person? Auras or not?”
As much as I hated the way he challenged me, it was also the very reason I knew he was my perfect match. He inspired me toward growth. Now I worried what I was about to say would ruin the one thing he appreciated about me: that I’d accepted him for who he was when the rest of his world, and probably my own as well, would not.
“Fine. You want me to tell you what’s bothering me?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly what I want.”
I searched his face. Should I tell him what Adrian’s books had said? How would he react to the idea of sacrificing his Cruor side? His immortality, at the very least, would remain so long as he continued to shift. I wasn’t asking for a commitment, only the promise of possibility.
He caressed his thumb across my bottom lip and along my jaw. “Thinking again?”
I inhaled deeply, repressing a sigh. “I read something in one of Adrian’s books about your…you know…problem?”
I hated calling it a problem. Being a dual-breed wouldn’t have really been a problem if the Maltorim hadn’t made it one. But his immortality—admittedly, that did bother me.
His easy smile slipped. “Is this in regards to the Ankou?”
I straightened, trying to contain the fluttering in my stomach. “I know you’re skeptical,” I said, “but this sounds promising.”
“They do have a special form of magic—especially where transformations are concerned—but they aren’t going to help unless something’s in it for them.” His hand dropped back to his side. He was all discussion now; clearly, this wasn’t what he expected me to bring up.
“It’s worth a try,” I said quietly. “I have a feeling this might work.”
“First tell me what the book said.”
I spun the beads on the bracelet he’d given me. He wasn’t going to like my answer.
“We kill the part we want gone?” I said, my uncertainty strong enough to turn my statement into a question. “They performed the same procedure at the start of the genocide, but the recent success rates have been nearly flawless.”
“Genocide?” Charles repeated. “Nearly flawless?”
“The Maltorim killing people who aren’t ‘pure’.”
“Not exactly a genocide. Go back to what you were saying: I have to die first? What kind of theory is that?”
“How is it not like genocide?”
“They didn’t kill off all of one kind. Only those who were dual-natured.”