She said it as if that was a logical reason he shouldn’t. Blake sighed. “Doesn’t mean I’m blind.”
She seemed to shrink a little in her chair, and she looked away. “I’m a vampire. I drink blood, I don’t breathe, and my heart doesn’t beat. Don’t I scare you?”
Blake thought of all the things he’d seen—and done, though thankfully he didn’t remember those parts—the past several months. Elise, scary? She couldn’t be less frightening to him.
“You don’t scare me.” His voice was rough. “In fact, I think you’re the closest to an angel that I’ll ever get.”
Something glittered in her eyes, making them brighter. It wasn’t until a pink tear slid down her face that he realized what it was.
“Oh, God, Elise, don’t cry,” Blake said. He moved the short distance across the cabin to take her in his arms, half-worried she’d shove him away.
She didn’t. Her arms wrapped around him, amazingly silky skin pressed against his cheek. Elise felt cooler than he did, but not in an icy, lifeless way. No, the supple, soft touch of her flesh felt as alive as his. If he hadn’t known what she was, Blake might have thought the air-conditioning was just set a little low.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s so wrong of me to burden you with my tears. Please, let me go.”
Blake didn’t want to. Holding Elise felt more right than anything he’d done in well, he couldn’t remember how long. “I need this, too,” Blake said.
Once, he’d have been too guarded to admit to such vulnerability to a woman he didn’t know very well, but now those games seemed like a waste of time. Time he didn’t have.
She moved so he could sit on the narrow bench with her instead of balancing over her. Blake pulled Elise onto his lap, resting her head under his chin, and closed his eyes. In the quiet, pressed close to each other in their mutual need for solace, there was more honesty than Blake had experienced in all his other relationships. She’s what I’ve been missing all my life, Blake realized, but not in remorse. It was in deep appreciation that he’d been allowed to meet her before it was too late.
“I was engaged in the fifties.” Elise’s voice was barely audible over the rumblings of the train. “Edmond didn’t know what I was. I’d told him I couldn’t have children, but he said that didn’t matter. I thought he’d accept the rest of me, too, if I could show him I truly loved him. Mencheres urged me to tell Edmond what I was, not to start our marriage with such a great deception between us. So, the night before our wedding, I showed Edmond my true nature.”
She was trembling. Blake smoothed his hands down her back.
“He was so horrified.” It was a pain-filled whisper. “He called me defiled, unclean, a hell-spawn. He wouldn’t listen, no matter what I said. He ran off, but I thought with a little time, his fear would ease, and he would come back. He did come back, the very next morning. I woke up and Edmond was in the room with people I’d never seen before. They all had wooden stakes, one as long as a pole, and…”
Elise’s voice broke. Blake’s arms tightened around her.
“Edmond had them hold me down. I didn’t struggle, because I thought if Edmond saw I wasn’t fighting them, he’d realize there was nothing to fear from me. I kept pleading with Edmond to stop, but…” Elise’s voice changed. Became flat and emotionless. “Edmond shoved a stake through my heart. I stared into his eyes the whole time. He was furious when I didn’t die—he kept stabbing more wood into my chest. I couldn’t think through the pain, and at last I fought back. Edmond’s neck snapped when he hit the wall. The others were injured, but they lived. They ran away, and I left my house to live below the train station in the tunnels. I’ve mostly avoided people ever since, because if I didn’t care about anyone, then no one could hurt me.”
Chapter Eleven
Elise waited for Blake’s reaction. Only Mencheres knew this part of her life, but as a vampire and her sire, he was obviously biased when it came to his opinion of what she’d done. What would Blake think, knowing she’d killed her human fiancé on their wedding day?
“I can’t believe he’d do that to you,” Blake said. His hands never paused in their soothing path along her back. “I understand why Edmond ran. Being afraid of what you don’t know—yeah, I get that. But I will never understand why he tried to kill you when he came back. How could Edmond do that to you, no matter how shocked he was?”