Addison didn’t look impressed. He pushed Eva behind him. “I thought these events bored you, Satrina?” he mocked. His fingers tightened around hers.
The vampiress sneered, and it was directed right at her. “There seems to be a lot you don’t know about me, Addison, my love.” A thin, black eyebrow rose. “And sharing my bed all those years, I’d thought you’d have learned a thing or two. Hell knows, I taught you.” She leaned to the side and peered at her. “Nice to see you again, Eva, my dear. You look good enough to eat this evening.”
When she flashed those pearly-whites, Eva drew back, squeezing her eyes closed.
“Did you enjoy the show?” Satrina’s mock sweetness stung like vinegar in a cut.
“Your answer is to be delivered to me no later than the eve of tomorrow, not now. So, until that time, you will stay away from Eva, and that includes your pets!” Addison growled and again, several heads turned their way.
Eva heard whispered snickers and bit back her revulsion. A flash of Satrina’s emerald eyes revealed something cold and deadly, but also something else; something that stunned her. She tried to shrink into Addison’s back. Oh, my God. She’s still in love with him!
“I challenge you, Addison, my love,” Satrina whispered, sensually running her blood-red nails down his cheek. “I’ll notify the Elders Creed. Tomorrow evening it is.” She sauntered away without a backward glance, the blond boy-toy she’d brought as a date clinging to her arm like a well-trained Kewpie doll.
Addison continued to growl like a dog, low and menacing. The demonic sound made Eva shiver. Realization at what just happened sunk in.
He remained quiet on the ride back to the beach house. She, too, had little to say, but her brain couldn’t stop. This is all because of me. Me! Addison will be punished for trying to save my life. She faltered. But I’ll be dead, too. Satrina wants me six feet under. Eva snuck a sideways glance at Addison.
He stared out the window, his face as expressionless as ever, but she noticed the tiny lines surrounding his eyes had deepened and his lips were thinner, paler.
“I’m sorry, Addison,” she mumbled. Although it sounded lame, she’d never felt more contrite as she did now.
Roused from his thoughts, he looked at her, confused. “So, it’s your turn to begin apologizing?”
She stared down at her hands, praying she wouldn’t cry. “If you hadn’t found me on the bea—”
“Then you’d be living in a cage until you submitted to her…or she killed you.”
He took her hands in his, forcing her to look at him. Reluctantly, she did, trying not to break down.
“I’ve lived a very long time, Eva,” he began, “but I’ve been dead to everything around me. I’ve existed for one thing, my thirst, content in my hell until now.”
She drew back, not understanding.
Addison’s shoulders rolled with an indifferent shrug. “If there is punishment, the Elders Creed will decide. As I explained, if, and I reiterate if Satrina wins, she will get to choose my punishment in accordance with the Alluminatae, but it will not be death. There are worse things than that,” he added under his breath.
“Addison—”
“Let me finish, Eva.” His eyes took on a stranger glow, an effulgence that made her chest tighten. “In this short time that I’ve known you, I’ve never felt more alive.”
She went to speak, but his steely stare silenced her.
“I am a creature of the night, a monster, and I promise that you will not suffer the same fate.” He paused with a sad smile. “Eva, there is such goodness in you, it blinds me. Its power is absolute. This world needs you. I don’t fear death—only yours. It’s been so long since I’ve felt anything. My soul has been dead for an eternity. I’ve lived this long for entirely selfish reasons. At first, I thought that if I followed the Alluminatae perhaps I could change things, be repented, something.” He trailed off, his voice subdued. “When I realized I was a fool to believe that, the thirst…” Pain swathed deep lines of sorrow across his face, and he cleared his throat. “A stronger man would have destroyed himself by now, but me, the succulent taste of blood and a beating heart, not from fodder, but from my own heart, is what has kept me here. To feel alive, something mortals take for granted.”
Addison placed her hand against his chest, his pec hard and chiseled beneath his shirt. “This beats only after I’ve fed, and the ice of my skin warms just a little, but I’m alive, Eva, alive! My curse is an addiction. It’s what has kept me in this world. I crave life, to feel human, and only appeasing my thirst achieves it. Yet…”
He dropped her hand and leaned back into his seat. Stoic, he stared out the tinted window. “You give me the same joy without the necessity of digesting blood. The thirst is there, always, but its torment is more bearable because of you.”
His confession rendered her speechless. Eva felt like someone had dropped her down a dark hole, but she hadn’t fallen; she floated instead.
“Satrina wants you because she sees what you do to me. And she can’t, and won’t allow me such happiness,” he added, his voice barely an audible whisper. His hand sought hers again, and he gave it a gentle squeeze. “You are a pawn in all this, Eva. And Satrina does this for spite. She’s very good at that, let me assure you. She cares nothing about life except what she can take from it.” He sighed. “You have opened eyes that have been blinded for centuries.”
Flabbergasted, Eva clung to his hand. Stifling silence filled the backseat. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and forced the words out. “She’s still in love with you, Addison.”
He humphed and gurgled a cruel chuckle. “Evil does not know how to love, Eva. It covets and then takes what it wants.”
.jpg)
.jpg)
