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“I’ve never trusted another human as much as you,” Gio said at the same time.

Mila shook her head. “If you trusted me, you would’ve known I wasn’t going to run.”

Carter looked at him. “You need to tell her about Coraline.”

Gio absolutely didn’t want to talk about the woman who’d betrayed him. The human who almost killed him.

“Please, Gio,” Carter said when Gio didn’t respond. “It’s the only way she’ll understand.”

Carter set his mug down and scooted his stool back. Gio wasn’t surprised when the shifter grabbed him. Within a second, he was settled in Carter’s lap.

“Tell her,” Carter urged.

Geo sighed and focused on Carter’s mug. He couldn’t look at Mila’s face. He couldn’t bear to watch her love for him morph into hate.

“Do you remember the painting of the woman wearing the suit?” he asked.

“The one with the 1920s hairstyle?” Mila asked.

“Yes, that’s Coraline.”

She nodded her head. “I remember you saying her name now. Who was she to you?”

“First, you need to know that I was only two decades into my vampire life when I met her. She was human, but wise beyond her thirty years. She was smart, sophisticated, and charming. I fell in love.”

Mila’s expression turned sympathetic. “I know how that goes.”

Right, she’d experienced something similar with Brad. Except her ex had stolen her possessions, not tried to sell her body.

“I was in love, but I knew she wasn’t meant to be flock,” he said. “Vampires instinctively know when we find a person who we’re meant to share our soul with. But Coraline was good at making me believe love was enough.”

Gio paused, trying to put his memories in a sensible order. “My maker warned me that humans couldn’t be trusted. She toldme to only reveal myself to my flock, no one else. I dismissed that advice. Coraline wanted to know all my secrets. I told her.”

He remembered the night perfectly. All the time before that night was a blur of fun and passion, but that night was distinct.

“She said,” Gio had to stop to breathe. Even now, so many years later, thinking about it made his chest tighten. “She didn’t believe me at first. After I convinced her, she acted…different.”

Mila tilted her head. “Different?”

“She said all the right words with smiles and laughs, but something was missing,” Gio sighed and rubbed his forehead. “It’s hard to describe. I told myself she was adjusting. That everything was fine.”

“But it wasn’t fine?” Mila asked when he was quiet for too long. He looked up to see sympathy on her face.

“She was a manipulative monster,” Carter said, hugging Gio.

“She filled our time together with questions. She wanted to know everything about the hidden magical world around her. I thought it was because she wanted to understand, but it was because she was plotting.”

Mila looked horrified. “Plotting what?”

“To sell me to a tooth-puller,” Gio said.

“Tooth-puller?”

“Originally, tooth-pullers were called vampire hunters,” Carter explained. “But that was back when they were organized by the church. After the crusades, they went into business for themselves. Vampire parts are in high demand by blood mages, underworld witches, and many others. They would’ve used Gio’s skin, blood, and organs to do all kinds of powerful spells. Tooth-pullers can make nearly a million dollars from one kill. The only thing the hunters don’t sell are the fangs. They keep those as a trophy.”

“That’s barbaric!” Mila gasped.

Gio tried to smile, but it probably looked more like a grimace. “Thankfully, tooth-pullers don’t tend to live long. We vampires are hard to subdue and even harder to kill.”