Page 94 of Inked & Bloodbound
“Every night.” His voice is barely audible. “I know I have no right, but I couldn’t… I needed to know you were safe.”
The admission hits me like a physical blow. “Every night? For a month?”
“I stay in the shadows. I heard what you said in the Hollow. You don’t want me around, I get that. I don’t interfere with your life. I just?—”
“Come here,” I interrupt, stepping out onto the porch. “Please.”
He approaches reluctantly, stopping just at the edge of the light. Up close, I can see how much of a burden he carries, the bottomless darkness in his eyes. There’s something else, too—a careful way he moves, like every step causes him pain.
“I missed you,” I say, the words spilling out before I can stop them.
His face crumples for just a moment before he masks it again. “Lily, I?—”
“I’m still angry,” I continue quickly. “About the promise, the blood pact, about you using my abilities. But I miss you anyway. I can’t help it.”
“I’m so sorry.” The words come out broken. “For all of it. For dragging you into my mess, for lying to you, for letting you think I didn’t care about you. The blood pact…yes, I needed it broken to survive. But that’s not why I—” He stops, runs a hand through his hair. “I was dying, Lily. Slowly, piece by piece. And I knew that if I died, I couldn’t protect you from what was coming.”
“What was coming?”
“My family. They’ve been hunting me for years, and if they found out about you, they’d kill you.” He shakes his head. “I thought if I could get strong enough, I could take you somewhere safe. Somewhere they’d never find us.”
“Instead you bound yourself to their enemy.”
His laugh is bitter. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? Lazaro has the power to keep you safe from them, even if it means I must spend the next thousand years serving him. Just so I can keep you…”
“Keep me what?”
Instead of answering, he reaches for the collar of his shirt andpulls it down. There, hanging around his throat, is my silver necklace—the one with the “L” pendant. But where it should rest against his skin, there’s only burned, blistered flesh that sizzles constantly.
“I’ve worn this every day since I left you in that room,” he says quietly.
I reach a shaking hand to touch it, but he grabs me by the wrist and stops me dead in my tracks. “It’s hot. Don’t touch it.”
My eyes meet his, and when I see nothing but sadness staring back, they fill with tears. “Doesn’t it hurt?”
“I want it to hurt,” he replies, his voice hoarse. “It burns constantly, but I wanted to carry a piece of you with me. Penance for what I’ve done, and what I’ve lost. I was so stupid. I should have told you. I should have protected you. I should have done more. I should have…”
Tears sting my eyes as I reach toward his face, but he steps back.
“Lily, please. I don’t deserve…”
“The binding,” I say, studying his face. “How bad is it?”
He shrugs like it doesn’t matter, but I see the truth in his eyes. “I do his dirty work, and I can’t disobey direct orders. It’s…miserable, but it’s manageable. How are you doing?”
“Miserable,” I say, slumping against the doorway. “I can’t work, I’m too afraid to sleep, and I’m pretty sure Lazaro is eventually going to force me to do something for that bribe he gave me.”
His brow furrows. “What bribe?”
“Hush money or something. A quarter of a million dollars just appeared one day.”
Understanding dawns on his face. “That was me. I didn’t want you to worry about work while you were dealing with everything else. I wanted you to have enough to…to be free, in whatever way you could be.”
The revelation breaks something loose in my chest. While I’ve been thinking the worst of everyone’s motives, he’s been quietly trying to take care of me from a distance. Also he’s apparently very wealthy. Either that, or he just robbed a bank.
“You have a quarter of a million dollars just lying around to giveaway?” I ask. “And for our one and only date, you took me to…the Jackalope?”
The joke temporarily pierces the heaviness between us, and for the first time in the conversation, he smiles. A warm, genuine, gentle smile that cracks across his face and restores the light in his eyes for a moment.