“I… yes, I do. Of course, I do.” She wrung her hands, an anxiety striking her. “Oh, Lassiter.”
Riding a sudden surge of emotion, she jumped into the space between them, and the instant she did, he caught her, his arms wrapping around her and drawing her flush against his strong body. With his great strength, he lifted her easily from the wild flowers he had created for her, holding her so tight that they nearly became one. And in response, she attempted to encircle his shoulders. They were far too large, so she settled for his neck to hold him back.
She had the sense this was a beginning for them.
But also an end.
And in the poignancy of the moment, so consumed was she… that she missed the young male who stood at the edge of the meadow, a bouquet of flowers dropping from his hand, his heart as shattered as hers, from an altogether different cause.
She was still embracing the angel as Nate turned back to Luchas House.
Walked around the far side.
And took off into the dark, cold night.
Alone.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
I need you to know something.”
Erika and Balthazar were upstairs in her bed when he spoke up, the blankets on the floor, the sheets tangled around their still cooling bodies, only one pillow still within reach. Not that she was interested in moving at all in the dim room.
“That sounds ominous.” She was so relaxed that lifting her head was a struggle—so she just turned herself over and laid its heavy weight on her upper arm. “What’s wrong?”
“That night you found me by that human woman who had been killed. In the trap house.”
Between one blink and the next, she caught a vivid, hard-to-see image of Connie’s body on that dirty mattress. “Yes?”
“I went to find her because I tried to buy some cocaine off her boyfriend down by the river.” He put a hand up. “I don’t do drugs recreationally. I was trying to stay awake because every time I fell asleep, the demon… well, you know what she did.”
Oh, God, Erika thought. He’d been down there… with Christopher Ernest Olyn. That dealer who’d shot himself in the head.
Supposedly.
“What did you do to him,” she said tightly.
“Look, I was desperate. I just needed to stay awake because I couldn’t take Devina anymore. I even went to Vishous—the Brother with the goatee—and told him… well, I’m going to have to apologize to him for what I asked him to do to me.”
“What did you ask him.” Even though, going by the expression on his face, she knew. She knew. “Did you ask him to kill you?”
There was a long pause.
“I figured—better him than my bloodline, my leader.” He shook his head. “But I don’t feel like that anymore. And as for Devina, after I met you properly, I couldn’t get it up anymore with her. This all happened before you were in my—I was with you. Here, with you.”
Erika nodded slowly as her heart dropped. Yet somehow, she wasn’t surprised by any of it.
How could she abide a murderer? The stealing, maybe she could get over. But taking a life—
“I just went down there to get the coke,” he said quietly. “The guy pulled a gun on me. I didn’t want to deal with the shit, so I was only going into his mind to replace the memory of me. I swear, that was it. But once I got in there—I saw from his memories what he’d done to her. What he’d been doing to her. I knew he’d beaten that woman senseless. And fuck that, you know.”
Erika sat up and pushed her hair out of her face. “You made him shoot himself, didn’t you.”
He didn’t even pause. “Yeah, I did. The fucker had been abusing that poor woman—and I knew she was in trouble. I also knew, if I could get to her and she was still alive—and I saved her? He’d just go after her again. So yeah, I had him point the gun at himself and pull the trigger.” There was another pause and then he shook his head. “I know you’ve heard it before, but I’m not sorry. Not at all. He took a life he had no right to take, and he ruined that woman before he murdered her.”
Lowering her head, Erika closed her eyes for a second time. And all she saw on the backs of them was that fetid apartment and all that blood. And Connie, a woman she herself had tried to help.
“If that changes your opinion of me,” he said, “I totally understand. I guess I just want you to know all the parts that matter about me. And killing one of your species two nights ago is pretty material.”
Turning her head, she looked at him. The light in the bathroom had been left on, but the door was mostly shut, so there was only a soft glow. In the near-darkness, he was a sprawl of muscle beside her, his chin and hard jawline cutting an angle up from his throat, one of his arms lying on his stomach.