“He said you’d been starving yourself. That you feed from skin to skin contact but he left before explaining how. Ian, why would you do that?” She reached out, put a hand on his arm.
“Don’t touch me!” Ian snatched his arm away from her and watched hurt and embarrassment bloom faster than a hand print if he’d slapped her. But he couldn’t take it back, so he focused on anger, on Matthias. “Damn him, he knew the state I was in, and he told you to feed me deliberately? Is that what you were doing?”
Marley wrapped both arms around her middle and the magenta hue of humiliation deepened. “I wasn’t trying to molest you.”
“No, you were just trying to revive a monster you know nothing about. Why would you do such a thing?”
“You gave up everything to save me.” Marley gave a defensive jerk of her shoulders. “It seemed about damn time I did something to return the favor.”
“I could have killed you,” Ian whispered. “I’m sorry. I would never have willingly used you like that. Never have hurt you like that.” Wanting to touch, to comfort, he took two steps toward her before he caught himself and dropped his hand.
Her stiff posture eased as magenta shifted to peach. Why the hell was she concerned for him? She was the one who’d just been molested.
&n
bsp; “I’m not hurt. I feel fine. A little edgy, maybe, but I figure that’s not bad considering there’s apparently a whole group of assassins on our tail now.”
“Not assassins. Shadow Walkers,” he corrected automatically before bulldozing on. “We have to move. The squad could arrive at any time. I can gather our gear, be ready to go in five minutes. Sit down and rest.”
Maybe by the time he’d finished, he’d be calm enough to check her properly.
She trailed him into the bedroom, picked up her own bag and began to pack it as he did the same. “Ian slow down for just a minute and look at me. I’m fine.”
He didn’t slow as he took in her flushed cheeks. “It is not possible that you are fine. I took too much.”
“You didn’t take anything I didn’t freely give,” she insisted. “I swear, I’m okay. Look, Ian—”
“That’s not how it works.” Ian shoved clothing into his duffel with barely controlled violence. “My race are parasites. We feed on negative emotion. Our abilities enhance it in direct proportion to how much we take. Left uncontrolled, we can leave our victims in the throes of suicidal depression or insanity. No one volunteers for that, and you should be weeping uncontrollably or unable to stand because it’s too much effort.”
Marley crossed her arms and studied him, the very picture of inexplicable health. “Sorry to disappoint you but I’m not depressed or crazy. I’m starting to think maybe you’re a little bit of both.”
She didn’t understand. How could she, without knowing his origins?
“I’m a wraith. My race was created to be a tool of war,” he said, interrupting her. “We were slaves, each bound to a single master. Power hungry, vicious men, driven to dominate, to kill. War is ugly and we made it uglier. We took the fear, the hatred, the anger and magnified it using whatever illusion was necessary. Then we fed, drawing down their strength, channeling it into our masters, ensuring victory, leaving a trail of the broken and the dead in our wake. We were used. And for centuries, we thought that we were merely conduits. That the hunger was that of our masters. Then the Council freed us and we found that it was not our masters after all. The hunger, the goddamned insatiable hunger for the worst of men turned out to be our own. They merely capitalized on what we are. We’re monsters. Exactly what you thought was hiding in the dark.”
“You’re not.”
When he would have paced away, she stepped into his path. One hand curled tight around his bag to keep from reaching for her.
“You’re not,” Marley repeated. “You told me to look at your actions when deciding whether to trust you again. Look at them yourself. A monster would not have gone out of his way to save my life, destroying his career to do it. A monster would not have pushed himself to the brink of starvation rather than feed on me. I’m guessing your kind has some kind of mad mind skills to make people compliant. Scarlett asked if I was in thrall and you looked like you wanted to take her head off for even suggesting it. You haven’t used your mojo on me except to try to force me to save myself, which I appreciate, by the way, given I know I haven’t made this whole process easy on you. The fact is, Ian, you’ve done nothing but take care of me since you walked through my apartment door. You told me most of the Mirus people weren’t monsters, and you’re living proof of that.”
Something hot and tight lodged in his chest. “How can you trust me when I don’t trust myself? I lied to you, Marley. I’m not human.”
She took a breath, blew it out slowly. “As it turns out, neither am I.”
~*~
Ian blinked at her, his face a controlled mask she couldn’t read. “How is that possible?”
“My father wasn’t human. I don’t know exactly what that makes me, but I won’t let it make me a hypocrite.”
Surprise and acceptance flickered over his face. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“I didn’t quite trust my memory and…” She trailed off.
He nodded. “And didn’t quite trust me. I get it.”
His expression didn’t change, but Marley had a sense that she’d hurt him. She was sorry for it. “Look, Ian, I’ve been an ungrateful brat about all of this. I was all caught up in feeling sorry for myself, and I didn’t think about you. What you’ve done, what you’ve lost, because of me… I can’t even—I don’t know how to tell you what that makes me feel. Nobody’s ever cared enough to put me first.”