Midnight Awakening (Midnight Breed 3)

What happened, Tegan?

After her abduction, some two weeks later, her captors sent her back to me. She'd been raped, tortured. As if that hadn't been cruel enough, whoever held her also fed on her. She came back to me a Minion of the one who brutalized her.

Oh, God. Tegan.

Sending her back like that was worse than killing her, but I guess they left that task to me. I couldn't do it. In my heart, I knew she was gone, but I couldn't end her life.

Of course not, she assured him gently, her heart breaking for him.

Elise closed her eyes on a softly whispered prayer as she eased down onto the bench next to him. She didn't care if he rejected her compassion; she needed to be close to him. He had to know that he wasn't alone.

When she put her hand on his bare shoulder, he didn't flinch away. He pivoted his head to the side, meeting her sympathetic gaze. I tried to make her better. I thought if I drew enough of her blood away and gave her my own in return-- if I could feed her from my veins and siphon off the poison in hers--maybe by some miracle she'd revive. So, I fed to feed her. I went on a blood rampage that lasted for weeks. I had no control. I was so consumed by guilt and the need to make Sorcha better that I didn't even notice how quickly I was slipping toward Bloodlust.

But you didn't slip, did you? I mean, you must not have, to be sitting here now.

He laughed sharply, a coarse, bitter sound. Oh, I slipped all right. I fell, like all addicts do. Bloodlust would have turned me Rogue if it hadn't been for Lucan. He stepped in, and put me in a stone cell to wait the disease out. For several months, I nearly starved, feeding in only the smallest quantities needed to keep me breathing. Most of those days, I prayed for death.

But you survived.

Yeah.

And Sorcha?

He shook his head. Lucan did for her what I wasn't man enough to do. He freed her from her suffering.

Elise's heart lurched with understanding. He killed her?

It was an act of mercy, Tegan answered tightly. Even though I hated him for it all these past five hundred years since. In the end, Lucan showed her far more compassion than I was able to. I would have kept her alive only to save myself from suffering the guilt of her death.

Elise smoothed her palm over Tegan's strong back, moved by his confession and by the love that had been taken from him so long ago. She had thought him cold and unfeeling, but it was only because he hid his emotions well. His wounds went deeper than she could ever have guessed. I'm sorry for everything you've been through, Tegan. I understand now. I understand...so much now.

Do you?

The bleak, narrowed gaze that met her eyes was penetrating in its intensity.

When I saw you downstairs, covered in blood-- He broke off abruptly, as if unable to form the words. Ah, fuck...I never wanted to feel that kind of fear and pain again, do you understand? I didn't want to let myself get that close to anyone again.

Elise looked at him in silence, hearing his words, yet uncertain he could actually mean them. Did he really mean to say that he cared for her?

His fingers were a feather-light brush against the dull throb of her bruised cheek. I do care, he said, a quiet reply in answer to the question he'd read with his touch. He brought her under the shelter of his arm, just holding her, his thumb idly stroking her arm. With you, I think it would be very easy to care too much, Elise. I'm not sure that's a risk I can afford to take.

You can't...or you won't?

There's no difference. Just semantics.

Elise leaned her head against his shoulder. She didn't want to hear this now. Didn't want to let him go. So, where does that leave us now? Where do we go from here, Tegan?

He didn't say anything one way or the other, just held her close and pressed a tender kiss to her brow.

Chapter Twenty-five

The rest of that day passed in a blur of tactics and information gathering. At sundown, Reichen had sent a couple of his associates out to Irina Odolf 's residence. The report had come back that the Minion was gone, evidently on his own motor, even though Elise had certainly slowed the bastard down based on the amount of blood he'd left at the scene.

Armed with her description of him, Reichen was already in town looking for possible leads. Tegan hoped like hell they located the Minion son of a bitch because he was looking forward to finishing what Elise had started.

As for her, as much as Tegan might have liked to have kept Elise in his arms--or, better still, naked in his bed--he knew it was a path that would only lead him deeper into complicated territory. Instead, he had turned his attention to the journal they'd intercepted from Marek, and the stash of letters Elise had recovered from Petrov Odolf 's belongings.

Both contained instances of the same peculiar phrases: