Nightwolf

That, and all the other weird shit that my preternatural senses are picking up on. I mean, I don’t have a lot to compare to, but is this what it’s like to be a cat? No wonder cats are so nuts.

Solon lets out a short laugh and I glare at him. “You read my mind. About the cats?” I ask pointedly.

“Cats?” Wolf asks.

Solon raises his palms in a show of surrender. “I promise you I’ll stop. I’ve always been so curious what it’s like when someone is turned the way that I was while still having their mental clarity intact. See, I don’t remember any of it. But you…you’re going to be just fine.” Then he clears his throat and holds his hand out for Lenore. “Now, let’s get clean you up downstairs and back to the party before Ezra loses his mind.”

Lenore goes over to him, her hand still bloody as she places hers in his, though her wounds on her arms are healing up, and they walk out of the bathroom, wanting to give us privacy.

Now we’re alone.

I’m still sitting on the floor, my back against the wall. Wolf is sitting nearby, in a casual pose in his suit, as if he’s in an ad for cologne. The only difference is his mouth is completely covered in blood.

In my blood.

Instinctively I run my fingers over my chest. He really did that? He really chewed a fucking hole in me?

“I’m sorry,” he says in his craggy voice, and I’m suddenly aware of how much more his already distinctive voice is affecting me. Like, a rush of heat between my legs kind of affect, like make my heart do summersaults kind of thing. As if his voice has become something richer, deeper, like its own entity, and makes my world spin.

I blink, trying to push that away. I don’t need to get turned-on, or emotional, every time he opens his mouth. It was close enough to that before.

“Okay,” I tell him warily, because I’m not sure what to say.

“About your chest,” he says, gesturing to it. “I didn’t want to do it. But it was the only way.”

I nod. Now that I’m a vampire, I should totally be okay with him tearing through me, especially since he wasn’t doing it for funsies. But it’s still fucking bonkers and disturbing as hell.

“That’s all you’re sorry for?” I ask quietly. The sounds and smells and wild senses want to come for me again, but I take a moment and figure out how to ignore them. Suddenly I see meditation as becoming a very useful part of my life.

He shakes his head, his expression crestfallen. “No. Amethyst. I’m sorry for so much. I’m sorry for everything.”

Now, I know that I literally just died and came back in order to be with him, but that in no way means I’m not mad at him anymore or that he’s off the hook. Maybe before I would have let that shit go because life is too short. Well, now life isn’t too short, it’s really long, and I have all the time in the world to hold a grudge.

“You betrayed me, Wolf,” I tell him, my voice brimming with conviction. “You made me put my trust in you. You made me feel like my heart was safe in your hands, and that you would have my back, you would have my everything. You promised my dying mother that…and you broke that fucking promise.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did! Fuck you, you did! Okay?” I growl. “Don’t try your semantics on me. You said that no matter what you’d be there for me, that you’d support me and help me but you knew at the time that’s not what you were promising my mother. You knew at the time you were promising my mother that you would take care of my heart. And that you would love me.” I look away, at all the blood spilled on this floor and my tears want to do the same. “Christ, Wolf. That’s all she ever wanted for me. For me to find love.”

I hear him swallow thickly, take in a shaking breath. “I know. I know that. Amethyst, I know and I’m so damn sorry, I’m so sorry.”

His tone is so remorseful and quiet that I have to steal a look at him. His eyes are pinched shut, his forehead rumpled as he puts his face in his hands. I feel pity for him, just for a moment though. Jeez, you really turn into an ice queen when you become a vampire. I think I’d be crawling all over him with forgiveness by now if I was still human.

Because you were weak, my vampire mind tells myself.

“How was the party?” I ask, a bit of nastiness coming through. “Was it a good distraction from all the pain you caused me?”