Chapter 33

I'd wanted to rattle her a little, but I didn't expect she'd topple over the railing. In half a breath, I made it to the second level of the library just in time to grab her by the waist and pull her back before she fell. "Easy there."

She backed away from my touch as soon as she was steady on her feet, tucking strands of her lustrous red curls behind her ears, shying away her gaze as she straightened her skirt. Saints. Her reddened cheeks made her look so goddamn adorable.

"Thank you for not letting me fall to my death."

"That's an antique rug down there. It's been in my family for almost two hundred hears. I would've hated to replace it."

Eyes wide, she cocked a hip and stared at me as if shocked I'd say such a thing. Good. Her fire was back, and it stoked mine. "I'm only teasing. And I'm sorry for what I said about the shower. That was very uncouth. I'm usually a gentleman."

Her eyes narrowed into a boiling accusation. "When did you know?"

I said nothing, guilt burning in my gut. I'd heard the bathroom door open, but it had been her scent that gave her away immediately. And knowing she was watching me through that crack… Fucking hell, it turned me on beyond anything imaginable, especially when the scent of her arousal knocked through me like a bolt of lightning. Had it been inappropriate? Hell, with her, it was fucking dangerous. But that sense of danger made the sinful thought of coaxing her own pleasure impossible to resist.

When I still hadn't said anything, she stalked closer. "How long, Kane?"

"I knew the entire time."

She placed a hand on her chest and gawked. "Oh my god. And you just let me keep watching you?"

"You could've closed the door at any time, Miss Jaxon. You could've walked away."

Eyes flashing with fury, she tapped a finger on my chest. "You knew we shared a bathroom and didn't bother locking the door to my room."

Eyeing her finger, I said, "Look, I know you're feeling embarrassed?—"

"Embarrassed? The whole time I was feeling like a total perv, and meanwhile, you were a bigger perv than me."

I crossed my arms. "I am not a perv."

"Right. You just enjoy being an exhibitionist. And frankly, I don't understand you. One minute you're telling me I'm the most awful creature in the world and that you'd rather die than ever drink my blood, yet you put me in a room right next to yours where we must share a bathroom."

"Stop trying to deflect and make this all about me. You enjoyed watching me, Miss Jaxon. There's nothing wrong with that. Sex is a part of us all. Don't feel ashamed for feeling desire. For wanting… things."

Again, she gawked, and holding back a laugh was near to impossible. She had no idea how much I enjoyed toying with her. "I am not having this conversation with you," she uttered, turning around angrily and stomping down the stairs to the lower level. "We agreed we were to discuss the terms of our arrangement while I reside here, so let's get to it."

I flashed past her, barely even disturbing the air, and waited for her at the bottom of the stairs, hands in my pockets as if I'd been waiting for her for hours.

She paused mid-step when she noticed me at the bottom. "How the hell did you…? I need to get used to the fact that you're not really a man."

"Oh, I think we've established that vampire or not, I'm one hundred percent male. Or do I need to prove it to you again?" I teased with a rakish wink.

"Wow, I guess you're just going to keep reminding me of the shower incident any chance you get, huh?"

When she reached the final step, I said, voice deep and slightly impish, "Teasing you is too easy and much too enjoyable not to."

"You know, for a million-year-old vampire, I would expect you to be a bit more mature."

A roguish smile traced over my lips. "Thousand-year-old. And what can I say, I'm young at heart."

She pursed her lips, unamused. "Let's just get to the bargain."

"I really would have preferred to do this in my study. I hate conducting official business in places I reserve for pleasure," I said, gesturing to the library.

She paused for a second, eyes assessing me with dark curiosity, as if something I'd said struck a chord. She was about to part her lips when her attention was snagged by something behind me.

Shoving past me, she reached for the first edition copy of Pride and Prejudice I kept on top of an antique writing desk. My breath caught, all playfulness evaporating. I was about to ask her to be careful with that book, but I stopped mid-step when I noticed she instinctively opened the book with extreme caution. Relief wove through me at her respect for the piece. No one else in my coven shared my affinity for literature or rare books.

A small gasp escaped her lips as she gently flipped through the worn pages and stopped at the title page. She must've noticed the signature and the inscribed personal dedication. Swallowing deeply, she asked with awe, "You…you knew her?"

"Ours was a brief encounter, but yes."

Closing the book, she ran her hands over the cover, shoulders relaxing.

"I didn't peg you for a Jane Austen fan."

Her gaze narrowed. "Why, because you think me an uneducated simpleton, my lord?"

"Because you don't strike me as a romanticist."

"I'm an escapist, if you must know. I was maybe fourteen when I was placed with the only family willing to take troubled youth. They weren't the warmest people, and they made it quite clear the only reason they took in kids like me was for the money, but they made sure I was fed and stayed out of my way for the most part.

"My room was in the basement. I had no TV and didn't really have any friends. One day I was searching for sketch paper and buried inside a box I found a beat-up copy of Pride and Prejudice. I don't know what it was about the book, it didn't look very interesting, but with nothing better to do, I decided to start reading it, and before I knew it, I'd completely lost myself in that world.

"I never told them I'd found the book. I took it with me when I left their home and kept it with me until I ended up at the Winslow Home. I still have it. Well, had. My apartment is trash now, and after everything that's happened…" Lowering her gaze, she held the book to her chest as if shielding herself. "I don't even know if or when I'll ever get back home, or if things will ever be the same."

"Miss Jaxon, I don't know what to say."

"I'm sorry," she said abruptly, cutting me off. "For coming in here and going through your things. For being a pain and refusing to meet you in your study. For spying on you." She put the book back, fingers caressing the spine as she placed it between two of Jane's other works.

"It's fine, perhaps meeting in here is best, anyway."

She shrugged as she continued to slowly parade through the library, her eyes scanning the shelves, perhaps looking for other treasures. A small tendril of her scent trailed behind her, something soft and delicate mixed with the lingering scent of old manuscripts, aged wood, and smoke from the hearth. I took her into my lungs, slowly, savoring her unique smell.

"Certain places just give me anxiety, you know?" she said, looking over her shoulder, perhaps checking to see if I trailed behind her. I'd stayed right where I stood, hands in my pockets, feet planted firmly on the rug. She had no idea how she triggered my instincts to chase after her, even in the solemnity of a library. Even when I'd quenched my thirst for blood.

Or so I'd thought.

She stopped near the large stone fireplace and stared up at the old painting over the mantle—a sunrise over a meadow, the last one I'd painted as a mortal man. She smiled at the painting then lowered her gaze. "The thought of being in a study reminds me too much of all the trips I had to make to the principal's office, therapist's office, the Winslow Home director's office. It's why I bolted at the first chance I had to not follow Armand to your study."

"Poor Armand. He's not accustomed to guests not following his… instructions."

She tugged on the hem of her sweater, on the sleeves. As if the garment fit too snuggly, or maybe I was making her uncomfortable. Perhaps she was finally picking up on the unseen cues that warned her that despite the face I wore, she was alone in a room with a deadly predator. "I can't imagine going through the hell you endured all those years. Having to hear others talk at you instead of listening to you."

"When decisions are made without you having a say in what happens to your life, after a while, you just don't want to hear it anymore. You don't care about the decisions others are making for you because they don't align with who you are." She rolled her eyes, irritably. "Dr. Douche Bag at the Winslow Home used to say I had Oppositional Defiant Disorder and that I just loved challenging authority."

"Do you?"

"Challenging authority doesn't earn you privileges or put you in anyone's good graces, so no, I don't love it. But if you'd lived through even half the shit I did, you'd defy those in power too."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"I was just trying to survive," she uttered, almost defensively. "I'm not going to apologize for it. And if you or anyone else wants to hold that against me…" She shrugged and bit back the rest of her words as she looked away, but I hadn't missed the wetness that coated her eyes.

"I'm not trying to assert my authority over you, Miss Jaxon."

She snapped her gaze back at me, this time her irises were rimmed with an internal ring of fire. "You say that, yet here I am. In your country. In your house. Unable to walk around without an escort." She yanked on the sweater and tugged on her skirt. "Wearing clothes your butler got me. Needing to bargain my way back home with an ancient vampire lord. So don't tell me you're not trying to assert your authority."

As much as I hated the witches for what they'd done to my family and my kind—and for what I knew they were planning to do to this world—I couldn't bring myself to feeling that same kind of hatred for this girl…this young woman who'd just opened a piece of her heart to me. I knew tidbits of her past thanks to Trek's resourcefulness, but to hear it from her lips, to see the pain and anger etched so deeply in her eyes, it dug a hole in my chest.

She was yet another product of those damn witches. A pawn to move across a chessboard.

"Before meeting you, all I wanted was to capture you and hand you over to the Knights, wash my hands clean, and be done with you. Witches have always been that to me—witches. Beings hungry for absolute power who would destroy anyone or anything to get it. Cunning, ruthless, not to be trusted. Whether working for the Vates Ordo or the Sisterhood of White Light, your kind has always coveted the same thing—being able to return to your home world and reclaiming their potent magic, even if it means dooming this one."

Her amber eyes hardened. "Clearly you still think that of me. You think I'm no different than they are, even though up until recently, I didn't even know I had magic running through my veins. What you said in the forest… how repulsed you are by what I am…"

Fuck. What I'd said in the forest had stemmed from my need to protect her. From me. From my coven. I'd sensed Bal's approach. He'd clearly been looking for her when he realized she was missing from her room. If he'd known the lewd thoughts running through my head or the heat pulsating through my veins at that moment, begging me to taste her blood, saints knew what he would've done.

Bal was a warrior, a soldier committed to his mission. And when I'd chosen to bring the witch to my home rather than just hand her over to the Knights as we had been instructed to do, he'd suspected something was wrong. That I was hiding something from him.

He, more than anyone, had seen the damage the last Spirit Marked had caused my coven—because of my indiscretions, because of my inability to control my urges, my addiction to witch blood. He not only despised Avery because of her lineage, but I knew that even though he blamed me for Gideon's death, he resented Avery for it as well. His lover's death had been another grim reminder of our war with the witches.

If he sensed that I was drawn to this witch, that there was some invisible tether pulling me toward her…

"What I said to you in the forest wasn't a lie, Miss Jaxon. A hungry vampire is dangerous, and I hadn't fed in days, maybe weeks. Running from me like you did… Well, let's just say you must've had the All Spirit looking out for you. Killing a witch unprovoked would've declared war on the Sisterhood and brought unnecessary violence to my coven. I wasn't only trying to protect you, but everyone I'm tasked with protecting as members of my home."

Perhaps trying to distance herself from me, she ambled toward the brass telescope mounted on a mahogany tripod sitting by the massive windows that overlooked the front of the house. She ran a hand over the brass, as if admiring the craftsmanship. I knew she was simply stalling. I knew the question she wanted to ask me, though I prayed she wouldn't. I didn't want to lie to her about the fact I was inexplicably drawn to her in ways that made me tremble, and worse, in ways that could only spell disaster for both our kinds.

"In terms of everything else," she began, pretending to look through the eyepiece, "you find what I am repulsive."

Saints. If only it were that simple. "Our people's history is complicated, Miss Jaxon. In time, you will learn that atrocities have been committed on both sides, enough to cast us as enemies. But I'm not an unreasonable man; I can admit when I'm wrong."

"So, you admit you were wrong about me?"

I smirked. She was relentless in forcing an apology from me. "I don't doubt that you're the Spirit Marked, but I'm not sure you're the witch the Vates Ordo is hoping for. Your experiences might have made you cunning, but you're not a ruthless killer. Despite what happened on the rooftop of your building, you didn't want to hurt those people."

She took a deep breath and fixed me with a probing stare. "You haven't answered the question."

Shaking my head, I stuck my hands in my pockets. She wasn't going to let me off the hook. "I'm sorry for making you feel as if you should be held accountable for the sins of your foremothers. I was out of line."

"So where does all of this leave us?"

"It leaves us at our bargain. The Vates Ordo is going to do everything they can to get their hands on you, and if you don't have control of your power, you won't be able to defend yourself. To fight in this war, you're going to need to accept that there will be casualties, both on their side and ours."

"You speak as if I've already chosen your side."

"When you attacked me and my men on that rooftop, I thought you were on their side, but now I know you were only defending yourself, which is what you've had to do your entire life—and not through any fault of your own. You were abandoned by your family." That last sentence seemed to dull the light in her eyes, and I hated myself for saying it so bluntly. She turned from me, her arms wrapping themselves around her body. It was then that I realized her trauma went deeper than anything I'd felt through my gift.

I'd planned to share with her that it wasn't just that I knew she hadn't been raised in a hive, but that I'd felt her innocence in all of this when I'd touched her. Now, I wasn't sure if I should tell her. She might've only seen that as a breach of her trust. And she didn't need that. Not now. Not when she was so torn and vulnerable. Especially since it seemed I was doing the same thing to her that everyone in her life had done for years—making choices for her.

"Miss Jaxon, I… I didn't mean to say that so coldly."

"It's fine," she rushed to say, her voice cracking. With her back still to me, she wiped wetness from her eyes. "You didn't say something I didn't already know. It's partly why I'm here, isn't it? Because of my mother. For fourteen years I thought my parents had been killed but it turns out I was just abandoned and my whole identity, who I really was, was hidden from me."

Turning to face me again, with a torrent of emotions hiding behind her eyes, she added, "I know you have tons of questions. You want to know why I have drawings of your castle, or why I've drawn pictures of an alien world I didn't even know existed. You want to keep me in this mansion until you figure out why those vampires in the club are working with the violet-eyed witch who tried to kidnap me and took Shadow, but I have tons of questions too. And if you want me to help you, if you want me to fight on your side, then I'm going to need something in return."