A Dark Heart (22 page)

He gave a short nod. “Ehrengard was there that night at O’Connor’s. He’d
just killed Percy’s brother, and he was going to let O’Connor’s men …
have
Percy, who couldn’t have been more than six. The same age I was when...” His
breath hitched, his shoulders tensed, and the wood on the windowsill buckled
beneath his clawing grip.

Now
she understood how Percy fit into Elijah’s life. Associate
indeed. Those two were bound together by something she could
never
fully
understand.

“Something inside me couldn’t bear it,” he continued. “I wanted to kill
them all. Of course, I had no idea
what
they were, so for the longest
time, I thought I
had
killed them that night. At least O’Connor, the
only one I truly cared about. I’d run him straight through his bloody prick
with a poker.”

“My God,” she whispered. He’d been so young.

He shuddered with the memory and continued. “I didn’t think anyone
could
survive that, until I saw him again my first year on the Force, walking the
streets, exactly as I remembered him. He’d not died at all. He’d not
suffered
at all. And so I
yearn
for his death. It is all I have lived for, for
years and years,” he finished in a terrible, dead voice.

“You saw him again today, didn’t you?” she said, the pieces of the puzzle
finally sliding into place. “That’s why you’re here now.”

His whole body tensed, and the window ledge crumbled completely beneath
his fingers. “He didn’t even know who I was,” he said in a strange, strangled
tone. “He tried to
bribe
me to stop pursuing him. The rutting
coward
.
And then, then … when he figured out who I was, he said I was …
God
…”
His voice cracked. “He said I was the best lay he’d ever had,” he ended
bitterly.

No wonder
, she thought, her heart shattering for him.
No wonder
he takes the drug
.

No wonder he stood there by the window, so alone, so desolate, so without
hope.

She had never loved him more.

“You see now how impossible it is,” he said finally, in a distant, cool
tone.

“What is impossible?” she asked, brushing her tears away.

“Your crusade. Whatever it is that you want from me. I can’t be fixed.”

“I don’t believe that.”

He leant his head wearily against the sooty windowpane. “You are
perfection, and goodness, and everything I am not.”

“That’s absurd,” she scoffed.

“It is the truth. You need someone … unsullied by the world. Someone who
doesn’t need morphine to drive away his demons.”

Anger sparked from the ashes of her grief at his ridiculous words. “You
idiot,” she said. “You blind fool. For years, I have waited for you. For one
kind word, one loving glance from you. I don’t care what you think. You are a
good, man, a noble man. It doesn’t matter what is in your past. Look at the man
you’ve become.”

“A drug-addled monster?” he shot back.

“Why must you doubt yourself? Even in the bleakest moment of your life,
you risked everything, even threw away your chance at O’Connor, to save the Bartholomew
children. It was suicidal, perhaps, but noble. As you
always
are. You’re
the best man I know. As much as I have
hated
it, you kept your distance
from me because you thought you were
protecting
me. From a monstrousness
that only exists inside your head.”

 “Maybe I was protecting myself,” he murmured.

It took a moment for his last words to sink in, for her to fully
appreciate the enormity of his admission. And when she did, she couldn’t help
herself. She laughed bitterly at the irony of it all, for she finally saw
everything clearly. And what she saw hurt.

He spoke of her
purity
, her
goodness
, to obscure his true
feelings.

He had no faith in her.

He finally turned from the window at the sound of her laughter, a look of
confusion on his face.

“Did you think I would stop loving you if I knew the truth?” she demanded
through her tears. “Did you believe in me so little, think I would turn from
you if I knew what that evil man had done to you? My God, I love you
more
,
you bloody fool, that you had the courage to tell me. Though I’ve had to drag
it out of you tooth and nail.”

He just stared at her, at a loss.

She wanted to shake him in frustration. “What happened to you was
terrible, but you cannot let the rest of your life be defined by your
childhood. I would gladly kill O’Connor for you, if that is what it would take
to convince you that
I love you without reservation
. I would give you
solace, if only you’d ask. I’d stay with you for
eternity
, if only you’d
ask. But you have chosen the drug for that.” She picked up the vial off the
table and threw it at him. “Take it, then, kill yourself with that poison. I
hate it. I truly, utterly hate it. Because you love it as you can never love
me!”

She turned away from him and started for the door, unable to witness his
indecision. She’d given him an ultimatum, she realized, and she had no idea of the
outcome, no idea what propelled that dark heart of his. Perhaps he was right,
and he was too damaged to ever recover from the horrors of his childhood,
though it killed her to even consider the possibility.

But before she could walk out the door, she felt the heat of him behind
her, a great, warm shadow at her back. He shut the door she’d managed to crack
open, then slipped the vial into her palm. He trailed a hand up her sleeve,
past her shoulder, to the bare skin of her neck above the jacket she still
wore, and she froze with anticipation, holding her breath, a delicate hope
blossoming inside of her.

Then his lips were against her ear, sending chills down her spine, all
the way to her toes.

“Take it please, Ana,” he murmured.

The sound of her name quietly rolling off his tongue made her shiver.
Unsteadily, she let the vial fall from her palm and drop to the floor. She
shattered the glass bottle with the heel of her boot, grinding it and its contents
into the grimy wood floor with satisfaction.

When she was through, she could feel the tension leech out of his body,
his breath gust against her neck, as if he’d been holding it until it was over.
She turned her back to the door and stepped into his embrace. His fingers
combed through her hair, knocking away its pins, and his mouth brushed her
forehead.

“Don’t give up on me, Ana,” he whispered.

She shook her head and burrowed against his chest, taking in the spicy,
sweet scent of him through her nose. “I never will,” she murmured.

And then he kissed her with all the passion and abandon she could have
ever wished for, his hold around her waist tightening until no space was left
between their bodies. She twined her arms around his neck and tried to press
even closer.

“I love you, Elijah. I’d follow you to hell if that’s what it took to
bring you back to me,” she said between kisses.

“How could you love me?” he murmured wonderingly against her shoulder,
stroking her fallen hair, moving his mouth over her skin as if tasting her. “Even
now,
especially
now, knowing…”

“Did you listen to nothing I said, you impossible man?” she demanded
without heat.

She felt him smile against her skin. “I listened. I still can’t quite
believe it. Is this a dream?”

She laughed and ran a daring hand down his back, all the way to the tight,
lean curve of his hip. “This is no dream,” she said, caressing him, her hand
inching towards the front of his trousers.

He hissed in a sharp breath, and she pulled back, afraid she’d moved too
fast for him in his fragile state. But when she raised her eyes, she found him staring
down at her with wide, glowing amber eyes, his fangs drawn.

He looked caught between terror and desire.

“You’re hungry?” she asked softly.

He closed his eyes as if attempting to contain great emotion. “I’m
always
hungry for you. Can I…?”

She sighed and stood on the tips of her toes to reach his lips, stopping
his words with a kiss. She traced her finger across his eyelids, his cheeks,
the sharp edges of his fangs. Blood welled from the small, painless cut she
made, and she pressed it to his lips, trying to erase his lingering doubts. He
sucked the blood from her finger until the wound closed, a look of pleasure
washing over his features.

It was all the encouragement he needed. He took her hand and raised it to
his mouth. With eyes blazing straight into hers, he slowly slid his fangs into
the fragile skin of her inner wrist. The prick of pain was surprisingly
negligible, but the rush of pleasure that followed nearly floored her. She’d
not expected that. Watching him take her blood into his body was one of the
most arousing sights she’d ever seen. The flush of color in his cheeks, the way
his glowing eyes became nearly incandescent from the newfound surge of power,
the ecstasy suffusing every molecule of his body, made her burn all over.

And then when he pulled away and a trickle of her blood escaped from the
corner of his mouth and his tongued snaked out to lick it up …
well
. Her
legs turned gelatinous, and the most secret parts of her body clenched and
dampened with need.

He must have scented her arousal, or at the very least inferred it by the
way she suddenly clung to him, because his glowing eyes widened in surprise.
“You …
like
that?” he asked with disbelief in his tone.

She could only nod weakly. “And I …
liked
it before,” she
admitted, touching her neck where he’d bitten her the other night, feeling her
cheeks go crimson.

He looked as if he was blushing as well, staring at her as if seeing her
for the first time. “You
liked
it,” he repeated, and suddenly his arms
were around her again, holding her close so that her head rested against his
heart. He trembled, and she knew it was with relief. He’d always been so
terrified of taking her blood. To finally realize he’d been scared of nothing
had to be a bit overwhelming.

“Elijah, the last time, you didn’t take my blood until … afterwards. If
you don’t want to do anything else tonight …” she began tentatively.

His hands, which had hovered at her shoulder blades so politely, trailed
down her waist, over her hips and thighs, and clutched at her through the heavy
velvet fabric of her dress.

“I
want
, Ana,” he whispered roughly. “I want all of you. I took
your blood first, so there would be
nothing
between us this time. So it
could be just you and me, no distractions, no … fangs. I want to love you
properly, Ana, as a man, just a man.”

She sucked in a ragged breath, fighting back ridiculous tears at his
declaration.

But he must have taken her silence for doubt, for he pulled away and
stared down at her with a tense expression. And just as he’d said, the fangs
were gone, and his eyes had returned to normal … or as normal as his could get,
considering their incongruity. The sapphire eye that had so haunted her dreams
gleamed down at her in the fading afternoon light. And for the first time she
saw a spark of what looked like hope in his gaze.

“Ana? We don’t have to …” he began.

She ran her hand down his cheek, over his scar, shaking her head. “I’ve
waited nearly two decades for you. Don’t make me wait two more,” she whispered.

With painstaking slowness, he began the arduous process of undressing
her, undoing the buttons of her bodice, sliding her dress over her shoulders
until it slipped to the floor. His fingers trembling, he unfastened the
intricate lacings of her corset and the seemingly countless number of clasps
and ties fastening her stiff crinolines to her waist. When she finally stood
before him in her shift, silk stockings and boots, feeling faintly ridiculous,
she was nearly at the end of her patience.

“I think I liked it better when you just ripped my gown off me,” she
said.

Something thrillingly hot flickered over his eyes, and she was definitely
sure he was blushing this time as he knelt to help remove her boots.

“I want everything to be perfect,” he murmured as he finished with her
boots and slipped her silk stockings down her legs, his fingertips trailing
down her bare skin in their wake.

She nearly collapsed at the unexpected caress and moaned. He raised his
head, and the softest, loveliest smile came over his face. He’d never smiled
like that before. She collapsed, gripping his shoulders and swaying into him.

Then somehow she was tugging at his waistcoat and his shirt as he knelt
before her, urging him to remove them with incoherent attempts at words. When
he was bare-chested, she sucked in a breath. A few infusions of her blood had
made him strong again, filled out the sharp edges of his body and replaced bone
with muscle. Nothing remained outwardly to remind them of dark things.

He stood once more, tall and strong and darkly beautiful, and brushed the
peaks of her breasts gently, teasingly, with the back of his hand. Her nipples
hardened against the thin barrier of silk separating her skin from his, and she
closed her eyes, trying to remember to breathe.

When she opened them again, his smile had faded, and he was gazing at her
with helpless, mad desire. He took her in his arms again, pressed her close,
and kissed her lips. His hands were hot, rough against her, his naked skin so scorching
it burned through her shift.

“So lovely,” he whispered, and coaxed her right leg high over his hip.
Holding her in place, he trailed his free hand down her belly, down, down,
until it slipped beneath her shift and found the soft, wet center of her. She
cried out in shock, then again with pleasure as his fingers caressed in just
the right spot. He’d not done this the last time, made her feel like she was
going to combust before they’d even properly undressed.