Bloodspell (The Cruentus Curse, #1)(41)
Victoria could feel Christian's self-disgust buried deeply into the memory. She squeezed his hand, and the images dissipated. His regret was suffocating, even now. He turned to her.
"Lucian did that often, and sometimes, too many times to count, I gave in to the horror of what I was ... am. There was no way back so eventually I stopped fighting."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I've long made peace with what I am," Christian said. "Before long, Lucian and I were at odds with each other and started to drift apart. He used to say I was too soft. As the first-born twin, I was a Vampire Lord, but I wanted no part of Lucian's regime so I abdicated my rights to him, and left. The House of Devereux is now a very powerful vampire coven and Lucian is feared by many."
"Why?" Victoria asked.
"Let's just say that he is where he is because he takes what he wants, brutally if necessary. Lucian is very, very powerful and very, very ruthless."
"But you don't live by his rules?"
"Yes and no. Yes, because I am bound to protect who we are, the House of Devereux, and he will always be my brother even though I don't agree with his principles. And no, because I am here," he said simply.
"Is it hard being away from your family?"
"Why do you ask?" Christian asked, surprised by her question.
"I don't have anyone but my Aunt Holly. If I did, I'd want to be near them, that's all," she said, shifting as he curled an arm around her. The warmth from the fireplace coupled with her exhaustion, made her eyelids heavy. She leaned into his embrace, forgetting for an instant everything she'd discovered about him, and gave in to the sweetness of just being held. "Family is important, isn't it? And knowing who you are, and where you belong?"
"Yes," he said. "But sometimes we're forced to make choices ... hard ones, just for the sake of family. Lucian wanted something I had, and it was easy for me to give it up. The Devereux mantle always meant more to him than it ever did to me."
Christian trailed off, for a moment lost again in his own memories. Victoria left him alone this time, sensing his need for momentary solitude.
AFTER A WHILE, Christian shifted and realized that Victoria had fallen asleep, the warmth of the fireplace and the hypnotic thud of his heartbeat combining to lull her into a fitful slumber. Her breathing was deep and even, her trust in him absolute. Even the threat of shadowy creatures lurking in the darkness hadn't been able to stop her eyes from closing. Christian had felt her heart accelerate ten times in the last hour. She'd been afraid. Yet despite her fear, she had seen something inside of him worth staying for.
Not wanting to wake her, Christian lifted her carefully against his chest and carried her upstairs, watching as she curled into a tiny ball under the sheets. She looked so small in the giant bed. He sat down next to her, brushing the hair off her face and clasping her fingers in his own. She mumbled something and shivered.
"Sleep," he soothed.
What he'd done was unimaginable, unthinkable. He'd broken laws he was sworn to uphold under penalty of exile, or worse, death. And executing a vampire wasn't as simple or as neat as killing a person. It involved a great deal of pain, and a lot of fanfare designed only to serve the power of the Vampire Council. Punishing a blood traitor was always an event. Punishing Christian Devereux would be a spectacle.
He didn't care. All he knew was what he felt, and Christian had lived long enough to know that what he felt wasn't just fleeting. It was something far more. Despite the risks, everything inside him knew that letting this girl go would be a mistake.
Stay with me, Victoria, he thought, unable to voice the words.
"I will," she said sleepily, squeezing his fingers.
VICTORIA AWOKE PANIC-stricken. It was dark as night but she could feel that she was in a bed, and her hands flew to her throat as she dizzily recalled pieces of the previous night and snatches of broken conversation. She remembered that she had been at Christian's but she didn't remember falling asleep in his bed!
She sat up appalled, and groped blindly for a light switch. Her fingertips felt something on the wall near the headboard and pressed it. A whirring noise was followed by a crack of bright white light peeking through the nearest bedroom window. The electronic shutters rose slowly then stopped. It was enough to illuminate the room. She blinked against the daylight and squinted around the room.
It was beautiful, like everything else in the house, with subtle masculine touches of dark wood and elegant style. A large armchair and ottoman sat in one corner, but the massive four-poster bed on which she was sitting dominated the room. A clock on the wall above an elaborate dresser said that it was ten o'clock.
Saving what would undoubtedly be the best for last, Victoria turned her attention to the boy lying next to her on the bed and appeased her blossoming curiosity. He looked so peaceful. She leaned in slowly—he didn't even look like he was breathing!
He was sleeping on his stomach, one arm up around his head, on top of the duvet. Smiling at his propriety, her eyes roved over the angular planes and long hollows of his back disappearing into the waistband of black silk pajama pants. An intricate tattoo that looked like a rope of intertwined silvery-black letters meandered from the base of his skull all the way down his back. It was in a language that she didn't recognize.