Gaslight (Crossbreed #4)(111)
Christian had left the door halfway open, and once inside, he kicked it closed with the heel of his boot. No bed, no chairs, but at least we had a fireplace and a table.
Christian set me down and hefted a large brown blanket from the corner. After he shook it out, he laid it in front of the hearth.
I chuckled softly. “Bearskin rug. How appropriate.”
“If you’d fought that wanker in his animal form, we might have had something extra to cover up with.”
“I don’t think I could have taken down a grizzly.”
Christian lifted my chin with the crook of his finger. “But I do.”
He left the cabin briefly before returning with a bucket of snow. “I’d gone outside to fetch a pail of water when I heard your hairy friend screaming. You see what happened to Jack and Jill?” Christian kicked the door closed and set the pail inside the fireplace next to the burning log. “Strip out of your clothes.”
Without argument, I bent over and pulled off my boots. Next went my black jeans, which were plastered to my legs. I should have listened to Blue and worn her fleece-lined cargo pants. My upper thighs were bright red, as if my blood was straining to get to the warm surface.
I dropped my bloodstained sweater onto the floor. “Well, that’s not coming out in the wash.”
When I was down to my underwear, Christian sat on a short stool and washed the blood from my hands. He took his time, wringing out the small towel before soaking it with more water and cleaning the other hand. He wasn’t just removing evidence. He was taking care of me.
Each time I struggled to remember something he’d mentioned about us, a headache came on. What was so important about that necklace that he gave me for the masquerade ball? Why would Houdini have accepted such a worthless trinket in exchange for keeping my memories?
“Christian, can I ask you something?”
“Aye.” He wiped the blood from my neck and jaw, his eyes making a slow ascent to meet mine.
“Did I love you?”
He froze, caught in my gaze like a moth in a spider’s web. Christian lowered his head and looked at the blood on his hands. “I’m too evil to be loved.”
Chapter 32
Too evil to be loved? Did Christian honestly believe his evils were worse than mine as he sat there, washing the blood of three men off my face? And even if they were, wasn’t the whole point of Keystone to start over? Maybe I was better off not knowing.
I captured his wrist and looked at the onyx ring on his middle finger. “Did I give you this?”
He dropped the rag in the bucket. “In another life.”
“Did you love me?”
He used a clean cloth to dry my hands, his tone growing colder. “Love is a plague. It infects, spreads, and ultimately destroys everything it touches. It blackens your heart and kills every last ounce of hope, little by little, until there’s nothing left.”
I knelt down in front of him. “If that’s how you feel, then why are you still wearing the ring?”
“A souvenir to remind me of what I’ll never have? The events of our coming together played out in a sequence that can never be repeated. I can’t convince you to feel anything for me.”
I rose and turned toward the fire. It hadn’t taken long for the small room to warm up. “That Vampire’s blood tasted like motor oil. Thought you might like to know.”
His finger tapped on the edge of the stool, the sound audible above the crackling wood. “It’s not even been three weeks, and I haven’t seen you shed a tear.”
I glared over my shoulder at him. “A tear for what?”
His gaze reeled me in. “Your pain.”
“I shed enough tears the first time around.”
He shot to his feet. “You can’t bottle it up, or else you’ll lose control, like what happened back there with those men.”
I turned to face him, my eyes on his lips. “You don’t understand. If I shed one tear, it’ll consume me. I can’t go there again, Christian. I can’t. The only way it didn’t kill me the first time was—”
“Becoming a killer?” Christian closed the distance between us. “I know grief. I’m immortal, after all. Cry alone if you have to, but grieve for what he did to you. Acknowledge your pain lest it turn on you. If you keep the tears in the shores of your eyes, you’ll drown.”
I sat down on the rug. “Blood usually makes me sick. Diesel’s blood wasn’t poisoned like other men I’ve killed. But you know what? I don’t care if all he did was drive those women from one place to the next. People should be accountable for the part they played. I just don’t understand why they went to all that trouble… just to ship them off.”
Christian circled around and sat before me. He unlaced one boot, then the other. “If the younglings remain in the same country as their maker, there’s always a chance of being caught. Europe is another world, and they find the fruits over here exotic.”
“Why didn’t Temple just turn his own humans?”
“Maybe he couldn’t. As it turns out, not all Vampires have the power. Most do, but there are always defects.” Christian stretched out his bare feet and leaned against one arm. “Some of the ancients prefer to dominate younglings who belong to someone else. There’s less guilt that way, especially if they have to kill them.”