A Shadow of Light (A Shade of Vampire #4)(47)

“Could you please take off the mask?” he asked.

“I can’t. I’m not allowed to.” I hoped that he wouldn’t recognize my voice. I hoped that I would never have to remove that mask and reveal myself to him, but I also understood why the Duke instructed me not to remove it until Yuri was finished with me. The Duke relished the idea of Yuri finding out that he’d been pursuing a whore like me. I swallowed back the tears at the thought of Yuri seeing me in a completely different way after that night.

He approached me and raised his hand. I flinched from his touch, afraid that he would take the mask off. Instead, he just brushed a thumb over my exposed collarbone, the flimsy dress I was wearing leaving little to his imagination.

“Should we begin?” I asked, motioning to get on the bed. I was slightly curious about what he was going to do. I was half-expecting him to stop me, to tell me that this didn’t feel right and that he really shouldn’t do this considering how he was pursuing another woman. I wanted to believe that he was a decent man, but I should’ve known that he was what he was: a man.

As I lay down on the bed, my heart broke when he climbed on top of me and began gently undoing the laces on the bodice of my gown. As he did what he came there to do, I tried to shut my mind off what was happening. I tried to think of him as someone other than the young man who enamored me over the past weeks, but I couldn’t. Yuri was just like every other man: out to use women like me.

When he was done, his weight fell atop me and without asking me, he removed the mask. I didn’t have the will to resist. At that point, I didn’t care anymore if he saw me for what I was, because I saw him for what he was too.

When our eyes met, I could barely recognize him through the blur of my own tears. Despite the haziness, however, I could still make out the shock in his eyes upon realizing who it was that he just laid with.

“It’s you…” he managed to say as he got off me and pulled his clothes back on in a hurry.

I tried to show him that I was strong, that my heart wasn’t breaking in two at what had just occurred between us, but my resolve was crumbling. I sat up and took my place on the edge of the bed, trying not to cry as I pulled my dress back on. I wanted to get out of that room as quickly as possible, but found that I was shaking so badly, I could barely get the dress on.

His face softened as he watched me struggle. I couldn’t decipher the expression on his face.

Is he disgusted by me? Does he think less of me now than he did before?

“Stop,” he ordered me after I failed once again to get my arms through the sleeves of the dress.

By pure instinct, I heeded to his command. That was the training the Duke had put me through. Every order was followed immediately and without question. I dropped my arms to my sides, allowing the top of the dress to fall over the bunched skirt of the outfit.

Yuri approached me and held my arms, coaxing me to stand up. Afraid that the skirt would fall to the ground and once again expose me completely to him, I hung on to the dress, holding it just below my waist as I let him study me.

I didn’t dare look at his face as he perused me, but I sensed it when he swallowed hard. “Why do you have so many bruises?”

Why does it matter? As usual, I didn’t respond. In my book, he didn’t deserve a response. Not after he had just used me.

“Who did this to you? Is this why I can’t walk with you anymore? Is this why you wouldn’t accept even the smallest of gifts from me?”

I hated his questions. I didn’t want to have to answer them. After all, what was the point? I was fully exposed to him now. The charade we had was over. “Is there anything else you would have me do for you?”

“Yes. Answer my questions and tell me your name.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both.”

Yuri frowned at me and the silence was so long and deafening, I finally managed to look up at him. I was surprised by what I saw there, because what I saw was something I never saw from the Duke or from any man who’s had me before. Guilt. I saw Yuri’s guilt.

“I’m so sorry,” he told me.

I couldn’t fight back the urge to scoff at him. “You’re sorry? Would you have been sorry if you had never seen who was behind the mask?”

He gulped. “I was sorry even while I was…while we were… This is wrong. I never should’ve gone along with this.”

“Then why did you?” Why does anyone? Do they have any idea how much ruin they bring to us?

He didn’t respond. Instead, he lifted the bodice of my gown over my body and began lacing it up. “This time, I really do understand,” he said. “Nothing has changed. In my eyes, you’re still the beautiful woman in the woods, the same one I wouldn’t mind taking a walk with every day for the rest of my life, the same one who enamored me from the first moment I laid my eyes on her.”

He kissed my lips—the most tender and precious kiss I’d ever experienced.

“I’m sorry I did this to you. I’m sorry you have to go through this, but know that I will spend my whole life making it up to you. I swear it.”

He was true to his word. I don’t think Yuri ever forgave himself for sleeping with me that night. In fact, even when I made advances on him over the past centuries, he never did quite respond.