Darkness Revealed (Guardians of Eternity #4)(8)

“Does it hurt?” she demanded.

Cezar held up his wrists to reveal the blisters that were already marring his skin.

“It’s burning my flesh, what do you think?”

She bit her bottom lip. “Tell me what you’ve done to me and I’ll release you.”

“Anna, I’ve done nothing to you.”

“I know I’m not a vampire, but obviously your bite turned me into something…” Her words trailed away as she lifted her hand and pressed it to her neck.

The precise spot he’d taken her blood all those years ago, he realized with a flare of possessive pleasure. “Something?”

“Something weird.” She glared, holding him entirely responsible for her weirdness. “Tell me what’s wrong with me.”

“At the risk of pointing out the obvious, there’s nothing at all wrong with you, querida. In fact, you’re nothing less than perfection.” He lifted his cuffed hands. “Well, except for this handcuff fetish of yours. Next time we go with leather and whips.”

“Don’t lie to me, Cezar. Something happened that night.” A shudder wracked her tiny body. “Everything…changed.”

Cezar smiled at the doom in her voice. Anyone would think that discovering she was immortal was some hideous fate rather than an astonishing stroke of fortune.

“What changed?”

The gold flecks smoldered as she pointed a finger in his face. “Damn you, this isn’t funny.”

“Anna, I’m not teasing you,” he soothed. “Tell me what happened after I left you that night.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist, as if suddenly cold. “After we…”

“Made love?” he prompted as her words faltered.

“After we had sex,” she corrected. “I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until almost dawn. I had no choice but to sneak out through the window and return to my aunt’s house. When I got there it…”

Once again her words broke off, but this time it was an ancient pain, not embarrassment, that held her in its grip.

“What, Anna?” he said softly, not bothering to try to enthrall her. As a budding Oracle she would be impervious to such mind tricks. “Tell me.”

“The house had been burnt to the ground.” She at last forced the words past her stiff lips. “Along with my only family trapped inside it. I was left on my own with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.”

“Dios. How did it happen?”

“I have no idea.”

He scowled at the realization that the Oracles had deliberately kept her troubles secret from him. If they had not interfered he would have sensed her need. “What did you do?”

She gave a shake of her head, her honey hair brushing over her bare shoulders and filling the air with her exquisite scent. Cezar quivered, his fangs aching for a taste. The only reason he resisted temptation was the memory of what had happened the last time he had taken blood from this woman.

He might not be the smartest vampire ever made, but he occasionally learned from his mistakes.

“I took the coward’s way out.” Anna’s voice was bitter as she became lost in her memories. “I hid in the bushes and allowed everyone to believe that I had died along with my aunt and cousin.”

“Why?”

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” he prodded, genuinely curious. The Oracles were rarely forthcoming, and while they had revealed that this woman was born to join their ranks, they had yet to explain exactly what she was.

She couldn’t be human. Her immortality proved that. And he could detect no demon blood running through her veins. Added to the fact that she didn’t seem to have a clue about her powers, it left nothing but a gaping question.

A question he intended to find the answer to before she was taken by the Commission.

“I don’t know.” A pretty frown tugged at her brows. “It was as if a voice was whispering in the back of my mind to flee. It seems ridiculous now, but at the time I was convinced that if I stepped from the bushes I would be dead.”

Premonition? A natural ability to sense danger? Dumb, blind luck? Dios. The list was endless.

He met and held her gaze. “It’s not ridiculous at all, Anna.”

“Of course, at the time I didn’t realize you had made me into some freak of nature that couldn’t die.”

He chuckled at her sour expression. “I didn’t make you immortal, querida. My only means of doing so would be to turn you into a vampire, and since I can see every lovely inch of you in the mirror and you have what I can only describe as a delightful tan, it’s obvious that you are still very non-vampirish.”

Anna wasn’t satisfied. She clearly wanted someone to blame. And that someone was Cezar. “Then you put a spell on me.”

“Vampires can’t cast magic.”

“Then…”

Tired of being the scapegoat, Cezar took a step forward. They were alone in a hotel room and he didn’t want to waste time being the enemy.

Not when she could be easing the vast, roaring hunger that had returned after nearly two centuries.

“Anna, your immortality has nothing to do with my bite or with any spell.” His voice thickened with need. “You were born special.”