The Raven (The Florentine #1)(122)

He took a step toward her, but she held up her hand. “Answer me.”

He spoke softly, patiently. “Vampyres aren’t capable of love. Those feelings were taken with our humanity. As I said, I care for you. I have affection, passion, and respect for you.”

She wiped her eyes and turned away. “I love you, William.”

He froze, his body alert.

“I was drawn to you almost from the beginning. You made me feel things about myself and then I began feeling things about you. That’s why I offered myself to you. I wanted to see how deep our connection could be. When I thought I was going to lose you, I realized that I love you.”

He moved as if to take her in his arms again, but she resisted.

“For a long time, I thought love was not for me. Men who noticed me were few and far between. Almost all of them just became friends with me. You changed my mind. You changed my world. I started believing that maybe someone could love me and I could love him in return. I felt hope, William. You gave me that.”

“Come here.”

“I am not a cripple,” she said fiercely. “I am not a pet.”

“Of course not.” William’s voice was low, soothing. “You’re my Raven.”

“Don’t you understand? If all you feel for me is affection, I am nothing more than a pet to you.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Isn’t it?” She swiped at her eyes. “You feel something for me, but it isn’t love. You say you’ll never love me. All I’m left with is the affection you feel for a friend, or maybe an animal you saw suffering and took pity on.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.” His eyes flashed. “I don’t pity you.”

“Perhaps not. But I will never be anything more than a pet in your world. A pet you can’t even trust with your true name. I might not be as beautiful as Aoibhe, or have perfect legs like other women, but I deserve love.”

William gazed at her, his face a mask of confusion and worry.

“I would stay with you, for as long as I lived,” Raven said quietly. “But don’t you see? I’d be miserable. Maybe you can’t ever love anyone. Maybe you can’t love me. I’ll always wonder if today is the day you decide you want someone else and you throw me away.”

“That won’t happen,” he protested.

“You can’t say that. You don’t know the future. But I know my own future, because I know myself. To stay with you, I’d have to give up my hope of having someone love me. I’d have to live with your secrets and my doubts until finally all hope was gone.

“If I stayed with you, William, you would kill my hope.” Two tears trailed down her cheeks. “I won’t let it die.”

“Raven.” His voice was hoarse. “If I were capable of loving anyone, it would be you.”

Raven closed her eyes.

“You say you love me, yet you’re the one leaving?” he huffed.

“I have to.”

He paced the room, back and forth, his hands in fists.

“You’re confused. You say you’re leaving because of love, but really, you’re leaving because of who I am. Because of what I am.”

She opened her eyes. “That isn’t true.”

“This is the way the myth is always told. Psyche will not heed the warnings of Cupid and so she injures them both.”

“Did you warn me not to fall in love with you?” Raven reproached him.

“I told you the story of Allegra. That should have been warning enough.”

“I’m not going to fling myself off a bell tower, William. I’m just flinging my heart overboard, hoping you’ll want it.”

“I want it,” he hissed. “I want you. I will elevate you to consort. You will be a princess among my people. I will shower you with gifts, whatever you desire.”

Raven gave him an empty look.

“Your love would have been gift enough.”

He didn’t have a response for that. He looked around the room, desperate for something, anything that could persuade her.

“I care for you. Didn’t our evening at Teatro demonstrate that?”

“Yes, you loved me with your body.” She gazed at him sadly. “But not with your heart.”

“My heart is part of my body,” he whispered.

“Then love me.”

William met her eyes, then turned away.

He strode to the closet, withdrawing an armful of clothes.

“If you want to go, go. But know this.” He walked to the door. “You are the one who is ending what we shared. Not Aoibhe. Not another woman. And certainly not me.”

He opened the door and entered the hall, slamming the door behind him. The paintings and light fixtures rattled on the walls.

Raven sank onto the divan, burying her face in her hands.

Less than thirty minutes later, Marco was driving her home. She left the sketches on the bed and the bracelet on William’s nightstand.

Chapter Fifty-one

Raven grieved silently and privately.

It would have been embarrassing to confess the explanation for her sadness—that she’d had her universe expanded in a short period of time, tasted passion and affection, and fallen in love only to discover her love would never be reciprocated.