The Darkness in Dreams (Enforcer's Legacy, #1)(70)

Lexi paused for a moment, straightened and pushed the hair back from her face, unwilling to appear afraid.

“That night, she felt humiliated. There was talk in the village, between the staff, about the reasons you stayed away. She’d had enough of it. Nico found her in the garden and he discussed the vendetta, said Gemma had no male relatives to defend her. He offered, described a random attack, mercenaries on the roadway. He said that he would attack you, try to kill you and all she had to do was ask.”

“And did she ask?” It was the question that had never been answered. Dark, lethal interrogation had entered Christan’s voice, demanding details, and Lexi knew the wound she ripped open would bleed for more than this lifetime.

“Yes. I won’t excuse what she did—what I did. Gemma asked, and then she tried to take it back. She felt guilty, realized it was the worst kind of betrayal, that you didn’t deserve it. But Nico said she was a coward, that she wanted your death, just didn’t want to hold the knife. And he was right. She was a coward. She could have stopped it with an anonymous warning, sent to any of the men loyal to you, but instead she committed an even greater sin than asking Nico to kill you. She wrote a confession and left it for the priest in a place he wouldn’t find it. She put her few possessions in a bag made of tapestry and she ran away from what she’d done.”

Lexi’s face was wet with tears, but she faced his condemnation with what courage she possessed. “I was so sure, Christan, that you had destroyed me lifetime after lifetime. But I was wrong. Scraped down to the raw essence, I’m the monster in the night. I tried to destroy you. I’m everything I ever accused you of being, and you have every right to hate me.”

He said nothing, and she dragged a hand across her cheek, wiping away the moisture. Panic chewed at the edges of courage and she wanted nothing more than to run from her own misery as she had done long ago. The smells and sounds in the room left her hopeless. Memory, of kindling, popping in the warm silence. The faint tang of the smoke, smudging with an exotic freshness. The rustling of cloth, a male hand touching her with tenderness. Of all the endings she could ever have imagined, this ending, in this room they shared all those centuries ago, was not one of them.

“I must go.” Frantic, she looked around. She’d confessed her greatest sin and he said nothing. She saw her discarded clothes across the room, a tumbled pile beside the door. She walked toward them, memories tormenting her mind. His silence, continuing. Muddy jeans, clenched in her hand as she struggled to turn them right-side out. No time, she thought, just grab the clothes, just run.




Staggered, Christan listened to her confession. How many centuries had he wondered, imagined what had driven Gemma that night? Now, he wished she’d never said the words, never remembered what had happened all those centuries ago.

Christan recognized his own responsibility in that desperate act. He’d known who Nico was, realized what the Enforcer was doing. Christan should have protected Gemma. Instead, he drove her toward the man, preferring to hurt her because it was easier than telling her the truth. Rage had driven him in that lifetime, from the guilt he carried, the truth he could never reveal. Even Gaia would not have loved him if she’d learned what he’d become.

But this woman—who she was now in this life—had nothing to do with what happened in the past. She shouldn’t have been punished for it. The pain in her eyes left him undone, shamed by his behavior. This slender, courageous woman who pulled him from an alley not two hours ago, who’d driven through the night toward memories she never should have relived, now believed she deserved his utter condemnation. When she’d told him her truth, he’d searched her face, trying to find Gemma there. But it was like trying to find the face of the man in the moon. Too indistinct to be accurate. All these weeks, he’d refused to see the differences.

He could hear her breathing, ragged in her throat, her body stiff with pain. He knew she was on the edge of running, as she had run from him those long centuries ago. He needed to stop her.

“I thought you lived with courage,” he said roughly. “That to refuse to face your life was an act of cowardice.”

“I have faced it.”

“You are running,” he accused her, angry.

She nodded, her back still turned. “Sometimes that is the only option.”

“I would ask you to stay.” He reached out on a wave of warm power and wished it was his hand. “It was not Gemma’s sin that night, it was mine. She had every right to run. You,” he emphasized, “had every right to run from me. I terrified you in that lifetime.”

“Why?” Her voice was barely above a whisper and he strained to hear. “I remember how we loved each other once. Why do we destroy each other now?”

Christan needed to be as honest as she had been. “I don’t blame Gemma for turning to my enemy. I drove her there. She knew I lied, felt it every time I touched her. I let her believe her own fears because I refused to trust her with my fears. When she grew to hate me for it, I hated her in return. When she begged, I walked away. When she cried, I became angry because of my own guilt. I wanted her to love me, and I knew she never would if she knew who I really was.”

Embers in the fireplace popped, flew angrily into the air in a swirl of emotions and Christan knew his telekinetic power was on the verge of raging uncontrolled.