Page 66 of Eternally Bound
Even if she did go home, she could never forget about any of this. “No, Nathan, I’m still not coming back. I… I’m doing this for me. Please understand, and don’t ask me to come back again, not now.”
“Kadence—”
“Listen to me, I didn’t call you to hear a lecture or to come home. I’m not coming back. I’m not going to marry someone I don’t love—”
“Then we will find you someone else!” he exploded.
She couldn’t tell him that there was no one else for her, not after Ronan. She rubbed at one of her temples as she tried to ease the headache pounding there before shaking her head to clear it of the absurd notion. Of course there could be someone else for her, eventually, maybe.
She told herself this, but her skin felt stretched so tight that she had the urge to tear it away from her, and her heart yearned to go back to him. Did she love Ronan? No, that couldn’t be possible. She’d only known him for a little over a week; it was impossible to fall in love with someone so fast. She kept telling herself this, but now that the possibility had taken hold it wouldn’t let go.
He was a vampire, but he was a good man. Strong and caring, he made her feel things no other man had ever made her feel. She knew vampires weren’t the enemies she’d always believed them to be, but to fall in love with one, to…
What? Settle down and marry him? She didn’t exactly see Ronan as the marrying kind, and just because he’d tossed out that eternity comment to her, it didn’t mean he wanted anything more with her. She was standing here after all when he could have made her stay. No, he would have never done that, she knew. But he could haveaskedher to stay, and he hadn’t.
Kadence kept that in mind as she inhaled a shuddery breath and focused on speaking with Nathan.
“I didn’t call to be talked into coming home or because of marriage. I called because…” She had no idea how to say to him what she wanted to say to him. She’d been trying to figure it out since she’d left Ronan behind, but it always sounded the same to her, ridiculous. “We have it wrong, Nathan,” she blurted.
Not exactly the smooth words she’d hoped to be able to come up with, but the truth.
“We have what wrong?” he demanded.
“The vampires, we have it wrong.”
“What are you talking about?”
She glanced over at Baldric when he stepped into her line of view and tapped his watch. This was never going to be elegant, it would never be received well, but she couldn’t leave here without at least trying to make a difference, and she was running out of time.
“Not all vampires are evil,” she said. “Some of them are good. Some of them are trying to do exactly what we are. They protect innocents from those vampires who kill—”
“Kadence—”
“Listen to me! It could save so many lives if you do! They could have killed you in that alley. They didn’t. They could have killed me. They didn’t!”
“You’re with the vampires who were in the alley?” he barked.
“No, not anymore. They set me free. I’m leaving, Nathan.”
“Did they twist your mind in some way? Where are you? Tell me, and we will get you help.”
“You know I’m not susceptible to their persuasion. No one twisted my mind. They opened it.”
Silence met her statement. Baldric tapped his watch faster.
“I have to go.”
“Did they hurt you?” Nathan asked.
“No. They knew who and what I was too, Nathan, and they let me go. Ronan would never hurt me.”
“Whothe fuck isRonan?”
She had to move the phone away from her ear as Nathan’s words reverberated through it.
“He’s… he’s… the one who set me free to live my dreams, and gave me the means to do so,” she finished lamely, knowing he was so much more than that to her.
“If he set you free, then he’s trying to kill you, Kadence. This world—”
