Page 79 of Red Masquerade

Like earlier, he just watched me, the tilt to his brow, the line of his lips the only evidence of his concern.

I wanted to scream. “Say something!”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. Tell me everything? Like how?Why?” My anger bloomed into a wretched thing, the urge to hit something, my limbs restless. I kept my distance, pacing like an animal a few feet from him, worried if I came too close, I’d pummel him, or let him say sweet nothings into my ear until I fell apart.

But the anger just simmered. Anger that I’d been living in anguish for six years, at the whims of my brother, and Adam had just left me there.Alone.

“You don’t get to become something different when I’m stuck, the same I’ve been for the last six years.” My voice cracked on the last word, stinging in my throat.

After a moment, a muscle in his jaw ticked. “I will never forgive myself for what has happened. I feel… responsible for how things happened. How you’ve been left alone. And I want to make it up to you.”

“How?” I felt my shoulders deflate. “What can you do about it?”

His eyes hardened, and he neared me, and I let him. Let him come close enough I could smell the cologne left over on his skin. An expensive, rich smell.

“I can’t change anything,” he said, “but I want you. I’ve wanted you since the day I set eyes on you. You must understand that all of this was for you.”

All of this.

“Believe me, Itriedto come home. I tried to figure out a way. And then,” he glanced down at himself, as though to witness his change from human to creature, “even though I didn’t ask for this, it led me back to you.”

I shook my head, hearing the words, wanting to melt into him again, but wanting to stay angry, at the world, athim. And then his fingers danced, feather-light, across my cheeks, wiping away the few tears that did escape.

“I just—I can’t—” My lips trembled. “You don’t know—”

“You are so prettywhen you cry.”

His lips brushed against my face, my eyelashes. Fingers twining into the hair at the nape of my neck. Pulling me to him like I knew he would.

“Let me make it up to you. Let me distract you.” Kisses to every inch of skin, my ears, in my hair. And though his skin was much cooler than any living man, his hands were the same strong hands I knew from before. I leaned into him. “Let me make this better.”

When he pulled away, our breaths mingling in the space between us, he looked at me with near-black eyes. The monster within him gazed out at me, grinning, waiting.

Twenty-Seven

Ispent the next day in bed, exhaustion taking over. When I awoke, it was already late afternoon, the setting sun turning the sky above us to a creeping indigo, fading into the dark.

And Vince stayed with me the whole time, peppering kisses on my bare shoulders, rubbing circles onto my back; comfortably silent when I didn’t feel like talking, murmuring how much he loved me when I did. I’d doze, curled into him, and when I woke, he’d be trailing his fingers along the valleys of my side, around my hips, up into my hair.

It was intoxicating. Calming. A different kind of touch, a soft reminder that kindness did exist, and I’d just forgotten for six years.

When I opened my eyes, facing the large window that looked over the grounds, his fingers brushing hair away from my face, a heaviness had easedfrom my limbs.

He noticed I was awake. “You need to eat, darling.” His voice was soft, hands coming to a stop. I hadn’t eaten since the night before. It was like I’d undergone a transformation myself, coming to the manor; like my needs were no longer the same in this dream world.

I pushed myself up, sitting up for the first time in hours. Grogginess clouded me, the world still hazy after my dreams of nothingness. Sleep had just been a respite from my tumultuous thoughts. A way to shut off the noise, the worries circling in me like a shark does its prey.

“Let us get out of the house,” Vince said as he sat up next to me, the muscles in his abdomen flexing.

We were both unclothed. The comfort I felt around him was unlike anything I’d felt around anyone else. I could strip myself to my barest form, and he wouldn’t look at me with any scrutiny. Just appreciation. Just—seeing me for who I was.

“Okay.”

His lips curved in a soft smile before he leaned forward and pressed them to mine. Every single time, it felt like we came together like puzzle pieces finally reuniting, the picture finally complete.

He slipped from the bed and held his hand out to me. “I want to take you somewhere,” he said.