“Does it matter?” I ask instead.
“Yes.”
I stay silent.
“The fact that you aren’t sharing makes it matter even more now.”
“I can’t honestly say,” I offer up eventually. “Yes, we had planned to be married but it kind of got lost in the ensuing events.”
“What ensuing events?”
Now, this I don’t mind discussing as it directs the questions away from the marriage that never happened.
“The murderous rampage we embarked upon.”
He blinks at me. “I remember you telling me about that in Monaco. It doesn’t sound like you to encourage it and it doesn’t sound like him to do it,” he says sadly. “So much history, so much time I didn’t have with you.”
“You wouldn’t have wanted me back then,” I say seriously.
“Perhaps,” he says and takes my hand. He leads us out of the room, and I close the door. “What I don’t get is you call the time after you left Constantine and before Lance took you as your ‘Evil Years.’ Isn’t a murderous rampage considered evil?”
Well, yes, obviously.
“And another thing,” he says before I can answer, “How is it that after what happened to you, you were still happy to kill?”
Wow. He is digging deep here. I lead him to our bed and sit, adjusting the towel I’m still wearing. I look down with a grimace and change into something a little less uncomfortable. Pleased with my choice, Cole’s eyes set ablaze as he stares at me, hair dry and straight, and a sexy black, lacy Victoria’s Secret baby doll. “You can try to distract me, but it won’t work,” he says but kisses me anyway, his hand slipping inside and onto my breast. He tweaks my nipple and pulls away with flashing eyes. “Spill, O’Dell.”
I laugh out loud in delight that he last named me, with our shared last name. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he says and waits.
“During my ‘Evil Years’ I was vicious and unfeeling. I tortured people for my own amusement.” I dive in at the deep end, “I hurt and killed so many people, I truly believe that I got what I deserved when Lance took me.”
“No, Liv, don’t say that,” he says desperately, taking my hands.
“Cole, I will spare you the gory details, but I was a terrible, terrible person. Look at what I did to Gustav.”
“You weren’t the one who trapped him in there.”
“No, I was just the one who turned him and locked him in a dungeon to begin with. Don’t defend my actions, Cole. You have asked me a question and I am trying to answer it.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“I was evil. Plain and simple. I felt nothing except hatred and contempt. After Lance took me, he effectively got rid of all those feelings. He got rid of everything. I felt nothing but pain, physical pain. When CK rescued me, I had been starved of human blood for twelve years. I drained the human that was put in front of me and killed him. It made me ill, both in that I wasn’t used to human blood, only Vampire blood, and that I had killed him. I went another fifteen years not drinking from humans. When I came back, I was so weak, CK force-fed me human blood to try and regain my strength.”
“He force-fed you?” he asks in disbelief.
“It isn’t as bad as it sounds. Stop interrupting,” I admonish him gently. “After a while, I was used to it again. Needed it to thrive. I was getting stronger the more I continued to drink. I didn’t ever want to be weak again. It was a hundred years or so before I killed someone again. An accidental draining. But it didn’t feel wrong. I was strong, in control and happy. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t kill every time I fed, but every now again the urge took over.” I pause and wander over to get myself a drink, bringing one back for Cole as well.
“I know you won’t understand this, but it was considered acceptable back then to hunt and kill. We are predators. That hasn’t changed. We have just made a conscious choice to change, adapt. Blend in. When Devon woke, he was hungry, really hungry, and he wanted to kill. I encouraged him because I wanted to show him what he was. He was quite pious about the whole thing before I turned him,” I say, remembering his disapproval. “I wanted to see him, I wanted him to experience the Hunt and kill. I wanted to teach him everything and he needed to know it wa
s a choice. I didn’t want to stop him from being who he wanted to be. As soon as the cravings wore off, so did the rampaging. We killed, a lot, over the next few hundred years but never as part of a spree. So yes, a murderous rampage is wrong, but it wasn’t even close to what I did.”
He is looking at me intently. “Why have you never wanted me to do that, experience the Hunt and kill?” he asks, and I actually spit out the wine I had in my mouth in shock.
“I didn’t want that for you. It’s different now, it isn’t acceptable. We are all different now and you…” I take his face in my hands as I climb onto his lap. “You, my wonderful husband. It’s not who you are.”
“Maybe it is,” he says defiantly. “How do you know? I told you last week that I get that urge.”