“When I asked him on Saturday. Before he turned into Fraser, he came as Lance. I asked and he told me.”
“What exactly did it tell you?”
“Stop asking me questions. You are supposed to be answering mine. A simple yes or no will suffice.” I am annoyed that he is quite neatly dodging the question.
“Do you have to know?” he asks quietly. “Is it something that you have to know?”
“Yes,” I say simply.
“Very well.” He clears his throat. “Yes, he was normal.” I close my eyes as I hear his words and he adds, “Well, in as much as he could be.”
“So, it was me. I turned him into a raving lunatic.” I didn’t want to cry but the tears spill silently over, and I brush them away roughly.
He drags me over to him, muttering consolation in Italian to me as he has done so many times in the past. “No, Aefre. Don’t blame yourself. He was already leaning that way.”
“And I pushed him over the edge.” I snuffle into his ridiculously expensive t-shirt, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Tell me,” I say, sitting up. “I want to know what he was like when you met him. You must have seen something in him to turn him. Something good, to love him.”
“I did see something. I saw myself,” he says. “And that, Aefre, is not a good thing.”
“I need more than that.”
He sighs and rubs his hand over his eyes, “Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“Because I am self-destructive. You know that,” I say with a tearful smile.
“All too well,” he mutters. “We met Lance during battle. When Rome defeated the Gaul’s in 350 BC. He was an incredible warrior. His skill and ruthlessness almost matched my own. It made me notice him. I watched him. He fought to the bitter end and should have been taken prisoner to be a slave, but he demanded to be killed, saying he would rather die than be slave to the Romans. He had piqued my interest and I took him instead, offered him everything I could give him, and he accepted. After a while.” He smiles at the memory and I see for the first time that he did really love him, once. I don’t dare breathe, wanting him to continue, needing to know. “I showed him what a life he could lead if he was one of us. I showed him everything he could have, and he took it. He was so like me. I could see it plain as day. He was a perfect gentleman, a gracious host, the life of every party, everybody’s friend. Every man wanted to be him, and every woman wanted to be with him. The three of us became thick as thieves. We did everything together. We roamed the Continent, taking what we wanted, when we wanted it. Behind closed doors, I saw his cruel streak with the women he took. He was so careful though, never let it slip over into his life. I showed him…” he breaks off with a look of sorrow at me, but I nod encouragingly for him to continue. “He watched me with the women I took.” His voice cracks. “He wanted to know what it was like to cause so much damage. I showed him. I showed him how powerful he was and everything he could do. Introduced him to the women who sold themselves for the pleasure of people like us. He became everything I wanted him to be. I wanted him to be just like me so that I wasn’t alone, so that I could justify my actions because I wasn’t the only one who liked to cause pain. He became addicted to it. The feeling of power it gave him. But still he controlled it, only unleashing his monster at night, in his bedchamber. By day, he was still the man that everyone wanted to be. After I met you and brought you back to live with me, I tossed him out. And Sebastian and all the others.” He shifts his eyes away from me, not wanting to name the names of his other charges that I don’t yet know about and not wanting me to ask. “That was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. It made him resent you. He became fixated on you. Wanted to know why I had chosen you over him. He needed to know why I wouldn’t share you as I had with all the others. I cut him off as coldly as I would a stranger, after over a thousand years of being inseparable. But I didn’t want him anywhere near you. Or any of them. I wanted to keep you all to myself and in the end, it was the cause of what happened to you. I am sure that Eloise didn’t have to try very hard to convince him to take you.” He stops and looks at me, coming back to the present as he remembers what Vivienne told us. “So yes, he was a perfectly normal, if a little cruel, member of society for the times, that I ended up breaking. Me, Aefre, not you. Please don’t ever think it was you.”
“But I didn’t love him and that is what drove him over the edge. That he couldn’t make me love him.”
“He wouldn’t have taken you had I not given him cause to be jealous and out for revenge.”
“But…”
“No, Aefre. We can go around in circles about this until the end of time. I will not allow you to take any responsibility for his actions.” He wraps his arms around me tightly and I cling to him.
“I love you,” I mumble.
“I love you too,” he strokes my hair, but he is still being distant with me.
&nbs
p; “Please stop rejecting me.”
“I am not rejecting you,” he says with a sigh.
“Then make love to me. I need you. I need to be with you.”
“I can’t. Not yet,” he mumbles as he pushes me away.
“That is rejection,” I say.
“No, it isn’t. I just keep picturing you with Sebastian and I’m sorry, but I can’t get it out of my head,” he blurts out.
“Well maybe you should have thought about that before you came up with the notion that it would be a good idea!” I yell at him, getting my mad on now. The rain is lashing against the windows as I climb out of bed, almost as if it is trying to reach me.
“I know,” he says behind me. “I was only thinking about Sebastian. I wanted to ease his suffering.”
I glare out of the windows at the weather, arms crossed and buck naked. I am freezing and I shiver. This is getting bizarre. Vampires don’t feel the temperature.