“You came for me?” he asks.
I shake my head at him. “Fraser, you say you love me, but you don’t even know me.”
“I do know you,” he says. He places his big hands on my face and rubs his thumbs under my eyes. “Everything I need to know; I see right here. Your passion, your fearlessness, your love, your loyalty. Everything.”
I blink and he lets me go. “No, you need to stay here with your own sire,” I say.
“I don’t want her,” he says. “She is vicious and cruel, and she doesn’t love me.”
“She does,” I say to him.
“No!” he shouts. “She left me, she left me all alone when I needed her. She doesn’t care about me. She turned me and left me to find my own way. She made me into the creature I am.”
His impassioned words have shocked me. How could she do that to him? How could she leave him to become a Rogue Vampire? I’ve had dealing with Rogue’s before. A long, long time ago. They are Vampires sired and then left after only a few years with their sire. Gustav was only days old when I left him and that’s why he turned out the way he did. Fraser is a fully functioning member of Vampire society, but that is where his cruel streak comes from. His basic instinct is too close to the surface. I am appalled she could be so wicked as to do this to him.
“You see, that right there, is why I need you. You care about me. You would never abandon a charge,” he says.
“You aren’t my charge,” I say quietly and turn my back to him to regroup my thoughts. This was a super bad idea coming here. I thought he just wanted to play with me, but it seems he really does want to come away with me.
I feel him behind me, his hands on my arms. He sweeps my hair away from my neck and whispers, “I can feel it. I am yours.” He brushes his lips softly down my neck and whispers the four words that I cannot refuse. Four words that when muttered I have the overwhelming need to do something. “You can fix me.”
Oh gods, I want to. I can’t refuse a plea like that, not from him. He lightly grazes me with his fangs and that snaps my attention back into focus. He isn’t supposed to have fangs. My Fraser doesn’t have fangs. Sure, the topic will come up again at some point after I’ve brought him to me, but currently, well, in the past, currently, he isn’t a Vampire. It seems wrong that someone else did this to him, and it drives home the fact that he isn’t mine and never will be. I step away from him before he bites me and turn to him. He looks crestfallen and it breaks my heart. “There is no place for you in my World, Fraser. Your place is here.”
“Yes, there is,” he says. “He is dead, but I am immortal. We can be together forever.”
There is only one way to close this down, so I tell him of my plans to bring past Fraser to my present. “So, you see, he will be with me. And you must stay here with your sire.”
He looks deep into my eyes and I am mesmerized. They are no longer cold and hard, but the eyes of my beloved. “Your love and loyalty know no bounds,” he says. “You are absolute perfection. But you need to leave him where he is. He doesn’t want what you are offering him. Trust me on that,” he adds bitterly.
I lower my eyes because I know he speaks the truth. It is something that I am going to have to ignore for now. He tilts my chin up and lowers his mouth to mine. I slant my head to meet him and then I clear my throat and step back. I am a traitor of the worst kind. Wanting to kiss this Fraser makes Cade’s betrayal of me look like nothing.
“Please,” he whispers. “I need you to help me.”
Oh, Christ, not the 'h' word! He is killing me here.
“Bring me to your World and I will be everything you want me to be. If I stay here, I will remain this monster. She has left me with little choice.”
Blackmail? That’s a bit low, isn’t it? I frown at him, but he just looks back at me sadly and I know that isn’t how he meant it.
“I love you, Liv,” he says. “Let me.”
“It isn’t me that you want,” I say. “You want Emily and I can’t be her.”
He looks suitably confused as he asks, “Who is Emily?”
We stare at each other for a few moments. He doesn’t know who Emily is? Other Liv must have gone to him as herself and he fell in love with her anyway. Just one more thing that is so vastly different between us. And I, of course, look exactly like her, but with all the traits that he wants in his sire. Ah, crap on toast. This is way worse than I first thought.
“Doesn’t matter,” I mumble. “But…”
“But nothing,” he says and takes me in his arms. I struggle against him briefly. Geez, he is strong. I break free and it finally occurs to me that he is special, just like Cade. Sired after the Power.
“Fraser, I can’t do this with you. I came to tell you, you must let this go,” I say.
“Never,” he says. “Liv won’t ever take me to your World again, but I will find another way. I promise you.”
I gulp at his aggression and I see the real Fraser again. The one that hurts people for amusement. Will mine really turn into this if I go for him? No! I yell at myself. I will never abandon him, never.
I have no more words for him. I have said what I came to say and now it is time to leave and never return, no matter what the circumstances. I open the door and don’t look back as I close it behind me quietly.