Page 34 of Pike

“You’re wrong. It might have mattered. It might have made me think twice about seducing you.”

Her heart squeezed even tighter. She gazed numbly at her feet, unable to believe he would stab her so deeply with a single sentence. “I almost wish you hadn’t. It would make this much easier. And make my visions a lie. I can live with those kinds of lies. Rather than the ones where you tell me you care about me.”

“That, my dear,” he said with a tap of his knuckles on the countertop, “is not a lie. I do care about you.”

“Like you care about the others.”

He weighed his answer. “I care about them in a different way. Just because I feed on love doesn’t make me a monster. It makes me a survivor.”

“A survivor, sure.” She shivered. “Do you mind if I get dressed now?”

“I’d like to be able to discuss this like adults.”

It took effort to push down the sick feeling roiling around inside of her. “There’s really nothing to discuss. Especially not while I’m naked and bleeding over here.”

“I see no blood.”

“Trust you to take me literally. For once.”

“Lavinia,” he said as though he were addressing a room full of rowdy children, “this doesn’t have to change our friendship.” He slid a little closer as if unsure whether she wanted comfort or to be left alone. Sadly, the former rang truer than the latter.

She swallowed a laugh. “Wow. Just wow. I can’t handle a friendship with you after this.”

Her breath was shaky when she finally released it. At least she’d managed to mire her way through the conversation without an argument. Even when her gift felt like a curse and tears were burning a trail of acid down her throat.

“I’m not going to apologize,” he finally replied. “I can’t apologize for what I am. What I’ve been for the last almost four hundred years. I need to feed to live.” He paused, and then said, “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Too late,” she murmured and drew her shirt over her head.

“I truly…value…our friendship. You don’t seem to get it.”

“Then why don’t you explain it to me?”

The look he shot her was full of scorn. “I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t understand that you lied to me to get me to fall for you?”

“Telling you what you want, what you need, to hear is not a lie.”

“Then you need to pick up a dictionary, buddy, because you seem to have forgotten the definition.”

“I feel things for you.” His voice was chilly. Controlled. “I know that much is true. Having you around, talking to you.”

She was silent for the count of ten. “You should have left me in the friend zone.” Her jacket went on last and Lavinia searched for her purse. Finding it at last on the living room floor, she stalked forward and threw it over her shoulder. Then she turned to Pike. “Maybe you should see what kind of meal everlasting love can provide, instead of duping innocent women into caring for you. Because I can assure you, what I feel? It’s the forever kind.”

With that she walked out, leaving her heart behind.

CHAPTER 10

“Bloody hell.” Pike checked his phone for the umpteenth time and, frustrated with himself, slammed it back into his pocket. “I haven’t heard a single thing from the woman.”

“And you probably won’t, considering she knows what you are now. Which one is this?” Ezollo did his best to sound commiserating. Pike, however, saw the true intentions lying behind those slitted pupils. Curiosity. Pure and simple.

“The only one who matters.”

“Oh. Damn. You fucked up this time.”

“Yes, I know. I got too close.

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