Page 10 of Eternally Owned

He shrugged, an almost feline motion of his gorgeously muscled shoulders. “That’s normal too. You may need a bit of time alone at some point to get your head around what’s happened to you.”

“Was that how it was for you?”

“No. I was in it all the way from the first moment. There was a sort of recklessness about it for me, but I’d always been like that.”

“You’re American,” she realized suddenly. “I’ve been trying to place your accent. It’s faint, and it’s a bit of a mixture.”

“I was, yes. I came to Europe to find adventure when I was eighteen, as soon as I was old enough to leave home, to get a passport without my father’s consent. He was a real bastard, and I couldn’t wait to get away.”

“And your mother? The rest of your family?”

“She died when I was three years old. I never really knew her, and I have no other family in the U.S., no other family I knew well enough to be close with. My father’s temper had isolated us from our relatives.” He shrugged once more. “Leaving was simple for me, which is always the best scenario for our kind. We have to make a new family, and leave the ones we were born to behind. But in my case, there was nothing to miss.”

“I’m sorry. About you having nothing to miss. About whatever you went through with your father, growing up motherless. I understand it. It doesn’t make for an easy life.”

“What’s an easy life in these times, for humans? Ah, don’t think we aren’t aware of that fact, that many of us aren’t sympathetic, even when we use it to our own ends. We vampires are a contradiction in savagery and emotion, even empathy—especially once we drink from you, and can see into your mind, into your past, although some of us don’t want to know, and block it out. And my life…it was nothing more than anyone else goes through, growing up. We all have our history. You lost your parents too.”

“Yes. You know that from drinking from me?”

“I admit I was a bit distracted at the time, but I saw a little of your life, just as you saw some of mine.”

She nodded. “I did.”

“But none of that matters anymore, my human life, my past. It hasn’t since I left home and came to Europe.”

“And is that when you discovered the Midnight Playground?”

“I heard about the vampire clubs as soon as I arrived in Berlin. But Berlin is a hard place—even harder than London—and it was intimidating to me in those days. I never approached the club there. I was young, uncertain, although I wouldn’t have admitted to either at the time. And I was still so angry. I spent another few years traveling all over Europe, took off for Southeast Asia for a year, lived in South America for a while, then came back to Europe—and landed in Paris. I was there for a few days when I met a woman by chance who had been to the club. Or maybe it wasn’t entirely by chance. I’ve always believed in destiny, and when she told me about what went on there, whatreallywent on, I knew I had to be there, that I had to find my way in. That I was meant to be a part of that dark life. She offered to sponsor me, and my invitation arrived about a month later, and I met Aleron right away. He offered me the Turning Kiss that first night, as we told you. He is the only vampire I’ve ever taken as a lover.”

“So you’re young, a new vampire. But, Aleron… he seems ancient to me.”

“I know that he’s been on this Earth for several centuries. But again, I don’t ask, not for specifics, or explanations. He tells me what he wants to.”

“I can feel his age—does that make sense?”

“Yes. We can all feel it with the old ones, humans and vampires alike, although humans aren’t nearly as attuned to it as we are with our own kind.”

“I didn’t expect it, to sense what I do with you—and I mean you and Aleron, and maybe all of your kind.”

“No, I don’t imagine you would have. For humans, it happens only if you come close enough, have some contact. What else has been unexpected for you, Nissa?”

He traced his fingertips over her cheek, his gaze searching hers, and a thrill went through her that wasn’t entirely sexual. But she couldn’t figure out yet what was happening to her—it was complete overload, physically and emotionally, but she liked it.

“All of it feels like a surprise, somehow. I learned what I could by reading, by talking with people on the internet, and with my friend Ilana, who helped me get into the club. But I never knew it would be so… intense, which seems sort of silly now. I didn’t know to expect this sense of connection. And being told that you, the vampires, can sense what we think is one thing, but to experience it is something else entirely. There is no way to prepare yourself for this.”

“I felt the same way. Overwhelmed, but wanting it, without question.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“But is this what you wanted, Nissa?”

He leaned over her, his brows drawn together. So beautiful, this man. This vampire, with his gleaming, polished skin, his lush mouth, and those dark eyes that saw inside her head. She wanted to give him everything.

Her stomach clenched. In need. In fear of what she was getting herself into, because for the first time in her life, she wasn’t certain she could keep her emotions under control. She was out of control already.

“This is all I wanted and more. You are…”

Could she tell him? Could she even admit to herself that while Aleron was exquisite and amazing, a lover beyond any she could have imagined, his power and age compelling, irresistible, it was Hex who drew her in some other, inexplicable way?

---