Page 60 of The Tainted and the Tamed
“You didn’t want to give me a choice, is what you mean!”
It hurt him—physically hurt him to see her this way. Her face was flushed with anger instead of joy, shyness or pleasure. Haruki felt the space between them widening, and he could not bear it.
“I’m sorry, Saki,” he said, hanging his head. “If it came to that—if it meant making you like me—I would have said.” He burned with the need to ask who had informed her, but held his tongue. “Please believe me. I wasn’t completely sure what would happen myself. But you needed my help—”
“I didn’taskfor your help. I don’t need rescuing. I had made my peace with the end of my life.” Murasaki crossed her arms. “If you wanted to help me, then you should’ve done something about the factories a long time ago. You’re a chairman, for heaven’s sake! Why weren’t you doing your job? What about all the other people who didn’t get your so-called medicine?”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. At once, that same deep guilt Haruki had been wrestling with for so long flared to life inside him. But this time, it wasn’t about what he was.
This was about what he wasn’t.
“And what about that poor girl?” Murasaki demanded. “The one you turned into that thing that attacked me?”
“Saki—”
“Don’t call me that. You’re not the man I thought you were.”
“You never met me as a man,” he said, suddenly angry. “I told you what I was. You knew I was a monster.”
“You’re not a monster just because you’re a vampire! Dr. Setouchi isn’t a monster. Ms. Tanabe isn’t, either. Monster is too powerful a word for what you are. You’re just selfish.”
“Murasaki, wait—”
“I don’t want your help anymore, Haruki. I never asked for it anyway.”
She turned, a whirl of olive as she stormed out of the room. He yanked his legs free, hurrying after her. “Where are you going? Saki—”
He seized her arm, spinning her back so she faced him.
“Please don’t leave me,” he begged. “If you stop taking the medicine—my blood,” he bit out the correction, “you’ll die.”
“I don’t care. I’ll spend whatever’s left of my days with my family, and that will be the end of it.” She met his eyes, heat practically emanating from her gaze. “Do better. Dosomething.”
“I’m trying to! I can’t let you leave.”
“You can’t keep me here! Is that what happened to the other maid? Did she try to leave, too?”
Her words hit Haruki like a punch to the gut. “Please, Saki, let me explain. I was lonely and—hungry. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I tried to feed her some of my blood, but it was too late. All it did was make her a more powerful wraith. It was all just a mistake. A horrible, tragic mistake.”
“How does something like that happen?” she demanded, her brow furrowed. “Why were you even that hungry?”
Heat burned Haruki’s cheeks as he was forced to face the truth. “Because I didn’t want to feed.”
Just as you were lonely because you refused to allow yourself company. You wanted to punish yourself, to deny yourself. Look where it got you.
Dr. Setouchi was right after all. You ignored the man in you too long. But you also ignored the monster.
“I’m ashamed of myself, Murasaki. Deeply ashamed. I can’t ever make it up to Chiyo. But there’s still time to make it up to you.”
“You can’t.” She shook her head. “I’ve already lost everything.”
“Not everything. You still have time. You can stay with me—you can help me be braver and less selfish.”
She looked away, disgusted. That one expression made him more repulsed by himself than at any other point in his immortal life.
“Iwillbe braver and less selfish,” he said, trying to stand tall, “and you will hold me accountable if I am not. I swear to you, I will do what I can to stop what’s happening with the factories. I don’t know if I can change it, but I will try.”
“If I stay, you’ll do that?” She watched him askance.
