Page 21 of Resurrecting His Soul
She stared at him for a few more seconds, though it felt like much more, before she huffed and walked away. Once she was gone from the doorway, he took a deep breath then stepped into Lisandra’s room. He didn’t see her immediately, but he knew she was there; could feel her presence and the pull that made it impossible for him to ever really walk away from her. It connected them in a way he didn’t think he would ever be able to explain, but he had no desire to get away from it.
“Please, don’t… don’t leave. I swear I will make sure she doesn’t hurt you or Allison.” He turned his head towards her scent. Lisandra was sitting on the bed then, and he met her eyes. The anger that had filled them earlier was gone, replaced by a sadness that nearly ripped him in two.
“I don’t want to leave, Ricardo, but I don’t see how you can promise to keep us both safe while you allow her to live in this house with us. You can’t follow the three of us around twenty-four-seven, and I don’t want you to. I want to be with you more than I’ve ever wanted anything, and I know that sounds crazy in such a short time, but it is how I feel.” She turned her head so she wasn’t facing him, and he saw a tear roll down her cheek. He stepped forward, but she quickly rubbed her face roughly and turned back to him. The sadness was gone, and he could see the resolve in her hard stare. She was shutting down her emotions, and he damn near fell to his knees knowing he was the reason for her pain and her desire to shut it off. He knew what that was like. He’d shut everything out for far too long. He didn’t want that for her. She stood up and walked over to him and met his eyes. “But no matter what I might want, Allison is right. It’s only a matter of time before Melina tries to finish what she started because she is in love with you. She is never going to sit by and just watch the two of us together and not retaliate, and I can’t risk letting Allison get hurt in the crossfire.”
Ricardo lost the battle to hold himself up and fell to his knees and brought his hands up to hold hers in front of his face while he looked up at her. She owned him and he wanted her to know. “I will never allow any harm to come to you two. I know what it would do to you if Allison were hurt here, and I will stop at nothing to keep you safe and happy. You have brought me back to life; resurrected my black soul. Something I never thought possible. I spent so many years believing I was a monster that I made it my reality, but in no time, you have shown me that I don’t have to settle for the evil version of myself I’ve become. You are my better half. I don’t know how it’s possible, I just know it is true. My heart was made just for you. I love you.”
Tears slowly fell down Lisandra’s face and when she gave him a small smile, he sat up straighter, still on his knees. “I love you, too.” Lisandra’s voice cracked, and he pulled her down with him and wrapped his arms around her. She cried into his chest for a moment, but then she pulled away and sat back so they were not touching, and she straightened her face. “I love you, Ricardo, but love isn’t always enough. I won’t put myself or Allison in a situation that could lead to one of us getting hurt. Not again.”
Her voice dropped when she said not again, and something told him there was more to those words than he understood.
Slowly, he closed the distance between them and kissed her, trying to pour every ounce of his love into that one kiss. He needed her to believe him. To feel the overwhelming love he’d found for her in that kiss. Needed her to believe he would keep her safe.
Lisandra moved back again, and her eyes roamed over his face. “I believe you that you love me,” she said, “but I also believe that Melina cannot be trusted. She is obsessed with you, and I know what kind of person that can turn someone into. I’ve lived it and trust me when I say it’s a dangerous thing. She’s like old dynamite, sweaty and ready to explode with the slightest disruption.” She paused, flexing her fists. “I wasted years of my life with someone who said he loved me but made my life a living nightmare. He was obsessed with keeping me to himself the same way she is with you. I won’t live like that again. Fearing for myself, and Allison—and Allison is too stubborn to move out as long as I’m here.”
Ricardo took a deep breath, fighting against the mixture of sadness and anger her words provoked within him. This ex of hers better hope they never meet. He focused back on Lisandra, who was still watching him.
He stood up and pulled her to them, then moved them both over to the bed and sat down beside her, then took her hands in his again. “Melina’s not obsessed with me. Infatuated, maybe, but I have to believe there is hope for her. She can overcome what she’s become. I made her. Molded her in my image—the image of a monster. If I don’t give her a chance, I am afraid that doesn’t make me any better now than I was before I met you.”
Ricardo was surprised when Lisandra scooted closer to him and put her head on his shoulder. “This. This is how I know you are a good man.”
“I taught Melina to be a killer. The same kind of ruthless killer as me. I’m not sure good is how I would describe myself.”
She reached over and threaded her fingers with his in his lap. “You own your mistakes, and you aren’t taking the easy way out here. I believe you want me to stay, but instead of taking the easy way and kicking Melina out, you want to give her a chance to change. Honestly, as much as I don’t trust her intentions, your desire to help her overcome her bad side makes me love you more. But you saw her reaction to seeing us kiss. Saw her go after me and Allison. I don’t understand how you can continue to stick up for her and believe she can be anything more than a monster when she seems perfectly content with her behavior,” she sighed. “I don’t want to make you feel like you have to choose. I understand she is your progeny, and that means something, but I just don’t think I can stay here with her. One day Allison,” she paused and cleared her throat. “One day Allison will not be here anymore, but you and I will. I can’t abandon her, but one day many years from now. Well, we could have our chance then.”
Ricardo could barely breathe. She was right, of course. They were immortal, and as such would outlive Allison by an infinite number of lifetimes. Still, he couldn’t let her walk away. Couldn’t let her go. The weight of the pain would end him before he got her back.
It was time to let her in. Let her know everything. Then, maybe, she would understand why he couldn’t let her walk away. Why he wouldn’t survive it, even if he knew she would return, eventually. He turned his body to face her on the bed and ran his hands up and down her arms, stealing himself to open up about his past. “I was in love once before.” He paused and Lisandra lifted her head from his shoulder and turned on the bed so she was facing him, then took his hand and squeezed it. “It was before I became a vampire. Her name was Emily, and she was my world. I would have died for her, and in a way I did.” He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose as all the memories he’d been so careful to shut down for so long rushed back.
He felt a soft hand beneath his chin and he opened his eyes. Lisandra ran her eyes over his face before she met his eyes again. “You don’t have to explain.”
“No,” he shook his head. “I won’t let the memory of her hold any power over me any longer.”
He reached over to take her hands in his own, drawing strength from her. He didn’t like to think about Emily, but he wasn’t going to keep living in the past.
“A week before we were to be married, we were walking in the garden on her family’s estate. It had just gotten dark enough to hide from the house’s view, and Emily grabbed my hand and pulled me behind a row of tall bushes. We were kissing when he made his presence known. I didn’t know what he was, but I could practically feel the evil that flowed through him reaching out to caress Emily. His eyes were drawn to her and there was a hunger in them so raw it sent chills straight through me. He moved so fast I had no clue how I managed to get myself in front of Emily, but somehow I managed to block his attack and Emily took off. All I remember after that was a searing pain in my neck, then I guess I passed out. When I woke up, I had developed a thirst that no amount of water could ever quench.”
Lisandra reached across and cupped his cheek with her thumb, moving it softly over his stubble. “That had to be awful.”
He leaned into her touch. “Not as awful as the fear that he might have gotten to Emily once I was out of the way. I wanted to find her, but I was weakened by my thirst. I’d woken up in the woods and everything was so loud, but the one noise that stood out above everything else was the sound of a pulse. My feet carried me out of the trees without any thought.” He gritted his teeth. “Turned out it was Emily’s pulse that had drawn me out, but my bloodlust wasn’t the worst pain I felt that day. That pain came when I found her naked, beneath the vampire who’d stolen my human life. At first, I thought he was hurting her, but then I saw her thread her fingers into his hair and kiss him while he… I don’t remember screaming but a moment later they were off the ground and he had her behind him, and he bared his fangs at me.”
Lisandra wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “She had been sleeping with him our entire relationship.”
“Did she know he was going to hurt you?” Lisandra asked.
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt his fangs descending in his mouth and he had to take a moment to calm down. “Yes. She’d been the one to suggest it, although her plan had been for him to kill me. He decided it would be fun for me to live forever knowing I had been a fool to love someone who didn’t love me.”
“Get out of here!” Emily barked.
“My love,” Ricardo reached for her, but his vampire maker knocked him back.
“Stay away from her.”
“I do not understand,” Ricardo pleaded. “I love you. We’re getting married in six days.”
Emily’s eyes grew wide. “Are you crazy? I am not marrying you.”
