Page 22 of Resurrecting His Soul
“Emily,” Ricardo reached for her again, pleading.
She slapped him across the face and the vampire next to her laughed. “No! You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Emily…”
“I can’t believe you ever believed I could want some pathetic man like you.” She rubbed her hand over the vampire’s chest. “I prefer a real man, not some weak excuse of a man my father is forcing me to marry.”
Rage seeped into Ricardo until everything was red. All he could see was painted in blood and he sprang. The vampire who made him was strong, but his anger propelled him. It was like something sinister took him over.
The sound of someone screaming finally pulled him back to the surface, but he was still seeing red. The only difference was this time it wasn’t anger tinging his eyesight, no, the red was blood. Lots of blood. He looked down to his hand. He was covered in blood and in his hand was a heart. He dropped it like it burned him, and when he looked back up, Emily was still screaming, blood splattered across the front of her nude body.
“Emily, I’m… God, I don’t know what happened.”
“Get away from me!” she screamed. “You’re a monster!”
“Emily, I love you,” he pleaded, reaching out for her.
“No! You are a monster. I don’t love you. I wish you were dead!”
Ricardo didn’t realize he was crying until he felt Lisandra’s thumbs wiping away the wetness from his face.
“She hurt you,” Lisandra said.
“She did, and I used her words and that pain as an excuse to become a monster. I blamed her until I reached a point of numbness where I didn’t care enough to blame anyone. But it wasn’t her fault. I am the one who killed all those people. I took away loved ones, and I never allowed myself to care about the pain I was causing. I’m not sure when I started to feel again, but I decided it was just because I had spent too many years alone.”
Lisandra squeezed his hand. “That’s when you made Melina a vampire, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I found her alone on a bench outside a bar, crying. In hindsight, turning a broken-hearted girl was probably not the best idea. Maybe that is why her attachment to me is stronger than it should be. But I studied her before I changed her. The crying incident only happened once, but I must admit one thing that drew me to her was how quickly she got over that crying spell. Like she shut her emotions off and moved on with her life.”
“You ever stop to think that maybe the reason she was crying all alone was because she was crazy then and now vampirism has only enhanced that quality in her?”
Ricardo raised his eyebrows, looking at Lisandra.
“What?” She held up her hands. “She tried to kill me more than once. You can’t deny it is possible.”
Ricardo laughed. “Okay, I’ll give you that.”
Lisandra leaned into him. “Emily was wrong. You tried to save her just like you saved me. You got lost for a while, but we all get lost from time to time. You are not a monster.”
She pressed her lips to his, and he relaxed into her, kissing her back.
“I love you,” he whispered against her lips.
He felt her smile. “I love you, too.”
Every bad memory he’d been carrying around for the last few centuries vanished with her words. Just like that she accepted him, and her love healed him. He found himself grateful Emily had turned her back on him all those years ago because it was the beginning of the road that led him to Lisandra.
ChapterSixteen
Lisandra
Laying sideways in bed, fully dressed, with Ricardo’s strong arms holding her tight against his chest, Lisandra felt completely torn. She knew it would sound ridiculous to most people if she told them how quickly she had fallen in love with Ricardo. Even she knew that there was far more they didn’t know about each other than they did, but her heart didn’t care how long they’d known each other. It didn’t care that Ricardo had been a killer, and honestly probably still struggled not to kill for blood. Giving up any habit was difficult. She couldn’t imagine how hard giving up something he’d been doing for centuries must be for him, but what mattered was that he was trying. Looking at his sleeping face, he seemed so peaceful, but she knew there was a thunder rumbling just beneath his surface. She saw the regret and shame he felt whenever he talked about his past and wanted to help him see the good in himself.
She felt his hand move across her back and lifted her head from his chest to look at him.
He smiled. “Good morning.”
She moved up so she could reach his face and gave him a soft kiss. “Morning,” she whispered against his lips.
