Page 61 of Bite of Sin

“You never asked.”

I continued down the stairs, and she quickly followed. The stairs ended right on the beach, and I stepped onto the sand. Kali appeared beside me, and she immediately crouched down, scooping up a handful of sand. She watched it fall between her fingers with a smile creeping across her face. Until she remembered I was right next to her. She tilted her face back, shooting me a quizzical look.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked.

“You’ve never seen the ocean.”

She frowned. “But why do you care?”

I didn’t answer, walking toward the water instead. I wasn’t about to tell her that seeing the smile she’d flashed when holding the sand was enough to bring her out here every damn night. Because then that would be admitting something I wasn’t ready to accept myself. I kept her in my city because of my curiosity about her being a new vampire. Nothing else.Shit.Maybe if I fucked her, I could get her out of my head. Although I didn’t see her agreeing to that.

She came near the water, watching the dark waves crashing onto the beach until she closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath of the salty air.

“I wish I had your eyesight right now,” she muttered. “I want to see it all.”

“You can come back out when your transition is over.” I reached for her hand again, tightening my hold when she fought against me. “There’s one more place I want you to see.”

She huffed out an annoyed breath but kept pace with me as we moved in the sand. A little way up, there was a pier, and we climbed the stairs carefully. Once we got to the top, I pushed her behind me.

“Walk exactly where I walk,” I ordered. “The wood has spots that aren’t stable.”

“And how do you know which spots those are?” she asked, following behind me.

I sighed. “This is one of my favorite places to go.”

“Then why have you been at Impulse every night?”

I looked over my shoulder. “You really need to ask?”

“Obsessed,” she muttered under her breath.

“Not obsessed. Making sure you don’t get into trouble,” I corrected her. “You’re my responsibility, since I kept you from the center.”

We slowly made our way down the pier, and I stopped before getting to the end. Half of the railing was missing, and the wood was rotting too much to walk any farther out. Kali moved next to me, her gaze taking in the sight. Thanks to the moon, even with her vision, she could see more than when we were on the beach. Cliffs were on one side of us, and she slowly turned in a full circle, her eyes wide.

“I wish I could see this in the sun,” she breathed out before snapping her mouth closed as if she hadn’t meant to say it. She glanced at me. “Why do you like it out here?”

“It’s peaceful. Quiet. I didn’t get a lot of that growing up.”

“Amaros Kane raised you,” she said carefully, a glint of fear hitting her eye.

I gave her a pointed look. “He is my father.”

“He’s not your real father,” she countered.

“Tell me, what kind of stories do the humans come up with about how Amaros had his sons?” I already knew the answer but wanted to know what she thought.

She licked her lips. “The story is that even though certain vampires can mate with humans, Amaros couldn’t. So he found humans who he believed would make strong sons.”

“And?”

Pity clouded her face. “And that he killed the human parents so he could raise the sons as his own. Then he turned them when they became adults.”

I stared out at the ocean. “For once, humans have the right story.”

“You never met your parents?” she whispered.

“Amaros is the only parent I know—or have ever known.”

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