Her words were more effective at putting out the flames than a fire extinguisher. She held his face between her hands with a loving gentleness he didn’t deserve. The self-hatred and recriminations surfaced before Felix could block her.
“Looks like I can’t change your mind.” He disentangled himself from her, his insides turning ice cold.
The sadness in Gabby’s gaze was too much to bear. He would do anything to take it away.
Anything. Except poking at this old wound.
“If you want us, you have to open up.” Her grief stabbed into his chest, stopping his heart. Felix couldn’t meet her eyes, not when she looked at him like he was her world, even though he’d dreamed of that look from her for so long. “You want me to trust you with eternity. But you refuse to let me in. You will not talk about the one thing standing in our way. Our bond, our future, depends on you.” She kissed him lightly, like the touch of a butterfly. “It’s always been you.”
The truth of those words smashed into him with the force of a runaway eighteen-wheeler. He’d pushed her away with his unwillingness to discuss her death. It had been the reason for his every action—his obsessive need to protect her, to keep her safe from all harm. It all came back to this one thing.
He could kiss her until they both forget about this. She jumped to her feet and away from him. The waves of sorrow and heartache from her froze him in place.
“If you cannot move past my death, I will ask Alistair to break our bond.”
His veins turned to ice. “That’s impossible.”
“It can be done. I already confirmed with him. You have until the end of the Gathering. Think about it. Whenever you are ready to talk, you know where to find me.”
She walked away, leaving their future to him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Felixblamedhimselfforher death.
How had it taken her centuries to realize this?
Because she’d never thought about it. All she’d been worried about was herself. Her freedom. Exploring her powers. Exploring the world.
Shame heated Gabby’s cheeks.
She had only seen Felix as her jailer. Her mate, yes, but also her jailer.
Besides, he didn't discuss his feelings. He’d been so much older, stronger, and more experienced than she was. She’d been in awe of him. Thought he knew and understood everything.
The fact he could suffer like she did hadn’t occurred to her naïve mind even once.
The sounds of a van brought her back to the present. Gabby glanced around. She’d exited the house to get away from Felix. His presence tugged at her, pulling her toward him, even though he had left for the main town area. She shoved away the desire to return to him and made her way to the front, where Nikolas had just arrived with the captured vampires. The van was half backed into an extended portion of the house, which she guessed was much like a carriage house.
Nikolas, Eliza, and Ahmed, wearing thick gloves, lifted their captives out of the van and threw them into a silver cage about ten feet tall and six feet wide. The vampires had stopped struggling against their bonds, though they continued to moan and even growl.
“Did you run into any trouble?” she asked Nikolas once the cage door clung shut.
“No.” His color looked better. She wondered if he’d fed on his way back.
“What do you think is wrong with them?” With everything going on with Felix, she hadn’t spared a thought about their attackers.
Now was as good a time as any to get back on track to finding Maria.
“I don’t know. I tried to reach Joey’s mind after you left, but all I sensed was bloodlust and violence.”
“Could they have turned into the Fallen?”
Whenever a vampire killed the human while feeding, they lost a piece of their humanity controlling their vampiric nature. A few more kills, and they completely lost themselves to their basest needs and became the Fallen.
All the Fallen cared about was gorging on blood and the high that came from killing their prey. The Fallen could be cunning, because after all, vampires were predators. But the cunning ended with alluring and capturing their prey. Otherwise, they were sloppy, uncaring of the mess they made. Their trails were easy to follow. Trackers caught and executed most before the bloodlust drove them completely insane, before they went on a rampage, feeding and killing nonstop until destroyed.
“It’s hard to say,” Nikolas mused. “Even if they are, none of them have been gone long enough to reach this stage. It takes years for any Fallen to lose their sanity. It also doesn’t explain their strength. I’ve fought the Fallen before. They are stronger than their age, but not like this.”