Chosen by Sin (28 page)

“Little cost?” He shook his head in disbelief. “What about the Draci?
Have you even bothered to ask what they want? Because as far as I can tell,
most of them seem quite content. You’re all fired up to extend their lives so
they’ll be more like you, so you won’t have to be alone, but is that even what
they want?”

“Of course it’s what they want! You think you know them?
Je les vois
tous le temps.
I see them every day. How
they mourn for each other. How they long for the time to do things they’ll
never be able to. Be more. Go more. Do more. Don’t tell me you know them,
because you don’t.”

He gripped her chin, his fingers still gentle although his eyes flared
with fury. “Oh but I do know you, Jes. I know that you’re so obsessed with
yourself that you can’t accept others can live fulfilling lives even if they’re
not like you. You’re so selfish, you don’t care about peeling the skin off of a
young girl as long as it advances your agenda. You dish out pain and poor kids
like Ella just have to take it.”

She jerked her chin out of his grasp. “
Qu’est que t’en parle
? What do you mean I peel the skin off a young girl?”

“I saw the graft scars on Ella’s arm, Jes. She admitted they were for
the experiments and begged me not to tell you!”

Again, although there was no hope this time, confusion barreled down on
her. “Wait. Ella showed you these scars? She told you they were for
experiments?”

“Why are you bothering to act surprised? Yes, she did. They
were—”

She grabbed his arm. “Where is she?”

“What?” He looked down at her hand as if he wanted to fling it off her.

Instinctively she released him. “Where is she, Dex?”

“You think I’m going to tell you? She’s waiting someplace safe while
I—”

She laughed harshly. “While you what? Accuse me of torturing a child
for my own selfish whims? I’ve never asked Ella to undergo skin grafts. I’ve
never performed them on her!”

He stared at her, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “What are you saying?
That she was lying?”

“If you saw the scars, no. But did she specifically tell you I was
doing the treatments?”

He pursed his lips, considering what she’d asked. Slowly, he shook his
head. “No. She said you drew her blood. And when I saw her scars, she begged me
not to tell you. I assumed—”

Yeah, he assumed I was a monster, she thought. Because obviously that’s
what he believed of her. He probably still believed she’d tricked him into
getting her pregnant.

He pressed his lips together. “So if you didn’t perform skin grafts on
Ella, who did?”

A name immediately came to mind, but she had to be careful. She wasn’t
going to repeat Dex’s mistake by accusing anyone of something so horrific
without more evidence. “
Je ne sais pas exactement
. There’s really only one logical explanation but—”

“Amanda, right? She’s medically trained.”

She swallowed loudly. To avoid answering him, she turned toward the
mage only to find she’d managed to sneak out without either of them noticing.
She turned back to Dex. “I need to talk to Ella. I need to see her right now.
So please, take me to her.”

“I can’t. You’d have to go outside. In the sun.”

“If she’s still on the grounds, it doesn’t matter. Tell me.”

His expression was unreadable as he stared at her. His jaw ticked. Then
he said, “I took her home.”

***

An hour later, Dex stood to the side and watched as Jes argued with
Amanda, who they’d found working in the laboratory.

“As a Draci, Ella’s skin can transform itself to stone and back again.
It’s a form of regeneration—
stone doesn’t age
—and you might be able to replicate the
process. I knew you wouldn’t ask her because of the pain the test would cause,
but having Draci blood isn’t enough,” Amanda insisted, her tone pleading. “The
pain was minimal. If you’re going to find the key to prolonging life, if you’re
going to help my—”

“You went too far, Amanda. I trusted you to treat my patients in my
absence, and you betrayed that trust. I want you to pack up your things and
leave. Today.”

“You know I can’t do that. Not without—”

“He can’t be moved. If you want, you can stay at an inn in the village
and visit, but only when I’m present. Otherwise, I’ll tell him what you did
myself. I’ll bring him Ella and show him.”

Amanda turned her head and glared at Dex. “This is because of him. He’s
turning you against us. Distracting you from your duty.”

“No one can distract me from my duty, Amanda. Not even you.”

Amanda looked like she wanted to say more, but Jes cut her off. “Go.
Now. If you say anything else, I’ll retract your access to the castle
altogether. I don’t want to do that.”

After a tense moment, Amanda stalked past Dex and out of the room. Good
riddance, he thought.

Jes closed her eyes, leaned against a tall counter-high lab table, then
held a hand to her temple as if it ached.

To avoid the sun, she’d led him through a maze of underground tunnels
to reach Ella’s cottage. There, the girl told Jes how Amanda had come to her
while Jes was in the States. Amanda had insisted they do the skin grafting on
their own. She’d told Ella that even though Jes believed the grafting was
necessary, she was too weak to ask Ella herself, and that Amanda and Ella
needed to be strong enough to do the right thing for her.

As he’d listened to Ella’s tearful explanation, Dex knew she’d been
telling the truth. And that meant Jes had known nothing about the skin
grafting.

He felt like shit for how he’d treated her. Even so, he told himself to
be realistic. She’d admitted she was testing Ella’s blood to further her
life-prolonging experiments. Maybe she hadn’t authorized the skin grafts Amanda
had performed, but would she hesitate to do them if she really thought it would
help her cause?

The question nagged at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask Jes.
Not now. She looked tired. Drained. And that’s exactly how he felt, too. Just
an hour earlier, he’d been ready to give up his revenge against his
grandfather. To open himself up to a fantasy—one in which he devoted his
life to Jes and their baby. Maybe that had been foolish, but he mourned the
loss of his dream. And he regretted being the cause of the pain Jes was now
suffering.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Her head jerked up and she looked confused, as if she’d really
forgotten he was there. “Why? You came to Ella’s defense because you thought I
was hurting her. I’m glad you did.”

“I should have listened to her more carefully. I should have known you
wouldn’t hurt her that way.”

Her mouth twisted. “But you couldn’t have known that, Dex. How could
you, when I don’t even know it myself?” she asked tiredly.

When he didn’t answer, she raised a brow. “Shocked?”

He still didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say. He’d been thinking
it himself. Only he knew she wasn’t that selfish. She’d been willing to let him
go despite the fact his absence might endanger the baby.

“I don’t agree with what Amanda did,” she continued. “I certainly don’t
condone it. But I also don’t believe the skin grafting was necessary to
accomplish what we want. If I did, if I truly thought skin grafting was the key
to finding the secret to immortality, would I hesitate to explore that theory
because it would cause Ella pain?
Je ne sais pas
.”

“
I
know.” he said quietly.
Despite his previous doubt, he spoke without hesitation. He stepped closer,
until there was barely any space between them.

She shook her head and raised her fist, then repeatedly hit him in the
chest, although the force she exerted was negligible. “How can you say that?”

He wrapped his fingers gently around her wrist, holding her hand
against him when she would have pulled away. “Because you couldn’t even ask me
to stay with you for three weeks to save the baby once you knew it wasn’t what
I wanted. And you arranged for Cy to take me to the village even when you knew
it might weaken you. You think of what you need and what those you love need,
Jes, but you always temper that by considering what you’re asking of others. I
just lost sight of that for a while. I’m sorry.” He cupped her chin with his
other hand and tilted her face up. “I’m so sorry.”

She frowned, obviously struggling to accept what he was saying. When
she finally nodded, he drew her into his arms. He rested his cheek on the top
of her head and breathed in deeply.

He rocked her for several minutes, until she closed her eyes and seemed
to fall asleep. But he knew she hadn’t and something was still bothering him.
Something triggered by the similarity between Ella’s graft wounds and the scars
on Jes’s arm. “Can I ask you something?” he asked.

Her eyes fluttered open and she leaned back. “Of course.”

He lifted her arm, pushed back her sleeve, and lightly brushed his
fingertips against the thick-ridged scars crisscrossing her skin. Again, she
tried to pull away. Again, he wouldn’t let her. “What happened?”

***

Jes winced at Dex’s question. “I know it’s ugly.” She also knew she
couldn’t tell him the truth. Lord, given the way he’d reacted to Ella’s
wounds—

“No,” he said. “It’s not ugly. Nothing about you could ever be ugly.”

Her chest felt too tight. She wished that were true, but Dex had seen
the ugliness inside her. He’d made a mistake by believing she’d performed skin
grafts on Ella, but that didn’t mean he was completely wrong about her. She was
willing to do bad things for her cause.

She’d lied to him. She’d taken his blood without asking.            

In some way, her scars were the outward manifestation of the ugliness
inside her.

He continued to caress her scars and eventually, amazingly, she stopped
fighting him altogether. The air seemed to thicken and wrap around them, making
her mind feel fuzzy and her blood roll through her veins like honey oozing
through a straw. Her heart pulsed and, between her thighs, desire throbbed in
an echoing beat.

“How did you come to be with the Draci?” he asked softly, either
forgetting his earlier question or deciding not to push her. His fingers
trailed up her arm and across her shoulder until he cupped the side of her
head. His thumb stroked her cheek. His touch felt so good that she didn’t
stiffen at his probing, personal question. “I mean, I know they adopted you,
but did your family know them? Is that why you were sent here?”

She nuzzled his hand before his questions registered. When they did,
she gasped and pulled away. She immediately mourned the loss of his touch, but
they were walking on treacherous ground. She didn’t want to lie to him, not any
more than she already had, but she couldn’t just blurt out that his grandfather
had been the one to save her and bring her to the Draci.

She tried to give him an answer that, while not completely truthful,
wasn’t a lie either. “You know it’s very dangerous for Draci women to have
kids.”

Dex nodded and reached out to touch her again, rubbing her arm in small
circles. Then he bent down and lightly kissed her throat.

The affectionate gesture, committed so casually, startled her.
Something about him seemed different. Now that he no longer believed she’d hurt
Ella, he was acting as if he liked her. Maybe even—She trembled and tried
to keep her mind clear.

“After I lost my parents, I—I was brought here because the Draci
queen wanted a child but the king didn’t want to risk her life. My benefactor
knew that giving me to her would finalize a peace treaty that had just been
instituted between his race and hers. So I became her daughter. And she loved
me like her own. I loved her and we were happy for ten years until she died.
Then I was sent to live with a new family, and then a new one, each one welcoming
me as their own. I’ve never lacked for love.”

“Why do you sound surprised? Of course they loved you. Who wouldn’t?”

She suddenly couldn’t breathe. He looked as shell-shocked as she felt.
As if he’d just realized what he’d implied—that even
he
couldn’t resist loving her either. But despite
having almost thought it herself, that Dex could love her was crazy. Wishful
thinking resulting from the gentle way he was touching her. Still, she was so
shaken by the idea of Dex loving her, too intent on denying the possibility,
that she spoke without her normal caution.

“Part of them loved me because I served a need for them. Do you really
think I’m the first to try to find the secret of prolonging life?”

With horror, she realized what she’d said almost immediately.

Dex didn’t miss a thing. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he growled.

She shook her head and backed several steps away. “I shouldn’t have
said anything. It doesn’t matter—”

For every backward step she took, he moved forward, tracking her with a
predator’s glint in his eye. “The hell it doesn’t. Are you saying the Draci
used you while trying to find a way to prolong life? Did they experiment on
you? Is that what your scars are from?”

Fool, she berated herself. But it was too late to shake him off the
scent. Instead, she said, “The clan’s seer, an old Draci named Rita, she was
certain I was the key to prolonging Draci life. She convinced the others to do
tests. But I wasn’t forced. They gave me the option, too.”

Dex paled, as if she’d told him something too horrible to imagine. But
it hadn’t been like that.

“How old were you?”

“I was eight.”

“And not a Draci eight, but a vampire eight, which means you were
considered a child. Too young to make that kind of choice.”

She smiled sadly. “I was eight, but I was quite mature. Probably more
mature than even Ella.
C'est bien
, Dex.
I just meant I served an important role for the Draci, but it doesn’t mean they
loved me any less. In some ways, I think they loved me even more because they
envied what I had. The long life they’d never have. They cherished me.”