Destructive Embrace (14 page)

“You’ve been so understanding this
whole time.” I leaned forward slowly and touched my lips to hers
tenderly. There was nothing sweeter than a first kiss.

Even a first kiss with the only
remaining family member of a well-known vampire hunting
family.

I wondered if she really knew that. I
realized I was thinking too much during the kiss and pulled away,
grimacing. Roxann’s face flushed red.

“I’m sorry, did I do something wrong?”
she asked. I could practically feel her embarrassment in the air
between us. I laughed softly. “No, you’re fine. I just… I’ve been
hiding something from you since our last conversation. It’s nothing
bad, but it’s something I feel that you should know.”

She frowned, knitting her dainty little
eyebrows at the turn of the conversation. “May I see that heirloom
you have?” I asked, holding my hand out cautiously. Roxann nodded
slowly, and then reached down to pluck the blade from her
boot.

Carefully I took it from her, making
sure my hand didn’t come in contact with the metal. “This is your
family crest; you know that of course.” She nodded, still appearing
confused. “Well, this is the crest of the best hunting family known
to humankind,” I said.

“I know my parents were hunters, they
were very fond of taking me camping and trying to teach me how to
shoot game. Where are you going with this, Zeke?” she asked
impatiently.

I grimaced. “Not just hunting game,
Roxann, love. They were vampire hunters… Your family was murdered
by a pack of rogue vampires who found out where you guys lived…” I
handed her the blade back and backed away from her in case she
decided to try her hand at swinging the blade in my
direction.

She appeared furious suddenly and threw
the blade in my direction. I dodged it easily and stepped closer to
her, hugging her tight. “It wasn’t us. It was some bunch of
vampires who started the rumor that the hunters were dead, that
they killed them. No one believed them,” I assured her. “Not until
you told me about your family history. Your name jogged my memory,
and I realized that your crest belonged to the hunters… It was just
then that I realized that those losers hadn’t been bragging
falsely; they really did take out the greatest hunters in the
world. I am sorry for your loss,” I repeated, whispering hurriedly
into Roxann’s ear in an attempt to calm her down.

“You know the game I play, or used to
play,” I began again with a new topic. Roxann’s stiff body relaxed
a little and she nodded, her head rubbing against mine. “Well, I’ve
decided to stop beating women – or anyone, really. Do you want to
know why?”

She looked somewhat fearful as I spoke,
but nodded slowly anyway. Apparently her hesitation didn’t outweigh
her curiosity at why I stopped beating women.

"It’s because I am falling in love with
you, Roxann. You make me want to be a better person. A better man.
And if I were to have you look at me with fear and contempt as you
did during your first hours here, I think it would honestly break
my heart," I told her.

None of it was a lie, but
something felt off about what I said anyway. Incomplete,
almost.
Maybe you are saying this to the
wrong woman,
a part of me
taunted.

I fought the urge to look down at my
feet and glower, instead keeping my eyes trained on Roxann's. She
hadn’t said a word, but her eyes were wide, her gaze unwavering as
our eyes met. I worried that I was moving too quickly for
her.

Come to think of it, I probably was,
but vampires felt things a lot stronger than humans. So we would
know how we feel a lot sooner than humans would. To me, it made
perfect sense.

Of course it makes
sense,
that voice taunted once
more.
You knew you loved Elyssa almost from
the moment you first began to toy with her mind.

I growled softly under my breath, but
it was loud enough for Roxann to hear, and she angled herself away
from me, her dainty eyebrows furrowing. "Are you okay?" she asked
hesitantly. I’d scared her. Great.

"I'm fine. I didn't frighten you, did
I?" I asked, smiling softly at her.

She slowly shook her head, and moved
back into my space. Taking her hands into mine, she squeezed them
and smiled back at me.

"I’m glad to hear that you
want to change for me. It makes me happy that you have such strong
feelings for me and want to make up for everything that you have
ever done that might have wronged me." Her words were slow and
deliberate, and I knew there was a big
but
coming up. I wasn’t disappointed.
"But it is too soon for me to know how I truly feel about you. I
literally just learned about my family's heritage, as well as the
fact that so much is going on in your life. Might it be that with
all of this confusion going around the castle, you are only
mistaking this feeling for love?" she asked.

I could tell she wasn’t trying to hurt
my feelings, but nevertheless it stung to be half rejected by the
woman before me. "I am very sure of my feelings. If anything,
everything that is going on here is more reason to embrace them. It
is well past the time where I should have been accepting of how I
feel toward the people I surround myself with, and you are the
reason that I am finally coming out of that shell I made for
myself." I hesitated before continuing. "If you don’t mind, I would
love to take you to my favorite part of the castle."

I loosened my grip on her hands to show
her that she can refuse my request if she so desired, but Roxann
merely smiled and squeezed my hands once more. "I would love to
know a place that you love to be at. It makes me happy that you
want to share it with me," she said. I nodded and began to lead her
away from the gardens, into the castle and toward that
staircase...

I hadn’t been there since the night
that Reid died, and it felt almost sad to be going back there. But
there was a new reason for going, and my mother would be proud of
me for letting go of Elyssa in favor of a woman who was actually
available.

But Elyssa's words stuck in the back of
my mind, and I wondered how my mother would feel if she knew that I
was changing who I was for someone else, instead of for my own
benefit. I brushed those thoughts away as we climbed the long
staircase. Once we were inside the attic, Roxann's gasp was all
that filled the air.

Her expression was one of awe as she
stared around the room in amazement. "What is this place?" she
asked softly.

"This is the attic where we store
things, but more importantly, this is the attic where we keep the
only portrait that remains of my late mother," I said slowly. I
watched her face carefully as she took in my words and began to
look around. I knew when her eyes landed on my mother's portrait
because her heartbeat faltered just enough so that I knew she was
stunned by what she saw.

"Zeke, this is..." Roxann trailed off
and I knew she was at a complete and total loss of words for how
she could possibly describe what I was showing her.

It was a huge thing for me to do, to
bring someone so new, so completely different than myself, up here
to visit with my mother. To show Roxann my most private place could
only serve to confirm that I was, indeed, falling in love with the
human woman beside me.

"I come up here to think a lot," I
murmured. "To be alone and to talk with my mother about the things
going on in my life, around the castle. It truly is my place of
rest and relaxation, and I am glad to share it with
you."

I was happy to have her 'meeting' my
mother, as well as to introduce her to this place. A part of me
hoped that sometimes we might be able to come here together and
spend time. While we were there on that day, however, I had another
idea in mind.

"Roxann. I know you just said that this
is moving a bit too fast for your liking, so I know you will be
hesitant about what I am about to say. But I do know how I feel
about you, and I hope that someday you can grow to feel the same
about me. So," I paused, turning away from Roxann to rummage
through a drawer near my mother's portrait. Turning back toward
her, I extended my hand, slowly lowering myself to kneel on one
knee.

Lying in the center of my palm was an
old, but well-maintained, white gold engagement ring. Roxann's eyes
widened and I feared that they might pop right out of her head, but
hoped that they would not as I brought myself slowly to one knee.
"Roxann, like I said, I know it might be a little fast, but I would
like to spend the rest of my existence proving to you that I can be
a better man than you have seen from me so far. I need you to
accept this so that I can make it all up to you," I
said.

I was as serious as I could be as I
spoke, and could only wait for her reply. Everything was in her
hands now, and that left me feeling more vulnerable than I’d felt
in a very long time. Nothing could be worse than if Roxann said no
right now.

As she opened her mouth to respond, her
brows furrowed, and I feared the worst. "Zeke," she whispered, eyes
tearing up. I was unable to tell if she appeared happy or if she
was upset that I had brought this up to her, but she continued
before my mind was able to bring me down ugly paths.

"I did say this was too fast," she said
softly, stepping toward me. "But maybe I can grow to love this
place as much as the rest of your family does."

A part of me laughed
inwardly.
It wasn't like you were going to
be able to leave anyway,
I thought,
fighting the grimace that threatened to show on my face.

"I hope that you know what you’re
doing, because I would... Very much like to spend the rest of my
life beside you, helping you to become a better person one day at a
time." Roxann's smile was blinding, and she held her left hand out
for mine. Grasping it, I brought myself up to my feet and kissed
her, hard.

I had to ignore more
jeering thoughts from the nagging little voice in my head – a part
of me wondered if it was Tywin in
my
head this time – that poked fun at the fact that
we had only just shared our first kiss and now we were engaged to
be married.

When we pulled away from each other, I
slipped the ring on her finger. Or, I tried to. It was slightly too
small for her, and I grimaced, before sliding it onto her index
finger instead. "We will have to get you your own ring," I
murmured, smiling gently down at her. Although I seemed to be okay
with this turn of events, it was actually killing me
inside.

That was my mother's ring. I wanted the
woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with to wear that
ring... But it would not fit her on the proper finger.

What if that’s an
omen?
the voice sang to me.

The sword I'd retrieved
with Elyssa from the attic mocked me from the corner of the room as
I sat in my room – Our
room,
I reminded myself.
You
do
have a
Mate still, Dmitri.

It reminded me of Elyssa
every time it caught my eye. "Maybe the sword is the key to
distracting me from her," I mumbled to myself, getting up from my
desk to retrieve the long blade. I picked it up carefully, and then
sat on my bed with it, removing it from its sheath to examine
it.

We hadn't gotten to begin
training with the blades we'd procured from the attic yet, but I
was already fond of it. It was the perfect length for me and it
wasn't silver, of course. That was always a bonus. I wondered how I
could have gone so long without coming across it.

I ran my fingers along the
smooth, unmarred surface of the blade and smiled. I couldn't wait
to get the chance to work with it, whenever that would be. I swung
it a few times from my seat on the bed, just a few half-assed
practice swings.

It felt good to have a good
sword in my hand again. It was always hard to find a blade that
wasn't made from silver in my world – anyone who needed a blade was
trying to protect themselves from someone else of our kind, so it
had to be silver or it wasn't going to be very
effective.

I, on the other hand, was
unable to wield such a blade, so I always had the hard job of
trying to find a blade that would suit my needs without kicking my
ass in the process. "It’s been right under my nose this whole
time," I mumbled, shaking my head with a chuckle. "Who would have
thought that?"

I put the blade away and
set it down across our pillows so that I could think. I used the
most foolish methods of avoidance, I realized. Thinking about and
examining a blade that I got while spending time with one of the
women I was trying to not think about?

“But you really shouldn’t
be thinking about that one,” I told myself out loud, glaring down
at the blade as though it was its fault that Elyssa was pregnant,
and that she didn’t know whether or not Reid was the father, or if
it was Zeke’s child in her womb.

There was nothing more I
could do to pry my mind off the matter, so I faced it.

What was I doing, doubting
my Mating to a wonderful woman, over spending some time with the
other? And comparing the two was low, even for a
vampire.