He could kill her in a moment but he was pretending to be pliant for her. She liked the way he closed his eyes as his head went back, the furrow of his brow and the way his fingers were tightening on her hips.
What did he hope to accomplish? What did he really need from her that he couldn't get from someone else?
“Do you want to drink my blood?” Almost the same question but not.
She felt something from him, an eagerness and a restraint, like he tamped down his first response. But his expression didn't change from polite interest. His voice, when he answered, was deep and caressing, sliding over her body like it was his hands and lips instead. “More than anything I have ever wanted.”
Truth.
She became lightheaded with fear and a pleasure so heavy she didn't want to acknowledge it. Her nipples pebbled and she wanted him in her. Immediately. Now. Hard. Fast.
A rush of desire pulsed through her and he closed his eyes, taking a breath that flared his nostrils, his hands gripping her hips tightly.
His eyes were sapphire blue when he opened them, his smile rueful and human. He gentled his hold on her hips and said thickly, “I will not drink your blood. As much as I want to, I won’t.” He didn't say the words like a man afraid, or at least not like he was confessing a guilty secret.
As though he read her mind, he said, “There is no shame in not wanting your blood. If anything, there is shame in wanting it, for your blood is a weakness, a mirror of emotion and feeling which vampires spend centuries disposing of.”
“Why? What is it about my blood?” He looked down briefly. Was he thinking or hiding his expression?
With a sigh and a noise so slight she might have imagined it, he leaned forward, resting his head against her stomach as though gathering himself. Then he straightened, leaned back into the chair and stopped touching her. The cool mask back in place.
“You are an empath. Your blood restores feeling and emotion for a vampire, can settle a werewolf. Your kind were delegates between the vampires, the shape shifters and the Fey.”
Empath. The revelation cut through the fog of lust and anger that was wrapped around her. Finally, an answer. What he wanted from her and why. His fascination with her. Did it explain her fascination with him too?
“Are empaths human?” She was scared of the answer.
“Yes. For all practical purposes, an empath is human.”
“Why practical, what does that mean?”
“The Others are gone. You would have no one to use your powers on, assuming you had power. You are not a full empath, your abilities would most likely be limited. It's dangerous to be an empath, even part empath. Vampires are all that remain, the only species you could affect, and they would not thank you for it.”
“Except you?”
His voice was oh-so-neutral when he said, “Except for me.”
“Why?” she touched his face and his hair, stroked his neck, couldn’t stop touching him as she listened to him talk to her quietly. He held eye contact with her, like he wouldn’t look away if she wouldn’t. forging a bond of some sort, maybe wanting her to know that he was telling the truth.
“Because I feel very few things. My attraction to you and your response to me…I have been existing for a very long time. Marion was right when she said my existence has become a curse of sorts. I stand on the outside looking in and there, just over the threshold is you. There is much I would give to cross that space.”
“What happened to the empaths?
He paused and she tried to feel what he was feeling, straining as though listening for music played far away.
He’s keeping himself from me.
“I did nothing to protect your kind. The wolves did. They revered empaths, whereas the vampires feared them like a vengeful God. And the Fey— they had their own issues with empaths. The wolves were decimated and the vampires turned their backs….”
“Why don't I feel your answer now?”
“Restraint comes with age child,” he said flippantly.
No, she needed to know these things, what he felt about the destruction of... her kind. Yeah, that little nugget was gonna come out of the vault for examination later. She was an empath? Did WTF suffice as a response?
“I can’t tell when you’re lying anymore or what you’re feeling. I want to know.”
“If I relax my shields so that you can