I did it because I was afraid. Afraid that you’d look at me like you are right now…I also thought I was protecting you. Before I’d found out about your link to Camille. But I never should have waited this long. I should have been the one to tell you, not her. I’m sorry for that.”
My curiosity was getting the best of me. “I have to ask… Have you ever thought about drinking my blood? How are you able to control yourself around it?”
He shifted his gaze to the floor. “Of course I have. It’s in my nature. I can smell your blood from across a crowded room. I can hear your heartbeat over a thousand drums. From the first night I saw you at my party, all I wanted was to taste you… As far as controlling myself, well that’s something that comes with time and practice. A new vampire would not have such control.”
He was being so patient with me. So open. I had to know more. “Why did Camille hate you so much? She said you betrayed her. If you didn’t cheat on her, then how? How did you piss her off so bad that she carried a grudge for a hundred years?”
“I’m the one who made her. I turned her into a vampire…against her will. Times were different then. I was different then. After I showed her who I truly was, she detested me. Threatened to turn me over to witch hunters. Lux wanted me to kill her, but I couldn’t. I loved her. But I couldn’t risk having her expose all of us either. So I had to make her one of us to keep her quiet.” The pain and sadness in his eyes was heartbreaking. But the realization that I was now in the same position as Camille was a hundred years ago, chilled me to the bone.
I pulled the sheets in close, drawing up my knees to my chest. I couldn’t stop the shivering. “Is that what you’re going to do to me?”
My heart thumped in my chest. “Tell me the truth, Ozi.”
“No. I’m not going to do that to you. I didn’t think I had a choice back then. I believed we were in love, but when I revealed to her what I really was… Well, let’s just say I didn’t get the reaction I was hoping for. I had to protect my kind. I couldn’t just let her run around screaming vampire to anyone who’d listen. Times were different back then. Witch trials were still rampant. I had to either turn her or kill her. Despite how she felt about me, I loved her too much to end her life. I realize now that I should have just walked away. I created a monster.”
This was a lot to process. Supernatural creatures were real, I was adopted because my parents were trying to hide me from vampires, and now I was dating one. “What about my real parents? Are they alive? I need to know everything, Ozi.”
He pinched the skin between his brows like he had a headache. Did vampires even get headaches? “I’m not sure if your parents are still alive. But if they died…they died as vampires. Enzo said you were the last human descendant of the Deveraux line.”
I gasped. “Enzo? How is he involved in any of this?”
“Enzo is the one who paid for your ticket to Italy. He’s kept tabs on you since you were a baby. He was so determined to keep you safe from Camille, that even I didn’t know you existed.” Ozi looked down at his blood stained sleeves, his face full of regret.
The weight of his words felt like a ton of bricks, crushing me into oblivion. “What happens now?”
He looked up and held my gaze. “That’s up to you, Raven. I’m not going to force you to be like me. It’s your choice. No harm will come to you if you choose otherwise.”
Despite everything I’d learned about him, he still made my stomach flip and my knees weak. “I need time to think. To process all of this. It still seems…unreal.”
He nodded. “Of course. There’s no rush. I will give you some space to figure everything out. Again, I’m sorry for hiding this from you. I had no idea when we met that I was going to feel this way about you.”
“What’s it like?” I asked hesitantly.
“Being a vampire?”
“All of it. Drinking blood, being immortal?”
“It’s strange at first. There’s a thirst that consumes