that nothing he could say or do would change her mind, but she couldn't form the words.
"Good night, sweet Rhianna." His voice moved over her like a cold winter wind, and then he was gone as if he had never been there at all.
Chapter Fifteen
She didn't leave. She spent a sleepless night, remembering everything he had said, everything that had passed between them since that fateful night at Cotyer's, and when dawn came, she knew she couldn't leave him.
She had expected him to be glad, to spend his every waking moment in her company. Instead, she had the feeling he was avoiding her. Though he joined her each night at supper, he seemed withdrawn. She had thought, after what he'd told her, after the day she had spent sleeping beside him, that he would take her to his bed. Instead, he held her at arm's length, his gaze warning her to keep her distance. It was most confusing.
Tonight, he was late. She picked at her food, wondering if she had dreamed the whole thing. In the cold light of day, all he had told her seemed like a fable - reading minds and magical cloaks, living on the blood of sheep mixed with wine, being forced to live forever in the darkness. It was inconceivable.
She sensed his presence even before he entered the dining room. Looking up, her gaze met his, and she knew that it was all true. He was a vampyre. Alive and yet dead. It explained so much: the despair she sometimes saw in his eyes, why she had never seen him during the light of day, why she never saw him eat, why his skin was ever cool to the touch.
She felt a burst of hysterical laughter bubble in her throat. She had been afraid he had bought her to shame her, to defile her, when all he had wanted was to drink her blood.
"Hungry, my lord?" she asked bitterly. Leaning back in her chair, she slowly and deliberately bared her throat to his gaze as all her dreams of a future with Rayven dissolved in a crimson sea of impossibility. He would not marry her. She would never bear his children.
"Rhianna, don't." He turned away from the revulsion in her eyes, from the sight of her bared throat, the pulse beating wildly. The scent of her despair, her blood, flooded his senses.
"I'm sorry. Forgive me," she murmured, and burst into tears. She would leave this place in a few months.
Someday she would marry. She would have children and grandchildren, but Rayven would still be here, locked in chains of eternal darkness, forever alone and lonely.
"Rhianna!" Muttering an oath, he knelt in front of her and took her hands in his. "Rhianna, don't cry.
Please don't cry. I cannot abide your tears. You needn't stay here any longer. I'll send you home tomorrow. Tonight, if you wish. Only please don't cry."
"I'm not crying for me," she said.
He stared up at her, stunned by the realization that she was weeping for him.
"Is there nothing that can be done for you?" she asked, sniffing back her tears.
"Done for me?" he asked, frowning.
"Can you never be mortal again?"
Slowly, he shook his head. "No."
"I'll stay with you," she promised. "I'll stay as long as you want me."
"Ah, Rhianna, you have no idea how that tempts me." Never to be alone again. To have someone to share his life. He would show her the world, shower her with diamonds and emeralds, grant her anything she desired. She would never want for anything. She could sleep days at his side. Her face would send him to sleep and welcome him when he awoke...
Slowly, he shook his head. He could not condemn her to the kind of life he led, expect her to shun the daylight, to spend her life with a man who was not a man at all, simply to ease his loneliness. He might be a monster, but even he could not be that cruel.
His loneliness, the complete and utter sadness in the depths of his eyes, caught at her heart and made her soul weep. "Don't send me away," she begged softly. Leaning forward, she pressed a kiss to his brow.
He slipped his arms around her waist, his face pressed against her breasts. Her warmth engulfed him, dispelling the cold that was his constant companion as sunlight chased away the chill of night.
"I won't." He drew in a shaky breath. "God forgive me, I won't."
A sense of peace, of coming