Andre thumped his palm against the steering wheel. Hard. Metal crunched as it bent under the force of his blow. “Damnit Gabrielle, it makes a difference to me!”
He pushed open his door and got out. I tried my door handle again, intent on following him. Still locked. Damnit.
I crawled over the center consul and exited the car on the driver’s side, barely noticing the light white flakes that drifted down around us.
Andre strode away from me, his coat flapping in the chill breeze, and I could see how tension coiled itself in his muscles.
“Why are you so upset?” I yelled after him. He ignored me, his sinuous form moving further and further away. “This is my fate, not yours!”
Andre stopped. “No, it’s not,” he said.
“What?”
Andre turned around, and even though it was nighttime, even though it was starting to snow, and even though he was some distance away from me, I could clearly see his grief. “It’s not your fate,” he said. “It’s our fate.”
He began walking back to me. “What do you think happens to me once you die?” he said. “I’m not going to just get over you.” His voice broke. “It doesn’t work like that with soulmates.”
My lungs constricted. Of course it didn’t. On an instinctual level I knew that, but consciously I’d never thought it through. If I died, part of Andre would die along with me—maybe all of him if we were indeed physiologically connected.
The thought of hurting this man or of him simply ceasing to exist, that was just as terrifying as what waited for me on the other side of death.
Andre stepped up to me and cupped my face. “If the devil tries to take you again, I don’t know if you’ll come back to me as a vampire. I don’t know if you’ll come back at all.”
His eyes searched mine, and they shined in the dim light.
“I’d come back,” I whispered. “For you, hell couldn’t hold me. I’d come back.”
Chapter 6
I watched the buildings blur by as we drove back to the inn. I’d won the battle of wills tonight, but the discussion wasn’t over.
“So, you have a house here?” I asked, glancing away from the view and down at our entwined hands. I couldn’t remember when our hands found each other, or who initiated the touch. Our connection was growing stronger.
“Yes.” Almost absentmindedly, Andre brought my hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.
“The one you grew up in?”
He smiled. “That’s a cute thought. No, the house I grew up in is long since gone. But my current home is one of the oldest buildings in the city.”
“And this city, Cluj-Napoca,” my tongue stumbled over the name, eliciting another smile from Andre, “is the place you consider home?”
His eyes slid to mine. “I think you and I both know exactly where home is these days.”
Warmth pooled in the pit of my stomach. Within the last four months I’d gone from the girl that couldn’t be loved, to the girl that pushed it away, to the girl who hesitantly embraced it.
My ring caught the light of a streetlamp. “You’re wearing my gift,” Andre said, surprised.
“Of course. I haven’t taken it off.”
He took his gaze off the road to look at me, his eyes filled with longing and something deeper. Love. We hadn’t ever said those three important words, but lately I’d see it in his expression, or the way he touched me—I’d find it in the details.
I cleared my throat. “I am not going to get to see your home, am I?” I said, getting back on topic.
Andre’s expression looked agonized. “If I’m to keep you away from this trial, then no. Vampires visit my place on a regular basis.”
I made a face. My experience with the vampire community wasn’t great. Other than the bossy one sitting next to me, the only other vampire I’d gotten to know had tried to kill me.
I rubbed away the condensation on my window and glanced outside. The weather here was different from the Isle of Man. Here the chill had nothing to do with rain and ocean mist. It seemed to emanate from the very earth itself.
“If you’re not going to change your mind about leaving, then at least promise me one thing,” he said.
I worked my jaw, then nodded. “What is it?”
“Don’t tell anyone we’re soulmates.”
“Who would I tell?” I asked, glancing at him.
“Well the coven, for one.”
That shouldn’t be too difficult, considering I was supposed to avoid them at all costs anyway.
Andre took his eyes off of the road to meet my gaze. “More importantly, you can’t tell Caleb.”
I peered at him curiously. “Why shouldn’t he know?” I already had my own reasons for not telling Caleb about Andre and me, but I was interested to know his.
“Caleb’s in the Politia’s pocket. They would eventually learn about us through him.”
I furrowed my brows. “I’m still not seeing what’s so bad about that. They already know we’re dating.”
Andre squeezed my hand. “Having a soulmate is one of the most revered bonds in the supernatural world. It’s unbreakable.”
I smiled a little when he said that.
“Unfortunately,” he continued, his face darkening, “because of the bond’s very nature, it can be exploited. For seven hundred years I’ve been the thing supernaturals fear. I wielded too much power, and I couldn’t be controlled. But now I can.” His gaze landed meaningfully on me.
I realized what he wasn’t saying. The ruthless vampire king had a soulmate. For someone like Andre, someone who lived by the sword, love was a weakness, a devastating one.
“Anyone could use me to get to you,” I said, my eyes wide.
Andre grimaced. “And they would. Especially the Politia and the coven. They wouldn’t hesitate.”
“Come to me.”
Sonja Antonescu slid out from under her sheets and left her room. She wiped the sleep from her eyes as she left the luxury suite she shared with her roommate. Her bare feet padded down the five flights of stairs standing between her and the ground floor of her apartment complex.