Riker raked his hands over his face before pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes and going utterly still.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “It was cruel of me to bring it up. I shouldn’t have gone there.”
Very slowly, Riker’s head came up, but he didn’tlook in her direction. His hollow gaze was fo cused on the distance. “Is this a joke?”
“Is what a joke?”
“Your apology. Humans don’t care about being cruel to vampires.”
Ouch. “I could say the same thing about vampires and cruelty to humans,” she said, resisting the urge to stroke her fingers over the scar on her neck, “but I know Terese cared about me. My apology is genuine,Riker. I don’t know what happened between you on the day Terese died, but I believe you loved her, and I’m sorry I said what I did.”
“Really.” His voice dripped with contempt. “And what makes you believe I loved Terese?”
Her cheeks heated at the memories. “I saw you,” she said quietly. “Sometimes when you’d sneak ontothe property to be with her . . . I’d see you.”
Still crouching, he pivoted and leveled a probing stare at her. “What, exactly, did you see?”
Oh, God, talk about awkward. “Um . . . at the time . . . I mean, I was just a kid—”
“What?” he barked. “What. Did. You. See?”
Your mouth on hers. Your hands roving tenderly over her arms, her stomach, her breasts.
Those images had stayed with Nicole, becoming more meaningful as she matured. He’d been so very careful with Terese, which was why her death was such a shock, such a mystery.
“Just kissing. Touching,” she said, sounding stupidly girly and breathless. “Only once.” All the times after that when Nicole had seen them together, Terese had been pregnant, and the stolen moments with Riker had been tense.
Nicole chewed her lower lip, wanting to ask the question she’d held on to for twenty years, but now that she could, she wasn’t sure the answer would do anything besides devastate her. She spit it out before she could change her mind.
“How did she die, Riker? What happened that day?”
As if she’d just lit his fuse, he burst to his feet, fangs bared. “She was a fucking slave! That’s what happened! She was so damned miserable that she took her own life. Is that what you wanted to know? I went that day to break her out of there, but she wouldn’t go.”
Nicole stared blankly, unable to process what he’d just said. “I don’t understand,” she said, shaking herhead. “If you were there to rescue her, why did she kill herself?”
“Because your family destroyed her, Nicole. All she wanted at the end was to die.”
“But why wouldn’t she have gone with you?” This was crazy. He was lying. “She could have been with you and the baby.”#p#分页标题#e#
Swallowing, the tendons in his neck standing out starkly under his skin, he turned away. “She hated the baby, and she didn’t see a future for us.”
“Why not?”
“Because the baby wasn’t mine.” His words, sharp and edged with hatred, cut like an icy blade. “It belonged to your father.”
Chapter 11
“You lying bastard.” Her face stricken and pale as a corpse, Nicole backed away from Riker, her steps wobbly. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but I know damned well that humans andvampires can’t breed.”
Riker shoved his hand through his damp hair.
“I didn’t mean that your father was the baby’s sire. I meant that it belonged to him. He created it. He wanted it for experiments or a breeding program or some shit. I don’t know.”
“Experiments. A breeding program.” Nicole’s voice was utterly fl at. Steamrolled of all emotion except doubt. “You’re saying that Terese was impregnated in a lab?”
“Impregnated is the polite, clinical way to put it.”
Riker looked out at the forest, hoping there were no hunters around, but at this point, he was feeling reckless, maybe even a little hopeful that he could release some tension with a good fi ght. Terese had never been a strong person, and being sold into slavery had weakened her even more. Then she’d disappeared for eight months . . . eight months in which he’d gone crazy, trying to find out where she was, if she’d beensold to another family, if she’d been killed. No one knew.
And then, one day, she was back at the mansion, heavily pregnant. At first, he’d been thrilled, assuming it had happened during one of their rare trysts. A boy, she’d said. But the thrill soon faded as he discovered that the female who used to be Terese was gone. The new Terese had two settings: angry and emotionless.