Fantasy Lover(90)

Grace held her breath in terror as Julian applied even more pressure.

Tom took a step forward.

"Do it," Julian said in warning, "and I'll rip your heart out and feed it to your friend."

Grace froze at the deadly look on Julian's face. This wasn't the tender man who made love to her at night. This was the face of the general who had once laid waste to Rome 's finest.

There was no doubt in her mind that Julian could, and would, carry out that threat. Judging by the pallor of Tom's face as he stepped back, she could tell he knew it, too.

"Please," Paul begged again as tears fell down his face. "Please don't hurt me."

Grace swallowed as those haunting words tore through her. They were the same ones she had once cried in Paul's bed.

It was then Julian met her gaze. She saw the fury in Julian's eyes, as well as his desire to kill Paul for her.

"Let him go, Julian," she said softly. "His entire body isn't worth one molecule of yours."

Julian looked down at Paul and narrowed his eyes. "Where I come from, we butchered worthless cowards like you just for practice."

Just as she was sure Julian was going to kill Paul, he stepped back. "Get up."

Rubbing his throat, Paul rose slowly to his feet.

Julian's cold, dead look actually made Paul flinch. "You owe my lady an apology."

Paul wiped his nose on the back of his hand. "I'm sorry."

"Say it like you mean it," Julian said quietly.

"I'm sorry, Grace. Really. I'm very, very sorry."

Before Grace could respond, Julian draped a possessive arm over her shoulders and walked her out of the club.

They didn't speak until they reached her car, but Grace could sense something was profoundly wrong with Julian. His entire body was tense, like a spring coiled way too tight.

"I wish you had let me kill him," Julian said as she fumbled in her jeans pocket for her keys.

"Julian-"

"You have no idea how much it hurt for me to walk away from him. I am not the kind of man who just walks away." He slammed his hand onto the top of her car, then spun around and growled like a cornered lion. "Dammit, Grace. I once fed on the entrails of men like him. And I went from that to…"

Julian hesitated as two thousand years of repressed memories flooded through him. He saw himself as the respected leader he'd been. The hero of Macedonia. The man who had once made entire legions of Romans surrender as soon as they recognized his standard.

And then he saw himself as what he had become. An empty shell. A coveted pet, performing at the beck and call of bis summoner.

For two thousand years he had lived without emotions, lived without speaking more than a handful of words.

He had gone into survival mode. And he had lost himself to it.

Until Grace had reached out and found the human side of him…

Grace watched a myriad of emotions cross Julian's face. Anger, confusion, horror, and finally agony. She walked to his side of the car, but he refused to let her touch him.

"Don't you see?" he said, his tone raw from his emotions. "I don't know who I am anymore. I knew who I was in Macedonia, and then I became this." He held his arm up so that she could see the words Priapus had burned into his forearm. "And then you changed that," he said, looking at her.

The anguish in his eyes tore through her. "Why did you have to change me, Grace? Why couldn't you have left me as I was? I'd taught myself to feel nothing anymore. I just came, did what I was told, and left. I no longer wanted anything. And now…" He looked around him like a man caught in the middle of a nightmare he couldn't escape.

She reached for him. "Julian-"

Shaking his head, he stepped away from her grasp. "No!" He raked his hand through his hair. "I don't know where I belong anymore. You don't understand."

"Then tell me," she begged.

"How can I tell you what it's like to walk between two worlds? To be despised by both? I am neither man nor god, I am a hybrid abomination. You have no idea how I grew up. My mother passed me off to my father who passed me off to his wife who passed me around to anyone who could get me out of her sight. And for the last twenty centuries, I have been bartered and sold. I have spent my entire life searching for someplace to call home. Someone who would want me, and not my face, or my body." The tormented look in his eyes burned her.

"I want you, Julian."

"No you don't. How could you?"

She gaped at his question. "How could I not? My God, I've never in my life wanted to be with anyone as much as I want to be with you."

"It's lust you feel."

Now, that made her angry. How dare he dismiss her feelings as something so trivial. Her feelings for him ran much deeper than mere lust, they reached all the way to her soul. "Don't tell me what I feel. I'm not a child."