I'll Be Slaying You(93)

Actually, no, she didn’t know that part. She wasn’t some kind of all seeing, walking, talking crystal ball. All she’d had were glimpses. Snatches of conversation. His memories. The few that had filtered through the blood link. What became of Mr. Trigger Happy, she had no idea. So she just stared back at Simon and waited.

“There wasn’t a choice, Dee. He forced my hand.”

Ah, one of those stories that wasn’t going to end well.

“Frankie came after me, okay? He shot me in the back and would have killed me—”

“Wait.” Her eyes narrowed. “Frankie?” The guy’s face flashed before her eyes. Broad features. Balding hair. “Frankie Lee?” She should have put those pieces together sooner.

“Yeah.”

She whistled and drummed her fingers on his chest. “Went big-time slumming, huh?” Word on the street was that Frankie would shoot his own mother—and, actually, had—for a quick grand.

“He came after me,” Simon repeated, his face tense. “There wasn’t a choice.”

Silence for a moment, then Dee ventured, “I’m guessing old Frankie won’t be taking any more hits.”

His palm pressed harder against her back. “I swear I didn’t pay him to kill you. I wouldn’t have done that!”

“But you didn’t even know me then. I was just a hunter to you, another—”

“You were everything.” Rasped. His eyes blazed at her. “You still are.”

What did a woman say to that? Dee pulled away from him and reached for the sheet. She just needed to cover up, to take a second to think.

He grabbed her wrist. “You don’t want to hear about how I feel, do you? Too damn bad, babe.” His thumb rubbed over her pulse point. “You know I came after you because I thought you’d take down Grim.”

And she had. A point for the good guys. Well, semi–good guys, anyway. “I know you wanted to be free, you’ve already—”

“I wanted you. Want you.” Simon shook his head. “From the moment I saw you, I wanted you.”

Fair enough. She’d wanted to jump him, too. He’d tackled her; she’d wanted to return the favor.

“I thought it was just lust, Dee. That I could take you, enjoy you, and walk away.”

Kind of hard not to flinch at that one. With her left hand, she jerked the sheet up to her chin. Simon held tight to her right wrist. “So you were using me for sex and death?” Grim’s death. No getting around she’d been a means to an end there. But she’d thought there might be more. He’d made her think that.

I’ll fucking love you forever.

Say it again.

But now the guy wasn’t talking rose petals and sunsets.

“I knew I was lost.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the flesh of her palm. “When you died in my arms.”

Okay, she definitely flinched. Not her best memory.

“I wanted to change you. You were dying in front of me, and I knew you were supposed to be a Born. Catalina had told me about you.”

Had she really thanked the witch properly for that? Nah. She hadn’t let Cat know how much she appreciated the woman’s secrecy. Payback, um, gratitude would come eventually.

“You weren’t going to stay dead.”

Who did these days?

“You weren’t supposed to stay dead,” he amended. “But I was shit-scared and when your eyes closed, I wanted to change you.”

Her heart stilled at that.

“I wanted it so fucking much.” Another hot kiss against her palm.

“But you didn’t try.” No bite. No exchange of blood.

“No.” His breath blew against her flesh. “Because if I was wrong about you, if the witch and that damn seer were wrong, I wasn’t about to make you into the thing you hated.”

And she had hated the idea of vampirism. Becoming a vampire had once been her worst nightmare. Strange, because now, things all seemed so different.

“If you were dying, I wasn’t going to make you come back to me. That was the hardest thing I ever did.” His lips thinned. “Watching you die and not knowing if you’d ever open your eyes again.”

The last thing she’d seen had been him. “You left me.” The words came out as an accusation and she realized that, yeah, that had bothered her. No matter what was going on between them, no matter what secrets he’d kept—and she’d known there were secrets even then—she’d expected him to stay with her.

“I thought I was the last person you’d want to see.”

He’d been the one she wanted the most.

“I knew you needed time to adjust. Seeing me…I was afraid it would push you too much.” His gaze held hers. “But then you came to me.”