Last time she’d seen him, he’d shattered her heart into a million pieces. She couldn’t survive the pain twice. “Love?” she scoffed. “Maybe I was once naive enough to believe that such an emotion would make a difference in our story, but I’m not anymore. You don’t know what love is and I’m sure I’ll get over my misguided sentiment with time.”
“You won’t,” he said, sounding infuriatingly sure. “And I do know what love is.”
She knew her expression said plainly she didn’t believe him.
“When I met Claudette,” Lucian said, pain flashing through his eyes, “I was lonely and isolated. She pulled me back into the world and I adored her for it. I will be forever thankful to her for bringing Melissa into my life.”
“But?”
“But what I felt for her doesn’t even compare to what I feel for you.”
She inhaled. Surely it couldn’t be true. Claudette was everything to him.
“She was my friend,” he continued. “My only friend. But I didn’t see her the way she needed me to.”
“I don’t understand.”
A bittersweet smile lit his face. “She accused me of never really loving her because I couldn’t get past her humanity. I didn’t understand it.”
“She was right.” Abbey thought of the words she’d said to Christian and knew it was true of Lucian, too. She wasn’t going to change who she was just because he couldn’t handle her as a human.
“Yes,” he said. “I did see humans as inferior.”
She’d known, of course, but hearing the words was like a dagger into her bruised heart. It robbed her of breath and made her stumble back as if it’d been a physical blow.
“Why did you come here to say this? Why couldn’t you have just stayed away?”
He surged forward, catching her hands even when she tried to pull back. “Listen,” he said. “I didn’t appreciate humans until I met you. You made me see the abilities mortals have, the passions and failures they feel so deeply. Through your eyes, I saw the power of mortality. Frail, dying, and yet more alive than I’ve been in hundreds of years. You battered my misconceptions until one day I looked at you and all I saw was perfection.” His hands tightened on hers. “How could I deride a race that created my fated match?”
The words froze her. They were so much more than she’d dreamed of but so much less than she could believe.
“Your mate could never be human.” She whispered the words everyone had been telling her for weeks.
“Too bad,” he replied. “Because she is. Beautifully, perfectly human.”
Abbey didn’t tug her hands away, but she couldn’t meet his eyes either. If she started to believe him, even for a second, she’d be crushed far worse than she had been. She needed to be strong and protect her heart from a man who hadn’t cared if he trampled it only days before.
“Never trust a vampire,” she murmured.
She felt his lips brush a gentle kiss against her hair. “I will spend eternity making this mistake up to you. I promise. But you need to give me a chance to make it right.”
“No.”
His mouth planted featherlight kisses along her cheek. “You are it for me, Abbey. And I am for you. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I’ll find someone else. Someone human.”
“You won’t. And we will spend our lifetimes in misery. Wouldn’t you rather spend it in my arms?”
Yes. “I wasn’t enough for you. Too mortal and breakable for you to be with. You didn’t want to stay with me when we started this relationship.”
Without hesitation, Lucian dropped to his knees and took her hand. He pressed a searing kiss to her palm before whispering, “Forgive me.”
Abbey closed her eyes. He wasn’t wrong. She’d spend the rest of her life dreaming of him. And here he was. Her proud vampire lord on his knees in the middle of her living room.
How did she walk away from that?
It all came down to one last chance. Maybe she’d jump and he’d fail to catch her. Maybe this was a mistake that would maim her heart forever, but what was her alternative?
Life without him. Which was no choice at all.
Abbey dropped to her knees. She cupped his strong jaw and brought his face to hers. Lucian said nothing as she studied him, giving her the time she needed to make her decision.
Christian had offered her forever and all she’d felt was a wistful desire to claim the life of safety and security he represented.
Nothing about Lucian was safe. Not his job, not his life, nothing. Who knew if he’d wake up one morning and wish his mate was more than she was? Loving him was a risk.