But the temptation to confess everything and share it with someone at last was strong, beating in his blood and his soul, coaxing him into putting voice to his past and letting it flow out of him in the hope that his pain would lessen by opening his heart to Sera.
Sera was strong, unyielding in her pursuit of him, but was she strong enough to handle his horrific past and the terrible future that awaited him?
“I’m not afraid, Antoine,” she whispered as though she had read his thoughts and rested her cheek against his back, just as she had done on the stage before they had made love.
Antoine closed his eyes and absorbed the feel of her pressing against him, the intensity of the comfort it gave him, as though they were old lovers rather than practically strangers.
“You won’t hurt me.”
He wished he could believe that as fervently as she obviously did.
Antoine turned to pull her into his arms.
There was a knock at his door.
He sidestepped and passed her instead of surrendering to his need to hold her. Javier was at the door. The sandy-haired elite male smiled grimly at him, a smudge of blood on his cheek from where he had been struggling with Snow.
“Lilah has him settled now. She is singing a lullaby to him and says he will be sleeping by the end of it.”
Antoine raised a single dark eyebrow.
Javier gave an easy shrug of his shoulders. “Don’t ask me. Apparently, it works like a charm. He likes it when she reads to him too.”
“I do not think it’s wise for her to spend so much time around him, especially alone.”
“You tell her that. I am her mate and her sire, and I cannot convince her to keep away from him. I can guarantee that if you visit him tomorrow night, you will see the difference it makes. He is often much calmer and more in control the night after Lilah has sung him to sleep.”
Incredible. His brother was not only a beast but a baby too. The Devil, Antoine prayed he never succumbed to bloodlust. He didn’t want Sera singing him to sleep like a babe each morning just to have him sane the next night when he awoke.
Antoine paused.
How had she got under his skin so quickly? Hadn’t he decided to end this? Now he was thinking in terms of years down the line and he remembered all too well what had happened the last time he had started doing that.
Nothing but endless pain and misery.
A century of happiness gone in a heartbeat.
“Thank her for me,” Antoine said and Javier looked as though he had just kneed him in the groin. His brown eyes were wide and his eyebrows were pinned high up his forehead.
Antoine huffed and closed the door in his face. Even he said thank you when someone had done something worthy of it.
“Antoine?” Sera’s voice coming from his left rather than his right caused him to frown.
He turned and found her sitting on the edge of his bed, one bare leg bent at the knee and resting on the red silk covers, the ankle of it tucked under her other leg where it draped over the edge.
Temptation.
Which Sera was sitting before him now? She must have snuck across the room whilst he had been talking to Javier and seated herself on his bed, so when he finished and turned away from the door he would find her there, beautifully arranged and waiting for him.
Challenging him.
The vixen.
The flash of wickedness in her green eyes gave her away.
It seemed his vixen wasn’t going to heed any of his warnings. Stubborn minx. Had Elizabeth warned her about him too? He knew her sire well, and her sire knew him. There was no doubt in his mind that Elizabeth had recounted various reasons for her to snuff out her desire for him before it really got burning, but he found himself wanting to hear her admit it.
“You do not take warnings to heart, do you?” he said and she just shrugged and then leaned back on his bed, propping herself up on her hands. She drew her foot out from under her thigh, dangling both of her legs over the edge of the bed and swinging them back at forth at opposite times.
Antoine stalked around her, keeping his distance, observing her and battling the temptation to surrender to her once again.
“No doubt Elizabeth told you not to involve yourself with me?”
She nodded. “Not so much involve. She told me not to even try. Said you were... as frigid as a nun and as cold as ice.”
That one actually stung. Elizabeth had said that about him after everything he had done for her?
“Don’t be angry with her. She doesn’t seem to know you... the real you.” Sera swung her legs forwards and propelled herself onto her feet. She stalked across the room towards him, hips swaying and her eyes on his, like a true predator. When she reached him, she trailed her fingers down his chest, her touch heating him to boiling point even with his silver-grey shirt dampening the feel of it. Sera tiptoed and brought her mouth to his ear. She whispered into it, “I know you now... I won’t break, Antoine, and I won’t hurt you... not unless you ask nicely.”