I glanced away. Once again, he'd skipped the "chance" part of my conditions and gone right for the panty-dropping expectation. Given my reaction to him this afternoon, I couldn't really blame him for being confident, but did I really want to risk my heart again? I'd agreed to give him another chance only because I thought it was impossible. Since then, he kept talking about it as if it were a sure thing. I'd brushed it off, but now, I had to deal with the possibility that he might pull it off. And if he did...
I looked back at him, asking the questions I'd been wondering about for the past several days. "Then what? Let's say you do prove that you won't betray me again, and I agree to celebrate with lots of sex and champagne. Is that all you want?"
It was as close to asking him if he still loved me as I dared, but the need to know burned as much as my tattoo had before. Adrian set down his half of the broken chocolate bar, then turned to face me fully.
"For longer than you can imagine, I thought I existed only to betray and to kill." Not even his controlled tone could mask the fierce resonance in his words. "And I loved being the weapon that would save Demetrius and the rest of the demons. They had raised me, rescued me and my mother from the Archons, or so I thought. Then I found out that my mother had been murdered by Demetrius and he'd used his shape-shifting abilities for decades to fool me into believing that she was still alive. Everything Demetrius and the other demons had told me was a lie...well, everything except for my fate as the last Judian."
He paused, a small, bitter smile curling his mouth. "After that, I couldn't stand to think of the future, and I couldn't stand to remember my past. The only thing that numbed my pain and rage was fighting the demons who'd once been my people, so I resigned myself to doing that for the rest of my life. Then, months ago, that same pain and rage compelled me to spend time with the one person I most wanted to avoid. The last Davidian."
He took my hands, twining his fingers through mine, and when he spoke again, the harsh bleakness had left his tone.
"I didn't want to know you, like you, need you, or most of all, love you, but I did. I still do. You are my destiny, Ivy, just not how everyone predicted. Now, when I think of the future, I think of spending it with you. The past still tears at me, but I can't change it, and if I help you find the staff, then I'll save more people than I've harmed. That's what I'm fighting for, and as you can see, it's a hell of a lot more than just champagne and sex."
I stared at him, feeling as though every word had struck me right in the heart. Emotions I'd fought came roaring to the surface, making the words I love you, too, tremble on the edge of my lips.
But if I said them, I wouldn't be able to hold anything back, and I had to. This was more than bad relationship timing: destiny said that we were supernaturally doomed as a couple. I might want to believe that Adrian could beat his fate, but how could I throw caution to the winds in the middle of a demon realm, let alone an apocalyptic war? If I couldn't even wait until Adrian made good on his promise to prove that he wouldn't betray me again, then I had no business resuming a relationship where the fallout could be far more serious than rebreaking my heart.
"I still care for you," I said, my voice cracking from everything I wouldn't allow myself to say. "And I want that chance to see if we'd work out. But right now... I can't."
His arms closed around me and he held me tight enough to almost force the air out of my lungs. I must've made a gasping sound because he released me, his hands gripping my shoulders instead. They kept flexing, as if he were having difficulty holding in his strength, and when he pressed his forehead against mine, his ragged breaths fell onto my cheeks.
"I know, but I'm not giving up, and you shouldn't, either. Besides, love and lust aside, I don't want to break my promise to you. I want you to know that you can trust me, both with your life, your sister's and everyone else's."
If it were only my life at risk. But it wasn't, and I was relieved that he understood that. Jasmine had been through too much for me to make that decision for her, and the same was true for everyone else. Still, I wanted him to know what his vow meant to me. I reached out, stroking his face. "Adrian, I-"
His hand clapped over my mouth with a suddenness that startled me. Then fear replaced my surprise when he rose and pulled me up with him, his heart hammering hard enough for me to feel the vibrations against my cheek.
"It can't be," he muttered in a barely audible whisper.
I pulled his hand away and turned around, looking at the only thing I could see in the darkness-the castle. Then I stared, my mind nearly going blank with disbelief.