“Tough shit,” she said, keeping her voice barely above a whisper.
A growl rumbled in the back of Alexander’s throat as his eyes lowered. “Your mouth is exquisitely delectable when you curse at me.”
A searing wave of desire moved through Sara and in her mind she saw flashes of his hands on her skin, raking up the insides of her legs . . . Goddammit! Why did he have to come here? Why couldn’t he just leave her alone, let her get over him, forget he existed? She glared at him, asked with barely restrained calm, “How’s Bronwyn this evening?”
His gaze caught hers and held. There was great care in their depths. “I wouldn’t know. Lucian is responsible for that particular guest.”
So he hadn’t fed from her? Is that what he was saying? Or he had and he was done, like fast food? She didn’t want to ask, couldn’t bear the answer if it was the wrong one.
He was watching her, his eyes heavy lidded and filled with ire. “The man in the bathroom wants to fuck you. Did you know that?”
Yes, she knew. “What do you want, Alexander?”
“I want you to come home.”
“That’s not my home.” She shook her head, as much to herself as to him. She had no home, wouldn’t until Gray recovered. What Alexander offered her was another place for failure and pain.
“I want you in my bed,” he persisted.
“I don’t belong in your bed.” Where she was good enough to screw, but not feed from . . .
“Why are you out with this man?” Alexander demanded, his voice remaining low and controlled, though his face contorted with rage.
She knew people were staring at them. “It’s none of your business,” she told him.
“I won’t have it.”
“Do you hear yourself? You sound like a caveman.” She glanced over his massive shoulder to where the bathrooms were. “You need to go.”
His face changed and his eyes softened. “I need you,” he said gently.
“What you need is something I can’t give you.”
“Not true.” His eyes blazed with heat, with something close to anticipation. “I wish to make you an offer.”
She shook her head, her heart utterly deflated, her body and mind growing weary of the fight. “What does that mean?”
“You return home, and I will help your brother.”
She froze. “What did you say?”
“His memory of the fire, the pain, all of it, I will remove it from his mind.”
Sara shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
“I wish you had told me earlier. I wish I had asked.” He nodded, reached for her hand. “I’m sorry for that. But I can help you now. I can remove the memory and the pain from his mind.”
She kept shaking her head. The madness he was spouting was almost intolerable, cruel to say the very least. All these years, all the work, and she had barely made a dent in Gray’s memory. As if it were so easy . . .
“Sara—”
“I don’t believe you.” She pulled her hand away, ignoring the feeling of immediate and painful loss. “Why would you say something like that? Suggest something like that? When you know how it would hurt me.”
“Sara, it is the truth.”
“It’s not possible.”
“It is,” he insisted. “It is part of my abilities as a morphed Pureblood. I am able to remove memory through the blood.”
The explanation stopped her, made her stare at him. The thread of hope she’d carried with her these past ten years suddenly trembled inside her tired body.
“There are risks to his memory as a whole,” he continued, seeing the change in her expression. “But they’re very low. I have every confidence he would—”
She stopped him with a fierce glare. “No.” She had to think, had to process what he was telling her with what she knew to be real. The threads of hope pulsed within her, wanting to kill the fear and confusion that accompanied it. “Please, Alexander, I need you to go.”
“Sara, you are a practical woman. Please do not react to this suggestion emotionally or irrationally.”
Her eyes filled with tears. It was too much. Didn’t he get that? Didn’t he get the hugeness of what he’d just offered her?
She spotted Pete coming back from the bathroom, looking pale, but alive.
“The man returns.” Alexander said the words like a snake hissing.
Sara locked eyes with him, her tone pleading. “If you care anything for me, you’ll go now.”
He looked ready to argue, but didn’t. Instead, he nodded. “Think on my offer, Sara.”
Pete drew closer. Sara uttered, “Please. Go.”
Alexander leaned down, whispered in her ear, “If he touches you,” he said, lapping at the sensitive skin of her lobe, “I swear I will hunt him down and rip out his heart.”
As every ounce of blood in her veins went hot and electric and traveled south of her navel, Sara forced her gaze away from Alexander and onto the pale shell of a boss who was walking dispiritedly toward her.
Two hours later, Sara lay on her bed at the hotel room, sheets stripped, lights off, waiting for the inevitable to occur. He would come, and when he did he would once again claim he could fix her brother.
Traumatic memory gone. All visions of the fire and the terror and the pain of his burns.
Gone.
She rolled onto her stomach. Of course, she’d been trying to do that for more than four years now with very little success, and yet the amazing, all-powerful, morphed vampire could make it happen in an instant.
It had to be bullshit. Right?
She flipped to her back again, stared up at the ceiling, at the shadows the adjacent buildings made. What if he could do it? Really take the memory from Gray’s mind? The thing was, Alexander himself was an impossibility, a miracle . . .
She turned in to her pillow and closed her eyes for a moment. What if?
She must’ve dozed off on the thought because when she woke up the shadows on the ceiling had changed. Now, instead of floating rooflines, the outline of a man stretched out above her. She sat up, turned toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. Alexander stood on the balcony, twenty stories from the ground, his black wool coat turned up at the collar, the tails striking his thighs in the wind. Her heart leaped into her throat at the size of him, at the brutality of his face, at the raw desire in his eyes.
She scurried off the bed and went to the window. But instead of letting him in, she went out to meet him. The frigid wind whipped at her face and her hair the second she stepped onto the concrete.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” he said, his eyes taking in every feature on her face. “But I had to see you.”
She stood a good three feet from him and hugged her arms to her chest. “I know why you’re here, and I’ve thought about your offer.” She shook her head. “I just can’t do it, Alexander.”
He took a step toward her. “You’re freezing. Let’s go inside.”
She shook her head, backed up, put her hand out to block him because if he touched her it was all over. “I want you to understand. I can’t take the risk.”
His dark brows came together. “Which risk are you speaking of? The one to Gray’s mind?”
“Yes.”
“Sara,” he said gently. “I told you—”
“You told me there was a small chance of permanent damage to his memory.”
“Infinitesimal. Far less than anything you’re doing to him now.” Alexander studied her. “Is it truly your brother you’re worried about?”
“Of course,” she said far more passionately than she intended.
His pupils dilated as he watched her, his nostrils flared as he took in her scent. I DON’T BELIEVE YOU.
She pointed at him. “Don’t do that!”
He shrugged. “I fear you’re lying to me, and to yourself.”
“That’s ridiculous. I just don’t want to do things your way, come back to your house and live with you.” Her whole body was shaking now. From cold, and from concern that perhaps Alexander saw her mind and heart better than she ever could. “Go home.”
His eyes locked with hers. “I am home. Wherever you are ...”