But Melena held back. And now she noticed that there was something different about him tonight. Something different in the relaxed state of his glyphs, in his schooled expression.
“You were gone for a long time,” she murmured. And then she did start to approach him, though not with the jubilation she felt just a moment ago. This was something heavier. Something that stung as the realization began to dawn on her. “You’ve fed. You went out to find a blood Host. A woman?”
He didn’t deny it.
Damn him, he just stood there, watching impassively as she slowed to a stop in front of him. The array of skin markings on his arms under his rolled-back sleeves were calm, satiated. “Did you f**k her too, Lazaro?”
Behind her, Melena heard Jehan quietly clear his throat. There was brief movement in the corridor at her back, followed by the polite closing of a door as the two warriors made a hasty exit.
“Did you?” she repeated, now that it was just she and Lazaro in the passageway.
He swore, roundly, fiercely under his breath. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
She scoffed. “You know what’s ridiculous? Sitting around waiting for you to return. Hoping that I didn’t somehow push you away tonight. But how can I push you away when I never had you in the first place?”
She swept past him on a wounded, furious cry. She didn’t know if he followed. In that moment, she didn’t care.
But he had followed her. She had only made it to the main floor of the mansion’s residential wing when Lazaro halted her by grasping her hand. “Melena—”
“You know what else is ridiculous?” she fumed at him. “Hoping you’d come back and tell me that you realize there’s something serious going on between us too.” She glanced away, giving a shake of her head. “It’s ridiculous to expect that a man who’s been living his life like a ghost for twenty years could ever admit that he actually feels something again.”
Wrenching out of his light hold, she ran for the stairs. She heard him stalking up behind her, but he didn’t stop her now. Her breath was heaving by the time she found herself in the center of Lazaro’s palatial living room suite.
“I don’t want another blood bond, Melena. I won’t risk it.” His deep voice sounded brittle at her back. “So, whatever you think is happening here between us, it has no future.”
“Whatever I think?” She turned to face him. It stung that he wanted to diminish what they’d shared, but she didn’t believe him. She could see that he cared. But he was also determined to push her away. He truly intended to spend the rest of his life alone, punishing himself for something he couldn’t control. “I know about your family, Lazaro. I know you blame yourself for not being there to save Ellie and the rest of your Darkhaven.”
He glared at her furiously, as if she had violated some boundary simply in speaking of the incident. “They trusted me to keep them safe. I failed them.”
“You weren’t there. That’s all. And that’s a completely different thing.”
“No, not to me. And if you know so much about it, then you should also understand why I left to find a blood Host tonight. After making love with you, if I’d stayed...” He exhaled sharply. “The ifs don’t matter. I don’t want another Breedmate shackled to me and reliant on me for protection, for her sustenance. For her life. I won’t do that to someone again. I prefer to keep my appetites restricted to human females.”
Melena scoffed. “Safe women you can f**k and feed from without the risk of feeling anything.”
He stared, unflinching at her jab. “It is simpler that way, yes.”
“Women who leave you free to walk away and wallow in your guilt and self-flagellation.”
His full lips had compressed in a flat line as she spoke, his expression hardening now. “That’s right, Melena. That’s exactly the kind of woman I prefer. Simple. Safe. Forgettable. What I don’t want is what nearly happened between us today. I’m not going to sacrifice two decades of resolve on a couple of days of passion.”
And she didn’t want to hear him say that. No more than she wanted to acknowledge the regret she saw in his dark gaze, or the grim determination that emanated from the stormy color of his aura. “How fortunate for you and your martyred honor that I’ll be out of your life tomorrow.”
She pivoted away from him on a burst of hot anger and bitter pride.
She didn’t even make it two steps.
Lazaro was suddenly in front of her. And he was fuming. He seized her shoulders, blocking her path with the muscled wall of his body and the power of his sudden fury.
Amber sparks crackled in the midnight-blue pools of his eyes as his gaze clashed and locked with hers. “The fact that you’ll soon be out of my life is fortunate for you too, Melena.” He drew in a breath and more fire leapt into his irises, reducing his pupils to thinning, inhuman slits. “You should be thanking me for my restraint thus far, not stomping off to pout like a petulant child.”
“Let go of me.” He didn’t. If anything, his grip only went firmer. His face was so close to hers now, the bones of his high, angled cheeks sharpening with the emergence of his fangs. She refused to shrink under the full blast of his Gen One fury. “You call it restraint, the fact that you deny yourself the things you really want? Do you honestly think your guilt is ever going to release you if you only keep feeding it with your self-imposed isolation and pointless, hollow honor?”
A snarl curled up from his throat. It escaped through bared teeth and fangs. “You’re far too young to lecture me on life and death or guilt and honor. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”