Nazreen

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The room was unsuspecting. With plain walls and a lone double bed in the middle of the room, it looked like any other room. Portraits of landscapes lined the walls, as well as a collection of decorative swords above a hearth.

Nazreen stared at the hunter as though he'd gone mad.

"We can try some fighting with those later," He said, nodding towards the wall. "For now, I want to see how you are with your hands."

She choked on a breath.

He's being serious.

If he caught onto her disbelief, then he didn't say anything.

"Up you get Princess. Show me what you've got."

"You can't be serious."

"Do I look serious? Come on. We've got time to burn."

"I don't want to do anything with you right now."

"I get that you're mad at me, but there's more benefit in this for you than there is for me. I'm trying to help you here. Think of it this way. You've got a vampire now. That's a physical advantage over me. With a bit of training, you might someday come close to kicking my ass. Now get up."

"I'm not—I'm not doing anything with you. You're a liar in every which sense of the word."

And he'd made a fool out of her.

Repeatedly.

He broke my heart.

This was crap Annaliese wouldn't have stood for. Nazreen was weak and wanted to, but even she had a limit. This time, the hunter had crossed it.

Maybe she'd been born to be walked over. The hunter was supposed to be her match made in heaven, her soulmate. And even he'd used her.

Nazreen was no idiot. She knew she didn't hold a candle to that brunette she'd seen in Emilio's home.

That woman had been two things that Nazreen would never be. Loud and confident. Nazreen would guess she was powerful too. Strong.

That was the kind of woman Emilio went for. It came as no surprise to her. She'd known it all along.

So in the meantime, he'd been having his fun with Nazreen.

She'd been the bed warmer of her first kiss.

Well, he wouldn't be getting anything else out of her.

Emilio sighed, running a stressed hand through his hair. "Alright Nazreen. You win. I admit it. I shouldn't have lied about the letter. I shouldn't have hidden it from you. It was wrong and selfish and—and it wasn't fair to you." He covered his face with his hands and groaned tiredly. "But I'm trying here. Look, there's a million reasons I could give to you to try and justify why I did it—but the truth is that, yeah, I was a little intimidated by it. I was scared. I'm old. I'm too old to not understand things. And I'm sorry. It doesn't excuse me keeping it from you, but that was my reason. Do you forgive me?"

The hunter was scared of something he didn't know.

Older immortals than him had faced that same fear of something Evette had predicted.

But that wasn't what she was getting at. Sure, that was annoying too—but Nazreen was past that. She had another letter now anyway. One she'd been given strict warning not to let the hunter know about.

What mattered were her feelings, and he'd hurt them.

God, she was so sick of being everyone's plaything.

"It doesn't make up for your other lies."

Emilio frowned, exasperated. "What other lies have I told you?"