The only reason there were tears stinging Valen’s eyes was because Keras was a dick and squeezed too hard, hurting him. It had nothing to do with what he had said. Absolutely nothing.
Really.
His big brother hadn’t just made him go all teary-eyed by spouting shit about them being brothers, and family.
Not wanting to look like a sentimental prick, he cleared his throat and played it cool, even when Marek shot him a sly smile that he knew was meant to be teasing. Fucker.
“We should gather everyone to discuss this, because it has become clear we are facing an entire organisation, and we are yet to meet its ringleader.” Keras looked back at Marek, whose brown eyes got that twisted glow they had whenever he was being told to scour their database and do research. Marek nodded. “Let us meet in Tokyo.”
Valen nodded.
Keras and Marek both stepped, and Valen went to gather Eva into his arms and follow them, intent on getting her to Megan so the Carrier could heal her wounds.
Eva placed a hand against his chest, stopping him, and looked up into his eyes. “I need a moment… alone… with you.”
His heart pounded hard and he told himself not to read into it, that it wasn’t going to be anything bad and he wasn’t going to lose her, but old habits died the hardest and fear trickled through his veins, chilling his blood.
He nodded stiffly, gathered her into his arms and stepped, landing on the hilltop overlooking Rome.
She didn’t help matters by pushing out of his arms the second they landed and pacing across the grass.
Gods.
He swallowed hard and tried to steel his heart, but it was already falling apart, that dark voice at the back of his mind spreading poison through his blood that weakened it and pushed him to the verge of breaking.
Her job was done, contract fulfilled, and Benares was dead, no longer a threat to her.
But she loved him, didn’t she?
Didn’t she?
He stared at her, breathing hard as he fought for air, desperately trying to calm his mind so he could think rationally and not let his fears sweep him along.
They were too powerful though.
He couldn’t lose her.
“Eva—”
She cut him off. “I’m sorry.”
Gods, she really was going to leave him.
He growled and lightning struck hard all around them, tearing up the earth and filling the air with the scent of it. Rain lashed down, saturating them both, and she recoiled and turned in all directions as more lightning strikes connected, shaking the ground beneath their feet.
“Valen,” she shouted and did the most wonderful thing. She ran to him and cupped his cheeks in her palms, the fear shining in her eyes not fear of the lightning, nor fear of him. She feared for him. “What’s wrong?”
He couldn’t bring himself to say it, because he was no longer sure it was true, and he didn’t want her to laugh at him if it wasn’t. He wasn’t sure he could take her laughing at him. She wouldn’t mean to hurt him with it, but it would cut him deeply nonetheless.
He glared down at her.
She smoothed her left fingers across his brow, easing his frown away, so much concern in her eyes and all aimed at him, when she was hurt, her left eye swollen and cheek bruised, and lip split. She should have been more concerned about herself.
Gods, it hurt to look at her, to see her injured and know if he had been stronger, smarter, she might have been fine, spared the pain and the fear she must have felt.
He narrowed his eyes on her wounds and cursed himself.
“Why do you always make yourself look that way? Why must you always try to look so frightening? There is a good heart in here.”
She dropped her right hand to his chest.
He sneered at her as that heart she had spoken of so softly ached a little fiercer and fear brought his barriers shooting up around it, centuries of shielding it controlling him and making him snarl at her even when he only wanted to hold her and make her love him.
“I don’t have a heart,” he growled, and in part it was true, but not in the way he wanted her to believe. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
His soul whispered the true meaning of his words to hers.
Hadn’t she figured out that he had no heart because he had given it to her?
She spread her fingers outwards, covering more of his chest, and that heart pounded against her palm, desperate to reach her.
Her blue eyes held his. “Yes, I have figured you out. I just don’t quite understand you yet. I don’t understand why you act the way you do, why you pretend to be something you aren’t and why you push people away like you’re trying to push me away. That isn’t you.”
Gods, he didn’t want that.
He wanted to fall to his knees, wrap his arms around her waist and do whatever it took to make her stay, but the fear of losing her was too strong. It was fear that had been carved in that moment centuries ago, given form and control over him, and it had festered inside him ever since, eating away at him.
He was so tired of it, but he wasn’t sure he had the strength to take that necessary but difficult first step towards overcoming it.
“It is,” he said when all he wanted to do was tell her that she was right, and long ago he had been a different man, and he wanted to be that man again. “It is me, and it has been since—”
“Stop punishing yourself,” she whispered but she might as well have shouted because he rocked back on his heels, shaken by the force of her words. “Valen, you don’t have to keep punishing yourself. You reacted the way anyone would have.”
He looked away from her. “Not my brothers… or my parents. None of them would have done what I did. None of them… and I’m not sure they can forgive me.”
Gods, that had been hard to say, because he had threaded it with a hope, a need he was sure she would see.
He wanted their forgiveness.
“For killing the Moirai?” She frowned at him.
Valen shook his head. “I should have stopped her. I knew what she was going to do and I should have stopped her. I never should have let her go.”
Her blue eyes softened and he didn’t pull away when she raised her hands back to his face and held his cheeks. He took all the comfort she offered, pulled it deep into his soul and tried to patch up his heart with it.
“You can’t think like that.” Her eyes searched his and she sighed. “The fault lies with—”
“Don’t you blame her,” he snapped and lightning struck all around them, harsh flashes illuminating her wet face.
Another sigh escaped her. “I wasn’t going to. I was going to say that it lies with whoever killed her, not you. You can’t carry the weight of this alone, Valen… and you don’t have to.”
He clenched his fists when all he wanted to do was reach out and take hold of her, to apologise for being so messed up that he was lashing out at her when he didn’t even know why she had brought him here. Everything about her actions said it hadn’t been to dump his arse as he had thought.
Now she was trying to piece his heart back together for him, gently encouraging him to take that first step towards crossing the divide between him and his brothers and healing their bonds.
She was giving him all of her strength.
Fuck, he loved her for that.
“Who’s going to carry it with me?” He ignored how his voice shook, uncertainty and hope mingling in it to make him sound pathetic.
“Your brothers.”
He snorted. “They blame me too.”
Eva planted her hands on her hips and scowled at him, frustration darkening her eyes and warning him he was pushing too hard, needed to rein it back before he did end up driving her away.
“You want them to blame you, but they don’t. Your brothers do love you.” She caught his cheek when he went to look away, her touch firmer this time, and brought his head back around so his eyes met hers again. There was that temper he found so damn allur
ing. She looked ready to tear him a new one, or kiss the hell out of him. “They love you, and they worry about you. I worry about you. Stop punishing yourself… stop seeing what you want to see. I didn’t ask you to bring me here so I could turn against you, Stronzo.”
Ah. She did have him figured out after all.
He got the feeling that he would never be able to slip anything past her, that she would always read him like an open book, no matter how well he tried to hide his feelings. She had possessed that talent from the night their paths had first crossed in front of the Pantheon, and he felt blessed that whoever had created her for him, they had made her perfect in every way.
A woman who could see through him, straight down to his heart, and didn’t take any shit from him.
Or his brothers.
“Open your eyes, Valen, and see the truth for once.” Her soft voice coaxed him back to her and he looked down into her eyes, trying to spot what she was talking about.
“The truth?”
She nodded, and faltered, and did she look nervous now? Godsdammit, if she was going to leave him after all, Rome was about to get hit with a cataclysmic storm.
“Why did you bring me here?” He couldn’t hold on any longer without knowing, because he wasn’t going to be able to get a hold of his temper and clamp down on it until she just came out with it.
Her eyebrows rose. “To apologise for not being able to detain the wraith long enough for you to get there while he was still around. I didn’t want to mention it in front of your brothers… because there’s that thing where none of you seem to want to mention your sister in front of Calistos.”
Oh.
That was why she had wanted to be alone with him.
“And…” she said and tailed off, looked away from him and fiddled with her lip, suddenly fascinated with the cut in it.
He wanted to take her to Megan whenever he looked at her cut lip and swollen eye, but he knew Eva, and she would fight him if he took her anywhere before she was ready.
Before she had said all that she needed to say.
“And?” he parroted her, and wasn’t sure he could wait to hear it, because a tight feeling had settled in his chest, squeezing his heart, and he might die if she kept him waiting.
Or if it was just another apology.
“The truth is… Valen,” she whispered but her voice slowly gained strength, and volume as she turned back to face him and lifted her eyes back to his. “The truth is your family loves you, which is more than I’ve ever had, and you’re a good man… and I… I…”
“You what?” he said, maybe a little too harshly judging by how she glared at him.
He wasn’t trying to rush her.
Much.
Her pretty faced screwed up, frustration flashed in her eyes, and she grabbed his cheeks, pulled him down to her and whispered against his lips.
“Ti amo.”
Her mouth was on his before he could utter a word, her tongue stealing all of his focus as it traced his lower lip, and he somehow managed to restrain himself even when his heart was screaming at him to hold her tightly and make her know he felt the same way, that she was everything to him and he was never letting her go.
Rather than crushing her to his chest, he carefully wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up, and kissed her softly, tenderly, so he didn’t open the cut on her lip because no way in hell he could ever hurt her.
Because he loved her.
He poured it into the kiss as he held her to him, her legs around his waist and the rain pouring down on them. Lightning chased across the sky, making the air hum with its power, but not his body this time.
That hummed with the joy Eva had given him, two simple Italian words that had pieced his heart back together and given him the strength to move forwards, towards a day when he would be the male he had once been, the male he wanted to be for her.
And on that day, when he was good enough for her, when he was the male that she deserved, he would tell her.
In a language she understood.
He was going to have to pay penitence for this, but fucking hell it would be worth it.
He smiled against her lips, carefully covered her ears to protect them, and whispered in the tongue of the Underworld.
“I love you too.”
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Felicity Heaton is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author who writes passionate paranormal romance books. In her books, she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons!
If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter, Larissa Ione and Christine Feehan then you will enjoy her books too.
If you love your angels a little dark and wicked, her best-selling Her Angel romance series is for you. If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm romance series or any of her stand alone vampire romance books. If you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful, passionate and erotic then try her Vampire Erotic Theatre romance series. Or if you like hot-blooded alpha heroes who will let nothing stand in the way of them claiming their destined woman then try her Eternal Mates series. It’s packed with sexy heroes in a world populated by elves, vampires, fae, demons, shifters, and more. If sexy Greek gods with incredible powers battling to save our world and their home in the Underworld are more your thing, then be sure to step into the world of Guardians of Hades.
In 2011, five of her six paranormal romance books received Top Pick awards from Night Owl Reviews and Forbidden Blood was nominated as Best PNR Vampire Romance 2011 at The Romance Reviews. In 2012, she was awarded the GraveTells Author of the Year Award, and Heart of Darkness was announced as a 2013 Epic Ebook Awards finalist in the Paranormal Romance category. Many of her books receive five star reviews from readers and review sites alike.
To see her other novels, visit: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk
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PARANORMAL ROMANCE BOOKS BY FELICITY HEATON
Stories in the Guardians of Hades romance series
Book 1: Ares
Book 2: Valen
Book 3: Esher - Coming in 2017
Stories in the Eternal Mates romance series
Book 1: Kissed by a Dark Prince
Book 2: Claimed by a Demon King
Book 3: Tempted by a Rogue Prince
Book 4: Hunted by a Jaguar
Book 5: Craved by an Alpha
Book 6: Bitten by a Hellcat
Book 7: Taken by a Dragon
Book 8: Marked by an Assassin
Book 9: Possessed by a Dark Warrior
Book 10: Awakened by a Demoness
Book 11: Haunted by the King of Death
Stories in the Vampire Erotic Theatre romance series
Book 1: Covet
Book 2: Crave
Book 3: Seduce
Book 4: Enslave
Book 5: Bewitch
Book 6: Unleash
Stories in the Her Angel romance series
Book 1: Her Dark Angel
Book 2: Her Fallen Angel
<
br /> Book 3: Her Warrior Angel
Book 4: Her Guardian Angel
Book 5: Her Demonic Angel
Book 6: Her Wicked Angel
Book 7: Her Avenging Angel
Book 8: Her Sinful Angel
Stories in the Vampires Realm romance series
Book 1: Prophecy: Child of Light
Book 2: Prophecy: Caelestis & Aurorea
Book 3: Prophecy: Dark Moon Rising
Book 3.1: Spellbound
Book 3.5: Reunion
Book 4: Seventh Circle
Book 5: Winter's Kiss
Book 6: Hunter's Moon
Book 7: Masquerade
Book 8: Hunger
Books 1-3 are also available in one anthology ebook: Prophecy Trilogy
Stories in the In Heat romance series
Book 1: In Heat
Book 2: In Heat: Mating Call
Stand alone paranormal romance books
Blood and Snow
Love Immortal
Ascension
Forbidden Blood
Heart of Darkness
Vampire for Christmas
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2017 Felicity Heaton
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The right of Felicity Heaton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First printed February 2017
First Edition
Layout and design by Felicity Heaton
Valen (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 2) Page 37
