That awful terror swamped her, spurred on by his shouting. But anger accompanied it. “You just told me you’re going to kill me!”
“Of course I am!” he bellowed. “Did you think I was going to let someone else do it?”
Ami’s fight or flight instincts kicked in, leaning heavily toward flight, but she resisted them. Something was wrong here. Marcus would never hurt her. No matter how she angered him.
He resumed his furious pacing, raked a hand through his long hair. “What was it? You didn’t trust me?”
Ami intended to deny it. She did trust him. But he stopped short suddenly and glared at an empty corner on the opposite side of the bedroom.
“Oh, no. No no no no no. You are not welcome here. I’m having a hard enough time dealing with this as it is. I can’t take you, too.” He pointed to the doorway. “Get out! Now!”
Ami pressed her lips together. Marcus was beginning to seem a bit unhinged. Could this be a side effect of the drug?
A smidgeon of tension left his shoulders. Lowering his arm, he cast her a sheepish look. “Sebastien’s sister. She must have followed me from David’s.”
Oh. “Is she gone?”
“Yes.”
Again he paced, his movements rife with agitation. “I don’t know why I didn’t guess the truth sooner.”
“How could you have? Seth didn’t even guess it.”
A disbelieving huff of a laugh escaped him. “If he told you that, honey, he lied.”
She frowned.
“I don’t understand why he didn’t just tell me himself,” Marcus went on. “All those hints he dropped about the suffering you had endured …”
“What?”
“And the little slip about rescuing you. I just don’t know why I didn’t put it all together.” He laughed, an awful, despairing sound. “Eight hundred years of fighting vampires. You would’ve thought I would have realized I was falling in love with one.”
Ami’s mouth dropped open. “Marcus, I’m not a vampire.”
“Don’t! Lie! To me!” he shouted, fangs descending, eyes glowing as brightly as a 150-watt bulb.
Ami thought that, even if the past two years had never happened, in that instant she would have feared him. Heart pounding in her chest, she eased from the bed on the side opposite him. Her katanas, both cleaned and sheathed, leaned up against the wall in the corner closest to her.
“I don’t know why I can’t smell the virus on you, but all the signs are there,” he growled. “Your superior fighting skills, far beyond those of an ordinary human. The way you always know where I am. Your ability to move without making a sound.”
“I’m not a vampire,” she repeated, drifting closer to her weapons just in case.
“I watched your wounds heal! I held you in my arms, dreading your last breath, and watched your wounds heal as swiftly as my own do when I’m at full strength!”
The agony in his eyes brought tears to her own. “Marcus,” she said, injecting as much calm into her voice as she could, “I am not a vampire.”
He shook his head. “Why are you still denying it? Is it … ?” He looked away, closed his eyes, swallowed hard. “Seth said you had suffered for two years. Two years is around the time the … deterioration begins. Have you—”
“I’m not losing my mind.”
Shoulders wilting, he nodded.
Understanding now, she seated herself on the edge of the bed. “Come sit down,” she entreated softly. “Please.”
Circling the bed, he stunned her by sitting on the edge beside her instead of returning to the chair.
She held out her hand. He took it, squeezed it tightly in his own, which trembled from the turmoil that raged within him.
“I want you to listen to me this time,” she said. “I’m not a vampire.”
When he opened his mouth, she held up a hand.
“The sun has no effect on me. Vampires can’t stand even the weakest rays. I have premonitions. Vampires don’t. Vampires need blood transfusions to survive. I don’t.” A discordant thought arose. “You didn’t infuse me while I was sleeping, did you?”
“No.” His brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. Seth said you aren’t a gifted one.”
“I’m not. I’m also not an immortal,” she clarified.
“Then what are you?”
She glanced down at their clasped hands. “I don’t know how to say it without its sounding either utterly ridiculous or alarming.”
“Ami, I just spent the past fifteen hours believing you were a vampire and that I was going to have to watch you transform from who you are now—the playful, courageous, intelligent woman I love—to a feral monster I would have to behead in a few short years. Whatever you have to tell me cannot possibly be that bad.”
She nodded and wished she had spent a little time rehearsing what she would say instead of just procrastinating. “I’ve never told anyone this before,” she began.“Doesn’t Seth know?”
“Seth, David, and Darnell all know, but I didn’t tell them. They uncovered it in some of the files they stole when they rescued me.”
“Then tell me,” he urged softly. “Please.”
“The thing is … I’m a lot like a gifted one. My DNA is different, more advanced. I heal quickly, age slowly, and have some other abilities. It’s just … I’m not from around here.”
He frowned. “You mean you’re not from the States?”
She took a deep breath. “No. I mean I’m not from Earth.”
Marcus stared at Ami, his eyes dry from a sudden inability to blink. “I’m sorry. Are you saying you’re—”
“I’m from another planet.”
He wasn’t sure what reaction she was waiting for as she studied him so carefully, but did his best to keep his face blank until this could sink in. “So … you’re an alien.”
She grimaced. “I hate that term. You humans associate it with monsters, little green men with antennas and asexual, anorexic gray beings with big heads and black eyes.” Her look turned earnest. “I’m not a monster, Marcus. I’m not like those things in Alien vs. Predator or Independence Day. I promise you I’m not.”
He could feel the tension thrumming through her. “So …” He motioned to her slender body, covered from shoulder to midthigh in one of his T-shirts. “This is how you are? This is how you look?” He wasn’t phrasing this very well. “You aren’t a shape-shifter who took on human form to blend in with our society?”
She shook her head. “This is my true appearance. I have a brother who can make people see something different, but I never acquired that ability. I am as you see me.”
Ami was from outer space.
Amiriska the extraterrestrial.
Ami the alien.
It did sound ridiculous.
She looked down at their clasped hands and began to toy with his fingers. “I know what you humans think of us.”
You humans, she said, but not derisively.
“I’ve experienced the hatred and fear with which you regard us, the disgust you feel for us.” She raised her head, met his gaze squarely. “I never wanted to see that in your eyes, Marcus. That’s the reason I didn’t tell you.”
“And do you?” he asked. “Do you see that in my eyes?”
A long moment of silence passed. “No. But I do see something. Something that wasn’t there before.”
“What?” he asked, because he honestly didn’t know what his gaze might reflect.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, “but it frightens me.”
“Don’t see yourself through the eyes of whoever hurt you, Ami. See yourself through mine.”
“I don’t know anymore what you see when you look at me.”
“The same thing I saw before: the woman I love. If there’s something else in my eyes …” He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what it might be. Surprise? Probably. Relief? Absolutely. Curiosity? There’s most likely a healthy dose of that as well.”
She winced at the last.
“Don’t do that. Don’t twist simple curiosity into something malevolent. Weren’t you curious about Seth and David and immortals when you first met them?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Weren’t you curious about gifted ones and vampires? Even humans and their differences?”
“Yes.” Her pretty features tightened. “But, unlike the first humans I encountered, I didn’t satisfy my curiosity by capturing them and dissecting them while they were still alive.”
Everything within him went cold. “What?”
He could tell by her expression that she hadn’t meant to reveal that and had no wish to explore it further.
“Wait,” he said slowly, reining in the rage and desire to do violence that surged through him. “Before we delve into that—and we will delve into that,” he vowed, “come here and let me hold you.”
She moved almost as fast as an immortal, launching herself into his arms with a force that nearly knocked him over. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she squeezed him tight.
Marcus arranged her thighs on either side of his lap and buried his face in her fragrant hair. A shuddering sigh escaped him. “Don’t think this means I’m not still angry with you,” he murmured, the affection he couldn’t withhold making the words a lie. “You scared the hell out of me last night.”
“I’m sorry. You scared me, too.”
“When I thought I was losing you …” Drawing away fractionally, he cupped the back of her head in one hand and blended her lips with his own.
Ami kissed him back eagerly, her tongue slipping forward to stroke and tease his.
Fire exploded through his body, turning his blood to molten lava. Her hands sank into his hair, fingernails glancing against his scalp, tugging strands and producing exquisite pleasure-pain.