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beauty made him ache, but the look she gave him was cool and wary, in align with her emotions. The first time he fed from her, he’d inadvertently created a rare connection between them, one that allowed him to feel the strongest of her emotions and speak to her telepathically, though he could not hear her thoughts in return.
    After all they’d been through, she still doubted him. She’d had cause to, initially. He’d betrayed her unforgivably more than once in those first days. But had he not proven himself over and over since then? She should know by now that he was not the man he’d been before!
    He strode toward her and gripped her elbow. “We need to talk,” he said tersely. She might throw him against the wall. He was half-prepared for it, and loosened his grip on her so as not to risk harming her if she did just that.
    Instead, she just stared at him, her green eyes cool as frost. Finally, she jerked her arm free, turned, and walked away. Arturo followed her out of the kitchen and down the hall to the empty sitting room where she turned to him, arms crossed, expression hard and closed.
    “I do not betray you, cara .” If only she could feel his emotions as he felt hers, she would know the truth. A truth that would probably scare her more than his deception. “I will never betray you again.” Unfortunately, he’d made a career out of lying and manipulating and she knew it well. Cristoff’s snake. “If you cannot find it within yourself to trust me, then at least trust Micah. As much as it frustrates me at times, he is a great admirer of yours. He would never allow you to come to harm.”
    “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” Her words were terse, but she uncrossed her arms, lifting and dropping them at her sides, helplessly. He watched the weariness flood her eyes and weigh down the lines of her sleek body. “I want to believe you’ve changed, Vampire. I did believe it. But you’ve lied to me so many times in the past. And I’ve paid a terrible price for it every time.”
    He hated that she’d gone back to calling him ‘Vampire’. And hated that he could feel her closing up, pulling the walls back up around her. For so long, she’d been utterly alone, isolated by her inability to trust anyone with the truth of who…and what…she really was. Even Zack hadn’t known she was a sorceress until she’d been forced to reveal her abilities in order to save his life.
    But slowly, Arturo had worked his way past her barriers. Slowly, she’d come to trust him. Or, at least, he’d thought she had. The swiftness in which she’d lost faith in him told him he’d made far less progress with her than he’d hoped. And the knowledge was a fist in his stomach.
    “I cannot banish the memories of my betrayals,” he said. “They are nightmares that replay over and over in my head. I have given you much reason to doubt me since we met, amore mio , but none since my soul reawakened. I do not wish to keep any more secrets from you, but this one…” He shook his head, his brow furrowing. “Cristoff cannot know.”
    “Is it a bigger secret than you being his traitor?”
    His lips compressed and he nodded. “You know that I asked you not to accompany me to Gonzaga. I asked you to let me find a way to steal Escalla alone, but you have insisted on going.”
    “Because you can’t do it without my magic!” she said heatedly. “We all know that.”
    “I do know that.” He’d finally accepted that yesterday. Now he used her doubts against her.
    He felt the burst of frustration within her. And, unfortunately, no lessening of her wariness. She watched him with eyes at once fierce and haunted. She wanted to believe in him. He could feel that longing within her, but it was being devoured by the gnawing fear that she was being deceived yet again. And her fear slew him.
    “ Tesoro. ”
    Quinn shook her head and turned for the doorway. “I need to think.”
    Arturo watched her leave, frustrated and unhappy.